In this paper, we attempt to give spatial semantics to web pages by assigning them place names. The entire assignment task is divided into three sub-problems, namely place name extraction, place name disambiguation and place name assignment. We propose our approaches to address these subproblems. In particular, we have modified GATE, a wellknown named entity extraction software, to perform place name extraction using a US Census gazetteer. A rule-based place name disambiguation method and a place name assignment method capable of assigning place names to web page segments have also been proposed. We have evaluated our proposed disambiguation and assignment methods on a web page collection referenced by the DLESE metadata collection. The results returned by our methods are compared with manually disambiguated place names and place name assignment. It is shown that our proposed place name disambiguation method works well for geo/geo ambiguities. The preliminary results of our place name assignment method indicate promising results given the existence of geo/non-geo ambiguities among place names.

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Kai-Kuang Ma, for his professional guidance, invaluable assistance, patience, and kindly encouragement throughout the two years' study as well as his constructive comments on this thesis. It is also my great pleasure to thank my labmates in Multimedia Technology Lab at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University. Discussing with them has been a pleasant and fruitful experience. I am grateful to my colleagues at STMicroelectronics. Though not directly related to my study, working with them has nevertheless strengthened my understanding on signal processing and broadened the horizon of my knowledge. I would also like to thank the reviewers for their valuable suggestions that help improve the quality of this thesis. Some of the questions are thought-provoking and searching for the answers deepens my understanding on the topic. Lastly but most importantly, this thesis is dedicated to my family, whose love and support are always the greatest inspiration for me in my life.

Fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3) plays an important regulatory role in tumor cell proliferation and drug resistance. FGFR3 is often constitutively active in many tumors. To deliver drugs into tumor cells by targeting FGFR3 will be a promising and potential strategy for cancer therapy. In this study, a novel fusion protein, ScFv-Cys containing a single chain variable fragment (ScFv) and an additional C-terminal cysteine residue, was generated at a rate of 10 mg/L of bacterial culture and purified at 95% by Ni-NTA chromatography. Subsequently, the recombinant ScFv-Cys was coupled with malPEG2000-DSPE and incorporated into liposomes to generate the immunoliposomes. The results indicated that immunoliposomes can specifically deliver the fluorescent molecules, Dio into bladder cancer cells highly expressing FGFR3. In conclusion, we successfully generated FGFR3-specific immunoliposomes, and proved its targeting effect and delivering ability.

No abstract

No abstract