Abstract. Aiming to build a complete benchmark for better evaluation of existing ontology systems, we extend the well-known Lehigh University Benchmark in terms of inference and scalability testing. The extended benchmark, named University Ontology Benchmark (UOBM), includes both OWL Lite and OWL DL ontologies covering a complete set of OWL Lite and DL constructs, respectively. We also add necessary properties to construct effective instance links and improve instance generation methods to make the scalability testing more convincing. Several well-known ontology systems are evaluated on the extended benchmark and detailed discussions on both existing ontology systems and future benchmark development are presented.

The mechanism of HBV intra-uterine infection may be due to that HBV breaches the placental barrier and infects the fetus.

BackgroundThe main transmission route of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) is mother to child transmission and contributes significantly to chronic HBV infection. Even though immunoprophylaxis with hepatitis B immunoglobulin (HBIG) and hepatitis B vaccine is administrated to neonates whose mothers are hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive, about 10% of the neonates suffer from HBV infection in their early life.ObjectivesTo survey chronic HBV infection among pregnant women and their infants and analyze the reason for immunoprophylaxis failure.MethodsSerum HBsAg was tested in all pregnant women. HBVDNA and other serum HBV markers including hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg), hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) and hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs) were tested among HBsAg positive pregnant women. All infants whose mothers were HBsAg positive were vaccinated with a standard immunoprophylaxis. Serum HBV markers and HBVDNA were tested among these infants at 7 months of age. HBV genotypes were analyzed among the infants and pregnant women who were HBVDNA positive.ResultsThe prevalence of HBsAg, anti-HBc and anti-HBs among 4,536 pregnant women was 5.49%, 29.65% and 58.55%, respectively. The prevalence of HBsAg, anti-HBc and anti-HBs among pregnant women older than 20 years of age was significantly different compared to pregnant women younger than 20 years of age (4.54, 5.69 and 0.61 times, prevalence older vs. younger, respectively. P<0.05, 0.01, 0.05, respectively). Among 249 HBsAg positive pregnant women, 167 (67.07%) were HBeAg positive, 204 (81.93%) were HBVDNA positive and only 37 (14.86%) had HBVDNA >107 IU/ml. Among the infants whose mothers were HBsAg positive, 214 (85.94%) infants were anti-HBs positive. There were 12 (4.82%) infants who were HBsAg and HBVDNA positive, and all 12 of these infants mothers were HBeAg positive and had HBVDNA >107 IU/ml. Genotypes B and C were present among 165 pregnant women and genotype C was present in 85 pregnant women. There were 12 infants who were HBsAg positive and had the same HBV genotypes as their mothers. There was a significant difference in genotypes between the pregnant women whose infants were infected with HBV compared to those without HBV infection (P < 0.05).ConclusionsThere was a significant decline in HBsAg prevalence among pregnant women and their infants in Shenyang. Genotype C might be a risk factor for mother to child transmission of HBV.

Nonselective cation channels may play a role in insulin secretion by regulating pancreatic ␤-cell plasma membrane potential, Ca 2؉ homeostasis, and thereby glucose signaling. Transient receptor potential channel (TRPC)-related genes encode nonselective cation channels, some of which are similar to those described for ␤-cells. Some TRPC-like channels are activated via Gprotein-coupled mechanisms, some have been reported to be calcium-store-operated channels (SOC), and others are activated by novel signaling molecules or are sensitive to pressure and osmotic strength. Here we report the cloning and expression of mSTRPC4 from a mouse insulinoma cDNA library. mSTRPC4 encoded a protein of 97 kd, expressed in both endocrine cells and the brain. Stable cell lines expressing mSTRPC4 showed abundant mSTRPC4 protein, but no reproducible currents could be detected. mSTRPC4 therefore probably functions as a heteromultimer. We also report that LTRPC2, a G-protein and adenosine 5-diphosphoribose (ADPR)-activated nonselective cation channel, is also expressed in human islets. TRPC-like channels may provide a pathway for depolarization or Ca 2؉ entry in ␤-cells and may be interesting targets for manipulating ␤-cell function. Diabetes 51 (Suppl. 1):S183-S189, 2002

Reasoning on OWL ontologies is known to be intractable in the worst-case, which is a serious problem because in practice, most OWL ontologies have large Aboxes, i.e., numerous assertions about individuals and their relations. We propose a technique that uses a summary of the ontology (summary Abox) to reduce reasoning to a small subset of the original Abox, and prove that our techniques are sound and complete. We demonstrate the scalability of this technique for consistency detection in 4 ontologies, the largest of which has 6.5 million role assertions.