Development and growth in skulls of three Otariidae species: a comparative morphometric study

2017 ◽  
Vol 98 (7) ◽  
pp. 1801-1815
Author(s):  
Daniela Sanfelice ◽  
Daniza Molina-Schiller ◽  
Thales R. O. De Freitas

We examined the skulls ofArctocephalus australis,Callorhinus ursinusandOtaria byroniawith the objectives of (1) estimating the development and growth rates and comparing these parameters among the species; (2) describing the development for each linear measure, for each species and sex; (3) determining which variables are best correlated with age; (4) determining age of physical maturity. We employed traditional and geometric morphometric techniques to study the skulls. InA. australisandC. ursinus, skulls of females mature at about 6 years of age, and those of males at about 8 years.Otaria byroniamatures later, at about 9 years. Using geometric morphometric data sets, the rate and constant of growth inA. australisdid not differ between the sexes.Callorhinus ursinusandO. byroniashowed rates significantly different between sexes concerning growth (and in the constant as well), but onlyO. byroniadiffered between sexes in both developmental model parameters (rates and constant). Comparisons between the growth and developmental models showed significant differences in slope and constant. In both treatments employed, a relationship between size and shape dimorphism could be inferred for the skulls of all three species. We conclude that rates or timing of growth and development evolves within a conserved spatiotemporal organization of morphogenesis.

Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (16) ◽  
pp. 1850
Author(s):  
Rashad A. R. Bantan ◽  
Farrukh Jamal ◽  
Christophe Chesneau ◽  
Mohammed Elgarhy

Unit distributions are commonly used in probability and statistics to describe useful quantities with values between 0 and 1, such as proportions, probabilities, and percentages. Some unit distributions are defined in a natural analytical manner, and the others are derived through the transformation of an existing distribution defined in a greater domain. In this article, we introduce the unit gamma/Gompertz distribution, founded on the inverse-exponential scheme and the gamma/Gompertz distribution. The gamma/Gompertz distribution is known to be a very flexible three-parameter lifetime distribution, and we aim to transpose this flexibility to the unit interval. First, we check this aspect with the analytical behavior of the primary functions. It is shown that the probability density function can be increasing, decreasing, “increasing-decreasing” and “decreasing-increasing”, with pliant asymmetric properties. On the other hand, the hazard rate function has monotonically increasing, decreasing, or constant shapes. We complete the theoretical part with some propositions on stochastic ordering, moments, quantiles, and the reliability coefficient. Practically, to estimate the model parameters from unit data, the maximum likelihood method is used. We present some simulation results to evaluate this method. Two applications using real data sets, one on trade shares and the other on flood levels, demonstrate the importance of the new model when compared to other unit models.


2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marnus Stoltz ◽  
Boris Baeumer ◽  
Remco Bouckaert ◽  
Colin Fox ◽  
Gordon Hiscott ◽  
...  

Abstract We describe a new and computationally efficient Bayesian methodology for inferring species trees and demographics from unlinked binary markers. Likelihood calculations are carried out using diffusion models of allele frequency dynamics combined with novel numerical algorithms. The diffusion approach allows for analysis of data sets containing hundreds or thousands of individuals. The method, which we call Snapper, has been implemented as part of the BEAST2 package. We conducted simulation experiments to assess numerical error, computational requirements, and accuracy recovering known model parameters. A reanalysis of soybean SNP data demonstrates that the models implemented in Snapp and Snapper can be difficult to distinguish in practice, a characteristic which we tested with further simulations. We demonstrate the scale of analysis possible using a SNP data set sampled from 399 fresh water turtles in 41 populations. [Bayesian inference; diffusion models; multi-species coalescent; SNP data; species trees; spectral methods.]


2006 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 877-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanine M. Vivona

Psychoanalysts have invoked infant development diversely to understand nonverbal and unspoken aspects of lived experience. Two uses of developmental notions and their implications for understanding language and the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis are juxtaposed here: Hans Loewald's conception of developmental metaphors to illuminate ineffable aspects of the clinical situation and Daniel Stern's currently popular developmental model, which draws on findings from quantitative research to explain therapeutic action in the nonverbal realm. Loewald's metaphorical use of early development identifies and thus potentiates a central role for language in psychoanalytic treatment. By contrast, Stern and his colleagues exaggerate the abstract, orderly, and disembodied qualities of language, and consequently underestimate the degree to which lived interpersonal experience can be meaningfully verbalized, as demonstrated here with illustrations from published clinical material. As contemporary psychoanalysis moves toward embracing developmental models such as Stern's, it is concluded, psychoanalysts accept a shrinking role for language in the talking cure.


2018 ◽  
Vol 612 ◽  
pp. A70 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Olivares ◽  
E. Moraux ◽  
L. M. Sarro ◽  
H. Bouy ◽  
A. Berihuete ◽  
...  

Context. Membership analyses of the DANCe and Tycho + DANCe data sets provide the largest and least contaminated sample of Pleiades candidate members to date. Aims. We aim at reassessing the different proposals for the number surface density of the Pleiades in the light of the new and most complete list of candidate members, and inferring the parameters of the most adequate model. Methods. We compute the Bayesian evidence and Bayes Factors for variations of the classical radial models. These include elliptical symmetry, and luminosity segregation. As a by-product of the model comparison, we obtain posterior distributions for each set of model parameters. Results. We find that the model comparison results depend on the spatial extent of the region used for the analysis. For a circle of 11.5 parsecs around the cluster centre (the most homogeneous and complete region), we find no compelling reason to abandon King’s model, although the Generalised King model introduced here has slightly better fitting properties. Furthermore, we find strong evidence against radially symmetric models when compared to the elliptic extensions. Finally, we find that including mass segregation in the form of luminosity segregation in the J band is strongly supported in all our models. Conclusions. We have put the question of the projected spatial distribution of the Pleiades cluster on a solid probabilistic framework, and inferred its properties using the most exhaustive and least contaminated list of Pleiades candidate members available to date. Our results suggest however that this sample may still lack about 20% of the expected number of cluster members. Therefore, this study should be revised when the completeness and homogeneity of the data can be extended beyond the 11.5 parsecs limit. Such a study will allow for more precise determination of the Pleiades spatial distribution, its tidal radius, ellipticity, number of objects and total mass.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-81
Author(s):  
Lazhar BENKHELIFA

A new lifetime model, with four positive parameters, called the Weibull Birnbaum-Saunders distribution is proposed. The proposed model extends the Birnbaum-Saunders distribution and provides great flexibility in modeling data in practice. Some mathematical properties of the new distribution are obtained including expansions for the cumulative and density functions, moments, generating function, mean deviations, order statistics and reliability. Estimation of the model parameters is carried out by the maximum likelihood estimation method. A simulation study is presented to show the performance of the maximum likelihood estimates of the model parameters. The flexibility of the new model is examined by applying it to two real data sets.


Author(s):  
Kaitlyn Johnson ◽  
Grant R. Howard ◽  
Daylin Morgan ◽  
Eric A. Brenner ◽  
Andrea L. Gardner ◽  
...  

SummaryA significant challenge in the field of biomedicine is the development of methods to integrate the multitude of dispersed data sets into comprehensive frameworks to be used to generate optimal clinical decisions. Recent technological advances in single cell analysis allow for high-dimensional molecular characterization of cells and populations, but to date, few mathematical models have attempted to integrate measurements from the single cell scale with other data types. Here, we present a framework that actionizes static outputs from a machine learning model and leverages these as measurements of state variables in a dynamic mechanistic model of treatment response. We apply this framework to breast cancer cells to integrate single cell transcriptomic data with longitudinal population-size data. We demonstrate that the explicit inclusion of the transcriptomic information in the parameter estimation is critical for identification of the model parameters and enables accurate prediction of new treatment regimens. Inclusion of the transcriptomic data improves predictive accuracy in new treatment response dynamics with a concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) of 0.89 compared to a prediction accuracy of CCC = 0.79 without integration of the single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data directly into the model calibration. To the best our knowledge, this is the first work that explicitly integrates single cell clonally-resolved transcriptome datasets with longitudinal treatment response data into a mechanistic mathematical model of drug resistance dynamics. We anticipate this approach to be a first step that demonstrates the feasibility of incorporating multimodal data sets into identifiable mathematical models to develop optimized treatment regimens from data.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kassian Kobert ◽  
Alexandros Stamatakis ◽  
Tomáš Flouri

The phylogenetic likelihood function is the major computational bottleneck in several applications of evolutionary biology such as phylogenetic inference, species delimitation, model selection and divergence times estimation. Given the alignment, a tree and the evolutionary model parameters, the likelihood function computes the conditional likelihood vectors for every node of the tree. Vector entries for which all input data are identical result in redundant likelihood operations which, in turn, yield identical conditional values. Such operations can be omitted for improving run-time and, using appropriate data structures, reducing memory usage. We present a fast, novel method for identifying and omitting such redundant operations in phylogenetic likelihood calculations, and assess the performance improvement and memory saving attained by our method. Using empirical and simulated data sets, we show that a prototype implementation of our method yields up to 10-fold speedups and uses up to 78% less memory than one of the fastest and most highly tuned implementations of the phylogenetic likelihood function currently available. Our method is generic and can seamlessly be integrated into any phylogenetic likelihood implementation.


Author(s):  
Mohamed E. Mead ◽  
Gauss M. Cordeiro ◽  
Ahmed Z. Afify ◽  
Hazem Al Mofleh

Mahdavi A. and Kundu D. (2017) introduced a family for generating univariate distributions called the alpha power transformation. They studied as a special case the properties of the alpha power transformed exponential distribution. We provide some mathematical properties of this distribution and define a four-parameter lifetime model called the alpha power exponentiated Weibull distribution. It generalizes some well-known lifetime models such as the exponentiated exponential, exponentiated Rayleigh, exponentiated Weibull and Weibull distributions. The importance of the new distribution comes from its ability to model monotone and non-monotone failure rate functions, which are quite common in reliability studies. We derive some basic properties of the proposed distribution including quantile and generating functions, moments and order statistics. The maximum likelihood method is used to estimate the model parameters. Simulation results investigate the performance of the estimates. We illustrate the importance of the proposed distribution over the McDonald Weibull, beta Weibull, modified Weibull, transmuted Weibull and exponentiated Weibull distributions by means of two real data sets.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 615-632
Author(s):  
Nora Helbig ◽  
Yves Bühler ◽  
Lucie Eberhard ◽  
César Deschamps-Berger ◽  
Simon Gascoin ◽  
...  

Abstract. The spatial distribution of snow in the mountains is significantly influenced through interactions of topography with wind, precipitation, shortwave and longwave radiation, and avalanches that may relocate the accumulated snow. One of the most crucial model parameters for various applications such as weather forecasts, climate predictions and hydrological modeling is the fraction of the ground surface that is covered by snow, also called fractional snow-covered area (fSCA). While previous subgrid parameterizations for the spatial snow depth distribution and fSCA work well, performances were scale-dependent. Here, we were able to confirm a previously established empirical relationship of peak of winter parameterization for the standard deviation of snow depth σHS by evaluating it with 11 spatial snow depth data sets from 7 different geographic regions and snow climates with resolutions ranging from 0.1 to 3 m. An enhanced performance (mean percentage errors, MPE, decreased by 25 %) across all spatial scales ≥ 200 m was achieved by recalibrating and introducing a scale-dependency in the dominant scaling variables. Scale-dependent MPEs vary between −7 % and 3 % for σHS and between 0 % and 1 % for fSCA. We performed a scale- and region-dependent evaluation of the parameterizations to assess the potential performances with independent data sets. This evaluation revealed that for the majority of the regions, the MPEs mostly lie between ±10 % for σHS and between −1 % and 1.5 % for fSCA. This suggests that the new parameterizations perform similarly well in most geographical regions.


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