Confirmation of sable QTL that modifies the effects of the Ay allele on yellow coat color on mouse chromosome 1

F₁-A^y mice between RR (aabbCC) and C57BL/6J-A^y (A^yaBBCC) have a much darker yellow coat color than do C57BL/6J-A^y. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis was carried out to identify genes responsible for the darker modification of the yellow coat color (this has been traditionally termed “sable”). A significant sable QTL was identified on chromosome 1 (Dmyaq4, LOD score 15.5 for lightness, and 13.4 for color difference), in a chromosomal position similar to that of Dmyaq2, a sable QTL previously identified in C3H/HeJ. Another significant sable QTL was identified on chromosome 4 (Dmyaq5, LOD score 5.6 for lightness, and 4.3 for color difference) near the tyrosinase-related protein 1 (Tyrp1) locus. The effect of Dmyaq5 was significant only in the presence of the RR allele at Dmyaq4, suggesting that the Dmyaq4 (as well as Dmyaq2) is a novel coat color gene that may act up-stream of Tyrp1 signaling to increase eumelanin production.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Comment on</Emphasis>¶Low temperature specific heat of blue bronze K <Emphasis Type="Bold">0.30</Emphasis>MoO <Emphasis Type="Bold">3</Emphasis>, by J. Odin,J.C. Lasjaunias,K. Biljaković, K. Hasselbach,and P. Monceau

Eur. Phys. J. B 24, 315 (2001) Here we comment on a recently published paper on the presence of a phason contribution in the low temperature heat capacity data of the charge-density-wave compounds K_0.3MoO₃ and (TaSe₄)₂I. We have shown that the anomaly in the C _P / T ³ data reported by Odin et al. is straightforwardly interpreted in terms of low energy phonon modes resulting from the peculiar topology of these compounds. Received 21 February 2002 Published online 19 July 2002     

An explosion point space without the fixed point property

In 1988 A. Gutek proved that there exist one-point connectifications of hereditarily disconnected spaces that do not have the fixed point property. We improve on this result by constructing a one-point connectification of a totally disconnected space without the fixed point property.     

Complete systems, elementary submodels and the tightness of upper hyperspaces

We introduce and study some completeness properties for systems of open coverings of a given topological space. A Hausdorff space admitting a system of cardinality κ satisfying one of these properties is of type Gκ. Hence, we define several new variants of the ?ech number and use elementary submodels to determine further results. We introduce M-hulls and M-networks, for M elementary submodel. As an application, we give estimates for both the tightness and the Lindelöf number of a generic upper hyperspace. Two recent results of Costantini, Holá and Vitolo on the tightness of co-compact hyperspaces follow from ours as corollaries.     

The analysis of thermal stresses in thermopiezoelastic semi-infinite body with an edge crack

Summary  Thermopiezoelastic materials have recently attracted considerable attention because of their potential use in intelligent or smart structural systems. The governing equations of a thermopiezoelastic medium are more complex due to the intrinsic coupling effects that take place among mechanical, electrical and thermal fields. In this analysis, we deal with the problem of a crack in a semi-infinite, transversely isotropic, thermopiezoelastic material by means of potential functions and Fourier transforms under steady heat-flux loading conditions. The problem is reduced to a singular integral equation that is solved. The thermal stress intensity factor for a crack situated in a cadmium selenide material is calculated. Received 20 March 2001; accepted for publication 18 October 2001     

Theoretical STM images of alkaline-earth metal adsorbed Si(1 1 1)3 × 2 surfaces

We have performed total-energy calculations to study theoretical scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) images of the Si(1 1 1)3 × 2 surfaces induced by the adsorption of alkaline-earth metals (AEMs). Previously, in a series of works on Ba/Si(1 1 1) system, we have found that the observed Si(1 1 1)3 × 1-Ba LEED phase indeed has a 3 × 2 periodicity with a Ba coverage of 1/6 ML and the HCC substrate structure. Based on results of the Ba case, we proposed that the HCC structure is also adopted for other AEM atoms, which was confirmed by our recent work. In this paper, we mainly report the STM simulations for different AEM systems to compare with existing experimental data. We discuss the difference in the detailed STM images for different AEM adsorbates. Especially, the difference in filled-state images between Mg and other AEM atoms is attributed to the strong Mg-Si interaction.     

A posteriori error estimators for the Stokes equations

Summary We present two a posteriori error estimators for the mini-element discretization of the Stokes equations. One is based on a suitable evaluation of the residual of the finite element solution. The other one is based on the solution of suitable local Stokes problems involving the residual of the finite element solution. Both estimators are globally upper and locally lower bounds for the error of the finite element discretization. Numerical examples show their efficiency both in estimating the error and in controlling an automatic, self-adaptive mesh-refinement process. The methods presented here can easily be generalized to the Navier-Stokes equations and to other discretization schemes.This work was accomplished at the Universität Heidelberg with the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft     

Asymptotic expansions in sequential estimation for the first-order random coefficient autoregressive model: Regenerative approach

Edgeworth expansions for the distribution of a sequential least squares estimator in the random coefficient autoregressive (RCA) model are derived. The regenerative approach to second-order asymptotic analysis of Markov-type statistical models is developed.     

Limits of parallelism in explicit ODE methods

Numerical methods for ordinary initial value problems that do not depend on special properties of the system are usually found in the class of linear multistage multivalue methods, first formulated by J.C. Butcher. Among these the explicit methods are easiest to implement. For these reasons there has been considerable research activity devoted to generating methods of this class which utilize independent function evaluations that can be performed in parallel. Each such group of concurrent function evaluations can be regarded as a stage of the method. However, it turns out that parallelism affords only limited opportunity for reducing the computing time with such methods. This is most evident for the simple linear homogeneous constant-coefficient test problem, whose solution is essentially a matter of approximating the exponential by an algebraic function. For a given number of stages and a given number of saved values, parallelism offers a somewhat enlarged set of algebraic functions from which to choose. However, there is absolutely no benefit in having the degree of parallelism (number of processors) exceed the number of saved values of the method. Thus, in particular, parallel one-step methods offer no speedup over serial one-step methods for the standard linear test problem. Although the implication of this result for general nonlinear problems is unclear, there are indications that dramatic speedups are not possible in general. Also given are some results relevant to the construction of methods.Work supported in part by National Science Foundation grants DMS 89 11410 and DMS 90 15533 and by US Department of Energy grant DOE DEFG02-87ER25026. Work of the second author was completed while at the University of Illinois.