To develop and validate a radiomics model for evaluating pathologic complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC).
We enrolled 222 ...patients (152 in the primary cohort and 70 in the validation cohort) with clinicopathologically confirmed LARC who received chemoradiotherapy before surgery. All patients underwent T2-weighted and diffusion-weighted imaging before and after chemoradiotherapy; 2,252 radiomic features were extracted from each patient before and after treatment imaging. The two-sample
test and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression were used for feature selection, whereupon a radiomics signature was built with support vector machines. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was then used to develop a radiomics model incorporating the radiomics signature and independent clinicopathologic risk factors. The performance of the radiomics model was assessed by its calibration, discrimination, and clinical usefulness with independent validation.
The radiomics signature comprised 30 selected features and showed good discrimination performance in both the primary and validation cohorts. The individualized radiomics model, which incorporated the radiomics signature and tumor length, also showed good discrimination, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.9756 (95% confidence interval, 0.9185-0.9711) in the validation cohort, and good calibration. Decision curve analysis confirmed the clinical utility of the radiomics model.
Using pre- and posttreatment MRI data, we developed a radiomics model with excellent performance for individualized, noninvasive prediction of pCR. This model may be used to identify LARC patients who can omit surgery after chemoradiotherapy.
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Eosin Y, a well‐known economical alternative to metal catalysts in visible‐light‐driven single‐electron transfer‐based organic transformations, can behave as an effective direct hydrogen‐atom ...transfer catalyst for C−H activation. Using the alkylation of C−H bonds with electron‐deficient alkenes as a model study revealed an extremely broad substrate scope, enabling easy access to a variety of important synthons. This eosin Y‐based photocatalytic hydrogen‐atom transfer strategy is promising for diverse functionalization of a wide range of native C−H bonds in a green and sustainable manner.
Neutral eosin Y has been employed as an effective direct hydrogen‐atom transfer photocatalyst to activate a wide range of native C−H bonds in a green and sustainable fashion. This transformation is distinguished by its operational simplicity and amenability to large‐scale synthesis using continuous‐flow technology (EWG=aldehyde, ketone, ester, amide, imide, cyanide, sulfone, nitro, pyridine).
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
A
bstract
Event shape observables have been widely used for precision QCD studies at various lepton and hadron colliders. We present the most accurate calculation of the transverse-energy-energy ...correlation event shape variable in deep-inelastic scattering. In the framework of soft-collinear effective theory the cross section is factorized as the convolution of the hard function, beam function, jet function and soft function in the back-to-back limit. A close connection to TMD factorization is established, as the beam function when combined with part of the soft function is identical to the conventional TMD parton distribution function, and the jet function is the second moment of the TMD fragmentation function matching coefficient. We validate our framework by comparing the obtained LO and NLO leading singular distributions to the full QCD calculations in the back-to-back limit. We report the resummed transverse-energy-energy correlation distributions up to N
3
LL accuracy matched with the NLO cross section for the production of a lepton and two jets. Our work provides a new way to precisely study TMD physics at the future Electron-Ion Collider.
The efficient construction of enantiomerically enriched molecules from simple starting materials via catalytic asymmetric synthesis strategies is a key challenge in synthetic chemistry. Metallated ...azomethine ylides are commonly-used synthons for the preparation of N-heterocycles and α-amino acids. Remarkably, to date, the utilization of azomethine ylides for the facile access to chiral amines has proven elusive. Here, we report that a synergistic Cu/Ir-catalytic system combined with careful tuning of the steric congestion can be used to convert aldimine esters to a variety of chiral homoallylic amines via a cascade allylation/2-aza-Cope rearrangement. The elucidation of the distinct effects of each stereogenic center of the allylation intermediates on the stereochemical outcome and chirality transfer in the rearrangement further guided the selection of catalysts combination.
Thin-walled flexible workpieces are known to be the most commonly used flexible elements in mechanical structures and machines in the industries of aerospace, national defense, integrated circuit ...production, and so on. The bottleneck of improving machining quality of thin-walled flexible workpieces lies in the workpiece deformation during machining processes. We hereby establish a machining platform for thin-walled flexible workpieces and develop a purely data-driven Sparse Bayesian learning-based method to predict the future deformation merely by using historical displacement information. Accordingly, a dual-mode predictive controller is developed to mitigate the machining vibrations, and the quality of the workpiece surface has been thus substantially improved. Finally, the superiority and effectiveness of our proposed method are demonstrated through extensive machining experiments of thin-walled flexible workpieces.
In this article, a compact and low-profile beam steering circularly polarized folded reflectarray antenna (CPFRA) with low scan loss for wide-angle coverage is proposed and designed. In order to ...obtain lower scan loss over a wider beam coverage range (BCR), a multibeam optimization method considering the illumination weighting factor is introduced to obtain minimum phase errors for the designed beam direction. To improve antenna compactness and alleviate the mutual couplings among multiple feeding sources, small-size substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity-backed slot antennas are employed as the feeding sources, which are integrated with the single-layer reflector board. An incident-angle-insensitive circular polarizer is designed and integrated over the antenna aperture to achieve circularly polarized (CP) radiation over a wide BCR. Finally, a 15-beam CPFRA working at the Ka-band with a size of 140 mm <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\times140 </tex-math></inline-formula> mm is designed, manufactured, and measured to validate the proposed design method. Measurement results show that the designed CPFRA can achieve a rather flat gain, with only a 2.1 dB scan loss, across the wide 3 dB BCR of ±29°. The good CP beams are formed over the entire coverage range without any blind zone. With the advantages of wide-angle coverage, low scan loss, and high integration, the proposed beam steering antenna is promising in applications such as 5G communication, radar imaging, and target recognition.
Cartilage equivalents from hydrogels containing chondrocytes exhibit excellent potential in hyaline cartilage regeneration, yet current approaches have limited success at reconstituting the ...architecture to culture nondifferentiated chondrocytes in vitro. In this study, specially designed lacunar hyaluronic acid microcarriers (LHAMCs) with mechanotransductive conditions that rapidly form stable hyaluronic acid (HA) N‐hydroxy succinimide ester (NHS‐ester) are reported. Specifically, carboxyl‐functionalized HA is linked to collagen type I via amide‐crosslinking, and gas foaming produced by ammonium bicarbonate forms concave surface of the microcarriers. The temporal 3D culture of chondrocytes on LHAMCs uniquely remodels the extracellular matrix to induce hyaline cartilaginous microtissue regeneration and prevents an anaerobic‐to‐aerobic metabolism transition in response to the geometric constraints. Furthermore, by inhibiting the canonical Wnt pathway, LHAMCs prevent β‐catenin translocation to the nucleus, repressing chondrocyte dedifferentiation. Additionally, the subcutaneous implantation model indicates that LHAMCs display favorable cytocompatibility and drive robust hyaline chondrocyte‐derived neocartilage formation. These findings reveal a novel strategy for regulating chondrocyte dedifferentiation. The current study paves the way for a better understanding of geometrical insight clues into mechanotransduction interaction in regulating cell fate, opening new avenues for advancing tissue engineering.
Culturing large‐scale chondrocytes with native phenotypes remains a noteworthy challenge for cartilage tissue engineering. In this work, a novel method to fabricate mimicking cartilage lacunar hyaluronic acid microcarriers (LHAMCs) using N‐hydroxy succinimide (NHS)/1‐ethyl‐3‐(3‐dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC) with mechanotransductive conditions is presented. The data show the advanced capabilities of LHAMCs by presenting the uninterrupted, long‐term culture of chondrocytes to generate an enlarged microtissue with robust chondrogenic capacity.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
During the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic, there have been concerns about the impact of vaccines on people's fertility, including the fertility of those who are currently preparing for ...pregnancy and those who might become pregnant in future. However, there is still a lack of research on the effect of the COVID-19 vaccine on male fertility, and it is not surprising that couples and donors have concerns regarding vaccination. In this study, a retrospective cohort study was conducted to examine semen quality before and after receipt of the inactivated COVID-19 vaccine. There were no statistically significant changes in semen parameters (volume, sperm concentration, progressive motility, and total progressive motile count) after two doses of vaccine (all P > 0.05). In summary, our study updates the most recent studies on the effects of the COVID-19 vaccine on male fertility, and the information from this study could be used to guide fertility recommendations for assisted reproductive technology (ART) patients and donors.
It is still difficult to predict the probability of tumor recurrence after resection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this study, we set out to identify specific microRNA (miRNA) in ...microdissected hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related HCC tissue from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples which might be used in predicting early recurrence after HCC resection. Taqman low density arrays were used to detect the 667 miRNA profiles in both the microdissected tumorous and adjacent non-tumorous liver tissues from 20 HCC patients (discovery set) including 10 patients with early tumor recurrence and 10 without early tumor recurrence and to identify the differentially expressed miRNAs related to HCC recurrence. Then quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to verify the findings in 106 patients (training set), and to develop a predictive assay. The identified miRNAs were further validated in an independent cohort of 112 patients (validation set). Thirty seven miRNAs were identified from 20 HCC patients and validated in 106 HCC patients using qRT-PCR. A significant association was found between miR-29a-5p level in HCC tissues and early tumor recurrence (P = 0.0002). This association was further confirmed in the independent validation set of 112 patients (P = 0.0154). MiR-29a-5p level was significantly associated with both time to tumor recurrence (TTR) (P = 0.0015) and overall survival (OS) (P = 0.0079) in validation set. In the multivariate analyses, miR-29a-5p was identified as an independent factor for TTR, particularly for those patients with early stage of HCC. The sensitivity and specificity of miR-29a-5p for the prediction of early HCC recurrence of BCLC 0/A stage HCC were 74.2% and 68.2%, respectively. These suggest that miR-29a-5p might be a useful marker for the prediction of early tumor recurrence after HCC resection, especially in BCLC 0/A stage HCCs.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
To ascertain if preoperative short-term radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy is not inferior to a standard schedule of long-term chemoradiotherapy in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer.
...Patients with distal or middle-third, clinical primary tumor stage 3-4 and/or regional lymph node-positive rectal cancer were randomly assigned (1:1) to short-term radiotherapy (25 Gy in five fractions over 1 week) followed by four cycles of chemotherapy (total neoadjuvant therapy TNT) or chemoradiotherapy (50 Gy in 25 fractions over 5 weeks, concurrently with capecitabine chemoradiotherapy; CRT). Total mesorectal excision was undertaken 6-8 weeks after preoperative treatment, with two additional cycles of CAPOX (intravenous oxaliplatin 130 mg/m
, once a day on day 1 and capecitabine 1,000 mg/m
, twice a day from days 1 to 14) in the TNT group and six cycles of CAPOX in the CRT group. The primary end point was 3-year disease-free survival (DFS).
Between August 2015 and August 2018, a total of 599 patients were randomly assigned to receive TNT (n = 302) or CRT (n = 297). At a median follow-up of 35.0 months, 3-year DFS was 64.5% and 62.3% in TNT and CRT groups, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.883; one-sided 95% CI, not applicable to 1.11;
< .001 for noninferiority). There was no significant difference in metastasis-free survival or locoregional recurrence, but the TNT group had better 3-year overall survival than the CRT group (86.5%
75.1%;
= .033). Treatment effects on DFS and overall survival were similar regardless of prognostic factors. The prevalence of acute grade III-V toxicities during preoperative treatment was 26.5% in the TNT group versus 12.6% in the CRT group (
< .001).
Short-term radiotherapy with preoperative chemotherapy followed by surgery was efficacious with acceptable toxicity and could be used as an alternative to CRT for locally advanced rectal cancer.
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