Ultra-flat bands at large twist angles in group-V twisted bilayer materials.

Flat bands in 2D twisted materials are key to the realization of correlation-related exotic phenomena. However, a flat band often was achieved in the large system with a very small twist angle, which enormously increases the computational and experimental complexity. In this work, we proposed group-V twisted bilayer materials, including P, As, and Sb in the ß phase with large twist angles. The band structure of twisted bilayer materials up to 2524 atoms has been investigated by a deep learning method DeepH, which significantly reduces the computational time. Our results show that the bandgap and the flat bandwidth of twisted bilayer ß-P, ß-As, and ß-Sb reduce gradually with the decreasing of twist angle, and the ultra-flat band with bandwidth approaching 0 eV is achieved. Interestingly, we found that a twist angle of 9.43° is sufficient to achieve the band flatness for ß-As comparable to that of twist bilayer graphene at the magic angle of 1.08°. Moreover, we also find that the bandgap reduces with decreasing interlayer distance while the flat band is still preserved, which suggests interlayer distance as an effective routine to tune the bandgap of flat band systems. Our research provides a feasible platform for exploring physical phenomena related to flat bands in twisted layered 2D materials.

Perioperative Toripalimab Plus Chemotherapy for Patients With Resectable Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: The Neotorch Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Adjuvant and neoadjuvant immunotherapy have improved clinical outcomes for patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the optimal combination of checkpoint inhibition with chemotherapy remains unknown. Objective: To determine whether toripalimab in combination with platinum-based chemotherapy will improve event-free survival and major pathological response in patients with stage II or III resectable NSCLC compared with chemotherapy alone. Design, Setting, and Participants: This randomized clinical trial enrolled patients with stage II or III resectable NSCLC (without EGFR or ALK alterations for nonsquamous NSCLC) from March 12, 2020, to June 19, 2023, at 50 participating hospitals in China. The data cutoff date for this interim analysis was November 30, 2022. Interventions: Patients were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive 240 mg of toripalimab or placebo once every 3 weeks combined with platinum-based chemotherapy for 3 cycles before surgery and 1 cycle after surgery, followed by toripalimab only (240 mg) or placebo once every 3 weeks for up to 13 cycles. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcomes were event-free survival (assessed by the investigators) and the major pathological response rate (assessed by blinded, independent pathological review). The secondary outcomes included the pathological complete response rate (assessed by blinded, independent pathological review) and adverse events. Results: Of the 501 patients randomized, 404 had stage III NSCLC (202 in the toripalimab + chemotherapy group and 202 in the placebo + chemotherapy group) and 97 had stage II NSCLC and were excluded from this interim analysis. The median age was 62 years (IQR, 56-65 years), 92% of patients were male, and the median follow-up was 18.3 months (IQR, 12.7-22.5 months). For the primary outcome of event-free survival, the median length was not estimable (95% CI, 24.4 months-not estimable) in the toripalimab group compared with 15.1 months (95% CI, 10.6-21.9 months) in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.40 [95% CI, 0.28-0.57], P < .001). The major pathological response rate (another primary outcome) was 48.5% (95% CI, 41.4%-55.6%) in the toripalimab group compared with 8.4% (95% CI, 5.0%-13.1%) in the placebo group (between-group difference, 40.2% [95% CI, 32.2%-48.1%], P < .001). The pathological complete response rate (secondary outcome) was 24.8% (95% CI, 19.0%-31.3%) in the toripalimab group compared with 1.0% (95% CI, 0.1%-3.5%) in the placebo group (between-group difference, 23.7% [95% CI, 17.6%-29.8%]). The incidence of immune-related adverse events occurred more frequently in the toripalimab group. No unexpected treatment-related toxic effects were identified. The incidence of grade 3 or higher adverse events, fatal adverse events, and adverse events leading to discontinuation of treatment were comparable between the groups. Conclusions and Relevance: The addition of toripalimab to perioperative chemotherapy led to a significant improvement in event-free survival for patients with resectable stage III NSCLC and this treatment strategy had a manageable safety profile. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04158440.

Facet-dependent activation of oxalic acid over hematite nanocrystals under the irradiation of visible light for efficient degradation of pollutants.

Naturally occurring hematite has been widely studied in the Fenton-like system for water pollutant remediation due to its abundance and non-toxicity. However, its inadequate catalytic activity results in difficulty in effectively degrading pollutants in the catalytic degradation system that it constitutes. Thus, we constructed a photochemical system composed of hematite with {001} facet of high activity facet and low-cost and non-toxic oxalic acid (OA) for the removal of various types of pollutants. The removal rate for the degradation of metronidazole, tetracycline hydrochloride, Rhodamine B, and hexavalent chromium by hematite nanoplate with the exposed {001} facet activating OA under visible light irradiation was 4.75, 2.25, 2.33, and 2.74 times than that by the exposed {110} facet, respectively. Density functional theory (DFT) calculation proved that the OA molecule was more easily adsorbed on the {001} facet of hematite than that on the {110} facet, which would favor the formation of the more Fe(III)-OA complex and reactive species. In addition, the reactive site of metronidazole for the attraction of radicals was identified on the basis of the DFT calculation on the molecular occupied orbitals, and the possible degradation pathway for metronidazole included carbon chain fracture, hydroxyethyl-cleavage, denitrogenation, and hydroxylation. Thus, this finding may offer a valuable direction in designing an efficient iron-based catalyst based on facet engineering for the improved activity of Fenton-like systems such as OA activation.

Long noncoding RNA LINC00482 silencing sensitizes non-small cell lung cancer cells to cisplatin by downregulating CLASRP via E2F1.

Long noncoding RNA LINC00482 (LINC00482) is dysregulated in non-small cell lung cancer cells (NSCLC). Herein, this research examined the actions and specific mechanisms of LINC00482 in cisplatin (DDP) resistance in NSCLC. LINC00482 expression was assessed using RT-qPCR in clinical NSCLC tissues and cell lines. Knockdown and ectopic expression assays were conducted in A549 and HCC44 cells, followed by determination of cell proliferation with CCK-8 and clone formation assays, apoptosis with flow cytometry, and DDP sensitivity. The association between LINC00482, E2F1, and CLASRP was evaluated with dual-luciferase reporter, ChIP, and RIP assays. The role of LINC00482 in NSCLC was confirmed in nude mice. NSCLC tissues and cells had upregulated LINC00482 expression. LINC00482 was mainly localized in the cell nucleus, and LINC00482 recruited E2F1 to enhance CLASRP expression in NSCLC cells. LINC00482 knockdown enhanced the DDP sensitivity and apoptosis of NSCLC cells while reducing cell proliferation, which was negated by overexpressing CLASRP. LINC00482 knockdown restricted tumor growth and enhanced DDP sensitivity in NSCLC in vivo. LINC00482 silencing downregulated CLASRP through E2F1 to facilitate the sensitivity to DDP in NSCLC.

RF-Alphabet: Cross Domain Alphabet Recognition System Based on RFID Differential Threshold Similarity Calculation Model.

Gesture recognition can help people with a speech impairment to communicate and promote the development of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) technology. With the development of wireless technology, passive gesture recognition based on RFID has become a research hotspot. In this paper, we propose a low-cost, non-invasive and scalable gesture recognition technology, and successfully implement the RF-alphabet, a gesture recognition system for complex, fine-grained, domain-independent 26 English letters; the RF-alphabet has three major advantages: first, this paper achieves complete capture of complex, fine-grained gesture data by designing a dual-tag, dual-antenna layout. Secondly, to overcome the disadvantages of the large training sets and long training times of traditional deep learning. We design and combine the Difference threshold similarity calculation prediction model to extract digital signal features to achieve real-time feature analysis of gesture signals. Finally, the RF alphabet solves the problem of confusing the signal characteristics of letters. Confused letters are distinguished by comparing the phase values of feature points. The RF-alphabet ends up with an average accuracy of 90.28% and 89.7% in different domains for new users and new environments, respectively, by performing feature analysis on similar signals. The real-time, robustness, and scalability of the RF-alphabet are proven.

Air-GR: An Over-the-Air Handwritten Character Recognition System Based on Coordinate Correction YOLOv5 Algorithm and LGR-CNN.

Traditional human-computer interaction technology relies heavily on input devices such as mice and keyboards, which limit the speed and naturalness of interaction and can no longer meet the more advanced interaction needs of users. With the development of computer vision (CV) technology, research on contactless gesture recognition has become a new research hotspot. However, current CV-based gesture recognition technology has the limitation of a limited number of gesture recognition and cannot achieve fast and accurate text input operations. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an over-the-air handwritten character recognition system based on the coordinate correction YOLOv5 algorithm and a lightweight convolutional neural network (LGR-CNN), referred to as Air-GR. Unlike the direct recognition of captured gesture pictures, the system uses the trajectory points of gesture actions to generate images for gesture recognition. Firstly, by combining YOLOv5 with the gesture coordinate correction algorithm proposed in this paper, the system can effectively improve gesture detection accuracy. Secondly, considering that the captured gesture coordinates may contain multiple gestures, this paper proposes a time-window-based algorithm for segmenting the gesture coordinates. Finally, the system recognizes user gestures by plotting the segmented gesture coordinates in a two-dimensional coordinate system and feeding them into the constructed lightweight convolutional neural network, LGR-CNN. For the gesture trajectory image classification task, the accuracy of LGR-CNN is 13.2%, 12.2%, and 4.5% higher than that of the mainstream networks VGG16, ResNet, and GoogLeNet, respectively. The experimental results show that Air-GR can quickly and effectively recognize any combination of 26 English letters and numbers, and its recognition accuracy reaches 95.24%.

Spectral Measurements of Muzzle Flash with a Temporally and Spatially Modulated LWIR-Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer.

It is important to obtain information on an instantaneous target. A high-speed camera can capture a picture of an immediate scene, but spectral information about the object cannot be retrieved. Spectrographic analysis is a key tool for identifying chemicals. Detecting dangerous gas quickly can help ensure personal safety. In this paper, a temporally and spatially modulated long-wave infrared (LWIR)-imaging Fourier transform spectrometer was used to realize hyperspectral imaging. The spectral range was 700~1450 cm-1 (7~14.5 µm). The frame rate of infrared imaging was 200 Hz. The muzzle-flash area of guns with calibers of 5.56 mm, 7.62 mm, and 14.5 mm were detected. LWIR images of muzzle flash were obtained. Spectral information on muzzle flash was obtained using instantaneous interferograms. The main peak of the spectrum of the muzzle flash appeared at 970 cm-1 (10.31 µm). Two secondary peaks near 930 cm-1 (10.75 µm) and 1030 cm-1 (9.71 µm) were observed. Radiance and brightness temperature were also measured. The spatiotemporal modulation of the LWIR-imaging Fourier transform spectrometer provides a new method for rapid spectral detection. The high-speed identification of hazardous gas leakage can ensure personal safety.

2D WO3-x Nanosheet with Rich Oxygen Vacancies for Efficient Visible-Light-Driven Photocatalytic Nitrogen Fixation.

Oxygen vacancy modulation holds great promise for enhancing the photocatalytic activity for efficient nitrogen fixation under mild conditions. In this work, the two-dimensional WO3-x nanosheets with rich oxygen vacancies were prepared using solvothermal synthesis. The WO3-x nanosheets (rich oxygen vacancies) display nice photocatalytic activity for N2 reduction to ammonia with a high yield rate of 82.41 µmol·gcat-1·h-1 under irradiation of visible light (420 nm), which is 3.59 times higher than that of the WO3-x nanoparticles (poor oxygen vacancies). Electron spin resonance (ESR), N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms, and transient photocurrent responses in the N2 or Ar atmosphere experiments proved that the rich oxygen vacancies, which are induced by the nanosheet structure, could serve as active sites for the chemisorption of N2 and facilitate the electron transfer from unsaturated sites to activated N2. Moreover, based on the analysis of banding energy, the oxygen vacancies not only boosted the ability of visible light harvesting but also elevated the defect energy level to the Fermi level, further inhibiting the defect relaxation effect. The findings offer an insight into the design of the efficient photocatalysts via structure engineering and defect engineering for photocatalytic N2 fixation.

Facet-Dependent Activation of Oxalic Acid over Magnetic Recyclable Fe3S4 for Efficient Pollutant Removal under Visible Light Irradiation: Enhanced Catalytic Activity, DFT Calculations, and Mechanism Insight.

Photo-Fenton-like reaction based on oxalic acid (OA) activation is a promising method for the fast degradation of pollutants due to the low cost and safety. Hence, the magnetic recyclable greigite (Fe3S4) with the exposed {011} facet (FS-011) was prepared using a facile one-pot hydrothermal method and activated OA under visible light irradiation for pollutant removal, in which the removal efficiency values of FS-011 for metronidazole (MNZ) and hexavalent chromium were 2.02 and 1.88 times higher than that of Fe3S4 with the exposed {112} facet, respectively. Density functional theory calculations revealed that OA was more easily adsorbed by the {011} facet of Fe3S4 than by the {112} facet, and the in situ-generated H2O2 preferred to diffuse away from the active sites of the {011} facet of Fe3S4 than from that of the {112} facet, which was conducive to the continuous adsorption and efficient activation of OA. Moreover, the analyses of Fukui index and dual descriptor confirmed the degradation mechanism that the imidazole ring of MNZ was easy to be attacked by electrophilic species, while the amino group of MNZ was easy to be attacked by nucleophilic species. These findings deeply analyzed the mechanism of enhanced OA activation by facet engineering and consolidated the theoretical basis for practical application of Fenton-like reactions.

Capturing Features and Performing Human Detection from Human Gaits Using RFID.

Recently, radio frequency identification (RFID) sensing has attracted much attention due to its contact-free nature, low cost, light weight and other advantages. RFID-based person detection has also become a hot research topic, but there are still some problems in the existing research. First, most of the current studies cannot identify numerous people at a time well. Second, in order to detect more accurately, it is necessary to evaluate the whole-body activity of a person, which will consume a lot of time to process the data and cannot be applied in time. To solve these problems, in this paper we propose RF-Detection, a person detection system using RFID. First of all, RF-Detection takes step length as the standard for person detection, divides step length into specific sections according to the relationship between step length and height, and achieves high accuracy for new user detection through a large amount of training for a specific step length. Secondly, RF-Detection can better identify the number of people in the same space by segmenting continuous people. Finally, the data collection was reduced by expanding the data set, and the deep learning method was used to further improve the accuracy. The results show that the overall recognition accuracy of RF-Detection is 98.93%.

Development of Dipolarophiles for Catalytic Asymmetric Cycloadditions through Pd-π-Allyl Zwitterions.

The development of new and efficient methodology for the construction of optically active molecules is of great interest in both synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry fields. To this end, the personal account summarizes our studies on the development of electron-deficient alkenes, allenes, and alkynes containing single activator as new dipolarophiles for Pd-catalyzed asymmetric cycloaddition reactions. These new dipolarophiles can participate in Pd-catalyzed asymmetric [3+2] and [4+2] cycloadditions through Pd-π-allyl 1,3- and 1,4-zwitterions in-situ generated by the reaction of Pd(0) catalyst with vinyl aziridines, vinyl epoxides, vinyl cyclopropanes, 4-vinyl-1,3-dioxan-2-ones, and vinyl benzoxazinanones. These [3+2] and [4+2] cycloadditions provide efficient approaches to a wide range of enantiomerically enriched five- and six-membered ring compounds containing contiguous chiral centers with high to excellent chemo-, diastereo-, and enantioselectivities. The utilities of these protocols are demonstrated by transformation of the cycloadducts into other useful chiral building blocks. DFT calculations reveal the dissimilar reactivity of different electron deficient alkenes and rationalize the mechanism and stereo-control of the reaction. A Pd-catalyzed inverse [3+2] cycloaddition is disclosed.

Novel Schiff base-bridged multi-component sulfonamide imidazole hybrids as potentially highly selective DNA-targeting membrane active repressors against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

A new type of Schiff base-bridged multi-component sulfonamide imidazole hybrids with antimicrobial potential was developed. Some target compounds showed significant antibacterial potency. Observably, butylene hybrids 4h exhibited remarkable inhibitory efficacy against clinical MRSA (MIC = 1 µg/mL), but had no significant toxic effect on normal mammalian cells (RAW 264.7). The highly active molecule 4h was revealed by molecular modeling study that it could insert into the base-pairs of DNA hexamer duplex and bind with the ASN-62 residue of human carbonic anhydrase isozyme II through hydrogen bonding. Furthermore, further preliminary antibacterial mechanism experiments confirmed that compound 4h could effectively interfere with MRSA membrane and insert into bacterial DNA isolated from clinical MRSA strains through non-covalent bonding to produce a supramolecular complex, thus exerting its strong antibacterial efficacy by impeding DNA replication. These findings strongly implied that the highly active hybrid 4h could be used as a potential DNA-targeting template for the development of valuable antimicrobial agent.

NEAT1 is a potential prognostic biomarker for patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Nuclear paraspeckle assembly transcript 1 (NEAT1) has been found to be dysregulated and associated with clinical progression in various human cancers. The clinical and prognostic value of NEAT1 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) was still controversial. The aim of our study was to provide more sufficient evidence that NEAT1 expression is correlated with overall survival in patients with NPC. NEAT1 expression was detected in NPC tissue samples, and the relationship between NEAT1 expression and clinical parameters, including prognosis, was analyzed. The meta-analysis was performed to further assess the prognostic significance of NEAT1 expression in patients with NPC. In our study, we found that the levels of NEAT1 expression were increased in NPC clinical tissue specimens, and associated with advanced M classification and clinical stages. Moreover, the Kaplan-Meier analysis suggested that the levels of NEAT1 expression were negatively associated with the overall survival of patients with NPC. Furthermore, univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses showed that NEAT1 high-expression was an independent unfavorable prognostic factor in patients with NPC. Finally, we conducted a meta-analysis including 297 patients with NPC from the three studies, and found the pooled HR (95% confidence interval [CI]) was 1.64 (95% CI: 0.68-3.93) for the random effects model and 2.04 (95% CI: 1.42-2.95) for the fixed effect model. In conclusion, NEAT1 is a potential prognostic biomarker for NPC, but more studies are needed to further verify the prognostic value of NEAT1 in patients with NPC.

Electronic properties and transistors of the NbS2-MoS2-NbS2 NR heterostructure.

Based on density function theory and nonequilibrium Green's functions, we construct a NbS2-MoS2-NbS2 NR inplane heterostructure. The effects of channel length, width, chirality and vacancy of the heterostructure on transport properties are systematically investigated. The electron transport of the armchair-edge heterostructure device shows ballistic transport properties, while the zigzag-edge heterostructure device exhibits resonance tunneling transport properties. Further study indicates NbS2-MoS2-NbS2 field effect transistors (FETs) to be excellent ambipolar transistors. The FETs have high performances with current on/off ratio 4.7 × 105 and subthreshold swing 90 mV/decade with channel length m = 16 and width n = 6.  Increases in the channel length sharply reduce the off-state current and enhance the performance of the devices significantly.

Electronic structures and transport properties of a MoS2-NbS2 nanoribbon lateral heterostructure.

Lateral heterostructures built from an armchair MoS2 nanoribbon (AMoS2NR) and an armchair NbS2 nanoribbon (ANbS2NR) were studied based on first-principles calculations and a non-equilibrium Green's function method. It is found that the work function of the AMoS2NR shows substantial oscillation with increasing nanoribbon width, which is different from the work functions of other kinds of nanoribbons. The AMoS2NR-ANbS2NR lateral heterostructure exhibits an anomalous transport gap that is much larger than the bandgap of the AMoS2NR. As a result, a field effect transistor with AMoS2NR as the channel and ANbS2NRs as electrodes has high on-off ratios of 106-107 and a tiny leakage current of the order of 10-8 µA. These results suggest that lateral metal-semiconductor heterostructures of transition metal dichalcogenides may have potential applications in nanodevices with low energy consumption.

Research on Ground-Based LWIR Hyperspectral Imaging Remote Gas Detection.

The new progress of ground-based long-wave infrared remote sensing is presented, which describes the windowing spatial and temporal modulation Fourier spectroscopy imaging in details. The prototype forms the interference fringes based on the corner-cube of spatial modulation of Michelson interferometer, using cooled long-wave infrared photovoltaic staring FPA (focal plane array) detector. The LWIR hyperspectral imaging is achieved by the process of collection, reorganization, correction, apodization, FFT etc. from data cube. Noise equivalent spectral radiance (NESR), which is the sensitivity index of CHIPED-1 LWIR hyperspectral imaging prototype, can reach 5.6 x 10⁻8 W · (cm⁻¹ · sr · cm²)⁻¹ at single sampling. The data is the same as commercial temporal modulation hyperspectral imaging spectrometer. It can prove the advantage of this technique. This technique still has space to be improved. For instance, spectral response range of CHIPED-1 LWIR hyperspectral imaging prototype can reach 11. 5 µm by testing the transmission curve of polypropylene film. In this article, choosing the results of outdoor high-rise and diethyl ether gas experiment as an example, the authors research on the detecting method of 2D distribution chemical gas VOC by infrared hyperspectral imaging. There is no observed diethyl ether gas from the infrared spectral slice of the same wave number in complicated background and low concentration. By doing the difference spectrum, the authors can see the space distribution of diethyl ether gas clearly. Hyperspectral imaging is used in the field of organic gas VOC infrared detection. Relative to wide band infrared imaging, it has some advantages. Such as, it has high sensitivity, the strong anti-interference ability, identify the variety, and so on.

Let-7a inhibits migration, invasion and epithelial-mesenchymal transition by targeting HMGA2 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Let-7a has been shown to play important roles in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cell proliferation and apoptosis, but little is known about the function and mechanism of let-7a in nasopharyngeal carcinoma metastasis. We aimed to investigate the function and mechanism of let-7a in nasopharyngeal carcinoma metastasis and clarified the regulation of high mobility group A2 (HMGA2) by let-7a. METHODS: The expression levels of let-7a and HMGA2 were examined in NPC clinical specimens using quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (RT-qPCR). HMGA2 was confirmed as a target of let-7a through luciferase reporter assays, RT-qPCR, and Western blotting. Furthermore, the roles of let-7a and HMGA2 in regulating NPC cells biological properties including proliferation, migration, invasion and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process were analyzed with let-7a mimics and si-HMGA2 transfected cells. RESULTS: Our study demonstrated that let-7a was downregulated and inversely associated with the clinical stage, T classification and N classification, and HMGA2 was upregulated and directly associated with the clinical stage and N classification in patients with NPC. Moreover, there was an inverse correlation between let-7a expression and HMGA2 expression in NPC patient. In addition, HMGA2 was negatively regulated at the posttranscriptional level by let-7a via a binding site of HMGA2-3'UTR. In addition, synthetic let-7a mimics suppressed NPC cells migration, invasion and EMT process and knockdown of HMGA2 was consistent with the effects of let-7a in NPC cells. CONCLUSION: Let-7a directly downregulates HMGA2 protein expression, which suppress NPC cell migration, invasion and EMT process. Let-7a could serve as a potential diagnostic marker and therapeutic target for NPC.

High-mobility group A2 overexpression is an unfavorable prognostic biomarker for nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.

Our previous study showed that knockdown of high-mobility group A2 (HMGA2) could suppress nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cell migration, invasion, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process, and HMGA2 is a direct functional target of let-7 to regulate NPC cell migration, invasion, and EMT process. However, little is known about the clinical and prognostic significance of HMGA2 protein in NPC patients. The purpose of this study is to identify the clinical and prognostic roles of HMGA2 in NPC patients. We initially analyzed the microarray data and verified mRNA and protein levels of HMGA2 in NPC tissues. Immunohistochemical staining for HMGA2 protein was performed in 116 NPC patients. The associations between HMGA2 protein expression and clinicopathologic features and its prognostic significance were analyzed. In our results, we found mRNA and protein expressions of HMGA2 were upregulated in NPC tissues and cell lines. In 116 NPC tissue samples, we observed that HMGA2 protein overexpression was associated with clinical stage, lymph node metastasis, and distant metastasis. Moreover, NPC patients with high levels of HMGA2 protein expression had shorter overall survival in comparison to patients with low levels of HMGA2 protein. In multivariate analysis, HMGA2 protein overexpression was an unfavorable prognostic factor for NPC patients. In conclusion, HMGA2 is an important biomarker to predicting NPC patient's survival time.

MMP-14 overexpression correlates with poor prognosis in non-small cell lung cancer.

Matrix metalloproteinase-14 (MMP-14) has been demonstrated to play an important role in tumor progression. The aim of this study was to analyze the correlation between MMP-14 expression and clinicopathologic features and its prognostic significance in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Immunohistochemical staining for MMP-14 protein was performed in 104 patients with NSCLC. High levels of MMP-14 protein were positively correlated with the status of clinical stage (I-II vs. III-IV; P < 0.001), N classification (N0-N1 vs. N2-N3; P < 0.001), distant metastasis (no vs. yes; P = 0.014), and differentiated degree (high vs. low or undifferentiated; P = 0.001). The patients with higher MMP-14 expression of protein had shorter survival time than patients with low MMP-14 expression. Multivariate analysis indicated that the level of MMP-14 expression was an independent prognostic indicator (P < 0.001) for the survival of patients with NSCLC. In conclusion, MMP-14 is a potential unfavorable prognostic factor for patients with NSCLC.

Bandgap opening/closing of graphene antidot lattices with zigzag-edged hexagonal holes.

How to predict the bandgap size of graphene antidot lattices (GALs) is a key problem in the field of graphene-based nanoelectronics. Here, we have obtained the universal rules on bandgap opening/closing of GALs with zigzag-edged hexagonal holes (ZH-GALs), as well as the means to control the bandgap size. In the simple case that the electronic property depends on the choice of the supercell, the quantitative relationship between Eg and the density/diameter of antidots is fitted. Turning to complex structures, we reveal that the bandgap opening in ZH-GALs results mainly from the intervalley scattering. In this interpretation, according to their relative position, the antidots can be divided into three categories. A relatively large bandgap appears in ZH-GALs, only when the numbers of the three categories are unequal. This could be explained based on a mechanism similar to diffraction. A formula according to the explanation is provided to estimate the bandgap, which can be used to predict the electronic properties of GALs and guide the design of semiconductor and photoelectronic devices based on GALs.