Quantification of gliadin levels to the picogram level by flow cytometry

Celiac disease is a widely prevalent enteropathy caused by intolerance to gliadin, one of the gluten proteins. We developed two methods for the analysis of gliadin levels. Both methods use flow cytometry and rat antibodies against a 16-residue peptide of gliadin. The peptide is common to the alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and omega-gliadins

The downsides of the UK eventually joining NAFTA

It would expose British farming and manufacturing, and make free trade with the EU less likely - by Daniel Capparell

Dyck paths, Motzkin paths, and the binomial transform

We study the moments of orthogonal polynomial sequences (OPS) arising from tridiagonal matrices. We obtain combinatorial information about the sequence of moments of some OPS in terms of Motzkin and Dyck paths, and also in terms of the binomial transform. We then introduce an equivalence relation on the set of Dyck paths and some operations on them. We determine a formula for the cardinality of those equivalence classes, and use this information to obtain a combinatorial formula for the number of Dyck and Motzkin paths of a fixed length

The impact of theoretical assumptions in the determination of the neutrino effective number from future CMB measurements

One of the major goals of future Cosmic Microwave Background measurements is the accurate determination of the effective number of neutrinos $N_{\rm eff}$. Reaching an experimental sensitivity of $\Delta N_{\rm eff} = 0.013$ could indeed falsify the presence of any non-standard relativistic particles at $95 \%$ c.l.. In this paper, we test how this future constraint can be affected by the removal of two common assumptions: a negligible running of the inflationary spectral index $n_{\rm run}$ and a precise determination of the neutron lifetime $\tau_n$. We first show that the constraints on $N_{\rm eff}$ could be significantly biased by the unaccounted presence of a running of the spectral index. Considering the Stage-IV experiment, a negative running of ${\rm d}n/{\rm d}\ln k= - 0.002$ could mimic a positive variation of $\Delta N_{\rm eff} = 0.03$. Moreover, given the current discrepancies between experimental measurements of the neutron lifetime $\tau_n$, we show that the assumption of a conservative error of $\Delta\tau_n \sim 10$s could bring to a systematic error of $\Delta N_{\rm eff} = 0.02$. Complementary cosmological constraints on the running of the spectral index and a solution to the neutron lifetime discrepancy are therefore needed for an accurate and reliable future CMB bound of $N_{\rm eff}$ at percent level.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

The Rogers--Ramanujan recursion and intertwining operators

We use vertex operator algebras and intertwining operators to study certain substructures of standard $A_1^{(1)}$--modules, allowing us to conceptually obtain the classical Rogers--Ramanujan recursion. As a consequence we recover Feigin-Stoyanovsky's character formulas for the principal subspaces of the level 1 standard $A_1^{(1)}$--modules.Comment: minor change

Dosing Oncology Therapeutics in Combination Therapy for Renal Dysfunction: The University of California San Diego Study of Personalized Cancer Therapy to Determine Response and Toxicity (UCSD-PREDICT) Experience.

Introduction Dose reductions are often required to avoid toxicity in combination therapy for advanced cancers, but information on appropriate dose reductions in renal dysfunction is lacking. This study assessed dose reductions of renally cleared oncology agents given in combination therapy in the setting of renal dysfunction. Methods A database of 1,072 patients was screened to identify patients with renal dysfunction (glomerular filtration rate < 60 mL/min) receiving oncology combination therapy with at least one agent requiring dose reduction for renal insufficiency. The dose of the renal agent was compared to the single-agent renal dosing recommendations to calculate a dose percentage. Tolerability was determined from electronic medical records review. Results Thirty-three regimens (n = 25 patients) were identified: 11 included at least one targeted agent (n = 8 patients) and 22 had only cytotoxic chemotherapy (n = 18 patients). The renal agent was given at the recommended single-agent renal dose in ~50% of combinations; ~50% of all regimens were tolerated, and only six combinations had dose reductions for toxicity. The median final dose percentage was 100% of the recommended renal dose (range: 25% - 333%); no significant differences were seen between groups (cytotoxic - tolerated, cytotoxic - not tolerated, targeted - tolerated, targeted - not tolerated; p = 0.38). No significant differences were observed between tolerated vs. non-tolerated (p = 0.97) or targeted vs. cytotoxic (p = 0.80) regimens. Conclusions Dose reductions of renally cleared agents are highly variable in oncology patients with renal dysfunction. Additional studies are needed to determine appropriate dosing adjustments in this population