A Stage For Social Comparison — The Value Of Information In Virtual Communities

Virtual communities have become significant applica tions for the Internet. Previous studies usually treated virtual communities as places for people to share and exchange information and did not explain the social value of comm unities well. This study treated a virtual community as a stage on which people can present themselves to other users while others can see the shows of people to satisfy their social comparison needs. Based on social co mparison theory, this paper investigated the effects of upward social comparison in virtual communiti es on user satisfaction through the mediations of perceived inspiration and self-improvement. Furthermore, these effects were moderated by individual social comparison orientation. The results of this study should enhance the understanding of the nature and the social value of information in virtual communities

Metabolic Pathways Enhancement Confers Poor Prognosis in p53 Exon Mutant Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

RNA-Sequencing (RNA-Seq), the most commonly used sequencing application tool, is not only a method for measuring gene expression but also an excellent media to detect important structural variants such as single nucleotide variants (SNVs), insertion/deletion (Indels), or fusion transcripts. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) contains genomic data from a variety of cancer types and also provides the raw data generated by TCGA consortium. p53 is among the top 10 somatic mutations associated with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of the present study was to analyze concordant different gene profiles and the priori defined set of genes based on p53 mutation status in HCC using RNA-Seq data. In the study, expression profile of 11 799 genes on 42 paired tumor and adjacent normal tissues was collected, processed, and further stratified by the mutated versus normal p53 expression. Furthermore, we used a knowledge-based approach Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) to compare between normal and p53 mutation gene expression profiles. The statistical significance (nominal P value) of the enrichment score (ES) genes was calculated. The ranked gene list that reflects differential expression between p53 wild-type and mutant genotypes was then mapped to metabolic process by KEGG, an encyclopedia of genes and genomes to assign functional meanings. These approaches enable us to identify pathways and potential target gene/pathways that are highly expressed in p53 mutated HCC. Our analysis revealed 2 genes, the hexokinase 2 (HK2) and Enolase 1 (ENO1), were conspicuous of red pixel in the heatmap. To further explore the role of these genes in HCC, the overall survival plots by Kaplan-Meier method were performed for HK2 and ENO1 that revealed high HK2 and ENO1 expression in patients with HCC have poor prognosis. These results suggested that these glycolysis genes are associated with mutated-p53 in HCC that may contribute to poor prognosis. In this proof-of-concept study, we proposed an approach for identifying novel potential therapeutic targets in human HCC with mutated p53. These approaches can take advantage of the massive next-generation sequencing (NGS) data generated worldwide and make more out of it by exploring new potential therapeutic targets

The Third Stage Management Project of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation on Water Environment (2/5)

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchive

Design and Implementation of Service-Oriented Expert System

In recent years, the Internet technologies are well developed and the Internet is filled with all kinds of information. Since the data storage is increasingly distributed and data formats are more diverged, data collection and integration for providing value- added services have gradually become important topics. In this study, we propose the Service-Oriented Expert System (SOES) based on Service Component Architecture (SCA) which can make the services on different platforms turn into a common service component on the Internet, concatenate all the service components by combining with the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), and use both expert rules and data mining techniques to perform the data classification. The SOES is applied to analyze the annual financial information derived from electronic industry in the Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) during 2006 to 2008 for discovering the financial crisis enterprises. The experiment results show that using expert rules and decision tree to find the financial crisis enterprise is higher performance

Lack of Association Between Total Serum Homocysteine and Extracranial Cerebral Flow

Background/PurposeHigh homocysteine (Hcy) concentration is associated with slow coronary flow. This study examined the association between Hcy and hemodynamic status in the extracranial cerebral arteries in healthy individuals.MethodsA total of 535 healthy adults underwent physical examination and duplex ultrasonography of the extracranial carotid and vertebral arteries, and blood laboratory tests, including biochemistry and serum total Hcy. Flow hemodynamic parameters including velocity, resistance, and volume of the carotid and vertebral arteries were measured. Multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the association between Hcy and the flow parameters.ResultsParticipants with higher Hcy were more likely to have a lower systolic velocity of the internal carotid artery (p = 0.01) and vertebral artery (p < 0.001), and lower resistance of the vertebral artery (p = 0.004). However, the multiple-adjusted means of the flow velocity, resistance, and flow volume of the carotid or vertebral artery were not significantly different across quartiles of Hcy. When Hcy was treated as a continuous variable, there was still no significant relationship between Hcy levels and the aforementioned hemodynamic status.ConclusionOur results did not support the hypothesis that the levels of Hcy are associated with the flow velocity, resistance, and volume of the extracranial cerebral artery in healthy individuals

Security of Deputy Signature

E-system, a new commerce model, is a new era for business direction. When a principal is absent (goes on an errand or on leave), a well-designed deputy system keeps the business operations working. In the network world, identity verification and any substitute for traditional signature can be done by digital signature [1]. Deputy signature guarantees the existence of deputy system in e-system. Current deputy mechanism addresses the verification of deputy signature. No research has been done on the prevention of the illegal use of deputy system when the principal returns and the deputy system is not in use. We propose a mechanism to solve the problem of illegal use of deputy system when the power of deputy system is not legally “ON.

An Intelligent Model for Pairs Trading Using Genetic Algorithms

Pairs trading is an important and challenging research area in computational finance, in which pairs of stocks are bought and sold in pair combinations for arbitrage opportunities. Traditional methods that solve this set of problems mostly rely on statistical methods such as regression. In contrast to the statistical approaches, recent advances in computational intelligence (CI) are leading to promising opportunities for solving problems in the financial applications more effectively. In this paper, we present a novel methodology for pairs trading using genetic algorithms (GA). Our results showed that the GA-based models are able to significantly outperform the benchmark and our proposed method is capable of generating robust models to tackle the dynamic characteristics in the financial application studied. Based upon the promising results obtained, we expect this GA-based method to advance the research in computational intelligence for finance and provide an effective solution to pairs trading for investment in practice

Ellagic Acid, the Active Compound of Phyllanthus urinaria, Exerts In Vivo Anti-Angiogenic Effect and Inhibits MMP-2 Activity

This study aimed to assess the potential anti-angiogenic mechanism of Phyllanthus urinaria (P. urinaria) and characterize the major compound in P. urinaria that exerts anti-angiogenic effect. The water extract of P. urinaria and Ellagic Acid were used to evaluate the anti-angiogenic effect in chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) in chicken embryo and human vascular endothelial cells (HUVECs). The matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) activity was determined by gelatin zymography. The mRNA expressions of MMP-2, MMP-14 and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-2 (TIMP-2) were analyzed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Level of MMP-2 proteins in conditioned medium or cytosol was determined by western blot analysis. We confirmed that P. urinaria's in vivo anti-angiogenic effect was associated with a reduction in MMP-2 activity. Ellagic acid, one of the major polyphenolic components as identified in P. urinaria by high performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS), exhibited the same anti-angiogenic effect in vivo. Both P. urinaria and Ellagic Acid inhibited MMP-2 activity in HUVECs with unchanged mRNA level. The mRNA expression levels of MMP-14 and TIMP-2 were not altered either. Results from comparing the change of MMP-2 protein levels in conditioned medium and cytosol of HUVECs after the P. urinaria or Ellagic Acid treatment revealed an inhibitory effect on the secretion of MMP-2 protein. This study concluded that Ellagic Acid is the active compound in P. urinaria to exhibit anti-angiogenic activity and to inhibit the secretion of MMP-2 protein from HUVECs

Shorter GT repeat polymorphism in the heme oxygenase-1 gene promoter has protective effect on ischemic stroke in dyslipidemia patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The microsatellite polymorphism of heme oxygenase (HO)-1 gene promoter has been shown to be associated with the susceptibility to ischemic event, including coronary artery disease (CAD), myocardial infarction, and peripheral vascular disease. We aimed to examine whether the length of (GT)_nrepeats in HO-1 gene promoter is associated with ischemic stroke in people with CAD risk factors, especially low level of HDL.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 183 consecutive firstever ischemic stroke inpatients and 164 non-stroke patients were screened for the length of (GT)_nrepeats in HO-1 promoter. The long (L) and short (S) genotype are defined as the averaged repeat number >26 and ≦26, respectively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Stroke patients tended to have more proportions of hypertension, diabetics and genotype L, than those of genotype S. Patients with genotype L of HO-1 gene promoter have higher stroke risk in comparison with genotype S especially in dyslipidemia individuals. The significant differences on stroke risk in multivariate odds ratios were found especially in people with low HDL-C levels.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Subjects carrying longer (GT)_nrepeats in HO-1 gene promoter may have greater susceptibility to develop cerebral ischemic only in the presence of low HDL-C, suggesting the protective effects in HO-1 genotype S in the process of ischemic stroke, particularly in subjects with poor HDL-C status.</p