Evaluation of the first automated thyroglobulin assay

The aim of this study was to investigate technical and analytical performance of the first automated thyroglobulin (Tg) assay (DPC-Immulite(R); Diagnostic Products Corporation, Los Angeles, USA). In imprecision studies using several human serum pools ranging from 21 to 58 replicates, a coefficient of variation of 9.0 % was obtained at a mean Tg concentration of 0.84 ng/ml and of 6.1 % at a Tg concentration of 62.1 ng/ml. In a method comparison with a non-automated assay (BRAHMS LUMItest Tg(R), BRAHMS, Berlin, Germany) using 383 sera of 303 patients with thyroid carcinoma, regression analysis according to Passing and Bablock yielded in the following equation: Immulite Tg=1.6 x BRAHMS Tg - 0.1 ng/ml (Pearson's r=0.979). Sera obtained from 59 patients with thyroid carcinoma enabled comparative follow-up studies; in all cases qualitative agreement was found with regard to increase or decrease of serum Tg; in eight cases, however, Tg was detected with the Immulite assay but not with the BRAHMS assay. Further follow-up proved the presence of thyroid tissue in these patients. From these and further methodological data (dilution linearity, interference studies, carry-over study, high-dose hook properties, and short report time) it is concluded that the DPC-Immulite Tg assay meets the requirements of routine diagnostic use

Correction: A novel enantioselective synthesis of 6H-dibenzopyran derivatives by combined palladium/norbornene and cinchona alkaloid catalysis

Correction for 'A novel enantioselective synthesis of 6H-dibenzopyran derivatives by combined palladium/norbornene and cinchona alkaloid catalysis' by Di Xu et al., Org. Biomol. Chem., 2015, DOI: 10.1039/c4ob02551b

Sức nặng của đồng tiền “bác ái” cho nghị sự nghiên cứu bảo vệ môi sinh

Nghiên cứu của Enrici et al. (2023) trên tạp chí Ecology and Society [1] là một trong số không nhiều những thảo luận kỹ về sức nặng tiền bạc đối với cách con người (bao gồm cả học giới, chính giới và cư dân) hiểu về tác động của con người đối với môi sinh. Rõ ràng, những hiểu biết này rất quan trọng, nhất là khi sự cấp bách đối với tác động của con người lên môi trường đã thực sự gióng lên những hồi chuông báo động, đứng trước các hiểm họa khó lường của khủng hoảng khí hậu

Evolutionary Multi-Objective Design of SARS-CoV-2 Protease Inhibitor Candidates

Computational drug design based on artificial intelligence is an emerging research area. At the time of writing this paper, the world suffers from an outbreak of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. A promising way to stop the virus replication is via protease inhibition. We propose an evolutionary multi-objective algorithm (EMOA) to design potential protease inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2's main protease. Based on the SELFIES representation the EMOA maximizes the binding of candidate ligands to the protein using the docking tool QuickVina 2, while at the same time taking into account further objectives like drug-likeliness or the fulfillment of filter constraints. The experimental part analyzes the evolutionary process and discusses the inhibitor candidates.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PPSN 202

What do γ\gamma-ray bursts look like?

There have been great and rapid progresses in the field of $\gamma$-ray bursts (denoted as GRBs) since BeppoSAX and other telescopes discovered their afterglows in 1997. Here, we will first give a brief review on the observational facts of GRBs and direct understanding from these facts, which lead to the standard fireball model. The dynamical evolution of the fireball is discussed, especially a generic model is proposed to describe the whole dynamical evolution of GRB remnant from highly radiative to adiabatic, and from ultra-relativistic to non-relativistic phase. Then, Various deviations from the standard model are discussed to give new information about GRBs and their environment. In order to relax the energy crisis, the beaming effects and their possible observational evidences are also discussed in GRB's radiations.Comment: 10 pages, Latex. Invited talk at the Pacific Rim Conference on Stellar Astrophysics, Hong Kong, China, Aug. 199

Confidence does not mediate a relationship between owner experience and likelihood of using weight management approaches for native ponies

Funding: This study was funded by Mars Petcare and is part of a PhD studentship funded by the Scottish Funding Council Research Excellence Grant (REG). Authors WR and MN receive salary support from the Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS). With the exception of PH (employed by the funding organization), the funding organization did not have any additional role in the conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. PH was involved in study design, data interpretation, and manuscript preparation.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Cortical Factor Feedback Model for Cellular Locomotion and Cytofission

Eukaryotic cells can move spontaneously without being guided by external cues. For such spontaneous movements, a variety of different modes have been observed, including the amoeboid-like locomotion with protrusion of multiple pseudopods, the keratocyte-like locomotion with a widely spread lamellipodium, cell division with two daughter cells crawling in opposite directions, and fragmentations of a cell to multiple pieces. Mutagenesis studies have revealed that cells exhibit these modes depending on which genes are deficient, suggesting that seemingly different modes are the manifestation of a common mechanism to regulate cell motion. In this paper, we propose a hypothesis that the positive feedback mechanism working through the inhomogeneous distribution of regulatory proteins underlies this variety of cell locomotion and cytofission. In this hypothesis, a set of regulatory proteins, which we call cortical factors, suppress actin polymerization. These suppressing factors are diluted at the extending front and accumulated at the retracting rear of cell, which establishes a cellular polarity and enhances the cell motility, leading to the further accumulation of cortical factors at the rear. Stochastic simulation of cell movement shows that the positive feedback mechanism of cortical factors stabilizes or destabilizes modes of movement and determines the cell migration pattern. The model predicts that the pattern is selected by changing the rate of formation of the actin-filament network or the threshold to initiate the network formation

Sublinear bounds on the distinguishing advantage for multiple samples

The maximal achievable advantage of a (computationally unbounded) distinguisher to determine whether a source Z is distributed according to distribution $$P:0$$ or $$P:1$$, when given access to one sample of Z, is characterized by the statistical distance $$d(P:0,P_1)$$. Here, we study the distinguishing advantage when given access to several i.i.d. samples of Z. For n samples, the advantage is then naturally given by $$d(P:0^{\otimes n},P_1^{\otimes n})$$, which can be bounded as $$d(P:0^{\otimes n},P_1^{\otimes n}) \le n \cdot d(P_0,P_1)$$. This bound is tight for some choices of $$P:0$$ and $$P:1$$; thus, in general, a linear increase in the distinguishing advantage is unavoidable. In this work, we show new and improved bounds on $$d(P:0^{\otimes n},P_1^{\otimes n})$$ that circumvent the above pessimistic observation. Our bounds assume, necessarily, certain additional information on $$P:0$$ and/or $$P:1$$ beyond, or instead of, a bound on $$d(P:0,P_1)$$; in return, the bounds grow as $$\sqrt{n}$$, rather than linearly in n. Thus, whenever applicable, our bounds show that the number of samples necessary to distinguish the two distributions is substantially larger than what the standard bound would suggest. Such bounds have already been suggested in previous literature, but our new bounds are more general and (partly) stronger, and thus applicable to a larger class of instances. In a second part, we extend our results to a modified setting, where the distinguisher only has indirect access to the source Z. By this we mean that instead of obtaining samples of Z, the distinguisher now obtains i.i.d. samples that are chosen according to a probability distribution that depends on the (one) value produced by the source Z. Finally, we offer applications of our bounds to the area of cryptography. We show on a few examples from the cryptographic literature how our bounds give rise to improved results. For instance, importing our bounds into the analyses of Blondeau et al. for the security of block ciphers against multidimensional linear and truncated differential attacks, we obtain immediate improvements to their results