We constructed a mathematical model to explain from which instars soldiers should be produced to maximize the growth rate of a termite colony. The model is based on the demography of the lower termite's colony: many of them feed inside the nest. The model predicts the following: (1) When the colony is young (it still has enough food and needs a high ratio of soldiers to workers) it will produce...

Colony-stimulating activity is a regulatory factor(s) that promotes differentiation of hemopoietic stem cells to mature granulocytes and macrophages; in man it has been found that blood monocytes, lymphocytes, and tissue macrophages produce it. In an effort to identify other potenitally physiologic tissue sources of colony-stimulating activity, we have studied the capacity of primary cultures o...

Human plasma obtained from patients with hypomegakaryocytic thrombocytopenia contains a factor that promotes megakaryocyte colony formation by normal human marrow cells. This megakaryocyte colony-stimulating factor was purified from such a plasma specimen. A four-step purification scheme which included ammonium sulfate precipitation, diethylaminoethyl-Sepharose chromatography, affinity chromato...

Abstract Microbial growth characteristics have long been used to investigate fundamental questions of biology. Colony-based high-throughput screens enable parallel fitness estimation thousands individual strains using colony as a proxy for fitness. However, is complicated by spatial biases affecting growth, including uneven nutrient distribution, agar surface irregularities, and batch effects. ...

In this article, we present evidence that sialic acid-containing surface components play a role in the regulation of erythropoiesis. A 1-hr exposure of mouse bone marrow cells to high concentrations of neuraminidase reduced erythroid colony formation. Coculture of 10(6) untreated thymocytes with neuraminidase-treated bone marrow cells restored erythroid colony growth. Neuraminidase-treated thym...

Peripheral blood hematopoietic progenitors (PBHP) are capable of colony growth in vitro. The effect of stem cell factor (SCF), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) on myeloid colony proliferation of PBHP was determined. PBHP purified by positive selection with CD34-specific antibody were plated in semisolid agarose with reported plateau doses of interleukin-3 (IL-3), ...

background the treatment of onychomycosis is a challenge and infections are typically more severe and difficult to treat in toenails than in fingernails. objectives the current study aimed to investigate the fungicidal effect of ultraviolet radiation on the growth of dermatophytes isolated from nails. patients and methods samples from patients with clinical manifestations of onychomycosis were ...

Individuals vary within a species in many ecologically important ways, but the causes and consequences of such variation are often poorly understood. Foraging behavior is among the most profitable and risky activities in which organisms engage and is expected to be under strong selection. Among social insects there is evidence that within-colony variation in traits such as foraging behavior can...

Ant colony algorithm, a heuristic simulated algorithm, provides better solutions for non-convex, non-linear and discontinuous optimization problems. For ant colony algorithm, it is frequently to be trapped into local optimum, which might lead to stagnation. This article presents the city-select strategy, local pheromone update strategy, optimum solution prediction strategy and local optimizatio...

The insecticidal characteristics of two Spodoptera exigua multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (SeMNPV) strains produced on two different S. exigua colonies were measured using the same two host colonies. These strains constitute the active ingredients of the biological insecticides Vir-ex and Spexit and were produced on insect colonies from Spain and Switzerland. Demographic characteristics of insect...