“In this paper we used a general stochastic processes fram


“In this paper we used a general stochastic processes framework to derive from first principles the incidence rate function that characterizes epidemic models. We investigate a particular case, the Liu-Hethcote-van den Driessche’s (LHD) incidence rate function, which results

from modeling the number of successful transmission encounters as a pure birth process. This derivation also takes into account heterogeneity in the population with regard to the JNJ-26481585 solubility dmso per individual transmission probability. We adjusted a deterministic SIRS model with both the classical and the LHD incidence rate functions to time series of the number of children infected with syncytial respiratory virus in Banjul, Gambia and Turku, Finland. We also adjusted a deterministic SEIR model with both incidence rate functions to the famous measles data sets from the UK cities of London and Birmingham. Two lines of evidence supported our conclusion that the model with the LHD incidence rate may very well be a better description of the seasonal epidemic processes studied ISRIB here. First, our model was repeatedly selected as best according to two different information criteria and two different likelihood formulations. The second line of evidence is qualitative in nature: contrary to what the SIRS model with

classical incidence rate predicts, the solution of the deterministic SIRS model with LHD incidence rate will reach either the disease free Vorinostat solubility dmso equilibrium or the endemic equilibrium depending on the initial conditions. These findings along with computer intensive simulations of the models’ Poincare map with environmental stochasticity contributed to attain a clear separation of the roles of the environmental forcing and the mechanics of the disease transmission in shaping seasonal epidemics dynamics.”
“Chinese Erhualian boars have dramatically smaller testes, greater concentrations of circulating androgens, and fewer Sertoli cells than Western commercial breeds. To identify QTL for boar reproductive traits, testicular weight, epididymal weight, seminiferous tubular diameter at 90 and 300 d, and serum testosterone concentration

at 300 d were measured in 347 F(2) boars from a White Duroc x Chinese Erhualian cross. A whole genome scan was performed with 183 microsatellites covering 19 porcine chromosomes. A total of 16 QTL were identified on 9 chromosomes, including 1% genome-wide significant QTL for testicular weight at 90 and 300 d and seminiferous tubular diameter at 90 d on SSCX, and for epididymal weight and testosterone concentration at 300 d on SSC7. Two 5% genome-wide significant QTL were detected for testicular weight at 300 d on SSC1 and seminiferous tubular diameter at 300 d on SSC16. Nine suggestive QTL were found on SSC1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, and 14. Chinese Erhualian alleles were not systematically favorable for greater reproductive performance.

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