Optimization of rTDMH as a Reagent Toward Improving the Sensitivity of the RT-PCR Based Diagnosis for Mycobacterium Tuberculosis

Current diagnostic tools being used for tuberculosis lack the speed and sensitivity necessary to successfully combat the current tuberculosis epidemic. Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction, RT-PCR, can provide the rapid and specific diagnosis that is currently in demand in the global community. Its disadvantage is that due to the waxy and robust nature of the M. tuberculosis membrane, not enough genomic DNA is present to provide for amplification in a RT-PCR. It was previously found in our laboratory that hydrolysis of one of abundant glycolipid of mycobacterial envelope, Trehalose, 6,6’-dimycolate, by a recombinant TDM-specific hydrolase caused rapid lysis of cell (Yong et.al. manuscript submitted). In this study, we tested if rapid lysis by TDM-specific hydrolase (rTDMH) can be exploited in conjunction with the RT-PCR to develop a sensitive diagnosis of tuberculosis. Results demonstrated that by incubation of both attenuated M. tuberculosis, and virulent M. tuberculosis with rTDMH for lysis and subsequent usage of this lysate in a RT-PCR assay, yields sensitive amplification of mycobacterial DNA. rTDMH-mediated lsyis could facilitate amplification of even 10 bacilli, the rTDMH treated cells show amplification while lack of treatment failed to detect these bacilli These results were consistent in in-vitro liquid culture and in complex sputum samples spiked with the mycobacteria, showing that incubation with rTDMH can improve the sensitivity of the RT-PCR. Statement of Public Health relevance: Using rTDMH with RT-PCR as an improved diagnostic tool for tuberculosis due to the rapid, accurate and sensitive nature of the assay could provide the global community with a much better method of diagnosing a disease that has plagued the world for thousands of years. Tuberculosis infects 9 million people and kills 3 million people every year and presently one-third of the world’s population is infected with it. A better diagnostic tool could result in reducing the spread of disease; reducing the mortality associated with disease, especially in HIV infected individuals; and on a broader scale, could reduce the economic burden associated with the diseas

Iqbal and Goethe : a note

The recourse to Goethe plays an important role in the work of Mohammad Iqbal (1873-1938), one of the few important writers from the Indian subcontinent who knew German literature. Iqbal situates his own writing in the context of western colonial expansion and the corresponding world-historical loss of power of Islam in the East. The recourse to Goethe becomes an import reference point in his work. It enables him to stylise himself as a Messenger of the East in reply to Goethe as a representative of the West. By establishing a comparative cultural constellation with his German predecessor Iqbal affirms a cultural position consisting of a mode of historical complaint and cultural revival

Willy Haas (1891-1973) : "homme de lettre"

There are many aspects of Haas' life and experiences in India which deserve greater attention. I would like to refer briefly only to his attempts as a litterateur to come to terms with 'India' as presented in his autobiographical recollection and to some comparative cultural reflections in his essays. Like all reconstructions his autobiographical recollection of India is also a construct in which the site of India as a place of exile is justified by an achieved awareness between conscious individual choice and inevitability. An individual acts out a personal history, the prefiguration of which he only becomes aware of in the form of a subsequent epiphanic realization. Given Haas' literary background, it is not surprising that this is articulated through a literary association

Transport Protocol Throughput Fairness

Interest continues to grow in alternative transport protocols to the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). These alternatives include protocols designed to give greater efficiency in high-speed, high-delay environments (so-called high-speed TCP variants), and protocols that provide congestion control without reliability. For the former category, along with the deployed base of ‘vanilla’ TCP – TCP NewReno – the TCP variants BIC and CUBIC are widely used within Linux: for the latter category, the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) is currently on the IETF Standards Track. It is clear that future traffic patterns will consist of a mix of flows from these protocols (and others). So, it is important for users and network operators to be aware of the impact that these protocols may have on users. We show the measurement of fairness in throughput performance of DCCP Congestion Control ID 2 (CCID2) relative to TCP NewReno, and variants Binary Increase Congestion control (BIC), CUBIC and Compound, all in “out-of-the box” configurations. We use a testbed and endto- end measurements to assess overall throughput, and also to assess fairness – how well these protocols might respond to each other when operating over the same end-to-end network path. We find that, in our testbed, DCCP CCID2 shows good fairness with NewReno, while BIC, CUBIC and Compound show unfairness above round-trip times of 25ms

Jet Physics at the Tevatron

Jets have been used to verify the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), measure the structure of the proton and to search for the physics beyond the Standard Model. In this article, we review the current status of jet physics at the Tevatron, a sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV p-pbar collider at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. We report on recent measurements of the inclusive jet production cross section and the results of searches for physics beyond the Standard Model using jets. Dijet production measurements are also reported.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Ann.Rev.Nucl.Part.Sc

Feedforward pilot-aided carrier synchronization using a DCT basis expansion

This contribution deals with phase noise estimation from pilot symbols. The phase noise process is approximated by an expansion of Discrete Cosine-Transform (DCT) basis functions containing only a few terms. We propose a feedforward algorithm that estimates the DCT coefficients without requiring detailed knowledge about the phase noise statistics. We demonstrate that the resulting (linearized) mean-square phase estimation error consists of two contributions: a contribution from the additive noise, that equals the Cramer-Rao lower bound, and a noise-independent contribution that results from the phase noise modeling error. We investigate the effect of the symbol sequence length and the number of estimated DCT coefficients on the estimation accuracy and on the corresponding bit error rate (BER). We propose a pilot symbol configuration allowing to estimate any number of DCT coefficients not exceeding the number of pilot symbols. For large block sizes, the DCT-based estimation algorithm substantially outperforms algorithms that estimate only the time-average or the linear trend of the carrier phase

Pilot-aided carrier synchronization using an approximate DCT-based phase noise model

This contribution deals with phase noise estimation from pilot symbols. The phase noise process is approximated by an expansion of DCT basis functions containing only a few terms. We propose an algorithm that estimates the DCT coefficients without requiring detailed knowledge about the phase noise statistics. We demonstrate that the resulting (linearized) mean-square estimation error consists of two contributions: a contribution from the additive noise, that equals the Cramer-Rao lower bound, and a noise-independent contribution that results from the phase noise modeling error. Performance can be optimized by a proper selection of the symbol block length and of the number of DCT coefficients to be estimated. For large block sizes, considerable performance improvement is found as compared to the case where only the time-average of the carrier phase is estimated

Design and Implementation of Performance Metrics for Evaluation of Assessments Data

The objective of this paper is to design performance metrics and respective formulas to quantitatively evaluate the achievement of set objectives and expected outcomes both at the course and program levels. Evaluation is defined as one or more processes for interpreting the data acquired through the assessment processes in order to determine how well the set objectives and outcomes are being attained. Even though assessment processes for accreditation are well documented but existence of an evaluation process is assumed. This paper focuses on evaluation process to provide insights and techniques for data interpretation. It gives a complete evaluation process from the data collection through various assessment methods, performance metrics, to the presentations in the form of tables and graphs. Authors hope that the articulated description of evaluation formulas will help convergence to high quality standard in evaluation process

Feedforward data-aided phase noise estimation from a DCT basis expansion

This contribution deals with phase noise estimation from pilot symbols. The phase noise process is approximated by an expansion of discrete cosine transform (DCT) basis functions containing only a few terms. We propose a feedforward algorithm that estimates the DCT coefficients without requiring detailed knowledge about the phase noise statistics. We demonstrate that the resulting (linearized) mean-square phase estimation error consists of two contributions: a contribution from the additive noise, that equals the Cramer-Rao lower bound, and a noise independent contribution, that results front the phase noise modeling error. We investigate the effect of the symbol sequence length, the pilot symbol positions, the number of pilot symbols, and the number of estimated DCT coefficients it the estimation accuracy and on the corresponding bit error rate (PER). We propose a pilot symbol configuration allowing to estimate any number of DCT coefficients not exceeding the number of pilot Symbols, providing a considerable Performance improvement as compared to other pilot symbol configurations. For large block sizes, the DCT-based estimation algorithm substantially outperforms algorithms that estimate only the time-average or the linear trend of the carrier phase. Copyright (C) 2009 J. Bhatti and M. Moeneclaey