Case-control study of Sichuan and Hong Kong children with melamine-associated renal stones: renal ultrasonography and urinary IL-8 and MCP-1 levels

published_or_final_versio

Evaluating tag-based information access in image collections

The availability of social tags has greatly enhanced access to information. Tag clouds have emerged as a new "social" way to find and visualize information, providing both one-click access to information and a snapshot of the "aboutness" of a tagged collection. A range of research projects explored and compared different tag artifacts for information access ranging from regular tag clouds to tag hierarchies. At the same time, there is a lack of user studies that compare the effectiveness of different types of tag-based browsing interfaces from the users point of view. This paper contributes to the research on tag-based information access by presenting a controlled user study that compared three types of tag-based interfaces on two recognized types of search tasks - lookup and exploratory search. Our results demonstrate that tag-based browsing interfaces significantly outperform traditional search interfaces in both performance and user satisfaction. At the same time, the differences between the two types of tag-based browsing interfaces explored in our study are not as clear. Copyright 2012 ACM

Optimization of overproducing S-adenosyl-Lmethionine Saccharomyces cerevisiae S-W55 mutant utilizing unpolished rice from aging paddy by feeding Lmethionine

The medium and fed-batch fermentation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae S-W55 were optimized. The unpolished rice from aging paddy was used as major nutrient source to reduce the raw material cost of SAM fermentation. The unpolished rice saccharificate (URS) and yeast extract were employed as carbon source and nitrogen source, respectively. The dosages of URS and yeast extract in the medium compositions were optimized by response surface methodology (RSM). As a result, when the fermentation was carried out under the optimal conditions for URS (51.4 g/L) and yeast extract (4.74 g/L), the SAM yield reached 2.61 g/L. Some fed-batch processes by adding L-methionine (MET) were investigated. Adding MET into the fermentation broth at one time at the time of high cell density reaching 80 g/L could get better results with the optimal SAM concentration of 5.3 g/L and biomass yield of 89.1 g/L. By feeding MET into the fermentation broth at a feeding rate of 2 g/h for 5 h at the time of high cell density reaching 80 g/L, the optimal results were reached and the maximal SAM yield and biomass density were 5.82 and 90.2 g/L, respectively. It indicated that, the fed-batch at high cell density would be more propitious to the SAM biosynthesis.Key words: Unpolished rice saccharificate, S-adenosyl-L-methionine, fermentation optimization, fed-batch fermentation, Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Family History of Early Infant Death Correlates with Earlier Age at Diagnosis But Not Shorter Time to Diagnosis for Severe Combined Immunodeficiency

published_or_final_versio

Heavy quark flavour dependence of multiparticle production in QCD jets

After inserting the heavy quark mass dependence into QCD partonic evolution equations, we determine the mean charged hadron multiplicity and second multiplicity correlators of jets produced in high energy collisions. We thereby extend the so-called dead cone effect to the phenomenology of multiparticle production in QCD jets and find that the average multiplicity of heavy-quark initiated jets decreases significantly as compared to the massless case, even taking into account the weak decay products of the leading primary quark. We emphasize the relevance of our study as a complementary check of $b$-tagging techniques at hadron colliders like the Tevatron and the LHC.Comment: Version revised, accepted for publication in JHEP, 21 pages and 7 figure

Childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia masquerading as primary skeletal problem

Acute lymphobiastic leukaemia (ALL) usually presents with signs of bone marrow failure, Occasionally ALL in children may present with non-specific or misleading clinical features. In a retrospect analysis of 25 consecutive cases of childhood ALL, we identified three children who were initially managed and discharged as acute osteomyelitis, juvenile chronic arthritis and postinfectious arthralgia respectively. They had mild normochromic, normocytic anaemia and two had transient leucopenia. Their platelet counts were normal and none had circulating blasts. The severity of their skeletal symptoms was out of proportion to the clinical and radiological finding. They failed to respond to the initial management and diagnosis was delayed for an average of 42 days and eventually confirmed on the marrow aspirate. Complete remission was attained in all cases with standard chemotherapy and had been maintained for an average of 29 months. ALL should be considered as a differential diagnosis in children complaining of multiple or persistent joint pains, especially in the presence of atypical clinical features or poor response to treatment.published_or_final_versio

Essential Role of NK Cells in IgG Therapy for Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis

published_or_final_versio

Enhancement of multiplexing capability of low-coherence interferometric fiber sensor array by use of a loop topology

Author name used in this publication: M. S. Demokan2002-2003 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

HaploShare: identification of extended haplotypes shared by cases and evaluation against controls

Recent founder mutations may play important roles in complex diseases and Mendelian disorders. Detecting shared haplotypes that are identical by descent (IBD) could facilitate discovery of these mutations. Several programs address this, but are usually limited to detecting pair-wise shared haplotypes and not providing a comparison of cases and controls. We present a novel algorithm and software package, HaploShare, which detects extended haplotypes that are shared by multiple individuals, and allows comparisons between cases and controls. Testing on simulated and real cases demonstrated significant improvements in detection power and reduction of false positive rate by HaploShare relative to other programs.published_or_final_versio