In this paper we compute the generating function for the Euler characteristic of the Deligne-Mumford compactification of the moduli space of smooth n-pointed genus 2 curves. The proof relies on quite elementary methods , such as the enumeration of the graphs involved in a suitable stratification of M 2,n .

Contractile cells surrounding the tubular system of the mammalian testis and epididymis are supposed to contribute to the initial transport of spermatozoa from the testis to epididymis. Testicular peritubular smooth muscle cells have been characterised in detail especially in rodents and humans. The aim of our study was to assess the distribution of peritubular contractile cells of the canine t...

Elevated levels of DDT and other organochlorine pesticides have been associated with spontaneous abortion and preterm birth in several species, including humans (Delong et al. 1973; Hart et alo 1971; O'Leary et alo 1970; Saxena et al. 1980, 1981; Wassermann et al. 1982). Despite the prevalence of organochlorine pesticides in our environment, a mechanistic basis for this association has not been...

As orthopaedic and dental metallic implant materials, titanium and titanium alloys are widely used due to their relatively low modulus, good fracture toughness, excellent strenthto-weight ration, and superior biocompatibility and corrosion resistance (Long and Rack, 1998). They have become the first choice above all other candidate metallic implant materials such as Co-Cr-Mo alloys, stainless s...

Recently there is a surge of research interest in the construction of stable vector bundles on Calabi-Yau manifolds motivated by questions from string theory. An interesting aspect of the moduli spaces of stable sheaves on Calabi-Yau manifolds is their relation to the higher dimensional gauge theory studied by Donaldson, R. Thomas and Tian et al. [D-T, Tho, Tia]. A holomorphic Casson invariant ...

Dissociation indices of Pasteurella pestis strains. Observations on viable cell numbers and the morphology of colonies isolated from suspensions of P. pestis strains Poona, 139L, 53,2 and 623 were made by the method described by Eisler et al. (1958). Generation time studies. Subcultures of smooth and nonsmooth colonial variants were made in 100-ml amounts of heart infusion broth (HIB, Difco) wh...

Does every smooth two-dimensional Riemannian manifold admit a smooth local isometric embedding into R3, or heuristically, can every abstract surface be visualized at least locally? This natural question was first posed in 1873 by Schlaefli [16], and remarkably has remained to a large extent unanswered. It is the purpose of this paper to provide a general sufficient condition under which local e...

swarming motility and synthesis of pili and holdfasts (Hinz et al., 2003; Viollier et al., 2002). As PodJ also contains a coiled-coil region (Lawler et al., 2006), perhaps PodJ interacts with TipN to establish a localization complex at the pole. Overexpression of TipN-GFP causes the formation of new poles through cell branching; these new poles are competent for flagellum assembly and localizat...