In recent works, methods have been proposed for applying phylogenetic models that allow for a general interdependence between the amino acid positions of a protein. As of yet, such models have focused on site interdependencies resulting from sequence-structure compatibility constraints, using simplified structural representations in combination with a set of statistical potentials. This structu...

There is increasing evidence of segregating sexually antagonistic (SA) genetic variation for fitness in laboratory and wild populations, yet the conditions for the maintenance of such variation can be restrictive. Epistatic interactions between genes can contribute to the maintenance of genetic variance in fitness and we suggest that epistasis between SA genes should be pervasive. Here, we expl...

Of late, much progress has been made in developing Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDA), algorithms that use probabilistic modelling of high quality solutions to guide their search. While experimental results on EDA behaviour are widely available, theoretical results are still rare. This is especially the case for continuous EDA. In this article, we develop theory that predicts the behav...

Avian malaria parasites (Plasmodium) occur commonly in wild birds and are an increasingly popular model system for understanding host-parasite co-evolution. However, whether these parasites have fitness consequences for hosts in endemic areas is much debated, particularly since wild-caught individuals almost always harbour chronic infections of very low parasite density. We used the anti-malari...

background & aim: background & aim: physical fitness is essential for maintaining optimal health and can be achieved and improved by doing physical activities. maximal oxygen consumption (vo2 max) has been used as a measure of physical fitness. this study aimed to determine the effect of jogging program on midwives' physical fitness. methods:in this randomized controlled trial two large he...

in korea, hypertension has become more prevalent with the westernization of korean diets and lack of exercise. this study aimed at investigating the associations between physical fitness variables and hypertension status in korean women.the subjects were 9,216 women aged >20 years who visited a public health promotion center for physical fitness tests. cardiovascular respiratory fitness was eva...

Approximately 100,000 youths are currently incarcerated in the US, yet little is known whether such a penalty deters future crime or interrupts human capital formation in a way that increases the likelihood of later criminal behavior. This paper uses the incarceration tendency of randomly-assigned judges as an instrumental variable to estimate causal effects of juvenile incarceration on adult r...

In this paper, dynamic aspects of railway infrastructure operation and maintenance costs in Sweden are explored. Econometric cost functions are estimated to check the robustness of previous marginal cost estimates by introducing lags and leads of both dependent and independent variables. We find support for a forward-looking behaviour within the Swedish National Rail Administration (Banverket) ...

Suppose we have data from a bivariate model with parametric marginals. Efficient estimators of the parameters in the marginal models are generally not efficient in the bivariate model. In this article, we propose a method of improving these marginal estimators and demonstrate that the magnitude of this improvement can be as large as 100 percent in some cases.