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This multicenter phase I/IIa study aimed to determine the recommended phase II dose (RP2D) and evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of liposomal irinotecan (nal-IRI), oxaliplatin, and S-1 (NASOX) as first-line treatment for advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma without prior systemic treatment for advanced disease, aged ≥ 19 years, with measurable disease, and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0–1 were eligible. The primary endpoints were to determine the dose-limiting toxicity (DLT) in the phase I cohort and overall response rate (ORR) in the phase IIa cohort. The intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis included patients who received the RP2D. In phase I, seven patients were screened, and six were assessed for DLT. None experienced DLT during the first cycle. The RP2D was determined as nal-IRI 50 mg/m2 and oxaliplatin 60 mg/m2 on day 1, S-1 40 mg/m2 twice daily on days 1–7 every 14 days. For the ITT (N = 41; 7, and 34 from phases I and IIa, respectively), the most common grade 3–4 treatment-emergent adverse events were neutropenia (31.7 %), enterocolitis (9.8 %), anorexia (7.3 %), and diarrhea (2.4 %). The ORR was 58.5 % (1 complete, and 23 partial responses). Two underwent conversion surgery; both achieved R0 resection. With median follow-up of 17.5 months, median progression-free survival was 6.5 months (95 % confidence interval [CI], 5.0–8.1) and median overall survival was 11.4 months (95 % CI, 9.8–15.5). NASOX exhibited a manageable safety profile and encouraging efficacy outcomes consistent with NALIRIFOX, showing potential to replace infusional 5-fluorouracil with oral S-1 in the triplet regimen. • In this Ph I/IIa trial, patients with advanced PDAC received 1 L NASOX every 2 weeks. • RP2D: nal-IRI 50 mg/m2, oxaliplatin 60 mg/m2 on D1, S-1 40 mg/m2 BID on D1–7. • ORR was 58.5 %, median PFS was 6.5 months, and median OS was 11.4 months. • Safety profiles were manageable. • NASOX may improve patient convenience while showing efficacy comparable to NALIRIFOX. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ydbio.2008.11.001 Byline: Bum Jun Kim, Norio Takamoto, Jun Yan, Sophia Y. Tsai, Ming-Jer Tsai Keywords: COUP-TFII; IGF-1; Akt1; mTOR; Cerebellum; Foliation; GSK-3[beta] Abstract: COUP-TFII (also known as Nr2f2), a member of the nuclear orphan receptor superfamily, is expressed in several regions of the central nervous system (CNS), including the ventral thalamus, hypothalamus, midbrain, pons, and spinal cord. To address the function of COUP-TFII in the CNS, we generated conditional COUP-TFII knockout mice using a tissue-specific NSE-Cre recombinase. Ablation of COUP-TFII in the brain resulted in malformation of the lobule VI in the cerebellum and a decrease in differentiation of cerebellar neurons and cerebellar growth. The decrease in cerebellar growth in NSE.sup.Cre/+/CII.sup.F/F mice is due to reduced proliferation and increased apoptosis in granule cell precursors (GCPs). Additional studies demonstrated that insulin like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) expression was reduced in the cerebellum of NSE.sup.Cre/+/CII.sup.F/F mice, thereby leading to decreased Akt1 and GSK-3[beta] activities, and the reduced expression of mTOR. Using ChIP assays, we demonstrated that COUP-TFII was recruited to the promoter region of IGF-1 in a Sp1-dependent manner. In addition, dendritic branching of Purkinje cells was decreased in the mutant mice. Thus, our results indicate that COUP-TFII regulates growth and maturation of the mouse postnatal cerebellum through modulation of IGF-1 expression. Author Affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Development Program, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX 77030, USA Article History: Received 24 June 2008; Revised 29 October 2008; Accepted 3 November 2008

• We provide empirical tests on various image corruption using vision transformers. • Vision transformers showed performance degradation on contrast-enhanced images. • We proposed PreLayerNorm for the consistent behavior of positional embedding. • We observed that PreLayerNorm improved performance on contrast-enhanced images. • We provide theoretical analyses on the inconsistent behavior of vision transformers. [Display omitted] Vision Transformers (ViTs) have recently demonstrated state-of-the-art performance in various vision tasks, replacing convolutional neural networks (CNNs). However, because ViT has a different architectural design than CNN, it may behave differently. To investigate whether ViT has a different performance or robustness, we tested ViT and CNN under various imaging conditions in practical vision tasks. We confirmed that for most image transformations, ViT's robustness was comparable or even better than that of CNN. However, for contrast enhancement, ViT performed particularly poorly. We show that this is because positional embedding in ViT's patch embedding can work improperly when the color scale changes. We demonstrate that the use of PreLayerNorm, a modified patch embedding structure, ensures the consistent behavior of ViT. Results demonstrate that ViT with PreLayerNorm exhibited improved robustness in the contrast-varying environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting electrical power consumption is essential in many industries. This paper presents a method to predict total electrical power consumption in a certain period of Hot Rolling Mill (HRM) in steel mills. We adequately pre-processed operation data, including work schedule, work result, and power measurement. In addition, based on domain knowledge, we derived several useful variables relevant to power consumption. To predict power consumption, we developed a Multi-Level Stacked Regression model that combines the strengths of multiple prediction models. Real-world applications have dataset shift characteristics in which the covariance between features or distribution of the features changes over time due to frequent changes in the working environment. To verify the generalization accuracy of our model, we trained and tested our model for various training/test splits and compared it with several comparative models. Our model showed the best accuracy in all training/test splits. We verified whether the predictive model reflects the real-world environment well by analyzing the actual physical meaning of the essential features used in the predictive model. • A series of pre-processing methods are applied to real data from Hot Rolling Mill. • A Multi-Level Stacked Regression algorithm is proposed. • Performance on various training/test splits that contains dataset shifts is verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Proteomic differences between Bemisia tabaci biotypes (B and Q) were investigated by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis in conjunction with mass spectroscopic analysis. Among several protein spots specific to biotype B, carboxylesterase 2 (Coe2) was significantly more expressed in biotype B. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated the close relationship of Coe2 with Myzus persicae esterase E4. Comparison of full-length cDNA sequences of Coe2 revealed no amino acid differences in functionally important conserved regions between biotypes B and Q. The transcription level of the Coe2 gene (coe2) was 5.8-fold higher in biotype B than in biotype Q, but the coe2 copy number was not different between biotypes, suggesting that the overexpression of Coe2 was due to transcriptional up-regulation. Native isoelectric focusing followed by mass spectrophotometric analysis confirmed that the overexpressed pI 5.7 esterase in biotype B was Coe2. In-gel inhibition of Coe2 by three insecticides indicated the interaction of Coe2 with chlorpyrifos-methyl oxon and permethrin, but not with imidacloprid. These findings suggest that overexpression of Coe2 in biotype B can confer chemical defense against pyrethroid and organophosphate insecticides, perhaps by sequestration and hydrolysis, as seen in M. persicae E4. Finally, utility of Coe2 as a potential biotype-specific protein marker is discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Sequence and length-polymorphic intron variations in the caboxylesterase 2 gene (coe2) were determined to be specific to the biotypes B and Q of Bemisia tabaci. By employing the biotype-specific coe2 intron variation as a nuclear marker, a one-step diagnostic protocol for the identification of B and Q biotypes was developed and its performance was validated for field collected B. tabaci specimens. The diagnostic results based on the coe2 intron marker were identical to those obtained from the mtCOI marker in all 256 specimens examined except for four individuals that appeared to be putative heterozygotes between B and Q biotypes. These results demonstrate a high level of accuracy of the coe2 intron marker-based protocol in distinguishing biotypes B and Q. Moreover, because the process requires only PCR amplification and gel electrophoresis, analysis of multiple samples can be done more efficiently. Based on the observation that all putative heterozygotes have the maternal background of Q biotype, they may have been created by inter-biotype cross between B type male and Q type female. If combined with the mtCOI marker, the nuclear coe2 marker would provide a better resolution than maternally inherited markers alone and facilitate the demographic study of B. tabaci biotype complex. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Go, a heterotrimeric G-protein, is enriched in brain and neuronal growth cones. Although several reports suggest that Go may be involved in modulation of neuronal differentiation, the precise role of Go is not clear. To investigate the function of Go in neuronal differentiation, we determined the effect of Goα, the α subunit of Go, on the expression of Cav2.2, the pore-forming unit of N-type calcium channels, at the transcription level. Treatment with cyclic AMP (cAMP), which triggers neurite outgrowth in neuroblastoma F11 cells, increased the mRNA level and the promoter activity of the Cav2.2 gene. Overexpression of Goα inhibited neurite extension in F11 cells and simultaneously repressed the stimulatory effect of cAMP on the Cav2.2 gene expression to the basal level. Targeted mutation of the Goα gene also increased the level of Cav2.2 in the brain. These results suggest that Go may regulate neuronal differentiation through modulation of gene expression of target genes such as N-type calcium channels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Layer-by-layer etching of Si(1 0 0) has been investigated by alternating chlorine adsorption and Ar+ ion irradiation. As the Ar+ ion source, a helicon plasma has been used to invoke the surface reaction of Si with the adsorbed chlorine. At a chlorine partial pressure of 10 mPa, the Si surface was found to be fully saturated with adsorbed chlorine in 20 s. In order to achieve the layer-by-layer etching of Si, the Ar+ ion acceleration energy should be above 20 eV at the time of chlorine adsorption. At energies above 40 eV, however, sputtering of Si was found to occur. The self-limited etch rate was measured to be half monolayer per cycle, which was 0.68 A˚ per cycle. The roughness of Si surface was found to increase during the etching by about 22% after 900 cycles. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• A weakly supervised power line detection algorithm is proposed. • A line specialized refinement algorithm is applied for performance improvement. • A repeated learning framework with noise label develops the model output. Detection of power lines in aerial images is an important problem to prevent accidents of unmanned aerial vehicles operating at low altitudes in the electrical industry. Recently, pixel-level power line detection using deep learning has been studied but production of the pixel-level annotations for massive dataset is difficult. In this study, we propose a power line detection algorithm using weakly supervised learning method to reduce the labeling cost for dataset generation. The algorithm is divided into two stages. First, an approximately localized mask was generated based on a convolutional neural network which was trained with only patch-level labels. Second, recursive training of segmentation network with refined broken line segments was executed. A refinement algorithm, line segment connecting (LSC) is a power-line-specialized refinement module that connects broken lines by approximating the segments as partially straight. In proposed algorithm, predicted image at each recursive step was updated as a label of the next training and the label was developed by itself with LSC. The comprehensive experimental results of our algorithm showed state-of-art F 1 -score of 94.3% in weakly supervised learning approaches on public dataset. This result suggests that the proposed algorithm is useful for low labeling cost with high performance in line detection application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The two-dimensional (2D) inorganic material Nb 3 I 8 , which can be separated into atomic planes, was synthesized through a vapor transport reaction between niobium and iodine. High-purity and cm scale large Nb 3 I 8 crystals were obtained by controlling the growth temperature (600–700 °C) and the stoichiometric ratio between niobium and iodine (using excess I 2 condition, niobium: iodine = 3:9). The semiconductor characteristics were measured by the change of electrical conductivity with temperature (increased conductivity with temperature in the range of 100 K–300 K), and have a band gap of ∼1 eV (∼1200 nm) through Infrared (IR)-visible light absorption analysis. Based on these characteristics, the device characteristics of detecting IR near 1200 nm region were verified. Besides few-layers of Nb 3 I 8 was acquired by the mechanical exfoliation method, and experimentally observed by atomic force microscopy (AFM). This 2D material is expected to have an important role in developing another 2D materials and in new nano-optoelectronic devices using it. • Synthesis of 2D material Nb 3 I 8 in centimeter scale. • Experimental estimation of band gap of Nb 3 I 8 about (∼1 eV) and application to IR detectors. • Bulk to few-layers separation of Nb 3 I 8 sheet using mechanical exfoliation method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]