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A central paradigm in life‐history theory is the trade‐off between offspring number and quality. Several studies have investigated this trade‐off in humans, but data are inconclusive, perhaps because prosperous socio‐cultural factors mask the trade‐off. Therefore, we studied 2461 offspring groups in an area under adverse conditions in northern Ghana with high fertility and mortality rates. In a linear mixed model controlling for differences in age and tribe of the mother and socioeconomic status, each additional child in the offspring group resulted in a 2.3% (95% CI 1.9–2.6%, P < 0.001) lower proportional survival of the offspring. Furthermore, we made use of the polygamous population structure and compared offspring of co‐wives in 388 households, thus controlling for variation in resources between compounds. Here, offspring survival decreased 2.8% (95% CI 2.3–4.0%, P < 0.001) for each increase in offspring number. We interpret these data as an apparent quality–quantity trade‐off in human offspring.

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Seven laboratories collaborating in a study of two intermediate purity plasminogen preparations (64/23, 63/6) observed that the amount of activator (urokinase or streptokinase) and the time of activation of plasminogen influenced the amount of plasmin generated. Using casein and a synthetic polypeptide (S-2251) as substrates, the authors subsequently showed that complete activation of plasminogen was difficult to achieve without activity losses due to plasmin autodigestion. Comparison of the polypeptide subunits (on SDS electrophoresis) of the various plasminogen activation mixtures with their plasmin activity allowed the conclusion that at maximum generation of plasmin from plasminogen, some plasminogen remains in the form of an inactive plasminogen intermediate (PLG-i).

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