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With the increasing popularity of XML for data representations, there is a lot of interest in searching XML data. Due to the structural heterogeneity and textual content's diversity of XML, it is daunting for users to formulate exact queries and search accurate answers. Therefore, approximate matching is introduced to deal with the difficulty in answering users’ queries, and this matching could be addressed by first relaxing the structure and content of a given query and, then, looking for answers that match the relaxed queries. Ranking and returning the most relevant results of a query have become the most popular paradigm in XML query processing. However, the existing proposals do not adequately take structures into account, and they, therefore, lack the strength to elegantly combine structures with contents to answer the relaxed queries. To address this problem, we first propose a sophisticated framework of query relaxations for supporting approximate queries over XML data. The answers underlying this framework are not compelled to strictly satisfy the given query formulation; instead, they can be founded on properties inferable from the original query. We, then, develop a novel top- k retrieval approach that can smartly generate the most promising answers in an order correlated with the ranking measure. We complement the work with a comprehensive set of experiments to show the effectiveness of our proposed approach in terms of precision and recall metrics.

To investigate prostate cancer-related genes and lncRNAs by using a high throughput sequencing dataset.RNA-seq data were obtained from the sequencing read archive database, including both benign and malignant tumor samples. After aligning the RNA-seq reads to human genome reference, gene expression profile as well as lncRNA expression profile was obtained. Next, student's t-test was used to screen both the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and lncRNAs (DELs) between benign and malignant samples. Finally, goseq was used to conduct the functional annotation of DEGs.A total of 7112 DEGs were screened, such as ZNF512B, UCKL1, STMN3, GMEB2, and PTK6. The top 10 enriched functions of DEGs were mainly related to organism development, including multi-cellular development, system development and anatomical structure development. Also, we discovered 26 differentially expressed lncRNAs.The analysis used in this study is reliable in screening prostate cancer markers including both genes and lncRNAs by using RNA-seq data, which provides new insight into the understanding of molecular mechanism of prostate cancer.

Liver cancer is one of the most common malignant cancers worldwide. Systemic chemotherapy remains the major treatment option, but with severe adverse effects. Combinations of systemic with targeted treatments may provide effective therapeutics. The objectives of this study were to demonstrate if insulin-like growth factor-I receptor (IGF-IR) might serve as a functional target for liver cancer treatment and to investigate the chemo-sensitizing activity of IGF-IR downregulation. IGF-IR knockdown was achieved by stable transfection of liver cancer cells with IGF-IR small interfering RNA (siRNA). IGF-IR knockdown resulted in reduced growth, clonogenic survival, adhesion and migration of liver cancer cells, and increased sensitivities of liver cancer cells to apoptosis-inducing agents and chemotherapeutic drugs in vitro. In the animal studies, both IGF-IR knockdown and adriamycin (ADM) treatment significantly reduced the growth of liver tumors. IGF-IR knockdown enhanced the effect of ADM on tumor growth by further reducing tumor angiogenesis and inducing tumor cell apoptosis. The final tumor sizes in the IGFIR-siRNA, ADM-treated EGFP, and ADM-treated IGFIR-siRNA groups were significantly reduced by 52.5%, 33.8%, and 86.3%, respectively, compared with that in the EGFP control, suggesting that the ADM and the IGF-IR knockdown inhibit the growth of liver tumors in a synergistic manner. These results support that IGF-IR may serve as a functional molecular target for liver cancer treatment, and that the combination of systemic chemotherapy with targeted IGF-IR suppression may provide an effective treatment strategy for liver cancer.

We report on a family showing transmission of the fra(X) gene by 3 nonpenetrant, fra(X) negative, normally intelligent, full and half-brothers to their affected grandsons. The mothers of the affected boys are obligate carriers, fra(X) negative, and of normal intelligence. This family illustrates the “Sherman Paradox” and is compatible with the predictions of the Laird X-inactivation imprinting model. In addition molecular and/or cytogenetic studies have enabled at-risk relatives to learn more about their carrier fra(X) status and have allowed for more accurate genetic counselling. © 1992 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The experience to treat SCME in the past twenty-three years was reported. The method of upper mediastinotomy for saving the patients was introduced. The authors suggested control of the pulmonary infection and appropriate treatment of pneumothorax are important in preventing the occurrence of mediastinal emphysema.

We have carried out a survey of the north and south ecliptic poles, EP-N and EP-S, respectively, with the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The primary objective was to cross-calibrate WISE with the Spitzer and Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) photometric systems by developing a set of calibration stars that are common to these infrared missions. The ecliptic poles were continuous viewing zones for WISE due to its polar-crossing orbit, making these areas ideal for both absolute and internal calibrations. The Spitzer IRAC and MIPS imaging survey covers a complete area of 0.40 deg^2 for the EP-N and 1.28 deg^2 for the EP-S. WISE observed the whole sky in four mid-infrared bands, 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 μm, during its eight-month cryogenic mission, including several hundred ecliptic polar passages; here we report on the highest coverage depths achieved by WISE, an area of ~1.5 deg^2 for both poles. Located close to the center of the EP-N, the Sy-2 galaxy NGC 6552 conveniently functions as a standard calibrator to measure the red response of the 22 μm channel of WISE. Observations from Spitzer-IRAC/MIPS/IRS-LL and WISE show that the galaxy has a strong red color in the mid-infrared due to star-formation and the presence of an active galactic nucleus (AGN), while over a baseline >1 year the mid-IR photometry of NGC 6552 is shown to vary at a level less than 2%. Combining NGC 6552 with the standard calibrator stars, the achieved photometric accuracy of the WISE calibration, relative to the Spitzer and MSX systems, is 2.4%, 2.8%, 4.5%, and 5.7% for W1 (3.4 μm), W2 (4.6 μm), W3 (12 μm), and W4 (22 μm), respectively. The WISE photometry is internally stable to better than 0.1% over the cryogenic lifetime of the mission. The secondary objective of the Spitzer-WISE Survey was to explore the poles at greater flux-level depths, exploiting the higher angular resolution Spitzer observations and the exceptionally deep (in total coverage) WISE observations that potentially reach down to the confusion limit of the survey. The rich Spitzer and WISE data sets were used to study the Galactic and extragalactic populations through source counts, color-magnitude and color-color diagrams. As an example of what the data sets facilitate, we have separated stars from galaxies, delineated normal galaxies from power-law-dominated AGNs, and reported on the different fractions of extragalactic populations. In the EP-N, we find an AGN source density of ~260 deg^(–2) to a 12 μm depth of 115 μJy, representing 15% of the total extragalactic population to this depth, similar to what has been observed for low-luminosity AGNs in other fields.

1. At least two components of neuraminidase can be distinguished on the basis of thermolability and sedimentability by using the artificial fluorogenic substrate 4-methylumbelliferyl N-acetyl-alpha-D-neuraminate. 2. In crude homogenates, thermodenaturation at 25 degrees C showed a biphasic curve corresponding to component A (half-life, 21 min) and B (half-life, 85 min). The two components were partially resolved by centrifugation. A being soluble and B sedimentable. Both had similar pH-activity curves (pH optimum, 4.4), Km values (A, 0.10 mM; B, 0.06 mM) and molecular weight as determined by radiation inactivation (A, 67000; B, 63000). 3. The soluble A form was still aggregated or bound to membranous debris since almost all neuraminidase activity was eluted near or at the void volume of a Sephacryl S-300 column. 4. Both soluble and sedimentable fractions of placenta hydrolysed the GD1A ganglioside and N-acetyl-neuraminyl-D-lactose linearly for 12 h but no fetuin hydrolysis was detected. 5. The neuraminidase activity with the artificial fluorogenic substrate was inhibited by N-acetylneuraminyl-D-lactose but not by the GD1A ganglioside. These preliminary results suggest that there exist two closely related enzymes hydrolysing both the artificial substrate and N-acetylneuraminyl-D-lactose and a third one hydrolysing the GD1A ganglioside exclusively.