Marker

Introduction: Finding an accurate diagnostic test can reduce the rate of unnecessary abdominal surgery in cases of suspected acute appendicitis (AA). This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of serum lactoferrin (LF) and procalcitonin (PCT) in detection of patients with acute appendicitis.
Methods: In this diagnostic accuracy study, screening performance characteristics of PCT and LF were calculated in patients suspected with acute appendicitis and healthy volunteers as control group.
Results: 131 cases participated (61 as case and 70 as control). The mean serum level of LF (0.9±0.14 vs 0.2±0.13 µg/ml; p 0.0001) and PCT (0.15±0.21 vs 0.11±0.02 ng/dl; p = 0.02) were significantly higher in patients suspected with AA. The AUC of PCT and LF were 0.46 (95% CI: 0.31-0.61) and 0.61 (95%CI: 0.47 - 0.76), respectively. At a 0.90 µg/ml cut-off value, LF had 77% (95 % CI: 63 - 91) sensitivity and 43% (95 % CI: 31 - 55) specificity. Also, at a 0.11 ng/dl cut-off value, PCT had 41% (95 % CI: 26 - 56) sensitivity and 69% (95 % CI: 53 - 85) specificity.
Conclusion: Based on the main finding of present study, the overall accuracy of serum PCT and LF in detection of patients with acute appendicitis are in poor to failed range and it seems that they could not be considered as good screening tools for this purpose.

A guidance system is needed when freshmen explore their new building environment. With the advancements of mobile technologies, a guidance system using mobile computing devices such as mobile phones or tablets could aid freshmen in locating the desired destination with ease. The proposed system consists of three main subsystems: the marker-based cyber-physical interaction (CPI) system, the indoor positioning (IP) system, and the augmented-reality (AR) system. With the help of visible markers and invisible markers, the CPI system allows the users to do interactions between the physical and cyber environments; the IP system produces accurate user position information; the AR system provides the users with good user experiences. An Android application, named Engfi Gate, is developed to realize the system design in the test environment. This paper also shows the comparisons of the proposed system with other related systems. Furthermore, the design architecture of Engfi Gate system can b...

Incorporating marker information into analysis of lifetime data is a topic treated in the current literature in many different ways. In this paper we apply a Bayesian approach to the model introduced by Whitmore, Crowder and Lawless in 1998. In their model they assumed that observable marker process and a latent “true” degradation process together follow a bivariate Wiener process with marker value available at the failure time with censoring. Using data augmentation method for the latent degradation for surviving subjects we construct a full Bayesian model with a closed form posterior distribution. As a sampling procedure we use Metropolis-Hastings within Gibbs algorithm. The model and estimating procedure are applied to a simulated data set from the original article by Whitmore, Crowder and Lawless in order to evaluate the performance of our algorithm. Our method appears to work well, while allowing also to incorporate prior information on the parameters of the model, which can be...

A guidance system is needed when freshmen explore their new building environment. With the advancements of mobile technologies, a guidance system using mobile computing devices such as mobile phones or tablets could aid freshmen in locating the desired destination with ease. The proposed system consists of three main subsystems: the marker-based cyber-physical interaction (CPI) system, the indoor positioning (IP) system, and the augmented-reality (AR) system. With the help of visible markers and invisible markers, the CPI system allows the users to do interactions between the physical and cyber environments; the IP system produces accurate user position information; the AR system provides the users with good user experiences. An Android application, named Engfi Gate, is developed to realize the system design in the test environment. This paper also shows the comparisons of the proposed system with other related systems. Furthermore, the design architecture of Engfi Gate system can be used in other location-based applications. 1. INTRODUCTION At the early visit, freshmen or new students need navigation guidance to ease them finding their destination room in a building. The common current physical navigation signs are often confusing and even more, make them lost inside the building. This problem makes freshman spend more effort to find their intended destination. In order to address this problem, an interactive guidance system is needed. In this work, we propose design and implementation of an interactive guidance system that enables interaction between guidance system, building environment, and freshmen. This system provides general information such as maps and images of the building, location-based information like directions, and descriptions of specific places/rooms/facilities for helping new students (or users) explore their department buildings. This system consists of three subsystems: the marker-based cyber-physical interaction (CPI) system, the indoor positioning (IP) system, and the augmented-reality (AR) system. The CPI system uses concept of the cyber-physical system (CPS) which collects sensor data from the physical world and links them to various information sources for real-time analysis in the cyber environment [1]. The IP system produces accurate user position updates so that the system can provide the users with proper and timely location-based information. An AR system has high potential to improve the user experience of applications in which users must access information that has a direct spatial relation to their immediate environment [2]. An Android application, named Engfi Gate, is developed to realize the system design in the test environment of the Engineering Building five at the National Central University, Taiwan.

The weakness of the research on developing Marker Based Augmented Reality applications found is using small digital content. Weakness is caused by the area of view of Augmented Reality cameras is limited by the placement of markers that are affordable to the user's hand. This study reproducing large digital objects by cutting large digital objects into many pieces. But to keep continuity accuracy between digital object pieces, this study aims to modify the grid method to become a vertex marker. Vertex marker is produced by removing the edge and using the vertex to place the marker. Vertex markers inherit the advantages of the Grid method. Therefore, vertex markers can be used to reproduce large digital objects accurately and can be reached by hand when displayed. The aim of this study is to measure the accuracy of the grid method that has been modified into a marker. The fundamental contributions and advantages of the vertex marker are innovations in the field of Marker Based Au...

The prognosis of patients with malignant glioma is poor. Identification of novel and effective biomarkers for this purpose has long been an important target. In this study, we investigated the role and expression of GFAP, YKL-40 and RBP4 in glioma patients. We evaluated the expression of markers above on glioma by ELISA, qRT-PCR, Western blot, Kaplan-Meier method, log-rank test and Cox proportional-hazard analysis. The median RBP4 level in serum sample of patients was 53.61 ± 21.23 ng/ml, while it was 13.07 ± 10.31 ng/ml in control group. Moreover, the result revealed raised serum concentrations of YKL-40 and GFAP in patients as compared to controls. (The median level: 293.51± 105.41 versus 86.4 ± 51.2 ng/ml; 187.51± 91.06 versus 24.27 ± 12.64 ng/ml, respectively).And also, the transcriptional levels of RBP4 were determined to be increased in tumor tissue samples compared with control samples (mean ± SD: 2.82 ± 1.23 vs. 0.75 ± 0.21, P <0.001), as well as transcriptional levels YKL-40 and GFAP were notably strong in glioma patients, comparable to that seen in control tissues (mean ± SD: 5.33± 1.13 vs. 1.21 ± 0.86; 3.05± 1.37 vs. 0.68 ± 0.34; all P <0.001). Consistent with the transcriptional levels, western blotting analysis also indicated that the RBP4, YKL-40 and GFAP proteins were increased in glioma tissues. Furthermore, the serum RBP4 level was not linked to advanced tumor grade, age, location or gender or with Karnofsky performance Status (KPS) (all P >0.05). The serum YKL-40 and GFAP levels were significantly higher in glioma patients with high tumor grades (P= 0.001). The Kaplan-Meier analysis and the Log-rank test showed that high expression of YKL-40 and GFAP were associated with shorter survival (All p <0.001), while RBP4 expression was not related to shorter survival (P >0.05). Our results showed that high serum expression of YKL-40 and GFAP were independent prognostic molecule biomarkers for poor prognosis prediction in glioma patients.

Objective
This study aimed to investigate the genetic diversity of different genotypes of this valuable medicinal plant under the same culture condition which can be used as an introduction to domestication, germplasm conservation, and possible cross in the future.

Materials and Methods
In this study, after preparing 20 different genotypes from all over Iran, they were cultivated in complete randomized blocks design with three replications under the same condition. After extraction of DNA, the survey of genetic diversity using 12 ISSR markers from 15 markers was conducted by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The essential oil for each genotype was extracted by water distillation. The dry yield based on gr/m2 and essential oil content (w/w, based on dry weight) were measured. Furthermore, the correlation of molecular markers with dry yield and essential oil content from each genotype was determined using stepwise regression. 

Results
The mean percentage of polymorphism determined in all the genotypes was 91.97. The number of polymorphic bands for each primer varied from 5 to 9 and a total of 89 replicate bands were scored, of which 82 bands showed polymorphism. The average content of primer information polymorphism (PIC) was estimated to be 0.31 and the IS1 primer showed the highest PIC (0.46). The Ni and Shannon indices for IS1 primers were 0.43 and 0.61, respectively. Cluster analysis using the Jaccard similarity coefficient and UPGMA algorithm divided the studied genotypes into four groups. The highest genetic distance was observed between Khuzestan and Qazvin genotypes with a coefficient of 0.39 and the lowest between Kerman-2 and Kerman-4 genotypes with a similarity coefficient of 0.77. Stepwise regression showed that the IS10 primer has a coefficient of 0.70 with the essential oil percentage and dry matter yield.

Conclusion
The results of this study showed that ISSR markers can be effectively used to study the genetic diversity of wild mint genotypes and will provide the possibility of breeding. So that, IS1 and IS10 primers were introduced as the best markers. Also, Khuzestan and Qazvin genotypes had the highest genetic distance.
Keywords: Breeding, Genetic diversity, Marker, Wild mint.