Search

With the aid of one manually annotated frame, One-Shot Video Object Segmentation (OSVOS) uses a CNN architecture to tackle the problem of semi-supervised video object segmentation (VOS). However, annotating a pixel-level segmentation mask is expensive and time-consuming. To alleviate the problem, we explore a language interactive way of initializing semi-supervised VOS and run the semi-supervised methods into a weakly supervised mode. Our contributions are two folds: (i) we propose a variant of OSVOS initialized with referring expressions (REVOS), which locates a target object by maximizing the matching score between all the candidates and the referring expression; (ii) segmentation performance of semi-supervised VOS methods varies dramatically when selecting different frames for annotation. We present a strategy of the best annotation frame selection by using image similarity measurement. Meanwhile, we first to propose a multiple frame annotation selection strategy for initialization of semi-supervised VOS with more than one annotated frames. Finally we evaluate our method on DAVIS-2016 dataset, and experimental results show that REVOS achieves similar performance (79.94% measured by average IoU) compared with OSVOS (80.1%). Although current REVOS implementation is specific to the method of one-shot video object segmentation, it can be more widely applicable to other semi-supervised VOS methods.

Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved great success in the field of artificial intelligence, including speech recognition, image recognition, and natural language processing. CNN architecture plays a key role in CNNs' performance. Most previous CNN architectures are hand-crafted, which requires designers to have rich expert domain knowledge. The trial-and-error process consumes a lot of time and computing resources. To solve this problem, researchers proposed the neural architecture search, which searches CNN architecture automatically, to satisfy different requirements. However, the blindness of the search strategy causes a 'loss of experience' in the early stage of the search process, and ultimately affects the results of the later stage. In this paper, we propose a self-adaptive mutation neural architecture search algorithm based on ResNet blocks and DenseNet blocks. The self-adaptive mutation strategy makes the algorithm adaptively adjust the mutation strategies during the evolution process to achieve better exploration. In addition, the whole search process is fully automatic, and users do not need expert knowledge about CNNs architecture design. In this paper, the proposed algorithm is compared with 17 state-of-the-art algorithms, including manually designed CNN and automatic search algorithms on CIFAR10 and CIFAR100. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the competitors in terms of classification performance and consumes fewer computing resources.

Background To use ddPCR to quantify plasma exosomal class III β‐tubulin (βIII‐tubulin, TUBB3, encoded by the TUBB3 gene) mRNA expression in metastatic castration‐resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients, and study the association of this expression with abiraterone efficacy. Methods Blood samples were prospectively collected from 52 mCRPC patients using abiraterone as first‐line therapy to measure plasma exosomal TUBB3 mRNA expression value before the initiation of abiraterone. Study endpoints were PSA response rate, PSA‐progression‐free survival (PSA‐PFS), and overall survival (OS, from CRPC to death). Results Patients with positive exosomal TUBB3 expression showed shorter PSA‐PFS (negative TUBB3 vs. positive TUBB3: 11.0 vs. 7.9 months; p = 0.014). Further analysis demonstrated that patients with strongly positive exosomal TUBB3 (>20 copies/20 µl) was associated with even shorter PSA‐PFS (negative TUBB3 vs. positive TUBB3 [20 copies/20 µl]: 11.0 vs. 8.3 vs. 3.6 months, p = 0.005). In multivariate analyzes, TUBB3 (+) (HR: 2.114, p = 0.033) and ECOG score >2 (HR: 3.039, p = 0.006) were independent prognosticators of poor PSA‐PFS. PSA response and OS did not present significant differences. Conclusion The exosomal TUBB3 mRNA expression level is associated with poor PSA‐PFS of abiraterone in mCRPC patients. The detection of exosomal TUBB3 can be valuable in their management., In this study, we presented this novel, non‐invasive biomarker for abiraterone resistance in mCRPC patients using a ddPCR approach to quantificationally measure the exosomal TUBB3 mRNA expression. We found that a higher TUBB3 level is correlated with shorter progression time after first‐line abiraterone treatment in mCRPC patients.

Genetic programming (GP) solves optimization problems by simulating the evolution procedure in nature. It has a serious problem termed as bloat, which can cost memory, hamper effective breeding and slow down the evolution process. However, there are only a limited number of works to quantify bloat directly, and existing techniques use the solution size/complexity as an indirect indicator for bloat control. Therefore, a new bloat quantification measure is designed in this work, based on which three bloat-aware GP methods are proposed. Specifically, the bloat quantification measure is incorporated with two parsimony pressure techniques and a multi-objective technique respectively, termed as GPLTSb (GP Lexicographic Tournament Selection bloat), GPPTSb (GP Proportional Tournament Selection bloat), and MOGPb (Multi-objective GP bloat). Unlike the existing bloat control methods, the bloat-aware methods apply the bloat values directly for bloat control. The proposed methods are tested on benchmark symbolic regression tasks, and are compared with GP, existing bloat control methods and four widely-used regression methods. Results show that MOGPb is effective for bloat control with the solution size reduced obviously; while GPLTSb and GPPTSb can also reduce bloat in GP with the solution size reduced slightly. In addition, compared with GP and existing bloat control methods, the proposed methods evolve solutions with similar/better regression performance. Moreover, the evolved solutions of proposed methods can outperform most reference regression methods for the given tasks consistently.

Background Multidisciplinary team (MDT) management is a popular treatment paradigm in managing cancer patients, which provides fully-discussed, interdisciplinary treatment recommendations for patients. However, there has been a lack of data on its actual impact on the overall survival (OS) of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients. mCRPC is the end stage of prostate cancer, facing a treatment dilemma of overwhelming options; therefore, we hypothesize dynamic MDT discussions can be helpful in comprehensively managing these patients. Methods We retrospectively collected 422 mCRPC patients' clinical information from 2013 to 2020 from our institute. Patients can voluntarily choose whether to enroll in the dynamic MDT group, which includes discussions at CRPC diagnosis and subsequent disease progression. All patients were followed up regularly, and OS from CRPC diagnosis to death was set as the endpoint of this study. Results Participating in MDT discussions is a favorable independent indicator of longer overall survival (median OS: MDT (+): 39.7 months; MDT (-): 27.0 months, hazard ratio: 0.549, p = .001). Moreover, this survival benefit of MDT remained in subgroups with first-line therapy [median OS: MDT (+): not reached; MDT (-): 27.0 months, p = .001) and with multi-line therapy until the end of follow-up (median OS: MDT (+): 36.7 months; MDT (-): 25.6 months, p = .044). Conclusion Therefore, regular MDT discussions are valuable in the management of mCRPC patients. Clinicians are encouraged to tailor MDT discussions dynamically to provide mCRPC patients with a better and more individualized treatment plan and more prolonged survival. Take-home messages ● The MDT model is defined as dynamic MDT discussions at the time of mCRPC diagnosis and each time they progressed later on throughout the disease management. ● Prostate cancer MDT usually includes specialists in urologic oncology, pathology, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, ultrasound, imaging and nuclear medicine. ● MDT model can benefit mCRPC patients in terms of overall survival.

Symbolic regression is to search the space of mathematical expressions to find a model that best fits a given dataset. As genetic programming (GP) with the tree representation can represent solutions as expression trees, it is popularly-used for regression. However, GP tends to evolve unnecessarily large programs (known as bloat), causing excessive use of CPU time/memory and evolving solutions with poor generalization ability. Moreover, even though the importance of local search has been proved in augmenting the search ability of GP (termed as memetic algorithms), local search is underused in GP-based methods. This work aims to handle the above problems simultaneously. To control bloat, a multi-objective (MO) technique (NSGA-II, Non-dominant Sorting Genetic Algorithm) is selected to incorporate with GP, forming a multi-objective GP (MOGP). Moreover, three mutation-based local search operators are designed and incorporated with MOGP respectively to form three multi-objective memetic algorithms (MOMA), i.e. MOMA_MR (MOMA with Mutation-based Random search), MOMA_MF (MOMA with Mutation-based Function search) and MOMA_MC (MOMA with Mutation-based Constant search). The proposed methods are tested on both benchmark functions and real-world applications, and are compared with both GP-based (i.e. GP and MOGP) and nonGP-based symbolic regression methods. Compared with GP-based methods, the proposed methods can reduce the risk of bloat with the evolved solutions significantly smaller than GP solutions, and the local search strategies introduced in the proposed methods can improve their search ability with the evolved solutions dominating MOGP solutions. In addition, among the three proposed methods, MOMA_MR performs best in RMSE for testing, yet it consumes more training time than others. Moreover, compared with six reference nonGP-based symbolic regression methods, MOMA_MR generally performs better than or similar to them consistently.

Prolonged building closures are prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in extreme stagnation in building water systems. High-throughput sequencing analysis revealed significantly increased presence of Legionella due to extreme water stagnation, highlighting elevated exposure risks to Legionella from building water systems during re-opening of previously closed buildings.

Objective Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common cancer in oral and maxillofacial tissue. This study aimed to investigate the expression of SLC3A2 in human OSCC tissues and its regulatory roles in OSCC. Methods The expression of SLC3A2 in human OSCC tissues was assessed using immunohistochemistry. The proliferation, migration, and invasion of oral squamous cells were evaluated after knockdown of SLC3A2. Results The expression of SLC3A2 in OSCC was higher than that in normal oral epithelial cells. SLC3A2 had higher expression levels in OSCC tissues than that in adjacent normal tissues. Upregulation of SLC3A2 was associated with advanced stages and poor survival of OSCC patients. In vitro experiments showed that knocking down of SLC3A2 was associated with reduced migration, invasion, and proliferation, but increased apoptosis of OSCC cells. Conclusion SLC3A2 exerted a harmful effect on OSCC patients by increasing migration, invasion and proliferation, and decreasing apoptosis.

Regression tasks aim to determine accurate and simple relationship expressions between variables, which can be regarded as bi-objective optimization problems. As GP (genetic programming) can use expression trees as representation, it is popularly-used for regression. Introducing multi-objective techniques into GP enables it to solve bi-objective tasks, and the success of memetic algorithms show the importance of local search in improving GP. However, existing memetic GP methods are mainly single-objective, in which the local search operators cannot be applied in multi-objective optimization. Moreover, the popularly-used solution evaluation mechanism (Pareto local search) in existing multi-objective memetic methods cannot assure solution dispersion. To handle these problems, a dispersion-keeping Pareto evaluation (DkPE) mechanism is proposed, based on which new crossover and mutation operators adaptive to bi-objective GP are designed. In addition, two base bi-objective GP methods (NSGP (non-dominated sorting GP) and SPGP (strength Pareto GP)) are developed. Applying the new operators in them respectively forms two bi-objective memetic GP methods (MNSGP (memetic NSGP) and MSPGP (memetic SPGP)). Results show that MNSGP and MSPGP outperform NSGP and SPGP respectively, which reflects that DkPE based crossover/mutation increase the performance of NSGP and SPGP. Moreover, solutions evolved by MNSGP outperform reference GP and non-GP based methods.

Symbolic regression is a process to find a mathematical expression that represents the relationship between a set of explanatory variables and a measured variable. It has become a best-known problem for GP (genetic programming), as GP can use the tree representation to represent solutions as expression trees. Since the success of memetic algorithms (MAs (Memetic algorithms (MAs) can be regarded as a class of methods that combine population-based global search and local search [6, 30])) has proved the importance of local search in augmenting the global search ability of GP, GP with local search is investigated to solve symbolic regression tasks in this work. An important design issue of MAs is the balance between the global exploration of GP and the local exploitation, which has a great influence on the performance and efficiency of MAs. This work proposes a GP-based memetic algorithm for symbolic regression, termed as aMeGP (a daptive Me metic GP), which can balance global exploration and local exploitation adaptively. Compared with GP, two improvements are made in aMeGP to invoke and stop local search adaptively during evolution. The proposed aMeGP is compared with GP-based and nonGP-based symbolic regression methods on both benchmark test functions and real-world applications. The results show that aMeGP is generally better than both GP-based and nonGP-based reference methods with its evolved solutions achieving lower root mean square error (RMSE) for most test cases. Moreover, aMeGP outperforms the reference GP-based methods in the convergence ability, which can converge to lower RMSE values with faster or similar speeds.

Since first introduced in 1980s, nanotechnology has always been the eye-catching point as its providing us with new approaches to explore the microscopic world. Many nanotechnology-associated novel technologies have been brought into clinical use in the past decades and uncountable patients benefited from them, which convinces us of a bright prospect of nanotechnology in the field of medicine. In this review, literatures concerning nanotechnology applications in andrology were retrieved and we made a comprehensive discussion on drug delivery, gene therapy and stem cell therapy use in andrology, which calls for the engagement of nanotechnology.

Even though numerous segmentation methods exist, the requirement of prior knowledge or parameter tuning makes them restricted to limited image domains. Without predefining solution models, genetic programming (GP) is able to solve complex problems by evolving computer programs automatically. In this paper, three new GP-based methods are designed to evolve segmentation algorithms automatically from images and primitive image processing operators (e.g., filters and histogram equalization). Specifically, a strongly typed representation, the cooperative coevolution technique and a two-stage evolution are introduced in GP, respectively, to form three new methods that can evolve solutions to conduct image preprocessing, segmentation and postprocessing automatically. The new methods are termed as StronglyGP, CoevoGP and TwostageGP, and standard GP-based algorithm (StandardGP) is employed as a reference method. The proposed methods are tested on two complicated datasets (i.e., Weizmann and Pascal datasets), which contain high variations in both objects and backgrounds. The results show that StronglyGP and StandardGP can evolve effective segmentors for the given complex segmentation tasks, while CoevoGP and TwostageGP perform worse than StronglyGP and StandardGP, which may be caused by the overfitting problem in deriving postprocessing solutions. In addition, compared with StandardGP, StronglyGP achieves better segmentation performance with smaller solution sizes. Moreover, compared with four widely used segmentation methods, StronglyGP and StandardGP can produce satisfactory results consistently on both Weizmann and Pascal datasets.

Background. Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignant endocrine tumor with a high tumor recurrence rate and poor postoperative survival. Recent studies suggest that CD276- (B7-H3) targeted therapy represents a promising therapeutic option for solid tumors. However, little is known about the expression status of CD276 or its association with progression and prognosis of ACC. Methods. Clinical data were retrospectively analyzed from patients who underwent resection of ACC at our institution (n=48). Archived, formalin-fixed, and paraffin-embedded samples were collected for immunohistochemical analysis, and the correlation between CD276 expression and clinicopathological parameters was evaluated. Kaplan–Meier and univariate/multivariate Cox regression methods were implemented to identify any prognostic effects. Data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) ACC cohort (n=77) were retrieved for quantitative validation analysis. Results. Positive expression of CD276 was detected on the cell membrane and in the cytoplasm of cancer cells or tumor-associated vascular cells in 91.67% (44/48) of ACCs. Vascular expression of CD276 was associated with local aggression (higher T stage, P=0.029) and advanced ENSAT stage (P=0.02). Specifically, patients with a higher CD276-positive cancer cell density exhibited significantly worse overall survival and recurrence-free survival in our cohort (HR=2.8, P=0.01, and HR=7.52, P<0.001, respectively) and in the validation cohort (HR=2.4, P=0.033, and HR=3.7, P<0.001, respectively). The prognostic association remained significant in multivariate Cox regression analysis. Further analysis indicated that CD276 participates in regulating the immune response as well as in the malignant biological behaviors of ACC. Conclusion. These findings highlight the immune checkpoint factor CD276 as an independent prognostic factor and a potential therapeutic target in ACC.

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare cancer with poor survival. We sought to identify prognostic factors and assess its clinical utility in postoperative management of nonmetastatic ACC. We included 65 patients who underwent adrenalectomy and clinicopathological diagnosed as European Network for the Study of Adrenal Tumors (ENSAT) stage I–III ACC in our center from 2009 to 2017. Potential clinicopathological parameters were selected. The prognostic correlation, including overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS), was analyzed using Kaplan–Meier method and univariate and multivariate Cox model. The 2-year and 5-year post-surgery survival rate were 54.6% (95%CI: 42.5–70.1%) and 33.5% (95%CI: 22.3–50.6%), respectively. 46 (70.8%) cases were symptomatic ACC. Tumor-related or hormone-related symptom was identified as independent prognostic factor in OS (HR = 5.5, 95%CI: 1.87–16.16) and RFS (HR = 3.62, 95%CI: 1.28–10.24). Higher tumor grade (Weiss score > 6 or Ki67 index ≥ 20%) was independently associated with poor OS (HR = 4.73, 95%CI: 2.15–10.43). R status (R1/R2/Rx) was independently correlated with worse RFS (HR = 2.56, 95%CI:1.21–5.43). Accordingly, patients with higher GRAS (Grade, R status, age, and symptoms) score were more likely to have poor prognosis (OS: HR = 2.7, 95%CI: 1.43–5.11 and RFS: HR = 3.31, 95%CI: 1.68–6.52, respectively). Symptoms, higher tumor grade and positive/unknown R status were independent risk factors in stage I–III ACC. Comprehensive consideration of GRAS parameters may optimize the prognostic assessment for postoperative patients.

With the development of deep learning, the design of an appropriate network structure becomes fundamental. In recent years, the successful practice of Neural Architecture Search (NAS) has indicated that an automated design of the network structure can efficiently replace the design performed by human experts. Most NAS algorithms make the assumption that the overall structure of the network is linear and focus solely on accuracy to assess the performance of candidate networks. This paper introduces a novel NAS algorithm based on a multi-objective modeling of the network design problem to design accurate Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) with a small structure. The proposed algorithm makes use of a graph-based representation of the solutions which enables a high flexibility in the automatic design. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm includes novel ad-hoc crossover and mutation operators. We also propose a mechanism to accelerate the evaluation of the candidate solutions. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed NAS approach can design accurate neural networks with limited size.

BackgroundTo explore whether patients with distinct intraductal carcinoma of the prostate (IDC-P) subtypes respond differently to standard first-line therapy among patients with metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed data of 170 mCRPC patients receiving abiraterone (ABI) or docetaxel (DOC) as first-line therapy between 2014 and 2019. PSA response, PSA progression-free survival (PSA-PFS), radiographic progression-free survival (rPFS), and overall survival (OS) were analyzed and compared based on the presence of IDC-P and its sub-patterns.ResultsTotally, IDC-P was confirmed in 91/170 (53.5%) patients. Among them, 36/91 (39.6%) and 55/91 (60.4%) harbored IDC-P pattern 1 and pattern 2, respectively. The presence of IDC-P was confirmed to be associated with poor prognosis in the whole cohort. Patients with IDC-P pattern 1 shared similar clinical outcomes to those without IDC-P in both ABI and DOC treatment. However, compared to patients with IDC-P pattern 1 and without IDC-P, IDC-P pattern 2 had markedly poorer prognosis in either ABI (PSA-PFS: PPPPP=0.021; rPFS: P=0.027) or pattern 2 (PSA-PFS: P=0.003; rPFS: P=0.007) was significantly inferior to ABI.ConclusionCompared to DOC, ABI exhibited better efficacy in patients with IDC-P of either pattern. However, IDC-P pattern 2 still responded unsatisfactorily to either ABI or DOC therapy. Novel therapeutic strategies appropriate for IDC-P pattern 2 need to be further investigated in the future.

IntroductionABO blood group antigens within grafts are continuously exposed to anti-A/B antibodies in the serum of recipients after ABO-incompatible (ABOi) kidney transplantation and are instrumental in antibody-mediated rejection. Some individuals secrete soluble blood group antigens into body fluids. In this study, we investigated the effect of donor and recipient secretor status on the outcomes of ABOi kidney transplantation.MethodsData of a total of 32 patients with ABOi living donor kidney transplantation were retrospectively collected between 2014 and 2020 in West China Hospital. The genotype and phenotype of both donors and recipients were examined and evaluated with post-transplantation anti-A/B titer changes, graft function, and rejection.ResultsOf the 32 recipients and 32 donors, 23 (71.9%) recipients and 27 (84.4%) donors had secretor genotypes, whereas 9 (28.1%) recipients and 5 (15.6%) donors did not. Anti-A/B titers after ABOi kidney transplantation were not significantly influenced by the secretor status of either donors or recipients. The post-transplantation serum creatinine (Scr) levels and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was better in weak- or non-secretor recipients at day 30 (Scr P = 0.047, eGFR P = 0.008), day 90 (Scr P = 0.010, eGFR P = 0.005), and month 9 (eGFR P = 0.008), and recipients from secretor donors had a lower incidence of graft rejection in the first year after ABOi transplantation (P = 0.004).ConclusionsA weak secretor status phenotype was found in both genotypes, i.e., individuals who secreted soluble antigens as well as those who did not. The recipient ABH-secretor status may have an influence on early posttransplant renal function, and the donor ABH-secretor status might affect the incidence of graft rejection.

OBJECTIVES To investigate the genetic alterations of patients with prostate cancer (PCa) with and without intraductal carcinoma of the prostate (IDC-P). PATIENTS AND METHODS We performed targeted sequencing of plasma cell-free DNA on 161 patients with prostate adenocarcinoma (PAC) with IDC-P and 84 without IDC-P. Genomic alterations were compared between these two groups. The association between genetic alterations and patients' survival outcomes was also explored. RESULTS We identified that 29.8% (48/161) and 21.4% (18/84) of patients with and without IDC-P harboured genomic alterations in DNA repair pathways, respectively (P = 0.210). Pathogenic germline DNA repair alterations were frequently detected in IDC-P carriers compared to IDC-P non-carriers (11.8% [19/161] vs 2.4% [two of 84], P = 0.024). Germline BReast CAncer type 2 susceptibility protein (BRCA2) and somatic cyclin-dependent kinase 12 (CDK12) defects were specifically identified in IDC-P carriers relative to PAC (BRCA2: 8.7% [14/161] vs 0% and CDK12: 6.8% [11/161] vs 1.2% [one of 84]). Patients with IDC-P had a distinct androgen receptor (AR) pathway alteration, characterised by an enrichment of nuclear receptor corepressor 2 (NCOR2) mutations compared with patients with pure PAC (21.1% [34/161] vs 6.0% [five of 84], P = 0.004). Increased AR alterations were detected in patients harbouring tumours with an IDC-P proportion of ≥10% vs those with an IDC-P proportion of

Collinear search impairment (CSI) is a phenomenon where a task-irrelevant collinear structure impairs a target search in a visual display. It has been suggested that CSI is monocular, occurs without the participants’ access to consciousness and is possibly processed at an early visual site (e.g. V1). This effect has frequently been compared with a well-documented opposite effect called attentional capture (AC), in which salient and task-irrelevant basic features (e.g. color, orientation) enhance target detection. However, whether this phenomenon can be attributed to non-attentional factors such as collinear facilitation (CF) has not yet been formally tested. Here we used one well-established property of CF, i.e. that target contrast modulates its effect direction (facilitation vs suppression), to examine whether CSI shared similar signature profiles along different contrast levels. In other words, we tested whether CSI previously observed at the supra-threshold level was reduced or reversed at near-threshold contrast levels. Our results showed that, regardless of the luminance contrast levels, participants spent a longer time searching for targets displayed on the salient singleton collinear structure than those displayed off the structure. Contrast invariance suggests that it is unlikely that CSI is exclusively sub-served by an early vision mechanism (e.g. CF).

BACKGROUND: Approximately 80–85% of lung cancer is the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) subtype, which ranks as the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. APOBEC3B (A3B) was reported to be a key source of mutations in NSCLC. However, the role of the A3B deletion polymorphism in the etiology of NSCLC has not been well-documented. METHODS: A case-control study with 317 NSCLC patients and 334 healthy controls was conducted to explore the association between the A3B deletion polymorphism and the risk of NSCLC. The unconditional logistic regression model was performed to calculate the odds ratio (OR) and the 95% confidence interval (CI), and the confounding factors were adjusted, including age, gender, and smoking status, to estimate the risk. An analysis of gene-environment interactions was performed using multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) software. RESULTS: We found that the del/del genotype of A3B deletion significantly increased NSCLC risk. Compared with individuals carrying the ins/ins genotype of A3B deletion, individuals with the del/del genotype had a 2.36 times increased risk of developing NSCLC after adjusting for confounding factors (OR =2.71, 95% CI: 1.67–4.42, P

ObjectivesThe aim of this study is to evaluate the significant factors influencing the overall survival (OS) and recurrence free survival (RFS) and make an attempt to develop a nomogram for predicting the prognosis of patients with genitourinary sarcoma (GS).MethodsData on adult GS from 1985 to 2010 were collected. The impact of clinical factors on OS and RFS were estimated by Kaplan–Meier (KM) analysis, and differences between groups were analyzed by the log-rank test. To establish a nomogram, all patients were randomly divided into a training set (n = 125) and a testing set (n = 63). Cox proportion hazard model was utilized to assess the prognostic effect of variables. Then, a nomogram was established to estimate 1-, 3-, and 5-year OS based on Cox regression model. Subsequently, the nomogram was validated by a training set and a validation set.ResultsA total of 188 patients were enrolled into our study. Male patients with bladder sarcoma had better OS rather than RFS when stratified by gender (P = 0.022). According to histological subtypes, patients with leiomyosarcoma (LMS) undergoing chemotherapy were associated with favorable OS (P = 0.024) and RFS (P = 0.001). Furthermore, LMS in kidney sarcoma were associated with lower recurrence rate in comparison to rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) (P = 0.043). Margin status after surgical excision markedly influenced the OS and RFS of GS patients and negative margins presented optimal prognosis. Chemotherapy was associated with improved OS for patients without surgery (P = 0.029) and patients with positive margins (P = 0.026). Based on the multivariate analysis of the training cohort, age, gender, surgery status, histological subtype, and chemotherapy were included in our nomogram for prediction of OS. The nomogram had sufficient power with concordance index (C-index) of OS: 0.770, 95%CI: 0.760–0.772 and area under curve (AUC) of OS: 0.759, 95%CI: 0.658–0.859 in the training set and with C-index of OS: 0.741, 95%CI: 0.740–0.765, and AUC of OS: 0.744, 95%CI: 0.576–0.913 in the validation set.ConclusionsAdults GS is a group of extremely rare tumors with poor prognosis. Of all histological types, LMS is sensitive to chemotherapy. We highlighted the cardinal role of surgical resection and the importance of achieving negative margins. We identified the efficacy of chemotherapy for patients with positive margins and those without surgery as well. A nomogram is validated as an effective tool predicting short-term outcomes.

Open adrenalectomy is considered a standard operative approach for adrenocortical carcinoma, and laparoscopic adrenalectomy remains controversial. We analyzed our outcomes of laparoscopic adrenalectomy and open adrenalectomy for localized (stage 1/2) adrenocortical carcinoma in our hospital.This study retrospectively reviewed all patients with stage 1/2 adrenocortical carcinoma and a tumor size10 cm who underwent radical resection in our hospital between 2009 and 2017. These patients were divided into laparoscopic adrenalectomy and open adrenalectomy groups. Demographics, operative data, and follow-up outcomes were collected. The 5-year overall survival and recurrence-free survival were calculated with the Kaplan-Meier method and compared between laparoscopic adrenalectomy and open adrenalectomy group.A total of 23 patients operated by an open adrenalectomy and 21 patients operated with a laparoscopic adrenalectomy were included. Baseline patient characteristics (age, sex, tumor size, hormonal secretion) were similar between 2 groups. The mean postoperative stay was less in the laparoscopic adrenalectomy group (P = .003). The mean follow-up time was similar for the two groups (33 ± 24 vs 35 ± 25 months; P = NS). The local and peritoneal recurrence rates were 42% for laparoscopic adrenalectomy and 22% for open adrenalectomy (P = .035). Time to local and peritoneal recurrence was less in the laparoscopic adrenalectomy than in the open adrenalectomy (P = .048). The 5-year overall survival and recurrence-free survival for open adrenalectomy versus laparoscopic adrenalectomy were 43% vs 47% (P = .635) and 36% vs 39% (P = .802), respectively.We believe that open adrenalectomy should still be considered the standard operative management of adrenocortical carcinoma. Laparoscopic adrenalectomy may not provide patients with localized adrenocortical carcinoma with an equivalent oncologic outcome based on site and timing of initial tumor recurrence.

Ketamine cystitis (KC) is a chronic bladder inflammation leading to urinary urgency, frequency, and pain. The pathogenesis of KC is complicated and involves multiple tissue injuries in the bladder. Recent studies indicated that urothelium disruption, lamina propria fibrosis and inflammation, microvascular injury, neuropathological alterations, and bladder smooth muscle (BSM) abnormalities all contribute to the pathogenesis of KC. Ketamine has been shown to induce these tissue injuries by regulating different signaling pathways. Ketamine can stimulate antiproliferative factor, adenosine triphosphate, and oxidative stress to disrupt urothelium. Lamina propria fibrosis and inflammation are associated with the activation of cyclooxygenase-2, nitric oxide synthase, immunoglobulin E, and transforming growth factor β1. Ketamine contributes to microvascular injury via the N-methyl-D aspartic receptor (NMDAR), and multiple inflammatory and angiogenic factors such as tumor necrosis factor α and vascular endothelial growth factor. For BSM abnormalities, ketamine can depress the protein kinase B, extracellular signal-regulated kinase, Cav1.2, and muscarinic receptor signaling. Elevated purinergic signaling also plays a role in BSM abnormalities. In addition, ketamine affects neuropathological alterations in the bladder by regulating NMDAR- and brain-derived neurotrophic factor-dependent signaling. Inflammatory cells also contribute to neuropathological changes via the secretion of chemical mediators. Clarifying the role and function of these signaling underlying tissue injuries in the bladder with KC can contribute to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of this disease and to the design of effective treatments for KC.

Prognostic nutritional index (PNI) could reflect the nutrition and inflammation status in cancer patients. This study aims to identify the prognostic significance of PNI in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). A total of 694 RCC patients from our institution were included in this study. The prognostic correlation between PNI and overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) was analyzed respectively using Kaplan–Meier method and univariate and multivariate Cox model. Studies about the association between pretreatment or preoperative PNI and prognosis of RCC were systemically reviewed and a meta-analysis method was performed to further evaluate the pooled prognostic value of PNI in RCC. 267 (38.47%) RCC patients had low PNI according to the cut off value (49.08). Low PNI was associated with poor OS (P

Background Deceased donor kidney transplantation is an important therapeutic option for end-stage renal diseases. Adverse events including acute rejection after deceased donor kidney transplantation are not uncommon and result in poor transplant outcomes. Exploration of risk factors and patient stratification is increasingly significant to improve graft survival. This study aim to evaluate and identify the risk factors for treated rejection of patients after deceased donor kidney transplantation. Methods Clinical and immunological data of deceased donors and corresponding recipients between 2015 and 2018 in West China Hospital were retrospectively collected. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to indicate distribution of variables. Univariate comparisons of baseline characteristics were made with Chi-square, t and Mann-Whitney U tests. Logistic regression was constructed to analysis potential risk factors. Receiver operating characteristic curve and Jordan index were generated to determine optimal cut-off value for continuous variables. Results Data of 123 deceased donors and 246 recipients were obtained. The median (range) age was 41(4–62) years in recipients and 39 (1–65) years in donors. The recipients who died or suffered graft loss during the follow-up period were 8 (3.3%) and 12 (4.9%) respectively. After univariate analysis and subsequent multivariate analysis, some preoperative hemato-biochemical and transplantation-related parameters including uric acid (HR 2.132, 95%CI: 1.016–4.476, P = 0.045), platelet (HR 2.202, 95%CI:1.051–4.617, P = 0.037), absolute neutrophil count (HR 2.164, 95%CI:1.018–4.599, P = 0.045) and HLA-DQ mismatch (HR 2.197, 95%CI:1.119–4.317, P = 0.022) showed statistical significance and could be considered as independent predictors for treated rejection. Conclusions Including unexpected serum uric acid, several hemato-biochemical and transplantation-related parameters were found to be independent risk factors for rejection, which may contribute to stratify patients and develop personalized regimen in perioperative period.

Because population-based risk estimates for metachronous contralateral UTUC are lacking. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the risk and survival of metachronous contralateral upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) on a large population-based level. A total of 23,075 patients were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (1973–2015), 144 (0.6%) patients developed metachronous contralateral UTUC (median of 32 months after diagnosis). The cumulative incidence at 10, 20, and 30 years of follow-up was 1.1%, 1.6%, and 2.6%, respectively. We applied Fine and Gray’s competing risk regression model to determine the risk factors of a new contralateral, metachronous UTUC. The competing risk regression model demonstrated that older age (hazard ratio [HR] 0.75; 95% CI 0.67–0.85) and larger tumor size (HR 0.61; 95% CI 0.39–0.97) were associated with a significantly decreased risk of metachronous contralateral UTUC. However, bladder cancer presence was an independent risk factor for the development of contralateral tumors (HR 2.42; 95% CI 1.73–3.37). In addition, we demonstrated developing contralateral UTUC was not associated with poor prognosis by using Kaplan–Meier and multivariable analysis. Our findings suggest that metachronous contralateral UTUC is comparatively rare, and has not impact on survival. Importantly, patients with younger age, small tumours, and the presence of bladder cancer were more likely to develop a contralateral tumor, which may provide a rationale for lifelong surveillance in high-risk patients.

The two-dimensional (2D) C3N has emerged as a material with promising applications in high performance device owing to its intrinsic bandgap and tunable electronic properties. Although there are several reports about the bandgap tuning of C3N via stacking or forming nanoribbon, bandgap modulation of bilayer C3N nanoribbons (C3NNRs) with various edge structures is still far from well understood. Here, based on extensive first-principles calculations, we demonstrated the effective bandgap engineering of C3N by cutting it into hydrogen passivated C3NNRs and stacking them into bilayer het-erostructures. It was found that armchair (AC) C3NNRs with three types of edge structures are all semiconductors, while only zigzag (ZZ) C3NNRs with edges composed of both C and N atoms (ZZ-CN/CN) are semiconductors. The bandgaps of all semiconducting C3NNRs are larger than that of C3N nanosheet. More interestingly, AC-C3NNRs with CN/CN edges (AC-CN/CN) possess direct bandgap while ZZ-CN/CN have indirect bandgap. Compared with the monolayer C3NNR, the bandgaps of bilayer C3NNRs can be greatly modulated via different stacking orders and edge structures, varying from 0.43 eV for ZZ-CN/CN with AB’-stacking to 0.04 eV for AC-CN/CN with AA-stacking. Particularly, transition from direct to indirect bandgap was observed in the bilayer AC-CN/CN heterostructure with AA’-stacking, and the indirect-to-direct transition was found in the bilayer ZZ-CN/CN with AB-stacking. This work provides insights into the effective bandgap engineering of C3N and offers a new opportunity for its applications in nano-electronics and optoelectronic devices.

Introduction Adrenocortical carcinoma is a rare endocrine malignancy with a high recurrence rate. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of surgery for patients with local or distant recurrent adrenocortical carcinoma and to attempt to identify prognostic features related to survival benefit in patients undergoing resection of recurrence. Methods The data of 47 patients with recurrent adrenocortical carcinoma in West China Hospital, Sichuan, China, between 2009 and 2019 were retrospectively collected. These patients were divided into 2 groups according to whether resection of recurrence was performed. The correlation between overall survival after recurrence and reoperation was evaluated. Kaplan-Meier and univariate/multivariate Cox regression methods were used to identify any prognostic factors. Results Included in our study were 21 patients who underwent reoperation and 26 patients who underwent nonoperative treatments were. The operation group had a better median overall survival after recurrence than the nonoperation group (19 months versus 6.5 months; P = .007). In the operated group, disease-free interval >12 months (P = .002), complete resection of recurrent adrenocortical carcinoma (P = .041), and R0 resection of the primary tumor (P = .005) were associated with prolonged survival after recurrence. Conclusions Reoperation plays an important role in the management of selected patients with recurrent adrenocortical carcinoma. Disease-free interval, preoperative evaluation for complete resection, and R0 resection of the primary tumor are important prognostic characteristics for the resection of recurrent adrenocortical carcinoma. The overall survival after recurrence was significantly improved for patients who had a disease-free interval >12 months, and initial R0 resection or complete resection of recurrent adrenocortical carcinoma is feasible.

Aims: Cervical cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths in developing nations. Human papillomavirus prophylactic vaccines are not widely available, and there are shortages of...

Background: There has been increasing interest in the concept that exposure to environmental chemicals may be contributing factors to epidemics of diabetes mellitus (DM). Triclocarban and triclosan (TCs) are synthetic antibacterial chemicals that are widely used in personal care products. Studies have shown that TCs are endocrine disruptors that alter metabolic conditions. However, it remains unclear whether exposure to TCs is a risk factor for impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Objective: We explored the hypothesis that TCs exposure is associated with an increased risk of IGT and T2DM. Method: To test our hypothesis, we analyzed the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cross-sectional data from 2013 to 2014. IGT and T2DM were diagnosed based on an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and the WHO standards. The levels of urinary TCs were measured using an HPLC-MS/MS method that NHANES investigators developed. The association between urinary TCs status and IGT and T2DM was examined separately in men and women using multivariable logistic regression models adjusted for age, race, BMI, education, ratio of family income to poverty, smoking, exercise and hypertension. Results: Nine hundred US participants (429 men and 471 women) were included in the analysis, of whom 242 (26.89%) were diagnosed with T2DM and 117 (13.00%) had IGT. Among women, there was a significant positive association between triclocarban, but not triclosan exposure and T2DM (OR: 1.79, 95% CI: 1.05, 2.05) after adjusting for potential confounding factors. Among men, no significant association between TCs exposure and IGT or T2DM was observed. Conclusions: Triclocarban exposure may increase the risk of T2DM in the women, although additional studies are needed to confirm the results of this study and to investigate the underlying mechanisms. Keywords: Triclocarban, Triclosan, T2DM, IGT

Background. The adjuvant use of mitotane on adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) has always been in controversy. We aimed to assess the prognostic benefits of adjuvant mitotane after resection of ACC in patients without distant metastasis.Methods. The PubMed, WoS, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases were systematically searched. Recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) were adopted as measurements. A meta-analysis was conducted based on hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (CI). A study was included only if the enrolled patients underwent resection of ACC without adjuvant chemotherapy except mitotane.Results. A total of 5 retrospective studies reporting on 1249 patients were included for this meta-analysis. The meta-analysis showed that adjuvant mitotane was significantly associated with prolonged RFS (HR = 0.62; 95%CI, 0.42-0.94; P < 0.05) and prolonged OS (HR = 0.69; 95%CI, 0.55-0.88, P < 0.05).Conclusion. After comprehensive review, current evidence suggests that adjuvant mitotane significantly decreases the recurrence rate and mortality after resection of ACC in patients without distant metastasis, but these findings need further demonstration from prospective controlled trials.

Purpose: To assess MRI/Transrectal Ultrasound (TRUS) fusion three-dimensional model-guided targeted biopsy (3D-Tb) versus TRUS-guided systematic biopsy (Sb) in detecting overall and high-Gleason-score (≥7) prostate cancer (PCa). Methods: Pubmed and Web of science were searched. Studies with men having a suspicious lesion on MRI were included, which were divided into initial biopsy, previous negative biopsy, and mixed groups in meta-analysis. Results: Totally 13 cohorts in 12 studies, with 3,225 men were included. In total population, 3D-Tb and Sb did not differ significantly in the PCa detection rate (43.1 vs. 42.6%, p = 0.36), but after excluding initial biopsy group, the superiority of 3D-Tb became significant (p = 0.01); 3D-Tb had a significantly higher detection rate of high-Gleason-score PCa compared to Sb (30.0 vs. 24.1%, p < 0.05); 3D-Tb plus Sb significantly improved the PCa detection rate based on Sb alone (52.7 vs. 42.6%, p < 0.05). Conclusions: In men with increased serum PSA and/or abnormal DRE and suspicious lesion on MRI but non-previous evidence of PCa, 3D-Tb plus Sb improves the PCa detection rate based on Sb alone. 3D-Tb alone has better performance in detecting high-Gleason-score PCa, and tends to have a higher PCa detection rate in population with previous negative biopsy compared to Sb.

Feature selection is a key pre-processing technique for classification which aims at removing irrelevant or redundant features from a given dataset. Generally speaking, feature selection can be considered as a multi-objective optimization problem, i.e, removing number of features and improving the classification accuracy. Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been widely used for feature selection problems. The crossover operator, as an important technique to search for new solutions in GAs, has a strong impact on the final optimization results. However, many crossover operators are problem-dependent and have different search abilities. Thus, it is a challenge to select the most efficient one to solve different feature selection problems, especially when the nature of feature selection problems is unknown in advance. In order to overcome this challenge, in this paper, a multi-objective binary genetic algorithm integrating an adaptive operator selection mechanism (MOBGA-AOS) is proposed. In MOBGA-AOS, five crossover operators with different search characteristics are used. Each of them is assigned a probability based on the performance in the evolution process. In different phases of evolution, the proper crossover operator is selected by roulette wheel selection according to the probabilities to produce new solutions for the next generation. The proposed algorithm is compared with five well-known evolutionary multi-objective algorithms on ten datasets. The experimental results reveal that MOBGA-AOS is capable of removing a large amount of features while ensuring a small classification error. Moreover, it obtains prominent advantages on large-scale datasets, which demonstrates that MOBGA-AOS is competent to solve high-dimensional feature selection problems.

Primary epididymal adenocarcinoma (PEA) is exceedingly rare. Only 22 cases had been published worldwide by 2008; nearly 80% of these cases were reported before 2007. In order to investigate the current clinical status of PEA, we search for relevant literatures with “epididymis and adenocarcinoma” and “epididymal and adenocarcinoma” as keywords published between January 1997 and November 2017 in PubMed. As a result, 17 cases are identified. We review these cases and summarize new and important perspectives about the clinicopathological characteristics, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of PEA in the present review.

Background Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignant endocrine tumour. Due to a high tumour recurrence rate, the post-operative overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) of ACCs is limited. Our research aims to identify the role of the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) related genes FSCN1 and FOXM1 in the tumour microenvironment and assess their prognostic value in ACCs. Methods Clinical and specimen data from 130 adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) patients was acquired from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database (n = 79) and a West China Hospital (WCH) cohort (n = 51). In the WCH cohort, archived formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) samples were collected for immunohistochemical analysis. The correlation between the EMT genes and the tumour microenvironment status was estimated based on the Tumour Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) algorithm. Kaplan-Meier analysis, followed by univariate and multivariate regression analyses, were performed to identify the prognostic association of FSCN1 and FOXM1. Results FSCN1 and FOXM1 were over-expressed in ACC tissue when compared with adrenocortical adenoma and normal adrenal tissue. Over-expression of FSCN1 or FOXM1 was associated with the tumour microenvironment and immune signatures in ACCs. Patients with higher expression of FSCN1 or FOXM1 were more likely to have worse prognoses. The prognostic effects were further verified in both early (stage I/II) and advanced (stage III/IV) ACCs. Furthermore, FSCN1 and FOXM1 appeared as independent prognostic factors in ACC. Conclusions These results show that FSCN1 and FOXM1 are independent prognostic factors in ACCs and over-expression of FSCN1 or FOXM1 indicates a worse prognosis.

Aims Increasing evidence has shown the diagnostic value of miR-155 in organ transplantation. The dysregulation of miR-155 is reported to be associated with development of acute or chronic complications in solid organ transplant recipients. Here, we summarized related evidence to explore the correlation between the dysregulation of miR-155 and various allograft dysfunction in transplant recipients, and verified the dynamic change of miR-155 level in acute rejection (AR) using a rat renal transplantation model. Main methods Eligible studies were retrieved from PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases. A meta-analysis method was performed to evaluate the diagnostic value of miR-155 in transplant recipients. Furthermore, the F344-Lewis rat renal transplantation model was established to validate the dynamic change of miR-155 expression during AR. Key findings A total of 275 transplant patients, including renal, heart, and lung transplantation from 6 studies were analysed. The pooled SEN of miR-155 was 0.87 (95% CI, 0.78–0.93), the pooled SPE was 0.76 (95% CI, 0.63–0.85), the pooled PLR was 3.6 (95% CI, 2.2–5.8), the pooled NLR was 0.17 (95% CI, 0.09–0.31), the pooled DOR was 17.31 (95% CI, 7.20–41.65) and pooled AUC was 0.89 (95% CI, 0.86–0.92). The rat renal transplantation model (n = 24) and control model (n = 15) were successfully established. Expression of miR-155 in plasma was significantly increased in 7 d and 9 d post-transplantation compared to the control group (P Significance miR-155 is a potential biomarker for monitoring the abnormal allograft status in solid organ transplantation.

Referring Expression Comprehension (REC) is a task that requires to indicate particular objects within an image by natural language expressions. Previous studies on this task have assumed that the language expression and the image are one-to-one correspondence, that is, the language refers to the target region must exist in the current image and then the region with the highest score will be located, no matter whether they match or not. However, in practical applications, REC is required to locate the reference target region from a series of matched, semi-matched and mismatched scene image sequences. It is the 3D version of this challenge that refers to as Scenario Referring Expression Comprehension (SREC) in this paper. To accomplish such a task, we made a testset based on the existing real-scenario dataset enhancement, constructed a Dual Attributes Recursive Retrieve Reasoning Model (DA3R) for the first time with the Attributes of both images and expressions, and finally verified the feasibility of the method on the testset by assess with three different types of enhanced expression.

Event detection is used to locate the frames corresponding to events of interest in given videos. Real-world videos contain multiple events of interest, and they are rarely segmented. Existing online methods can only detect segments containing single event instances, and this is not suitable for processing videos with several event instances. There are multiple event detection methods, but they are all relatively inefficient and offline methods. To handle the online detection of several events, we propose a novel framework with three modules that are: the event proposal generation, aggregated-event representation, and refined detection modules. The first module can locate time intervals that are likely to contain target events, termed as proposals. The second module can aggregate all events before the current time to form a temporal context that will be used to generate initial detection results of multiple events. The refined detection module finally refines the results based on event proposals and object detection. The proposed method achieves a detection accuracy of 24.88% on a multi-event dataset - Charades, which is higher than state-of-the-art methods.

Visual Question Answering (VQA) is a joint task that aims to answer questions based on the given images. The correct analysis of multiple album aggregate issues to remain a key issue in the VQA case, especially when answering question from multiple albums, how to correctly understand album images and corresponding question is an urgent problem. Under the influence of multiple photo albums and the presence of scene words in the question, it may lead to understanding the wrong scene and outputting the wrong answer, resulting in a decrease in VQA performance. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a new image and sentence similarity matching model, which outputs the correct image representation by learning the semantic concept. Due to the scene word is not an entity, sometimes the information which the model extracted may be incorrect. Therefore, we can try to reanalyse the question in another different way and give the answer by the similarity between the question and the visual-text. Our model was tested on the MemexQA dataset. The experimental results show that our model not only produces meaningful text sentences to prove the correctness of the answer, but also improves the accuracy by nearly 10%.

Person re-identification is a complex image retrieval problem. The color of the image is distorted due to changes in illumination, etc., which makes pedestrian recognition more challenging. In this paper, we take the conditional image, the reference image and its corresponding clothing segmentation image as input, and then restore the true color of the person through color conversion. In addition, we calculate the similarity between the conditional image and the image dataset by the chromatic aberration similarity and the clothing segmentation invariance. We evaluated the proposed method on a public dataset. A large number of experimental results show that the method is effective.

One-Shot Video Object Segmentation (OSVOS) is a CNN architecture to tackle the problem of semi-supervised video object segmentation, which performs the separation of an object from the background in a frame-independent way with the aid of one manually-segmented frame. However, in the scenarios of real applications, the requirement of one manually-segmented frame would do harm to user-friendliness of a system. To tackle the problem above, we propose a video object segmentation based on referring expression (named as REVOS), which obtains the segmented frame by a referring expression (a noun phrase whose function is to identify on specific object). The main task of our method is to select the target from all candidate objects which have the highest matching score with the referring expression by using the language analysis module. Then generate the annotation of the first frame and continue to segment all the remaining frames with OSVOS. The results of experiment show that our method can achieve similar accuracy to OSVOS and more convenient and flexible for system design.

Background: Handgrip strength has been linked to risk of adverse physical and mental health outcomes, however, the association between handgrip strength and depressive symptoms is still controversial. We aimed to investigate the association between handgrip strength and depressive symptoms in a prospective study and meta-analysis. Methods: We analyzed the data from 6,392 Chinese adult participants ≥ 45 years old enrolled in the CHARLS (Chinese Health and Retirement Prospective Cohort Study) at 2011-2015. The handgrip strength was measured by a dynamometer, and depression symptoms were determined using the 10-item version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. We further examined this association, combining CHARLS data with data from five prospective studies in a meta-analysis. Findings: During a follow-up of 3.7 years, 1,055(16.5%) participants experienced depression symptoms. The incidence of depressive symptoms was significantly higher in population with lower handgrip strength, and was 11.9%, 15.5%, and 22.1% in strong, moderate, and weak handgrip strength group (tertiles), respectively. The participants with strong handgrip strength had significantly lower risk of depressive symptoms than those with weak handgrip strength (P for trend

Background Previous studies have shown that albumin-related systemic inflammation is associated with the long-term prognosis of cancer, but the clinical significance of an early (≤ 7 days) post-operative serum albumin level has not been well-documented as a prognostic factor in patients with renal cell cancer. Methods We retrospectively included patients hospitalized for kidney cancer from January 2009 to May 2014. First, the receiver operating characteristic analysis was used to define the best cut-off of an early post-operative serum albumin level in determining the prognosis, from which survival analysis was performed. Results A total of 329 patients were included. The median duration of follow-up was 54.8 months. Patients with an early post-operative serum albumin level