Post-transcriptional control regulates many aspects of germline development in the Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodite. This nematode switches from spermatogenesis to oogenesis and is, therefore, capable of self-fertilization. This sperm-oocyte switch requires 3' UTR-mediated repression of the fem-3 mRNA. Loss of fem-3 repression results in continuous spermatogenesis in hermaphrodites. Althoug...

Male sexual development in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans requires the genes fem-1, fem-2, and fem-3. The current model of sex determination portrays the FEM proteins as components of a novel signal transduction pathway, but the mechanisms involved in signaling through the pathway are not understood. We report the isolation of fem-2 cDNAs in a yeast two-hybrid screen for clones encoding pr...

Even when we look at stationary objects, involuntarily our eyes perform miniature movements and do not stand perfectly still. Such fixational eye movements (FEM) can be decomposed into at least two components: rapid microsaccades and slow (physiological) drift. Despite the general agreement that microsaccades have a central generating mechanism, the origin of drift is less clear. A direct appro...

The finite element methods (FEM) are important techniques in engineering for solving partial differential equations, but they depend heavily on element shape quality for stability and good performance. In this paper, we introduce the Adaptive Extended Stencil Finite Element Method (AES-FEM) as a means for overcoming this dependence on element shape quality. Our method replaces the traditional b...

In the context of substrate resistance modeling a combined BEM/FEM method is compared to a 3DFEM method. The combined BEM/FEM method is applicable in substrate modeling problems which involve layout-dependent doping patterns for which a standalone BEM would not be accurate enough and for which a standalone FEM would be too slow. The method captures local couplings within the doping pattern with...

Both diffusion approximation (DA) and Monte Carlo (MC) models have been used to simulate light distribution in multilayered human skin with or without discrete blood vessels. However, no detailed comparison of the light distribution, heat generation and induced thermal damage between these two models has been done for discrete vessels. Three models were constructed: (1) MC-based finite element ...

Updating the structural model of complex structures is time-consuming due to the large size of the finite element model (FEM). Using conventional methods for these cases is computationally expensive or even impossible. A two-level method, which combined the Kriging predictor and the component mode synthesis (CMS) technique, was proposed to ensure the successful implementing of FEM updating of l...

A node-based smoothed finite element method (NS-FEM-T3) using triangular elements and a n-sided polygonal edge-based smoothed FEM (nES-FEM) using polygonal elements is combined to give the smoothed coupled NS/nES-FEM for dynamic analysis of twodimensional (2D) fluid–solid interaction problems based on the pressure–displacement formulation. In the present method, the NS-FEM-T3 is used for the fl...

We have isolated nine gain-of-function (gf) alleles of the sex-determination gene fem-3 as suppressors of feminizing mutations in fem-1 and fem-2. The wild-type fem-3 gene is needed for spermatogenesis in XX self-fertilizing hermaphrodites and for male development in both soma and germ line of XO animals. Loss-of-function alleles of fem-3 transform XX and XO animals into females (spermless herm...