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"Signal alignments play critical roles in many clinical setting. This is the case of mass spectrometry (MS) data, an important component of many types of proteomic analysis. A central problem occurs when one needs to integrate (MS) data produced by different sources, e.g., different equipment and/or laboratories. In these cases, some form of "data integration or "data fusion may be necessary in order to discard some source-specific aspects and improve the ability to perform a classification task such as inferring the "disease classes of patients. The need for new high-performance data alignments methods is therefore particularly important in these contexts. In this paper, we propose an approach based both on an information theory perspective, generally used in a feature construction problem, and the application of a mathematical programming task (i.e., the weighted bipartite matching problem). We present the results of a competitive analysis of our method against other approaches. The analysis was conducted on data from plasma/ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid of "control and Alzheimer patients collected from three different hospitals. The results point to a significant performance advantage of our method with respect to the competing ones tested. © 2012 IEEE.

Iron is tightly connected to oxygen homeostasis and erythropoiesis. Our aim was to better understand how hypoxia regulates iron acquisition for erythropoiesis in humans, a topic relevant to common hypoxia-related disorders. Fortyseven healthy volunteers participated in the HIGHCARE project. Blood samples were collected at sea level and after acute and chronic exposure to high altitude (3400-5400 m above sea level). We investigated the modifications in hematocrit, serum iron indices, erythropoietin, markers of erythropoietic activity, interleukin-6, and serum hepcidin. Hepcidin decreased within 40 hours after acute hypoxia exposure (P < .05) at 3400 m, reaching the lowest level at 5400 m (80% reduction). Erythropoietin significantly increased (P < .001) within 16 hours after hypoxia exposure followed by a marked erythropoietic response supported by the increased iron supply. Growth differentiation factor-15 progressively increased during the study period. Serum ferritin showed a very rapid decrease, suggesting the existence of hypoxia-dependent mechanism(s) regulating storage iron mobilization. The strong correlation between serum ferritin and hepcidin at each point during the study indicates that iron itself or the kinetics of iron use in response to hypoxia may signal hepcidin down-regulation. The combined and significant changes in other variables probably contribute to the suppression of hepcidin in this setting. © 2011 by The American Society of Hematology.

Objectives: To investigate the possibility of using the ClinProt technique to find serum cancer related diagnostic markers that are able to better discriminate healthy subjects from patients affected by renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). Renal cell carcinoma is the most common malignancy of the kidney. Biomarkers for early detection, prognosis, follow-up, and differential diagnosis of ccRCC from benign renal lesions are needed in daily clinical practice when imaging is not helpful. Methods: Serum of 29 healthy subjects and 33 ccRCC patients was analyzed by the ClinProt/MALDI-ToF technique. Results: A cluster of 3 peptides (A = m/z 1083 ± 8 Da, B = m/z 1445 ± 8 Da and C = m/z 6879 ± 8 Da) was able to discriminate patients from control subjects. Cross-validation analysis using the whole casistic showed 88% and 96% of sensitivity and specificity, respectively. Moreover, the cluster showed 100% sensitivity for the identification of patients at pT2 (n = 5) and pT3 (n = 8) and 85% for pT1 patients (n = 20). The intensity of peaks A and C continuously decreased from pT1 to pT3, whereas peak B increased in pT1 and pT2. Conclusions: These results may be useful to set up new diagnostic or prognostic tools.