Search

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the diagnostic performance of narrow‐band imaging (NBI) in monitoring patients with head and neck carcinomas posttreatment and to compare it with that of white light endoscopy (WLE). Data Sources: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science (WOS), Cochrane Library, China Biology Medicine disc (CBM disc), China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI), Wanfang Data, China Science and Technology Journal Database (CSTJ), Chinese Clinical Trial Register. Review Methods: Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA), literature published before July 2024 was searched. Patients who underwent surgery, radiotherapy (RT), or chemo‐RT for head and neck carcinomas with posttreatment follow‐up using NBI were analyzed. The main outcomes were sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) for NBI and WLE in posttreatment follow‐up. Results: The sensitivity, specificity, and DOR for NBI and WLE in posttreatment follow‐up for head and neck carcinomas were 95% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 88%–98%), 96% (95% CI: 92%–98%), 433 (95% CI: 120–1560) and 72% (95% CI: 49%–87%), 72% (95% CI: 4%–99%), 7 (95% CI: 0–191). Additionally, the area under the curve (AUC) values for NBI and WLE were 0.99 (95% CI: 0.97–0.99) and 0.75 (95% CI: 0.71–0.79), respectively. The number of lesions and patients, treatment modality, follow‐up time, disease, and endoscopic system might be sources of heterogeneity. Conclusion: Compared to WLE, NBI demonstrated superior diagnostic performance in follow‐up patients with head and neck carcinoma posttreatment. NBI offers technical support and a clinical foundation for early detection of head and neck carcinoma recurrence. Level of Evidence: NA Laryngoscope, 135:34–44, 2025 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamical studies on the non-leptonic weak decays of charmed baryons are always challenging, due to the large non-perturbative contributions at the charm scale. In this work, we develop the final-state rescattering mechanism to study the two-body non-leptonic decays of charmed baryons. The final-state interaction is a physical picture of long-distance effects. Instead of using the Cutkosky rule to calculate the hadronic triangle diagrams which can only provide the imaginary part of decay amplitudes, we point out that the loop integral is more appropriate, as both the real parts and the imaginary parts of amplitudes can be calculated completely. In this way, it can be obtained for the non-trivial strong phases which are essential to calculate CP violations. With the physical picture of long-distance effects and the reasonable method of calculations, it is amazingly achieved that all the nine existing experimental data of branching fractions for the Λ c + decays into an octet light baryon and a vector meson can be explained by only one parameter of the model. Besides, the decay asymmetries and CP violations are not sensitive to the model parameter, since the dependence on the parameter is mainly cancelled in the ratios, so that the theoretical uncertainties on these observables are lowered down. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, catalytic valorization of biomass-driven furfural has attracted great interest. In this work, we report a one-pot photoenzymatic route toward maleic acid (MA) and its C4 derivatives fumaric acid (FA) and D -malic acid (D -MalA) from furfural by cascade catalysis. Xanthine oxidase (XO) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa aldehyde dehydrogenase (PaALDH) were found to be good biocatalysts for furfural oxidation into 2-furancarboxylic acid (FCA), but the latter displayed much higher tolerance toward enzyme inactivation by reactive oxygen species generated by photocatalytic oxygenation. Besides, the enzyme inactivation might be considerably avoided by entrapping the photocatalyst eosin Y (EY) into a macroporous adsorptive resin NKA-II (EY@NKA). Galactose oxidase M3-5 (GO M3-5) could accept 5-hydroxy-2(5H)-furanone (HFO) as a substrate, whereas its variants M4 and M5-1 exhibited both higher activities and higher stability. Concurrent photoenzymatic production of MA from FCA was performed by merging EY@NKA with GO M4/M5-1, with yields of up to >99%. Nonetheless, simultaneous photoenzymatic conversion of furfural into MA failed, due to great enzyme inactivation. Therefore, a temporal compartmentalization strategy was applied for MA synthesis. A two-step process incorporating PaALDH, EY@NKA and GO M4/M5-1 was developed for furfural conversion, leading to the production of MA with 94% yield. In addition, the photoenzymatic cascade was facilely extended to produce FA and D -MalA by supplementing the corresponding biocatalysts, with 77–82% yields. The present work may pave the way for sustainable production of bio-based C4 chemicals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2,5-Furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) is an important monomer for manufacturing biobased plastics. Biocatalysis has been recognized as a sustainable tool in organic synthesis. To date, the efficiencies of most biocatalytic processes toward FDCA remain low. So, it is highly desired to develop efficient processes. In this work, a biocatalytic route toward FDCA was developed by integrating a cell-free extract of galactose oxidase variant M3–5 with a whole-cell biocatalyst harboring NAD+-dependent vanillin dehydrogenases and NADH oxidase, starting from 5-hydroxymethylfurfural. FDCA was produced in a concurrent mode with >90% yields within 36 h at 20 mM substrate concentration. In addition, biocatalytic synthesis of FDCA was performed on a preparative scale, with 78% isolated yield. The present work may lay the foundation for sustainable production of FDCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an acute clinical event and an important cause of death and long-term disability. However, the underlying mechanism of the pathophysiological has not been fully elucidated and the lack of effective treatment a huge burden to individuals, families, and society. Several studies have shown that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) might play a crucial role in TBI; they are abundant in the central nervous system (CNS) and participate in a variety of pathophysiological processes, including oxidative stress, inflammation, apoptosis, blood-brain barrier protection, angiogenesis, and neurogenesis. Some lncRNAs modulate multiple therapeutic targets after TBI, including inflammation, thus, these lncRNAs have tremendous therapeutic potential for TBI, as they are promising biomarkers for TBI diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis prediction. This review discusses the differential expression of different lncRNAs in brain tissue during TBI, which is likely related to the physiological and pathological processes involved in TBI. These findings may provide new targets for further scientific research on the molecular mechanisms of TBI and potential therapeutic interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exotic states X 0 , 1 (2900) with the quark flavor of c s u ¯ d ¯ are recently observed in the mass spectrum of D + K - in B - → D - D + K - by the LHCb collaboration. To explore the nature of X 0 , 1 (2900) , except for analyzing their masses and decay widths as usually did in literatures, the study of their production mechanism in B-meson weak decays would provide another important information. The amplitude of B - → D - X 0 , 1 is non-factorizable. We consider the final-state-interaction effects and calculate them via the rescattering mechanism. The measured branching fractions of B - → D - X 0 , 1 are revealed. It is manifested by B - → Λ c - Ξ c (′) 0 and Λ b 0 → P c + K - that the rescattering mechanism can result in the relatively large branching fractions. The similar processes of B - → π - X 0 , 1 are also analyzed. The isospins of X 0 , 1 can be investigated by B → D X 0 , 1 ± , 0 decays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By shunting a susceptance at the middle of the branch of a conventional Wilkinson power divider, the size can be reduced and the harmonic components can be suppressed. Further, miniaturization can be achieved by optimal layout of the internal area of the conventional power divider. In this article, simple design methods to implement miniaturized Wilkinson power dividers with harmonic suppressions are presented. To validate the design methodology, two power divider prototypes are optimally designed and examined from electromagnetic simulations and experiments. As compared to conventional types, the circuit sizes of the demonstrators are effectively reduced to 15.6 and 24.98%, respectively, and the spurious suppressions are over 20 dB at the desired harmonic frequencies. Meanwhile, the mechanisms of spurious suppression are studied herein. The achieved performance simply confirms the presented design methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A laddered spiral phase plate excited by a microwave antenna to generate a vortex electromagnetic wave is studied. By replacing the continuous spiral phase plate with several planar metal plates, a ladder spiral phase plate that is easily built is designed. When the spiral phase plate is slightly tilted away from the xoy-plane to approximate the parabola plate, and it is further excited by a microstrip patch antenna, different orbital angular momentums are obtained. The presented scheme provides a convenient and simple approach to generate a vortex wave at microwave frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microstrip Wilkinson power dividers with harmonic suppression and size reduction are investigated. It is found that by loading reactive components at the middle of high impedance transmission lines (TLs), both size reduction and harmonic suppression can be achieved. Analyses and designs of such a kind of power divider are formulated in this paper. To demonstrate the design methodology, two power dividers centered at 1.8 GHz are optimally designed and confirmed by experiments. As compared with conventional Wilkinson power divider, the proposed power divider exhibits 55.6% size reduction, and high suppressions are achieved for 2nd and 3rd harmonic components. Both simulations and measurements are presented with good agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To solve the problem that it is difficult to install isolation resistors across each output port, a new five-way microstrip Wilkinson power divider with double-layer topology is developed. The isolation resistors are placed on the second substrate by using half-wavelength microstrip transmission lines with the introduction of Archimedean spirals to reduce the circuit size. To demonstrate the design method, a five-way equal power divider is designed; its size is optimized at the center frequency of 2.45 GHz. The fabricated sample has been tested. Measured results are in good agreement with simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ReaxFF molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are performed to study high-temperature pyrolysis of toluene under microwave heating. It is observed that the temperature of the reaction system under microwave heating has a rapidly rising stage, which is similar to the phenomenon of thermal runaway often appeared in reactions under microwave heating. Simulations indicate that the consumption rate of toluene and generating rates of H2and CH4obtained under microwave heating are always lower than those obtained under conventional heating at the early stage. Analyses of the pyrolysis of toluene show that ReaxFF MD simulations can provide an efficient way to study chemical reactions under microwave heating. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many important developments in video compression technologies have occurred during the past two decades. The block-based discrete cosine transform with motion compensation hybrid coding scheme has been widely employed by most available video coding standards, notably the ITU-T H.26 x and ISO/IEC MPEG- x families and video part of China audio video coding standard (AVS). The objective of this paper is to provide a review of the developments of the four basic building blocks of hybrid coding scheme, namely predictive coding, transform coding, quantization and entropy coding, and give theoretical analyses and summaries of the technological advancements. We further analyze the development trends and perspectives of video compression, highlighting problems and research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]