Search

Background: The role of carbohydrate antigen 19‐9 (CA 19‐9) in response assessment among patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCCA) remains unknown. The authors studied the association of the CA 19‐9 response (defined as a reduction >50% from baseline) with the radiologic response and the outcome in patients with unresectable iCCA. Methods: A prospective cohort of 422 patients who were initially diagnosed with unresectable iCCA, had baseline CA 19‐9 levels ≥100 U/mL, and received treatment with systemic therapies at the authors' institution between January 2017 and December 2021 were enrolled in this study. The radiologic response was assessed using the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors version 1.1. A landmark assessment of the CA 19‐9 response and the radiologic response was performed. The associations between CA 19‐9 response and imaging response, progression‐free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS) were analyzed. Results: Two hundred sixty‐seven patients (63.3%) had a CA 19‐9 response. A CA 19‐9 response was observed in 123 of 132 (93.2%) radiologic responders and in 144 of 290 (49.7%) radiologic nonresponders (p <.001). CA 19‐9 responders outperformed nonresponders in median PFS (10.6 vs. 3.6 months; hazard ratio [HR], 4.8 months; 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.8–6.0 months; p <.001) and OS (21.4 vs. 6.3 months; HR, 5.3 months; 95% CI, 4.2–6.7 months; p <.001). The common independent predictors of both OS and PFS included metastasis, CA 19‐9 nonresponder status, and radiologic nonresponder status in multivariable analysis. Conclusions: CA 19‐9 response is a valuable addition to assess tumor response and is associated with improved outcomes in patients with iCCA. Achieving a CA 19‐9 response should be one of the therapeutic objectives of patients with iCCA after systemic therapies. Plain language summary: A decline in carbohydrate antigen 19‐9 levels from elevated baseline levels should be one of the therapeutic aims of patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma who are managed with systemic therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A NiH-catalyzed polarity-reversed hydroamination of β,γ-, γ,δ- and δ,ε-unsaturated alkenes with electrophilic anthranils was developed. This reaction proceeds in a highly regio- and chemoselective manner to afford γ, δ and ε-arylamines bearing a carbonyl or alcohol functionality with 100% atom efficiency. Preliminary mechanistic studies indicate that the chemoselectivity is controlled by the base and the alcohol product is derived from the base-catalyzed hydrosilylation of the C＝O bond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: As a non-invasive treatment, stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) has been an emerging and effective option for patients with unresectable intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC). The Cyber Knife has an SBRT system, which can realize real-time tracking of tumors during treatment. It can protect the surrounding normal liver tissue while the tumor gets the therapeutic dose. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the factors affecting the local control rate for patients after SBRT treatment, and to predict the factors affecting survival rates, then to report the 3-year actual survival rates after treatment and identify the influencing factors of 3-year survival rate. Materials and Methods: We conducted a long-term follow-up of 43 patients with unresectable intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma who underwent Cyber Knife in our hospital from January 2016 to December 2018. Regular medical check-ups were performed every 2–3 months after SBRT to evaluated the effect of treatment. Results: The median follow-up time was 15 months (4-78 months), and the median progression-free survival (PFS) was 6 months (95% CI, 2.788–9.212) and the median overall survival (OS) was 12 months (95% CI, 3.434–20.566), respectively. Based on modified Response Evaluation and Criteria in Solid Tumor (mRECIST), response rate (RR) and disease control rate (DCR) of SBRT in unresectable ICC were 55.2% and 86%. The 1-, 2- and 3-years OS rate were 51.2%, 32.6% and 23.3%. Multivariate analysis based on competing risk survival analysis identified that patients with multiple nodules, large diameter, high level of CA199 and CEA, poor ECOG performance status had worse overall survival (p < 0.05). Patients who survived ≥3 years had significantly lower levels of CEA, CA199, smaller tumor diameters and lower number of lesions (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The SBRT might be a candidate option for patients who unable to perform surgery. The rate of 3-year survival after SBRT for unresectable ICC can be expected with 23.3%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific irrigation is of great significance to plant seed production. With two excellent native plant species in desert steppe, Agropyron mongolicum and Lespedeza potaninii, as the objects, and full irrigation as the control, we explored the effects of deficit irrigation in different growth stages on the seed production and water use efficiency (WUE) of those two species. The results showed that, compared with the control, soil water content of both species decreased under deficit irrigation. The decrease of soil water content of A. mongolicum mainly occurred in the 0-60 cm soil layer, while there was no obvious stratification for the reduction of soil water content of L. potaninii. There were significant differences in the yield components of A. mongolica under deficit irrigation. The seed yield of deficit irrigation at the flowering stage was the highest. There were significant differences in the numbers of fertile tillers, florets and pods of L. potaninii among treatments, but no significant difference in seed yield. There were positive correlations between seed yield of A. mongolicum and the numbers of fertile tillers (r = 0.776) and spikelets (r = 0.717). The racemes of L. potaninii was significantly negatively correlated with the number of fertile tillers (r = -0.685), and positively correlated with the number of florets (r = 0.412). Compared with full irrigation, water consumption of seed production of the two native plant species was reduced under deficit irrigation, but water use efficiency was improved, with the strongest improvement at the flowering stage of A. mongolicum (32.9%) and at the branching stage of L. potaninii (27.4%). Therefore, proper deficit irrigation could improve water use efficiency of both plant species. From the perspective of water use efficiency and seed yield, deficit irrigation could be used for artificial breeding of A. mongolicum and L. potaninii seeds in arid area, with the suitable growth stage for deficit being the flowering and the branching stages, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Kalman filtering techniques have been widely used in many applications, however, standard Kalman filters for linear Gaussian systems usually cannot work well or even diverge in the presence of large model uncertainty. In practical applications, it is expensive to have large number of high-cost experiments or even impossible to obtain an exact system model. Motivated by our previous pioneering work on finite-model adaptive control, a framework of finite-model Kalman filtering is introduced in this paper. This framework presumes that large model uncertainty may be restricted by a finite set of known models which can be very different from each other. Moreover, the number of known models in the set can be flexibly chosen so that the uncertain model may always be approximated by one of the known models, in other words, the large model uncertainty is “covered” by the “convex hull” of the known models. Within the presented framework according to the idea of adaptive switching via the minimizing vector distance principle, a simple finite-model Kalman filter, MVDP-FMKF, is mathematically formulated and illustrated by extensive simulations. An experiment of MEMS gyroscope drift has verified the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, indicating that the mechanism of finite-model Kalman filter is useful and efficient in practical applications of Kalman filters, especially in inertial navigation systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To overcome the shortcomings of the traditional fuzzy C-means(FCM) clustering algorithm which were simple image feature description and easy distributed by complex grey influence with wrong segmentation, this paper proposed an improved FCM algorithm for image segmentation, combined with universal gravitation principle and local entropy theorem. Firstly, it introduced the image local entropy to accurately measure image node property between two adjacent nodes, and meanwhile computed the node homogeneous value. Then it was taken as the node quality, formed closely relationship using gravity algorithm which made the node grey feature and spatial position combine effectively. The above method solved the problem of the description of node feature isolation of traditional FCM algorithm. Finally, the simulation results show that the presented algorithm can obtain more precise segmentation results from three types of grey non-uniform distribution medical images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]