731 research outputs found
CNF Encodings of Parity
The minimum number of clauses in a CNF representation of the parity function
is . One can obtain a more
compact CNF encoding by using non-deterministic variables (also known as guess
or auxiliary variables). In this paper, we prove the following lower bounds,
that almost match known upper bounds, on the number of clauses and the
maximum width of clauses: 1) if there are at most auxiliary variables,
then and ; 2) the
minimum number of clauses is at least . We derive the first two bounds from
the Satisfiability Coding Lemma due to Paturi, Pudlak, and Zane
The circulating levels of cardiac natriuretic hormones in healthy adults: effects of age and sex
Comparison between BNP values measured in capillary blood samples with a POCT method and those measured in plasma venous samples with an automated platform
Letter to the Editor. Our data suggest that it is possible
to measure BNP in fresh finger-stick samples of capillary
whole blood with an acceptable reproducibility,
and within 10 – 20 min to obtain results close correlated
to those measured by the automated platform in plasma
blood samples collected from a vein. The measurement
of BNP in fresh finger-stick samples of capillary whole
blood with this POCT method is in particular indicated for
the management of HF patients at home and for the BNP
assay in neonates and children
Comparison of a fully automated immunoassay with a point-of-care testing method for B-type natriuretic peptide
State of the art of aldosterone immunoassays. A multicenter collaborative study on the behalf of the Cardiovascular Biomarkers Study Group of the Italian Section of European Society of Ligand Assay (ELAS) and Società Italiana di Biochimica Clinica (SIBIOC).
Background: Two newimmunoassay methods for aldosterone assay using automated platforms recently became
available into market. The main aim of the present study is to evaluate the analytical performance of these automated
direct immunoassay methods, and also to compare their analytical characteristics to those of the most
popular RIA and EIA methods used in an Italian External Quality Assessment (EQA) study.
Methods: In this study analytical performances of twoaldosterone immunoassays using the IDS iSYS and DiaSorin
LIAISON fully automated platforms, were evaluated. Results obtained with the two platforms in EDTA plasma
samples of healthy subjects and patients were compared with those obtained by RIA and EIA methods used in
the Italian EQA scheme, named Immunocheck study.
Results: The two automated methods showed similar analytical performances: LoD 83.9 vs 92.2 pmol/L, LoQ
104.4 vs 111.1 pmol/L, respectively; moreover, the within-run and total imprecision values showed CV%
between 8.1 and 14.1 for samples with 180.8 and 387.2 pmol/L concentration for both methods. There was a
close linear regression between methods, however we found a significant proportional bias between LIAISON
and iSYS methods. The EQA samples results obtainedwith these two methods were highly correlated to the consensus
mean values.
Conclusions: Our data indicate that aldosterone values measuredwith the two automated methods actually show
better reproducibility, shorter laboratory Turn Around Time (TAT) and require less “hands on labor” compared to
RIA and EIA immunoassays. However, in our study significant biaswas observed in result comparison, this means
that translating aldosterone concentration in clinical information an appropriate definition of reference ranges
for each method is mandatory
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