IGNIS Innovation (Canada)

Most human tumor tissues that are obtained for pathology and diagnostic purposes are formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE). To perform quantitative proteomics of FFPE samples, paraffin has to be removed and formalin-induced crosslinks have to be reversed prior to proteolytic digestion. A central component of almost all deparaffinization protocols is xylene, a toxic and highly flammable solvent that has been reported to negatively affect protein extraction and quantitative proteome analysis. Here, we present a ‘green’ xylene-free protocol for accelerated sample preparation of FFPE tissues based on paraffin-removal with hot water. Combined with tissue homogenization using disposable micropestles and a modified protein aggregation capture (PAC) digestion protocol, our workflow enables streamlined and reproducible quantitative proteomic profiling of FFPE tissue. Label-free quantitation of FFPE cores from human ductal breast carcinoma in situ (DCIS) xenografts with a volume of only 0.79 mm3 showed a high correlation between replicates (r2 = 0.992) with a median %CV of 16.9%. Importantly, this small volume is already compatible with tissue micro array (TMA) cores and core needle biopsies, while our results and its ease-of-use indicate that further downsizing is feasible. Finally, our FFPE workflow does not require costly equipment and can be established in every standard clinical laboratory.

The use of systemic glucocorticoids (GCs), as well as local injections, continues to be a controversial issue in the sport/anti-doping community. There is widespread and legitimate use of GCs for numerous health conditions, yet there are concerns about side effects and the possibility of enhanced athletic performance in limited settings. This is compounded by the uncertainty regarding the prevalence of GC use, mechanisms underlying physiological effects and complex pharmacokinetics of different formulations. While WADA continues to promote research in this complex area, some international sporting federations, major event organisers and professional sports leagues have introduced innovative rules such as needle policies, mandatory rest periods and precompetition guidelines to promote judicious use of GCs, focusing on athlete health and supervision of medical personnel. These complementary sport-specific rules are helping to ensure the appropriate use of GCs in athletes where overuse is a particular concern. Where systemic GCs are medically necessary, Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) may be granted after careful evaluation by TUE Committees based on specific and strict criteria. Continued vigilance and cooperation between physicians, scientists and anti-doping organisations is essential to ensure that GC use in sport respects not only principles of fairness and adherence to the rules but also promotes athlete health and well-being. The purpose of this narrative review is to summarise the use and management of GCs in sport illustrating several innovative programmes by sport leagues and federations.

e21038Background: While most ALK+ NSCLC patients (pts) initially respond to crizotinib, resistance ultimately develops. The identification of fusion partners and mutations in ALK has led to the dev...

Digital Earth frameworks provide a tool to receive, send and interact with large location-based datasets, organized usually according to Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS). In DGGS, an indexing method is used to assign a unique index to each cell of a global grid, and the datasets corresponding to these cells are retrieved or allocated using this unique index. There exist many methods to index cells of DGGS. Toward facility, interoperability and also defining a “standard” for DGGS, a conversion is needed to translate a dataset from one DGGS to another. In this paper, we first propose a categorization of indexing methods of DGGS and then define a general conversion method from one indexing to another. Several examples are presented to describe the method.

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For some applications such as high-resolution AMOLED displays for TVs and monitors, as well as for highly sensitive imaging modalities such as radiography and radiotherapy, the backplane should compensate for all the effects caused by the aging or mismatches to achieve the intended accuracy (e.g. less than 0.5% differential aging for a TV screen). While the entire proposed driving scheme compensates only for the static effect of V T -shift (i.e. drop in the pixel current/gain), the transient effects such as charge injection and clock feed-through can cause up to 10% error in the pixel characteristics. To solve this issue, we introduce a calibration technique capable of controlling the transient effects as well as the static effect of the V T -shift (mismatches) [108, 112, 113]. Moreover, a hybrid approach is introduced that takes advantage of both calibration technique and in-pixel compensation. Time-dependent charge injection and clock feed-through To compensate for the V T -shift/mismatch, the compensation techniques [64, 67] lead to a modification in the gate voltage of the drive TFT to provide a constant overdrive voltage. However, as a consequence of this change in the gate voltage, clock feed-through and charge injection associated with the parasitic capacitances change over time. Since the storage capacitor cannot be large due to the mandated frame time and aperture ratio, the parasitic capacitances stemming from the overlap of the gate over the drain and source become comparable. Moreover, the threshold voltage of the switch TFTs decreases since they are under negative bias stress during most of the frame time [58]. Consequently, the charge profile of their channels changes for a given programming voltage inducing a time-dependent error.

The Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) has been used as a variance-reduction estimation tool for an efficient sampling-based variability analysis of analog circuits. For a certain estimation confidence interval, a lower number of LHS samples is needed than that of Monte Carlo due to the estimation variance reduction. In this paper, an analysis of variance decomposition of the indicator function, the yield function, reveals strong contribution of interactive terms in the variance of the yield function, leading to limited performance gain of the traditional LHS sampling. In order to improve its efficiency, two correlation-controlled LHS methods are developed to reduce the required number of LHS samples for analog circuit yield estimation.

ABSTRACTAn amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film transistor (TFT) circuit designed for charging of an energy storage device using a photovoltaic (PV) array is presented. The TFT circuit is fabricated at plastic compatible temperatures (∼150°C) and as such can easily be integrated within a range of platforms including flexible displays. The circuit provides a high degree of output voltage stability over a range of light intensities and device stress.

The use of a vertical thin film transistor (VTFT) topology in the flat panel active matrix array, opens up a plethora of new high performance applications. The VTFT is small in footprint by virtue of its stacked layer configuration, in which channel lengths can be conveniently scaled down to nanometer regime without having to resort to photolithography as would otherwise be needed when scaling lateral TFTs. More importantly, the VTFT is also fully compatible to the materials and processes used in flat panel technology, takes making it amenable to large area scaling. In the VTFT, the source and drain electrodes are vertically stacked and separated by an intermediate insulator layer. The channel is formed on the vertical sidewall of the source/insulator/drain stack. Since the thickness of intermediate insulator layer defines the channel length, this can now be accurately controlled at the nanometer scale via the thickness of the insulator layer. While nanoscale channel length VTFTs in amorphous silicon (a-Si) have been demonstrated previously, one of the biggest issues was the lack of good saturation behavior at high drain voltages, which made reduction of the gate dielectric thickness mandatory. However, reducing the gate dielectric thickness leads to high gate leakage and early dielectric breakdown. This presentation is on short-channel VTFTs with excellent saturation characteristics, achieved by an ultra-thin silicon nitride (SiN <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">x</sub> ) gate dielectric using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD).