Automated analysis of confocal laser endomicroscopy images to detect head and neck cancer.

Background: The purpose of this study was to develop an automated image analysis algorithm to discriminate between head and neck cancer and nonneoplastic epithelium in confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) images.

Methods: CLE was applied to image head and neck cancer epithelium in vivo. Histopathologic diagnosis from biopsies was used to classify the CLE images offline as cancer or noncancer tissue.

Postural responses without versus with acute external cervical spine fixation: a comparative study in healthy subjects and patients with acute unilateral vestibular loss.

Using a diagnostic prospective cohort single center study design, the influence of a cervical collar on standing balance during dynamic postural perturbations in healthy adults and patients with acute unilateral vestibular dysfunction was measured in 31 healthy subjects and 27 patients with acute unilateral vestibular loss. The main outcome measures were completed standard protocols on the Sensory Organization Test (SOT) and Motor Control Test (MCT) of the NeuroCom Equitest(®) computerized posturography platform measured without and with acute cervical fixation, respectively. Paired t test showed no significant difference during the six conditions of neither the SOT scores nor analyzing the SOT strategies or during the MCT between the non-fixed and fixed neck in healthy subjects and in the patients (all p > 0.

Two-fraction and three-fraction continuous simulated moving bed separation of nucleosides.

A new experimental set-up and a new simulated moving bed (SMB) operation are presented in this work. A desktop SMB unit developed as a modification of the commercial AKTA explorer working platform has been utilized for the separation of different mixtures of nucleosides. Both two fraction and three fraction SMB separations have been carried out, the latter made possible by the adoption of a new SMB configuration and operating mode (three fraction SMB, 3F-SMB, operation).

Plasmid DNA purification.

The demand for efficient production methods of plasmid DNA (pDNA) has increased vastly in response to rapid advances in the use of pDNA in gene therapy and in vaccines since the advantageous safety concerns associated with non-viral over viral vectors.A prerequisite for the success of plasmid-based therapies is the development of cost-effective and generic production processes of pDNA. However, to satisfy strict regulatory guidelines, the material must be available as highly purified, homogeneous preparations of supercoiled circular covalently closed (ccc) pDNA.

Supercoiled plasmid DNA: selective purification by thiophilic/aromatic adsorption.

Separation of the different plasmid isoforms is a major challenge in purifying plasmid DNA. We describe a new type of biochemical interaction that occurs in the presence of high concentrations of lyotropic salt and results in the selective adsorption of supercoiled plasmid DNA to aromatic thioether ligands. Under well-defined conditions, these ligands are capable of separating supercoiled plasmid DNA (ccc) from its isoform, i.