The prognostic role of 18F-FDG PET/CT-based response evaluation in children with stage 4 neuroblastoma.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the association between metabolic response on 18F-FDG PET/CT and long-term survival in children with neuroblastoma (NB). METHODS: A total of 39 consecutive children with newly diagnosed stage 4 NB undergoing both 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging at baseline and after chemotherapy were retrospectively analyzed. The associations between metabolic parameters, including SUVmax of the lesion with the most intense 18F-FDG uptake at baseline (SUVb), after chemotherapy (SUVe), and the percentage change between SUVb and SUVe, and long-term survival were evaluated. RESULTS: With a median follow-up of 56 months, 22 patients who had achieved complete resolution on PET (no residual 18F-FDG uptake higher than the surrounding backgrounds) after chemotherapy had superior 5-year overall survival (OS) (73.6% vs. 39.0%, p = 0.044). SUVb > 6.9 indicated significantly poorer 5-year event-free survival (EFS) (12.5% vs. 59.3%, p = 0.005), as did SUVe > 1.2 (18.8% vs. 41.7%, p = 0.041). Children with SUVe > 1.2 had shorter 5-year OS (33.9% vs. 75.0%, p = 0.018). Multivariate analysis identified SUVe > 1.2 as an independent predictor for both EFS [hazard ratio (HR), 3.479, 95% CI, 1.381-8.761, p = 0.008] and OS (HR, 6.948, 95% CI, 1.663-29.025, p = 0.008), while SUVb > 6.9 was a predictor for EFS (HR, 2.889, 95% CI, 1.064-7.842, p = 0.037). Among 11 children with both SUVb > 6.9 and SUVe > 1.2, all experienced disease progression or relapse within 2 years since diagnosis. CONCLUSION: 18F-FDG PET/CT could be of useful to evaluate treatment response in children with stage 4 NB. CLINICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT: 18F-FDG PET/CT after chemotherapy exhibits prognostic significance in neuroblastoma and holds potential as an alternative imaging modality for response evaluation, especially in cases with metaiodobenzylguanidine-nonavid or persistent avid disease. KEY POINTS: The prognostic value of chemotherapy response on 18F-FDG PET/CT in advanced neuroblastoma is unknown. Higher 18F-FDG uptake after chemotherapy was associated with worse long-term event-free survival and overall survival. 18F-FDG PET/CT after chemotherapy holds prognostic significance in children with stage 4 neuroblastoma.

Enhanced bioavailability of curcumin amorphous nanocomposite prepared by a green process using modified starch.

Curcumin (Cur), a bioactive compound extracted from plants, has attracted widespread attention due to its multiple pharmacological activities. However, the low bioavailability due to the inherent limitations in water solubility, chemical stability, and permeability poses great challenges for realizing its clinical potentials. In the current study, octenyl succinic anhydride-modified starch (OSA-S), a renewable and biodegradable biopolymer, was employed to fabricate Cur amorphous composite nanoparticles (Cur/OSA-S NPs) through a solvent-free pH-driven method with the aim to enhance Cur's bioavailability by improving its solubility and stability. Cur/OSA-S NPs, with mean sizes of about 128.9 ± 8.6 nm, encapsulation efficiencies of about 90.0 %, and the drug loading capacities around 51.0 ± 0.2 %, were successfully prepared. Cur was found to be dispersed within the composite nanoparticles in amorphous state as confirmed by the XRD and DSC characterizations. In addition, Cur/OSA-S NPs offers excellent storage, thermal and light stability, excellent re-dispersibility, and approximately 92 times better solubility than the original Cur. Furthermore, studies of dissolution and the parallel artificial membrane permeability assay (PAMPA) confirmed enhanced dissolution rates and in vitro permeabilities of Cur/OSA-S NPs. Cancer cell viability and uptake experiments revealed that Cur/OSA-S NPs possessed more potent inhibitory effects on cancer cell proliferation compared to the raw Cur. The results obtained from the current study demonstrated the effectiveness of OSA-S for manufacturing Cur amorphous composite nanoparticles with enhanced solubility, stability, and permeability, which might be valuable for further development of Cur based products for treatment of various diseases.

Oxygen-Deficient FeNbO4-x In-Situ Growth in Honey-Derived N-Doping Porous Carbon for Overall Water Splitting.

It is still a great challenge to reasonably design green, low cost, high activity and good stability catalysts for overall water splitting (OWS). Here, we introduce a novel catalyst with ferric niobate (FeNbO4) in-situ growing in honey-derived porous carbon of high specific surface area, and its catalytic activity is further enhanced by micro-regulation (oxygen vacancy and N-doping). From the experimental results and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, the oxygen vacancy in catalyst FeNbO4-x@NC regulates the local charge density of active site, thus increasing conductivity and optimizing hydrogen/oxygen species adsorption energy. FeNbO4 in-situ grows within N-doping honey-derived porous carbon, which can enhance active specific surface area exposure, strengthen gaseous substances escape rate, and accelerate electrons/ions transfer and electrolytes diffusion. Moreover, in-situ Raman also confirms O-species generation in oxygen evolution reaction (OER). As a result, the catalyst FeNbO4-x@NC shows good electrochemical performance in OER, HER and OWS.

Evaluation of therapeutic effect and prognostic value of 18F-FDG PET/CT in different treatment nodes of DLBCL patients.

BACKGROUND: In the present study, we aimed to investigate the role of baseline (B), interim (I) and end-of-treatment (Eot) 18F-FDG PET/CT in assessing the prognosis of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), so as to identify patients who need intensive treatment at an early stage. METHODS: A total of 127 DLBCL patients (62 men; 65 women; median age 62 years) were retrospectively analyzed in this study. Baseline (n = 127), interim (n = 127, after 3-4 cycles) and end-of-treatment (n = 53, after 6-8 cycles) PET/CT images were re-evaluated; semi-quantitative parameters such as maximum standardized uptake value of lesion-to-liver ratio (SUVmax(LLR)) and lesion-to-mediastinum ratio (SUVmax(LMR)), total metabolic tumor volume (TMTV) and total metabolic tumor volume (TLG) were recorded. ΔTLG1 was the change of interim relative to baseline TLG (I to B), ΔTLG2 (Eot to B). ΔSUVmax and ΔTMTV were the same algorithm. The visual Deauville 5-point scale (D-5PS) has been adopted as the major criterion for PET evaluation. Visual analysis (VA) and semi-quantitative parameters were assessed for the ability to predict progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) by using Kaplan-Meier method, cox regression and logistic regression analysis. When visual and semi-quantitative analysis are combined, the result is only positive if both are positive. RESULTS: At a median follow-up of 34 months, the median PFS and OS were 20 and 32 months. The survival curve analysis showed that advanced stage and IPI score with poor prognosis, ΔSUVmax(LLR)1 < 89.2%, ΔTMTV1 < 91.8% and ΔTLG1 < 98.8%, ΔSUVmax(LLR)2 < 86.4% were significantly related to the shortening of PFS in patient (p < 0.05). ΔSUVmax(LLR)1 < 83.2% and ΔTLG1 < 97.6% were significantly correlated with the shortening of OS in patients (p < 0.05). Visual analysis showed that incomplete metabolic remission at I-PET and Eot-PET increased the risk of progress and death. In terms of predicting recurrence by I-PET, the combination of visual and semi-quantitative parameters showed higher positive predictive value (PPV) and specificity than a single index. CONCLUSION: Three to four cycles of R-CHOP treatment may be a time point for early prediction of early recurrence/refractory (R/R) patients and active preemptive treatment. Combined visual analysis with semi-quantitative parameters of 18F-FDG PET/CT at interim can improve prognostic accuracy and may allow for more precise screening of patients requiring early intensive therapy.

Improved physicochemical stability of fish oil nanoemulsion via a dense interfacial layer formed by hyaluronic acid-poly(glyceryl)10-stearate.

This study aimed to synthesize a novel emulsifier, hyaluronic acid-poly(glyceryl)10-stearate (HA-PG10-C18), and employ it for the fabrication of nanoemulsions incorporating deep-sea fish oil to improve their apparent solubility and physicochemical stability. 1H NMR and FT-IR analyses indicated successful synthesis of HA-PG10-C18. Nanoemulsions of deep-sea fish oil loaded with HA-PG10-C18 (HA-PG10-C18@NE) were successfully fabricated by ultrasonic emulsification. The fixed aqueous layer thickness (FALT) of PG10-C18@NE and HA-PG10-C18@NE was determined and the FALT of both nanoemulsions was similar, while the surface density of HA-PG10-C18@NE (4.92 × 10-12 ng/nm2) is 60 % higher than that of PG10-C18@NE (3.07 × 10-12 ng/nm2). Notably, HA-PG10-C18@NE demonstrated an exceptional physicochemical stability when exposed to various stressed environmental conditions, especially its freeze-thaw stability. Moreover, after simulated in vitro digestion, the HA-PG10-C18@NE exhibited a comparatively greater liberation of free fatty acids (94.0 ± 1.7 %) when compared to the release observed in PG10-C18@NE (85.5 ± 2.2 %).

A fully automatic deep learning-based method for segmenting regions of interest and predicting renal function in pediatric dynamic renal scintigraphy.

OBJECTIVE: Accurate delineation of renal regions of interest (ROIs) is critical for the assessment of renal function in pediatric dynamic renal scintigraphy (DRS). The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a deep learning (DL) model that can fully automatically delineate renal ROIs and calculate renal function in pediatric 99mTechnetium-ethylenedicysteine (99mTc-EC) DRS. METHODS: This study retrospectively analyzed 1,283 pediatric DRS data at a single center from January to December 2018. These patients were divided into training set (n = 1027), validation set (n = 128), and testing set (n = 128). A fully automatic segmentation of ROIs (FASR) model was developed and evaluated. The pixel values of the automatically segmented ROIs were calculated to predict renal blood perfusion rate (BPR) and differential renal function (DRF). Precision, recall rate, intersection over union (IOU), and Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) were used to evaluate the performance of FASR model. Intraclass correlation (ICC) and Pearson correlation analysis were used to compare the consistency of automatic and manual method in assessing the renal function parameters in the testing set. RESULTS: The FASR model achieved a precision of 0.88, recall rate of 0.94, IOU of 0.83, and DSC of 0.91. In the testing set, the r values of BPR and DRF calculated by the two methods were 0.94 (P < 0.01) and 0.97 (P < 0.01), and the ICCs (95% confidence interval CI) were 0.94 (0.90-0.96) and 0.94 (0.91-0.96). CONCLUSION: We propose a reliable and stable DL model that can fully automatically segment ROIs and accurately predict renal function in pediatric 99mTc-EC DRS.

How to use BAPV to alleviate the urban heat island effect: An evolutionary game perspective.

In recent years, the phenomenon of the urban heat island caused by the rapid development of cities is very serious. To solve the problem of the urban heat island, this study proposed a PPP project consisting of the government (GOVT), photovoltaic investment company (PVIC), and residential customers (RS). Based on an evolutionary game model and combined with current policies and industry regulations in China, the evolution process and stable evolution strategies were studied. The result shows that more government subsidies, higher carbon trading prices, and feed-in tariffs will promote the development of the PPP project. For relatively suitable reference value ranges, the installation tilt angle of the BAPV system is 30°, the photovoltaic grid electricity price is 0.1096∼0.1296 $/kWh, the carbon trading is 8.92∼9.42 $/t.

Kinematic target surface sensing based on improved deep optical flow tracking.

Reconstruction of moving target surfaces based on active image sensing techniques, such as phase-shifting profilometry, has attracted intensive research in recent years. The measurement error caused by object motion can be addressed successfully by tracking the object movement. However, it either requires high-cost color imaging equipment or is limited by the assumption of 2D translation movement. Therefore, this paper proposes what we believe to be a new method to reconstruct the kinematic object surfaces with any 2D movement sensed by affordable monochrome camera. An improved RAFT optical flow algorithm is proposed to track the object based on the object fringe pattern image directly. The feature points on the object are retrieved immune to the fringe pattern illumination. Then, the RANSAC algorithm and an iteration selection process are employed to select feature points with high quality optical flow. At last, the motion is described mathematically, and the dynamic object is reconstructed successfully. Experiments are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Concordance and Clinical Significance of Genomic Alterations in Progressive Tumor Tissue and Matched Circulating Tumor DNA in Aggressive-variant Prostate Cancer.

Sequencing of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is a minimally invasive approach to reveal the genomic alterations of cancer; however, its comparison with sequencing of tumor tissue has not been well documented in real-world patients with aggressive-variant prostate cancer (AVPC). Concordance of genomic alterations was assessed between progressive tumor tissue and matched ctDNA by next-generation sequencing for 63 patients with AVPC. Associations of genomic alterations with progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were investigated using Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses. A total of 161 somatic mutations (SMs) and 84 copy-number variants (CNVs) were detected in tumors, of which 97 were also found in ctDNA, giving concordance of 39.6% (97/245) across all SMs and CNVs, 49.7% for SMs only and 20.2% for CNVs only. Across all patients with AVPC, chemotherapy was associated with significantly longer median PFS (6 vs. 0.75 months, P = 0.001) and OS (11 vs. 8 months, P < 0.001) than next-generation hormonal therapy (NHT). Among types of chemotherapy, additional platinum-based chemotherapy was associated with significantly longer median PFS and OS than docetaxel only in patients with TP53, RB1, or PTEN alterations, and in those with ctDNA% ≥ 13.5%. The concordance analysis first provides evidence for combining the sequencing of ctDNA and tumor tissue in real-world patients with AVPC. Chemotherapy is associated with significantly better survival than NHT, and the benefit of additional platinum-based chemotherapy may depend on the presence of alterations in TP53, RB1, or PTEN and on a sufficiently high proportion of ctDNA in patients with AVPC. SIGNIFICANCE: AVPC is a highly malignant and heterogeneous disease. Sequencing of ctDNA is a minimally invasive approach to reveal genomic alterations. On the basis of the current real-world study, we found ctDNA does not fully recapitulate the landscape of genomic alterations from progressive tumor tissue in AVPC. We also revealed AVPC can benefit from chemotherapy, especially platinum-based regimens. TP53/RB1/PTEN alterations in ctDNA or tumor tissue could be biomarkers for platinum-based chemotherapy in this setting.

An 18F-MD-PSMA (Multi-dentate PMSA Imaging Agent) PET/CT in Prostate Cancer Relapse: Results of a Retrospective Trial.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to evaluate the performance of 18F-MD-PSMA PET/CT in patients previously treated for prostate cancer by either surgery or therapy, but later relapsed biochemically. METHODS: This retrospective study enrolled 213 patients in sequence previously treated for prostate cancer by either surgery or therapy, but later PSA relapsed. A total of 191 of these 213 patients were included in this analysis. All patients were biochemically relapsed after radical prostatectomy or therapy, had 18F-MD-PSMA PET/CT scan within 1 week, and were off hormonal therapy at the time of the scans. The new tracer was compared directly with 11C-choline in sensitivity. RESULTS: In 3 patients, a side-by-side comparison between 18F-MD-PSMA and 11C-choline was performed, and it was found that the former was about 3 times more sensitive than the latter. The analysis of PET imaging using 18F-MD-PSMA in 191 relapsed patients showed that less than 10% of patients showed the disease limited in the prostate. Among the remote lesions, the number in decreasing order was bone, followed by lymph nodes and other organs. The maximal SUV in lesions in each patient followed an exponential decay, with SUV inclined to the lower end. The Gleason score measured at the diagnosis showed no correlation with the average number of lesions in each patient, the average maximal SUV values among this cohort of patients, and the PSA values measured at the time of PET imaging. The number of lesions observed in each patient has no correlation with the PSA value measured at the time of PET imaging. When PSA value was measured as an independent biomarker at the time of PET imaging, the positivity of PET imaging using 18F-MD-PSMA increased along with an increase in PSA value, but with exceptions where PSMA expression was low or negative. From the PET imaging of this radioligand, the majority of patients showed oligo-metastasis, favoring using local therapy to manage the disease. CONCLUSION: An 18F-MD-PSMA as a radioligand was found to be superior to 11C-choline in the setting of patients with biochemical relapse after previous treatment. Its PET imaging results matched those of established PSMA radioligands, but its chemical structure was found to have added features to conjugate with other functional molecules, such as those with therapeutic properties. This radioligand lays the foundation for our further work.

An Augmented Sample Selection Framework for Prediction of Anticancer Peptides.

Anticancer peptides (ACPs) have promising prospects for cancer treatment. Traditional ACP identification experiments have the limitations of low efficiency and high cost. In recent years, data-driven deep learning techniques have shown significant potential for ACP prediction. However, data-driven prediction models rely heavily on extensive training data. Furthermore, the current publicly accessible ACP dataset is limited in size, leading to inadequate model generalization. While data augmentation effectively expands dataset size, existing techniques for augmenting ACP data often generate noisy samples, adversely affecting prediction performance. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel augmented sample selection framework for the prediction of anticancer peptides (ACPs-ASSF). First, the prediction model is trained using raw data. Then, the augmented samples generated using the data augmentation technique are fed into the trained model to compute pseudo-labels and estimate the uncertainty of the model prediction. Finally, samples with low uncertainty, high confidence, and pseudo-labels consistent with the original labels are selected and incorporated into the training set to retrain the model. The evaluation results for the ACP240 and ACP740 datasets show that ACPs-ASSF achieved accuracy improvements of up to 5.41% and 5.68%, respectively, compared to the traditional data augmentation method.

The value of [18F]FDG PET/CT in avoiding overtreatment of 131l avidity pulmonary metastasis of differentiated thyroid cancer.

INTRODUCTION: We usually use 131I-whole body scan (131I-WBS) and serum thyroglobulin (Tg) values to determine whether differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) patients need to receive 131I treatment, but not all ¹³¹I-avid (functioning) patients have a good response to ¹³¹I therapy. Our study aims to assess the data of [¹8F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography ([¹8F] FDG PET/CT) to research the status of 131I-avid pulmonary metastases (PMs) and the prognosis of the patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The 131I-avid PMs of DTC patients who underwent [18F]FDG PET/CT scans were included. The maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), metabolic tumour volume (MTV), and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) were used to estimate [¹8F]FDG uptake. The mean follow-up period was 34.14 ± 18.64 months. Progression-free survival (PFS) was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. The study was based on per-patient and per-lesion analyses. RESULTS: Among the 42 included patients, 34 (34/42, 81%) showed [¹8F]FDG uptake, which was defined as abnormal foci (SUVmax > 1.0) in the lungs. SUVmax, MTV, TLG, and tumour size were the factors that influenced the outcome of 131I treatment based on Tg levels (p = 0.000, 0.016, 0.000, 0.000) in per-lesion analysis. The only independent factor was the size of the lesion. There was a significant difference in response to ¹³¹I therapy between PMs with F-I+ and F+/I+ according to both Tg levels and Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumours (RECIST) (version 1.1) (p = 0.044, 0.001), in the per-lesion analysis. When the changes in size or metabolism of some lesions are inconsistent the prognosis of these patients is poor (p = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that higher [18F]FDG uptake and larger tumour size predict poor therapeutic effects and a high risk of disease progression in ¹³¹I-avid PMs of DTC. For evaluating the efficiency of ¹³¹I treatment, per-lesion analyses and assessing the data of [¹8F] FDG PET/CT would be more reliable than per-patient evaluation only. And early focal treatment modalities may improve their life span.

HHEX suppresses advanced thyroid cancer by interacting with TLE3.

Haematopoietically Expressed Homeobox (HHEX) gene is highly expressed in the thyroid gland and plays critical roles in the development and differentiation of the thyroid gland. While it has been indicated to be downregulated in thyroid cancer, its function and the underlying mechanism remain unclear. Herein, we observed low expression and aberrant cytoplasmic localization of HHEX in thyroid cancer cell lines. Knockdown of HHEX significantly enhanced cell proliferation, migration and invasion, while overexpression of HHEX showed the opposite effects in vitro and in vivo. These data provide evidence that HHEX is a tumor suppressor in thyroid cancer. Additionally, our results showed that HHEX overexpression upregulated the expression of sodium iodine symporter (NIS) mRNA and also enhanced NIS promoter activity, suggesting a favorable effect of HHEX in promoting thyroid cancer differentiation. Mechanistically, HHEX exerted a regulatory effect on the expression of transducin-like enhancer of split 3 (TLE3) protein, which inhibited the Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathway. Nuclear localized HHEX bound to and upregulated TLE3 expression by preventing TLE3 protein from being distributed to the cytoplasm and being ubiquitinated. In conclusion, our study suggested that restoring HHEX expression has the potential to be a new strategy in the treatment of advanced thyroid cancer.

A Semi-Supervised Speech Deception Detection Algorithm Combining Acoustic Statistical Features and Time-Frequency Two-Dimensional Features.

Human lying is influenced by cognitive neural mechanisms in the brain, and conducting research on lie detection in speech can help to reveal the cognitive mechanisms of the human brain. Inappropriate deception detection features can easily lead to dimension disaster and make the generalization ability of the widely used semi-supervised speech deception detection model worse. Because of this, this paper proposes a semi-supervised speech deception detection algorithm combining acoustic statistical features and time-frequency two-dimensional features. Firstly, a hybrid semi-supervised neural network based on a semi-supervised autoencoder network (AE) and a mean-teacher network is established. Secondly, the static artificial statistical features are input into the semi-supervised AE to extract more robust advanced features, and the three-dimensional (3D) mel-spectrum features are input into the mean-teacher network to obtain features rich in time-frequency two-dimensional information. Finally, a consistency regularization method is introduced after feature fusion, effectively reducing the occurrence of over-fitting and improving the generalization ability of the model. This paper carries out experiments on the self-built corpus for deception detection. The experimental results show that the highest recognition accuracy of the algorithm proposed in this paper is 68.62% which is 1.2% higher than the baseline system and effectively improves the detection accuracy.

Dual role of polyglycerol vitamin E succinate in emulsions: An efficient antioxidant emulsifier.

α-Tocopherol, as an oil-soluble vitamin with strong antioxidant activity. It is the most naturally abundant and biologically active form of vitamin E in humans. In this study, a novel emulsifier (PG20-VES) was synthesized by attaching hydrophilic twenty-polyglycerol (PG20) to hydrophobic vitamin E succinate (VES). This emulsifier was shown to have a relatively low critical micelle concentration (CMC = 3.2 µg/mL). The antioxidant activities and emulsification properties of PG20-VES were compared with those of a widely used commercial emulsifier: D-α-Tocopherol polyethylene glycol 1000 succinate (TPGS). PG20-VES exhibited a lower interfacial tension, stronger emulsifying capacity and similar antioxidant property to TPGS. An in vitro digestion study showed that lipid droplets coated by PG20-VES were digested under simulated small intestine conditions. This study showed that PG20-VES is an efficient antioxidant emulsifier, which may have applications in the formulation of bioactive delivery systems in the food, supplement, and pharmaceutical industries.

A Fe2(SO4)3-assisted approach towards green synthesis of cuttlefish ink-derived carbon nanospheres for high-performance supercapacitors.

The conversion of renewable biomass resources into advanced electrode materials through green, simple, and economical methods has become an important research direction in energy storage. In this study, Fe-decorated N/S-codoped porous carbon nanospheres have been successfully fabricated from cuttlefish ink through Fe2(SO4)3-assisted hydrothermal carbonization coupled with heat treatment. The effects of Fe2(SO4)3 dosage on the structure, chemical composition, and capacitive property of carbon nanospheres were investigated. Herein, environmentally friendly Fe2(SO4)3 plays a multifunctional role as the graphitization catalyst, dopant, and morphology-regulating agent. Benefitting from the moderate graphitization degree, great heteroatom content and hierarchical porous structure, the prepared carbon nanospheres exhibit high specific capacitance (311.9 F g-1 at a current density of 0.5 A g-1), good rate capability (19.1% decrease in specific capacitance as current density increases from 0.5 to 10 A g-1), and ideal cycling stability (94.3% capacitance retention after 5000 cycles). In addition, the symmetric supercapacitor assembled with the carbon nanosphere electrodes achieves an energy density of 9.7 Wh kg-1 at a power density of 0.25 kW kg-1 and maintains 91.3% capacitance after 10,000 cycles. The desirable electrochemical performance of cuttlefish ink-derived carbon nanosphere material makes it a potential electrode candidate for supercapacitors.

Three-dimensional genome landscape comprehensively reveals patterns of spatial gene regulation in papillary and anaplastic thyroid cancers: a study using representative cell lines for each cancer type.

BACKGROUND: Spatial chromatin structure is intricately linked with somatic aberrations, and somatic mutations of various cancer-related genes, termed co-mutations (CoMuts), occur in certain patterns during cancer initiation and progression. The functional mechanisms underlying these genetic events remain largely unclear in thyroid cancer (TC). With discrepant differentiation, papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) and anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) differ greatly in characteristics and prognosis. We aimed to reveal the spatial gene alterations and regulations between the two TC subtypes. METHODS: We systematically investigated and compared the spatial co-mutations between ATC (8305C), PTC (BCPAP and TPC-1), and normal thyroid cells (Nthy-ori-3-1). We constructed a framework integrating whole-genome sequencing (WGS), high-throughput chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C), and transcriptome sequencing, to systematically detect the associations between the somatic co-mutations of cancer-related genes, structural variations (SVs), copy number variations (CNVs), and high-order chromatin conformation. RESULTS: Spatial co-mutation hotspots were enriched around topologically associating domains (TADs) in TC. A common set of 227 boundaries were identified in both ATC and PTC, with significant overlaps between them. The spatial proximities of the co-mutated gene pairs in the two TC types were significantly greater than in the gene-level and overall backgrounds, and ATC cells had higher TAD contact frequency with CoMuts > 10 compared with PTC cells. Compared with normal thyroid cells, in ATC the number of the created novel three-dimensional chromatin structural domains increased by 10%, and the number of shifted TADs decreased by 7%. We found five TAD blocks with CoMut genes/events specific to ATC with certain mutations in genes including MAST-NSUN4, AM129B/TRUB2, COL5A1/PPP1R26, PPP1R26/GPSM1/CCDC183, and PRAC2/DLX4. For the majority of ATC and PTC cells, the HOXA10 and HIF2α signals close to the transcription start sites of CoMut genes within TADs were significantly stronger than those at the background. CNV breakpoints significantly overlapped with TAD boundaries in both TC subtypes. ATCs had more CNV losses overlapping with TAD boundaries, and noncoding SVs involved in intrachromosomal SVs, amplified inversions, and tandem duplication differed between ATC and PTC. TADs with short range were more abundant in ATC than PTC. More switches of A/B compartment types existed in ATC cells compared with PTC. Gene expression was significantly synchronized, and orchestrated by complex epigenetics and regulatory elements. CONCLUSION: Chromatin interactions and gene alterations and regulations are largely heterogeneous in TC. CNVs and complex SVs may function in the TC genome by interplaying with TADs, and are largely different between ATC and PTC. Complexity of TC genomes, which are highly organized by 3D genome-wide interactions mediating mutational and structural variations and gene activation, may have been largely underappreciated. Our comprehensive analysis may provide key evidence and targets for more customized diagnosis and treatment of TC.

Cross-Corpus Speech Emotion Recognition Based on Multi-Task Learning and Subdomain Adaptation.

To solve the problem of feature distribution discrepancy in cross-corpus speech emotion recognition tasks, this paper proposed an emotion recognition model based on multi-task learning and subdomain adaptation, which alleviates the impact on emotion recognition. Existing methods have shortcomings in speech feature representation and cross-corpus feature distribution alignment. The proposed model uses a deep denoising auto-encoder as a shared feature extraction network for multi-task learning, and the fully connected layer and softmax layer are added before each recognition task as task-specific layers. Subsequently, the subdomain adaptation algorithm of emotion and gender features is added to the shared network to obtain the shared emotion features and gender features of the source domain and target domain, respectively. Multi-task learning effectively enhances the representation ability of features, a subdomain adaptive algorithm promotes the migrating ability of features and effectively alleviates the impact of feature distribution differences in emotional features. The average results of six cross-corpus speech emotion recognition experiments show that, compared with other models, the weighted average recall rate is increased by 1.89~10.07%, the experimental results verify the validity of the proposed model.

Improved risk stratification by PET-based intratumor heterogeneity in children with high-risk neuroblastoma.

Purpose: The substratification of high-risk neuroblastoma is challenging, and new predictive imaging biomarkers are warranted for better patient selection. The aim of the study was to evaluate the prognostic role of PET-based intratumor heterogeneity and its potential ability to improve risk stratification in neuroblastoma. Methods: Pretreatment 18F-FDG PET/CT scans from 112 consecutive children with newly diagnosed neuroblastoma were retrospectively analyzed. The primary tumor was segmented in the PET images. SUVs, volumetric parameters including metabolic tumor volume (MTV) and total lesion glycolysis (TLG), and texture features were extracted. After the exclusion of imaging features with poor and moderate reproducibility, the relationships between the imaging indices and clinicopathological factors, as well as event-free survival (EFS), were assessed. Results: The median follow-up duration was 33 months. Multivariate analysis showed that PET-based intratumor heterogeneity outperformed clinicopathological features, including age, stage, and MYCN, and remained the most robust independent predictor for EFS [training set, hazard ratio (HR): 6.4, 95% CI: 3.1-13.2, p < 0.001; test set, HR: 5.0, 95% CI: 1.8-13.6, p = 0.002]. Within the clinical high-risk group, patients with a high metabolic heterogeneity showed significantly poorer outcomes (HR: 3.3, 95% CI: 1.6-6.8, p = 0.002 in the training set; HR: 4.4, 95% CI: 1.5-12.9, p = 0.008 in the test set) compared to those with relatively homogeneous tumors. Furthermore, intratumor heterogeneity outran the volumetric indices (MTVs and TLGs) and yielded the best performance of distinguishing high-risk patients with different outcomes with a 3-year EFS of 6% vs. 47% (p = 0.001) in the training set and 9% vs. 51% (p = 0.004) in the test set. Conclusion: PET-based intratumor heterogeneity was a strong independent prognostic factor in neuroblastoma. In the clinical high-risk group, intratumor heterogeneity further stratified patients with distinct outcomes.

Porous biscuit-like nanoplate FeNb11O29-x@C for lithium-ion storage and oxygen evolution.

The development of efficient and stable electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is critical for clean and sustainable energy storage and conversion. In this work, porous biscuit-like nanoplate FeNb11O29-x@C is reasonably prepared by morphology control and microstructure modification, and presents many advantages in LIBs and the OER. In particular, FeNb11O29-x@C displays a large specific surface area, abundant active sites and a significant edge effect, thus improving the Li+ reactivity and OER kinetics. Meanwhile, the oxygen vacancies and lattice defects in FeNb11O29-x@C enhance the Li+ transport rate and reduce the OER barrier. In addition, the carbon layer structure not only inhibits the irreversible reaction between the electrolyte and metal ions, but promotes the stability, cycling ability and conductivity of LIBs and the OER. Generally, FeNb11O29-x@C demonstrates good electrochemical performance in LIBs (providing 240.8 mA h g-1 reversible capacity at a current density of 0.25C and just 0.98% capacity attenuation after 500 cycles at a current density of 10C). Again, it also shows high catalytic performance in the OER (a low overpotential (290 mV@10 mA cm-2), a small Tafel slope (44.4 mV dec-1) and desirable catalytic stability).