The articulatory and acoustical characteristics of the "apical vowels" in Beijing Mandarin

Abstract no. 4pSC23published_or_final_versio

An acoustic investigation of the Cantonese vowels in the speech of the adult and child speakers

Abstract no. 2aSC25published_or_final_versio

Processing SPARQL queries with regular expressions in RDF databases

Background: As the Resource Description Framework (RDF) data model is widely used for modeling and sharing a lot of online bioinformatics resources such as Uniprot (dev.isb-sib.ch/projects/uniprot-rdf) or Bio2RDF (bio2rdf.org), SPARQL - a W3C recommendation query for RDF databases - has become an important query language for querying the bioinformatics knowledge bases. Moreover, due to the diversity of users' requests for extracting information from the RDF data as well as the lack of users' knowledge about the exact value of each fact in the RDF databases, it is desirable to use the SPARQL query with regular expression patterns for querying the RDF data. To the best of our knowledge, there is currently no work that efficiently supports regular expression processing in SPARQL over RDF databases. Most of the existing techniques for processing regular expressions are designed for querying a text corpus, or only for supporting the matching over the paths in an RDF graph. Results: In this paper, we propose a novel framework for supporting regular expression processing in SPARQL query. Our contributions can be summarized as follows. 1) We propose an efficient framework for processing SPARQL queries with regular expression patterns in RDF databases. 2) We propose a cost model in order to adapt the proposed framework in the existing query optimizers. 3) We build a prototype for the proposed framework in C++ and conduct extensive experiments demonstrating the efficiency and effectiveness of our technique. Conclusions: Experiments with a full-blown RDF engine show that our framework outperforms the existing ones by up to two orders of magnitude in processing SPARQL queries with regular expression patterns.X113sciescopu

Final report of the Construction Industry Institute, Hong Kong research project on reinventing the Hong Kong construction industry for its sustainable development

Author name used in this publication: Andrew N. BaldwinAuthor name used in this publication: Y. H. ChiangAuthor name used in this publication: Joyce W. S. CheungAuthor name used in this publication: Joanne W. S. NgConstruction Industry Institute-Hong Kong Report, no. 132008-2009 > Academic research: not refereed > Research book or monograph (author)Other Versio

Site-2 protease responds to oxidative stress and regulates oxidative injury in mammalian cells

published_or_final_versio

Clustering uncertain data using voronoi diagrams and R-tree index

We study the problem of clustering uncertain objects whose locations are described by probability density functions (pdfs). We show that the UK-means algorithm, which generalizes the k-means algorithm to handle uncertain objects, is very inefficient. The inefficiency comes from the fact that UK-means computes expected distances (EDs) between objects and cluster representatives. For arbitrary pdfs, expected distances are computed by numerical integrations, which are costly operations. We propose pruning techniques that are based on Voronoi diagrams to reduce the number of expected distance calculations. These techniques are analytically proven to be more effective than the basic bounding-box-based technique previously known in the literature. We then introduce an R-tree index to organize the uncertain objects so as to reduce pruning overheads. We conduct experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of our novel techniques. We show that our techniques are additive and, when used in combination, significantly outperform previously known methods. © 2006 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Thermoelectric properties of Al-doped mesoporous ZnO thin films

Al-doped mesoporous ZnO thin films were synthesized by a sol-gel process and an evaporation-induced self-assembly process. In this work, the effects of Al doping concentration on the electrical conductivity and characterization of mesoporous ZnO thin films were investigated. By changing the Al doping concentration, ZnO grain growth is inhibited, and the mesoporous structure of ZnO is maintained during a relatively high temperature annealing process. The porosity of Al-doped mesoporous ZnO thin films increased slightly with increasing Al doping concentration. Finally, as electrical conductivity was increased as electrons were freed and pore structure was maintained by inhibiting grain growth, the thermoelectric property was enhanced with increasing Al concentration. © 2013 Min-Hee Hong et al

Unhealthy weight control behaviours in adolescent girls: a process model based on self-determination theory

This study used self-determination theory (Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (2000). The 'what' and 'why' of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227-268.) to examine predictors of body image concerns and unhealthy weight control behaviours in a sample of 350 Greek adolescent girls. A process model was tested which proposed that perceptions of parental autonomy support and two life goals (health and image) would predict adolescents' degree of satisfaction of their basic psychological needs. In turn, psychological need satisfaction was hypothesised to negatively predict body image concerns (i.e. drive for thinness and body dissatisfaction) and, indirectly, unhealthy weight control behaviours. The predictions of the model were largely supported indicating that parental autonomy support and adaptive life goals can indirectly impact upon the extent to which female adolescents engage in unhealthy weight control behaviours via facilitating the latter's psychological need satisfaction

Temperature dependence of the electronic structure of the J(eff)=12 Mott insulator Sr2IrO4 studied by optical spectroscopy

We investigated the temperature-dependent evolution of the electronic structure of the J(eff)=1/2 Mott insulator Sr2IrO4 using optical spectroscopy. The optical conductivity spectra sigma(omega) of this compound has recently been found to exhibit two d-d transitions associated with the transition between the J(eff)=1/2 and J(eff)=3/2 bands due to the cooperation of the electron correlation and spin-orbit coupling. As the temperature increases, the two peaks show significant changes resulting in a decrease in the Mott gap. The experimental observations are compared with the results of first-principles calculation in consideration of increasing bandwidth. We discuss the effect of the temperature change in the electronic structure of Sr2IrO4 in terms of local lattice distortion, excitonic effect, electron-phonon coupling, and magnetic ordering.open69575

Cisplatin induces tolerogenic dendritic cells in response to TLR agonists via the abundant production of IL-10, thereby promoting Th2-and Tr1-biased T-cell immunity

Although many advantageous roles of cisplatin (cis-diamminedichloroplatinum (II), CDDP) have been reported in cancer therapy, the immunomodulatory roles of cisplatin in the phenotypic and functional alterations of dendritic cells (DCs) are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the effect of cisplatin on the functionality of DCs and the changes in signaling pathways activated upon toll-like receptor (TLR) stimulation. Cisplatin-treated DCs down-regulated the expression of cell surface molecules (CD80, CD86, MHC class I and II) and up-regulated endocytic capacity in a dose-dependent manner. Upon stimulation with various TLR agonists, cisplatin-treated DCs showed markedly increased IL-10 production through activation of the p38 MAPK and NF-kappa B signaling pathways without altering the levels of TNF-alpha and IL-12p70, indicating the cisplatin-mediated induction of tolerogenic DCs. This effect was dependent on the production of IL-10 from DCs, as neither DCs isolated from IL-10(-/-) mice nor IL-10-neutralized DCs generated tolerogenic DCs. Interestingly, DCs that were co-treated with cisplatin and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exhibited a decreased immunostimulatory capacity for inducing the proliferation of Th1- and Th17-type T cells; instead, these DCs contributed to Th2-type T cell immunity. Furthermore, in vitro and in vivo investigations revealed a unique T cell population, IL-10-producing CD3(+)CD4(+)LAG-3(+)CD49b(+)CD25(-)Foxp3(-) Tr1 cells, that was significantly increased without altering the Foxp3(+) regulatory T cell population. Taken together, our results suggest that cisplatin induces immune-suppressive tolerogenic DCs in TLR agonist-induced inflammatory conditions via abundant IL-10 production, thereby skewing Th cell differentiation towards Th2 and Tr1 cells. This relationship may provide cancer cells with an opportunity to evade the immune system.1123Ysciescopu