Yang and colleagues reported a retrospective series of 406 patients to review the causes of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the effect of screening. This deserves several comments. Among the causes, they omitted sm...
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Yang and colleagues reported a retrospective series of 406 patients to review the causes of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the effect of screening. This deserves several comments. Among the causes, they omitted smoking despite the fact that only 27% of the patients were nonsmokers. Tobacco is an independent and dose-related contributing factor for HCC all over the world, even in Asia. The mean relative risk is 1.5, but exposure is incredibly high. In France, tobacco, hepatitis, and alcohol are the 3 main risk factors for HCC contributing for 33%, 31%, and 26%, to HCC, respectively.
In this paper, we present a multiagent system to support patients in search of healthcare services in an e-health scenario. The proposed system is HL7-aware in that it represents both patient and service information a...
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In this paper, we present a multiagent system to support patients in search of healthcare services in an e-health scenario. The proposed system is HL7-aware in that it represents both patient and service information according to the directives of HL7, the information management standard adopted in medical context. Our system builds a profile for each patient and uses it to detect Healthcare Service Providers delivering e-health services potentially capable of satisfying his needs. In order to handle this search it can exploit three different algorithms: the first, called PPB, uses only information stored in the patient profile;the second, called DS-PPB, considers both information stored in the patient profile and similarities among the e-health services delivered by the involved providers;the third, called AB, relies on A*, a popular search algorithm in Artificial Intelligence. Our system builds also a social network of patients;once a patient submits a query and retrieves a set of services relevant to him, our system applies a spreading activation technique on this social network to find other patients who may benefit from these services.
Network latency is one of the most critical factors for the usability of mobile SOA applications. This paper introduces prefetching and caching enhancements for an existing SOA framework for mobile applications to red...
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Network latency is one of the most critical factors for the usability of mobile SOA applications. This paper introduces prefetching and caching enhancements for an existing SOA framework for mobile applications to reduce the user perceived latency. Latency reduction is achieved by proactively sending data to the mobile device that could most likely be requested at a later time. This additional data is piggybacked onto responses to actual requests and injected into a client side cache, so that it can be used without an additional connection. The prefetching is done automatically using a sequence prediction algorithm. The benefit of prefetching and caching enhancements were evaluated for different network settings and a reduction of user perceived latency of up to 31% was found in a typical scenario. In contrast to other prefetching solutions, our piggybacking approach also allows to significantly increase battery lifetime of the mobile device.
Computer security warnings are intended to protect users and their computers. However, research suggests that these warnings might be largely ineffective because they're frequently ignored. The authors describe a ...
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Computer security warnings are intended to protect users and their computers. However, research suggests that these warnings might be largely ineffective because they're frequently ignored. The authors describe a mental model interview study designed to gain insight into how advanced and novice computer users perceive and respond to computer warnings. Developers can leverage the approaches of advanced users to design more effective warnings for novice users.
The heparin-degrading endosulfatases sulfatase 1 (SULF1) and sulfatase 2 (SULF2) have opposing effects in hepatocarcinogenesis despite structural similarity. Using mRNA expression arrays, we analyzed the correlations ...
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The heparin-degrading endosulfatases sulfatase 1 (SULF1) and sulfatase 2 (SULF2) have opposing effects in hepatocarcinogenesis despite structural similarity. Using mRNA expression arrays, we analyzed the correlations of SULF expression with signaling networks in human hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) and the associations of SULF expression with tumor phenotype and patient survival. Data from two mRNA microarray analyses of 139 and 36 HCCs and adjacent tissues were used as training and validation sets. Partek and Metacore software were used to identify SULF correlated genes and their associated signaling pathways. Associations between SULF expression, the hepatoblast subtype of HCC, and survival were examined. Both SULF1 and 2 had strong positive correlations with periostin, IQGAP1, TGFB1, and vimentin and inverse correlations with HNF4A and IQGAP2. Genes correlated with both SULFs were highly associated with the cell adhesion, cytoskeletal remodeling, blood coagulation, TGFB, and Wnt/beta-catenin and epithelial mesenchymal transition signaling pathways. Genes uniquely correlated with SULF2 were more associated with neoplastic processes than genes uniquely correlated with SULF1. High SULF expression was associated with the hepatoblast subtype of HCC. There was a bimodal effect of SULF1 expression on prognosis, with patients in the lowest or highest tertile having a worse prognosis than those in the middle tertile. SULFs have complex effects on HCC signaling and patient survival. There are functionally similar associations with cell adhesion, ECM remodeling, TGFB, and WNT pathways, but also unique associations of SULF1 and SULF2. The roles and targeting of the SULFs in cancer require further investigation. (C) 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
To evaluate the safety and efficacy of sequential transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) and portal vein embolization (PVE) prior to surgery in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and to compare the clini...
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To evaluate the safety and efficacy of sequential transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) and portal vein embolization (PVE) prior to surgery in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and to compare the clinical outcome of the combined procedure with that of a matched group of patients undergoing PVE alone. From 1997 to 2008, 135 patients with HCC underwent sequential TACE and PVE (n = 71) or PVE alone (n = 64) before right hepatectomy. PVE was performed mean 1.2 months after TACE. In both groups, computed tomography (CT) and liver volumetry were performed before and 2 weeks after PVE to assess degree of left lobe hypertrophy. Baseline patient and tumor characteristics were similar in the two groups. After PVE, the chronological changes of liver enzymes were similar in the two groups. The mean increase in percentage future liver remnant (FLR) volume was higher in the TACE + PVE group (7.3%) than in the PVE-only group (5.8%) (P = 0.035). After surgery, incidence of hepatic failure was higher in the PVE-only group (12%) than in the TACE + PVE (4%) group (P = 0.185). Overall (P = 0.028) and recurrence-free (P = 0.001) survival rates were significantly higher in the TACE + PVE group than in the PVE-only group. Sequential TACE and PVE before surgery is a safe and effective method to increase the rate of hypertrophy of the FLR and leads to longer overall and recurrence-free survival in patients with HCC.
Glypican-3 (GPC3) is an onco-fetal antigen that is overexpressed in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and is only expressed in the placenta and embryonic liver among normal tissues. Previously, we identified an HL...
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Glypican-3 (GPC3) is an onco-fetal antigen that is overexpressed in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and is only expressed in the placenta and embryonic liver among normal tissues. Previously, we identified an HLA-A2-restricted GPC3(144-152) (FVGEFFTDV) peptide that can induce GPC3-reactive CTLs without inducing autoimmunity in HLA-A2 transgenic mice. In this study, we carried out a phase I clinical trial of HLA-A2-restricted GPC3(144-152) peptide vaccine in 14 patients with advanced HCC. Immunological responses were analyzed by ex vivo gamma-interferon enzyme-linked immunospot assay. The frequency of GPC3(144-152) peptide-specific CTLs after vaccination (mean, 96;range, 5-441) was significantly larger than that before vaccination (mean, 6.5;range, 0-43) (P < 0.01). An increase in the GPC3(144-152) peptide-specific CTL frequency was observed in 12 (86%) of 14 patients after vaccination. Additionally, there was a significant correlation between the maximum value of GPC3(144-152) peptide-specific CTLs after vaccination and the dose of the peptide injected (P = 0.0166, r = 0.665). Moreover, we established several GPC3(144-152) peptide-specific CTL clones from PBMCs of patients vaccinated with GPC3(144-152) peptide by single cell sorting using Dextramer and CD107a antibody. These CTL clones had high avidity (the recognition efficiency showing 50% cytotoxicity was 10-10 or 10-11 M) and could recognize HCC cell lines expressing GPC3 in an HLA-class I-restricted manner. These results suggest that GPC3(144-152) peptide vaccine can induce high avidity CTLs capable of killing HCC cells expressing GPC3. This trial was registered with University Hospital Medical Information Network number 000001395. (Cancer Sci 2011;102: 918-925).
Horizontal continuous casting (HCC) Al-12%Si alloy billets were prepared using fine-grained Al-12%Si as a raw material. The influence of this fine-grained raw material on the microstructure and tensile properties was ...
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Horizontal continuous casting (HCC) Al-12%Si alloy billets were prepared using fine-grained Al-12%Si as a raw material. The influence of this fine-grained raw material on the microstructure and tensile properties was studied. The uniformity of the HCC Al-12%Si alloy billets was also analyzed. The results show that the fine-grained raw material can effectively reduce macrosegregation and make both the alpha-Al and eutectic silicon much finer. The ultimate tensile strength and elongation clearly increased with an addition of 30% fine-grained raw material compared to the HCC alloy billets with no addition of fine-grained raw material. However a small decrease nonetheless occurred after an addition of fine-grained raw material up to 50%. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.
Researchers are exploring the rendezvous concept-bringing sensors close to one another in space or time-as a way to make sense of disparate data collected by individuals. Applications such as participatory atmospheric...
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Researchers are exploring the rendezvous concept-bringing sensors close to one another in space or time-as a way to make sense of disparate data collected by individuals. Applications such as participatory atmospheric sensing illustrate the potential of rendezvous to help create powerful mobile applications.
The increased prevalence of digital devices with communication capability heralds the era of ubiquitous computing, as predicted by Mark Weiser. Ubiquitous computing aims to provide users with intelligent human-centric...
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The increased prevalence of digital devices with communication capability heralds the era of ubiquitous computing, as predicted by Mark Weiser. Ubiquitous computing aims to provide users with intelligent human-centric context-aware services at anytime anywhere. Optimal path planning in a ubiquitous network considers the needs of users and the surrounding context. This approach is very different from that applied by existing research on car navigation and mobile robots. This study proposes a context-aware path planning mechanism based on spatial conceptual map (SCM) and genetic algorithm (GA), referred to as UbiPaPaGo. The SCM model is adopted to represent the real map of the surrounding environment. The optimal path is planned using a GA, which is a robust metaheuristic algorithm. UbiPaPaGo attempts to automatically find the best path that satisfies the requirements of an individual user. A prototype of UbiPaPaGo is implemented to demonstrate its feasibility and scalability. Experimental results validate the effectiveness and the efficiency of UbiPaPaGo in finding the optimal path. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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