TEL/AML1 Fusion Gene in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in Southern Taiwan

Chromosomal abnormalities are found in 80–90% of childhood cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Leukemia-specific chromosome aberrations not only have prognostic value, but also provide important clues for further investigation into leukogenesis, leukemic cell transformation, and proliferation. This study used reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction techniques to detect transcripts of the leukemia-specific chromosome fusion gene, TEL/AML1, and to monitor the expression levels of the TEL-AML1 fusion transcript in ALL patients at sequential intervals during their treatment course. Twenty-five ALL patients were enrolled, including 20 who were newly diagnosed and five in relapse. The incidence of the TEL/AML1 fusion gene in this study was 32%. The clinical features of our eight TEL/AML1-positive ALL cases were similar to those in other studies. Blotting analysis of the levels of the TEL-AML1 fusion transcript was used to detect minimal residual disease. Reduced levels of TEL/AML1 expression were found in four of the six patients whose bone marrow or peripheral blood samples were obtained after treatment. Further investigation with a larger sample size is warranted

Hydrodynamical Simulations of the Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1097

NGC 1097 is a nearby barred spiral galaxy believed to be interacting with the elliptical galaxy NGC 1097A located to its northwest. It hosts a Seyfert 1 nucleus surrounded by a circumnuclear starburst ring. Two straight dust lanes connected to the ring extend almost continuously out to the bar. The other ends of the dust lanes attach to two main spiral arms. To provide a physical understanding of its structural and kinematical properties, two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations have been carried out. Numerical calculations reveal that many features of the gas morphology and kinematics can be reproduced provided that the gas flow is governed by a gravitational potential associated with a slowly rotating strong bar. By including the self-gravity of the gas disk in our calculation, we have found the starburst ring to be gravitationally unstable which is consistent with the observation in \citet{hsieh11}. Our simulations show that the gas inflow rate is 0.17 M_\sun yr$^{-1}$ into the region within the starburst ring even after its formation, leading to the coexistence of both a nuclear ring and a circumnuclear disk.Comment: 32 pages, 14 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in the Ap

How E-Servqual Affects Customer\u27s Online Purchase Intention?

With the boom of Internet, Internet has become one of the consumers’ online shopping channels. However, there is different in online shopping situation is because of consumers in different cultures and countries have different online shopping behavior is worth to discuss. This study is to explore the Internet users’ online shopping situation in developing country, Malaysia, and 118 questionnaire respondents were collected. Statistical analysis software SPSS 17.0 and AMOS 6.0 were used to analyze the impact on e-service quality, satisfaction, trust, and purchase intention. The model fit of this study was in an acceptable level, and this indicates that the theoretical model of this study supports the description of e-service quality for e-retailers that online shopping situation will be effected by trust and satisfaction. The result of this study will be available for those who interested in developing a transnational e-retailer as a reference, as well as academic research on cross-cultural comparative analysis

Developing new heat pump system to improve indoor living space in senior long-term care house

The issue of an aging population is becoming increasingly acute in Taiwan; in 2018, seniors comprised over 14 % of the total population. The quality of care for senior citizens hinges on the ability of long-term care facilities to create comfortable living spaces while ensuring energy efficiency by reducing electricity consumption, thereby providing them with an environment for aging in an active and positive way. This study proposes a new heat pump system that offers a cold source in the summer and a heat source in the winter. In addition, the air-conditioning and ventilation rates required for comfort in indoor living spaces are established to ensure the high quality of the care spaces in these types of institutions. The results after installation of the heat pump system were as follows: (1) Performance of the heat pump system: the inlet temperature of the heat pump chilled water was maintained at 7-10 °C, and the outlet temperature, at 42-54 °C. (2) Energy efficiency: Based on a 95 % confidence interval, the average annual electricity consumption was 32.65 kwh/day, which was 32.65 % of the prior consumption level; the reduction of 67.35 % is comparable to those of most heat pump systems. (3) Improvement of the indoor environment: In the hottest scenario, the indoor temperature was reduced by 3 °C and the relative humidity to 55-65 %, which fall within comfortable ranges. After the heat pump system was introduced, significant improvements in ventilation, air quality and comfort were noted, as well as significant improvement in average total satisfaction scores. All improvements reached statistical significance. The overall objective of the system is to enhance the environmental quality in long-term senior care facilities and make them healthier and more energy efficient

Paxillin facilitates timely neurite initiation on soft-substrate environments by interacting with the endocytic machinery.

Neurite initiation is the first step in neuronal development and occurs spontaneously in soft tissue environments. Although the mechanisms regulating the morphology of migratory cells on rigid substrates in cell culture are widely known, how soft environments modulate neurite initiation remains elusive. Using hydrogel cultures, pharmacologic inhibition, and genetic approaches, we reveal that paxillin-linked endocytosis and adhesion are components of a bistable switch controlling neurite initiation in a substrate modulus-dependent manner. On soft substrates, most paxillin binds to endocytic factors and facilitates vesicle invagination, elevating neuritogenic Rac1 activity and expression of genes encoding the endocytic machinery. By contrast, on rigid substrates, cells develop extensive adhesions, increase RhoA activity and sequester paxillin from the endocytic machinery, thereby delaying neurite initiation. Our results highlight paxillin as a core molecule in substrate modulus-controlled morphogenesis and define a mechanism whereby neuronal cells respond to environments exhibiting varying mechanical properties

An optimized procedure greatly improves EST vector contamination removal

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The enormous amount of sequence data available in the public domain database has been a gold mine for researchers exploring various themes in life sciences, and hence the quality of such data is of serious concern to researchers. Removal of vector contamination is one of the most significant operations to obtain accurate sequence data containing only a cDNA insert from the basecalls output by an automatic DNA sequencer. Popular bioinformatics programs to accomplish vector trimming include LUCY, cross_match and SeqClean.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In a recent study, where the program SeqClean was used to remove vector contamination from our test set of EST data compiled through various library construction systems, however, a significant number of errors remained after preliminary trimming. These errors were later almost completely corrected by simply using a re-linearized form of the cloning vector to compare against the target ESTs. The modified trimming procedure for SeqClean was also compared with the trimming efficiency of the other two popular programs, LUCY2, and cross_match. Using SeqClean with a re-linearized form of the cloning vector significantly surpassed the other two programs in all tested conditions, while the performance of the other two programs was not influenced by the modified procedure. Vector contamination in dbEST was also investigated in this study: 2203 out of the 48212 ESTs sampled from dbEST (2007-04-18 freeze) were found to match sequences in UNIVEC.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Vector contamination remains a serious concern to the data quality in the public sequence database nowadays. Based on the results presented here, we feel that our modified procedure with SeqClean should be recommended to all researchers for the task of vector removal from EST or genomic sequences.</p

Comparisons of the GlideScope and Macintosh Laryngoscope in Tracheal Intubation by Medical Students on Fresh Human Cadavers

AbstractObjectiveThe GlideScope Video Laryngoscope (GS) is an intubating device that provides equal or better glottic views than conventional laryngoscopes, but correct tube placement is more time-consuming, even when performed by experienced operators. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of the GS compared with the more conventional Macintosh laryngoscope in easy and difficult tracheal intubation when performed by inexperienced medical students on fresh human cadaversPatients and MethodsForty-one medical students were assigned to perform tracheal intubation using the direct Macintosh laryngoscope (DL) and the GS. Each student was given four attempts, with a maximum of 180 seconds for each attempt, to successfully intubate the trachea with a 6.5-mm tracheal tube in each of two scenarios, one with an easy airway and the other with a difficult airway cadaver.ResultsThe total time of intubation for the easy airway cadaver was significantly longer in the GS group (61.4 ± 4.8 seconds vs. 40.6 ± 5.3 seconds; p < 0.001) despite the modified Cormack-Lehane scores showing no difference between the two groups. In the difficult airway cadaver, total time of intubation was significant shorter in the GS group (64.3 ± 6.5 seconds vs. 98.7 ± 10.2 seconds; p < 0.001)ConclusionMost inexperienced operators found the GS to be more time-consuming for tracheal intubation than DL in the easy airway cadaver. However, an obvious advantage was demonstrated when the GS was used for the difficult airway