BACKGROUND SNOMED RT represents a fundamental change from prior versions of SNOMED. The logic-based structure of SNOMED RT enables concepts to be defined more explicitly, providing an opportunity to address inconsistencies and ambiguities present in prior SNOMED concept definitions. OBJECTIVES Create a unifying organizational strategy for all SNOMED RT procedures, and remove ambiguities in pr...

Something I notice often in supervising new graduate students is their frustration with the irreproducibility of their biological data. For example, I am asked frequently ‘‘how many biological replicates do I need for qRT-PCR’’? The answer, of course, lies first with the students themselves. They need as many replicates as will persuade them of the validity of their observations. However, for m...

Reports investigating whether the response rates to palliative radiation therapy (RT) for painful bone metastases from gastrointestinal (GI) cancers are similar to rates for bone metastases from other primary cancer sites have been limited. The present study evaluated response rates for symptomatic bone metastases from GI cancers after palliative outpatient RT in the Rapid Response Radiotherapy...

Reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) has traditionally required time-consuming RNA extraction and purification. This report demonstrates that one can completely avoid the RNA extraction step in RT-PCR by basing the comparison of samples on cell number rather than micrograms of total RNA. A new method for lysing cells while preserving RNA is described. RT-PCR is carried out (i) by rapidly freezing...

The unified modeling language (UML) developed under the coordination of the Object Management Group (OMG) is one of the most important standards for the specification and design of object oriented systems. This standard is currently tuned for real time applications in the form of a new proposal, UML for Real-Time (UML-RT), by Rational Software Corporation and ObjecTime Limited. Because of the i...

With model-driven development being on the verge of becoming an industrial standard, systematic development strategies based on safe model transformations is a demand. However, the lack of a formal semantics makes the application of such transformations inadequate, especially transformations that must take into account changes in both behavioural and structural diagrams. As part of the Master t...

In this paper a new fast fault simulation technique is presented for calculation of fault propagation through HLPs (High Level Primitives). ROTDDs (Reduced Ordered Ternary Decision Diagrams) are used to describe HLP modules. The technique is implemented in the HTDD RTlevel fault simulator. The simulator is evaluated with some ITC99 benchmarks. A hypothesis is proved that a test set coverage of ...

Infectious bursal disease (IBD) is an immunosuppressive, acute and highly contagious illness of growing-poultry stock infected with infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV). It is common in Pakistan, causing potential economic losses throughout the year. The objective of the study is to propose a rapid, sensitive and specific diagnostic tool, and compare it with existing commonly used reverse tra...