Introduction: Low sensitivity and specificity in traditional laboratory tests became insufficient for accurate diagnostics and initiation of proper treatment of patients infected with bacterial meningitis. High sensitivity Creactive protein (hsCRP) may be an appropriate supplement for rapid diagnosis of bacterial meningitis. The subject of our investigation was the determination of C- reactive protein in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) during acute bacterial meningitis. Methods: HsCRP was analysed by a sensitive immunoturbidimetric assay using the Dimension RxL analyser (Siemens). Cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of C-reactive protein have been measured in 20 patients (age range,1 to 50 years) presenting with acute bacterial meningitis and also in a non-infected, non-inflamed control group (n=25). Results: The accuracy and precision of the method proved to be satisfactory. Repeatability of serial sampling for hsCRP described by coefficient of variation were CV=2.1-4.5%. This assay hsCRP in cerebrospinal fluid demonstrates adequate performance characteristics for routine clinical use. Elevated levels of CRP were found in 95% patients with bacterial meningitis. The mean CRP value in 25 uninfected control group was 0.25 mg/L (range 0.10-0.55). The mean CRP for patients with bacterial meningitis was 21.4 mg/L (range 0.40-100). Conclusions: A sensitive assay for CRP in CSF would be an useful adjunct to conventional investigation of acute infective meningitis.

The first wave of cancer genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revealed tens of independent loci marked by common variants of unknown or likely no functional significance that explain about 5-10% of familial risk for the particular disease. The approach taken to date has been conservative, and only a fraction of information has yet to be extracted from these expensive enterprises. For example, the Bonferroni procedure for selecting candidate phase II SNPs ignores many SNPs that happen to fail an extremely low p-value threshold. While this procedure does guarantee control of false positives, it seems counterintuitive to the purpose of phase I, which is to generate hypotheses based on promising candidates. Researchers have generally combined data from the discovery phase I and other phases and used ‘genome-wide thresholds’ based on assuming all SNPs are independent. Linkage disequilibrium (LD) makes it problematic to differentiate a real signal from highly correlated proxy signals. Most published GWAS do not examine SNP interactions due to: (a) the high computational complexity of computing pvalues for the interaction terms, and (b) the typically low power to detect significant interactions. It is plausible that more information should be extracted if: (i) higher order interactions are fitted, (ii) highly selected cases and controls are used in phase I, (iii) large replication studies are used, especially if involving existing GWAS data, (iv) the non-independence of SNPs is taken into account using, e.g. BEAGLE CALL or haplotype analyses, (v) focus is on candidate gene pathways, and/or functional SNPs, and (vi) rarer and more SNPs, such as is available from the Illumina 5M SNP chip, are used. We will illustrate these ideas using data from a GWAS of early-onset breast cancers, enriched for those with a family history, and a GWAS using extremes sample of extremes for mammographic density. We will also discuss the design of a large international breast cancer GWAS using the Illumina 5M SNP chip, phase I cases enriched for family history, population-based phase II cases and controls, population-based family study of candidate SNPs, and GxG analyses using ‘massively parallel’ super computing.

In mechanical technique, transmission means appliance which is used as intermediary mechanism between driving machine (e.g. of engine) and working (consumed) machine. The role of transmission is transmitting of mechanical energy from main shaft of driving machine to main shaft of working machine. The selection of transmission is limited by the price of complete appliance, by working environment, by dimensions of the appliance, technical regulations, etc. In mechanical engineering, so as in technique generally, mechanical transmissions are broadly used. Mechanical transmissions are mechanisms which are used for mechanical energy transmitting with the change of angle speed and appropriate change of forces and rotary torques. According to the type of transmitting, mechanical transmissions could be divided into: transmissions gear (sprocket pair), belt transmissions (belt pulleys and belt), friction transmissions (friction wheels) and chain transmissions (chain pulleys and chain). (Repcic & Muminovic, 2007)