Quantitative Biology

1709 Submissions

[4] viXra:1709.0307 [pdf] replaced on 2017-09-29 10:13:08

The Existence of God: An Application of the Poisson Distribution

Authors: Charles M. Byrne
Comments: 14 pages, Keywords: God, evolution, mutation, recombination, genetics, molecular biology, naturalism, Poisson distribution

In his theory of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin provided a plausible alternative to Christianity's creation account of human origins. In response, the Christian botanist Asa Gray suggested to Darwin that the variation that drives evolution might be generated by God. Darwin rejected Gray’s hypothesis, invoking philosophical naturalism, a hallmark scientific paradigm. Darwin's conclusion was reached on ideological grounds rather than empirical ones. Biological evidence that emerged subsequent to Darwin’s time yields a different conclusion. A means to assess the question of the source of genetic variation is provided by fitting the Poisson distribution to counts of point mutation and chromosome crossover events at the DNA sites where they occur. A general failure of fit between observational data and the Poisson distribution constitutes an exception to the naturalistic paradigm, and thereby provides epistemic access to the existence of God.
Category: Quantitative Biology

[3] viXra:1709.0292 [pdf] submitted on 2017-09-19 07:21:06

On Richard III's Y-DNA and Time-Asymmetric Mutation Rates

Authors: John Smith
Comments: 20 Pages.

A skeleton excavated in 2012 is almost certainly that of the English king, Richard III (1452 -1485), and mtDNA (which is passed from mother to child) extracted from the skeleton matches mtDNA taken from descendants of Richard's sister Anne of York. However Y-DNA (which is passed from father to son) extracted from the skeleton apparently doesn't match Y-DNA taken from descendants of Henry Somerset the 5th Duke of Beaufort, who according to history descended from Richard's 2nd great grand father Edward III (1312 - 1377). The implication according to geneticists, and the media, is that there is a "false paternity event" somewhere between Edward and the Somersets. In this note, a formula for calculating the time of the most recent common ancestor is introduced, and some of its consequences outlined. This formula is attached to a mathematical framework within which it is possible that the traditional genealogy is correct. If this framework is the right framework for understanding of genetic inheritance, then it has been wrongly assumed that Y-DNA mutation rates are like-line, constant and smooth - in reality they are wave-like and decrease erratically in the direction of the future, and the contrary impression is is an illusion created by an over-focus on the relatively constant and smooth nature of genetic change in the present and the near-present.
Category: Quantitative Biology

[2] viXra:1709.0286 [pdf] submitted on 2017-09-19 06:50:53

Principal Directon Divising Partitioning Initialisation of K-Means Clustering Allows to Identify the Most Salient Genes in Discriminating Among Leukemias

Authors: Diego Liberati
Comments: 35 Pages.

This paper attempts to cluster leukemia patients described by gene expression data, and to discover the most discriminating genes that are responsible for the clustering. A combined approach of Principal Direction Divisive Partitioning and bisect K-means algorithms is applied to the clustering of the investigated leukemia dataset. Both unsupervised and supervised methods are considered in order to get optimal result. The combination of PDDP and bisect K-means successfully clusters leukemia patients, and efficiently discovers salient genes able to the discriminate the clusters. The combined approach works well on the automatic clustering of leukemia patients depending merely on the gene expression information, and it has great potential on solving similar problems, like classifying pancreatic tumors. The salient identified genes may thus enhance relevant information for discriminating among leukemias.
Category: Quantitative Biology

[1] viXra:1709.0248 [pdf] submitted on 2017-09-16 10:26:26

Simulating the Idling Behavior of Escherichia Coli

Authors: Herbert Weidner
Comments: 10 Pages.

Until now, it is not known how the motors of E. coli reverse the direction of rotation, mostly simultaneously. If the C-ring is bistable and if the number of bound CheY-P depends on the direction of rotation, there is a strong variation in the concentration of CheY-P in the cytoplasm. Then, the synchronous changeover can be explained without further additional assumptions.
Category: Quantitative Biology