To investigate whether quantitative radiomics features extracted from dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) are associated with Ki67 expression of breast cancer.
This ...institutional review board-approved retrospective study comprised 377 Chinese women who were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2015. This cohort included 53 low-Ki67 expression (Ki67 proliferation index less than 14%) and 324 cases with high-Ki67 expression (Ki67 proliferation index more than 14%). A binary-classification of low-versus high- Ki67 expression was performed. A set of 56 quantitative radiomics features, including morphological, greyscale statistic, and texture features, were extracted from the segmented lesion area. Three machine learning classification methods, including naive Bayes, k-nearest neighbour and support vector machine, were employed for the classification and the least absolute shrink age and selection operator (LASSO) method was used to select most predictive features set for the classifiers. Classification performance was evaluated by the area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity.
The model that used naive Bayes classification method achieved the best performance than the other two methods, yielding 0.773 AUC, 0.757 accuracy, 0.777 sensitivity and 0.769 specificity. Three most predictive features, i.e., contrast, entropy and line likeness, were selected by the LASSO method and showed a statistical significance (p<0.05) in the classification.
The present study showed that quantitative radiomics imaging features of breast tumour extracted from DCE-MRI are associated with breast cancer Ki67 expression. Future larger studies are needed in order to further evaluate the findings.
•Quantitative radiomics imaging features of DCE-MRI are extracted and analyzed.•A predictive model for breast cancer low- and high-Ki67 expression is proposed.•The model yields 0.773 AUC, 0.757 accuracy, 0.777 sensitivity and 0.769 specificity.
Abstract Rivaroxaban, a direct oral anticoagulant, has proven efficacy and safety at its standard dose in the treatment and prevention of various vascular conditions. These include the treatment of ...venous thromboembolism and stroke prevention in non-valvular atrial fibrillation. A “very low” vascular dose of rivaroxaban, when combined with low-dose aspirin, has been demonstrated to reduce major adverse cardiovascular events, including stroke, in both acute and chronic coronary syndrome. The combination of rivaroxaban and low-dose aspirin could potentially offer an additional strategy for stroke prevention in selected non-atrial fibrillation patients who are at a high risk of stroke.
This qualitative case study discusses teachers' emotions, in particular two elementary teachers in a school serving a high-poverty, high-minority population. Using Bronfenbrenner's ecological system ...framework, we examined how these teachers' internal psychological characteristics transact with external environments to produce emotions. Both teachers experienced unpleasant emotions such as disappointment and frustration in their daily work. However, instead of dwelling on the unpleasant emotions, they shifted their thinking to consider ways they could achieve more favorable outcomes. Our findings showed that these coping strategies were deeply connected to their individual psychological biographies, specifically their pedagogical beliefs and well-developed professional identity.
► Teachers' sense of vocation is an important factor in their decisions to leave the profession. ► Teachers' identity, beliefs and goals greatly impact the nature of their emotional experiences. ► Teachers' emotional experiences are influenced by the immediate and distal environmental contexts. ► Vocation, identity, positive outcomes and deep knowledge of students tend to mitigate burnout.
During May-June 2021 and 2022, leaf blight symptoms were observed on loquat leaves (Eriobotrya japonica cv. 'Mogi') in Jiangsu Province (Xuzhou municipality, 117.17° E, 34.13° N) in China. ...Approximately 10% of the leaves on the two hundred trees studied in a six-year-old loquat orchard exhibited round lesions that changed from light yellow to reddish-brown in 8-10 days. Approximately 3% of the infected leaves exhibited numerous lesions that coalesced, leading to expansive blighted areas. Twenty-five samples of symptomatic tissue, approximately 0.2 cm2 in size, were collected in May 2022 from five different trees (five samples per tree), sterilized in 2% NaOCl for 1 min, washed twice with sterilized ddH2O, and incubated at 26°C for 5 days on PDA medium containing 50 µg/mL chloramphenicol. Six isolates were obtained via single spore isolation. ITS (OQ954852-OQ954857), TUB2 (OQ968488-OQ968493), EF1-α (OQ971890-OQ971895), RPB1 (OQ971896-OQ971901), and RPB2 (OR037266-OR037271) genes were amplified using the ITS1/ITS4, T1/T22, EF1-728F/EF1-986R, RPB1-R8/RPB1-F5, and fRPB2-7CF/fRPB2-11aR primers, respectively (O'Donnell et al. 2010). The species was identified using the Fusarioid ID database (Crous et al. 2021), revealing that all obtained isolates showed high homology to representative F. luffae strains. Upon combining the ITS, TUB2, EF1-α, RPB1, and RPB2 sequences, the isolates showed 99.42%-97.85% and 99.59%-98.10% identity to F. luffae CGMCC 3.19497 (ex-type strain) and NRRL 32522, respectively. A molecular phylogenetic tree was constructed using MEGA X, with a selection of representative Fusarium strains. Microscope observations showed septate mycelium, microconidia (6.86 ± 0.91 µm length, 1.67 ± 0.24 µm width, containing 1 septum; number of observations = 21), fusiform macroconidia (15.88 ± 1.43 µm length, 1.66 ± 0.24 µm width, containing 1 septum; number of observations = 45), and linear chlamydospores (79.36 ± 28.36 µm length, 12.03 ± 3.37 µm width; number of observations = 152). These observations are consistent with the morphology of F. luffae (Wang et al. 2019). All isolates exhibited identical morphological characteristics. All isolates were evaluated for pathogenicity in vivo using healthy non-detached loquat leaves. A total of 15 leaves from 5 different three-month-old 'Mogi' loquat trees were used for each isolate. Experiments were performed three times. A suspension of 1 × 106 spores/mL obtained from a seven-day-old colony (10 mL per 15 leaves), was sprayed on non-wounded leaves for inoculation. Sterilized ddH2O was used in the control experiment. Inoculated trees were stored at 26°C and 70% relative humidity for four days. Leaf blight symptoms were observed in all inoculated leaves, and the symptoms were observed in all repeated trials. The pathogen was recovered, and its identity was confirmed by ITS sequencing and morphological analysis, fulfilling Koch's postulates. In recent years, F. luffae has been reported to cause fruit rot on muskmelon, flower rot on kiwifruit, soybean pod rot, and leaf spot on cherry in China (Yu et al. 2022; Zhang et al. 2022; Zhao et al. 2022; Zhou et al. 2022), demonstrating the host promiscuity of this pathogen. Although F. solani has been identified as the causal agent of root rot and fruit rot on loquat (Abbas et al. 2017; Wu et al. 2021), this is the first report of F. luffae causing leaf blight on loquat worldwide. This report will help to understand the pathogens affecting loquat orchards in China.
Summary
An energy‐conserving and decaying time integration method is derived from the discretized energy balance equation in this paper. Based on the Gauss‐Legendre quadrature rule, the new method ...evaluates the mean internal force by collecting the internal forces of several quadrature points in the time interval. Compared with previous conserving methods, the new method avoids the reconstruction of finite element models as used in the energy‐momentum method, and the computation of energy functions as used in the constraint energy method, so it is simple and straightforward, and has no difficulty in implementation for dynamics with general nonlinear resilience including nonlinear damping force and internal force. By employing enough quadrature nodes, this method can preserve system energy accurately for conservative system, and then the unconditional stability is achieved automatically. In addition, the energy‐decaying method is developed by introducing the energy dissipation term to the energy balance equation, and two free parameters controlling the numerical dissipation are determined based on linear spectral analysis. Finally, the performance of the proposed method is checked on several examples and the results are compared with that of the trapezoidal rule.
Candida albicans is an opportunistic fungus, which causes vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC). The aim of this study was to evaluate Mrr2 mutation and its expression levels and Candida drug resistance 1 ...(Cdr1) in C. albicans associated with fluconazole (FCA) resistance. We identified 80 isolates of C. albicans from 155 vaginal secretions and performed FCA drug sensitivity tests, using M27‐A3 micro‐broth dilution. We extracted DNA, sequenced Mrr2, and performed reverse transcriptase‐quantitative PCR polymerase chain reaction (RT‐qPCR) to detect mRNA expression levels of Mrr2 and Cdr1. In total, 40 isolates were sensitive, 10 were dose‐dependently sensitive, and 30 were resistant to FCA. Mrr2 mutation occurred in 56·67% isolates, which was significantly higher than that in the FCA sensitive group (26·08%, P < 0·05). The mRNA expression level of Cdr1 in the FCA resistant group was significantly higher than that in the sensitive group Cdr1 (0·42 ± 0·294 vs 0·25 ± 0·289, P < 0·05). The odds ratio of FCA‐resistant occurrence in C. albicans with Mrr2 mutation and high expression levels was 47·5 times higher than C. albicans without Mrr2 mutation and low expression levels. The results may provide new insights for improving VVC treatment.
Significance and Impact of the Study
Significance and Impact of the Study: Candida albicans is an opportunistic fungus, which causes vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC). Fluconazole (FCA) is the most widely used drug in VVC infection. However, the widespread use of FCA has severely increased the incidence of FCA‐resistant fungus. Therefore, the mechanism underlying FCA resistance in C. albicans must be elucidated urgently. This study demonstrated that high expression of Cdr1 and Mrr2 may directly be linked to C. albicans resistance to FCA, and high expression of Mrr2 may promote high expression of Cdr1 and mediate resistance of C. albicans to FCA. The results may provide new insights for improving VVC treatment.
Significance and Impact of the Study: Candida albicans is an opportunistic fungus, which causes vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC). Fluconazole (FCA) is the most widely used drug in VVC infection. However, the widespread use of FCA has severely increased the incidence of FCA‐resistant fungus. Therefore, the mechanism underlying FCA resistance in C. albicans must be elucidated urgently. This study demonstrated that high expression of Cdr1 and Mrr2 may directly be linked to C. albicans resistance to FCA, and high expression of Mrr2 may promote high expression of Cdr1 and mediate resistance of C. albicans to FCA. The results may provide new insights for improving VVC treatment.
Main conclusion
The qPCR assay developed to differentiate haploid and diploid maize leaf samples was unsuccessful due to DNA content difference. Haploid cells are packed more closely together with ...less cellular expansion.
Increased ploidy content (> 2 N) directly correlates with increased cell size in plants, but few studies have examined cell morphology in plants with reduced ploidy (i.e., haploids). To pioneer a scalable new ploidy test, we compared DNA content and cellular morphology of haploid and diploid maize leaves. The amount of genomic DNA recovered from standardized leaf-punch samples was equivalent between these two ploidy types, while both epidermal and mesophyll cell types were smaller in haploid plants. Pavement cells had a substantially smaller size than mesophyll cells, and this effect was more pronounced in the abaxial epidermis. Interveinal distance and guard cell size were significantly reduced in haploids, but the cell percentage comprising stomata did not change. These results confirm the direct correlation between ploidy content and cell size in plants, and suggest that reduced cell expansion predominantly explains DNA content equivalence between haploid and diploid samples, confounding efforts to develop a haploid detection method using DNA content.
Wind farms commonly cluster in regions rich in wind resources. Thus, correlation of wind speeds from different wind farms should not be ignored when modeling a power system with large wind energy ...penetration. This paper proposes a probabilistic optimal power flow (POPF) technique based on the quasi-Monte Carlo simulation (QMCS) considering the correlation of wind speeds using copula functions. In this paper, a copula function is used to model the dependent structure of random wind speeds and their forecast errors. QMCS is employed in the sampling procedure to reduce computation burden. The proposed method is applied in probabilistic power flow (PPF). Furthermore, the PPF is used in the POPF problem that aims at minimizing the expectation and downside risk of fuel cost simultaneously. Simulation studies are conducted on a modified IEEE 118-bus power system with wind farms integrated in two areas, and the results show that the accuracy and efficiency are improved by the proposed method.
Background
Most patients with perianal fistulizing Crohn’s disease (pfCD) present with complex types of perianal fistulas and need repetitive repair operations, resulting in a high risk of sphincter ...injury. Fistula-tract Laser Closure (FiLaC™) is a novel sphincter-saving technique that obliterates the fistula tract with a photothermal effect. The aim of the present systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of FiLaC in pfCD.
Methods
This study was conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Electronic databases, including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Wanfang Data were searched for published articles from January 2000 to June 2021. The clinicaltrials.gov website was searched for completed or ongoing trials on pfCD and FiLaC™. The references of each article were also searched for eligible data. The main outcome was the primary healing rate of the FiLaC™ procedure. Additionally, fecal incontinence was analyzed as the secondary outcome to evaluate the safety of FiLaC™.
Results
Six studies met the eligibility criteria and were included in the final analysis. All studies were published within the past 6 years and came from European countries. There were 50 pfCD patients recruited, and 31 patients’ fistulas were healed after FiLaC™. The pooled primary healing rate was 68% (95% CI 53.0–84.0%,
I
2
= 27%,
p
= 0.23). There was no major fecal incontinence after surgery.
Conclusions
These data suggest that FiLaC™ may be an effective and safe procedure for pfCD patients. However, the evidence is poor and there is a need for more high-quality prospective controlled studies with long-term follow-up before this minimally invasive technique is recommended for surgical treatment of pfCD.
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