The principal methods for the serological diagnosis of bovine brucellosis are the complement fixation test (CFT), serum agglutination test (SAT), Rose-Bengal test (RBT), indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (iELISA) and more recently the competitive ELISA (cELISA) and the fluorescent polarisation assay (FPA). Guidelines set by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) describe method...

I consider …rst-price auctions (FPA) and second-price auctions (SPA) with two asymmetric bidders. The FPA is known to be more pro…table than the SPA if the strong bidder’s distribution function is convex and the weak bidder’s distribution is obtained by truncating or horizontally shifting the former. In this paper, I employ a new mechanism design result to show that the FPA remains optimal if t...

[1] The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor was launched 28 October 2011 on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite. VIIRS has 22 spectral bands covering the spectrum between 0.412μm and 12.01μm, including 16 moderate resolution bands (M-bands) with a nominal spatial resolution of 750m at nadir, five imaging resolution bands (I-bands) with a nominal s...

Recent developments in molecular breeding and directed evolution have promised great developments in industrial enzymes as demonstrated by exponential improvements in beta-lactamase and green fluorescent protein (GFP). Detection of and screening for improved enzymes are relatively easy if the target enzyme is expressible in a suitable high-throughput screening host and a clearly defined and usa...

India is committed to eliminate filariasis by 2015. To achieve this goal annual mass drug administration (MDA) of diethylcarbamazine (DEC) was launched in 2004 by the Government of India1,2. According to the guidelines, DEC should be administered under supervision to all people excluding children <2 yr, pregnant women and severely ill persons (noneligible). The recommended DEC dosage is one tab...

RNA requires helical motion to fold and carry out its function. As RNA helical motion occurs on the nanosecond timescale, the timescale probed by fluorescence dyes, fluorescence polarization anisotropy (FPA) is a simple, yet powerful, technique to study helical dynamics in RNA. With the recent development of several fluorescent base analogs that have a nanosecond timescale lifetime in a duplex,...

We have recently shown that two proteins containing RRM-type RNA-binding domains, FCA and FPA, originally identified through their role in flowering time control in Arabidopsis, silence transposons and other repeated sequences in the Arabidopsis genome. In flowering control, FCA and FPA function in the autonomous pathway with conserved chromatin regulators, the histone demethylase FLD and the M...

BACKGROUND The hemostatic system plays an important role in thrombotic lesions, which can complicate the clinical course of hypertensive patients. The aim of this study was to verify a possible activation of the blood clotting processes, the evaluation of two markers of thrombin activation in 62 hypertensive patients, with and without vascular complications, compared with a control group. MET...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether obesity increases platelet reactivity and thrombin activity in patients with type 2 diabetes plus stable coronary artery disease. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We assessed platelet reactivity and markers of thrombin generation and activity in 193 patients from nine clinical sites of the Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation 2 Diabetes (BARI 2D). Blood...

This paper presents Free Parking System (FPS), a system for assigning free curbside parking spaces to drivers in the cities. FPS has two components: a mobile app running on the drivers’ smart phones that submits parking requests and guides drivers to their parking spaces, and a server that manages the parking assignment process. Unlike existing parking systems, FPS is cost-effective as it does ...