Multiplex PCR: Critical Parameters and Step-by-Step Protocol

By simultaneously amplifying more than one locus in the same reaction, multiplex PCR is becoming a rapid and convenient screening assay in both the clinical and the research laboratory. While numerous papers and manuals discuss in detail conditions influencing the quality of PCR in general, relatively little has been published about the important experimental factors and the common difficulties frequently encountered with multiplex PCR. We have examined various conditions of the multiplex PCR, using a large number of primer pairs. Especially important for a successful multiplex PCR assay are the relative concentrations of the primers at the various loci, the concentration of the PCR buffer, the cycling temperatures and the balance between the magnesium chloride and deoxynucleotide concentrations. Based on our experience, we propose a protocol for developing a multiplex PCR assay and suggest ways to overcome commonly encountered problems

Solving an Avionics Real-Time Scheduling Problem by Advanced IP-Methods

We report on the solution of a real-time scheduling problem that arises in the design of software-based operation control of aircraft. A set of tasks has to be distributed on a minimum number of machines and offsets of the tasks have to be computed. The tasks emit jobs periodically starting at their offset and then need to be executed on the machines without any delay. Also, further constraints in terms of memory usage and redundancy requirements have to be met. Approaches based on standard integer programming formulations fail to solve our real-world instances. By exploiting structural insights of the problem we obtain an IP-formulation and primal heuristics that together solve the real-world instances to optimality and outperform text-book approaches by several orders of magnitude. Our methods lead, for the first time, to an industry strength tool to optimally schedule aircraft sized problems

Effects of neutral red and imidazole upon insulin secretion

SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe