Clinical Analysis of Acinic Cell Carcinoma in Parotid Gland

ObjectivesAcinic cell carcinoma (AciCC) is a rarely encountered malignancy in parotid gland. Because AciCC is rare and was recently recognized as the entity of malignancy, AciCC has been difficult to study. We aimed to analyze the diagnosis and treatment experience for this malignancy in our hospital.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed medical records of the 20 patients with AciCC of parotid gland diagnosed from 1990 to 2009. The preoperative computed tomography scan, preoperative fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) and intraoperative frozen section results were compared with the final diagnosis. The survival and recurrence were analyzed with the cancer stages and treatment modalities.ResultsThere were 10 males and 10 females, with a mean age of 44.4 years, ranging 8-77 years. The AJCC tumor stage distributions of the patients were 70%, 15%, and 15% for stages I, II, and IV, respectively. The sensitivity of FNAC and intraoperative frozen section was 26.7% and 50.0% respectively. The 10-year survival rate was 90.9% with a mean follow-up of 111 months, ranging 17-251 months. The 10-year disease free survival rate was 74.2% and the mean duration of recurrence from initial surgery was 92.3 months.ConclusionAciCC of the parotid gland is a rare malignancy that has features of less aggressive behavior, and good prognosis. Intraoperative frozen section examination may be helpful in the diagnosis of AciCC of the parotid gland because of the low sensitivity of preoperative computed tomography scan and FNAC. Surgery with adjuvant postoperative radiotherapy is satisfactory for disease control

Maintaining Consistency Under Isolation Relaxation of Web Services Transactions

Abstract. For efficiently managing Web Services (WS) transactions which are executed across multiple loosely-coupled autonomous organizations, isolation is commonly relaxed. A Web services operation of a transaction releases locks on its resources once its jobs are completed without waiting for the completions of other operations. However, those early unlocked resources can be seen by other transac-tions, which can spoil data integrity and causes incorrect outcomes. Existing WS transaction standards do not consider this problem. In this paper, we propose a mechanism to ensure the consistent executions of isolation-relaxing WS transac-tions. The mechanism effectively detects inconsistent states of transactions with a notion of a completion dependency and recovers them to consistent states. We also propose a new Web services Transaction Dependency management Protocol (WTDP). WTDP helps organizations manage the WS transactions easily without data inconsistency. WTDP is designed to be compliant with a representative WS transaction standard, the Web Services Transactions specifications, for easy inte-gration into existing WS transaction systems. We prototyped a WTDP-based WS transaction management system to validate our protocol.

Accelerating Database Processing at e-Commerce Sites

Abstract. Most e-commerce Web sites dynamically generate their contents through a three-tier server architecture composed of a Web server, an application server, and a database server. In such an architecture, the database server easily becomes a bottleneck to the overall performance. In this paper, we propose WDBAccel, a high-performance database server accelerator that significantly improves the throughput of the database processing, and thus that of the overall Web site. WDBAccel eliminates costly, complex query processing needed to obtain query results by reusing previous query results for subsequent queries. This differentiates WDBAccel from other database cache systems, which replicate a database into multiple conventional DBMS’s and distribute queries among them. We evaluate the performance of WDBAccel by using the queries of the TPC-W benchmark. The measurement results show that WDBAccel outperforms DBMS-based cache systems by up to an order of magnitude.

CIGMA: aCtive Inventory service in Global e-MArket based on efficient catalog management

A fully Internet-connected business evironment is subject to frequent changes. To ordinary customers, online shopping under such a dynamic environment can be frustrating. We propose a new E-commerce service called the CIGMA to support online customers under such an environment. The CIGMA provides catalog comparison and purchase mediation services over multiple shopping sites for ordinary online customers. The service is based on up-to-date information by reflecting the frequent changes in catalog information in real-time. It also matches the desire of online customers for fast response. This paper describes the CIGMA along with an overview of its catalog management schemes.1

Combination therapy with doxorubicin-loaded galactosylated poly(ethyleneglycol)-lithocholic acid to suppress the tumor growth in an orthotopic mouse model of liver cancer

Despite advances in technology, neither conventional anti-cancer drugs nor current nanoparticle (NP) drugs have gained substantial success in cancer treatment. While conventional chemotherapy drugs have several limitations such as low potency, poor in vivo stability and limited bioavailability, non-specific targeting of NP drugs diminishes their potency at actual target sites. In addition, the development of drug resistance to anti-cancer drugs is another challenging problem. To overcome these limitations, we aimed to develop a polymer-drug conjugate, which functions as an active NP drug and drug carrier both, to deliver a chemotherapeutic drug for combination therapy. Accordingly, we made targeting NP carrier of lithocholic acid-poly(ethylene glycol)-lactobionic acid (LPL) loading doxorubicin (Dox) to produce Dox/LPL NPs. The cellular uptake of Dox/LPL NPs was relatively higher in human liver cancer cell line (SK-HEP-1) due to galactose ligand-asialoglycoprotein receptor interaction. Consequently, the cellular uptake of Dox/LPL NPs led to massive cell death of SK-HEP-1 cells by two different mechanisms, particularly apoptotic activity by LPL and mitotic catastrophe by Dox. Most importantly, Dox/LPL NPs, when administered to orthotopic xenograft model of liver cancer, greatly reduced proliferation, invasion, migration, and angiogenesis of liver tumor in vivo. Thus, this study exemplifies the superiority of combination therapy over individual NP drug or conventional small molecule drug for cancer therapy. Overall, we present a promising approach of combinatorial therapy to inhibit the hepatic tumor growth and metastasis in the orthotopic xenograft model mice, thus representing an effective weapon for cancer treatment. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved