Evolution of Parathyroid Hormone Receptor Family and Their Ligands in Vertebrate

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Parameter control by the entire search history: Case study of history-driven evolutionary algorithm

Special Session on Evolutionary Computer VisionHistory-driven Evolutionary Algorithm (HdEA) is an EA that uses the entire search history to improve searching performance. By building the approximated fitness landscape and estimating the gradient using the entire history, HdEA performs a parameter-less adaptive mutation. In order to decrease the number of parameters that makes the HdEA more robust, this paper proposes a novel adaptive parameter control system. This system is as an add-on component to HdEA, which uses the whole search history in HdEA to control the parameters in an automatic manner. The performance of the proposed system is examined on 34 benchmark functions. The results shows that the parameter control system gives similar or better performance in 24 functions and has the benefit that two parameters of the HdEA are eliminated; they are set and varied automatically by the system. © 2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Significance of non-level walking on transtibial prosthesis fitting with particular reference to the effects of anterior-posterior alignment

Author name used in this publication: Jack C. Y. Cheng2000-2001 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

A comparison of surgical outcomes between endoscopic and robotically assisted thyroidectomy: the authors’ initial experience

Background: The gasless, transaxillary endoscopic thyroidectomy (GTET) offers a distinct advantage over the conventional open operation by leaving no visible neck scar, and in an attempt to improve its ergonomics and surgical outcomes, the robotically assisted thyroidectomy (RAT) was introduced. The RAT uses the same endoscopic route as the GTET but with the assistance of the da Vinci S robotic system. Excellent results for RAT have been reported, but it remains unclear whether RAT offers any potential benefits over GTET. Methods: From June to December 2009, 46 patients underwent endoscopic thyroidectomy. Of these patients, 39 had surgery without the robot (GTET) and 7 had surgery with the robot (RAT). Demographics, surgical indications, operative findings, and postoperative outcomes were compared between the two groups. All the patients were followed up for at least 6 months after surgery. Results: Patient demographics, surgical indications, and extent of resection were similar between the two groups. The median total procedure time was significantly longer for RAT (149 min) than for GTET (100 min; p = 0.018), but the contralateral recurrent laryngeal nerve was more likely to identified in RAT (100%) than in GTET (42.9%; p = 0.070). On the average, GTET needed one more surgical assistant than RAT (1 vs. 0; ppublished_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 21 Feb 201

A Systematic Review of Recreation Therapy for Depression in Older Adults

Background: Recreation therapy (RT) provides a flexible and powerful treatment for depression associated with aging. This article reviewed the effectiveness of RT to treat depression in older adults. Method: Five electronic databases were employed to identify interventional studies on RT in depressed older adults: Pubmed, PsycINFO, ProQuest, Academic Search Premier and ERIC. Articles were screened against inclusion criteria and assessed with respect to methodological quality. Results: A systematic literature review included 18 articles. Fourteen studies reported improvement in depression but 6 studies lack adequate significance in the positive effect of RT. Methodological quality assessment of 13 randomizedcontrolled trials and 5 non-controlled studies indicated an overall mean of 5.67 ± 1.94 points out of 9. Conclusion: There were positive findings that RT is effective in improving geriatric depression. Future investigation is encouraged to explore the mechanism between physical activity RT and depression improvement

On the Alexandrov Topology of sub-Lorentzian Manifolds

It is commonly known that in Riemannian and sub-Riemannian Geometry, the metric tensor on a manifold defines a distance function. In Lorentzian Geometry, instead of a distance function it provides causal relations and the Lorentzian time-separation function. Both lead to the definition of the Alexandrov topology, which is linked to the property of strong causality of a space-time. We studied three possible ways to define the Alexandrov topology on sub-Lorentzian manifolds, which usually give different topologies, but agree in the Lorentzian case. We investigated their relationships to each other and the manifold's original topology and their link to causality.Comment: 20 page

The Entropy for General Extremal Black Holes

We use the Kerr/CFT correspondence to calculate the entropy for all known extremal stationary and axisymmetric black holes. This is done with the help of two ansatzs that are general enough to cover all such known solutions. Considering only the contribution from the Einstein-Hilbert action to the central charge(s), we find that the entropy obtained by using Cardy's formula exactly matches with the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy.Comment: Minor corrections, section 5 refined, references added

Metabolomic profiling of Burkholderia pseudomallei using UHPLC-ESI-Q-TOF-MS reveals specific biomarkers including 4-methyl-5-thiazoleethanol and unique thiamine degradation pathway

© 2015 Lau et al.Background: Burkholderia pseudomallei is an emerging pathogen that causes melioidosis, a serious and potentially fatal disease which requires prolonged antibiotics to prevent relapse. However, diagnosis of melioidosis can be difficult, especially in culture-negative cases. While metabolomics represents an uprising tool for studying infectious diseases, there were no reports on its applications to B. pseudomallei. To search for potential specific biomarkers, we compared the metabolomics profiles of culture supernatants of B. pseudomallei (15 strains), B. thailandensis (3 strains), B. cepacia complex (14 strains), P. aeruginosa (4 strains) and E. coli (3 strains), using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-quadruple time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-ESI-Q-TOF-MS). Multi- and univariate analyses were used to identify specific metabolites in B. pseudomallei. Results: Principal component and partial-least squares discrimination analysis readily distinguished the metabolomes between B. pseudomallei and other bacterial species. Using multi-variate and univariate analysis, eight metabolites with significantly higher levels in B. pseudomallei were identified. Three of the eight metabolites were identified by MS/MS, while five metabolites were unidentified against database matching, suggesting that they may be potentially novel compounds. One metabolite, m/z 144.048, was identified as 4-methyl-5-thiazoleethanol, a degradation product of thiamine (vitamin B1), with molecular formula C6H9NOS by database searches and confirmed by MS/MS using commercially available authentic chemical standard. Two metabolites, m/z 512.282 and m/z 542.2921, were identified as tetrapeptides, Ile-His-Lys-Asp with molecular formula C22H37N7O7 and Pro-Arg-Arg-Asn with molecular formula C21H39N11O6, respectively. To investigate the high levels of 4-methyl-5-thiazoleethanol in B. pseudomallei, we compared the thiamine degradation pathways encoded in genomes of B. pseudomallei and B. thailandensis. While both B. pseudomallei and B. thailandensis possess thiaminase I which catalyzes degradation of thiamine to 4-methyl-5-thiazoleethanol, thiM, which encodes hydroxyethylthiazole kinase responsible for degradation of 4-methyl-5-thiazoleethanol, is present and expressed in B. thailandensis as detected by PCR/RT-PCR, but absent or not expressed in all B. pseudomallei strains. This suggests that the high 4-methyl-5-thiazoleethanol level in B. pseudomallei is likely due to the absence of hydroxyethylthiazole kinase and hence reduced downstream degradation. Conclusion: Eight novel biomarkers, including 4-methyl-5-thiazoleethanol and two tetrapeptides, were identified in the culture supernatant of B. pseudomallei.published_or_final_versio

Thermodynamical Metrics and Black Hole Phase Transitions

An important phase transition in black hole thermodynamics is associated with the divergence of the specific heat with fixed charge and angular momenta, yet one can demonstrate that neither Ruppeiner's entropy metric nor Weinhold's energy metric reveals this phase transition. In this paper, we introduce a new thermodynamical metric based on the Hessian matrix of several free energy. We demonstrate, by studying various charged and rotating black holes, that the divergence of the specific heat corresponds to the curvature singularity of this new metric. We further investigate metrics on all thermodynamical potentials generated by Legendre transformations and study correspondences between curvature singularities and phase transition signals. We show in general that for a system with n-pairs of intensive/extensive variables, all thermodynamical potential metrics can be embedded into a flat (n,n)-dimensional space. We also generalize the Ruppeiner metrics and they are all conformal to the metrics constructed from the relevant thermodynamical potentials.Comment: Latex, 25 pages, reference added, typos corrected, English polished and the Hawking-Page phase transition clarified; to appear in JHE