The stellar initial mass function (IMF) determines the relative number of stars born at a given mass. Despite the tremendous effort to establish a universal IMF, the astronomical literature offers a wealth of diverse evidence for IMF variations. This review was prepared for a controversial debate at the conference “Starbursts – Near and Far” at Ringberg Castle, 2000, and gives a one-sided portr...

Intramuscular fat (IMF) content is an important determinant of quality characteristics such as tenderness, juiciness and flavour, and of its acceptability by consumers. Research has therefore focused on improving meat quality by optimizing IMF. The present review describes evidence from studies of physiology, biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, candidate genes and nutritional regulation as we...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has played an important role in restructuring the Korean economy over the past three years. Relying upon survey data collected in 1998 and 1999, this paper explores the role of the IMF in Korea, as perceived by its citizens. In the eyes of the Korean people, the IMF helped their economy to recover from the crisis. However, those Koreans who experience a dec...

Three selection models were evaluated to compare selection candidate rankings based on EBV and to evaluate subsequent effects of model-derived EBV on the selection differential and expected genetic response in the population. Data were collected from carcass- and ultrasound-derived estimates of loin i.m. fat percent (IMF) in a population of Duroc swine under selection to increase IMF. The model...

[1] Global auroral images are used to investigate how specific types of solar wind change relate to the resulting type of auroral-region disturbance, with the goal of determining fundamental response types. For not strongly southward IMF conditions (Bz ^ 5 nT), we find that IMF changes that are expected to reduce the convection electric field after^30 min of negative IMF Bz cause typical substo...

Abnormal levels of microRNA (miR)-155, which regulate inflammation and immune responses, have been demonstrated in the colonic mucosa of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), although its role in disease pathophysiology is unknown. We investigated the role of miR-155 in the acquisition and maintenance of an activated phenotype by intestinal myofibroblasts (IMF), a key cell population...

This paper revisits the classical Kennicutt method for inferring the stellar initial mass function (IMF) from the integrated light properties of galaxies. The large size, uniform high quality data set from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR4 is combined with more in depth modeling and quantitative statistical analysis to search for systematic IMF variations as a function of galaxy luminosity. Gala...

It has been demonstrated that an immune-modulating enteral formula enriched with whey peptides and fermented milk (IMF) had anti-inflammatory effects in some experimental models when it was administered before the induction of inflammation. Here, we investigated the anti-inflammatory effects of the IMF administration after the onset of systemic inflammation and investigated whether the IMF coul...

Executive Summary The stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) is remarkably consistent over a host of environments in the Galactic neighborhood. The physical processes responsible for producing a seemingly invariant IMF have long been the subject of theoretical investigation. Recently, a potential link has been made between the mass distribution of clumps in nearby molecular clouds and the stellar ...

We use the results of a new, multi-epoch, multi-wavelength, near-infrared census of the Trapezium Cluster in Orion to construct and to analyze the structure of its infrared (K band) luminosity function. Specifically, we employ an improved set of model luminosity functions to derive this cluster’s underlying Initial Mass Function (IMF) across the entire range of mass from OB stars to sub-stellar...