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Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) may improve survival in patients with inoperable pulmonary oligometastases. However, the impact of pulmonary oligometastatic status after systemic therapy on SABR outcomes remains unclear. Hence, we investigated the outcomes of SABR in 45 patients with 77 lung tumors and the prognostic value of pulmonary oligoprogression. Eligibility criteria were pulmonary oligometastases (defined as ≤5 metastatic lung tumors), controlled extrapulmonary disease (EPD) after front-line systemic therapy, SABR as primary local treatment for inoperable pulmonary metastases, and consecutive imaging follow-up. Oligometastatic lung tumor was classified into controlled or oligoprogressive status. Overall survival (OS), in-field progression-free survival (IFPFS), out-field progression-free survival (OFPFS), and prognostic variables were evaluated. With 21.8 months median follow-up, the median OS, IFPFS, and OFPFS were 28.3, not reached, and 6.5 months, respectively. Two-year OS, IFPFS, and OFPFS rates were 56.0%, 74.2%, and 17.3%, respectively. Oligoprogressive status (p = 0.003), disease-free interval < 24 months (p = 0.041), and biologically effective dose (BED10) < 100 Gy (p = 0.006) were independently associated with inferior OS. BED10 ≥ 100 Gy (p = 0.029) was independently correlated with longer IFPFS. Oligoprogressive status (p = 0.017) and EPD (p = 0.019) were significantly associated with inferior OFPFS. Grade ≥ 2 radiation pneumonitis occurred in four (8.9%) patients. Conclusively, SABR with BED10 ≥ 100 Gy could provide substantial in-field tumor control and longer OS for systemic therapy respondents with inoperable pulmonary oligometastases. Oligoprogressive lung tumors exhibited a higher risk of out-field treatment failure and shorter OS. Hence, systemic therapy should be tailored for patients with oligoprogression to reduce the risk of out-field treatment failure. However, in the absence of effective systemic therapy, SABR is a reasonable alternative to reduce resistant tumor burden.

In this paper, we present a novel and unified model for studying the vibration of cylindrical shells based on the three-dimensional (3D) elastic theory and the Carrera Unified Formulation. Our approach represents a significant advancement in the field, as it enables us to accurately predict the vibrational behavior of cylindrical shells under arbitrary boundary conditions. To accomplish this, we expand the axial, circumferential, and radial displacements of the shell using Chebyshev polynomials and Taylor series, thereby reducing the dimensionality of the expansion and ensuring the precision and rigor of our results. In addition, we introduce three groups of artificial boundary surface springs to simulate the general end boundary conditions of the cylindrical shell and coupling springs to strongly couple the two surfaces of the cylindrical shell φ = 0 and φ = 2π to ensure continuity of displacements on these faces. Using the energy function of the entire cylindrical shell model, we obtain the characteristic equation of the system by finding the partial derivatives of the unknown coefficients of displacement in the energy function. By solving this equation, we can directly obtain the vibration characteristics of the cylindrical shell. We demonstrate the convergence, accuracy, and reliability of our approach by comparing our computational results with existing results in the literature and finite element results. Finally, we present simulation results of the frequency features of cylindrical shells with various geometrical and boundary parameters in the form of tables and figures. Overall, we believe that our novel approach has the potential to greatly enhance our understanding of cylindrical shells and pave the way for further advancements in the field of structural engineering. Our comprehensive model and simulation results contribute to the ongoing efforts to develop efficient and reliable techniques for analyzing the vibrational behavior of cylindrical shells.

The SPR phenomenon results in an abrupt change in the optical phase such that one can measure the phase shift of the reflected light as a sensing parameter. Moreover, many studies have demonstrated that the phase changes more acutely than the intensity, leading to a higher sensitivity to the refractive index change. However, currently, the optical phase cannot be measured directly because of its high frequency; therefore, investigators usually have to use complicated techniques for the extraction of phase information. In this study, we propose a simple and effective strategy for measuring the SPR phase shift based on phase-shift interferometry. In this system, the polarization-dependent interference signals are recorded simultaneously by a pixelated polarization camera in a single snapshot. Subsequently, the phase information can be effortlessly acquired by a phase extraction algorithm. Experimentally, the proposed phase-sensitive SPR sensor was successfully applied for the detection of small molecules of glyphosate, which is the most frequently used herbicide worldwide. Additionally, the sensor exhibited a detection limit of 15 ng/mL (0.015 ppm). Regarding its simplicity and effectiveness, we believe that our phase-sensitive SPR system presents a prospective method for acquiring phase signals.

The nanocone-shaped carbon nanotubes field-emitter array (NCNA) is a near-ideal field-emitter array that combines the advantages of geometry and material. In contrast to previous methods of field-emitter array, laser ablation is a low-cost and clean method that does not require any photolithography or wet chemistry. However, nanocone shapes are hard to achieve through laser ablation due to the micrometer-scale focusing spot. Here, we develop an ultraviolet (UV) laser beam patterning technique that is capable of reliably realizing NCNA with a cone-tip radius of ≈300 nm, utilizing optimized beam focusing and unique carbon nanotube–light interaction properties. The patterned array provided smaller turn-on fields (reduced from 2.6 to 1.6 V/μm) in emitters and supported a higher (increased from 10 to 140 mA/cm2) and more stable emission than their unpatterned counterparts. The present technique may be widely applied in the fabrication of high-performance CNTs field-emitter arrays.

In this study, we applied microbial induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) technology to improve the undesirable characteristics of Pisha sandstone weathered soil that collapses easily upon environmental erosion. Through disintegration tests and wind erosion tests, the anti-water scour and anti-sand erosion performance of the weathered soil was tested before and after the improvement. Combined with an analysis of the physical properties and pore structure of the samples, this paper analyzes the internal mechanism by which MICP technology improves the poor characteristics of the soil. The results show that after improvement with the use of MICP technology, effective cementation is formed between the soil particles to form a solidified material with a strength of up to 1 MPa with a precipitated carbonate content of up to 15%, which effectively improves the water erosion resistance and wind erosion resistance. The disintegration rate of the improved soil sample was only 1.95% at the 30th minute, the remolded soil completely disintegrated, and the undisturbed soil reached 39.64%. The wind erosion resistance of the improved sample is improved, and its coefficient at a 30° erosion angle is increased roughly 20-fold on average when the wind speed is 31 m/s. The internal mechanism of the improved soil when it comes into contact with water and wind is that the induced calcium carbonate crystals fill the pores of the soil particles and adhere to and bridge between soil particles for effective cementation. When the soil expands after water invasion or the soil is destroyed after external erosion, the cementation of mineral crystals on the particles can resist the expansion force and punching force so as to improve the soil’s overall anti-erosion performance.

Background: Health organisations and stakeholders use social media for a range of functions, including engaging stakeholders in the design and quality improvement (QI) of services. Social media may help overcome some of the limitations of traditional stakeholder engagement methods. This scoping review explores the benefits, risks, barriers and enablers for using social media as a tool for stakeholder engagement in health service design and QI. Methods: The searches were conducted on 16 August 2022. Inclusion criteria were: studies of any health service stakeholders, in any health setting, where social media was used as a tool for service design or QI. Data was analysed using deductive content analysis. A committee of stakeholders provided input on research questions, data analysis and key findings. Results: 61 studies were included. Benefits included improved organisational communication and relationship building. Risks/limitations included low quality of engagement and harms to users. Limited access and familiarity with social media were frequently reported barriers. Making discussions safe and facilitating access were common enablers. Conclusion: The benefits, risks, barriers and enablers identified highlight the complexity of social media as an engagement tool for health service design and QI. Understanding these experiences may help implementers design more effective social media-based engagement activities.

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) has emerged as a promising, advanced technology in remote sensing and has demonstrated great potential in the exploitation of a wide variety of data. In particular, its capability has expanded from unmixing data samples and detecting targets at the subpixel scale to finding endmembers, which generally cannot be resolved by multispectral imaging. Accordingly, a wealth of new HSI research has been conducted and reported in the literature in recent years. The aim of this Special Issue “Advances in Hyperspectral Data Exploitation“ is to provide a forum for scholars and researchers to publish and share their research ideas and findings to facilitate the utility of hyperspectral imaging in data exploitation and other applications. With this in mind, this Special Issue accepted and published 19 papers in various areas, which can be organized into 9 categories, including I: Hyperspectral Image Classification, II: Hyperspectral Target Detection, III: Hyperspectral and Multispectral Fusion, IV: Mid-wave Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging, V: Hyperspectral Unmixing, VI: Hyperspectral Sensor Hardware Design, VII: Hyperspectral Reconstruction, VIII: Hyperspectral Visualization, and IX: Applications.

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) stimulates pleural mesothelial cell (PMC) to overproduce plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), and thus may promote pleural fibrosis in Gram-positive bacteria (GPB) parapneumonic effusion (PPE). Histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) was found to possess anti-fibrotic properties. However, the effects of HDACi on pleural fibrosis remain unclear. The effusion PAI-1 was measured among 64 patients with GPB PPE. Pleural fibrosis was measured as radiographical residual pleural thickening (RPT) and opacity at a 12-month follow-up. The LTA−stimulated human PMCs and intrapleural doxycycline−injected rats were pretreated with or without the pan-HDACi, m-carboxycinnamic acid bis-hydroxamide (CBHA), then PAI-1 and collagen expression and activated signalings in PMCs, and morphologic pleural changes in rats were measured. Effusion PAI-1 levels were significantly higher in GPB PPE patients with RPT &gt, 10 mm (n = 26) than those without (n = 38), and had positive correlation with pleural fibrosis shadowing. CBHA significantly reduced LTA−induced PAI-1 and collagen expression via inhibition of JNK, and decreased PAI-1 promoter activity and mRNA levels in PMCs. Furthermore, in doxycycline−treated rats, CBHA substantially repressed PAI-1 and collagen synthesis in pleural mesothelium and minimized pleural fibrosis. Conclusively, CBHA abrogates LTA−induced PAI-1 and collagen expression in PMCs and attenuates experimental pleural fibrosis. PAI-1 inhibition by HDACi may confer potential therapy for pleural fibrosis.

Background: Patients with dementia often present agitated behaviors. The Cohen–Mansfield Agitation Inventory-short form (CMAI-SF) is one of the most widely used instruments to evaluate agitated behaviors that affect patients’ quality of life and impose burden on caregivers. However, there is no simplified Chinese version of the CMAI-SF (C-CMAI-SF) in clinical settings. Purpose: This study aimed to develop a Chinese version of the C-CMAI-SF and examine its validity and reliability. Methods: This cross-sectional study included three phases. In Phase I, the original CMAI-SF was translated to Chinese. In Phase II, experts were invited to examine the content validity index (CVI). Phase III was conducted to test the validity and reliability of the C-CMAI-SF. Results: The scale showed good validity and reliability with a scale-level CVI of 0.89, Cronbach’s alpha (measure of internal consistency) of 0.874, and test–retest correlation coefficient of 0.902 (for 257 individuals). Using factor analysis, three factors were identified. Regarding concurrent validity, the C-CMAI-SF score was correlated with the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (agitation aggression subscale) and the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (agitation subscale). Conclusions: The study demonstrated that the C-CMAI-SF is a valid and reliable instrument for evaluating agitated behaviors in people with dementia. Relevance to clinical practice: The C-CMAI-SF is an easy and quick tool used to identify and evaluate agitated behaviors in busy clinical settings.

The degradation of a high concentration of organic pollutants has long been a challenge to water restoration, and the development of electro-Fenton catalysis offers a practical approach to solving this problem. In this study, a novel electro-Fenton catalyst, activated fullerene soot-loaded NiO-doped CeO2 (0.4(0.4NiO-CeO2)-AFS) nanoparticles, was prepared through the impregnation of 0.4NiO-CeO2 particles and activated fullerene soot (AFS). When applied for the degradation of 200 mg/L of tetracycline, this catalyst demonstrated a degradation rate as high as 99%. Even after 20 cycles, the degradation rate was more than 80%. Moreover, it was concluded that AFS could initiate the synergistic effect between Ni and Ce dual active centers in the degradation of tetracycline; this can be ascribed to the extremely large specific surface area of AFS.

Lung cancer occurs in the lungs, trachea, or bronchi. This cancer is often caused by malignant nodules. These cancer cells spread uncontrollably to other organs of the body and pose a threat to life. An accurate assessment of disease severity is critical to determining the optimal treatment approach. In this study, a Taguchi-based convolutional neural network (CNN) was proposed for classifying nodules into malignant or benign. For setting parameters in a CNN, most users adopt trial and error to determine structural parameters. This study used the Taguchi method for selecting preliminary factors. The orthogonal table design is used in the Taguchi method. The final optimal parameter combination was determined, as were the most significant parameters. To verify the proposed method, the lung image database consortium data set from the National Cancer Institute was used for analysis. The database contains a total of 16,471 images, including 11,139 malignant nodule images. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method with the optimal parameter combination obtained an accuracy of 99.6%.

Affected by climate change owing to global warming, the frequency of extreme rainfall events has gradually increased in recent years. Many studies have analyzed the impacts of climate change in various fields. However, uncertainty about the scenarios they used is still an important issue. This study used two and four multi-scenarios at the base period (1979&ndash, 2003) and the end of the 21st century (2075&ndash, 2099) to collect the top-ranking typhoons and analyze the rainfall conditions of these typhoons in two catchments in northern Taiwan. The landslide-area characteristics caused by these typhoons were estimated using empirical relationships, with rainfall conditions established by a previous study. In addition to counting landslide-area characteristics caused by the typhoons of each single scenario, we also used the ensemble method to combine all scenarios to calculate landslide-area characteristic statistics. Comparing the statistical results of each single scenario and the ensembles, we found that the ensemble method minimized the uncertainty and identified the possible most severe case from the simulation. We further separated typhoons into the top 5%, 5%&ndash, 10%, and 10%&ndash, 15% to confirm possible changes in landslide-area characteristics under climate change. We noticed that the uncertainty of the base period and the end of the 21st century almost overlapped if only a single scenario was used. In contrast, the ensemble approach successfully distinguished the differences in both the average values of landslide-area characteristics and the 95% confidence intervals. The ensemble results indicated that the landslide magnitude triggered by medium- and high-level typhoons (top 5%&ndash, 15%) will increase by 24%&ndash, 29% and 125%&ndash, 200% under climate change in the Shihmen Reservoir catchment and the Xindian River catchment, respectively, while landslides triggered by extreme-level typhoons (top 5%) will increase by 8% and 77%, respectively. Still, the uncertainty of landslide-area characteristics caused by extreme typhoon events is slightly high, indicating that we need to include more possible scenarios in future work.

The process of protein ubiquitination and deubiquitination plays an important role in maintaining protein stability and regulating signal pathways, and protein homeostasis perturbations may induce a variety of diseases. The deubiquitination process removes ubiquitin molecules from the protein, which requires the participation of deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs). Ubiquitin-specific protease 15 (USP15) is a DUB that participates in many biological cell processes and regulates tumorigenesis. A dislocation catalytic triplet was observed in the USP15 structure, a conformation not observed in other USPs, except USP7, which makes USP15 appear to be unique. USP15 has been reported to be involved in the regulation of various cancers and diseases, and the reported substrate functions of USP15 are conflicting, suggesting that USP15 may act as both an oncogene and a tumor suppressor in different contexts. The importance and complexity of USP15 in the pathological processes remains unclear. Therefore, we reviewed the diverse biological functions of USP15 in cancers and other diseases, suggesting the potential of USP15 as an attractive therapeutic target.

Taiwan’s climate change projections have always presented a challenge due to Taiwan’s size and unique meteorological and geographical characteristics. The Taiwan Climate Change Projection Information and Adaptation Knowledge Platform (TCCIP), funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, is a decade-long climate research project with the most predominant climate data provider and national adaptation policymaking in the country. This paper outlines the evolution of the project. It describes the project’s major achievements, including climate projection arising from participation in the WCRP Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP), dynamically and statistically downscaled data with resolutions up to 5 km grid, impact assessments of various themes, such as flooding, as well as the support of national policies through approaches including risk maps, climate data, and knowledge brokering.

Thrombin is an essential procoagulant and profibrotic mediator. However, its implication in tuberculous pleural effusion (TBPE) remains unknown. The effusion thrombin and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) levels were measured among transudative pleural effusion (TPE, n = 22) and TBPE (n = 24) patients. Pleural fibrosis, identified as radiological residual pleural thickening (RPT) and shadowing, was measured at 12-month follow-up. Moreover, in vivo and in vitro effects of thrombin on PAI-1 expression and mesothelial&ndash, mesenchymal transition (MMT) were assessed. We demonstrated the effusion thrombin levels were significantly higher in TBPE than TPE, especially greater in TBPE patients with RPT &gt, 10mm than those without, and correlated positively with PAI-1 and pleural fibrosis area. In carbon black/bleomycin-treated mice, knockdown of protease-activated receptor-1 (PAR-1) markedly downregulated &alpha, smooth muscle actin (&alpha, SMA) and fibronectin, and attenuated pleural fibrosis. In pleural mesothelial cells (PMCs), thrombin concentration-dependently increased PAI-1, &alpha, SMA, and collagen I expression. Specifically, Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Ra (MTBRa) induced thrombin production by PMCs via upregulating tissue factor and prothrombin, and PAR-1 silencing considerably abrogated MTBRa&minus, stimulated PAI-1 expression and MMT. Consistently, prothrombin/PAR-1 expression was evident in the pleural mesothelium of TBPE patients. Conclusively, thrombin upregulates PAI-1 and MMT and may contribute to tuberculous pleural fibrosis. Thrombin/PAR-1 inhibition may confer potential therapy for pleural fibrosis.

Taking an environment-friendly green closed-loop supply chain as the research object, this work established a two-stage closed-loop supply chain game model. Considering the influence of the environmental protection input on the whole supply chain, there are different decisions among the participants in the supply chain, and the different choices will have impacts on the benefits of the whole supply chain when manufacturers select a closed-loop supply chain model of third-party recycling. Hence, this work compared and analyzed the impact of centralized decision-making and decentralized decision-making on the returns and pricing strategies of each participant. Finally, an optimized cooperative mechanism decision model considering a cost profit sharing contract was further designed. The model is conducive to obtaining the maximum profit value in centralized decision-making and avoids the negative impact of a &ldquo, double marginal effect&rdquo, on supply chain income in decentralized decision-making, and finally, improves the overall coordination and profit of a green closed-loop supply chain. The numerical examples are conducted to verify the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed models. This work provides a helpful decision support and guidance for enterprises and the government on the used products recycling decisions to better manage the green closed-loop supply chain.