The Hong Kong Telephone Directory Enquiry System

Concerns the design and performance of the telephone directory enquiry system that has been newly adopted in Hong Kong. This system maintains three million telephone records and supports over 40,000 enquiries per hour at the peak. In Hong Kong society, the uses of English and Chinese (in particular, Cantonese) has been blending in a thrust of exciting language culture, giving rise to a variety of telephone enquires that traditional B-tree or hashing-based telephone directory enquiry systems fail to handle. The efficiency and flexibility achieved by the new system stem from hosting all indexing data structures in the main memory; these data structures occupy about half a giga-byte and would have been considered too expensive to be placed in main memory in the past.published_or_final_versio

A multicentre comparison of quantitative 90Y PET/CT for dosimetric purposes after radioembolization with resin microspheres

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Miro: A molecular switch at the center of mitochondrial regulation

The orchestration of mitochondria within the cell represents a critical aspect of cell biology. At the center of this process is the outer mitochondrial membrane protein, Miro. Miro coordinates diverse cellular processes by regulating connections between organelles and the cytoskeleton that range from mediating contacts between the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria to the regulation of both actin and microtubule motor proteins. Recently, a number of cell biological, biochemical, and protein structure studies have helped to characterize the myriad roles played by Miro. In addition to answering questions regarding Miro’s function, these studies have opened the door to new avenues in the study of Miro in the cell. This review will focus on summarizing recent findings for Miro’s structure, function, and activity while highlighting key questions that remain unanswered.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155476/1/pro3839.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155476/2/pro3839_am.pd

The importance of sonographic landmarks by transcutaneous laryngeal ultrasonography in post-thyroidectomy vocal cord assessment

During examination of the vocal cords (VC) using transcutaneous laryngeal ultrasonography (TLUSG), 3 sonographic landmarks (namely, false VC [FC], true VC [TC], and arytenoids [AR]) are often seen. However, it remains unclear which landmark provides a more reliable assessment and whether seeing more landmarks improves the diagnostic accuracy and reliability. METHODS: We evaluated prospectively 245 patients from 2 centers. One assessor from each center performed all TLUSG examinations and their findings were validated by direct laryngoscopy. All 3 sonographic landmarks were routinely visualized whenever possible. The rate of visualization and diagnostic accuracy between the 3 landmarks were compared. RESULTS: Eighteen patients suffered postoperative VC palsy (VCP). Both centers had comparable visualization or assessability rate of ≥ 1 sonographic landmark (94.9 and 95.3%; P = 1.000) and 100% sensitivity on postoperative TLUSG. The rates of FC, TC, and AR visualization were 92.7%, 36.7%, and 89.8%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy and the proportion of true positives, false positives, and true negatives between using 1, 2, landmarks and 3 landmarks were comparable (P > .05). CONCLUSION: Each sonographic landmark had similar reliability and diagnostic accuracy. Identifying all 3 sonographic landmarks was not mandatory and visualizing normal movement in one of the sonographic landmarks would be sufficient to exclude VCP. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.postprin

Evaluating the Morbidity and Efficacy of Reoperative Surgery in the Central Compartment for Persistent/Recurrent Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

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Studying the effect of sonographic landmarks imaged on transcutaneous laryngeal ultrasonography on perioperative vocal cord assessment

Scientific Session 8INTRODUCTION: Transcutaneous laryngeal ultrasound (TLUSG) is a non-invasive way of assessing vocal cord (VC) function. During examination, the assessor often looks at 3 sonographic landmarks (namely, false VC (FC), true VC (TC) and arytenoids (AR)) to ascertain VC movement. However, it is unclear among these landmarks, which one provides the most reliable VC assessment as not all patients would have all three landmarks identified on the same examination. We postulated that perhaps finding all three sonographic landmarks may further improve diagnostic accuracy. To address these questions, we prospectively evaluated consecutive patients over two institutions …published_or_final_versio

Abscisic acid transporters cooperate to control seed germination

Seed germination is a key developmental process that has to be tightly controlled to avoid germination under unfavourable conditions. Abscisic acid (ABA) is an essential repressor of seed germination. In Arabidopsis, it has been shown that the endosperm, a single cell layer surrounding the embryo, synthesizes and continuously releases ABA towards the embryo. The mechanism of ABA transport from the endosperm to the embryo was hitherto unknown. Here we show that four AtABCG transporters act in concert to deliver ABA from the endosperm to the embryo: AtABCG25 and AtABCG31 export ABA from the endosperm, whereas AtABCG30 and AtABCG40 import ABA into the embryo. Thus, this work establishes that radicle extension and subsequent embryonic growth are suppressed by the coordinated activity of multiple ABA transporters expressed in different tissues.1141Ysciescopu

Differential replication of avian influenza H9N2 viruses in human alveolar epithelial A549 cells

Avian influenza virus H9N2 isolates cause a mild influenza-like illness in humans. However, the pathogenesis of the H9N2 subtypes in human remains to be investigated. Using a human alveolar epithelial cell line A549 as host, we found that A/Quail/Hong Kong/G1/97 (H9N2/G1), which shares 6 viral "internal genes" with the lethal A/Hong Kong/156/97 (H5N1/97) virus, replicates efficiently whereas other H9N2 viruses, A/Duck/Hong Kong/Y280/97 (H9N2/Y280) and A/Chicken/Hong Kong/G9/97 (H9N2/G9), replicate poorly. Interestingly, we found that there is a difference in the translation of viral protein but not in the infectivity or transcription of viral genes of these H9N2 viruses in the infected cells. This difference may possibly be explained by H9N2/G1 being more efficient on viral protein production in specific cell types. These findings suggest that the H9N2/G1 virus like its counterpart H5N1/97 may be better adapted to the human host and replicates efficiently in human alveolar epithelial cells

Bilateral pheochromocytomas in MEN2A syndrome: a two-institution experience

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