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Objective. Parotid gland (PG) is a radiosensitive organ, and xerostomia (XS) is a key factor affecting patients’ life quality after conventional radiotherapy for head and neck tumors. In this study, dosimetry analysis was performed on PG stem cell preservation in intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Methods. All clinical data of 80 NPC patients diagnosed pathologically in the Radiotherapy Department of Taizhou Hospital of Zhejiang Province Affiliated with Wenzhou Medical University from August 2017 to September 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were assigned to a regular group and a restricted group according to different IMRT plans, in which a dose limitation for the parotid duct was added in the restricted group in addition to the conventional plan used in the regular group to minimize the parotid duct radiation dose. The differences in planning target volume (PTV) dose distribution, organ at risk (OAR) dose, and dose to the PG and its ducts were compared between the two groups. Results. Significantly higher mean irradiation doses of the brainstem, mandible, and oral cavity were determined in the restricted group compared with the regular group ( P > 0.05 ), but there was no significant difference in the mean dose of other OARs irradiated ( P > 0.05 ). As compared to the irradiation of bilateral PGs, no statistical differences were found in the mean irradiation dose and V30 between regular and restricted groups ( P > 0.05 ), but lower V20 and higher V45 were determined in the restricted group ( P < 0.05 ). The mean irradiation dose, V15, V20, and V26 of bilateral parotid ducts were lower in the restricted group as compared to the regular group ( P < 0.05 ). Conclusion. IMRT for NPC can effectively reduce the mean irradiation dose and play a PG stem cell preservation role by giving specific dose limitation conditions to the parotid duct area without affecting PTV dose distribution and OAR irradiation dose, which has certain feasibility.

Green development and the digital economy are receiving increasing attention among scholars, practitioners, and policy makers, as the link between the two remains unclear, and exploring the study of the mechanisms at play between the two to achieve quality economic development is an urgent issue to be addressed. This study addresses this gap and aims to provide clarity by analyzing examples of business practices in developing countries. Using a total of 20,283 datasets from 2049 listed manufacturing firms from China from 2007 to 2020 as the study sample, the mechanism of digital transformation’s impact on firms’ green technological innovation capability is empirically examined and the mediating role of firms’ green dynamic capabilities is verified. This study finds that: (1) Digital transformation significantly enhances the level of green technology innovation of enterprises. (2) There is a partial mediating effect of green dynamic capabilities in the process of digital transformation positively affecting enterprises’ green technology innovation. (3) Digital transformation by state-owned, central and western regions and by medium-sized enterprises is more significantly effective in promoting green technology innovation than non-state-owned, eastern regions and small and large enterprises. (4) The analysis of economic consequences shows that digital transformation can mitigate the incremental costs incurred in the process of digital transformation by empowering enterprises to achieve green development and cost reduction through green technology innovation.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies worldwide. However, there is a lack of adequate means of treatment prognostication for HCC. Pyroptosis is a newly discovered way of programmed cell death. However, the prognostic role of pyroptosis in HCC has not been thoroughly investigated. Here, we generated a novel prognostic signature to evaluate the prognostic value of pyroptosis-related genes (PRGs) using the data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The accuracy of the signature was validated using survival analysis through the International Cancer Genome Consortium cohort ( n = 231 ) and the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University cohort ( n = 180 ). Compared with other clinical factors, the risk score of the signature was found to be associated with better patient outcomes. The enrichment analysis identified multiple pathways related with pyroptosis in HCC. Furthermore, drug sensitivity testing identified six potential chemotherapeutic agents to provide possible treatment avenues. Interestingly, patients with low risk were confirmed to be associated with lower tumor mutation burden (TMB). However, patients at high risk were found to have a higher count of immune cells. Consensus clustering was performed to identify two main molecular subtypes (named clusters A and B) based on the signature. It was found that compared with cluster B, better survival outcomes and lower TMB were observed in cluster A. In conclusion, signature construction and molecular subtype identification of PRGs could be used to predict the prognosis of HCC, which may provide a specific reference for the development of novel biomarkers for HCC treatment.

Background: In recent studies, the role of modification patterns of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) regulators in tumor microenvironment (TME) cell infiltration in the tumor microenvironment has been identified. However, the role of 5-methylcytosine (m5C) modification patterns in TME cell infiltration remains to be discovered. Methods: In this study, 660 bladder cancer patients were enrolled to comprehensively evaluate the m5C modification pattern based on 13 m5C regulators, and to explore the association between m5C modification pattern and TME cell infiltration status. Finally, PRINCIPAL component analysis (PCA) algorithm constructed m5Cscore, which was used to evaluate and quantify individual m5C modification patterns. Results: Our study identified three distinct m5C modification patterns in bladder cancer. Studies showed that TME cell infiltration characteristics under these three modification patterns were highly associated with three tumor immunophenotypes (immune-inflamed, immune-excluded, immune-desert). In addition, m5C methylation modification patterns were proved to be able to predict tumor disease progression, genetic variation and prognosis of patients. The individualized scoring system – m5Cscore, which was based on m5C methylation modification, showed great differences in tumor mutation burden (TMB), clinical characteristics, immune checkpoint and immunotherapy. The low m5Cscore group was characterized by matrix activation and lack of effective immune cell infiltration, indicating the immune-excluded phenotype. The higher m5Cscore group showed fewer PD-L1 mutations, which were associated with a promoted response to PD-L1/PD-1 immunotherapy and a better prognosis. Conclusions: This work confirmed the extensive regulatory mechanisms of the m5C modification pattern in the tumor microenvironment. The m5C modification pattern functioned as an important element of forming the heterogeneity and complexity of TME landscape. Understanding and in-depth evaluation of individual m5C modification patterns would help us understand the TME landscape and guide better immunotherapy strategies.

A central theme in the field of survey statistics is estimating population-level quantities through data coming from potentially non-representative samples of the population. Multilevel Regression and Poststratification (MRP), a model-based approach, is gaining traction against the traditional weighted approach for survey estimates. MRP estimates are susceptible to bias if there is an underlying structure that the methodology does not capture. This work aims to provide a new framework for specifying structured prior distributions that lead to bias reduction in MRP estimates. We use simulation studies to explore the benefit of these prior distributions and demonstrate their efficacy on non-representative US survey data. We show that structured prior distributions offer absolute bias reduction and variance reduction for posterior MRP estimates in a large variety of data regimes., Comment: Minor revision. Added plots showing share of simulations where structured priors outperformed baseline priors in MRP

To improve the signal recognition effect of the security system, this paper studies the security system based on intelligent Fiber Optic Sensor (FOS) technology. Firstly, the research background of intelligent FOS is introduced, and its current situation in feature extraction, recognition, and detection is introduced. Secondly, the double Mach–Zehnder (M-Z) Optical Fiber- (OF-) based interferometer model is implemented, and the Wavelet Analysis (WA) theory is introduced to analyze the characteristic threshold and Frequency (F) characteristics of intrusion signal. Finally, the distributed intelligent FOS-based perimeter security system is constructed, and an empirical study is conducted to verify its performance. The results show that the intruder knocking-induced signal F, intruder climbing-induced signal F, noiseless environment-induced signal F, and rainy environment-induced signal F are 0–250 kHz, 0–25 kHz, 0–1.5 kHz, and 0–3.5 kHz, respectively; in all the four cases, excellent results have been obtained after wavelet threshold denoising. Meanwhile, the received signal is decomposed into seven layers through multiscale WA theory. The signal feature classification is based on WA and takes variance as the representation, and the clear classification results are obtained; when the False Alarm Rate (FAR) = 1%, the detection probability of the proposed system is about 99%, while the detection probability of the traditional system is about 3%. The reference arm and sensing arm of the distributed OF-based perimeter security system can be laid in the same optical cable. Therefore, the designed wavelet threshold filtering method is feasible, and the detection probability of the designed WA-based system is higher than that of the traditional security system. The research content provides a reference for the development of intelligent FOS technology in the field of security.

Junting Huang,1,* Yating Zhan,1,* Lili Jiang,1,* Yuxiang Gao,1,* Binyu Zhao,1,* Yuxiao Zhang,1 Wenjie Zhang,1 Jianjian Zheng,1 Jinglu Yu2,3 1Key Laboratory of Diagnosis and Treatment of Severe Hepato-Pancreatic Diseases of Zhejiang Province, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, 325000, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Laboratory Medicine, Lishui Municipal Central Hospital, Lishui, People’s Republic of China; 3The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Lishui, Zhejiang, 323000, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Jinglu YuDepartment of Laboratory Medicine, Lishui Municipal Central Hospital, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, No. 289 Kuocang Road, Lishui, Zhejiang, 323000, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail yujinglu2482@163.comJianjian ZhengKey Laboratory of Diagnosis and Treatment of Severe Hepato-Pancreatic Diseases of Zhejiang Province, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, No. 2 Fuxue Lane, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail 120378196@qq.comAim: This study was done to determine biomarkers for the prognostic prediction of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).Materials and Methods: In the Gene Expression Omnibus, the gene expression profiles of HCC were downloaded. Biomarkers were identified by weighted gene co-expression network analysis and protein–protein interaction network analysis.Results: There were 24 modules, which were characterized by the high correlation with HCC. Meanwhile, through enrichment analysis, differentially expressed genes were largely participated in the ubiquitination and autophagy processes. Moreover, PRC1, TOP2A and CKAP2L may be the hub genes involved in HCC tumorigenesis, and their biomarker roles were further demonstrated via Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) and Oncomine databases. In addition, the levels of PRC1, TOP2A and CKAP2L were obviously up-regulated in the sera of HCC patients.Conclusion: PRC1, TOP2A and CKAP2L may serve as biomarkers for the prognostic prediction of HCC patients.Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma, biomarker, WGCNA, PPI, prognosis

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common renal cell carcinoma and has poor prognosis in the locally advanced stage. Ferroptosis, a relatively new type of cell death, has gained significant attention in recent years. This study aimed to explore the prognostic value of ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs) in ccRCC. In this study, 50 differentially expressed FRGs between ccRCC and adjacent normal kidney tissues were identified, 26 of them correlated with overall survival (OS) (P <0.05). Eight optimal FRGs were selected by Lasso regression and multivariate Cox regression analysis, and used to construct a new prognostic risk signature to predict the prognosis of ccRCC patients. In addition, the signature passed the validation of prognostic survival analyses by a significant margin, and the risk score was identified as an independent prognostic marker via Cox regression analyses. Further studies indicated that the signature was significantly correlated with immune cell infiltration. Moreover, the levels of eight FRGs were examined in ccRCC. Collectively, the 8-FRG prognostic risk signature helps the clinicians predict the prognosis and OS of the patients, and standardize prognostic assessments.

Processing of mesoscale structures of soft matter and liquid is of great importance in both science and engineering. In this work, we introduce the concept of laser-assisted micromachining to this field and inject a certain number of microdroplets into a preselected location on the surface of a liquid crystal drop through laser irradiation. The impact of laser energy on the triggered injection is discussed. The sequentially injected microdroplets are spontaneously captured by the defect ring in the host drop and transported along this defect track as micro-cargos. By precisely manipulating the laser beam, the tailored injection of droplets is achieved, and the injected droplets self-assemble into one necklace ring within the host drop. The result provides a bottom-up approach for the in-situ and three-dimensional microfabrication of droplet structure of soft matter using a laser beam, which may be applicable in the development of optical and photonic devices.

The kagome lattice Co3Sn2S2 exhibits the quintessential topological phenomena of a magnetic Weyl semimetal such as the chiral anomaly and Fermi-arc surface states. Probing its magnetic properties is crucial for understanding this correlated topological state. Here, using spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/S) and non-contact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM) combined with first-principle calculations, we report the discovery of localized spin-orbit polarons (SOPs) with three-fold rotation symmetry nucleated around single S-vacancies in Co3Sn2S2. The SOPs carry a magnetic moment and a large diamagnetic orbital magnetization of a possible topological origin associated relating to the diamagnetic circulating current around the S-vacancy. Appreciable magneto-elastic coupling of the SOP is detected by nc-AFM and STM. Our findings suggest that the SOPs can enhance magnetism and more robust time-reversal-symmetry-breaking topological phenomena. Controlled engineering of the SOPs may pave the way toward practical applications in functional quantum devices., Kagome lattice material Co3Sn2S2 is identified as a magnetic Weyl semimetal and its magnetic properties are less studied. Here, the authors observe localized spin-orbit polarons nucleated around single S-vacancies carrying a large diamagnetic orbital magnetism in Co3Sn2S2.

Peripheral nerve regeneration following injury is often incomplete, resulting in significant personal and socioeconomic costs. Nerve conduits have been developed to complement or replace autologous nerve grafts. In this study, repairing injured peripheral nerves in rats is investigated by fabricating poly(D, l -lactic acid) (PDLLA)/β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) nerve conduits filled by injectable chitosan (CS)-hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogels featuring sustained release of nerve growth factor (NGF). All CS-HA hydrogels have porosities higher than 80%. The mass loss of the CS-HA hydrogels reaches 70% in 8 weeks. In vitro experiments suggest that the CS-HA/NGF hydrogels are suitable for the adhesion, spreading, and differentiation of neuronal cells, which also allow for sustained release of NGF. In vivo studies on the repair of 10-mm sciatic nerve defects in rats are used to assess nerve repair rate through walking track analysis, gastrocnemius weight analysis, and histological analysis. It is shown that the PDLLA/β-TCP nerve conduits laden with CS-HA/NGF hydrogels have a significant positive effect on the axon regeneration and myelination, compared to the PDLLA/β-TCP hollow nerve conduits and the autograft group. These results show that the CS-HA/NGF injectable hydrogel can effectively promote nerve regeneration making it a good candidate in the field of neural tissue engineering.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the impact of treatment with new direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) on the prevalent hepatitis C virus (HCV) population in England.DesignA repeated cross-sectional analysis.SettingFour secondary care hospitals in England.ParticipantsPatients who, in 2015 and/or 2016, had chronic HCV infection and were alive were eligible, regardless of the type of HCV intervention received.Outcome measuresData including intravenous drug use (IVDU) status, HCV genotype, cirrhosis status, HCV treatment history, vital status and treatment outcomes were collected at two time points in 2015 and 2016 using electronic case report forms.ResultsThere were 1605 and 1355 patients with active chronic HCV in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Between 2015 and 2016, the proportion of patients with current IVDU increased (10.3% vs 14.5%, respectively), while that of patients with cirrhosis (28.2% vs 22.4%) and treatment-experienced patients (31.2% vs 27.1%) decreased. Among patients whose treatment outcome was known by 2016, high cure rates were observed, with an overall sustained virological response rate of 93.2%. From 2015 to 2016, there was a progressive increase in the proportion of treated patients who were non-cirrhotic, with current IVDU and non-liver transplant recipients.ConclusionsThe characteristics of patients with HCV remaining in contact with specialised care evolved with a changing landscape of treatment and related health policy. With increasing access to DAAs in UK, high cure rates were achieved in the study cohort.

During the casting of high aluminum steel, the dramatic increase in the Al2O3/SiO2 ratio is inevitable, resulting in significant changes of the crystallization behavior, which would result in heat transfer and lubrication problems. Crystallization products and structure characterization of glassy CaO-SiO2-based mold fluxes with different Al2O3/SiO2 ratios were experimentally investigated using a differential scanning calorimetry technique and Raman spectroscopy. With increasing Al2O3/SiO2 ratios, the following results were obtained. The crystallization temperature and the crystallization products are changed. With increasing Al2O3/SiO2 ratios from 0.088 to 0.151, the crystallization temperature first increases greatly from 1152 °C to 1354 °C, and then moderately increases. The crystallization ability of the mold flux is strengthened. The species of the precipitated crystalline phase change from two kinds, i.e., Ca4Si2O7F2 and Ca2SiO4, to four kinds, i.e., Ca4Si2O7F2, Ca2SiO4, 2CaO·Al2O3·SiO2 and Ca12Al14O32F2, the crystallization ability of Ca4Si2O7F2 is gradually attenuated, but other species show the opposite trend. The results of Raman spectroscopy indicate that Al3+ mainly acts as a network former by the information of [AlO4]-tetrahedral structural units, which can connect with [SiO4]-tetrahedral by the formation of new bridge oxygen of Al–O–Si linkage, but there is no formation of Al–O–Al linkage. The linkage of Al–O–Si increases and that of Si–O–Si decreases. The polymerization degree of the network and the average number of bridging oxygens decrease. Further, the relatively strong Si–O–Si linkage gradually decreases and the relatively weak Al–O–Si gradually increases. The change of the crystalline phase was interpreted from the phase diagram and structure.

Introduction The association between non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and obesity is well established yet current guidelines in the United Kingdom do not recommend screening for NAFLD these groups. Moreover, metabolic clinics have little hepatology support and few formalised NAFLD management pathways, Resulting in missed opportunities to diagnose, stage and treat NAFLD. We sought to determine the scale of clinically significant NAFLD in our T2DM and obese populations. Method T2DM or obese patients attending metabolic clinic over a 3 month period were included. Fibrosis risk was assessed via a 2-step pathway. First, NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS) was calculated, followed by Fibroscan for those with indeterminate/high (‘abnormal’) NFS scores; Fibroscan readings of >8 kPa were considered abnormal. Results 89 people were screened. We excluded those with both normal liver function (LFT) and ultrasound (n=11), previously diagnosed liver disease (n=3) or insufficient data to calculate the NFS score (n=43), leaving 32 patients (20 T2DM; 12 obese) of whom the majority were middle-aged males with median age 53 [28–75] and BMI 38 [22.1–68]. Most of those with NAFLD had normal LFT (25/32; 78.2%; p The 27/32 patients with abnormal score were invited for Fibroscan of whom 70.4% attended. Median Result was 7.05 kPa [2.8–26.3], with a non-significant trend to higher readings in obesity vs. T2DM (7.7 vs 6.6 kPa; p=0.29). 36.84% (7/19) had abnormal Fibroscan Result. ALT was significantly higher in those with abnormal Fibroscan (mean 66.9 vs. 18.83; p=0.43; 95% CI 33.76–62.32) but importantly, 42.9% (3/7) of those with abnormal Fibroscan had completely normal LFT. Conclusion NAFLD was common in the cohort, usually undiagnosed and frequently associated with abnormal NFS and Fibroscan despite normal LFT, suggesting there is a sizeable population in metabolic services with potentially significant liver disease. We only included those with proven steatosis and sufficient data to calculate NFS, therefore the true prevalence of significant fibrosis is likely to be greater. Although biopsy has not yet been performed, abnormal 2-step non-invasive assessment alone mandates specialist input and as such active NAFLD screening in these groups should be considered.

Aiming at the problem of segmented weak orthogonal matching pursuit (SWOMP) imaging blur in the process of through-wall radar (TWR) imaging, a dynamic threshold weak orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm (DWOMP) is introduced in this paper, which can significantly improve the imaging performance. Firstly, the TWR compressed sensing simulation model and over-complete dictionary are established by using Chirp signal radar echo data. Then the specific process of DWOMP algorithm is proposed and used to reconstruct multi-sparse target scenes. Finally, the DWOMP algorithm is compared with Basis Pursuit (BP) algorithm and SWOMP algorithm through simulation experiments. The simulation results show that in the same experimental conditions, the imaging time of DWOMP algorithm is about 3/5 of that of BP algorithm, and the imaging resolution of DWOMP algorithm is better than that of SWOMP algorithm.

This paper presents constraint generalized orthogonal matching pursuit (C-gOMP) approach to tackle the problem of clutter mitigation for radar imaging in the compressive sensing context. The generalized orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm (gOMP) in radar imaging process is susceptible to environmental noise interference. Therefore, a particular constraint condition is added to the recovery signal, and the noise component is restrained after the greedy iteration. The C-gOMP algorithm uses the cost function to impose more constraints on each coefficient to ensure the convergence of the whole function. To further analyze the performance of C-gOMP algorithm, the effectiveness of this algorithm is demonstrated by simulations. The results show that the proposed approach is very obvious at suppressing unwanted clutter and enhancing the desired targets, and C-gOMP algorithm brings an evident performance improvement and application prospect.

Through eigenanalysis of communication matrices, we develop a new objective function formulation for mapping tasks to parallel computers with cellular networks. This new formulation significantly speeds up the solution process through consideration of the symmetries in the supply matrix of a network and a transformation of the demand matrix of any application. The extent of the speedup is not easily obtainable through analytical means for most production networks. However, numerical experiments of mapping wave equations on 2D mesh onto 3D torus networks by simulated annealing demonstrate a far superior convergence rate and quicker escape from local minima with our new formulation than with the standard graph theory-based one.

We have tested the scalability of three supercomputers: the Tianhe-2, Stampede and CS-Storm with multiscale fluid-platelet simulations, in which a highly-resolved and efficient numerical model for nanoscale biophysics of platelets in microscale viscous biofluids is considered. Three experiments involving varying problem sizes were performed: Exp-S: 680,718-particle single-platelet; Exp-M: 2,722,872-particle 4-platelet; and Exp-L: 10,891,488-particle 16-platelet. Our implementations of multiple time-stepping (MTS) algorithm improved the performance of single time-stepping (STS) in all experiments. Using MTS, our model achieved the following simulation rates: 12.5, 25.0, 35.5 μs/day for Exp-S and 9.09, 6.25, 14.29 μs/day for Exp-M on Tianhe-2, CS-Storm 16-K80 and Stampede K20. The best rate for Exp-L was 6.25 μs/day for Stampede. Utilizing current advanced HPC resources, the simulation rates achieved by our algorithms bring within reach performing complex multiscale simulations for solving vexing problems at the interface of biology and engineering, such as thrombosis in blood flow which combines millisecond-scale hematology with microscale blood flow at resolutions of micro-to-nanoscale cellular components of platelets. This study of testing the performance characteristics of supercomputers with advanced computational algorithms that offer optimal trade-off to achieve enhanced computational performance serves to demonstrate that such simulations are feasible with currently available HPC resources.

The title compound, [Cr(CN)2(C12H8N2)2][Cr(N3)2(C18H12N4O2)]·H2O, contains [CrIII(CN)2(phen)2]+ cations (phen is 1,10-phenanthroline) and [CrIII(N3)2(bpb)]− anions [bpb is 1,2-bis(pyridine-2-carboxamido)benzene or N,N′-(o-phenylene)bis(pyridine-2-carboxamide)]. In the cations, the CrIII atom is coordinated by two phen ligands and two cyanide ligands in a distorted octahedral geometry. In the anions, the CrIII atom is coordinated by the tetradentate bpb ligand and two azide ions, forming a distorted octahedral geometry. There is one solvent water molecule per cation–anion pair, which forms hydrogen bonds to one carbonyl group of the bpb ligand and to the terminal N atom of one cyanide ligand.

The title compound, [Ni4(C15H12N2O4)4].4C3H7NO, is isostructural with its CoII and ZnII analogues. The compound contains N-(2-hydroxybenzoyl)-N-(2-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzylidene)hydrazine anions and NiII cations linked into a tetrameric complex about a position of \overline{4} point symmetry. Each NiII cation is pentacoordinate with a distorted square-based pyramidal geometry. The ligand exhibits an intramolecular O—H...N hydrogen bond.

In the title compound, [Co(C10H8N2)2(H2O)4](C7H3NO4)·4H2O, the CoII ion adopts a slightly distorted trans-CoN2O4 octa­hedral coordination, arising from two monodentate 4,4′-bipyridine mol­ecules and four water mol­ecules. The constituent species inter­act by way of an extensive network of O—H⋯O and O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds. The crystal studied was an inversion twin.