Indoor localization using mobile sensing platforms has become a ubiquitous service that enables various smart building and health-care related applications. As wearable device becomes an important player in the mobile market, an indoor localization system tailored specifically for it remains absent. In this paper, we present SwingLoc, an indoor positioning system aimed particularly for hand-wear devices. It takes use of the natural arm swinging when the user is walking, and the Doppler effects it triggers while receiving acoustic signals to locate the user. With the need of off-the-shelf speakers, which are already present in most public indoor areas, SwingLoc monitors the wearable device's direction toward the speakers in consecutive gait cycles, and solve a nonlinear least squares problem for the user's position. Our real-world tests involving 6 users at two different locations shows that SwingLoc can achieve overall 85% localization errors under 2m, with extreme conditions where at most 3 speakers are present in the environment. Our experiments demonstrate SwingLoc to be robust and effective, and has great potential for providing fine-grained location-based services and improve human well-being.
The liver is one of the most sex-dimorphic organs in both oviparous and viviparous animals. In order to understand the molecular basis of the difference between male and female livers, high-throughput RNA-SAGE (serial analysis of gene expression) sequencing was performed for zebrafish livers of both sexes and their transcriptomes were compared. Both sexes had abundantly expressed genes involved in translation, coagulation and lipid metabolism, consistent with the general function of the liver. For sex-biased transcripts, from in addition to the high enrichment of vitellogenin transcripts in spawning female livers, which constituted nearly 80% of total mRNA, it is apparent that the female-biased genes were mostly involved in ribosome/translation, estrogen pathway, lipid transport, etc, while the male-biased genes were enriched for oxidation reduction, carbohydrate metabolism, coagulation, protein transport and localization, etc. Sexual dimorphism on xenobiotic metabolism and anti-oxidation was also noted and it is likely that retinol x receptor (RXR) and liver x receptor (LXR) play central roles in regulating the sexual differences of lipid and cholesterol metabolisms. Consistent with high ribosomal/translational activities in the female liver, female-biased genes were significantly regulated by two important transcription factors, Myc and Mycn. In contrast, Male livers showed activation of transcription factors Ppargc1b, Hnf4a, and Stat4, which regulate lipid and glucose metabolisms and various cellular activities. The transcriptomic responses to sex hormones, 17β-estradiol (E2) or 11-keto testosterone (KT11), were also investigated in both male and female livers and we found that female livers were relatively insensitive to sex hormone disturbance, while the male livers were readily affected. E2 feminized male liver by up-regulating female-biased transcripts and down-regulating male-biased transcripts. The information obtained in this study provides comprehensive insights into the sexual dimorphism of zebrafish liver transcriptome and will facilitate further development of the zebrafish as a human liver disease model.
Myc is a pleiotropic transcription factor that is involved in many cellular activities relevant to carcinogenesis, including hepatocarcinogenesis. The zebrafish has been increasingly used to model human diseases and it is particularly valuable in helping to identify common and conserved molecular mechanisms in vertebrates. Here we generated a liver tumor model in transgenic zebrafish by liver-specific expression of mouse Myc using a Tet-On system. Dosage-dependent induction of Myc expression specifically in the liver was observed in our Myc transgenic zebrafish, TO(Myc), and the elevated Myc expression caused liver hyperplasia, which progressed to hepatocellular adenoma and carcinoma with prolonged induction. Next generation sequencing-based transcriptomic analyses indicated that ribosome proteins were overwhelmingly upregulated in the Myc-induced liver tumors. Cross-species analyses showed that the zebrafish Myc model correlated well with Myc transgenic mouse models for liver cancers. The Myc-induced zebrafish liver tumors also possessed molecular signatures highly similar to human those of hepatocellular carcinoma. Finally, we found that a small Myc target gene set of 16 genes could be used to identify liver tumors due to Myc upregulation. Thus, our zebrafish model demonstrated the conserved role of Myc in promoting hepatocarcinogenesis in all vertebrate species.
Objective
To validate the performance of 4 domestic chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA) systems on 8 tumor markers quantitative assay kits.
Methods
Four domestic CLIA systems were randomly marked as A, B, C, D and 8 tumor markers, including carbohydrate antigen (CA)125, CA15-3, CA19-9, ferritin (Fer), alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and free PSA (fPSA) were determined. According to the standard of Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI), the precision, methodological comparison and analytical measure range of 4 systems were validated. Clinical serum samples were obtained from patients in Suzhou Hospital. According to the CLSI EP9-A3 protocol, imported equipment was used as the reference system. The biases of medical decision points were assumed, and Pearson correlation analysis and Spearman correlation analysis were used to analyze the data.
Results
The precision verification of CA125 and PSA on A, CA125 and AFP on B, CA125, CEA, AFP and PSA on C, and all 8 tumor markers on D could meet the laboratory quality control requirements. The correlations of the test results between A-D and the imported equipment were significant (all P<0.05) with the correlation coefficients 0.79-0.99, 0.47-0.99, 0.90-0.98 and 0.78-1.00, respectively, and the number of acceptable tests at the level of medical decision was 5, 2, 5, 4. All tests were certified to meet the analytical measure range validation.
Conclusions
The detection performance of 4 domestic CLIA systems for all 8 tumor markers are different. The performance of domestic CLIA systems should be tested when choosing one that can meet laboratory quality control requirements.
Key words:
Chemiluminescent measurements; Immunoassay; Tumor markers, biological
Previously three oncogene transgenic zebrafish lines with inducible expression of xmrk, kras or Myc in the liver have been generated and these transgenic lines develop oncogene-addicted liver tumors upon chemical induction. In the current study, comparative transcriptomic approaches were used to examine the correlation of the three induced transgenic liver cancers with human liver cancers. RNA profiles from the three zebrafish tumors indicated relatively small overlaps of significantly deregulated genes and biological pathways. Nevertheless, the three transgenic tumor signatures all showed significant correlation with advanced or very advanced human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Interestingly, molecular signature from each oncogene-induced zebrafish liver tumor correlated with only a small subset of human HCC samples (24-29%) and there were conserved up-regulated pathways between the zebrafish and correlated human HCC subgroup. The three zebrafish liver cancer models together represented nearly half (47.2%) of human HCCs while some human HCCs showed significant correlation with more than one signature defined from the three oncogene-addicted zebrafish tumors. In contrast, commonly deregulated genes (21 up and 16 down) in the three zebrafish tumor models generally showed accordant deregulation in the majority of human HCCs, suggesting that these genes might be more consistently deregulated in a broad range of human HCCs with different molecular mechanisms and thus serve as common diagnosis markers and therapeutic targets. Thus, these transgenic zebrafish models with well-defined oncogene-induced tumors are valuable tools for molecular classification of human HCCs and for understanding of molecular drivers in hepatocarcinogenesis in each human HCC subgroup.
The fish swimbladder is a unique organ in vertebrate evolution and it functions for regulating buoyancy in most teleost species. It has long been postulated as a homolog of the tetrapod lung, but the molecular evidence is scarce. In order to understand the molecular function of swimbladder as well as its relationship with lungs in tetrapods, transcriptomic analyses of zebrafish swimbladder were carried out by RNA-seq. Gene ontology classification showed that genes in cytoskeleton and endoplasmic reticulum were enriched in the swimbladder. Further analyses depicted gene sets and pathways closely related to cytoskeleton constitution and regulation, cell adhesion, and extracellular matrix. Several prominent transcription factor genes in the swimbladder including hoxc4a, hoxc6a, hoxc8a and foxf1 were identified and their expressions in developing swimbladder during embryogenesis were confirmed. By comparison of enriched transcripts in the swimbladder with those in human and mouse lungs, we established the resemblance of transcriptome of the zebrafish swimbladder and mammalian lungs. Based on the transcriptomic data of zebrafish swimbladder, the predominant functions of swimbladder are in its epithelial and muscular tissues. Our comparative analyses also provide molecular evidence of the relatedness of the fish swimbladder and mammalian lung.
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