Group VII of the Landolt-Börnstein New Series is devoted to the physical properties of biological systems. It begins with volume VII/1 covering the nucleic acids which are of central importance in all processes involving gene expression. This field has become of practical consequence during the last decade through the development of genetic engineering. Because of the amount of the data available, volume VII/1 had to be divided into several subvolumes. The first two subvolumes, VII/1a and VII/1b, which appeared in 1988, deal with crystallographic and structural data which give a comprehensive information on the three-dimensional structure of the nucleic acids, their folding properties, their hydrogen bonding schemes, their metal binding capabilities, their hydration and their drug complexation. Subvolume VII/1c covers the first part of spectroscopic, kinetic and physical data; the present subvolume VII/1d concludes this chapter and also deals with theoretical investigations.

Donut is a sweet and silly little pug who just can't stop jumping up to say hello! But when her bouncy greetings cause trouble, her best friend Kennedy gently teaches her a better way to show love. Set in cozy homes and sunny parks, this heartwarming story is perfect for teaching little ones about patience, positive reinforcement, and the power of a well-timed "sit."

Over the past 20 years, value-added models (VAMs) have become increasingly popular in educational assessment and accountability policies because of the sophisticated statistical controls these models use to purportedly isolate the effect of a single teacher on the learning gains of his or her students. The present research uses a Monte Carlo simulation study design in order to investigate whether VAMs are able to provide accurate estimates of teacher effectiveness when all assumptions are met and to determine how robust the models are to endogenous peer effects and nonrandom assignment of students to classroom. The researcher generates three years of simulated achievement data for 18,750 students taught by 125 teachers, and analyzes this data with a linear mixed model similar to the SAS® EVAAS® Multivariate Response Model (MRM; M1), a basic covariate adjustment model (M2), and variations on these models designed to estimate random classroom effects. Findings indicate that the modified EVAAS may be too computationally onerous to be of practical use, and that modified covariate adjustment models do not perform significantly differently than the basic covariate adjustment model. When all assumptions are met, M1 is more accurate than M2, but both models perform reasonably well, misclassifying fewer than 5% of teachers on average. M1 is more robust to endogenous peer effects than M2, however both models misclassified more teachers than when all assumptions are met. M2 is more robust to nonrandom assignment of students than M1. Assigning teachers a balanced schedule of nonrandom classes with low, medium, and high prior achievement seemed to mitigate the problems that nonrandom assignment caused for M1, but made M2 less accurate. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Join Riley, a cheerful little girl with a big heart, and her two furry best friends-Pretzel the wiggly pug and Bubbles the fluffy cat-as they throw the cutest tea party ever! But when chocolate shows up on the table, Riley teaches her pets (and young readers!) an important lesson about keeping dogs and cats safe.

Group VII of the Landolt-Börnstein New Series is devoted to the physical properties of biological systems. It begins with volume VII/1 covering the nucleic acids which are of central importance in all processes involving gene expression. This field has become of practical consequence during the last decade through the development of genetic engineering. Because of the amount of the data available, volume VII/1 had to be divided into several subvolumes. The first two subvolumes, VII/1a and VII/1b, which appeared in 1988, deal with crystallographic and structural data which give a comprehensive information on the three-dimensional structure of the nucleic acids, their folding properties, their hydrogen bonding schemes, their metal binding capabilities, their hydration and their drug complexation. Subvolume VII/1c covers the first part of spectroscopic, kinetic and physical data; the present subvolume VII/1d concludes this chapter and also deals with theoretical investigations.