Natural selection works on variation in fitness, but how should we measure "variation" to predict the rate of future evolution? Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection provides the short-run answer: the instantaneous rate of growth of a population's mean fitness is its variance in fitness. This identity captures an important feature of the evolutionary process, but, because it does no...

Many animals use structural coloration to create bright and conspicuous visual signals. Selection of the size and shape of the optical structures animals use defines both the colour and intensity of the light reflected. The material used to create these reflectors is also important; however, animals are restricted to a limited number of materials: commonly chitin, guanine and the protein, refle...

Thymic selection requires signaling by the protein tyrosine kinase Lck to generate T cells expressing αβ T cell antigen receptors (TCR). For reasons not understood, the thymus selects only αβTCR that are restricted by major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-encoded determinants. Here, we report that Lck proteins that were coreceptor associated promoted thymic selection of conventionally MHC-rest...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS It is commonly accepted that body fat distribution is associated with hypertension, but the strongest anthropometric indicator of the risk of hypertension is still controversial. Furthermore, no studies on the association of hypotension with anthropometric indices have been reported. The objectives of the present study were to determine the best predictors of hypertension an...

C.M. 1990/L:68 Sass. Q The ECOPATII II model is a steady-state model that includes (i) routines for estimating a missing parameter for all groups in an ecosystem and for balancmg the flow in the system, (ii) routines for estimating network flow indices, and (iii) miscellaneous routines for deriving further statistics, as selection indices, omnivory indices, and several others. • ICLARM Contribu...

This review assesses how publications interpret factors that influence the serum or plasma albumin (PA) level in prognostic indices, focusing on inflammation and nutrition. On PubMed, a search for “albumin AND prognosis” yielded 23,919 results. From these records, indices were retrieved, their names used as strings PubMed. Indices found 10 more original research articles included. The same stri...

the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of principal components (pc) of the regression coefficients (co)variance matrix on the lactation curve, and on the formation of selection index to modify the curve, based on these pc’s, and as well to estimate additive genetic and phenotypic variances and heritability of the constructed selection index. lactation period of 301 d (5-305) ...