elected Secretary General of the International Paediatric Association. He has now written his memoirs as a highly personal account of the changes seen during the many years he has been engaged in clinical work, research, teaching and administration. He reviews an almost encyclopaedic range of topics, from the changes in the nature of diseases to the changed aspect of medical congresses. Even th...

Most system architects don’t feel at home in management teams or meetings. The other way around managers often see architects as a mixed blessing and don’t perceive them as peer manager. The relation of the architect with the manager is full of tension. This intermezzo reflects on the underlying causes of this tension, in the hope to enable a better relationship. An improved relationship is imp...

Traditionally, AI researchers have been attracted by the idea of creating machines that are intelligent, or understanding of the nature of human intelligence. My path to becoming an AI researcher was nontraditional, and in a way, this path has shaped my view on what the important issues are in AI. My computer science Ph.D. dissertation was not in AI or a related field, but in parallel computer ...

leaf hydraulic conductance, components of tissue water potential, hydraulic architecture parameters and xylem embolism were examined in greenhouse-grown two-year-old Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis Mill.) seedlings from six origins representing the geographic range of the species in Italy. Cortical resin composition of the seedlings was also determined. Measurements were made on well-watered seed...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis C virus (HCV) core antigen (Ag) levels are known to be well correlating with HCV RNA levels, and may be used as an alternative marker of HCV replication for monitoring the response to HCV treatment. However, the low sensitivity of HCV core Ag assay has been an obstacle for clinical use. In this study, recently developed ARCHITECT HCV Ag assay (Abbott Laboratories, USA) was ...

Commercial immunoassays for detecting IgG and IgM antibodies against Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), viral capsid antigens (VCA), and IgGs toward EBV nuclear antigen-1 (EBNA-1) are routinely used in combination to categorize EBV infection status. In this study, we evaluated the performances of the Architect EBV VCA IgG, VCA IgM, and EBNA-1 IgG chemiluminescent microparticle assays (CMIAs) in EBV sero...

BACKGROUND Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) is used to detect primary hypo- and hyperthyroidism. Current guidelines for TSH assays recommend a functional sensitivity of < or =0.02 mIU/L. The protocol for determining the functional sensitivity of TSH assays specifies analyses of serum samples with two reagent lots over a 6- to 8-week period. METHODS We determined the functional sensitivities ...

Routine use of the automated chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay Abbott ARCHITECT anti-HBc for diagnosis of hepatitis B is limited in case of borderline reactive sera with low signal close to the cut-off index. In order to determine the significance of anti-HBc detection when borderline reactivity occurs using the ARCHITECT anti-HBc assay, a comparative study was designed. 3540 serum sam...