We show that a precise assessment of free energy estimates in Monte Carlo simulations of lattice models is possible by using cluster variation approximations in conjunction with the local states approximations proposed by Meirovitch. The local states method (LSM) utilizes entropy expressions which recently have been shown to correspond to a converging sequence of upper bounds on the thermodynam...

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES To select predictors related to cervical vertebrae maturation (CVM), dentoalveolar adaptation, head posture, and respiration on outcome of face-mask treatment. MATERIALS/METHODS Forty-six patients (24 boys and 22 girls) with skeletal Class III pattern whose CVM stages ranged from I to IV at pretreatment were selected. The observation period was 2.87 ± 1.77 years from the...

During embryonic development, there are numerous cases where organ or tissue formation depends upon the migration of primordial cells. In the Drosophila embryo, the visceral mesoderm (vm) acts as a substrate for the migration of several cell populations of epithelial origin, including the endoderm, the trachea and the salivary glands. These migratory processes require both integrins and laminin...

In a cross-validation of results from L. O. Graue et al. (2007), standard psychological assessment instruments, as well as tests of neurocognitive and psychiatric feigning, were administered under standard instructions to 24 participants diagnosed with mild mental retardation (MR) and 10 demographically matched community volunteers (CVH). A 2nd group of 25 community volunteers was instructed to...

The Center for Veterinary Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA/CVM) has authority under the United States Code 21 under Section 514.80 to monitor for adverse experiences of approved animal products. Although veterinarians voluntarily report suspect drug-related events to manufacturers, firms that market FDA-approved animal products must report serious events to the FDA within 15 wor...

An important problem in statistics is to obtain information about the form of the population from which the sample is drawn. Goodness of fit test is employed to determine how well the observed sample data "fits" some proposed model. The standard goodness of fit statistics are inappropriate when the parameters of the hypothesized distribution are estimated from the data used for the test. In thi...

Clustering algorithms have evolved to handle more and more complex structures. However, the measures that allow to qualify the quality of such clustering partitions are rare and have been developed only for specific algorithms. In this work, we propose a new cluster validity measure (CVM) to quantify the clustering performance of hierarchical algorithms that handle overlapping clusters of any s...