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To investigate the clinicopathologic characteristics of extracellular matrix (ECM) metalloproteinase inducer (CD147) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression in advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and to evaluate the clinical significance of these two markers in the prognosis of advanced RCC.CD147 and VEGF expression in paraffin-embedded specimens gathered from 53 patients with advanced RCC and 12 healthy controls were detected by the method of immunohistochemistry. The Spearman correlation was calculated between the expression levels of CD147 and VEGF in advanced RCC tissues. The association of CD147 and VEGF expression with the clinicopathologic features and prognosis of advanced RCC was subsequently assessed.CD147 and VEGF were positively expressed in 47/53 (88.7%) and 45/53 (84.9%) of patients with advanced RCC, respectively. Positive expression of CD147 (p= 0.02) and VEGF (p0.01) was significantly correlated with TNM stage of advanced RCC. A significant correlation was found between the expression of CD147 and VEGF in advanced RCC (r= 0.629, p= 0.04). Additionally, tumor CD147 and tumor VEGF expressions were significantly associated with the prognosis of advanced RCC patients. The survival rate of the patients with CD147-/VEGF- expression was the lowest (p0.01), and conjoined expressions of CD147-/VEGF- and CD147+/VEGF+ were independent prognostic indicators of advanced RCC (both p0.01).The expression of CD147 or VEGF may be an important feature of advanced RCC. A combined detection of CD147/VEGF coexpression may benefit us in the prediction of the prognosis of advanced RCC.

Dendritic cells (DCs) have been widely used as cancer vaccines. However, their functional abilities have often been suppressed by tumor-secreted immunosuppressants such as transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta). We developed a new strategy using a TGF-beta insensitive DC as cancer vaccine. The effect of this vaccine was tested in a murine pulmonary metastases model of renal carcinoma (Renca). Tumor lysate-pulsed DCs (TP-DCs) were infected with retrovirus containing gene of dominant negative TGF-beta type II receptor (TbetaRIIDN) and thus made TGF-beta insensitive. Vaccination of the mice bearing Renca pulmonary metastases with the TbetaRIIDN TP-DC induced powerful tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses, suppressed pulmonary metastases, and prolonged survival times. These results suggest TGF-beta-insensitive TP-DC vaccine can be used to enhance the antitumor efficacy of DC vaccine.

Context-awareness enhances human-centric, intelligent behavior in a smart environment; however, context-awareness is not widely used due to the lack of effective infrastructure to support context-aware applications. This paper presents an agent-based middleware for providing context-aware services for smart spaces to afford effective support for context acquisition, representation, interpretation, and utilization to applications. The middleware uses a formal context model, which combines first order probabilistic logic (FOPL) and web ontology language (OWL) ontologies, to provide a common understanding of contextual information to facilitate context modeling and reasoning about imperfect and ambiguous contextual information and to enable context knowledge sharing and reuse. A context inference mechanism based on an extended Bayesian network approach is used to enable automated reactive and deductive reasoning. The middleware is used in a case study in a smart classroom, and performance evaluation result shows that the context reasoning algorithm is good for non-time-critical applications and that the complexity is highly sensitive to the size of the context dataset.

The development of patient-tailored anti-tumor therapies requires large-scale production of antibodies for the purpose of screening specific tumor antibodies. Thus, the generation of a single chain fragment of variable region (scFv) library with a large repertoire is required for the selection of specific antibodies with high affinity. Presently, the generation of large scFv libraries is impeded by the low efficiency of cloning PCR fragments into phage display vectors, which is due to the low efficiency of the restriction digestion step required in the process. The aim of this study was to increase the efficiency of this critical step. We found methods that are formally believed to facilitate the digestion efficiency, such as adding longer tails to the primers or prolonging the incubation time, were inefficient. We then investigated the feasibility of using T/A cloning to improve the efficiency of cloning and found that when PCR fragments were first cloned into T-vector, and then subsequently subcloned into a phagemid, the cloning efficiency was dramatically increased. Our findings show that by utilizing this method the construction of a large scFv library can be easily accomplished.

To develop reagents for early diagnosis and therapeutic drugs against SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV), a large (3 × 109) immunized human antibody library was constructed from peripheral blood mononuclear cells from six SARS convalescent patients. A single chain variable fragment antibody (N18) with high affinity against N protein of SARS-CoV was isolated. Sequence analysis revealed that the VL gene was composed of VL3 h (V lambda subgroup) and JL2 regions and the VH gene was composed of VH1-69 (VH1 subgroup), D2-15, D3-22 and JH6 regions. Soluble N18 antibody was expressed in Escherichia coli HB2151, purified by Ni–NTA affinity chromatography and verified by SDS-PAGE and Western blot. The potential application for early diagnosis was evaluated using N protein capture ELISA in which N18 antibody demonstrated high sensitive activity in detecting N protein of SARS-CoV. Finally, the potential usefulness of the N18 antibody in prophylaxis, vaccine design and therapy of SARS is discussed.

RNA interference is highly effective at inhibiting HBV gene expression and replication. However, before small interfering RNA (siRNA) can be used in the clinic, it is essential to develop a system to target their delivery. Antibody-mediated delivery is a novel approach for targeting siRNA to appropriate cells. In this report, we asked whether this siRNA delivery strategy would be effective against HBV. Of 5 candidates, a specific siRNA that effectively inhibited HBV gene expression and replication was determined. Two fusion proteins, s-tP and sCκ-tP, were constructed to contain a single chain of the human variable fragment, scFv, against hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), a truncated protamine (tP), and in the case of sCκ-tP, a constant region of the κ chain (Cκ). S-tP and sCκ-tP were developed to provide targeted delivery of the siRNA, siRNA expressing cassettes (SEC), and siRNA-producing plasmids. Fluorescein isothiocyanate-siRNA, fluorescein isothiocyanate-SEC, and plasmid DNA were specifically delivered into HBsAg-positive cells using the sCκ-tP fusion protein, and effectively inhibited HBV gene expression and replication. HBV gene expression was also inhibited by siRNA or siRNA-producing plasmids in HBV transgenic mice. Conclusion: Our results describe a potential method for the targeted delivery of siRNA or siRNA-producing plasmids against HBV, using anti-HBsAg fusion proteins. (HEPATOLOGY 2007;46:84–94.)

The present study was carried out to evaluate the specific and amplified β-glucuronidase (βG) expression in prostate cancer cells by using a prostate‑specific antigen (PSA) promoter-controlled bicistronic adenovirus and to evaluate the specific killing of prostate cancer cells after the application of the prodrug DOX‑GA3. Bicistronic adenoviral expression vectors were constructed, and the effectiveness of specific and amplified expression was evaluated using luciferase and EGFP as reporter genes. βG expression was detected in LNCaP cells after they were infected with the βG‑expressing PSA promoter-controlled bicistronic adenovirus. MTT assays were conducted to evaluate the cytoxicity on the infected cells after the application of the prodrug DOX‑GA3. Tumor growth inhibition was also evaluated in nude mice after treatment with the βG‑expressing adenovirus and DOX‑GA3. Selective and amplified expression was observed in the PSA-producing LNCaP cells, but not in the PSA‑non‑producing DU145 cells. Potent cytotoxity and a strong bystander effect were observed in the LNCaP cells after infection with the βG‑expressing adenovirus and the application of DOX‑GA3. Intravenous injection of a GAL4 regulated bicistronic adenovirus vector constructed to express βG under the control of the PSA promoter (Ad/PSAP‑GV16‑βG) and the application of DOX‑GA3 strongly inhibited tumor growth and prolonged the survival time of tumor‑bearing nude mice. Selective and amplified βG expression together with the prodrug DOX‑GA3 had an increased antitumor effect, showing great potential for prostate cancer therapy.

Predicted hydrocarbon reserves were studied, and four evaluation methods for improving reserve estimates were proposed, including possibility evaluation, upgrading rate evaluation, economic evaluation and comprehensive evaluation. A difficulty index was used to evaluate the possibility of reserve upgrading. Reserve upgrading probability calculation and test were used to evaluate the upgrading rate. A discounted cash flow method was applied in the economic evaluation. The difficulty index, probability calculation and economic methods were jointly used in the comprehensive evaluation. The predicted hydrocarbon reserve blocks were classified into four types according to the comprehensive evaluation, including the blocks with large or medium potential for upgrading, the blocks with medium or small potential for upgrading, the blocks remaining for evaluation, and the blocks not to upgrade at present.

Introduction: Manufacturing tumor specific CD8+ T cells has been an obstacle for developing prostate cancer (PCa) immunotherapies for men with MCRPC. We report a highly efficient method to expand human TGF-ß insensitivity PSMA-specific CD8+ T cells from MCRPC patients using a FDA approved Cell Processing Work Station (CPWS, Panasonic). Methods: Peripheral blood CD8+ T cells were collected from men with MCRPC by leukapheresis, and cultured in CPWS in TexMACSTM medium with CD-3 Biotin/CD28/Anti-Biotin Beads, 5% human serum, and IL-2. We developed a TβRIIDN-TK-IRES-PZ1 chimeric T cell receptor retroviral construct using an anti-PSMA IgTCR(ζ) gene (PZ1) and a dominant negative TGF-ß type II receptor (TßRIIDN), that could induce CD8+ T cells to be PSMA reactive and insensitive to TGF-ß. PC-3 cells (PSMA negative) or PSMA positive PC-3-PSMA cells (PSMA positive) were exposed to TGF-ß and used as target cells. Cytotoxicity assays were performed by LDH/NADH analysis (target cells: CD8+ T cells at 1:20, 1:50 and 1:100 respectively). Live interactions between CD8+ T cells and PCa cells was recorded by Nikon BiostationIMQ. Apoptosis of PCa was evaluated by immunofluorescence staining for Annexin V and 7-Amino-actinomycin D (7-AAD) respectively. Results: On Day 0, 2x106 CD8 T cells were placed in culture, infected with TßRIIDN-TK-IRES-PZ-1 on Day 8, and expanded 96 fold (1.92x108) by Day 36. The cellular expansion plateaued by Day 40 (1.95x108), when the ratios of CD8+ (95.2%), CD45+ (96.6%) and CD3+ (97.2%) were maintained. The cells strongly expressed PZ1 and TK gene (71.1%), and p-SMAD2 was inhibited 95%. Under TGF-ß treatment for 7 days, the growth of infected CD8+ T cells was not significantly changed, while the naïve CD8+ T control cells were suppressed by 44.8%. PC3-PSMA cells released 25.64 and 4.19 nmol/50ul/105 NADH when co-cultured with infected CD8+ T cells or with naïve CD8+ T cells respectively (p Citation Format: Qiang Zhang, Timothy Kuzel, Brian Helfand, Ximing J. Yang, Weijun Qin, Chung Lee, Benedito Carneiro, Francis J. Giles. TGF-ß insensitive PSMA-specific CD8+ T cells derived from metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (MCRPC) patients enhance the tumor killing ability [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 5585. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-5585

Campus security has a personal relationship with all the teachers, students, parents and society. Campus’s personal assault, crowded stampede, the safety of school bus and emergency treatment are all to be solved right now. In order to fuse and mine the data of security system, this article, first of all, presents a display method based on the massive data storage and browser. Then, it designs and develops a campus network security platform and the prototype system. Finally, experiment is carried out to prove the feasibility of campus network security platform in logic and performance.

With the development of molecular cloning technology and the deep understanding of antibody engineering, there are diverse bispecific antibody formats from which to choose to pursue the optimal biological activity and clinical purpose. The single-chain-based bispecific antibodies usually bridge tumor cells with immune cells and form an immunological synapse because of their relatively small size. Bispecific antibodies in the IgG format include asymmetric bispecific antibodies and homodimerized bispecific antibodies, all of which have an extended blood half-life and their own crystalline fragment (Fc)-mediated functions. Besides retargeting effector cells to the site of cancer, new applications were established for bispecific antibodies. Bispecific antibodies that can simultaneously bind to cell surface antigens and payloads are a very ideal delivery system for therapeutic use. Bispecific antibodies that can inhibit two correlated signaling molecules at the same time can be developed to overcome inherent or acquired resistance and to be more efficient angiogenesis inhibitors. Bispecific antibodies can also be used to treat hemophilia A by mimicking the function of factor VIII. Bispecific antibodies also have broad application prospects in bone disorders and infections and diseases of the central nervous system. The latest developments of the formats and application of bispecific antibodies will be reviewed. Furthermore, the challenges and perspectives are summarized in this review.

To investigate the relationship between the A-6G variant in the promoter of the angiotensinogen gene and essential hypertension in Han, Tibetan, and Yi populations. All patients with essential hypertension were selected by WHO criteria. And the polymorphism of the A-6G variant was determined by PCR/RFLP. The data were analyzed by t test and chi2 test. There was no significant difference in the genotype or allele frequencies between normotensives and hypertensives in the Han, Tibetan, and Yi populations, respectively. However, when the subjects were divided into male and female subgroups, the genotype distributions among hypertensives and normotensives of the Tibetan female group were as follows: AA, 37% vs. 48%; AG, 52% vs. 48%; GG, 11% vs. 4%, respectively and the frequency of the G allele was significantly higher in hypertensives than in normotensives in the Tibetan female group (0.37 vs. 0.28, chi2=4.25, p

With the explosive growth and wide spread of smartphones with Wi-Fi enabled, people are used to accessing the internet through Wi-Fi network interfaces of smartphones. In the meanwhile, smartphones periodically transmit Wi-Fi messages, even when not to connect to a network. In this paper, we describes the Mo-Fi system which monitors and aggregates Wi-Fi message transmissions in the area of interest using non-intrusive Wi-Fi sniffers. In this paper, we proposes an optimized Wi-Fi channel detection and selection method to switch the best channels automatically to aggregate the Wi-Fi messages based on channel data transmission weights, and human presence activity classification method based on the features of human dwell duration sequence in order to evaluate the user engagement index. By deploying in the real-world office environment, we found that the performance of Wi-Fi messages aggregation of CAOCA and CACFA algorithms is over 3.8 times than the worst channel of FCA algorithms and about 76% than the best channel of FCA algorithms, and the human presence detection rate reaches 87.4%.

Smartphones with Wi-Fi enable to send Wi-Fi data packages periodically, even when not connected to the wireless network. Mo-Fi is an automated system to detect and aggregate the Wi-Fi data packages which are sent by smartphones using non-intrusive Wi-Fi monitors, and discover the human presence activity patterns with time series analysis methods.

To investigate the expression levels of enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) and human runt-related transcription factor 3 (RUNX3) in renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and analyze their clinical significance and expression correlation.Expressions of EZH2 and RUNX3 proteins were analyzed by immunohistochemistry in 56 RCC tissues and corresponding adjacent normal renal tissues, respectively. Statistic analysis was conducted using SPSS17.0 software.Immunohistochemistry revealed that the positive rates of EZH2 and RUNX3 expressions were 67.9% and 37.5% in RCC tissues, respectively, and they were 28.6% and 67.3% in adjacent normal renal tissues. The expressions of EZHZ and RUNX3 between RCC and normal renal tissues were significantly different (P0.05). High expression of EZH2 and low expression of RUNX3 in RCC were associated with the clinical stage (P0.05), but not associated with pathological differentiation, age or gender (P0.05). No statistically significant negative correlation was observed in the expressions of EZH2 and RUNX3 in RCC (P0.05).Both EZH2 and RUNX3 may play important roles in the development and progression of RCC, and the detection on EZH2 and RUNX3 expressions will be helpful for early diagnosis and prognosis prediction of RCC.

With the explosive growth and wide-spread use of smartphones with Wi-Fi enabled, people are used to accessing the internet through Wi-Fi network interfaces of smartphones. Smartphones periodically transmit Wi-Fi messages, even when not connected to a network. In this paper, we describe the Mo-Fi system which monitors and aggregates large numbers of continuous Wi-Fi message transmissions from nearby smartphones in the area of interest using nonintrusive Wi-Fi sniffer sensors. In this paper, we propose an optimized Wi-Fi channel detection and selection method to switch the best channels automatically to aggregate the Wi-Fi messages based on channel data transmission weights and human presence activity classification method based on the features of human dwell duration sequences in order to evaluate the user engagement index. By deploying in the real-world office environment, we found that the performance of Wi-Fi messages aggregation of CAOCA and CACFA algorithms is over 3.8 times higher than the worst channel of FCA algorithms and about 76% of the best channel of FCA algorithms, and the human presence detection rate reached 87.4%.

Growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15), a direct target gene of p53, is a multifunctional member of the TGF-β/BMP superfamily. GDF15 can be induced and is implicated as a key secretory cytokine in response to multiple cellular stimuli. Accumulating evidence indicates that GDF15 is associated with the development and prognosis of diabetes mellitus, while whether GDF15 can be induced by high glucose is unknown. In the present study, we revealed that high glucose could induce GDF15 expression and secretion in cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells in a ROS- and p53-dependent manner. Inhibition of high glucose-induced GDF15 expression by siRNA demonstrated that adaptively induced GDF15 played a protective role against high glucose-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cell apoptosis via maintaining the active state of PI3K/Akt/eNOS pathway and attenuating NF-κB/JNK pathway activation. The protective effects of GDF15 were probably achieved by inhibiting ROS overproduction in high glucose-treated human umbilical vein endothelial cells in a negative feedback manner. Our results suggest that high glucose can promote GDF15 expression and secretion in human umbilical vein endothelial cells, which in turn attenuates high glucose-induced endothelial cell apoptosis.

The corresponding author of this paper is Weijun Qin. This information was inadvertently omitted from the original publication.

Energy conservation has become a hot worldwide topic for a number of years. Based on our research, the Web of Things can be used to conserve people's domestic energy consumption in a smart way. In this paper, we have proposed a model based on the Web of Things for the purpose of not only measuring power consumption of household appliances, but also providing web services for householders to scan and control their indoor electricity usage. In addition, we have designed and implemented a prototyping system, which comprised a smart outlet used to detect appliances' power consumption and control them, some sensors used to sense indoor circumstances including temperature, humidity and light intensity, a household gateway for data transmission, a service platform for data publishing and a mobile application. Finally, in order to verify the model's feasibility and efficiency, we have tested our system's performance by real-time and accuracy experiments.

In this poster, we implemented a closed control loop solution that take exploit of heterogeneous networks technologies and eliminate the interruption of running apps in the smart phone.

regulated the expression of miR-151 compared with vehicle control. Kaplan-Meier curves and log-rank tests revealed that high expression levels of miR-151 had a significant adverse effect on survival rate. Inhibition of miR-151 in prostate cancer cells by genistein significantly inhibited cell migration and invasion. By in-cilico analysis, several genes (N4BP1, CASZ1, IL1RAPL1, LGI1, SOX17 and TOM1L1) that are suggested to have tumor suppressive function in several types of cancers were detected as candidate target genes of miR-151. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrated that genistein down-regulated miR-151 that functions as an oncogenic miRNA in prostate cancer. This study suggests that genistein mediated suppression of oncogenic miRNAs can be an important dietary therapeutic strategy for the treatment of prostate cancer.

In the field of Cyber Physical Systems and Pervasive Computing, physical resources and web resources can be easily handled and seamlessly integrated into our life. However, due to the heterogeneity of devices and tight coupling of individual information systems, the developers cannot easily create their specific applications by combining with physical and web resources. In this paper, we proposed Rest Thing which is a restful web service infrastructure based on REST principles in order to hide the heterogeneity of devices and provide a seamless way to integrate embedded devices with existing web applications. Besides, we implemented a prototyping system, which provided the restful accessible way of the wireless sensors, and built a demo application on the smart phone to collect and merge physical and web resources. Finally, we gave the performance evaluation of the prototyping system.

Objective To investigate the expression of hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) protein in the interstitial cells of Cajal (ICCs) of the human bladder and to determine the relative expression of the HCN subtypes. Methods A total of 30 bladder specimens were obtained, and each bladder sample was divided into 2 parts. Part I, which included mucosa, submucosa, and muscle, was used for immunofluorescence study. Part II, in which the mucosa and submucosa were removed and fresh bladder muscle tissue was kept, was used for Western blotting. First, the immunoreactivity of HCN1, HCN2, HCN3, and HCN4 isoforms was detected in the ICCs of lamina propria using immunofluorescence. Second, the protein expression of HCN1, HCN2, HCN3, and HCN4 isoforms in ICCs of bladder detrusor muscle was analyzed using Western blotting. Results Immunofluorescence showed that there were many vimentin- and HCN4-positive ICCs in the lamina propria region and detrusor. Also, only a few c-kit and HCN4-positive ICCs were detected in the lamina propria region and detrusor. Additionally, novel c-kit negative, but HCN4-positive mast cells were found in the lamina propria. Immunofluorescence and Western blotting revealed that HCN1, HCN2, HCN3, and HCN4 channels were all present in the ICCs of the human bladder; however, HCN4 channel expression in the ICCs was greater than in HCN1, HCN2, or HCN3. Conclusion HCN1, HCN2, HCN3, and HCN4 channels are identified in ICCs of human bladder tissue, and the expression of the HCN4 channel exceeded that of the other subtypes.

Lin Chen, Qiang Zhang*, Brian Helfand, Vidit Sharma, Chicago, IL; Weijun Qin, Xian, China, People’s Republic of; Charles Brendler, Chicago, Please choose an option below; Lihua Zhu, Boston, IL; Shilajit D Kundu, Chicago, IL; Thomas Jiang, New Brunswick, NJ; Weipeng Zhang, Bob Lee, Sherin Randall-London, Borko Jovanovic, Ximing J Yang, James Kozlowski, Timothy Michael Kuzel, Chicago, IL; Yinglu Guo, Beijing, China, People’s Republic of; Chung Lee, Chicago, IL

Objectives To compare the prevalence, symptoms, and pathologic changes related to chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) with significant prostatitis-like symptoms between 2 altitude areas in northwest China. Methods From October 2009 to March 2010 community male residents at 3000 m (Delingha) and 400 m (Xi'An) constituted the population base for the present cross-sectional study. All participants completed a detailed questionnaire containing the National Institutes of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index, and the subjects who met our definition were invited to undergo clinical evaluation. After screening, the subjects considered to have CP/CPPS were separated into 2 groups: those with type IIIa and those with type IIIb CP/CPPS. Results The prevalence of CP/CPPS with significant prostatitis-like symptoms was significantly different between the 2 groups. Moreover, the National Institutes of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index of patients with type IIIa and IIIb in 2 groups differed significantly, indicating the aggravation of symptoms of CP/CPPS at a high altitude. Additional investigations showed that reactive oxygen species were increased, accompanied by a decrease in the total antioxidant capacity in the expressed prostatic secretions of patients with type IIIa at a higher altitude. In addition, the tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-8, and interleukin-10 levels in the expressed prostatic secretions of patients with type IIIa in Delingha were increased compared with that in the patients with type IIIa in Xi'An. Notably, the interleukin-6 level in the expressed prostatic secretions was greater in those with type IIIa and IIIb at a higher altitude than in those with type IIIa and IIIb at a low altitude. Conclusions At a high altitude, the symptoms of CP/CPPS were aggravated. Oxidative stress and cytokines might involve in the pathologic process and the aggravation of symptoms. In addition, in a high altitude area the pathomechanisms of type IIIa and IIIb CP/CPPS differed.

With the development of sensor, wireless mobile communication, embedded system and cloud computing, the technologies of Internet of Things have been widely used in logistics, Smart Meter, public security, intelligent building and so on. Because of its huge market prospects, Internet of Things has been paid close attention by several governments all over the world, which is regarded as the third wave of information technology after Internet and mobile communication network. Bridging between wireless sensor networks with traditional communication networks or Internet, IOT Gateway plays an important role in IOT applications, which facilitates the seamless integration of wireless sensor networks and mobile communication networks or Internet, and the management and control with wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we proposed an IOT Gateway system based on Zigbee and GPRS protocols according to the typical IOT application scenarios and requirements from telecom operators, presented the data transmission between wireless sensor networks and mobile communication networks, protocol conversion of different sensor network protocols, and control functionalities for sensor networks, and finally gave an implementation of prototyping system and system validation.

In recent years, distance learning has increasingly become one of themost important applications on the internet and is being discussed and studied by various universities, institutes and companies. The Web/Internet provides relatively easy ways to publish hyper-linked multimedia content for more audiences. Yet, we find that most of the courseware are simply shifted from textbook to HTML files. However, in ost cases the teacher’s live instruction is very important for catching the attention and interest of the students. That’s why Real-Time Interactive Virtual Classroom (RTIVC) always plays an indispensable role in distance learning, where teachers nd students located in different places can take part in the class synchronously through certain multimedia communication systems and obtain real-time and mediarich interactions using Pervasive Computing technologies [1]. The Classroom 2000 project [2] at GIT has been devoted to the automated capturing of the classroom experience. Likewise, the Smart Classroom project [3] at our institute is focused on Tele-education. Most currently deployed real-time Tele-education systems are desktop-based, in which the teacher’s experience is totally different from teaching in a real classroom.

Purpose: Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) is a potent immunosuppressor that has been associated with tumor evasion from the host immune surveillance and, thus, tumor progression. We tested a novel immunotherapy for human renal cell cancer (RCC) using a technique that involves the adoptive transfer of autologous tumor–reactive, TGF-β–insensitive CD8+ T cells into human RCC–challenged immunodeficient mice to identify its potent antitumor responses. Experimental Design: The present study was conducted using a one-to-one adoptive transfer strategy to treat tumor-bearing severe combined immunodeficient (SCID/beige) mouse. The SCID/beige mice were humanized with peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with RCC (Hu-PBMC-SCID) before adoptive transfer. Autologous CD8+ T cells were expanded ex vivo using autologous patient's dendritic cells pulsed with the tumor lysate and rendered TGF-β insensitive by dominant-negative TGF-β type II receptor. In addition, human RCC cell lines were generated using patients' tumor cells injected into SCID/beige mice. Results: Using flow cytometry analysis, we confirmed the expression of the tumor-reactive, TGF-β–insensitive CD8+ T cells were the effector CD8+ cells (CD27−CDRA+). Adoptive transfer of autologous TGF-β–insensitive CD8+ T cells into tumor-bearing Hu-PBMC-SCID mice induced robust tumor-specific CTL responses in vitro, were associated with tumor apoptosis, suppressed lung metastasis, and prolonged survival times in vivo. Conclusion: The one-to-one adoptive transfer strategy is an ideal in vivo murine model for studying the relationship between TGF-β and immunosurveillance in RCC in vivo. Furthermore, this technique may offer the promise of a novel therapeutic option for the treatment of human patients with RCC. Clin Cancer Res; 16(1); 164–73

International audience; The novel mobile scenarios encourage the design and development of context-aware middleware that provides on demand appropriate semantic services services to mobile user's access in a dynamic smart environment, since wireless hotspots and mobile devices are permeating our workplace, home and public places. As mobile users will be immersed in thousands of different kinds of pervasive services, it's of paramount importance to provide appropriate personalized services to the right person in the right form. In this paper we present a collaborative-based service provisioning approach which can enable effective service provision based on social semantic characteristics of user profile, device capability, situation context and services in WLAN enabled environment. We illustrate our ideas through a scenario of service discovery and provision in unfamiliar public places (e.g. airport), and present an OSGi-based middleware to instantiate the service provisioning process based on semantic matchmaking.

Ghrelin regulates bone formation and osteoblast proliferation, but the detailed signaling pathway for its action on osteoblasts remains unclear. In human osteoblastic TE85 cells, we observed the effects and intracellular signaling pathway of ghrelin on cell proliferation using BrdU incorporation method. Ghrelin, at 10(-10)-10(-8) M concentration, significantly increased BrdU incorporation into TE85 cells. The action of ghrelin was inhibited by D: -Lys3-GHRP-6, a selective antagonist of GHS-R. Nitric oxide (NO) scavenger hemoglobin and the NO synthase inhibitor NAME eliminated the stimulatory action of ghrelin on proliferation, while NO donor SNAP and NO synthase substrate L-AME stimulated proliferation of osteoblastic TE85 cells. The cGMP analogue, 8-Br-cGMP, stimulated TE85 cell proliferation, and ghrelin did not enhance proliferation in the presence of 8-Br-cGMP. Inhibition of cGMP production by the guanylate cyclase inhibitor prevented ghrelin-induced osteoblastic TE85 cell proliferation. In conclusion, ghrelin stimulates proliferation of human osteoblastic TE85 cells via intracellular NO/cGMP signaling pathway.

Purpose: To investigate the protective effect of ganoderan on renal damage in rat models with chronic glomerulonephritis induced by adriamycin. Methods: 48 healthy Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into three groups: control, nephritic model and ganoderan treatment groups. Changes of the following indices in the three groups were observed 6 weeks after treatment: 24-hour urine protein, albumen, serum creatinine, cholesterol. Histopathological observations of the renal cortex were made by light and electron microscopy. Results: Compared with controls, levels of 24-hour urine protein (9.60±0.57mg/d vs. 82.50±3.18mg/d), serum creatinine (35.25±2.63?mol/L vs. 44.75±8.06?mol/L) and cholesterol (1.15±0.10mmol/L vs. 4.02±0.25mmol/L) of rats in the nephritic model group were increased (P < 0.05), and the concentration of albumen was decreased (35.98±1.34g/L vs. 19.05±0.62g/L, P < 0.05). Ganoderan administration decreased 24-hour urine protein (82.50±3.18mg/d vs. 45.01±3.94mg/d, P < 0.05). Following ganoderan, the pathological changes in kidney tissue were improved compared with those in the nephritic model group. Conclusion: Ganoderan exerts protective effects in rats with chronic glomerulonephritis induced by ADR. Ganoderan reduced 24-hour urine protein, serum creatinine, cholesterol, improving renal function and reducing the severity of renal injury.

Extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer (EMMPRIN, also named as CD147) is a multifunctional membrane glycoprotein over-expressed in many kinds of human solid tumors. It has been demonstrated to be involved in tumor invasion and angiogenesis. The aim of this study was to analyze the clinicopathological characteristics of the expression of CD147 in human prostate cancer (PCa), and to evaluate its clinical significance in the histologic classification and prognosis of PCa. CD147 protein expression in paraffin-embedded specimens gathered from 62 cases of PCa and 30 cases of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) were detected by the method of immunohistochemistry. The association of CD147 protein expression with the clinicopathological characteristics and with the prognosis of PCa was subsequently assessed. CD147 expression were positively expressed in 51/62 (82.3%) of PCa and 4/30 (13.3%) of BPH cases, respectively. The positive expression rate of CD147 in PCa tissues was significantly higher than that in BPH. The positive expression of CD147 was dramatically associated with TNM grade (p < 0.001), the depth of the prostatic wall invasion (p = 0.008), GLEASON Score (p = 0.001) and Histologic grade (p = 0.001). The patients with CD147 expression were associated with a poor prognosis of PCa (p = 0.01) and the survival rate of the patients with a strong positive expression of CD147 was the lowest (p = 0.01). The results suggest that the expression of CD147 may be an important feature of PCa and the detection of its expression may benefit us in the prediction of the prognosis of PCa.

International audience; Wireless hotspots are permeating our workplace, home and public places bringing interesting services and spontaneous connectivity to mobile users. Since mobile users will be immersed in thousands of different kinds of pervasive services, it’s of paramount importance to provide appropriate services to the right person in the right form. Existing approaches offer a rather simplistic solution to the problem and seldom consider the multi-dimensional contextual information. In this paper we present a service provision mechanism which can enable effective service provision based on semantic similarity measure with the combination of user profiles and situation context in WLAN enabled environment. We illustrate our ideas through a scenario of service discovery and provision in public places (e.g. shopping mall) where a disabled person can select appropriate services with the constraints of his mobile device

International audience; Dementia occurs much more frequently in the elders who exhibit impairments of memory, thought and reasoning. In this paper, we present a hybrid context-aware reminding framework intended to help elders with mild dementia improve their level of independence and quality of life. Based on the user study in three different pilot sites, the reminding services are identified and classified into four types according to the nature and urgency. The framework with a novel scheduling mechanism is designed which handles both synchronous time-based and asynchronous event-based reminding services. In order to facilitate the interaction between the caregivers and system, we also provide a simple software tool for caregivers to create and edit the reminding services. Finally, we present some initial implementation results

Aim: CD147 and MMPs have been demonstrated to be involved in tumor invasion and angiogenesis. The aim of this study was to analyze the clinicopathological significance of CD147, MMP-1, MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression in human prostate cancer (PCa) and to evaluate their involvement in the progression of PCa. Methods: CD147, MMP-1, MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression was assessed in paraffin-embedded specimens collected from 62 cases of PCa and 15 cases of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) by immunohistochemistry. Spearman’s correlation was applied to determine possible relationships between CD147, MMP-1, MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression and PCa. The association of CD147 and MMP-2 protein expression with the clinicopathological characteristics and the prognosis of PCa was subsequently assessed. Results: CD147was expressed in 51/62 (82.3%) PCa patients and in 2/15 (13.3%) BPH cases. MMP-1, MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression was significantly higher in PCa tissue than in BPH tissue. Using Spearman analysis, a significant positive correlation between CD147 and MMP-1, MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression was found (p Conclusion: The results suggest that concurrent expression of CD147 and MMP may be an important characteristic of PCa which may help in the prediction of PCa progression.

Overexpression of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 is associated with the progression of various malignancies, but the contribution of COX-2 expression, bioactivity or their cooperation to bladder cancer growth calls for further clarification. In this study, we investigated the inhibitory effect of COX-2 inhibitors, antisense COX-2 nucleotide, and their combination on the growth of bladder cancer cells (5637, 5637-P and 5637-AS). Suppression of either COX-2 expression or activity caused reduced cell proliferation, enhanced cell numbers in G(1) phase, and increased apoptosis; the joint suppression of COX-2 expression and bioactivity enhanced the degree of cell growth inhibition. COX-2 antisense-expressing 5637-AS tumors showed a 41.42+/-3.08% growth inhibition as compared with 5637 controls. Oral administration of indomethacin (3mg/kg) or celecoxib (15 mg/kg) caused tumor growth inhibition by 31.5+/-14.87% or 83.17+/-1.17%, respectively. When COX-2 antisense cDNA and COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib were combined, the tumor growth inhibition rate was further increased up to 88.78+/-3.10%. These results provide evidence that celecoxib has potential therapeutic effect on bladder cancer, and the joint use of COX-2 antisense cDNA with celecoxib may improve their individual therapeutic effect, especially significantly increase the growth inhibitory effect of COX-2 antisense cDNA.

Heparanase is an endoglycosidase that plays an important role in angiogenesis and metastasis of cancer. Herein we evaluate the effect of heparanase overexpression on invasiveness and bone destruction in prostate cancer bone metastases. The human prostate cancer cell line PC-3 was stably transfected with a plasmid containing the cDNA for human heparanase or with the vector alone as a control. Overexpression of heparanase did not affect the growth of PC-3 cells, but did promote invasiveness of the cells in an in vitro assay. Both cell types were injected into the tibias of nude mice. Four weeks later, the mice were examined radiologically prior to sacrifice and samples of leg tissue were taken to investigate bone destruction and metastasis. Mice injected with PC-3 cells overexpressing heparanase had more severe bone destruction and larger, more invasive, tumors. These results demonstrate that heparanase overexpression can facilitate tumor invasion and accelerate bone destruction caused by prostate cancer bone metastasis.

This article introduces a practical software architecture called CUBES, which focuses on system integration and evolvement for online virtual universities. The key of CUBES is a supporting platform that helps to integrate and evolve heterogeneous educational applications developed by different organizations. Both standardized educational applications that follow popular e-learning standards, such as SCORM and CELTS, and unstandardized ones can be integrated into CUBES with ease. A regularly used virtual university based on CUBES that includes educational applications covering the entire spectrum of the learning and management process is introduced to examine the usability of CUBES. The authors hope that new architectures, tools, and methods are explored to reduce the effort in building and evolving virtual universities.

The experience record in smart space is an useful service for education activities, either for the purpose of course review or multimedia courseware creation. In this paper, we present the concept of collaborative experience record according to the new feature of pervasive computing paradigm. A supporting platform is implemented to enable the rapid prototyping of experience record applications in smart space. A group of common functions for experience record are contained in the platform and can be directly used in the application. Standard interfaces are also provided to evolve the information sensoring services in smart space so that they can cooperate with experience record application at runtime. We have prototyped an augmented classroom application based on this platform and user study results are also presented in the paper.

Context-awareness enhances intelligent behaviors in pervasive computing environments, although it is still a great challenge to enable context-awareness due to lack of effective infrastructure to support context-aware applications. In this paper, we present an agent-based middleware called CAMPS for providing context-aware services for Smart Space in order to afford effective supports for context acquisition, representation, interpretation, and utilization to applications. In CAMPS, a formal context model, which combines First Order Probabilistic Logic with OWL ontologies, has been investigated to facilitate context modeling and reasoning about imperfect and ambiguous contextual information and to enable context knowledge sharing and reuse. A context inference mechanism based on an extended Bayesian Network approach has been studied to enable automated reactive and deductive reasoning. In addition, we implement a prototype and study on our experience in smart classroom application.

Aim: To explore the effect of androgen receptor (AR) on the expression of the cell cycle-related genes, such as CDKN1A and BTG1, in prostate cancer cell line LNCaP. Methods: After AR antagonist flutamide treatment and confirmation of its effect by phase contrast microscope and flow cytometry, the differential expression of the cell cycle-related genes was analyzed by a cDNA microarray. The flutamide treated cells were set as the experimental group and the LNCaP cells as the control. We labeled cDNA probes of the experimental group and control group with Cy5 and Cy3 dyes, respectively, through reverse transcription. Then we hybridized the cDNA probes with cDNA microarrays, which contained 8 126 unique human cDNA sequences and the chip was scanned to get the fluorescent values of Cy5 and Cy3 on each spot. After primary analysis, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests were carried out to confirm the results of the chips. Results: After AR antagonist flutamide treatment, three hundred and twenty-six genes (3.93 %) expressed differentially, 97 down-regulated and 219 up-regulated. Among them, eight up-regulated genes might be cell cycle-related, namely CDC10, NRAS, BTG1, Wee1, CLK3, DKFZP564A122, CDKN1A and BTG2. The CDKN1A and BTG1 gene mRNA expression was confirmed to be higher in the experimental group by RT-PCR, while p53 mRNA expression had no significant changes. Conclusion: Flutamide treatment might up-regulate CDKN1A and BTG1 expression in prostate cancer cells. The protein expressions of CDKN1A and BTG1 play an important role in inhibiting the proliferation of cancer cells. CDKN1A has a great impact on the cell cycle of prostate cancer cells and may play a role in the cancer cells in a p53-independent pathway. The prostate cancer cells might affect the cell cycle-related genes by activating AR and thus break the cell cycle control.

Our aim was to clarify whether substitution of cytosine for adenine at position 1166 (A1166C) polymorphism of the angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1R) gene is associated with susceptibility to essential hypertension in Han, Tibetan and Yi populations in China. This study involved 302 normotensive and 446 hypertensive subjects. The polymorphism was detected by polymelase chain reaction of genomic DNA and restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) in genomic DNA. The data were analyzed by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), X2 test, and multiple logistic regression. In normotensive controls, the A1166 allele frequencies were 0.979, 0.939 and 0.965 in Han, Tibetan and Yi participants, respectively. There was no significant intergroup variation in frequency of the allele in normotensives (X2=4.166, p=0.125). The frequency of the A1166 allele was significantly higher in Tibetan male hypertensives than that in normotensives (X2=11.46, p=0.001). There was no significant difference in A1166C genotype distribution and allele frequency between normotensives and hypertensives either in the Han (p=0.465) or Yi (p=0.357) populations. Body mass index in the Han and Yi populations (p=0.0001), age in the Tibetan and Yi populations (p=0.0001), and AA genotype in the Tibetan male population (p=0.0034) all were independent risk factors for hypertension. Diastolic blood pressure levels were significantly higher in Tibetan male subjects with the AA genotype than in those with the AC+CC genotype (p=0.0040). We concluded that the A1166 allele is very common in Han, Tibetan and Yi populations, approximately 1.35-fold more common than in Caucasians. The A1166 allele of the AT1R gene may be a predisposing factor for essential hypertension in Tibetan males. A1166C polymorphism of the AT1R gene is probably not involved in the pathogenesis of essential hypertension in Han or Yi populations.