Selecting a semantic similarity measure for concepts in two different CAD model data ontologies

Semantic similarity measure technology based approach is one of the most popular approaches aiming at implementing semantic mapping between two different CAD model data ontologies. The most important problem in this approach is how to measure the semantic similarities of concepts between two different ontologies. A number of measure methods focusing on this problem have been presented in recent years. Each method can work well between its specific ontologies. But it is unclear how accurate the measured semantic similarities in these methods are. Moreover, there is yet no evidence that any of the methods presented how to select a measure with high similarity calculation accuracy. To compensate for such deficiencies, this paper proposes a method for selecting a semantic similarity measure with high similarity calculation accuracy for concepts in two different CAD model data ontologies. In this method, the similarity calculation accuracy of each candidate measure is quantified using Pearson correlation coefficient or residual sum of squares. The measure with high similarity calculation accuracy is selected through a comparison of the Pearson correlation coefficients or the residual sums of squares of all candidate measures. The paper also reports an implementation of the proposed method, provides an example to show how the method works, and evaluates the method by theoretical and experimental comparisons. The evaluation result suggests that the measure selected by the proposed method has good human correlation and high similarity calculation accuracy

A Conceptual Framework for Mapping Quantitative Trait Loci Regulating Ontogenetic Allometry

Although ontogenetic changes in body shape and its associated allometry has been studied for over a century, essentially nothing is known about their underlying genetic and developmental mechanisms. One of the reasons for this ignorance is the unavailability of a conceptual framework to formulate the experimental design for data collection and statistical models for data analyses. We developed a framework model for unraveling the genetic machinery for ontogenetic changes of allometry. The model incorporates the mathematical aspects of ontogenetic growth and allometry into a maximum likelihood framework for quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping. As a quantitative platform, the model allows for the testing of a number of biologically meaningful hypotheses to explore the pleiotropic basis of the QTL that regulate ontogeny and allometry. Simulation studies and real data analysis of a live example in soybean have been performed to investigate the statistical behavior of the model and validate its practical utilization. The statistical model proposed will help to study the genetic architecture of complex phenotypes and, therefore, gain better insights into the mechanistic regulation for developmental patterns and processes in organisms

Inconceivable Hypokalemia: A Case Report of Acute Severe Barium Chloride Poisoning

Barium is a heavy divalent alkaline earth metal that has been known as a muscle poison. Barium can cause human toxicity, which may lead to significant hypokalemia and have serious consequences. This paper reports a case of unprecedented barium intoxication in which the patient, who suffered from depression, swallowed at least 3.0 g barium chloride to commit suicide. On admission, the patient presented with nausea, vomiting, stomach burning feeling, dizziness, and weakness. Emergency biochemical testing showed that the patient was suffering from severe hypokalemia (K+ 1.7 mmol/L). His electrocardiogram (ECG) prompted atrioventricular blocking, ventricular tachycardia, prolongation of PR interval, ST segment depression with U waves, and T wave inversion. Intravenous potassium supplements were given immediately to correct hypokalemia and regular monitoring of vital signs and fluid balance was arranged. After all-out rescue of our hospital personnel, the condition of the patient is currently stable and he is gradually recovering. This case exemplifies the weaknesses of the management of toxic substances and the lack of mental health education for young people. We hope to get more attention for the supervision of toxic substances and the healthy development of young people

NALCN is a potential biomarker and therapeutic target in human cancers

Background: Sodium leak channel non-selective (NALCN), known as a voltage-independent Na+ channel, is increasingly considered to play vital roles in tumorigenesis and metastasis of human cancers. However, no comprehensive pan-cancer analysis of NALCN has been conducted. Our study aims to explore the potential diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic value of NALCN in human cancers.Methods: Through comprehensive application of datasets from Human Protein Atlas (HPA), The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE), Enhanced Version of Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER2.0), Tumor and Immune System Interaction Database (TISIDB), The University of Alabama at Birmingham Cancer data analysis Portal (UALCAN), cBioPortal, GeneMANIA and Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interaction Gene/Proteins (STRING) databases, we explored the potential roles of NALCN in different cancers. The differential expression, prognostic implications, pathological stages and grades, molecular and immune subtypes, diagnostic accuracy, tumor mutation burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI), mismatch repair (MMR) genes, immune checkpoint genes, chemokine genes, major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-related genes, tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs), promoter methylation, mutations, copy number alteration (CNA), and functional enrichment related to NALCN were analyzed.Results: Most cancers lowly expressed NALCN. Upregulated NALCN expression was associated with poor or better prognosis in different cancers. Moreover, NALCN was correlated with clinicopathological features in multiple cancers. NALCN showed high diagnostic accuracy in 5 caner types. NALCN is highly linked with immune-related biomarkers, immune-related genes and TIICs. Significant methylation changes and genetic alteration of NALCN can be observed in many cancers. Enrichment analysis showed that NALCN is closely related to multiple tumor-related signaling pathways.Conclusion: Our study revealed the vital involvement of NALCN in cancer. NALCN can be used as a prognostic biomarker for immune infiltration and clinical outcomes, and has potential diagnostic and therapeutic implications

The gene regulatory molecule GLIS3 in gastric cancer as a prognostic marker and be involved in the immune infiltration mechanism

BackgroundGastric cancer is the most prevalent solid tumor form. Even after standard treatment, recurrence and malignant progression are nearly unavoidable in some cases of stomach cancer. GLIS Family Zinc Finger 3 (GLIS3) has received scant attention in gastric cancer research. Therefore, we sought to examine the prognostic significance of GLIS3 and its association with immune infiltration in gastric cancer.MethodUsing public data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), we investigated whether GLIS3 gene expression was linked with prognosis in patients with stomach cancer (STAD). The following analyses were performed: functional enrichment analysis (GSEA), quantitative real-time PCR, immune infiltration analysis, immunological checkpoint analysis, and clinicopathological analysis. We performed functional validation of GLIS3 in vitro by plate cloning and CCK8 assay. Using univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses, independent prognostic variables were identified. Additionally, a nomogram model was built. The link between OS and subgroup with GLIS3 expression was estimated using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Gene set enrichment analysis utilized the TCGA dataset.ResultGLIS3 was significantly upregulated in STAD. An examination of functional enrichment revealed that GLIS3 is related to immunological responses. The majority of immune cells and immunological checkpoints had a positive correlation with GLIS3 expression. According to a Kaplan-Meier analysis, greater GLIS3 expression was related to adverse outcomes in STAD. GLIS3 was an independent predictive factor in STAD patients, as determined by Cox regression (HR = 1.478, 95%CI = 1.478 (1.062-2.055), P=0.02)ConclusionGLIS3 is considered a novel STAD patient predictive biomarker. In addition, our research identifies possible genetic regulatory loci in the therapy of STAD

Nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems to enhance cancer immunotherapy in solid tumors

Immunotherapy has developed rapidly in solid tumors, especially in the areas of blocking inhibitory immune checkpoints and adoptive T-cell transfer for immune regulation. Many patients benefit from immunotherapy. However, the response rate of immunotherapy in the overall population are relatively low, which depends on the characteristics of the tumor and individualized patient differences. Moreover, the occurrence of drug resistance and adverse reactions largely limit the development of immunotherapy. Recently, the emergence of nanodrug delivery systems (NDDS) seems to improve the efficacy of immunotherapy by encapsulating drug carriers in nanoparticles to precisely reach the tumor site with high stability and biocompatibility, prolonging the drug cycle of action and greatly reducing the occurrence of toxic side effects. In this paper, we mainly review the advantages of NDDS and the mechanisms that enhance conventional immunotherapy in solid tumors, and summarize the recent advances in NDDS-based therapeutic strategies, which will provide valuable ideas for the development of novel tumor immunotherapy regimen

Efficient and durable uranium extraction from uranium mine tailings seepage water via a photoelectrochemical method

Current photocatalytic uranium (U) extraction methods have intrinsic obstacles, such as the recombination of charge carriers, and the deactivation of catalysts by extracted U. Here we show that, by applying a bias potential on the photocatalyst, the photoelectrochemical (PEC) method can address these limitations. We demonstrate that, owing to efficient spatial charge-carriers separation driven by the applied bias, the PEC method enables efficient and durable U extraction. The effects of multiple operation conditions are investigated. The U extraction proceeds via single-step one-electron reduction, resulting in the formation of pentavalent U, which can facilitate future studies on this often-overlooked U species. In real seepage water the PEC method achieves an extraction capacity of 0.67 gU m(-3).h(-1) without deactivation for 156 h continuous operation, which is 17 times faster than the photocatalytic method. This work provides an alternative tool for U resource recovery and facilitates future studies on U(V) chemistry

Mussel-Inspired Carboxymethyl Chitosan Hydrogel Coating of Titanium Alloy with Antibacterial and Bioactive Properties

Infection-related titanium implant failure rates remain exceedingly high in the clinic. Functional surface coating represents a very promising strategy to improve the antibacterial and bioactive properties of titanium alloy implants. Here, we describe a novel bioactive surface coating that consists of a mussel-inspired carboxymethyl chitosan hydrogel loaded with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) to enhance the bioactive properties of the titanium alloy. The preparation of hydrogel is based on gallic acid grafted carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS-GA) catalyzed by DMTMM (4-(4,6-dimethoxy-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)-4-methylmorpholinium chloride). To build a firm bonding between the hydrogel and titanium alloy plate, a polydopamine layer was introduced onto the surface of the titanium alloy. With HRP/H2O2 catalysis, CMCS-GA can simply form a firm gel layer on the titanium alloy plate through the catechol groups. The surface properties of titanium alloy were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and water contact angle. Silver nanoparticles were loaded into the gel layer by in situ reduction to enhance the antibacterial properties. In vitro antibacterial and cell viability experiments showed that the AgNPs-loaded Ti-gel possesses excellent antibacterial properties and did not affect the proliferation of rabbit mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)

Investigation of Tumor Suppressing Function of CACNA2D3 in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Background: Deletion of 3p is one of the most frequent genetic alterations in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), suggesting the existence of one or more tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) within these regions. In this study, one TSG, CACNA2D3 at 3p21.1, was characterized. Methods: Expression of CACNA2D3 in ESCCs was tested by quantitative real-time PCR and tissue microarray. The mechanism of CACNA2D3 downregulation was investigated by methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MS-PCR). The tumor suppressive function of CACNA2D3 was characterized by both in vitro and in vivo tumorigenic assays, cell migration and invasion assays. Results: CACNA2D3 was frequently downregulated in ESCCs (24/48, 50%), which was significantly associated with promoter methylation and allele loss (P<0.05). Tissue microarray result showed that downregulation of CACNA2D3 was detected in (127/224, 56.7%) ESCCs, which was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.01), TNM staging (P = 0.003) and poor outcome of ESCC patients (P<0.05). Functional studies demonstrated that CACNA2D3 could inhibit tumorigenicity, cell motility and induce apoptosis. Mechanism study found that CACNA2D3 could arrest cell cycle at G1/S checkpoint by increasing expressions of p21 and p53 and decreasing expression of CDK2. In addition, CACNA2D3 could upregulate intracellular free cytosolic Ca2+ and subsequently induce apoptosis. Conclusion: CACNA2D3 is a novel TSG responsible to the 3p21 deletion event and plays a critical suppressing role in the development and progression of ESCC. © 2013 Li et al.link_to_OA_fulltex

Genetic testing and prognosis of sarcomatoid hepatocellular carcinoma patients

BackgroundSarcomatoid hepatocellular carcinoma (SHC) is a rare epithelial malignancy with high invasiveness and poor prognosis. However, the molecular characteristics and main driver genes for SHC have not been determined. The aim of this study is to explore the potentially actionable mutations of driver genes, which may provide more therapeutic options for SHC.MethodsIn this study, DNA extraction and library preparation were performed using tumor tissues from 28 SHC patients. Then we used Miseq platform (Illumina) to sequence the target-enriched library, and we aligned and processed the sequencing data. The gene groups were tested for SNVs/Indels/CNVs. Tumor mutation burden (TMB) was assessed by the 425-cancer-relevant gene panel. Multivariate analysis of COX’s model was used for survival analysis (OS) of patients’ clinical characteristics.ResultThe median overall survival (OS) of the patients was only 4.4 months. TP53, TERT, and KRAS were the top three frequently mutated genes, with frequencies of 89.3%, 64.3%, and 21.4%, respectively. A considerable number of patients carried mutations in genes involved in the TP53 pathway (96%) and DNA Damage Repair (DDR) pathway (21%). Multiple potentially actionable mutations, such as NTRK1 fusions and BRCA1/2 mutations, were identified in SHCs.ConclusionsThis study shows a landscape of gene mutations in SHC. SHC has high mutation rates in TP53 pathway and DDR pathway. The potentially actionable mutations of driver genes may provide more therapeutic options for SHC. Survival analysis found that age, smoking, drinking, and tumor diameter may be independent prognostic predictors of SHC