Alternative antibody for the detection of CA125 antigen: a European multicenter study for the evaluation of the analytical and clinical performance of the Access (R) OV Monitor assay on the UniCel (R) Dxl 800 Immunoassay System

Background: Cancer antigen CA125 is known as a valuable marker for the management of ovarian cancer. Methods: The analytical and clinical performance of the Access OV Monitor Immunoassay System (Beckman Coulter) was evaluated at five different European sites and compared with a reference system, defined as CA125 on the Elecsys System (Roche Diagnostics). Results: Total imprecision (%CV) of the OV Monitor ranged between 3.1% and 8.8%, and inter-laboratory reproducibility between 4.7% and 5.0%. Linearity upon dilution showed a mean recovery of 100% (SD+8.1%). Endogenous interferents had no influence on OV Monitor levels (mean recoveries: hemoglobin 107%, bilirubin 103%, triglycericles 103%). There was no high-dose hook effect up to 27,193 kU/L. Clinical performance investigated in sera from 1811 individuals showed a good correlation between the Access OV Monitor and Elecsys CA125 (R = 0.982, slope = 0.921, intercept = + 1.951). OV Monitor serum levels were low in healthy individuals (n = 267, median = 9.7 kU/L, 95th percentile = 30.8 kU/L), higher in individuals with various benign diseases (n = 549, medians = 10.9-16.4 kU/L, 95th percentiles = 44.2-355 kU/L) and even higher in individuals suffering from various cancers (n = 995, medians= 12.4-445 kU/L; 95th percentiles = 53.4-4664 kU/L). Optimal diagnostic accuracy for cancer detection against the relevant benign control group by the OV Monitor was found for ovarian cancer {[}area under the curve (AUC) 0.898]. Results for the reference CA125 assay were comparable (AUC 0.899). Conclusions: The Access OV Monitor provides very good methodological characteristics and demonstrates an excellent analytical and clinical correlation with Elecsys CA125. The best diagnostic accuracy for the OV Monitor was found in ovarian cancer. Our results also suggest a clinical value of the OV Monitor in other cancers

The production and decay of the top partner TT in the left-right twin higgs model at the ILC and CLIC

The left-right twin Higgs model (LRTHM) predicts the existence of the top partner $T$. In this work, we make a systematic investigation for the single and pair production of this top partner $T$ through the processes: e^{+}e^{-}\to t\ov{T} + T\bar{t} and T\ov{T}, the neutral scalar (the SM-like Higgs boson $h$ or neutral pseudoscalar boson $\phi^{0}$) associate productions e^{+}e^{-}\to t\ov{T}h +T\bar{t}h, T\ov{T}h, t\ov{T}\phi^{0}+T\bar{t}\phi^{0} and T\ov{T}\phi^{0}. From the numerical evaluations for the production cross sections and relevant phenomenological analysis we find that (a) the production rates of these processes, in the reasonable parameter space, can reach the level of several or tens of fb; (b) for some cases, the peak value of the resonance production cross section can be enhanced significantly and reaches to the level of pb; (c) the subsequent decay of $T\to \phi^{+}b \to t\bar{b}b$ may generate typical phenomenological features rather different from the signals from other new physics models beyond the standard model(SM); and (d) since the relevant SM background is generally not large, some signals of the top partner $T$ predicted by the LRTHM may be detectable in the future ILC and CLIC experiments.Comment: 20pages, 15 figures and 6 Tables. Minor corrections on text. new references adde

OV Graphs Are (Probably) Hard Instances

© Josh Alman and Virginia Vassilevska Williams. A graph G on n nodes is an Orthogonal Vectors (OV) graph of dimension d if there are vectors v1, . . ., vn ∈ {0, 1}d such that nodes i and j are adjacent in G if and only if hvi, vji = 0 over Z. In this paper, we study a number of basic graph algorithm problems, except where one is given as input the vectors defining an OV graph instead of a general graph. We show that for each of the following problems, an algorithm solving it faster on such OV graphs G of dimension only d = O(log n) than in the general case would refute a plausible conjecture about the time required to solve sparse MAX-k-SAT instances: Determining whether G contains a triangle. More generally, determining whether G contains a directed k-cycle for any k ≥ 3. Computing the square of the adjacency matrix of G over Z or F2. Maintaining the shortest distance between two fixed nodes of G, or whether G has a perfect matching, when G is a dynamically updating OV graph. We also prove some complementary results about OV graphs. We show that any problem which is NP-hard on constant-degree graphs is also NP-hard on OV graphs of dimension O(log n), and we give two problems which can be solved faster on OV graphs than in general: Maximum Clique, and Online Matrix-Vector Multiplication