Geographical variation in the golden‐striped salamander,Chioglossa lusitanica Bocage, 1864 and the description of a newly recognized subspecies

Morphological and genetic data for the Iberian golden‐striped salamander, Chioglossa lusitanica, demonstrate the existence of two groups with southern and northern ranges, connected by a zone of intergradation in central Portugal. Because reproductive isolation between them is incomplete we consider the groups to be subspecies. The type locality of C. lusitanica (Buçaco near Lousã) is situated inside the mixed zone. This necessitates identification of the nominotypical subspecies. We sequenced a fragment of mitochondrial DNA from one of the species' syntypes and we determined what position over a latitudinal transect maximizes the morphological discrimination between the groups. Both approaches indicate that C. lusitanica from Buçaco represents the southern subspecies. A new subspecies of C. lusitanica is described from a northern locality (Valongo near Porto in north‐western Portugal). A lectotype is designated for Chioglossa lusitanica.     

Forecasting the 10‐year US Treasury rate

This study compares the performance of two forecasting models of the 10‐year Treasury rate: a random walk (RW) model and an augmented‐autoregressive (A‐A) model which utilizes the information in the expected inflation rate. For 1993–2008, the RW and A‐A forecasts (with different lead times and forecast horizons) are generally unbiased and accurately predict directional change under symmetric loss. However, the A‐A forecasts outperform the RW, suggesting that the expected inflation rate (as a leading indicator) helps improve forecast accuracy. This finding is important since bond market efficiency implies that the RW forecasts are optimal and cannot be improved. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Systematics and zoogeography of the deep‐sea hyperbenthic family Arietellidae (Copepoda: Calanoida) collected from the Sulu Sea

A faunistic survey of the deep‐sea hyperbenthic copepods in the Sulu Sea, which has a deep basin and is connected via shallow straits with the Pacific and the South China Sea, was carried out in November and December 2002, using beam trawls and a mid‐water trawl. Two new genera and four new species of the primitive calanoid family Arietellidae are described. A new genus Metacalanalis shows intermediate characteristics between those of Metacalanus Cleve, 1901 and Pilarella Alvarez, . Another new genus, Protoparamisophria, is closely related to Paramisophria Scott, 1897, but exhibits more plesiomorphic states in the female genital system and appendages. Two new species of the genera Paraugaptiloides Ohtsuka, Boxshall and Roe, and Sarsarietellus Campaner, 1984 are the second and the third species, respectively, for these genera. This discovery enhances the validity of these rare genera, and sheds light on the geological history of the Sulu Sea and the evolution of the Arietellidae within it.     

恩格斯“末世”论探析——《自然辩证法》中的“终极关怀”

恩格斯的《自然辩证法》包含着一种"末世"论的观点。任何事物的发展都有一个终结,整个宇宙的命运也是这样。永恒发展是物质永恒循环中的发展,对人类历史和人自身价值的理解应当置于这个大背景之下。恩格斯的"末世"论受到了基督教思想的影响,又是立足当时科学成果对宗教神学的批判,是对人的历史命运和人自身价值的"终极关怀"。     

Molecular cloning and sequence analysis of the gene encoding interleukin‐6 of the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

In the present study, the cloning and sequence analysis of interleukin‐6 (IL‐6) from the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) were described. Sequencing revealed that IL‐6 complementary DNA contains a 636 base‐pair open reading frame encoding 211 amino acids. Homology analyses indicated that the identity levels of nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of IL‐6 between the giant panda and other species in Carnivora ranged from 90.5% to 85.6% and from 82.9% to 76.5%, respectively. Phylogenetic analyses based on nucleotide and amino acid sequences showed that the harbour seal shared a closer relationship with the giant panda than other carnivores (ursids not included). The functionally important domains and sites that have previously been recognized in other carnivores were all observed in the IL‐6 sequence of the giant panda. These findings suggest that the complementary DNA fragment cloned is indeed the IL‐6 molecule with biological activity and can be used in immunological studies of the giant panda.     

大学英语人文教育终极关怀视界拓展的创新航道研究

纯净的大学英语殿堂需要进一步灌入人文关怀理念,激越、拓展教与学的鲜活视界,以创新型元素引领学科前沿发展。本文通过诸多航道创新,以提升大学英语教育人文内涵为根的,结合教学实践,进行了观点提炼和理论升华。     

A Tragedy of Egoism——an Analysis of George Eliot''''s Moral Concern in Middlemarch

I.IntroductionVirginia Woolf speaks of Middlemarch as“the magnificentbook which with all its imperfection is one of the few Englishnovels written for grown-up people.”(Rubinstein,795)Middlemarch is also George Henry Lewes’favorite amongEliot’s books.Indeed,compared with Eliot’s earlier works,Middlemarch,a close“study of provincial life”,is more matureand complex.In the small provincial town——Middlemarch,individualsfrom different classes interact with each other and theirrelations…     

The natural history of the parasitic wasp Trogus pennator (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae): Host‐finding behaviour and a possible host countermeasure

The parasitic wasp Trogus pennator (Ichneumonidae) attacks the larvae of swallowtail butterflies (Papilionidae). Female T. pennator were followed in the field as they searched for larvae of the zebra swallowtail butterfly, Eurytides marcellus (Papilionidae), feeding on Asimina (Annonaceae) in central Florida, USA. Predictions of host‐finding theory and interactions with the host were thus investigated in a natural setting. Wasps seldom flew to plants other than Asimina and apparently recognized the plants by visual cues. Plants were attractive regardless of host presence, as the wasps approached plants lacking E. marcellus feeding damage twice as often as they approached damaged plants. However, wasps approached damaged plants at a rate greater than their frequency in the Asimina population, indicating that they can detect host damage before they approach the plants. After approaching within 0.5?m of plants, wasps tended not to land on plants lacking feeding damage. A comparison of the plants they landed on, however, showed no consistent preferences for damaged plants. The weaker trends in the latter data indicate that the presence of feeding damage was not the sole criterion for landing, although it evidently influenced behaviour. After landing, wasps spent more time searching damaged plants than undamaged plants. Butterflies preferred to oviposit on plants shorter than those searched by T. pennator. Possible adaptive consequences of this phenomenon are discussed.     

山西企业实施"走出去"战略的问题及对策

面对经济全球化的快速发展趋势,加快实施"走出去"的战略,既是山西进一步提高对外开放的内在要求,又是山西应对这一趋势的必然选择,同时也是山西提高自身国际竞争力的必由之路.文章将主要就山西实施"走出去"战略的问题及相关对策作一探讨.     

Forecasting value‐at‐risk with a parsimonious portfolio spillover GARCH (PS‐GARCH) model

Accurate modelling of volatility (or risk) is important in finance, particularly as it relates to the modelling and forecasting of value‐at‐risk (VaR) thresholds. As financial applications typically deal with a portfolio of assets and risk, there are several multivariate GARCH models which specify the risk of one asset as depending on its own past as well as the past behaviour of other assets. Multivariate effects, whereby the risk of a given asset depends on the previous risk of any other asset, are termed spillover effects. In this paper we analyse the importance of considering spillover effects when forecasting financial volatility. The forecasting performance of the VARMA‐GARCH model of Ling and McAleer (2003), which includes spillover effects from all assets, the CCC model of Bollerslev (1990), which includes no spillovers, and a new Portfolio Spillover GARCH (PS‐GARCH) model, which accommodates aggregate spillovers parsimoniously and hence avoids the so‐called curse of dimensionality, are compared using a VaR example for a portfolio containing four international stock market indices. The empirical results suggest that spillover effects are statistically significant. However, the VaR threshold forecasts are generally found to be insensitive to the inclusion of spillover effects in any of the multivariate models considered. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.