Semantic Representation and Composition for Unknown Compounds in E-HowNet

PACLIC 20 / Wuhan, China / 1-3 November, 200

Constructing a evaluating model for Smartphone Green Design by VAHPand QFD

Industry and high-tech industries flourish in the current era. In addition to enhancing quality of life, they have caused plentiful harm to human beings and the environment. Some man-made pollution has destroyed the ecological balance. Environmental protection has thus become everybody’s social responsibility. Many enterprises are beginning to actively concern themselves with sustainable business models and environmental protection issues. After continuous technological development in recent years, many new products have emerged to make human life more convenient. The smartphone is among the most popular of these products. The main aims of this study are to (1) analyze green smartphone requirements of consumers and designers; and (2) construct an assessment framework and checklist for smartphone green design. This study adopts voting analytic hierarchy process (VAHP) and quality function deployment (QFD) and constructs green design criteria through expert interviews

The molecular landscape of sepsis severity in infants: enhanced coagulation, innate immunity, and T cell repression

IntroductionSepsis remains a major cause of mortality and morbidity in infants. In recent years, several gene marker strategies for the early identification of sepsis have been proposed but only a few have been independently validated for adult cohorts and applicability to infant sepsis remains unclear. Biomarkers to assess disease severity and risks of shock also represent an important unmet need.MethodsTo elucidate characteristics driving sepsis in infants, we assembled a multi-transcriptomic dataset from public microarray datasets originating from five independent studies pertaining to bacterial sepsis in infant < 6-months of age (total n=335). We utilized a COmbat co-normalization strategy to enable comparative evaluation across multiple studies while preserving the relationship between cases and controls.ResultsWe found good concordance with only two out of seven of the published adult sepsis gene signatures (accuracy > 80%), highlighting the narrow utility of adult-derived signatures for infant diagnosis. Pseudotime analysis of individual subjects’ gene expression profiles showed a continuum of molecular changes forming tight clusters concurrent with disease progression between healthy controls and septic shock cases. In depth gene expression analyses between bacteremia, septic shock, and healthy controls characterized lymphocyte activity, hemostatic processes, and heightened innate immunity during the molecular transition toward a state of shock.DiscussionOur analysis revealed the presence of multiple significant transcriptomic perturbations that occur during the progression to septic shock in infants that are characterized by late-stage induction of clotting factors, in parallel with a heightened innate immune response and a suppression of adaptive cell functionality

A LITERATURE REVIEW OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM (1990-2016): DEVELOPMENT TRAJECTORY AND FRAMEWORK

Purpose of the study—Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. Just like an enterprise today, sustainability is the long-term objective pursued by tourism industry. However, little effort has been made to systematically provide sufficient information to academicians and practitioners who have great research interests in sustainable tourism. Therefore, this paper aims to figure out the knowledge mapping of sustainable tourism and to indicate its research hot spots and trends for future research. Methodology—This paper surveys the development trajectory of sustainable tourism using a literature review and classification of articles retrieved from 5 online databases with solo keyword “sustainable tourism” from 1900 to 2016. Main findings—Based on the scope of 641 articles, this study reveals that the number of publication on sustainable tourism has significantly increased since 2006. In addition, these articles are scattered across 125 journals and mostly published in 23 academic journals. The majority of targeted countries/regions for sustainable tourism focus on Asia, Europe and America. Limitation—Restricted to limited knowledge, we make a brief literature survey on sustainable tourism from 1990-2016 to explore how sustainable tourism and its applications have developed in this period. Originality/value—In fact, sustainable tourism is a belief and an overall concept in every tourism activities. Though this research has done lots, it still has rooms to make more complete. Finally, we present a conceptual framework integrating 13 classifications criteria derived from our analysis with 3247 keywords. Most interestingly, we further present a conceptual framework with a visual effect to operationalize the coverage of sustainable tourism. Based on our analysis, any researcher can easily find the popular and right journal to get into it, if he/she is in need, he/she also can roughly know its applications so far and completely get a whole picture of sustainable tourism quickly

Metabolic labelling of cholesteryl glucosides in Helicobacter pylori reveals how the uptake of human lipids enhances bacterial virulence.

Helicobacter pylori infects approximately half of the human population and is the main cause of various gastric diseases. This pathogen is auxotrophic for cholesterol, which it converts upon uptake to various cholesteryl α-glucoside derivatives, including cholesteryl 6'-acyl and 6'-phosphatidyl α-glucosides (CAGs and CPGs). Owing to a lack of sensitive analytical methods, it is not known if CAGs and CPGs play distinct physiological roles or how the acyl chain component affects function. Herein we established a metabolite-labelling method for characterising these derivatives qualitatively and quantitatively with a femtomolar detection limit. The development generated an MS/MS database of CGds, allowing for profiling of all the cholesterol-derived metabolites. The subsequent analysis led to the unprecedented information that these bacteria acquire phospholipids from the membrane of epithelial cells for CAG biosynthesis. The resulting increase in longer or/and unsaturated CAG acyl chains helps to promote lipid raft formation and thus delivery of the virulence factor CagA into the host cell, supporting the idea that the host/pathogen interplay enhances bacterial virulence. These findings demonstrate an important connection between the chain length of CAGs and the bacterial pathogenicity

Relationship between maximal incremental and high-intensity interval exercise performance in elite athletes

This descriptive study aimed to explore the physiological factors that determine tolerance to exertion during high-intensity interval effort. Forty-seven young women (15–28 years old) were enrolled: 23 athletes from Taiwan national or national reserve teams and 24 moderately active females. Each participant underwent a maximal incremental INC (modified Bruce protocol) cardiopulmonary exercise test on the first day and high-intensity interval testing (HIIT) on the second day, both performed on a treadmill. The HIIT protocol involved alternation between 1-min effort at 120% of the maximal speed, at the same slope reached at the end of the INC, and 1-min rest until volitional exhaustion. Gas exchange, heart rate (HR), and muscle oxygenation at the right vastus lateralis, measured by near-infrared spectroscopy, were continuously recorded. The number of repetitions completed (Rlim) by each participant was considered the HIIT tolerance index. The results showed a large difference in the Rlim (range, 2.6–12.0 repetitions) among the participants. Stepwise linear regression revealed that the variance in the Rlim within the cohort was related to the recovery rates of oxygen consumption (), HR at the second minute after INC, and muscle tissue saturation index at exhaustion (R = 0.644). In addition, age was linearly correlated with Rlim (adjusted R = −0.518, p \u3c 0.0001). In conclusion, the recovery rates for and HR after the incremental test, and muscle saturation index at exhaustion, were the major physiological factors related to HIIT performance. These findings provide insights into the role of the recovery phase after maximal INC exercise testing. Future research investigating a combination of INC and HIIT testing to determine training-induced performance improvement is warranted

Serologic Status for Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Virus, Taiwan

We studied preexisting immunity to pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus in persons in Taiwan. A total of 18 (36%) of 50 elderly adults in Taiwan born before 1935 had protective antibodies against currently circulating pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus. Seasonal influenza vaccines induced antibodies that did not protect against pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus

Inferring nonneutral evolution from contrasting patterns of polymorphisms and divergences in different protein coding regions of enterovirus 71 circulating in Taiwan during 1998-2003

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Enterovirus (EV) 71 is one of the common causative agents for hand, foot, and, mouth disease (HFMD). In recent years, the virus caused several outbreaks with high numbers of deaths and severe neurological complications. Despite the importance of these epidemics, several aspects of the evolutionary and epidemiological dynamics, including viral nucleotide variations within and between different outbreaks, rates of change in immune-related structural regions vs. non-structural regions, and forces driving the evolution of EV71, are still not clear.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We sequenced four genomic segments, i.e., the 5' untranslated region (UTR), VP1, 2A, and 3C, of 395 EV71 viral strains collected from 1998 to 2003 in Taiwan. The phylogenies derived from different genomic segments revealed different relationships, indicating frequent sequence recombinations as previously noted. In addition to simple recombinations, exchanges of the P1 domain between different species/genotypes of human enterovirus species (HEV)-A were repeatedly observed. Contrasting patterns of polymorphisms and divergences were found between structural (VP1) and non-structural segments (2A and 3C), i.e., the former was less polymorphic within an outbreak but more divergent between different HEV-A species than the latter two. Our computer simulation demonstrated a significant excess of amino acid replacements in the VP1 region implying its possible role in adaptive evolution. Between different epidemic seasons, we observed high viral diversity in the epidemic peaks followed by severe reductions in diversity. Viruses sampled in successive epidemic seasons were not sister to each other, indicating that the annual outbreaks of EV71 were due to genetically distinct lineages.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Based on observations of accelerated amino acid changes and frequent exchanges of the P1 domain, we propose that positive selection and subsequent frequent domain shuffling are two important mechanisms for generating new genotypes of HEV-A. Our viral dynamics analysis suggested that the importation of EV71 from surrounding areas likely contributes to local EV71 outbreaks.</p

Effect of Antrodia

Antrodia camphorata is a rare Taiwanese medicinal mushroom. Antrodia camphorata extract has been reported to exhibit antioxidant, anti-inflammation, antimetastasis, and anticancer activities and plays a role in liver fibrosis, vasorelaxation, and immunomodulation. Critical vascular inflammation leads to vascular dysfunction and cardiovascular diseases, including abdominal aortic aneurysms, hypertension, and atherosclerosis. Platelet activation plays a crucial role in intravascular thrombosis, which is involved in a wide variety of cardiovascular diseases. However, the effect of Antrodia camphorata on platelet activation remains unclear. We examined the effects of Antrodia camphorata on platelet activation. In the present study, Antrodia camphorata treatment (56–224 μg/mL) inhibited platelet aggregation induced by collagen, but not U46619, an analogue of thromboxane A2, thrombin, and arachidonic acid. Antrodia camphorata inhibited collagen-induced calcium (Ca2+) mobilization and phosphorylation of protein kinase C (PKC) and Akt. In addition, Antrodia camphorata significantly reduced the aggregation and phosphorylation of PKC in phorbol-12, 13-dibutyrate (PDBu) activated platelets. In conclusion, Antrodia camphorata may inhibit platelet activation by inhibiting of Ca2+ and PKC cascade and the Akt pathway. Our study suggests that Antrodia camphorata may be a potential therapeutic agent for preventing or treating thromboembolic disorders