Trajectory patterns and cumulative burden of CEA during follow-up with non-small cell lung cancer outcomes: A retrospective longitudinal cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) focused on CEA measured at a single time point, ignoring serial CEA measurements. METHODS: This retrospective cohort included 2959 patients underwent surgery for stage I-III NSCLC. CEA trajectory patterns and long-term cumulative CEA burden were evaluated using the latent class growth mixture model. RESULTS: Four CEA trajectory groups were identified, named as low-stable, decreasing, early-rising and later-rising. Compared with the low-stable group, the adjusted hazard ratios associated with death were 1.27, 4.50, and 3.68 for the other groups. Cumulative CEA burden were positively associated with the risk of death in patients not belonging to the low-stable group. The 5-year overall survival (OS) rates decreased from 62.3% to 33.0% for the first and fourth quantile groups of cumulative CEA burden. Jointly, patients with decreasing CEA trajectory could be further divided into the decreasing & low and decreasing & high group, with 5-year OS rates to be 77.9% and 47.1%. Patients with rising CEA trajectory and high cumulative CEA were found to be more likely to develop bone metastasis. CONCLUSIONS: Longitudinal trajectory patterns and long-term cumulative burden of CEA were independent prognostic factors of NSCLC. We recommend CEA in postoperative surveillance of NSCLC.

Amide proton transfer-weighted MRI for assessing rectal adenocarcinoma T-staging and perineural invasion: a prospective study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the value of the pre-operative amide proton transfer-weighted (APTw) MRI to assess the prognostic factors in rectal adenocarcinoma (RA). METHODS: This prospective study ran from January 2022 to September 2023 and consecutively enrolled participants with RA who underwent pre-operative MRI and radical surgery. The APTw signal intensity (SI) values of RA with various tumor (T), node (N) stages, perineural invasion (PNI), and tumor grade were compared by Mann-Whitney U-test or t-test. The receiver operating characteristic curve was used to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the APTw SI values. RESULTS: A total of 51 participants were enrolled (mean age, 58 years ± 10 [standard deviation], 26 men). There were 24 in the T1-T2 stage and 9 with positive PNI. The APTw SI max, 99th, and 95th values were significantly higher in T3-T4 stage tumor than in T1-T2; the median (interquartile range) (M (IQR)) was (4.0% (3.6-4.9%) vs 3.4% (2.9- 4.3%), p = 0.017), (3.7% (3.2-4.1%) vs 3.2% (2.8-3.8%), p = 0.013), and (3.3% (2.8-3.8%) vs 2.9% (2.3-3.5%), p = 0.033), respectively. These indicators also differed significantly between the PNI groups, with the M (IQR) (4.5% (3.6-5.7%) vs 3.7% (3.2-4.2%), p = 0.017), (4.1% (3.4-4.8%) vs 3.3% (3.0-3.9%), p = 0.022), and (3.7% (2.7-4.2%) vs 2.9% (2.6-3.5%), p = 0.045), respectively. CONCLUSION: Pre-operative APTw MRI has potential value in the assessment of T-staging and PNI determination in RA. CLINICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT: Pre-operative amide proton transfer-weighted MRI provides a quantitative method for noninvasive assessment of T-staging and PNI in RA aiding in precision treatment planning. KEY POINTS: The efficacy of APTw MRI in RA needs further investigation. T3-T4 stage and PNI positive APTw signal intensities were higher than T1-T2 and non-PNI, respectively. APTw MRI provides a quantitative method for assessment of T staging and PNI in RA.

Finite element biomechanical analysis of 3D printed intervertebral fusion cage in osteoporotic population.

OBJECTIVE: To study the biomechanical characteristics of each tissue structure when using different 3D printing Cage in osteoporotic patients undergoing interbody fusion. METHODS: A finite element model of the lumbar spine was reconstructed and validated with regarding a range of motion and intervertebral disc pressure from previous in vitro studies. Cage and pedicle screws were implanted and part of the lamina, spinous process, and facet joints were removed in the L4/5 segment of the validated mode to simulate interbody fusion. A 280 N follower load and 7.5 N·m moment were applied to different postoperative models and intact osteoporotic model to simulate lumbar motion. The biomechanical characteristics of different models were evaluated by calculating and analyzing the range of motion of the fixed and cephalic adjacent segment, the stress of the screw-rod system, the stress at the interface between cage and L5 endplate, and intervertebral disc pressure of the adjacent segment. RESULTS: After rigid fixation, the range of motion of the fixed segment of model A-C decreased significantly, which was much smaller than that of the osteoporotic model. And with the increase of the axial area of the interbody fusion cages, the fixed segment of model A-C tended to be more stable. The range of motion and intradiscal pressure of the spinal models with different interbody fusion cages were higher than those of the complete osteoporosis model, but there was no significant difference between the postoperative models. On the other hand, the L5 upper endplate stress and screw-rod system stress of model A-C show a decreasing trend in different directions of motion. The stress of the endplate is the highest during flexion, which can reach 40.5 MPa (model A). The difference in endplate stress between models A-C was the largest during lateral bending. The endplate stress of models A and B was 150.5% and 140.9% of that of model C, respectively. The stress of the screw-rod system was the highest during lateral bending (model A, 102.0 MPa), which was 108.4%, 102.4%, 110.4%, 114.2% of model B and 158.5%, 110.1%, 115.8%, 125.4% of model C in flexion, extension, lateral bending, and rotation, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: For people with osteoporosis, no matter what type of cage is used, good immediate stability can be achieved after surgery. Larger cage sizes provide better fixation without significantly increasing ROM and IDP in adjacent segments, which may contribute to the development of ASD. In addition, larger cage sizes can disperse endplate stress and reduce stress concentration, which is of positive significance in preventing cage subsidence after operation. The cage and screw rod system establish a stress conduction pathway on the spine, and a larger cage greatly enhances the stress-bearing capacity of the front column, which can better distribute the stress of the posterior spine structure and the stress borne by the posterior screw rod system, reduce the stress concentration phenomenon of the nail rod system, and avoid exceeding the yield strength of the material, resulting in the risk of future instrument failure.

Influence of the initial recurrence site on prognosis after radical surgery for colorectal cancer: a retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: In this retrospective study, we aimed to elucidate how the initial recurrence site influences the post-recurrence survival (PRS) after the curative resection of colorectal cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We collected samples from patients with stage I-III colorectal adenocarcinoma who were admitted to Yunnan Cancer Hospital from January 2008 to December 2019. Four hundred and six patients who developed recurrence after radical resection were included. The cases were classified according to the original site of recurrence as follows: liver metastases (n = 98), lung metastases (n = 127), peritoneum (n = 32), other individual organ (n = 69), two or more organs or sites (n = 49), and local recurrence (n = 31). Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to compare the PRS of patients with different initial sites of recurrence. The influence of the initial recurrence site on PRS was analyzed using the Cox proportional hazards model. RESULTS: The 3-year PRS of simple liver metastasis was 54.04% (95% CI, 45.46%-64.24%), and the 3-year PRS of simple lung metastasis was 50.05% (95% CI, 42.50%-58.95%). No significant difference was observed between simple liver metastasis or simple lung metastasis and local recurrence with a 3-year PRS of 66.99% (95% CI, 53.23%-84.32%). The 3-year PRS for peritoneal metastases was 25.43% (95% CI, 14.76%-43.82%), and the 3-year PRS for two or more organ sites was 34.84% (95% CI, 24.16%-50.24%). The peritoneal (hazard ratio [HR], 1.75; 95% CI, 1.10-2.79; P = 0.0189) and metastasis to two or more organs or sites (HR, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.05-2.43; P = 0.0304) were PRS-independent adverse prognostic factors. CONCLUSION: The prognosis of patients with peritoneum and multiple organs or sites recurred was poor. This study suggests early monitoring of peritoneal and multiple organ or site recurrence after surgery. This part of patients should receive comprehensive treatment as early as possible to improve their prognosis.

Effect of initial recurrence site on the prognosis of different tissue types of non-small cell lung cancer: a retrospective cohort study.

PURPOSE: To explore the correlation between the initial recurrence site and survival after recurrence (PRS) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). METHODS: We collected 588 stages I-III NSCLC patients with recurrence after radical resection in Yunnan Cancer Hospital from January 2013 to December 2018. We used Kaplan-Meier survival curves to compare PRS in patients with different site recurrences. The univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard models were used to analyze the impact of the initial recurrence site on PRS. RESULTS: The recurrence site included the lung (n = 109), brain (n = 113), bone (n = 79), abdomen (n = 28), pleura (n = 24), lymph node (n = 81), and multisite (n = 154). In the total population, patients with multisite recurrence had substantially worse PRS (24.8 months, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 17.46-32.20) than that of patients without multiple sites recurrence (42.2 months, 95% CI 32.24-52.10) (P = 0.026). However, patients with lung recurrence had better RFS (63.1 months, 95% CI 51.13-74.00) than those who did not (31.0 months, 95% CI 25.10-36.96) (P < 0.001). In adenocarcinoma, patients with pleural recurrence had substantially worse PRS (21.3 months, 95% CI 15.07-27.46) than that of patients without pleural recurrence (46.9 months, 95% CI 35.07-58.80) (P = 0.031). Multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis revealed that lung recurrence (HR 0.58, 95% CI 0.40-0.82; P = 0.003) was independent protective prognostic factor for PRS in the total population, while pleural recurrence (HR 2.18, 95% CI 1.14-4.17; P = 0.018) was independent adverse prognostic factors for PRS in adenocarcinoma patients. CONCLUSION: The initial recurrence site was associated with PRS in NSCLC patients. Identification of recurrence sites could guide the subsequent treatment.

Agronomic and ionomics indicators of high-yield, mineral-dense, and low-Cd grains of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars.

The accumulation of toxic and essential nutrient elements in wheat grain influences wheat yield, grain nutritional quality, and human health. Here, we assessed the potential for breeding wheat cultivars to combine high yield with low cadmium and high iron and/or zinc concentrations in grains, and we screened appropriate cultivars. A pot experiment was conducted to explore differences in grain cadmium, iron, and zinc concentrations among 68 wheat cultivars, as well as their relationships with other nutrient elements and agronomic characters. The results showed 2.04-, 1.71-, and 1.64-fold differences in grain cadmium, iron, and zinc concentrations, respectively, among the 68 cultivars. Grain cadmium concentration was positively correlated with grain zinc, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and manganese concentrations. Grain copper concentration was positively correlated with grain zinc and iron concentrations, but not with grain cadmium concentration. Therefore, copper has a potential role in regulating grain iron and zinc accumulation without influencing cadmium concentration in wheat grain. There were no significant relationships between grain cadmium concentration and four important wheat agronomic characters (i.e., grain yield, straw yield, thousand kernel weight, and plant height), indicating that the breeding of low-cadmium-accumulating cultivars with dwarfism and high yield characteristics is possible. On cluster analysis, four cultivars (Ningmai11, Xumai35, Baomai6, and Aikang58) exhibited low-cadmium and high-yield characteristics. Among them, Aikang58 contained moderate iron and zinc concentrations, while Ningmai11 had relatively high iron but low zinc concentrations in the grain. These results imply that it is feasible to breed high-yield dwarf wheat with low cadmium and moderate iron and zinc concentrations in the grain.

Characterization and clinical relevance of PDGFRA pathway copy number variation gains across human cancers.

We investigated the copy number variation (CNV) of PDGFRA pathway across all common cancer types as well as its clinical relevance. This study included a total of 10,678 patients with pan-cancerous species involving 33 types of cancers and patient information was obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas. According to the PDGFRA pathway CNV, all samples were divided into copy number gain (CN gain) group and No CN gain group. The analysis of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) fraction, CNV burden, tumor mutation burden (TMB), and the number of immunogenic mutations were performed, as well as the correlation analysis of PDGFRA pathway CN gain with tumor-related signaling pathways and tumor-infiltrating immune cell subpopulations. The results showed that CN gain of PDGFRA pathway in the cancer patients was associated with significantly shorter overall survival. The CN gain of PDGFRA pathway was identified as a prognostic risk factor for some tumors. CN gain was accompanied by an altered percentage of LOH, CNV burden, TMB, the number of immunogenic mutations were increased and tumor-infiltrating immune cell subpopulations were less. While certain tumor-related signaling pathways, such as hypoxia, cell cycle, DNA repair, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition were more enriched in the CN gain group, quiescence, and inflammation pathways were more enriched in the No CN gain group. In conclusion, PDGFRA pathway CNV gain may be a poor prognostic factor in cancer patients.

Apatinib treatment for KIT- and KDR-amplified angiosarcoma: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Metastatic or relapsed angiosarcoma has a poor prognosis and the efficacy of conventional chemotherapy is often limited. Apatinib, a novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) targeting vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR2), has been approved for the treatment of advanced gastric cancer. CASE PRESENTATION: Herein, we report a patient with advanced angiosarcoma, who received apatinib at a daily dose of 250 to 725 mg, resulting in a partial response for three months, which may be related to Kinase Insert Domain Receptor (KDR) gene amplification. CONCLUSION: Our experience reported here indicated that apatinib may be a useful therapeutic option for treatment of patients with advanced angiosarcoma.

The effects of Pantoea sp. strain Y4-4 on alfalfa in the remediation of heavy-metal-contaminated soil, and auxiliary impacts of plant residues on the remediation of saline-alkali soils.

The plant-growth-promoting rhizobacterium (PGPR) Y4-4 was isolated from plant rhizosphere soil and identified as Pantoea sp. by 16S rRNA sequence analysis. The effects of strain Y4-4 on alfalfa grown in heavy-metals-contaminated soil was investigated using a pot experiment. In a Cu-rich environment, the shoot dry mass and total dry mass of plants inoculated with strain Y4-4 increased by 22.6% and 21%, and Cu accumulation increased by 15%. In a Pb-Zn-rich environment, the shoot dry mass and total dry mass of plants inoculated with strain Y4-4 increased by 23.4% and 22%, and Zn accumulation increased by 30.3%. In addition, the salt tolerance and biomass of wheat seedlings could be improved by applying strain Y4-4 mixed with plant residue as a result of the Cu-rich plant residues providing copper nutrition to wheat. This study offers an efficient PGPR with strong salt tolerance and a safe strategy for the post-treatment of plant residue.

[Quantitative detection of hydroxyl radical generated in quartz powder/phosphate buffer solution system by fluorescence spectrophotometry].

Quartz powder would release radical hydroxyl in phosphate buffer solution. In order to detect the quantity of radical hydroxyl with a quite low concentration, the present paper established a fluorescence method. According to the relationship between the concentration of 2-hydroxyl of terephthalic acid (HOTP) and fluorescence intensity at the wavelength of EX(max)/EM(max) = 316 nm/422 nm, a working standard curve was constructed. Then through the filtrated fluorescence intensity obtained from the powder and solution system, cumulative concentration of * OH can be measured indirectly. By repeating tests and analysis of five different experimental conditions of * OH cumulative concentration, the minimum detection limit of the method reached 1.59 x 10(-10) mol x L(-1), with a relative deviation of 1.20%-7.89%, standard deviation was 1.09 x 10(-9)-2.17 x 10(-9) mol x L(-1) and the relative standard deviation was 3.5%-5.8%. The method features high accuracy and good repeatability performance. Compared to other quantitative studies, this method might be applied to test radical hydroxy produced in pH neutral solution systems. In addition, it has apparent advantages such as low detection limit, low cost, higher sensitivity, and better stability and reproducibility. That provides the means for the quantitative study of mixed systems consisting of quartz powder and phosphate buffered solution.

A maverick: Environmentally relevant concentrations of nonylphenol attenuate the plasmid-mediated conjugative transfer of antibiotic resistance genes.

Given that many organic pollutants have been reported to facilitate the plasmid-mediated conjugative transfer of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), it was naturally deduced that nonylphenol (NP) can also have this kind of effect. Whereas, this study demonstrates an entirely different result that environmentally relevant concentrations of NP attenuate plasmid-mediated ARGs conjugative transfer (maximum inhibition rate 64 %), further study show that NP exposure had no significant effect on bacterial growth, cell vitality, oxidative stress response, and expression of conjugation-relevant genes, which were reported to closely relate to the conjugative transfer in numerous studies. Conclusively, it was found that the dispersant function of NP impeded the occurrence of cell mating, thus was responsible for the decline of conjugative transfer. This study shows a new perspective on understanding the effect of organic pollutants like NP on the ARGs horizontal dissemination in environment.

Anxiety disorder in menopausal women and the intervention efficacy of mindfulness-based stress reduction.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to investigate the current situation of anxiety disorder in menopausal women and to analyze the intervention effect of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). METHODS: A total of 489 patients diagnosed with menopausal syndrome from July 2021 to June 2022 were selected as the study object. There were 120 patients with menopausal syndrome complicated with anxiety who were screened out by the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7). The patients were divided into an experimental group (62 cases) and a control group (58 cases) according to the random number table method. The experimental group received MBSR intervention, and the control group received routine intervention. The present situation of menopausal women's anxiety disorder was analyzed. The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionaire (FFMQ) score, GAD-7 score, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), estradiol (E2), and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) levels of the two groups were compared. RESULTS: After a statistical analysis, it was found that the incidence of anxiety in patients with menopausal syndrome was 24.54% (120/489). The severity of menopausal syndrome was positively correlated with the degree of anxiety (r = 0.621, P<0.001). After the intervention, in comparison with the control group, the FFMQ score was higher and the GAD-7 score was lower in the experimental group. The levels of FSH were decreased, and the levels of E2 and 5-HT were increased in both groups, with more significant alterations in the observation group (all P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of anxiety disorder in menopausal women was high and its severity was related to the severity of menopausal syndrome. MBSR intervention can alleviate anxiety symptoms and improve hormone levels in the patients.

The Prognostic Significance of Postoperative Adjuvant Chemotherapy in the Population Aged 75 Years and Older with Stage II-III Colorectal Cancer: A Retrospective Multi-Center Cohort Study.

Background: It is common for elderly patients to be underrepresented in clinical trials for cancer, which can result in a lack of efficacy data and unclear criteria to guide treatment decisions for clinical doctors. Therefore, one of the common challenges in oncology treatment is determining the extent to which patients aged 75 and older have benefited from postoperative chemotherapy. Purpose: The study aimed to explore the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) on 3-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) after curative resection in patients aged 75 years and older with stage II-III colorectal cancer (CRC). Methods: The retrospective cohort analysis was performed on patients with stage II-III CRC who received curative resection at three cancer centers in China between 2008 and 2017. Kaplan-Meier curves and Multivariable Cox regression models were used to analyze the impact of AC on RFS in patients. Finally, propensity-score matching was used to reduce selection bias and confounding factors in patients aged 75 years and older with stage II-III CRC. Results: A total of 2885 patients were included (1729 (59.9%) male; 1312 (61.5%) received AC). The pre-matching cohort was comprised of 151 patients aged 75 years and older (median age (IQR)77.00 (76.00, 79.00); 97 (64.2%) male, 51 (72.9%) received AC). Age (P=0.001), postoperative carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)(P=0.02) level were associated with prognosis. But AC was not associated with 3-year RFS (HR, 1.27; 95% CI, 0.80-2.0; log-rank P=0.37). After a predisposition 1: 1 match (with or without AC, n = 42), AC remains uncorrelated with 3-year RFS (HR, 1.39; 95% CI, 0.52-3.70; log-rank P=0.66). Conclusion: Patients over the age of 75 with stage II-III CRC who receive AC or do not face the same risk of postoperative recurrence. As a result, patients with stage II-III postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy can make an informed decision regarding whether they want to undergo chemotherapy based on their age and reduce the unnecessary side effects of chemotherapy.

Preoperative splenic area as a prognostic biomarker of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: The correlation between the preoperative splenic area measured on CT scans and the overall survival (OS) of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients remains unclear. METHODS: A retrospective discovery cohort and validation cohort consisting of consecutive NSCLC patients who underwent resection and preoperative CT scans were created. The patients were divided into two groups based on the measurement of their preoperative splenic area: normal and abnormal. The Cox proportional hazard model was used to analyse the correlation between splenic area and OS. RESULTS: The discovery and validation cohorts included 2532 patients (1374 (54.27%) males; median (IQR) age 59 (52-66) years) and 608 patients (403 (66.28%) males; age 69 (62-76) years), respectively. Patients with a normal splenic area had a 6% higher 5-year OS (n = 727 (80%)) than patients with an abnormal splenic area (n = 1805 (74%)) (p = 0.007) in the discovery cohort. A similar result was obtained in the validation cohort. In the univariable analysis, the OS hazard ratios (HRs) for the patients with abnormal splenic areas were 1.32 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.08, 1.61) in the discovery cohort and 1.59 (95% CI: 1.01, 2.50) in the validation cohort. Multivariable analysis demonstrated that abnormal splenic area was independent of shorter OS in the discovery (HR: 1.32, 95% CI: 1.08, 1.63) and validation cohorts (HR: 1.84, 95% CI: 1.12, 3.02). CONCLUSION: Preoperative CT measurements of the splenic area serve as a prognostic indicator for early-stage NSCLC patients, offering a novel metric with potential implications for personalized therapeutic strategies in top-tier oncology research.

Preparation and characterization of polyaniline-copper composites by electrical explosion of wire.

Polyaniline-copper composites with a polyacrylic acid (PAA) were synthesized by electrical explosion of wire. Polyaniline (PANI) and PAA were put into the explosion medium, deionized water (DIW) and ethanol, stirred for 24 hrs and sonicated for 2 hrs. These solutions were used as base liquids for explosion process to fabricate Cu nanoparticle. Optical absorption in the UV-visible region of PANI and PANI/PAA-Cu composites was measured in a range of 200-900 nm. X-ray diffraction was used to analyze the phase of the composites. XRD pattern showed the PANI was amorphous and copper was polycrystalline. Two phases of Cu and Cu2O were formed in aqueous solution while single Cu phase was obtained in ethanol solution. Field emission scanning electron microscope was used to observe the microstructure of the composites. The synthesized composites were extensively characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and electrical measurements.

A novel MCF-Net: Multi-level context fusion network for 2D medical image segmentation.

Medical image segmentation is a crucial step in the clinical applications for diagnosis and analysis of some diseases. U-Net-based convolution neural networks have achieved impressive performance in medical image segmentation tasks. However, the multi-level contextual information integration capability and the feature extraction ability are often insufficient. In this paper, we present a novel multi-level context fusion network (MCF-Net) to improve the performance of U-Net on various segmentation tasks by designing three modules, hybrid attention-based residual atrous convolution (HARA) module, multi-scale feature memory (MSFM) module, and multi-receptive field fusion (MRFF) module, to fuse multi-scale contextual information. HARA module was proposed to effectively extract multi-receptive field features by combing atrous spatial pyramid pooling and attention mechanism. We further design the MSFM and MRFF modules to fuse features of different levels and effectively extract contextual information. The proposed MCF-Net was evaluated on the ISIC 2018, DRIVE, BUSI, and Kvasir-SEG datasets, which have challenging images of many sizes and widely varying anatomy. The experimental results show that MCF-Net is very competitive with other U-Net models, and it offers tremendous potential as a general-purpose deep learning model for 2D medical image segmentation.

FCP-Net: A Feature-Compression-Pyramid Network Guided by Game-Theoretic Interactions for Medical Image Segmentation.

Medical image segmentation is a crucial step in diagnosis and analysis of diseases for clinical applications. Deep convolutional neural network methods such as DeepLabv3+ have successfully been applied for medical image segmentation, but multi-level features are seldom integrated seamlessly into different attention mechanisms, and few studies have fully explored the interactions between medical image segmentation and classification tasks. Herein, we propose a feature-compression-pyramid network (FCP-Net) guided by game-theoretic interactions with a hybrid loss function (HLF) for the medical image segmentation. The proposed approach consists of segmentation branch, classification branch and interaction branch. In the encoding stage, a new strategy is developed for the segmentation branch by applying three modules, e.g., embedded feature ensemble, dilated spatial mapping and channel attention (DSMCA), and branch layer fusion. These modules allow effective extraction of spatial information, efficient identification of spatial correlation among various features, and fully integration of multi-receptive field features from different branches. In the decoding stage, a DSMCA module and a multi-scale feature fusion module are used to establish multiple skip connections for enhancing fusion features. Classification and interaction branches are introduced to explore the potential benefits of the classification information task to the segmentation task. We further explore the interactions of segmentation and classification branches from a game theoretic view, and design an HLF. Based on this HLF, the segmentation, classification and interaction branches can collaboratively learn and teach each other throughout the training process, thus applying the conjoint information between the segmentation and classification tasks and improving the generalization performance. The proposed model has been evaluated using several datasets, including ISIC2017, ISIC2018, REFUGE, Kvasir-SEG, BUSI, and PH2, and the results prove its competitiveness compared with other state-of-the-art techniques.

A simplified three-dimensional numerical simulation approach for surface acoustic wave tweezers.

Standing surface acoustic waves (SSAWs) have been extensively used as acoustic tweezers to manipulate, transport, and separate microparticles and biological cells in a microscale fluidic environment, with great potentials for biomedical sensing, genetic analysis, and therapeutics applications. Currently, there lacks an accurate, reliable, and efficient three-dimensional (3D) modeling platform to simulate behaviors of micron-size particles/cells in acoustofluidics, which is crucial to provide the guidance for the experimental studies. The major challenge for achieving this is the computational complexity of 3D modeling. Herein, a simplified but effective 3D SSAW microfluidic model was developed to investigate the separation and manipulation of particles. This model incorporates propagation attenuation of the surface waves to increase the modeling accuracy, while simplifies the modeling of piezoelectric substrates and the wall of microchannel by determining the effective propagation region of the substrate. We have simulated the SSAWs microfluidics device, and systematically analyzed effects of voltage, tilt angle, and flow rate on the separation of the particles under the SSAWs. The obtained simulation results are compared with those obtained from the experimental studies, showing good agreements. This simplified modeling platform could become a convenient tool for acoustofluidic research.

Heavily doped ZnO nanobelts and their violet emission.

In-doped ZnO nanobelts have been synthesized by a thermal evaporation method with absence of catalysts. The morphology and microstructure of the doped ZnO nanobelts have been extensively investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The results show that the belts grow along the (1010) direction with the typical lengths in the range of several tens to several hundreds of micrometers, and the typical widths of the belts are several hundreds of nanometers. According to the XRD pattern of the sample, the most of belts are ZnO with heavy doping content and ternary Zinc Indium Oxide (such as Zn5In2O8, Zn4In2O7). The X-ray energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) analysis demonstrates that the In content in the as-examined belt is as high as 27 at%. Notably, the photoluminescence spectrum reveals a novel violet emission peak (425 nm) in the as-synthesized product.

The value of Angipoietin-2 as a biomarker for the prognosis of osteosarcoma: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: The function of Angipoietin-2 (Agn2) in osteosarcoma has not been fully explored and exists controversial. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the role of Agn2 in the prognosis of osteosarcoma. In addition, bioinformatics analysis was carried out to reveal the mechanism and related pathways of Agn2 in osteosarcoma. METHODS: Literature search was operated on databases up to July 2021, including PubMed, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, China Biology Medicine disc, and Wan Fang Data. The relation between Agn2 expression and survival outcome was estimated by hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval. Meta-analysis was performed on the Stata 16.0. Being obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas, the original data were used to further verify the prognostic role of Agn2 in osteosarcoma. Gene set enrichment analysis was applied to predict the potential mechanism of Agn2. The correlation between Agn2 and osteosarcoma immune infiltration was analyzed by TIMER database. RESULTS: The results of this meta-analysis would be submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication. CONCLUSION: This study will provide evidence for the exploration of the relationship between Agn2 and the prognosis of osteosarcoma and its mechanism. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The private information from individuals will not be published. This systematic review also should not damage participants' rights. Ethical approval is not available. The results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal or disseminated in relevant conferences. OSF REGISTRATION NUMBER: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/GWQ53.