For longitudinal data, mixed models include random subject effects to indicate how subjects influence their responses over repeated assessments. The error variance and the variance of the random effects are usually considered to be homogeneous. These variance terms characterize the within-subjects (i.e., error variance) and between-subjects (i.e., random-effects variance) variation in the data....

BACKGROUND Exceptional aging, defined as reaching age 85 years, shows geographic inequalities that may depend on local environmental conditions. Links between particulate pollution-a well-recognized environmental risk factor-and exceptional aging have not been investigated. OBJECTIVES We conducted a nationwide analysis of ~28 million adults in 3,034 United States counties to determine whether...

abstract background: nowadays, depression is one of the most prevalent mental diseases to which some individuals like mothers of mentally retarded children are more vulnerable due to their (children’s) special condition. therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the level of depression and its related factors in these mothers. materials and methods: this cross-sectional study was conduc...

C does not have exception handling facilities. Errors are handled by examining the value returned by each function and signals (conditions reported to the program) are handled by using library functions. These approaches lead to ad hoc error-handling techniques and can make programs hard to understand. Exceptional C, a superset of C, provides exception handling facilities. Exceptional C integra...

Spoilage fungi are ubiquitous contaminants of cereals, preand post-harvest. These fungi can produce a wide range of secondary metabolites under ecological conditions which are conducive for growth. However, some of these secondary metabolites are toxic and have a significant impact if they enter the production and animal food chains. Prevention of mycotoxin contamination of feed and food raw ma...

The arms race of adaptation and counter adaptation in predator-prey interactions is a fascinating evolutionary dynamic with many consequences, including local adaptation and the promotion or maintenance of diversity. Although such antagonistic coevolution is suspected to be widespread in nature, experimental documentation of the process remains scant, and we have little understanding of the imp...

Deception is a pervasive phenomenon that greatly influences dyadic, groupal and societal interactions. Behavioural, physiological and neural signatures of this phenomenon have imporant implications for theoretical and applied research, but, because it is difficult for a laboratory to replicate the natural context in which deception occurs, contemporary research is still struggling to find such ...

Dispersal is a topic of great interest in ecology. Many organisms adopt one of two distinct dispersal tactics at reproduction: the production of small offspring that can disperse over long distances (such as seeds and spawned eggs), or budding. The latter is observed in some colonial organisms, such as clonal plants, corals and ants, in which (super)organisms split their body into components of...