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- Ahmed, M., et al.
(författare)
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Search for the lepton-family-number nonconserving decay μ +→e +γ
- 2002
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Ingår i: Physical Review D. - : American Physical Society. - 1550-7998 .- 1550-2368. ; 65:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The MEGA experiment, which searched for the muon- and electron-number violating decay μ +→e + γ, is described. The spectrometer system, the calibrations, the data taking procedures, the data analysis, and the sensitivity of the experiment are discussed. The most stringent upper limit on the branching ratio, B(μ + →e + γ)<1.2×10 -11 with 90% confidence, is derived from a likelihood analysis.
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- Beral, V, et al.
(författare)
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Alcohol, tobacco and breast cancer - collaborative reanalysis of individual data from 53 epidemiological studies, including 58515 women with breast cancer and 95067 women without the disease
- 2002
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Ingår i: British Journal of Cancer. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1532-1827 .- 0007-0920. ; 87, s. 1234-45
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Alcohol and tobacco consumption are closely correlated and published results on their association with breast cancer have not always allowed adequately for confounding between these exposures. Over 80% of the relevant information worldwide on alcohol and tobacco consumption and breast cancer were collated, checked and analysed centrally. Analyses included 58515 women with invasive breast cancer and 95067 controls from 53 studies. Relative risks of breast cancer were estimated, after stratifying by study, age, parity and, where appropriate, women's age when their first child was born and consumption of alcohol and tobacco. The average consumption of alcohol reported by controls from developed countries was 6.0 g per day, i.e. about half a unit/drink of alcohol per day, and was greater in ever-smokers than never-smokers, (8.4 g per day and 5.0 g per day, respectively). Compared with women who reported drinking no alcohol, the relative risk of breast cancer was 1.32 (1.19 - 1.45, P < 0.00001) for an intake of 35 - 44 g per day alcohol, and 1.46 (1.33 - 1.61, P < 0.00001) for greater than or equal to 45 g per day alcohol. The relative risk of breast cancer increased by 7.1% (95% CI 5.5-8.7%; P<0.00001) for each additional 10 g per day intake of alcohol, i.e. for each extra unit or drink of alcohol consumed on a daily basis. This increase was the same in ever-smokers and never-smokers (7.1 % per 10 g per day, P < 0.00001, in each group). By contrast, the relationship between smoking and breast cancer was substantially confounded by the effect of alcohol. When analyses were restricted to 22 255 women with breast cancer and 40 832 controls who reported drinking no alcohol, smoking was not associated with breast cancer (compared to never-smokers, relative risk for ever-smokers= 1.03, 95% CI 0.98 - 1.07, and for current smokers=0.99, 0.92 - 1.05). The results for alcohol and for tobacco did not vary substantially across studies, study designs, or according to 15 personal characteristics of the women; nor were the findings materially confounded by any of these factors. If the observed relationship for alcohol is causal, these results suggest that about 4% of the breast cancers in developed countries are attributable to alcohol. In developing countries, where alcohol consumption among controls averaged only 0.4 g per day, alcohol would have a negligible effect on the incidence of breast cancer. In conclusion, smoking has little or no independent effect on the risk of developing breast cancer; the effect of alcohol on breast cancer needs to be interpreted in the context of its beneficial effects, in moderation, on cardiovascular disease and its harmful effects on cirrhosis and cancers of the mouth, larynx, oesophagus and liver. (C) 2002 Cancer Research UK.
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- Rosser, Z H, et al.
(författare)
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Y-chromosomal diversity in Europe is clinal and influenced primarily by geography, rather than by language.
- 2000
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Ingår i: American Journal of Human Genetics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0002-9297 .- 1537-6605. ; 67:6, s. 1526-43
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Clinal patterns of autosomal genetic diversity within Europe have been interpreted in previous studies in terms of a Neolithic demic diffusion model for the spread of agriculture; in contrast, studies using mtDNA have traced many founding lineages to the Paleolithic and have not shown strongly clinal variation. We have used 11 human Y-chromosomal biallelic polymorphisms, defining 10 haplogroups, to analyze a sample of 3,616 Y chromosomes belonging to 47 European and circum-European populations. Patterns of geographic differentiation are highly nonrandom, and, when they are assessed using spatial autocorrelation analysis, they show significant clines for five of six haplogroups analyzed. Clines for two haplogroups, representing 45% of the chromosomes, are continentwide and consistent with the demic diffusion hypothesis. Clines for three other haplogroups each have different foci and are more regionally restricted and are likely to reflect distinct population movements, including one from north of the Black Sea. Principal-components analysis suggests that populations are related primarily on the basis of geography, rather than on the basis of linguistic affinity. This is confirmed in Mantel tests, which show a strong and highly significant partial correlation between genetics and geography but a low, nonsignificant partial correlation between genetics and language. Genetic-barrier analysis also indicates the primacy of geography in the shaping of patterns of variation. These patterns retain a strong signal of expansion from the Near East but also suggest that the demographic history of Europe has been complex and influenced by other major population movements, as well as by linguistic and geographic heterogeneities and the effects of drift.
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- Berman, F., et al.
(författare)
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The GrADS project : Software support for high-level grid application development
- 2001
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Ingår i: The international journal of high performance computing applications. - : SAGE Publications. - 1094-3420 .- 1741-2846. ; 15:4, s. 327-344
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Advances in networking technologies will soon make it possible to use the global information infrastructure in a qualitatively different way-as a computational as well as an information resource. As described in the recent book The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure, this Grid will connect the nation's computers, databases, instruments, and people in a seamless web of computing and distributed intelligence, which can be used in an on demand fashion as a problem-solving resource in many fields of human endeavor-and, in particular, science and engineering. The availability of grid resources will give rise to dramatically new classes of applications, in which computing resources are no longer localized but, rather, distributed, heterogeneous, and dynamic; computation is increasingly sophisticated and multidisciplinary; and computation is integrated into our daily lives and, hence, subject to stricter time constraints than at present. The impact of these new applications will be pervasive, ranging from new systems for scientific inquiry, through computing support for crisis management, to the use of ambient computing to enhance personal mobile computing environments. To realize this vision, significant scientific and technical obstacles must be overcome. Principal among these is usability. The goal of the Grid Application Development Software (GrADS) project is to simplify distributed heterogeneous computing in the same way that the World Wide Web simplified information sharing over the Internet. To that end, the project is exploring the scientific and technical problems that must be solved to make it easier for ordinary scientific users to develop, execute, and tune applications on the Grid. In this paper, the authors describe the vision and strategies underlying the GrADS project, including the base software architecture for grid execution and performance monitoring, strategies and tools for construction of applications from libraries of grid-aware components, and development of innovative new science and engineering applications that can exploit these new technologies to run effectively in grid environments.
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- Ismail, AA, et al.
(författare)
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Incidence of limb fracture across Europe: Results from the European Prospective Osteoporosis Study (EPOS)
- 2002
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Ingår i: Osteoporosis International. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1433-2965 .- 0937-941X. ; 13:7, s. 565-571
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this population-based prospective study was to determine the incidence of limb fracture by site and gender in different regions of Europe. Men and women aged 50-79 years were recruited from population registers in 31 European centers. Subjects were invited to attend for an interviewer-administered questionnaire and lateral spinal radiographs. Subjects were subsequently followed up using an annual postal questionnaire which included questions concerning the occurrence of new fractures. Self-reported fractures were confirmed where possible by radiograph, attending physician or subject interview. There were 6451 men and 6936 women followed for a median of 3.0 years. During this time there were 140 incident limb fractures in men and 391 in women. The age-adjusted incidence of any limb fracture was 7,3/1000 person-years [pyrs] in men and 19 per 1000 pyrs in women, equivalent to a 2,5 times excess in women. Among women, the incidence of hip, humerus and distal forearm fracture, though not 'other' limb fracture, increased with age, while in men only the incidence of hip and humerus fracture increased with age. Among women, there was evidence of significant variation in the occurrence of hip, distal forearm and humerus fractures across Europe, with incidence rates higher in Scandinavia than in other European regions. though for distal forearm fracture the incidence in east Europe was similar to that observed in Scandinavia. Among men, there was no evidence of significant geographic variation in the occurrence of these fractures. This is the first large population-based study to characterize the incidence of limb fracture in men and women over 50 years of age across Europe. There are substantial differences in the descriptive epidemiology of limb fracture by region and gender.
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- Millar, D S, et al.
(författare)
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Molecular genetic analysis of severe protein C deficiency
- 2000
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Ingår i: Human Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1432-1203 .- 0340-6717. ; 106:6, s. 646-653
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Severe protein C deficiency is a rare, early onset, venous thrombotic condition that is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait. The protein C (PROC) genes of nine unrelated individuals with severe protein C deficiency were sequenced yielding a total of 13 different lesions. Eight of these were novel, including a gross gene deletion, three missense mutations, two micro-deletions, a splicing mutation and a single base-pair substitution in the HNF-3 binding site in the PROC gene promoter. Evidence for the pathogenicity of the mutations detected was obtained by molecular modelling, in vitro splicing assay and reporter gene assay. Neither the plasma protein C activity level nor the nature of the PROC gene lesions detected were found to be a good prognostic indicator of the age of onset or clinical severity of thrombotic symptoms. Other factors may thus complicate the relationship between genotype and clinical phenotype. Indeed, in two patients, the inheritance of either one or two Factor V Leiden alleles in addition to two PROC gene lesions could have served to precipitate the thrombotic events. No association was however apparent between clinical severity and the possession of a particular promoter polymorphism genotype. Despite the absence of a clear genotype-phenotype relationship, the molecular genetic analysis of the severe recessive form of protein C deficiency potentiates both the counselling of affected families and the provision of antenatal exclusion diagnosis.
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11. |
- O'Neill, TW, et al.
(författare)
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Back pain, disability, and radiographic vertebral fracture in European women: a prospective study
- 2004
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Ingår i: Osteoporosis International. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1433-2965 .- 0937-941X. ; 15:9, s. 760-765
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Vertebral fractures are associated with back pain and disability. There are, however, few prospective data looking at back pain and disability following identification of radiographic vertebral fracture. The aim of this analysis was to determine the impact of radiographically identified vertebral fracture on the subsequent occurrence of back pain and disability. Women aged 50 years and over were recruited from population registers in 18 European centers for participation in the European Prospective Osteoporosis Study. Participants completed an interviewer-administered questionnaire which included questions about back pain in the past year and various activities of daily living, and they had lateral spine radiographs performed. Participants in these centers were followed prospectively and had repeat spine radiographs performed a mean of 3.7 years later. In addition they completed a questionnaire with the same baseline questions concerning back pain and activities of daily living. The presence of prevalent and incident vertebral fracture was defined using established morphometric criteria. The data were analyzed using logistic regression with back pain or disability (present or absent) at follow-up as the outcome variable with adjustment made for the baseline value of the variable. The study included 2,260 women, mean age 62.2 years. The mean time between baseline and follow-up survey was 5.0 years. Two hundred and forty participants had prevalent fractures at the baseline survey, and 85 developed incident fractures during follow-up. After adjustment for age, center, and the baseline level of disability, compared with those without baseline prevalent fracture, those with a prevalent fracture (odds ratio [OR]=1.4; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.0 to 2.0) or an incident fracture (OR=1.7; 95% CI, 0.9 to 3.2) were more likely to report disability at follow-up, though the confidence intervals embraced unity. Those with both a prevalent and incident fracture, however, were significantly more likely to report disability at follow-up (OR=3.1; 95% CI, 1.4 to 7.0). After adjustment for age, center, and frequency of back pain at baseline, compared with those without baseline vertebral fracture, those with a prevalent fracture were no more likely to report back pain at follow-up (OR=1.2; 95%CI, 0.8 to 1.7). There was a small increased risk among those with a preexisting fracture who had sustained an incident fracture during follow-up (OR=1.6; 95%CI, 0.6 to 4.1) though the confidence intervals embraced unity. In conclusion, although there was no significant increase in the level of back pain an average of 5 years following identification of radiographic vertebral fracture, women who suffered a further fracture during follow-up experienced substantial levels of disability with impairment in key physical functions of independent living.
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- Cockerill, W, et al.
(författare)
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Health-related quality of life and radiographic vertebral fracture
- 2004
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Ingår i: Osteoporosis International. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1433-2965 .- 0937-941X. ; 15:2, s. 113-119
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Vertebral fractures are associated with back pain and disability; however, relatively little is known about the impact of radiographic vertebral fractures on quality of life in population samples. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of a recent radiographic vertebral fracture on health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Methods: Men and women aged 50 years and over were recruited from population registers in 12 European centers. Subjects completed an interviewer-administered questionnaire and had lateral spine radiographs performed. Subjects in these centers were followed prospectively and had repeat spinal radiographs performed a mean of 3.8 years later. Prevalent deformities were defined using established morphometric criteria, and incident vertebral fractures by both morphometric criteria and qualitative assessment. For each incident fracture case, three controls matched for age, gender, and center were selected: one with a prevalent deformity (at baseline) and two without prevalent deformities. All subjects were interviewed or completed a postal questionnaire instrument which included Short Form 12 (SF-12), the EQ-5D (former EuroQol), and the quality of life questionnaire of the International Osteoporosis Foundation (QUALEFFO). The median time from the second spinal radiograph until the quality of life survey was 1.9 years. Comparison between cases and their matched controls was undertaken using the signed rank test. Results: 73 subjects with incident vertebral fracture (cases), mean age 64.8 years (of whom 23 had a baseline deformity), and 196 controls, mean age 63.9 years (of whom 60 had a baseline deformity), were studied. There were strong correlations between the domain scores for each of the three instruments. There was no statistically significant difference in any of the domain scores between cases and those controls with a prevalent deformity. However, compared with the controls without a prevalent deformity the cases had significantly impaired quality of life as determined using the total QUALEFFO score (38.2 vs 33.7), the physical component score of the SF-12 (39.9 vs 43.7) and the health status score of the EQ-5D (62.3 vs 69.9). When the analysis was repeated after stratification of the cases by baseline deformity status (i.e., cases with and without a prevalent deformity at baseline), cases with a prevalent deformity had impaired quality of life compared with their matched controls, both with and without a prevalent deformity. In contrast there was no significant difference in quality of life among the cases without a prevalent deformity and either control group. Conclusion: In this population-based study a recent vertebral fracture was associated with impairment in quality of life, though this was mainly among those who had sustained a previous vertebral deformity.
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18. |
- Cooper, K., et al.
(författare)
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New Grid Scheduling and Rescheduling Methods in the GrADS Project
- 2004
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Summary form only given. The goal of the Grid Application Development Software (GrADS) project is to provide programming tools and an execution environment to ease program development for the grid. We present recent extensions to the GrADS software framework: 1. A new approach to scheduling workflow computations, applied to a 3D image reconstruction application; 2. A simple stop/migrate/restart approach to rescheduling grid applications, applied to a QR 3. A process-swapping approach to rescheduling, applied to an N-body simulation. Experiments validating these methods were carried out on both the GrADS MacroGrid (a small but functional grid) and the MicroGrid (a controlled emulation of the grid) and the results were demonstrated at the SC2003 conference.
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19. |
- Cooper, M. W., et al.
(författare)
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New γ transitions in 27Na from 14C on 14C
- 2001
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Ingår i: Nuclear Physics A. - 0375-9474. ; 682:1-4, s. 131-135
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The neutron rich 27Na was studied at Florida State University using the 14C(14C,p) reaction at 22 MeV. The 14C target was 0.28 mg/cm2 thick. γ-γ and particle-γ, coincidences were measured using 2 four-crystal clover detectors, 7 Compton-suppressed HPGe detectors, and a particle detector telescope at 0°. The 1757, 1823, and 2219 keV transitions are likely yrast transitions in 27Na. Based on systematics of neighboring nuclei, the first two lines probably arise from the decays of the 7/2+ and 9/2+ states. The results will be discussed in terms of both the shell model and the cranked Nilsson-Strutinsky rotational model.
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- Di Donna, S, et al.
(författare)
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Regenerative capacity of human satellite cells : the mitotic clock in cell transplantation
- 2000
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Ingår i: Neurological Sciences. - New York, USA : Springer-Verlag New York. - 1590-1874 .- 1590-3478. ; 21:5 Suppl, s. S943-51
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this communication, we will review the problems caused by cell-mediated gene therapy, taking skeletal muscle as a physiological model. In particular we have utilised vectors transferring telomerase under the control of retroviral promoters into human satellite cells. The set of results presented here has several implications regarding gene therapy trials. Nevertheless, more experiments will be required to fully validate this cellular model and to use telomerase to safely extend the lifespan of putative gene therapy vectors.
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- Diehl, S., et al.
(författare)
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Effects of multiple, predator-induced behaviors on short-term producer-grazer dynamics in open systems
- 2000
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Ingår i: American Naturalist. ; 156:3, s. 293-313
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigated the population consequences of multiple behavioral responses of grazers to a foraging return-predation risk trade-off in an open system consisting of primary producers, grazers, and predators. Using a dynamical model where grazers adjust their foraging activity and emigration rate to the densities of predators and producers, we explored how changes in control variables (predator density, grazer immigration, and producer immigration and carrying capacity) affect the dynamics of producers and grazers at temporal scales shorter than consumer and predator reproduction. The model predicts that producer biomass increases and that both the density of foraging grazers and the feeding rate of predators decrease with predator density. These predictions hold although total (foraging + nonforaging) grazer density may actually increase with predator density. The latter will occur whenever the benefit of higher resource density outweighs the increased risk of predation. In this case. per capita grazer emigration decreases with predator density, which might be misinterpreted as a direct "freezing" response to predators. Increased grazer immigration is predicted to result in decreased producer density and increased densities of both foraging and total grazers, as well as increased grazer emigration and predator feeding rates. Increased producer immigration or carrying capacity should increase producer and grazer densities and predator feeding rate but decrease per capita grazer emigration. Manipulation of predator (trout) densities in a set of nine large (50 m(2)) stream channels produced results in broad agreement with model predictions. Most notably, a positive effect of trout on benthic algal biomass was mainly mediated through grazer behavior (changes in the use of epibenthic surfaces and in emigration rare) rather than through consumptive reductions of grazer numbers by trout.
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- Harrison, GL, et al.
(författare)
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Four new avian mitochondrial genomes help get to basic evolutionary questions in the late Cretaceous
- 2004
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 21:6, s. 974-983
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Good phylogenetic trees are required to test hypotheses about evolutionary processes. We report four new avian mitochondrial genomes, which together with an improved method of phylogenetic analysis for vertebrate mt genomes give results for three questions in avian evolution. The new nit genomes are: magpie goose (Anseranas semipalmata), ail owl (morepork, Ninox novaeseelandiae); a basal passerine (rifleman, or New Zealand wren, Acanthisitta chloris); and a parrot (kakapo or owl-parrot, Strigops habroptilus). The magpie goose provides an important new calibration point for avian evolution because the well-studied Presbyornis fossils are on the lineage to ducks and geese, after the separation of the magpie goose. We find, as with other animal mitochondrial genomes, that RY-coding is helpful in adjusting for biases between pyrimidines and between purinies. When RY-coding is used at third positions of the codon, the root occurs between paleognath and neognath birds (as expected from morphological and nuclear data). In addition, passerines form a relatively old group in Neoaves, and many modern avian lineages diverged during the Cretaceous. Although many aspects of the avian tree are stable, additional taxon sampling is required.
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