Mutual correlation between segments of DNA or protein sequences can be detected by Smith-Waterman local alignments. We present a statistical analysis of alignment of such sequences, based on a recent scaling theory. A new fidelity measure is introduced and shown to capture the significance of the local alignment, i.e., the extent to which the correlated subsequences are correctly identified. It...

The 1986 Supreme Court of New Hampshire case Smith v. Cote held that parents in New Hampshire could sue their physicians based on a claim of wrongful birth [5] of their children, but that such suits warranted only qualified damages for emotional distress. Smith also held that children couldn't sue physicians for negligently allowing the lives of those children, a claim called wrongful life [6]....

BACKGROUND Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS) is an autosomic recessive metabolic affection. Children affected by SLOS exhibit a defect in cholesterol biosynthesis associated with a high concentration of cholesterol precursor 7 dehydrocholesterol (7 DHC) and its isomers, which is due to an enzymatic block at the level of delta-7-DHC reductase. SLOS has been subdivided into two types on the basis...

Critics of Stevie Smith’s work often lean on the word “flat.” Usually, term is meant to evoke “simplicity” and lack ornamentation, her refusal lift into “poetic resonance,” or unreadable tone. This essay attends more closely flatness in work, exploring ways Smith finds fascinating proposing that language “flat,” all its senses, offers an illuminating way grappling with difficulty puzzling unset...