Rumex acetosa is characterized by a multiple chromosome system (2n = 12 + XX for females, and 2n = 12 + XY1Y2 for males), in which sex is determined by the ratio between the number of X chromosomes and autosome sets. For a better understanding of the molecular structure and evolution of plant sex chromosomes, we have generated a sex chromosome specific library of R. acetosa by microdissection. ...

Memory for medical recommendations is a prerequisite for good adherence to treatment, and therefore to ameliorate the negative effects of the disease, a problem that mainly affects people with memory deficits. We conducted a simulated study to test the utility of a procedure (the differential outcomes procedure, DOP) that may improve adherence to treatment by increasing the patient's learning a...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The BioEnterics intragastric balloon has been considered an effective and less invasive method for weight loss. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of this method on long-term weight loss. MATERIAL AND METHODS From June 2009 to June 2011, 32 patients (14 male, 18 female) underwent BioEnterics intragastric balloon therapy for 6 months. The mean age of the subjects was 39,7±...

Exemplar-based models of language propose that human language production and understanding operate with a store of concrete linguistic experiences rather than with abstract linguistic rules. While exemplarbased models are well acknowledged in areas like phonology and morphology, common wisdom has it that they are intrinsically flawed for syntax where infinite generative capacity is needed. This...

The mechanism by which genetic variability is maintained in natural populations for quantitative characters is not well understood. Many observations show that there is a considerable amount of genetic variability in a large population, and unless the character is closely correlated with fitness the optimum is usually near the mean, with fitness decreasing as the distance from the mean increase...

Given a sequence of samples from an unknown probability distribution, a statistical estimator aims at providing an approximate guess of the distribution by utilizing statistics from the samples. One desired property of an estimator is that its guess approaches the unknown distribution as the sample sequence grows large. Mathematically speaking, this property is called consistency. This thesis p...

Black box functions, such as computer experiments, often have multiple optima over the input space of the objective function. While traditional optimization routines focus on finding a single best optimum, we sometimes want to consider the relative merits of multiple optima. First we need a search algorithm that can identify multiple local optima. Then we consider that blindly choosing the glob...

A time-resolved Monte Carlo technique was used to simulate the propagation of polarized light in turbid media. Calculated quantities include the reflection Mueller matrices, the transmission Mueller matrices, and the degree of polarization (DOP). The effects of the polarization state of the incident light and of the size of scatterers on the propagation of DOP were studied. Results are shown in...

[1] In order to better constrain the rate of oxygen isotope exchange between water and phosphate via biochemical reactions a set of controlled experiments were conducted in 1988 at the Aquaculture Plant in Elat, Israel. Different species of algae and other organisms were grown in seawater tanks under controlled conditions, and the water temperature and oxygen isotopic composition (dOw) were mon...