In order to solve the semantic irreconcilable problems caused by contextual differences during the process of ontology integration, a context-driven reconciliation mechanism is proposed. The mechanism is based on the ...In order to solve the semantic irreconcilable problems caused by contextual differences during the process of ontology integration, a context-driven reconciliation mechanism is proposed. The mechanism is based on the previous work about a context-based formalism-Context-SHOIQ (D + ) DL, which is used for explicitly representing context of ontology by adopting the description logic and the category theory. The formalism is extended by adding four migration rules (InclusionRule, SelectionRule, PreferenceRule, and MappingRule), that are used to specify what should be imported into the IntegrativeContext, and three related contextual integration operations of increasing interoperability (import, partial reconciliation, and full reconciliation). While not exhaustive, the mechanism is sufficient for solving the five types of semantic irreconcilable problems that are discussed, and favors integration of ontologies from one context to another.展开更多
Objective: Drug-resistance and metastasis are major reasons for the high mortality of ovarian cancer(OC) patients. Cyclooxygenase-2(COX-2) plays a critical role in OC development. This study was designed to evaluate t...Objective: Drug-resistance and metastasis are major reasons for the high mortality of ovarian cancer(OC) patients. Cyclooxygenase-2(COX-2) plays a critical role in OC development. This study was designed to evaluate the effects of COX-2 on migration and cisplatin(cis-dichloro diammine platinum, CDDP) resistance of OC cells and explore its related mechanisms. Methods: Cell counting kit-8(CCK-8) assay was used to detect the cytotoxicity effects of celecoxib(CXB) and CDDP on SKOV3 and ES2 cells. The effect of COX-2 on migration was evaluated via the healing test. Western blot and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction(q PCR) were used to analyze E-cadherin, vimentin, Snail, and Slug levels. Results: COX-2 promoted drug-resistance and cell migration. CXB inhibited these effects. The combination of CDDP and CXB increased tumor cell sensitivity, reduced the amount of CDDP required, and shortened treatment administration time. COX-2 upregulation increased the expression of Snail and Slug, resulting in E-cadherin expression downregulation and vimentin upregulation. Conclusions: COX-2 promotes cancer cell migration and CDDP resistance and may serve as a potential target for curing OC.展开更多
The alpine treeline ecotone is defined as a forest-grassland or forest-tundra transition boundary either between subalpine forest and treeless grassland,or between subalpine forest and treeless tundra.The alpine treel...The alpine treeline ecotone is defined as a forest-grassland or forest-tundra transition boundary either between subalpine forest and treeless grassland,or between subalpine forest and treeless tundra.The alpine treeline ecotone serves irreplaceable ecological functions and provides various ecosystem services.There are three lines associated with the alpine treeline ecotone,the tree species line(i.e.,the highest elevational limit of individual tree establishment and growth),the treeline(i.e.,the transition line between tree islands and isolated individual trees)and the timber line(i.e.,the upper boundary of the closed subalpine forest).The alpine treeline ecotone is the belt region between the tree species line and the timber line of the closed forest.The treeline is very sensitive to climate change and is often used as an indicator for the response of vegetation to global warming.However,there is currently no comprehensive review in the field of alpine treeline advance under global warming.Therefore,this review summarizes the literature and discusses the theoretical bases and challenges in the study of alpine treeline dynamics from the following four aspects:(1)Ecological functions and issues of treeline dynamics;(2)Methodology for monitoring treeline dynamics;(3)Treeline shifts in different climate zones;(4)Driving factors for treeline upward shifting.展开更多
Uncontrolled cell migration is a common feature of tumor metastasis and formation. Understanding the molecular targets critically involved in cell migration process can lead to the development of potentially novel the...Uncontrolled cell migration is a common feature of tumor metastasis and formation. Understanding the molecular targets critically involved in cell migration process can lead to the development of potentially novel therapeutic strategies for controlling invasion of tumor cells. In this study, we showed that calcium-activated chloride channel ANO 1/TMEM16A played an important role in cell migration and inhibition of ANO1 channel function suppressed the migration of tumor epithelial cells. Silencing ANO 1 by small hairpin RNA (shRNA) resulted in suppression of cell migration and invasiveness in cancer cell lines. In addition, pharmacological inhibition of ANO1 by the channel specific inhibitor T16Ain-A01 significantly slowed down the migration and invasion of tumor epithelial cells in a dose-dependent manner. Taken together, our findings have demonstrated that calcium-activated chloride channel ANO1 contributes to cell migration, and specific ANO1/TMEM16A inhibitors can be the promising candidate to develop new therapies for cancer metastasis.展开更多
An increasing trend in use of tracking devices such as geolocators is based on the assumption that the information gathered from such devices provides reliable information about the migratory behavior of free-living b...An increasing trend in use of tracking devices such as geolocators is based on the assumption that the information gathered from such devices provides reliable information about the migratory behavior of free-living birds. This underlying as- sumption is rarely tested, as evidenced by the absence in many studies of controls, in particular treated controls, and so far never with a reasonable statistical power. Published studies have shown reduced survival prospects or delayed breeding in some species, suggesting that there may be reason to doubt that tracking devices provide unbiased information. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis of studies applying geolocators to wild birds to determine whether geolocators affected fitness components. Ge- olocators had an overall negative effect on fitness components, in particular survival, and ecological variables. Effect size was larger for aerial foragers than for other species. Moreover the leg band attachment method was more detrimental for birds than the leg-loop backpack harness. A meta-regression model of effect size showed independent negative effects of geolocators on ae- rial foragers, smaller species, species with smaller migration distances and in studies where geolocators were attached with a ring. These results suggest that geolocator studies should be interpreted with caution, but also raise questions whether it is ethically defensible to use geolocators on aerial foragers or small species without carrying out robust pilot studies.展开更多
文摘In order to solve the semantic irreconcilable problems caused by contextual differences during the process of ontology integration, a context-driven reconciliation mechanism is proposed. The mechanism is based on the previous work about a context-based formalism-Context-SHOIQ (D + ) DL, which is used for explicitly representing context of ontology by adopting the description logic and the category theory. The formalism is extended by adding four migration rules (InclusionRule, SelectionRule, PreferenceRule, and MappingRule), that are used to specify what should be imported into the IntegrativeContext, and three related contextual integration operations of increasing interoperability (import, partial reconciliation, and full reconciliation). While not exhaustive, the mechanism is sufficient for solving the five types of semantic irreconcilable problems that are discussed, and favors integration of ontologies from one context to another.
基金Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.81372777)。
文摘Objective: Drug-resistance and metastasis are major reasons for the high mortality of ovarian cancer(OC) patients. Cyclooxygenase-2(COX-2) plays a critical role in OC development. This study was designed to evaluate the effects of COX-2 on migration and cisplatin(cis-dichloro diammine platinum, CDDP) resistance of OC cells and explore its related mechanisms. Methods: Cell counting kit-8(CCK-8) assay was used to detect the cytotoxicity effects of celecoxib(CXB) and CDDP on SKOV3 and ES2 cells. The effect of COX-2 on migration was evaluated via the healing test. Western blot and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction(q PCR) were used to analyze E-cadherin, vimentin, Snail, and Slug levels. Results: COX-2 promoted drug-resistance and cell migration. CXB inhibited these effects. The combination of CDDP and CXB increased tumor cell sensitivity, reduced the amount of CDDP required, and shortened treatment administration time. COX-2 upregulation increased the expression of Snail and Slug, resulting in E-cadherin expression downregulation and vimentin upregulation. Conclusions: COX-2 promotes cancer cell migration and CDDP resistance and may serve as a potential target for curing OC.
基金The National Natural Science Foundation of China(41901361)The Six Talent Peaks Project of Jiangsu Province(TD-XYDXX-006)+1 种基金The Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province(BK20180769)The Major Basic Research Project of the Natural Science Foundation of theJiangsu Higher Education Institutions(18KJB180009).
文摘The alpine treeline ecotone is defined as a forest-grassland or forest-tundra transition boundary either between subalpine forest and treeless grassland,or between subalpine forest and treeless tundra.The alpine treeline ecotone serves irreplaceable ecological functions and provides various ecosystem services.There are three lines associated with the alpine treeline ecotone,the tree species line(i.e.,the highest elevational limit of individual tree establishment and growth),the treeline(i.e.,the transition line between tree islands and isolated individual trees)and the timber line(i.e.,the upper boundary of the closed subalpine forest).The alpine treeline ecotone is the belt region between the tree species line and the timber line of the closed forest.The treeline is very sensitive to climate change and is often used as an indicator for the response of vegetation to global warming.However,there is currently no comprehensive review in the field of alpine treeline advance under global warming.Therefore,this review summarizes the literature and discusses the theoretical bases and challenges in the study of alpine treeline dynamics from the following four aspects:(1)Ecological functions and issues of treeline dynamics;(2)Methodology for monitoring treeline dynamics;(3)Treeline shifts in different climate zones;(4)Driving factors for treeline upward shifting.
基金The Ministry of Science and Technology of China(Grant No.2014ZX09507003-006-004)
文摘Uncontrolled cell migration is a common feature of tumor metastasis and formation. Understanding the molecular targets critically involved in cell migration process can lead to the development of potentially novel therapeutic strategies for controlling invasion of tumor cells. In this study, we showed that calcium-activated chloride channel ANO 1/TMEM16A played an important role in cell migration and inhibition of ANO1 channel function suppressed the migration of tumor epithelial cells. Silencing ANO 1 by small hairpin RNA (shRNA) resulted in suppression of cell migration and invasiveness in cancer cell lines. In addition, pharmacological inhibition of ANO1 by the channel specific inhibitor T16Ain-A01 significantly slowed down the migration and invasion of tumor epithelial cells in a dose-dependent manner. Taken together, our findings have demonstrated that calcium-activated chloride channel ANO1 contributes to cell migration, and specific ANO1/TMEM16A inhibitors can be the promising candidate to develop new therapies for cancer metastasis.
文摘An increasing trend in use of tracking devices such as geolocators is based on the assumption that the information gathered from such devices provides reliable information about the migratory behavior of free-living birds. This underlying as- sumption is rarely tested, as evidenced by the absence in many studies of controls, in particular treated controls, and so far never with a reasonable statistical power. Published studies have shown reduced survival prospects or delayed breeding in some species, suggesting that there may be reason to doubt that tracking devices provide unbiased information. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis of studies applying geolocators to wild birds to determine whether geolocators affected fitness components. Ge- olocators had an overall negative effect on fitness components, in particular survival, and ecological variables. Effect size was larger for aerial foragers than for other species. Moreover the leg band attachment method was more detrimental for birds than the leg-loop backpack harness. A meta-regression model of effect size showed independent negative effects of geolocators on ae- rial foragers, smaller species, species with smaller migration distances and in studies where geolocators were attached with a ring. These results suggest that geolocator studies should be interpreted with caution, but also raise questions whether it is ethically defensible to use geolocators on aerial foragers or small species without carrying out robust pilot studies.