Distribution, Abundance, and Biological Characteristics of Groundfish off the Coast of Washington, Oregon, and California, 1977-1986

We compare results of bottom trawl surveys off Washington, Oregon, and California in 1977, 1980, 1983, and 1986 to discern trends in population abundance, distribution, and biology. Catch per unit of effort, area-swept biomass estimates, and age and length compositions for 12 commercially important west coast groundfishes are presented to illustrate trends over the lO-year period. We discuss the precision, accuracy, and statistical significance of observed trends in abundance estimates. The influence of water temperature on the distribution of groundfishes is also briefly examined. Abundance estimates of canary rockfish, Sebastes pinniger, and yellowtail rockfish, S. Jlavidus, declined during the study period; greater declines were observed in Pacific ocean perch, S. alutus, lingcod, Ophiodon elongatus, and arrowtooth flounder, Atheresthes stomias. Biomass estimates of Pacific hake, Merluccius productus, and English, rex, and Dover soles (Pleuronectes vetulus, Errex zachirus, and Microstomus pacificus) increased, while bocaccio, S. paucispinis, and chilipepper, S. goodei, were stable. Sablefish, Anoplopoma fimbria, biomass estimates increased markedly from 1977 to 1980 and declined moderately thereafter. Precision was lowest for rockfishes, lingcod, and sablefish; it was highest for flatfishes because they were uniformly distributed. The accuracy of survey estimates could be gauged only for yellowtail and canary rockfish and sablefish. All fishery-based analyses produced much larger estimates of abundance than bottom trawl surveys-indicative of the true catchability of survey trawls. Population trends from all analyses compared well except in canary rockfish, the species that presents the greatest challenge to obtaining reasonable precision and one that casts doubts on the usefulness of bottom trawl surveys for estimating its abundance. (PDF file contains 78 pages.

Modeling and inference of multisubject fMRI data

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a rapidly growing technique for studying the brain in action. Since its creation [1], [2], cognitive scientists have been using fMRI to understand how we remember, manipulate, and act on information in our environment. Working with magnetic resonance physicists, statisticians, and engineers, these scientists are pushing the frontiers of knowledge of how the human brain works. The design and analysis of single-subject fMRI studies has been well described. For example, [3], chapters 10 and 11 of [4], and chapters 11 and 14 of [5] all give accessible overviews of fMRI methods for one subject. In contrast, while the appropriate manner to analyze a group of subjects has been the topic of several recent papers, we do not feel it has been covered well in introductory texts and review papers. Therefore, in this article, we bring together old and new work on so-called group modeling of fMRI data using a consistent notation to make the methods more accessible and comparable

On the crossroad between tolerance and posttransplant lymphoma.

The role of the Epstein-Barr virus in the development of post-transplant lymphomas is well established. However, not all lymphomas that arise in these patients contain Epstein-Barr virus, suggesting that other cofactors are involved in tumor pathogenesis. We propose that immunologic interactions that result from the introduction of immunocompetent donor cells during transplantation contribute to a lymphomagenic environment in the host. Murine models of lymphoma that arises following transfer of allogeneic hematopoietic cells are discussed and are related to the transplant setting. One contemporary viewpoint of transplantation immunology holds that interactions between the host and donor components of the immune system determine the ultimate degree of tolerance or reciprocal immunoreactivity (eg, rejection, graft-versus-host disease) within the transplant patient. We conclude that host-donor immunologic microchimerism may also be an over-looked factor in the development of posttransplant lymphomas

The Hedonic Price Structure of Faculty Compensation at U.S. Colleges and Universities

Economic theory suggests that the variation in academic salaries across institutions in part reflects compensating differences associated with variation in the levels of local quality of life factors such as environmental quality and the provision of local public services. This paper presents an econometric analysis of the hedonic, or implicit price structure, of faculty compensation at U.S. colleges and universities using data from AAUP merged with data on a host of location-specific characteristics. Quality of life factors are found to be important, accounting for between 7 percent and 12.8 percent of total compensation