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Purpose: This study investigated the impacts of the number of positive lymph nodes (NPLN) and lymph node ratio (LN ratio) for patients with hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HPSCC) based on SEER database, which were validated in the real-world data of China. Methods: A total of 520 patients from SEER database were analyzed. Then 195 patients with pathologically stage III or IV HPSCC in our center were retrospectively studied. Results: In the SEER database, NPLN ≥ 3 was found in 36.9% of patients. Multivariate analysis revealed that LN ratio ≥ 0.138 was significant with poorer overall survival (OS) (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.525, p = 0.001) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) (HR = 1.697, p < 0.001), so was the NPLN ≥ 3 (HR = 1.388, p = 0.013; HR = 1.479, p = 0.008). Patients with NPLN ≥ 3 were found in 103 (52.8%) in our center. Multivariate analysis confirmed a significant association regarding OS (p = 0.005) or CSS (p = 0.003) between patients with LN ratio ≥ 0.138 or not. In addition, disease recurrence rate differed significantly between the patients with NPLN ≥ 3 (27.2%) and NPLN < 3 (14.1%, p = 0.026). Moreover, postoperative chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) was significantly associated with better prognosis in patients with NPLN ≥ 3. Conclusion: In the SEER database, NPLN ≥ 3 and LN ratio ≥ 0.138 were independent poor prognostic factors for patients with HPSCC. Whereas identifying worldwide cut-off values for LN ratio is difficult and surgeon-dependent. In our cohort, adjuvant CCRT was beneficial for OS in patients with NPLN ≥ 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new guidance strategy is proposed for achieving precise control of time-varying velocity aircraft with impact time and angle constraints. The traditional guidance law assumes that the velocity of the aircraft is constant, but in the actual scenario, the velocity of the aircraft changes with time, thus affecting the guidance accuracy with impact time and angle constraints. To overcome these difficulties, a guidance strategy consisting of trajectory generation and trajectory tracking is proposed. Firstly, the reference trajectory is constructed based on the Bézier spiral, which naturally satisfies the impact angle constraint. Then, the control problem of the impact time is transformed into an adjustment problem of the trajectory length. The expression of the Bézier spiral that is only related to the curvature is derived, and a new lemma describing the relationship between trajectory length and curvature is found. Furthermore, the differential flatness property of the control system is explored to design a trajectory tracking method for the Bézier spiral trajectory, which applies feedback linearization of the system through higher-order information. Finally, numerical simulations confirm the superiority of the proposed method and validate the analytic findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Establishing a reliable credit card fraud detection model has become a primary focus for academia and the financial industry. The existing anti-fraud methods face challenges related to low recall rates, inaccurate results, and insufficient causal modeling ability. This paper proposes a credit card fraud detection model based on counterfactual data enhancement of the triplet network. Firstly, we convert the problem of generating optimal counterfactual explanations (CFs) into a policy optimization of agents in the discrete–continuous mixed action space, thereby ensuring the stable generation of optimal CFs. The triplet network then utilizes the feature similarity and label difference of positive example samples and CFs to enhance the learning of the causal relationship between features and labels. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method improves the accuracy and robustness of the credit card fraud detection model, outperforming existing methods. The research outcomes are of significant value for both credit card anti-fraud research and practice while providing a novel approach to causal modeling issues across other fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) with human papillomavirus (HPV)-negative, deregulation of cell cycle is partly due to inactivation of p16INK4 and overexpression of cyclin D1. Here we investigated the in vitro and in vivo effects of the CDK4/6 inhibitor Palbociclib alone or combined with EGFR inhibitor Cetuximab in HNSCC. Methods and results: CCK-8, soft agar assay, colony formation assay, wound healing assay and transwell assay, β-galactosidase assay, western blotting, and cell-derived xenografts were used to investigated the in vitro and in vivo activity of drugs. Cell viability and colony formation decreased in a dose-dependent manner in Tu686, AMC-HN8, and Fadu cells under Palbociclib treatment. Palbociclib remarkably inhibited migration, invasion and the expression MMP-9 in HNSCC cells. Palbociclib also induced senescence. Palbociclib caused the dephosphorylation of RB but increased the cyclin D1 level in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, combination with Cetuximab could significantly prevent the induction of cyclin D1 and activation of EGFR signals from Palbociclib treatment. Nevertheless, only within the range of certain concentrations, a synergistic inhibitory effect on cell growth was observed when combined with Palbociclib and Cetuximab. Although the synergistic effect in Palbociclib/Cetuximab combined therapy was comparable to that in traditional chemotherapeutic regimens (cisplatin/Cetuximab) in Fadu tumor xenograft, the combination therapy was less active than Cetuximab monotherapy in Tu686 tumor xenograft. Conclusion: In HPV-negative HNSCC, CDK4/6 inhibitor shows promising anti-tumor effects, which exhibits a synergistic effect when combined with EGFR inhibitor only in specific drug concentration and mouse model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a metal artifact reduction method of using MV-CBCT images to correct metal artifacts in kV-CT images, especially for the complex metal artifacts caused by multi-metal interaction of patients with head and neck tumors. The different tissue regions are segmented in the MV-CBCT images to obtain template images and the metal region is segmented in the kV-CT images. Forward projection is performed to get sinogram of the template images, kV-CT images and metal region images. Artifact images can be reconstructed through those sonograms. Corrected images is generated by subtracting the artifact images from the original kV-CT images. After the first correction, the template images are generated again and brought into the previous step for iteration to get better correction result. CT data set of 7 patients are used in this study, compared with linear interpolation metal artifact (LIMAR) and normalized metal artifact reduction method, mean relative error of CT value is reduced by 50.5% and 63.3%, noise is reduced by 56.2% and 58.9%. The Identifiability Score of the tooth, upper/lower jaw, tongue, lips, masseter muscle and cavity in the corrected images by the proposed method have significantly improved (P < 0.05) than original images. The artifacts correction method proposed in this paper can effectively remove the metal artifacts in the images and greatly improve the CT value accuracy, especially in the case of multi-metal and complex metal implantation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Underwater acoustic metasurfaces have broad application prospects for the stealth of underwater objects. However, problems such as a narrow operating frequency band, poor operating performance, and considerable thickness at low frequencies remain. In this study a reverse design method for ultra-thin underwater acoustic metasurfaces for low-frequency broadband is proposed using a tandem fully connected deep neural network. The tandem neural network consists of a pre-trained forward neural network and a reverse neural network, based on which a set of elements with flat phase variation and an almost equal phase shift interval in the range of 700–1150 Hz is designed. A diffuse underwater acoustic metasurface with 60 elements was designed, showing that the energy loss of the metasurface in the echo direction was greater than 10 dB. Our work opens a novel pathway for realising low-frequency wideband underwater acoustic devices, which will enable various applications in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lead-free potassium sodium niobate [(K, Na)NbO3, KNN]-based ceramics have aroused great interest due to their excellent piezoelectricity and high Curie temperature. However, the deteriorative microstructure of KNN-based ceramics restricts their further developments. In this work, various kinds of oxide additives (Al2O3, Co2O3, Nb2O5, SnO2 and HfO2) are introduced into the KNN-based ceramics to increase the grain size and wipe the microcracks to improve their microstructures. Herein, large piezoelectric coefficient values (d33 ≈ 450–500 pC/N) and high Curie temperature values (TC ≈ 255–263 °C) together with high electromechanical coupling coefficient values (kp ≈ 0.50–0.56) are obtained in constructed R-O-T multiphase coexisted KNN-based ceramics. Moreover, the KNN ceramic with the addition of Al2O3 exhibits an optimal unipolar strain value (S = 0.124%) and a high inverse piezoelectric constant (d33* = 494 pm/V). We believe that our findings provide a simple, effective, and applicable approach to optimize the electrical performances of KNN-based system materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Definitive radiotherapy (RT) is recommended by NCCN guidelines for T4b tumors of sinonasal squamous cell carcinomas (SNSCC). However, no multi-institutional clinical studies have proved its advantage over surgery-based modalities. The aim of this study was to assess the survival of T4bN0M0 SNSCC patients who received surgery plus postoperative radiation (S + PORT) compared with those who received RT. Methods: This study extracted 220 patients from the SEER database from 2004 to 2015. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to eliminate the baseline variations. Results: In SEER database, 43.6% of patients received S + PORT, and subsequently followed by RT (36.4%). Five-year overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival rates (CSS) in S + PORT were 42.5% and 46.9%, respectively, significantly better than for RT (21.7% and 26.7%). Multivariate analysis showed that therapy of RT had higher cancer-specific mortality risk than S + PORT [hazard ratio (HR) 1.578, p = 0.032]. After PSM, 57 pairs of patients were selected. There was still a significant difference noted with regard to 5-year OS or 5-year CSS between patients receiving S + PORT and RT (43% vs 22.5%, p = 0.012; 45.8% vs 27.7%, p = 0.025). The univariate and multivariate analyses of factors predictive of CSS showed that therapy of RT (HR 1.877, p = 0.018) and primary subsite of maxillary sinus (HR 2.629, p = 0.001) were significantly correlated with adverse outcomes. Conclusion: Combination of surgery and postoperative radiotherapy may contribute to prolonged survival in T4bN0M0 SNSCC. Invasion of the sites of T4b tumors is not an absolute contraindication for surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]