Patients with locally advanced colon cancer (LACC) treated with surgery had a high risk of local recurrence. The outcomes can vary significantly among patients with pT3 disease. This study was ...undertaken to assess whether low-kilovolt (kV) x-ray intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) can achieve promising results compared with electron beam IORT (IOERT) and whether specific subgroups of patients with pT3 colon cancer may benefit from low-kV x-ray IORT.
We retrospectively reviewed 44 patients with pT3 LACC treated with low-kV x-ray IORT. Clinicopathologic characteristics were analyzed to identify patients that could potentially benefit from low-kV x-ray IORT. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to assess overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Correlation analysis was used to discover the association of multiple factors to the results of treatment represented by the values of OS and PFS.
The median follow-up of patients was 20.5 months (range, 6.1-38.8 months). At the time of analysis, 38 (86%) were alive and 6 (14%) had died of their disease. The 3-year Kaplan-Meier of PFS and OS for the entire cohort was 82.8% and 82.1%, respectively. At median follow-up, no in-field failure within the low-kV x-ray IORT field had occurred. Locoregional and distant failure had occurred in 2 (5%) patients each. The rate of perioperative 30-day mortality was 0%, and the morbidity rate was 11%. Five patients experienced 7 complications, including 4 early complications (30 days) and three late complications (> 30 days) leading early and late morbidity rates of 9% and 7%, respectively.
Patients with LACC who had undergone an additional low-kV x-ray IORT can achieve encouraging locoregional control, PFS, OS, and distant control without an increase in short-term or long-term complications. Low-kV x-ray IORT can be considered as part of management in pT3 LACC.
Speaker verification models have achieved good results on the single genre data. But the performance degrades when model training and testing are not in the same domain. The adversarial training ...method is proposed to solve this problem by minimizing domain distribution differences. However, the adversarial training ignores domain‐specific information for the domain‐invariant speaker representations. In this paper, an improved collaborative adversarial network for domain adaptation in speaker verification is performed. Compared to the adversarial training, a collaborative discriminator is newly incorporated that learns domain‐specific information at the lower layers. Further, the projection block is added to the collaborative discriminator. It reduces the noise introduced by the collaborative discriminator. Experiments are conducted in different mismatch scenarios and using different speaker encoders. All the experimental results show that the performance of this method is better than the baseline and previous work using adversarial training.
This work can extract better speaker representations that are both domain‐ invariant and domain‐specific. The proposed collaborative discriminator enables the speaker encoder to learn domain‐specific information, which is beneficial for adversarial training. Further, the projection block is designed to reduce the noise introduced by the collaborative discriminator.
Key message
A SNP mutation in
CmSN
, encoding an EamA-like transporter, is responsible for fruit skin netting in melon.
In maturing melon (
Cucumis melo
L.), the rind becomes reticulated or netted, a ...unique characteristic that dramatically changes the appearance of the fruit. However, little is known about the molecular basis of fruit skin netting formation in this important cucurbit crop. Here, we conducted map-based cloning of a
skin netting
(
CmSN
) locus using segregating populations derived from the cross between the smooth-fruit line H906 and the netted-fruit line H581. The results showed that
CmSN
was controlled by a single dominant gene and was primarily positioned on melon chromosome 2, within a physical interval of ~ 351 kb. Further fine mapping in a large F
2
population narrowed this region to a 71-kb region harboring 5 genes.
MELO3C010288
, which encodes a protein in the EamA-like transporter family, is the best possible candidate gene for the netted phenotype. Two nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified in the third and sixth exons of the
CmSN
gene and co-segregated with the skin netting (SN) phenotype among the genetic population. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) determined that
CmSN
is probably a domestication gene under selective pressure during the subspecies
C. melo
subsp.
melo
differentiation. The SNP in the third exon of
CmSN
(the leading SNP in GWAS) revealed a bi-allelic diversity in natural accessions with SN traits. Our results lay a foundation for deciphering the molecular mechanism underlying the formation of fruit skin netting in melon, as well as provide a strategy for genetic improvement of netted fruit using a marker-assisted selection approach.
Apatinib induced ferroptosis by lipid peroxidation in gastric cancer Zhao, Liying; Peng, Yanmei; He, Sixiao ...
Gastric cancer : official journal of the International Gastric Cancer Association and the Japanese Gastric Cancer Association,
05/2021, Volume:
24, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Background
Apatinib, a competitive inhibitor of VEGFR2, has anti-angiogenesis and anticancer activities through different mechanisms, but it still cannot fully explain the drug efficacy of apatinib. ...Ferroptosis, associated with lethal lipid peroxidation, has emerged to play an important role in cancer biology, however, the exact role of ferroptosis in apatinib-mediating anticancer treatment are still not clear.
Methods
The effects of (1S, 3R)-RSL3 and apatinib were evaluated in different GC cell lines and in normal human gastric epithelial cells. Further, the effects of apatinib and inhibition of antioxidant defense enzyme glutathione peroxidase (GPX4) on cell viability, cell death, glutathione (GSH) levels, lipid ROS production, cellular malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and protein expression were evaluated in vitro as well as in a mouse tumor xenograft model. The expression level of GPX4 in GC tissues and paracancerous tissues was measured by immunohistochemistry.
Results
(1S, 3R)-RSL3 selectively killed GC cells, but not normal cells. Apatinib induced ferroptosis in GC cells by decreasing cellular GSH levels and increasing lipid peroxidation levels. This effect was blocked by co-incubation with ferrostatin-1, liproxstatin-1, GSH, or vitamin E. Further investigation revealed that apatinib down-regulated GPX4 expression via inhibition of the transcription factors Sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1a (SREBP-1a). Besides, we found that multi-drug resistant GC cells were vulnerable to apatinib-induced GPX4 inhibition.
Conclusions
In summary, we show that apatinib could induce the lipid peroxidation through GPX4 mediated by SREBP-1a, then negatively regulate the GC cell, even the multi-drug-resistant GC cell, ferroptosis.
Selective conversion of syngas to light olefins Jiao, Feng; Li, Jinjing; Pan, Xiulian ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
03/2016, Volume:
351, Issue:
6277
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Although considerable progress has been made in direct synthesis gas (syngas) conversion to light olefins (C₂⁼−C₄⁼) via Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS), the wide product distribution remains a ...challenge, with a theoretical limit of only 58% for C₂–C₄ hydrocarbons. We present a process that reaches C₂⁼−C₄⁼ selectivity as high as 80% and C₂–C₄ 94% at carbon monoxide (CO) conversion of 17%. This is enabled by a bifunctional catalyst affording two types of active sites with complementary properties. The partially reduced oxide surface (ZnCrOx) activates CO and H₂, and C–C coupling is subsequently manipulated within the confined acidic pores of zeolites. No obvious deactivation is observed within 110 hours. Furthermore, this composite catalyst and the process may allow use of coal- and biomass-derived syngas with a low H₂/CO ratio.
The inevitability of energy inconsistency among batteries within a battery pack poses operational challenges and potential safety hazards. It is imperative to swiftly harmonize the state of charge ...across all batteries to mitigate these issues. Addressing this concern, a dual-layer hybrid equalization topology is introduced, leveraging the Cuk circuit and flyback transformer. The battery pack is segmented into modules, with the Cuk circuit employed for intra-module equalization. Subsequently, the flyback transformer facilitates inter-module equalization. A multimodal equalization control strategy is devised, considering the status of individual modules to minimize repeated energy transfers between batteries. Simulation and experimental findings affirm that the proposed dual-layer active equalization control markedly mitigates the inconsistency among series-connected batteries, demonstrating rapid equalization and heightened efficiency.
Regulated cell death is a widely attractive subject among the topics of cancer therapy and has gained some advances for discovery of targeted anticancer drugs. In the past decade, nonapoptotic ...regulated cell death has been implicated in the development and therapeutic responses of a variety of human cancers. Hitherto, targeting autophagy-dependent cell death (ADCD), ferroptosis, and necroptosis with small molecules has been emerging as a hopeful strategy for the improvement of potential cancer therapy, which may have an advantage to bypass the apoptosis-resistance machinery. Thus, in this perspective, we concentrate on the key molecular insights into ADCD, ferroptosis, and necroptosis and summarize the corresponding small molecules in potential cancer therapy. Moreover, the relationships between the three subroutines and small molecules modulating the crosstalk are discussed. We believe that these inspiring findings would be advantageous to exploiting more potential targets and pharmacological small molecules in future cancer treatment.
Vehicular Crowdsensing System (VCS) has emerged as a promising paradigm for alleviating traffic congestion and improving driving safety due to its convenient collection and aggregation of various ...driving and traffic-related reports. However, the rapidly growing number of vehicles means that VCS faces the severe challenge of large-capacity data storage. It has been observed that various data deduplication techniques have been devised for VCS. Unfortunately, in most solutions, the deduplication operations are centralized, unable to simultaneously reduce storage costs and bandwidth consumption. Moreover, these schemes are mainly constructed based on number-theoretic assumptions, which makes them susceptible to quantum attacks. Inspired by this fact, we introduce QBDD, a quantum-resistant blockchain-assisted second-level data deduplication protocol for privacy-preserving VCS, enabling efficient deduplication on the Road Side Unit (RSU) and Cloud Service Platform (CSP). We construct this protocol based on the Ring Learning with Errors (RLWE) problem signcryption and proxy re-encryption schemes to ensure data security. The improved Message Locking Encryption (MLE) mechanism hides the label of ciphertext and allows for quick duplicate crowdsensing report checks without compromising data privacy. Additionally, a blockchain-based distributed system is used to store crowdsensing data and maintain greedy lists, enhancing the system’s efficiency and fairness. We provide theoretical proof of QBDD’s security and conduct extensive experiments to demonstrate its practicality in post-quantum secure VCS.
Magnesium rechargeable batteries potentially offer high-energy density, safety, and low cost due to the ability to employ divalent, dendrite-free, and earth-abundant magnesium metal anode. Despite ...recent progress, further development remains stagnated mainly due to the sluggish scission of magnesium-chloride bond and slow diffusion of divalent magnesium cations in cathodes. Here we report a battery chemistry that utilizes magnesium monochloride cations in expanded titanium disulfide. Combined theoretical modeling, spectroscopic analysis, and electrochemical study reveal fast diffusion kinetics of magnesium monochloride cations without scission of magnesium-chloride bond. The battery demonstrates the reversible intercalation of 1 and 1.7 magnesium monochloride cations per titanium at 25 and 60 °C, respectively, corresponding to up to 400 mAh g
capacity based on the mass of titanium disulfide. The large capacity accompanies with excellent rate and cycling performances even at room temperature, opening up possibilities for a variety of effective intercalation hosts for multivalent-ion batteries.Magnesium rechargeable batteries potentially offer high-energy density, safety, and low cost. Here the authors show a battery that reversibly intercalates magnesium monochloride cations with excellent rate and cycle performances in addition to the large capacity.
Recommender systems are vulnerable to shilling attacks. Forged user-generated content data, such as user ratings and reviews, are used by attackers to manipulate recommendation rankings. Shilling ...attack detection in recommender systems is of great significance to maintain the fairness and sustainability of recommender systems. The current studies have problems in terms of the poor universality of algorithms, difficulty in selection of user profile attributes, and lack of an optimization mechanism. In this paper, a shilling behaviour detection structure based on abnormal group user findings and rating time series analysis is proposed. This paper adds to the current understanding in the field by studying the credibility evaluation model in-depth based on the rating prediction model to derive proximity-based predictions. A method for detecting suspicious ratings based on suspicious time windows and target item analysis is proposed. Suspicious rating time segments are determined by constructing a time series, and data streams of the rating items are examined and suspicious rating segments are checked. To analyse features of shilling attacks by a group user's credibility, an abnormal group user discovery method based on time series and time window is proposed. Standard testing datasets are used to verify the effect of the proposed method.
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