On scale-mixture Birnbaum-Saunders distributions

We present for the first time a justification on the basis of central limit theorems for the family of life distributions generated from scale-mixture of normals. This family was proposed by Balakrishnan et al. (2009) and can be used to accommodate unexpected observations for the usual Birnbaum-Saunders distribution generated from the normal one. The class of scale-mixture of normals includes normal, slash, Student-t, logistic, double-exponential, exponential power and many other distributions. We present a model for the crack extensions where the limiting distribution of total crack extensions is in the class of scale-mixture of normals. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

NEW RECORDS OF ANOPHELES HOMUNCULUS IN CENTRAL AND SERRA DO MAR BIODIVERSITY CORRIDORS OF THE ATLANTIC FOREST, BRAZIL

Two new records of Anopheles homunculus in the eastern part of the Atlantic Forest are reported. This species was found for the first time in Barra do Ouro district, Maquine municipality, Rio Grande do Sul state, located in the southern limit of the Atlantic Forest. The 2nd new record was in the Serra Bonita Reserve, Camacan municipality, southeast Bahia state. These records extend the geographical distribution of An. homunculus, suggesting that the species may be widely distributed in coastal areas of the Atlantic Forest. It is hypothesized that the disjunct distribution of the species may be caused by inadequate sampling, and also difficulties in species identification based only on female external characteristics. Species identification was based on morphological characters of the male, larva, and pupa, and corroborated by DNA sequence analyses, employing data from both 2nd internal transcribed spacer of nuclear ribosomal DNA and of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I.

Regularity at infinity of real mappings and a Morse-Sard theorem

We prove a new Morse-Sard-type theorem for the asymptotic critical values of semi-algebraic mappings and a new fibration theorem at infinity for C-2 mappings. We show the equivalence of three different types of regularity conditions which have been used in the literature in order to control the asymptotic behaviour of mappings. The central role of our picture is played by the p-regularity and its bridge toward the rho-regularity which implies topological triviality at infinity.