Research Notes : United States : Cultivar identification by isozyme analysis

The purpose of this survey is to build a multiple enzyme system which may provide many biochemical characters to fingerprint cultivars. A total of 751 lines and cultivars of Glycine max have been screened for their enzyme zymogram types by using the technique of slab-gel electrophoresis (see Chiang, 1985; Doong, 1986; Gorman, 1983; Gorman and Kiang, 1977, 1978; Kiang and Gorman, 1983, for method). For 367 named cultivars, the zymogram types of eight enzymes and one seed protein (Ti) are listed in Table 1. Except for several cultivars, two of the eight enzymes, ADH and LAP, listed in Table 1 were mainly classified by Gorman (1983)

Research Notes : United States : Linkage of electrophoretic loci

In our studies of the inheritance of various electrophoretic variants, we have examined F2 segregation data from many crosses (see Gorman, 1983, for a listing). Many of these crosses were segregating for multiple loci, allowing linkage data to be collected. Table 1 represents a sunnnary of the linkage patterns we have observed between the listed electrophoretic loci (see Gorman and Kiang, 1978; Kiang, 1981; Gorman et al., 1983, concerning the establishment of these loci)

Research Notes: Amylase and acid phosphatase genotypes of Glycine max, Glycine soja and Neonotonia wightii

Three amylase loci, Am-1, Am-2 , and Am-3, have been identified by electrophoresis (Gorman and Kiang , 1978) . The activity of amylase at Am-1 and Am-2 is very weak, and that at Am-3 is much str onger. Based on heat lability and chemical reaction, Reiss (1978) concluded Am-1 and Am- 2 represent α - amylase and Am-3 β-amylase

Research Notes : United States : Inheritance of a second leucine amino-peptidase locus and tests of its linkage with other loci

In dry soybean seed, only one leucine amino peptidase (LAP) anodal band was observed by acrylamide slab gel electrophoresis (Gorman et al., 1983). This band gradually declined in intensity and disappeared in all tissues about 10-12 days after germination. Three mobility variants (Rf\u27s 0.59, 0.53,and 0.58) were observed in the band, which was controlled by a single locus (Gor-man et al., 1983; Kiang and Gorman, 1983; Gorman, 1983)

Communications Biophysics

Contains reports on three research projects

A Decision Support System for Market Segmentation - A Neural Networks Approach

Market segmentation refers to the subdividing of a market into distinct subsets of customers where any subset may conceivably be selected as a market target to be reached with a distinct marketing mix [Kotler 1980]. The reason for segmenting a market is that consumers are often numerous, geographically dispersed, and heterogeneous, and therefore seek varying benefits from the products they buy. Consumers within a segment are expected to have homogeneous buying preferences whereas those in different segments tend to behave differently. By properly identifying the benefit segment of a firm\u27s product, the marketing manager can target the sales effort at specific groups of consumers rather than at the total population. The identification of consumer segments is of critical importance for key strategic issues in marketing involving the assessment of a firm\u27s opportunities and threats. The marketing manager must evaluate the potential of the firm\u27s products in the target segment and ultimately select the most promising strategy for the segment. In thisresearch, we introduce a new approach, a neural networks based method, to discover market segments and configure them into meaningful structures. The particular type of neural networks, the Self-Organizing Map networks, can be used as a decision support tool for supporting strategic decisions involving identifying and targeting market segments. The Self-Organizing Map (SOM) network, a variation of neural computing networks, is a categorization network developed by Kohonen. The theory of the SOM network is motivated by the observation of the operation of the brain. This paper presents the technique of SOM and shows how it may be applied as a clustering tool to market segmentation. A computer program for implementing the SOM neural networks is developed and the results will be compared with other clustering approaches. The study demonstrates the potential of using the Self-Organizing Map as the clustering tool for market segmentation

Research Notes : Inheritance of soybean electrophoretic variants

We have been using the technique of slab-gel electrophoresis (see Gorman and Kiang, 1977, 1978; Kiang, 1981; Kiang and Gorman, 1983, for methods) to study genetic diversity in G. max and G. soja. In last year\u27s Soybean Genet-ics Newsletter, we reported the accession-specific zymogram types (zymogram types are equivalent to phenotypes) observed in 253 named cultivars (maturi-ty groups 00-IV) for 15 enzyme systems (Gorman et al., 1982b). We have been studying the genetic basis for the differences between these zymogram types