Two problematic human polymorphic Alu insertions

Analysis of two previously described polymorphic Alu insertions (Sb19.3 and NBC3) in world-wide human populations generated genotypic frequencies grossly in violation of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium expectations. GenBank searches at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and sequencing analyses revealed that samples homozygous for the Sb19.3 Alu insertion amplify a band indistinguishable in size to the lack of insertion amplicon, corresponding to a paralogous locus on chromosome 4. This locus displays a very similar sequence (84%) to that flanking the Sb19.3 Alu insertion located at chromosome 19. Moreover, we have determined that NBC3, a different Alu insertion, is not located in the pseudoautosomal region of the Y-chromosome, as previously reported, but in position Yq11.2. Also, the band that mimics the lack of insertion amplicon corresponds to a paralogous locus located at chromosome X with a similarity of 92% to the sequence flanking the NBC3 Alu insertion. Finally, the utilization of newly designed primers avoided amplification from the paralogous loci and allowed a reliable assignation of genotypes for both loci. Unlike previously reported, using our new primers the Y-specific locus NBC3 was found not to be polymorphic in the populations analyzed.     

Multi-scale finite element analyses of sheet metals by using SEM-EBSD measured crystallographic RVE models

In this study, two multi-scale analyses codes are newly developed by combining a homogenization algorithm and an elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element (FE) method (Nakamachi, E., 1988. A finite element simulation of the sheet metal forming process. Int. J. Numer. Meth. Eng. 25, 283–292; Nakamachi, E., Dong, X., 1996. Elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element analysis of dynamic deformation of sheet metal. Int. J. Computer-Aided Eng. Software 13, 308–326; Nakamachi, E., Dong, X., 1997. Study of texture effect on sheet failure in a limit dome height test by using elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element analysis. J. Appl. Mech. Trans. ASME(E) 64, 519–524; Nakamachi, E., 1998. Elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element modeling based on hardening–softening evaluation equation. In: Proc. of the 6th NUMIFORM, pp. 315–321; Nakamachi, E., Hiraiwa, K., Morimoto, H., Harimoto, M., 2000a. Elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element analyses of single- and poly-crystal sheet deformations and their experimental verification. Int. J. Plasticity 16, 1419–1441; Nakamachi, E., Xie, C.L., Harimoto, M., 2000b. Drawability assessment of BCC steel sheet by using elastic/crystalline viscoplastic finite element analyses. Int. J. Mech. Sci. 43, 631–652); (1) a “semi-implicit” finite element (FE) code and (2) a “dynamic explicit” FE code. These were applied to predict the plastic strain induced yield loci and the formability of sheet metal in the macro scale, and simultaneously the crystal texture and hardening evolutions in the micro scale. The isotropic and kinematical hardening laws are employed in the crystalline plasticity constitutive equation. For the multi-scale structure, two-scales are considered. One is a microscopic polycrystal structure and the other a macroscopic elastic plastic continuum. We measure crystal morphologies by using the SEM-EBSD apparatus with a unit of about 3.8 μm voxel, and define a three dimensional (3D) representative volume element (RVE) for the micro polycrystal structure, which satisfy the periodicity condition of crystal orientation distribution. A “micro” finite element modeling technique is newly established to minimize the total number of finite elements in the micro scale. Next, the “semi-implicit” crystallographic homogenization FE code, which employs the SEM-EBSD measured RVE, is applied to the 99.9% pure-iron uni-axial tensile problem to predict the texture evolution and the subsequent yield loci in the various strain paths. These “semi implicit” results reveal that the plastic strain induced anisotropy in the micro and macro levels can be predicted by our FE analyses. The kinematical hardening law leads a distinct plastic strain induced anisotropy. Our “dynamic-explicit” FE code is applied to simulate the limit dome height (LDH) test problem of the mild steel DQSK, the high strength steel HSLA and the aluminum alloy AL6022 sheet metals, which were adopted as the NUMISHEET2005 Benchmark sheet metals (Smith, L.M., Pourboghrat, F., Yoon, J.-W., Stoughton, T.B., 2005. NUMISHEET2005. In: Proc. of 6th Int. Conf. Numerical Simulation of 3D Sheet Metal Forming Processes, PART A and B(Benchmark), pp. 409–451) to estimate formability. The “dynamic explicit” results reveal that the initial crystal orientation distribution has a large affects to a plastic strain induced texture and anisotropic hardening evolutions and sheet formability.     

Construction of two fluorescence‐labeled non‐combined DNA index system miniSTR multiplex systems to analyze degraded DNA samples in the Chinese Han Population

MiniSTR loci have been demonstrated to be an effective approach in recovering genetic information from degraded specimens, because of the reduced PCR amplicon sizes which improved the PCR efficiency. Eight non‐combined DNA index system miniSTR loci suitable for the Chinese Han Population were analyzed in 300 unrelated Chinese Han individuals using two novel five fluorescence‐labeled miniSTR multiplex systems(multiplex I: D10S1248, D2S441, D1S1677 and D9S2157; multiplex II: D9S1122, D10S1435, D12ATA63, D2S1776 and Amelogenin). The allele frequency distribution and forensic parameters in the Chinese Han Population were reported in this article. The Exact Test demonstrated that all loci surveyed here were found to be no deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. The accumulated power of discrimination and power of exclusion for the eight loci were 0.999999992 and 0.98, respectively. The highly degraded DNA from artificially degraded samples and the degraded forensic case work samples was assessed with the two miniSTR multiplex systems, and the results showed that the systems were quite effective.     

A GEOMETRIC THEORY IN INVESTIGATION ON MODE LOCALIZATION AND FREQUENCY LOCI VEERING PHENOMENA

According to the mapping theory in complex plane,the geometric features of eigen fre-quency loci of systems undergoing free vibrations are investigated.It is concluded that the phenomenaof curve coalescence and veering can be described in a unified manner from the singularities of map-ping from the complex parameter plane onto the complex frequency plane.The formation of a branchpoint in the parameter space is the foundation of explaining localization and veering phenornena.Bythe use of condensation to reduce the dimension of a system,the scope of application of the geometrictheory is widely expanded.The theory is applied to examples to verify the validity of the proposed ap-proach.The present work is an improvement and extension of recent work by M.S.Traintafyllou etal.,     

The minimum upper bound on the first ambiguous power of an irreducible, nonpowerful ray or sign pattern

Let A be an n×n irreducible ray or sign pattern matrix. If A is a sign pattern, it is shown that either A is powerful or else A^k has an ambiguous entry for some , and further, sign patterns based on the Wielandt graph show that this bound is the best possible. If A is a ray pattern, partial results for the same bound are given.     

On first order congruences of lines in ℙ4 with irreducible fundamental surface

In this article we study congruences of lines in ?ⁿ, and in particular of order one. After giving general results, we obtain a complete classification in the case of ?⁴ in which the fundamental surface F is in fact a variety, i.e. it is integral, and the congruence is the irreducible set of the trisecant lines of F. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

5种重要农艺性状基因在水稻重组自交系群体中的定位

通过抗病虫害水稻品系“B5”与籼稻品种“明恢63”为亲本进行杂交，得到一个187个F8代的重组自交系群体。利用重组自交系群体构建的分子连锁图，对水稻抽穗期、株高、穗长、剑叶长和剑叶宽的性状进行了QTL分析，分别检测到影响抽穗期、株高、穗长、剑叶长和剑叶宽的农艺性状2、2、4、4、4个QTLs，并分别解释各表型性状总变异的50．6％、74．9％、34．1％、47．3％和46．2‰．其中，控制抽穗期的Hd-6基因，控制株高的Ph7基因和控制剑叶长的Fll-2b基因分别是效应值较大的主效座位，其余的为微效基因座位。相关性状的QTLs大多聚集在染色体的相近或相同区间，表现出成簇分布的现象。这些重要农艺性状的分析，可以为水稻分子标记辅助选择育种提供有用的遗传信息。     

Worst-case distribution analysis of stochastic programs

We show that for even quasi-concave objective functions the worst-case distribution, with respect to a family of unimodal distributions, of a stochastic programming problem is a uniform distribution. This extends the so-called ``Uniformity Principle' of Barmish and Lagoa (1997) where the objective function is the indicator function of a convex symmetric set.     

Varieties with small discriminant variety

Let be a smooth complex projective variety, let be an ample and spanned line bundle on , defining a morphism and let be its discriminant locus, the variety parameterizing the singular elements of . We present two bounds on the dimension of and its main component relying on the geometry of . Classification results for triplets reaching the bounds as well as significant examples are provided.