Abstract: The present invention relates generally to a method of regulating oligonucleotide functionality and, more particularly, to a method of regulating the functionality of a primer or probe. The method of the invention is designed to provide a means to selectively inactivate or activate the functionality of an oligonucleotide, such as a primer, thereby providing means to regulate the progress of any method using that oligonucleotide. The development of a means to regulate the functionality of an oligonucleotide, such as a primer, is useful in a range of applications including, but not limited to, amplification reactions such as PCR, isothermal amplification and nucleic acid strand extension. With respect to amplification reactions, these have wide utility including the diagnosis and/or monitoring of disease conditions which are characterised by specific gene sequences and the characterisation or analysis of specific gene regions of interest.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for resolving individual signals in detector output data, the method comprising determining a signal form of signals present in the data, making parameter estimates of one or more parameters of the signals, wherein the one or more parameters comprise at least signal temporal position, and determining the energy of the signals from at least the form and the parameter estimates.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for image texture analysis in which the image is mapped into a first set of binary representation by a monotonically varying operator, such as a threshold operator. Each binary representation in the first set of binary representations is mapped to a further set of binary representations using a second monotonically varying operator, such as a spatial operator. The result of the two mappings is a matrix of binary image representations. Each binary image representation is allocated a scalar value to form an array of scalar values which may be analysed to identify defined texture characteristics.