TCP-Swift: An end-host enhancement scheme for TCP over satellite IP networks

A new transport layer protocol called TCP-Swift is proposed for enhancing the TCP performance over satellite IP networks. TCP-Swift replaces the conventional TCP slow start and fast recovery algorithms by speedy start and speedy recovery. With speedy start, a TCP-Swift sender opens up its congestion window in only two round trip times. This significantly shortens the time needed in probing the network for equilibrium state. With speedy recovery, we can infer the cause of a packet loss by observing the ACK stream received at the sender. If the loss is due to wireless transmission error, the sender's congestion window can be re-opened up more aggressively to fully utilize the available satellite link bandwidth. We show that TCP-Swift outperforms existing TCP schemes by simulations.published_or_final_versio

G-Snoop: Enhancing TCP performance over wireless networks

Focusing on a general wireless network where a wireless link can be at any link along the sender-to-receiver path, a new TCP enhancement scheme, called Generalized-Snoop (G-Snoop), is proposed. Since many existing applications are built on top of TCP, it is essential that any TCP enhancement scheme should be transparent to the end-systems as well as the fixed networks. To achieve this, G-Snoop only needs to be implemented at the wireless gateways, no other parts of the network require modifications. With G-Snoop, TCP senders are shielded from non-congestion packet loss and thus no unnecessary congestion control mechanisms will be performed. Simulation results show that significant throughout gain can be obtained with G-Snoop.published_or_final_versio

Disruption of the Vad1.3 gene causes defective spermatogenesis and loss of preimplantation embryo

Conference Theme: The Intersection Between Genetics, Genomics, and Reproductive BiologySubfertility affects 10-15 percent of couples worldwide, and male factor is one of the dominant causes accounted for one third of these cases. Notably 40-90 percent male subfertility is due to idiopathic defective sperm production. Today, hundreds of genes have been shown to be involved in the regulation of spermatogenesis. Previously, we identified from the rat testis a novel acrosome-specific gene Vad1.3 in a retinol-treated ...postprintThe 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR), Milwaukee, WI., 30 July-3 August 2010. In Biology of Reproduction, 2010, v. 83 Meeting abstracts, p. 88, abstract no. 39

Glycodelin suppresses endometrial cell migration and invasion but stimulates spheroid attachment

Glycodelin contains four isoforms with diverse biological functions. Glycodelin-A is potentially a diagnostic marker for cancer patients and receptivity marker of the secretory endometrium. Yet, direct evidence for the role of glycodelin in the regulation of endometrial epithelial cell migration, invasion and attachment of trophoblastic spheroids (blastocyst surrogate) is lacking. In this study, the human glycodelin gene was stably transfected into human endometrial (HEC1-B) cells. Forced expression of glycodelin in HEC1-B cells did not affect cell proliferation, cell viability or cell-cycle progression, but significantly reduced migration and invasion of the stably transfected cells (both P < 0.05). The migration rate returned to normal levels when the glycodelin-forced-expressing HEC1-B cells were treated with glycodelin RNAi. Furthermore, forced expression of glycodelin in HEC1-B cells significantly increased the attachment of trophoblastic spheroids onto the endometrial epithelial cells (P < 0.05). In summary, glycodelin suppressed endometrial cell migration and invasion but enhanced spheroid attachment. © 2012, Reproductive Healthcare Ltd.postprin

Acupuncture for insomnia

Although conventional non-pharmacological and pharmacological treatments for insomnia are effective in many people, alternative therapies such as acupuncture are widely practised. However, it remains unclear whether current evidence is rigorous enough to support acupuncture for the treatment of insomnia. To determine the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for insomnia. We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Dissertation Abstracts International, CINAHL, AMED, the Traditional Chinese Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (TCMLARS), the World Health Organization (WHO) Trials Portal (ICTRP) and relevant specialised registers of the Cochrane Collaboration in October 2011. We screened reference lists of all eligible reports and contacted trial authors and experts in the field. Randomised controlled trials evaluating any form of acupuncture for insomnia. They compared acupuncture with/without additional treatment against placebo or sham or no treatment or same additional treatment. We excluded trials that compared different acupuncture methods or acupuncture against other treatments. Two review authors independently extracted data and assessed risk of bias. We used odds ratio (OR) and mean difference for binary and continuous outcomes respectively. We combined data in meta-analyses where appropriate. Thirty-three trials were included. They recruited 2293 participants with insomnia, aged 15 to 98 years, some with medical conditions contributing to insomnia (stroke, end-stage renal disease, perimenopause, pregnancy, psychiatric diseases). They evaluated needle acupuncture, electroacupuncture, acupressure or magnetic acupressure.Compared with no treatment (two studies, 280 participants) or sham/placebo (two studies, 112 participants), acupressure resulted in more people with improvement in sleep quality (compared to no treatment: OR 13.08, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.79 to 95.59; compared to sham/placebo: OR 6.62, 95% CI 1.78 to 24.55). However, when assuming that dropouts had a worse outcome in sensitivity analysis the beneficial effect of acupuncture was inconclusive. Compared with other treatment alone, acupuncture as an adjunct to other treatment might marginally increase the proportion of people with improved sleep quality (13 studies, 883 participants, OR 3.08, 95% CI 1.93 to 4.90). On subgroup analysis, only needle acupuncture but not electroacupuncture showed benefits. All trials had high risk of bias and were heterogeneous in the definition of insomnia, participant characteristics, acupoints and treatment regimen. The effect sizes were generally small with wide confidence intervals. Publication bias was likely present. Adverse effects were rarely reported and they were minor. Due to poor methodological quality, high levels of heterogeneity and publication bias, the current evidence is not sufficiently rigorous to support or refute acupuncture for treating insomnia. Larger high-quality clinical trials are required.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Olfactomedin1 (Olfm1) in fallopian tube may modulate tubal ectopic pregnancy in humans: evidence from Immunohistochemistry and an in vitro coculture model

Conference Theme: The Intersection Between Genetics, Genomics, and Reproductive BiologyOlfactomedins are secretary glycoprotein constituted in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of various cell types. Recent studies suggested that Olfm-1 is down-regulated during the window of implantation (WOI) in the human endometrium and up-regulated in pathological condition like endometriosis and recurrent spontaneous abortions. Ectopic pregnancy is a gynaecological emergency and fertility threatening phenomenon which occurs in 1-2% of normal pregnancies and shows an increasing trend. Yet, tubal ectopic pregnancy accounts for more than 98% of the cases ...postprintThe 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Preproduction (SSR), Milwaukee, WI., 30 July-3 August 2010. In Biology of Reproduction, 2010, v. 83 n. Meeting abstracts, p. 27-28, abstract no. 13

A novel push-and-pull hybrid data broadcast scheme for wireless information networks

A new push-and-pull hybrid data broadcast scheme is proposed for providing wireless information services to three types of clients, general, pull and priority clients. Only pull and priority clients have the back channel for sending requests to the broadcast server. There is no scalability problem with the hybrid scheme because the amount of pull and priority clients is very small. Based on the requests collected from pull and priority clients, the server estimates the interest pattern changes of the whole client population. Then the broadcast schedule on the push channel for the next broadcast cycle is adjusted. Besides the push channel, a small amount of broadcast bandwidth is allocated to a pull channel. The data to be broadcast on the pull channel is decided by the server in real-time and priority is given to requests from priority clients. Simulations show that with a time-varying client interest pattern, the average data access time for all three types of clients can be minimized. Because of the priority in using the pull channel, priority clients can achieve the lowest access time and pull clients can achieve a lower access time than general clients. To further improve the performance, the hybrid scheme with local client cache is also investigated.published_or_final_versio

Glycodelin-A primes zona pellucida-induced acrosome reaction of human spermatozoa via downregulation of extracellular signal regulated kinases and enhancement of zona pellucida-induced calcium influx

Conference Theme: The Intersection Between Genetics, Genomics, and Reproductive BiologypostprintThe 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR), Milwaukee, WI., 30 July-3 August 2010. In Meeting Abstracts, 2010, p. 38, abstract no. 17

Combination of SAHA and bortezomib up-regulates CDKN2A and CDKN1A and induces apoptosis of Epstein-Barr virus-positive Wp-restricted Burkitt lymphoma and lymphoblastoid cell lines

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) latent proteins exert anti-apoptotic effects on EBV-transformed lymphoid cells by down-regulating BCL2L11 (BIM), CDKN2A (p16(INK4A) ) and CDKN1A (p21(WAF1) ). However, the potential therapeutic effects of targeting these anti-apoptotic mechanisms remain unexplored. Here, we tested both in vitro and in vivo effects of the combination of histone deacetylase (HDAC) and proteasome inhibitors on the apoptosis of six endemic Burkitt lymphoma (BL) lines of different latency patterns (types I and III and Wp-restricted) and three lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs). We found that the combination of HDAC and proteasome inhibitors (e.g. SAHA/bortezomib) synergistically induced the killing of Wp-restricted and latency III BL and LCLs but not latency I BL cells. The synergistic killing was due to apoptosis, as evidenced by the high percentage of annexin V positivity and strong cleavage of PARP1 (PARP) and CASP3 (caspase-3). Concomitantly, SAHA/bortezomib up-regulated the expression of CDKN2A and CDKN1A but did not affect the level of BCL2L11 or BHRF1 (viral homologue of BCL2). The apoptotic effects were dependent on reactive oxygen species generation. Furthermore, SAHA/bortezomib suppressed the growth of Wp-restricted BL xenografts in nude mice. This study provides the rationale to test the novel application of SAHA/bortezomib on the treatment of EBV-associated Wp-restricted BL and post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder.postprin

Classification of insomnia using the traditional chinese medicine system: A systematic review

A systematic review was conducted to examine traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) patterns commonly diagnosed in subjects with insomnia and clinical features associated with the TCM patterns, and an insomnia symptom checklist for TCM diagnostic purpose was developed based on the review. Two independent researchers searched the China Academic Journals Full-Text Database and 10 English databases. A total of 103 studies and 9499 subjects were analyzed. There was a wide variation in terminology relating to symptomatology and TCM pattern. We identified 69 patterns, with the top 3 patterns (i.e., deficiency of both the heart and spleen, hyperactivity of fire due to yin deficiency, and liver-qi stagnation transforming into fire) and the top 10 patterns covering 51.8 and 77.4 of the 9499 subjects, respectively. There were 19 sleep-related, 92 non-sleep-related, 14 tongue, and 7 pulse features included as diagnostic criteria of the top 10 TCM patterns for insomnia. Excessive dreaming, dizziness, red tongue, and fine pulse were the most common sleep-related, non-sleep-related, tongue, and pulse features. Overlapping symptomatology between the TCM patterns was present. A standardized symptom checklist consisted of 92 items, including 13 sleep-related, 61 non-sleep-related, 11 tongue, and 7 pulse items, holds promise as a diagnostic tool and merits further validation. © 2012 Maggie Man-Ki Poon et al.published_or_final_versio