Adaptive radiations provide an excellent opportunity for studying the correlates and causes for the origin of biodiversity. In these radiations, species diversity may be influenced by either the ecological and physical environment, intrinsic lineage effects, or both. Disentangling the relative contributions of these factors in generating biodiversity remains a major challenge in understanding w...

Pathological skin picking (SP) is a strongly impairing condition characterized by repetitive picking behaviors resulting in significant tissue damage and distress. Recent research suggested the presence of different subtypes of SP. No study has investigated which personality traits could be specifically associated with different subtypes. In a community sample (N=285, 71.20% females, mean age =...

We discuss a variety of recent methodological advances that can be used to estimate mixed frequency factor-MIDAS models for the purpose of pastcasting, nowcasting, and forecasting. In order to illustrate the uses of this methodology, we introduce a new real-time Korean GDP dataset, and carry out a series of prediction experiments, using a two step approach. In a first step, we estimate common l...

In the colour-polymorphic Midas cichlid fish species complex (Amphilophus citrinellus spp.), gold morphs occur at much lower frequencies (< 10%) than dark individuals. This might be surprising because gold coloration is dominant and coded for by a single Mendelian locus. Furthermore, gold individuals are considered to be competitively advantaged over dark ones because they grow faster and win a...

Integrin alpha(V)beta(3) binds to extracellular matrix proteins through the tripeptide Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD), forming a shallow crevice rather than a deep binding pocket. A dynamic picture of how the RGD-alpha(V)beta(3) complex resists dissociation by mechanical force is derived here from steered molecular dynamic (SMD) simulations in which the major force peak correlates with the breaking of the c...

We have built a multiuser storage system named MIDAS (Multiuser Index-based Data Access System) which is intended to be used for a lower subsystem of database management systems running on UNIX. MIDAS implements a modified B+-tree structure for the sake of control of concurrent operations on a B+-tree index. To guarantee the more concurrent accesses to the system tables such as buffers, lock ta...

Cichlid fishes are an ideal model system for studying biological diversification because they provide textbook examples of rapid speciation. To date, there has been little focus on the role of gene regulation during cichlid speciation. However, in recent years, gene regulation has been recognized as a powerful force linking diversification in gene function to speciation. Here, we investigated t...

The International Rosetta Mission is set for a rendezvous with Comet 67 P/ChuryumovGerasimenko in 2014. On its 10 year journey to the comet, the spacecraft will also perform a fly-by of the two asteroids Stein and Lutetia in 2008 and 2010, respectively. The mission goal is to study the origin of comets, the relationship between cometary and interstellar material and its implications with regard...

Established empirical cases of sympatric speciation are scarce, although there is an increasing consensus that sympatric speciation might be more common than previously thought. Midas cichlid fish are one of the few substantiated cases of sympatric speciation, and they formed repeated radiations in crater lakes. In contrast, in the same environment, such radiation patterns have not been observe...

This paper documents current efforts to infuse human reliability analysis (HRA) into human performance simulation. The Idaho National Laboratory is teamed with NASA Ames Research Center to bridge the SPAR-H HRA method with NASA’s Man-machine Integration Design and Analysis System (MIDAS) for use in simulating and modeling the human contribution to risk in nuclear power plant control room operat...