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We enrolled 264 patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). We performed immunohistochemical detection of p16 and determined the degree of interstitial fibrosis (IF). The expression of p16 was associated with pathological tumor-node-metastasis (pTNM) stage and age (p0.05). The cancer-specific survival (CSS) was longer in p16-negative patients (195.73 vs. 181.78 months, p = 0.007). p16 was significantly related to the degree of IF (r = 0.130, p = 0.035). PTC patients with no or mild fibrosis tended to have a larger tumor (p = 0.045). The degree of fibrosis was related to the proportion of papillary structure components (p = 0.025). Univariate and multivariate survival analyses showed that relapse-free survival (RFS) was longer in patients with moderate/severe IF (p0.05). In summary, p16 was correlated with prognosis and IF of PTC. Patients with moderate/severe IF tend to have better prognosis in RFS.

BACKGROUND This study aimed to compare the application value of intraoperative fluorescence navigation technology (FNT) and intraoperative ultrasound (IOUS) in primary liver cancer surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS Fifty consecutive patients with primary liver cancer scheduled to receive surgical treatment were divided into FNT group and IOUS group. FNT and IOUS were separately used to guide tumor resection and detect new cancerous lesions in the 2 groups. The complete tumor resection rate (R0) resection rate, length of the tumor distance from cutting edge, the diagnostic efficacy of cancerous nodules and the fluorescence imaging characteristics of different types tumors were recorded. RESULTS The R0 resection rate was 100% (25 out of 25 patients) in the FNT group and 96% (24 out of 25 patients) in the IOUS group. In the FNT group, 1 case (4%, 1 out of 25 patients) had cancer tissue that was less than 1 cm from the cutting edge, compared to 7 cases (28%, 7 out of 25 patients) in the IOUS group (P=0.049), which was a significant difference. In the remaining livers of 50 consecutive patients, FNT found 5 new cancerous nodules with a sensitivity of 71.4%, a specificity of 11.1%, and a false-positive rate of 88.9%; for IOUS the results were 42.9%, 88.9%, 11.1%. The fluorescence imaging characteristics of all well-differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas were tumor tissue imaging, but all other types of tumors were ring imaging around the tumor. CONCLUSIONS FNT can improve the R0 resection rate, ensure a safe distance between tumor and cutting edge and can identify more new cancerous nodules compared to IOUS. Thus, FNT could improve the surgical treatment effect for primary liver cancer and hopefully further improve the prognosis of patients.

Polyaniline-coated multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) conductive polymer precursors (MWCNTs@PANI) were prepared by an in situ microemulsion oxidation polymerization of aniline in the case of MWCNTs, and then hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene polyurethane conductive polymer nanocomposites based on MWCNTs@PANI (MWCNTs@PANI/HTPB PUs) were prepared through an in situ stepwise polymerization of HTPB and diisocyanates. The chemical structure was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman, x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. The morphologies and dispersion behavior were examined by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and UV-vis transmittance. The MWCNTs@PANI/HTPB PUs nanocomposites were fabricated into film sensors for detection of volatile organic compound vapors, and displayed an evident response to trichloromethane vapor (CHCl3). The effect of MWCNTs on the conductivity and the responsivity to trichloromethane of conductive polymer nanocomposite films were studied, finding that the conductive composite films have fast and strong response, good repeatability and recoverability, and long-term stability. Consequently, they can be potentially applied for supervision and detection of interior and outdoor environmental gases or vapors.

The association between cervical lymph node metastasis (LNM) and ultrasonographic features as well as BRAFV600E mutations in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) remained controversial. This study investigated the association between LNM and ultrasonographic features as well as BRAFV600E mutation in Chinese patients with PTC. A total of 280 patients with PTC in China were included in this study. 108 had cervical lymph node metastasis, while 172 had not. Younger age (Ps BRAFV600E mutation was detected in 81.0% of patients with PTC (226/280). The status of BRAFV600E mutation was not associated with cervical LNM. However, Ct values by PCR and intensity of reactions by immunohistochemistry (IHC) for BRAFV600E expression had shown significant difference between group with and without LNM. Furthermore, an increased proportion of LNM was also found with the incremental intensity of IHC for BRAFV600E expression from weak to strong reaction after adjusted potential confounders. Further studies are required to verify this association and explore the intrinsic mechanism.

In order to prepare the polyurethane with less reliance on the oil resources, natural, renewable castor oil was used as raw materials to replace the traditional oil type polyols. The castor oil-based waterborne polyurethane was synthesized by the reaction of toluene diisocyanate (TDI), castor oil (C.O.), dimethylol propionic acid (DMPA) and triethyl amine (TEA). The results revealed that the best paper surface strength properties could be obtained under the condition that the mole ratio of TDI to C.O. was 3.0, prepolymerization temperature was 75°C and dosage of hydrophilic chain extender DMPA was 12.1%. In addition, picking speed of paper surface sized by this emulsion increased 2.53 times compared to the unsized paper, from 0.81m/s to 2.86 m/s, Printing ink absorption value and PPS value reduced in a reasonable scope, 60 s Cobb value was below 30 g/m2.

This paper presents a surface reconstruction algorithm from unorganized point sets based on region-growing and Gabriel. It begins with computing the Gabriel graph of the sampling point sets, and then performs a region growing process to ‘grow’ into a triangulated surface from the Gabriel structure. Compared with the traditional approach based on Delaunay and region-growing, the proposed algorithm requires only a subset of the Delaunary structure and needs no Voronoi information, so it is more efficient. Experimental results show that this method is robust and effective on handling surfaces with complex topology, boundaries, and even non-uniform sample points.

Reducing standby supply voltage to DRV can sharply decrease leakage power. In this paper, a feedback monitor scheme for standby V DD scaling is proposed. The feedback scheme utilizes the same memory cell to obtain exactly the same performance with SRAM core cells and thus to monitor approximate DRV tail of SRAM array. Based on Monte-Carlo DRV distribution along with its dependencies on body-bias and source-bias voltage, we add controlling options to regulate the DRV of monitor cells and then to approach the worst-case DRV of core cells. The feedback monitor scheme for detecting DRV is implemented with bank-based SRAM design. Simulation results on 55nm CMOS process indicates that for a 512KB SRAM, leakage power savings are achieved in different process corners compared to conventional SRAM structure.

As the technology scales down to 90 nm and below, static random access memory (SRAM) standby leak-age power is becoming one of the most critical concerns for low power applications. In this article, we re-view three major leakage current components of SRAM cells and also discuss some of the leakage current reduction techniques including body biasing, source biasing, dynamic VDD, negative wordline, and bitline floating schemes. All of them are achieved by controlling different terminal voltages of the SRAM cell in standby mode. On the other hand, performance loss occurs simultaneously with leakage saving. To validate the effectiveness of low power techniques, the leakage current, static noise margin, and read current of SRAM cells, based on the UMC 55 nm CMOS process with leakage current reduction techniques has been simulated. The results indicate that by using the dynamic VDD and source biasing schemes, greater leakage suppressing capability, although with a higher performance loss, can be obtain...