Search

Wearable sensors demand flexible and concealable devices that can be seamlessly integrated with apparels and clothes. E-textile sensors and devices, built from specially functionalized fibers and yarns and constructed with embroidery and woven processes, provide an ideal solution for different wearable applications. In this article, we propose a textile-based, embroidered passive strain and displacement sensor functioned as a UHF RFID antenna that can be aesthetically integrated with garment fabrics. The antenna structure consists of a dipole arm and a coupling loop mounted with an RFID chip. The displacement between the loop and dipole arm will alter the impedance of the antenna and consequently modulate the backscattered signals from the RFID chip to the reader. The sensor is passive, i.e., no battery is needed on the sensor and the sensing information can be wirelessly retrieved by the reader from a few meters away. The structure is sensitive to strains and displacement caused by body movement. Our experiments demonstrate different applications for this sensor, i.e., when the sensor is embroidered on different locations on human body, such as breast, knees, and elbows, it can be used as a respiration monitor, gesture indicator, etc. to conveniently track and log various forms of body movements.

Embroidering antennas and coils directly onto fabrics is the ideal solution for RFID (UHF or HF) deployment in apparel and garment industry. However, RFID tags embroidered with conductive yarns have several limitations in their design and performance. 1) antennas cannot utilize geometries with higher resolution, 2) yarns have higher resistivity than metallic materials, and 3) the parasitic capacitance will be introduced inside the micro-structures as well as between the threads. These issues all limit the performance of embroidered RFID tags. In this paper, we explore quantitatively the limitations of embroidered antenna designs, and propose the guideline to design embroidery-friendly RFID antennas to achieve a satisfactory performance. Several UHF RFID tags with embroidered antennas and coils are prototyped, and their performance is comparable to traditional metallic antennas based on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate.

Modulating PD-1 expression can constrain tumor growth. Hodgkin's lymphoma patients commonly express PD-L1 on tumor cells. We report the case of a 60-year-old male patient with relapsed classical Hodgkin's lymphoma who suffered from immediate-onset chill, hyperthermia and polyuria following initial treatment with sintilimab, an anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody. The results revealed central diabetes insipidus (cDI). After 3 months of treatment with glucocorticoids and desmopressin acetate, his symptoms and the results were consistent with the resolution of cDI and the treatment course was discontinued. Diabetes insipidus is a rare complication of immunotherapeutic treatment, and this is the first case report to our knowledge to have described immediate-onset cDI caused by anti-PD-1 treatment.Lay abstract For relapsed classical Hodgkin's lymphoma, anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibodies have been related to potent safety profiles and efficacy. Reported here is a case of a 60-year-old man diagnosed as having relapsed classical Hodgkin's lymphoma. He achieved a durable response over 4 months with four rounds of traditional chemotherapy, and then the disease relapsed. Sintilimab, an anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody, was executed for salvage therapy. In spite of the patient-acquired durable response, central diabetes insipidus was detected after the first application of sintilimab. According to our knowledge this is the first case to report immediate-onset central diabetes insipidus caused by the treatment of anti-PD-1. In the present study, we discussed and analyzed the types and clinical causes of diabetes insipidus for this patient.

P2P lending is an important research subject of rising internet finance research. This paper uses unique data from Renrendai, a leading platform in China, to test the influence of video information on P2P lending behavior. Results suggest that, first, the lower the borrower's credit rating is, the more likely they are to provide video information. Second, compared to the video‐information‐absent borrowers, the otherwise borrowers can get easier access to a loan and offer a lower interest rate. These results indicate that compared to text messages, video information can increase the borrower's creditworthiness and reduce the transaction risk. Thereupon seeing is important in online P2P lending. Third, when the borrower's credit rating is lower, the video effect is significant. The study makes sense in terms of the enrichment of P2P lending literature and the enlightenment on decision‐making of both lenders and borrowers.

In this paper, a novel three-dimensional integrated spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) transmission line (TL) is proposed. The controlled slow surface wave can propagate along unit cells that are planted on a metal strip periodically, which is similar to the typical SSPPs TLs. The dispersion characteristics and high-order modes of the proposed TL are studied. In order to verify the transmission performance of the proposed TL, a two-dimensional (2D) structure is utilized to do like the conversion. We have designed the proposed TL and give the simulated results from 10-25GHz, which show good propagation performance. The ohmic losses and dielectric losses of the proposed TL and typical 2D SSPPs TLs are simulated and compared with the microstrip line, coplanar waveguide. The measured data for the proposed TL indicates that the measured results are close to the simulations. The low-loss and highly integrated characteristics of the proposed TL plays an important role in the microwave and terahertz SSPPs transmission and integrated circuits.

In this paper, a novel integrated mode composite transmission line (IMCTL) is proposed, which consists of inner and outer transmission lines. The proposed IMCTL takes full advantages of both substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) and spoof surface Plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) transmission line and supports high-frequency transmission in the inner transmission line and low-frequency transmission in the outer surface transmission line with different propagation modes. The dispersion characteristics of the inner and outer surface IMCTL are studied. The electromagnetic field (EM) distributions and propagation modes of the inner and outer surface IMCTL are examined. The circuit models of the inner and outer surface IMCTL are discussed and analyzed. In order to achieve the transmission of inner and outer surface IMCTL with different propagation modes, two simple high-efficiency conversion structures are utilized to convert the guided waves to the proposed IMCTL. The inner and outer surface IMCTL are designed and simulated, which show good transmission performance. The ohmic losses and dielectric losses of the inner and outer surface IMCTL are simulated and compared with typical transmission lines. The measured data of the proposed IMCTL show a very good agreement with the simulated results. The measured insertion losses of inner IMCTL are within 1.77 ± 0.64 dB from 5.5 to 10.0 GHz and the measured insertion losses of outer surface IMCTL are within 3.21 ± 1.22 dB from 2.0 to 6.0 GHz. The proposed IMCTL will play an important role in the integrated high-performance multiband microwave and wireless communication systems.

A new RF coil based on microstrip Yagi-antenna for 7T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is presented in this paper. The RF coil element consists of a driver which is a pair of dipoles printed on the dielectric substrate and two reflectors distributed on either sides of the driver. Simulation results show that the proposed 8-channel RF coil array with these elements has high magnetic field intensity and uniform magnetic field distribution in the transverse plane, and can also maintain relatively low specific absorption rate (SAR) in the human body electromagnetic model. In addition, by comparing the RF field distribution of healthy organs and diseased organs, the feasibility of 8-channel RF coil array for human body imaging in MRI system is confirmed.

This paper presents a textile-based, embroidered inductive strain sensor that can be fabricated with standard embroidery processes and aesthetically integrated with apparel and garments fabrics. The sensor consists of two embroidered coupling coils (called coupling planar coils, or CPC) connected in series, and stacked on top of each other. The mutual inductance of this coupling coils pair is determined by the relative positions and displacement between them. This structure can be used as a restorable and repeatable strain sensor for human movements and activities, such as the measurement of respiratory rate. This structure can also form a passive sensor by using the coils as antennas to connect with RFID/NFC chips, such that the sensing information can be extracted wirelessly as phase and amplitude variations by RFID/NFC readers. Experiments demonstrate that a wearable belt embedded with this proposed sensor can be worn on human body to monitor breathing activities reliably under normal wearing conditions. The sensor structure can be fabricated by commercial embroidery machines using off-the-shelf conductive yarns and all the materials are commercially available in large quantity; therefore, it also has good potentials to be commercialized as a low-cost health monitoring system in mass production.

Epidemiologic studies of the relationship between nitrite or nitrate consumption and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) remain controversial. The current meta-analysis aimed to reexamine the evidence and quantitatively evaluate that relationship. Manuscripts were retrieved from the Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure and PubMed databases up to May 2019. From the studies included in the review, results were combined and presented as odds ratios (OR). To conduct a dose-response (DR) analysis, studies presenting risk estimates over a series of categories of exposure were selected. Our data indicate that the consumption of nitrite was linked to a significantly increased hazard of NHL (OR: 1.37; 95% CI: 1.14–1.65), rather than nitrate (OR: 1.02; 95% CI: 0.94–1.10). According to Egger’s and Begg’s tests (P > 0.05), there was no evidence of significant publication bias. Moreover, our DR analysis indicated that the risk of NHL grew by 26% for each additional microgram of nitrite consumed in the diet per day (OR: 1.26; 95% CI: 1.09–1.42). Through subset analysis of the nitrite studies, data from the high-quality studies indicated that consumption was positively associated with carcinogenicity, leading to NHL (OR: 1.44; 95% CI: 1.17–1.77) and positively correlated with the development of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (OR: 1.55; 95% CI: 1.07–2.26), but not other NHL subtypes. In addition, the data suggested that females (OR: 1.50; 95% CI: 1.15–1.95) and high levels of nitrite intake (OR: 1.64; 95% CI: 1.28–2.09) had a higher risk of NHL. Our meta-analysis supports the hypothesis that nitrite intake, but not that of nitrate, raises the risk of developing NHL. In the future, better designed prospective research studies should be conducted to confirm our findings, clarify potential biological mechanisms and instruct clinicians about NHL prophylaxis.

The training process of scientific NER models is commonly performed in two steps: i) Pre-training a language model by self-supervised tasks on huge data and ii) fine-tune training with small labelled data. The success of the strategy depends on the relevance between the data domains and between the tasks. However, gaps are found in practice when the target domains are specific and small. We propose a novel framework to introduce a “pre-fine tuning” step between pre-training and fine-tuning. It constructs a corpus by selecting sentences from unlabeled documents that are the most relevant with the labelled training data. Instead of predicting tokens in random spans, the pre-fine tuning task is to predict tokens in entity candidates identified by text mining methods. Pre-fine tuning is automatic and light-weight because the corpus size can be much smaller than pre-training data to achieve a better performance. Experiments on seven benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness.

We report a mechanism to sense and manipulate bianisotropic chiral biomolecules by a surface plasmon resonance based side-polished optical fiber sensor. To simulate such planar layered structure containing anisotropic and magnetoelectric coupling biomolecules, the propagation matrix method is expanded. This method allows us to access the radiation pressure exerted on the bianisotropic molecular layer via the derivation of the Maxwell stress tensor. The complicated behavior of incident plane waves on the sensing and trapping of biomolecules with different medium parameters is clarified. We find that the optical fiber sensor is capable of simultaneous detection of chirality parameter, anisotropy, and refractive index of biomolecules. The structure can also be used to separate chiral molecules from achiral ones by using an emerging sharp surface plasmon resonance. The paper may provide new insights for SPR based sensors and imaging systems, optical tweezers, and nanomechnical devices.

Background: PARP-1 plays a critical role in DNA damage repair and contributes to progression of cancer. To explore the role of PARP-1 in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), we analyzed the expression of PARP-1 in AML and its relation to the clinical prognosis. Then, we investigated the efficacy and mechanism of PARP inhibitor BMN673 (Talazoparib) combined with NL101, a novel SAHA-bendamustine hybrid in vitro and in vivo. Methods: The expression of PARP-1 in 339 cytogenetically normal AML (CN-AML) cases was evaluated using RT-PCR. According to the expression of PARP-1, the clinical characteristics and prognosis of the patients were grouped and compared. The combination effects of BMN673 and NL101 were studied in AML cells and B-NSG mice xenograft model of MV4-11. Findings: We found patients in high PARP-1 expression group had higher levels of blast cells in bone marrow (P = .003) and white blood cells (WBC) in peripheral blood (P = .008), and were associated with a more frequent FLT3-ITD mutation (28.2% vs 17.3%, P = .031). The overall survival (OS) and event free survival (EFS) of the high expression group were significantly shorter than those in the low expression group (OS, P = .005 and EFS, P = .004). BMN673 combined with NL101 had a strong synergistic effect in treating AML. The combination significantly induced cell apoptosis and arrested cell cycle in G2/M phase. Mechanistically, BMN673 and NL101 combinatorial treatment promoted DNA damage. In vivo, the combination effectively delayed the development of AML and prolonged survival. Interpretation: High PARP-1 expression predicts poor survival in CN-AML patients. The synergistic effects of PARP inhibitor BMN673 in combination with SAHA-bendamustine hybrid, NL101, provide a new therapeutic strategy against AML. Fund: National Natural Science Foundation of China and Zhejiang Provincial Key Innovation Team. Keywords: PARP-1, Acute myeloid leukemia, PARP inhibitor, SAHA-bendamustine hybrid

Two patterns of data predict that similarity has a positive effect and a negative effect on visual working memory (VWM) processing. We assume that these two empirical outcomes do not distinguish ca...

// Jian Chen 1, 2, * , Qitian Mu 1, 2, 3, * , Xia Li 1, 2, * , Xiufeng Yin 1, 2 , Mengxia Yu 1, 2 , Jing Jin 1, 2 , Chenying Li 1, 2 , Yile Zhou 1, 2 , Jiani Zhou 1, 2, 4 , Shanshan Suo 1, 2 , Demin Lu 1, 2 and Jie Jin 1, 2 1 Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China 2 Institute of Hematology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China 3 Laboratory of Stem Cell Transplantation, Ningbo First Hospital, Zhejiang, China 4 Hematology Department of Ningbo Medical Center Lihuili Estern Hospital, Ningbo, China * These authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Jie Jin, email: zjuhematology@163.com Keywords: homoharringtonine, smad3, TGF-β, acute myeloid leukemia Received: April 04, 2016 Accepted: March 29, 2017 Published: April 08, 2017 ABSTRACT Homoharringtonine (HHT) has long and widely been used in China for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the clinical therapeutic effect is significant but the working mechanism is poorly understood. The purpose of this study is to screen the possible target for HHT with virtual screening and verify the findings by cell experiments. Software including Autodock, Python, and MGL tools were used, with HHT being the ligand and proteins from PI3K-Akt pathway, Jak-stat pathway, TGF-β pathway and NK-κB pathway as the receptors. Human AML cell lines including U937, KG-1, THP-1 were cultured and used as the experiment cell lines. MTT assay was used for proliferation detection, flowcytometry was used to detect apoptosis and cell cycle arrest upon HHT functioning, western blotting was used to detect the protein level changes, viral shRNA transfection was used to suppress the expression level of the target protein candidate, and viral mRNA transfection was used for over-expression. Virtual screening revealed that smad3 from TGF-β pathway might be the candidate for HHT binding. In AML cell line U937 and KG-1, HHT can induce the Ser423/425 phosphorylation of smad3, and this phosphorylation can subsequently activate the TGF-β pathway, causing cell cycle arrest at G1 phase in U937 cells and apoptosis in KG-1 cells, knockdown of smad3 can impair the sensitivity of U937 cell to HHT, and over-expression of smad3 can re-establish the sensitivity in both cell lines. We conclude that smad3 is the probable target protein of HHT and plays an important role in the functioning mechanism of HHT.

// Xia Li 1, 2, * , Xiufeng Yin 1, 2, * , Huafeng Wang 1, 2 , Jiansong Huang 1, 2 , Mengxia Yu 1, 2 , Zhixin Ma 1, 2 , Chenying Li 1, 2 , Yile Zhou 1, 2 , Xiao Yan 1, 2 , ShuJuan Huang 1, 2 , Jie Jin 1, 2, 3 1 Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China 2 Institute of Hematology, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China 3 Key Lab of Hematopoietic Malignancy, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China * These authors contributed equally to this work and share first authorship Correspondence to: Jie Jin, email: zjuhematology@163.com Keywords: acute myeloid leukemia, FLT3-ITD, homoharringtonine, ibrutinib Received: February 25, 2016 Accepted: December 25, 2016 Published: January 03, 2017 ABSTRACT Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a highly heterogeneous disease and internal tandem duplication mutation in FMS-like tyrosine-kinase-3 (FLT3-ITD) has a negative impact on outcome. Finding effective treatment regimens is desperately needed. In this study, we explored the inhibitory effect and mechanism of homoharringtonine (HHT) in combination with ibrutinib on FLT3-ITD mutant AML cells. Consequently, we observed a synergistic inhibitory effect when ibrutinib was combined with HHT to inhibit cell proliferation, induce apoptosis and arrest cell cycle at G0/G1 phase in MV4-11 and MOLM-13 leukemia cells. Our results indicate that the mechanisms of the combination effect are mainly via regulating the STAT5/Pim-2/C-Myc pathway, AKT pathway and Bcl-2 family, activating p21WAF1/CIP1 and inhibiting CCND/CDK complex protein. Interestingly, synergistic cytotoxicity of ibrutinib and HHT was dependent on both FLT3 and BTK. Here we provide a novel effective therapeutic approach for the treatment of AML patients with FLT3-ITD mutation.

The electromagnetic field theory for a step-index fiber geometry is developed to sense a surrounding chiral drug via long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs). This theory employs Debye potentials and electromagnetic fields for cladding modes in the LPFGs by introducing constitutive relations for a chiral drug. The fields in the chiral drug are transformed and decomposed into right- and left-hand circularly polarized components to account for the magnetoelectric coupling due to the chirality. The solving process for complex propagation constants is given. Numerical results show that responses of the LPFGs to refractive index and chirality changes are different. The two minimum transmissions of a coated LPFG are very sensitive to the variation of the complex chirality. On the other hand, the two resonance wavelengths keep invariant as real and imaginary parts of the comparatively small chirality change. This work enriches the electromagnetic field theory for better design of LPFGs against the highly sensitive chirality detection.

Embroidered UHF RFID antenna enables seamless integration of RFID tags with apparels. In this paper, we show that the resonant frequency and sensitivity of embroidered meander line dipole (MLD) antennas will vary with the elongation of antenna geometry. We further propose that by exploiting this property, embroidered antenna can also be utilized as a stretch sensor. Prototype tags with embroidered antennas have been tested and proved that by reading the RFID tags' back-scattered signals, the reader can extract the elongation information caused by the stretching of well-performed embroidered RFID tags.

In this paper, we have designed and assembled a Ka-band power amplifier. Working in the frequency range from 34 to 36 GHz, its highest saturation output power is up to 0.36 watts (25.5 dBm). We can estimate the highest power combining efficiency of the Ka-band power amplifier is up to 85%.

We report a method to sense a surrounding chiral drug based on D-type single-mode photonic crystal fiber (PCF) sensors in this paper. The electromagnetic theory of surface plasmon resonance on metal-chiral drug structure is derived. The wave equation containing constitutive relations of a chiral drug is given and integrated into the finite element method to compute the effective refractive index, confinement loss, and plasmon resonance wavelength for a D-type PCF sensor immersed in the chiral drug. The effects of the chirality parameter on resonance behaviors are displayed. The wavelength sensitivities of the chirality parameter for the sensor changing with different kinds of metal film layers, side-polished depth, and thickness of metal film layer are calculated. The wavelength sensitivity can reach a maximum of 17,580 nm/chirality as the refractive index and chirality parameter of the drug are 1.36 and 0.08, respectively. Furthermore, simultaneous dual-parameter detection of the chirality parameter and refractive index is realized by using two different D-type PCF sensors with gold and silver metal film layers, respectively. This study may provide sufficient guidelines to the field of biochemical sensing.

Background Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have revolutionized the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) by providing patients with long-term survival. Although most patients who receive TKI treatment have shown satisfactory tolerance, second malignancies (SMs) should not be ignored because of lifetime treatment. We designed a retrospective study to evaluate the incidence and possible risk factors of SMs in CML patients treated with TKIs. Patients and Methods Records of 223 patients with Philadelphia chromosome-positive CML treated with imatinib were reviewed to investigate frequencies and characteristics of SMs. The data of SMs were compared with the number expected from the National Central Cancer Registry. The possible risk factors of SM in CML patients treated with TKIs were also evaluated using Poisson regression in this study. Results After a median follow-up of 64 months (range, 4-253 months) from CML diagnosis, 7 patients (3.14%) developed 6 different SMs including colon, stomach, breast, kidney, cervical, and lymphonodus tissue. The risk of second cancer was higher than expected (observed-to-expected ratio, 2.45; 95% confidence interval, 1.17-5.14; P = .018). No associated elements were found in terms of influencing the incidence of SM in CML patients treated with TKIs. Conclusion We found patients with CML treated with TKIs had a higher relative incidence of SM compared with the expected incidence among the general Chinese population. However, the correlations between second cancer and the potential risk factors including the length of exposure and cumulative dose of TKIs were not found in this study.

This paper designed, fabricated and measured a THz fourth-harmonic conversion system based on GaAs Schottky barrier diode. Using the fourth-harmonic mixing method, the LO frequency is a quarter of (RF-IF) frequency and is corresponding to W band. Furthermore, the generators only need to supply LO signal of Ku band and IF signal of C band due to the sextupler in LO chain and quadrupler in IF chain. Based on the measurement results, this conversion system could generate 364–380 GHz signal with a typical conversion loss of 25.5 dB. The presented conversion system extends the existing microwave generators to THz applications and offers a low-cost, simple and alternative solution for those who lacking of lower THz signal source.

Ibrutinib, an inhibitor of Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK), has shown promising pharmacologic effects in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). In this study, we report that abivertinib or AC0010, a novel BTK inhibitor, inhibits cell proliferation, reduces colony-forming capacity, and induces apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in AML cells, especially those harboring FLT3-ITD mutations. Abivertinib was also found to be more sensitive than ibrutinib in treating AML. We demonstrate that in addition to targeting the phosphorylation of BTK, abivertinib also targeted the crucial PI3K survival pathway. Furthermore, abivertinib suppressed the expression of p-FLT3 and the downstream target p-STAT5 in AML cells harboring FLT3-ITD mutations. Moreover, in vitro and in vivo data revealed synergistic activity between abivertinib and homoharringtonine (HHT), a natural plant alkaloid commonly used in China, in treating AML cells with or without FLT3-ITD mutations. Collectively, these preclinical data suggest that abivertinib may be a promising novel agent for AML, with potential for combination treatment with HHT. Clinical studies on abivertinib-involved therapy are planned.

In this paper, an equivalent-circuit model including detailed parasitic parameters of a planar anti-parallel GaAs Schottky diode is proposed for Terahertz application. The 3D electromagnetic model is established according to the actual geometry of diode to extract diode parameters simultaneously. Combined with empirical equivalent circuit model, equivalent circuit model and 3D electromagnetic model, the parameters of diode can be extracted completely and accurately. These models can be used for the design of terahertz circuits.

A novel substrate integrated waveguide filter with four symmetrically arranged square complementary split-ring resonators(CSRRs) etched on the SIW surface is presented in this paper. A device which has excellent selectivity with compact size and a novel structure has been desgined, fabricated and measured. The HFSS simulation results show that the filter has good passband performance, and the out of band rejection is relatively high. The circuit area of the band-pass filter is just $17 \times\ 15\mathbf{mm}^{2}$ . The proposed filter demonstrated a minimum passband insertion loss of 2.53dB and a bandwidth of 2.06% at a center frequency of 5.82 GHz by measurement. The filter implementation showed a rejection which is larger than 50 dB at the stopband. The measured results are in good agreement with the simulation.

Semantics and phonology are fundamental components of language. Neuroimaging studies have identified a language network (LN) that is distributed through multiple regions and exhibits preferential responses to semantic and phonological information. However, it is unclear how these regions work collaboratively to support the processing of these components. In the present study, we first defined the LN as voxels that responded more to sentences than to strings of Chinese pseudo-characters. We subsequently used a voxel-based global brain connectivity method based on resting-state functional connectivity (FC) to characterize the neural correlates of semantic and phonological processing. We specifically correlated the within-network connectivity (WNC) of each voxel in the LN with the participants' scores on the semantic and phonological components extracted from a battery of reading tests via principal component analysis. We found that individuals with stronger WNC in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (lpSTG) and anterior superior temporal gyrus (laSTG) were better at semantic and phonological processing, respectively. Furthermore, the FC of the lpSTG with the laSTG and bilateral fusiform gyrus mainly contributed to semantic processing, whereas the FC of the laSTG with the left posterior middle temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus largely contributed to phonological processing. Importantly, the semantic and phonological subnetworks overlapped in the laSTG, the WNC of which correlated with the participants' performances during semantic-phonological interactions. Our study revealed the hub and subnetwork for semantic and phonological processing, respectively, and highlighted the role of the laSTG in semantic-phonological interactions.

The complex dielectric permittivity of a dusty plasma, which contains an inhomogeneous electron density, charging response factor, and dust charging frequency caused by dust particles, is given to simulate the time-varying dusty plasma sheath. The recurrence field and current equations for terahertz (THz) wave propagation in the plasma are deduced and discretized using the auxiliary differential equation finite-difference time-domain (ADE-FDTD) method. The reflection, transmission, and absorption coefficients of a time-varying dusty plasma slab are calculated by using the ADE-FDTD method. The numerical results indicate that the reflection coefficients of the slab are easily affected by the rise time of the electron density. Besides, the absorption coefficients increase with the decrease in the rise time and working frequency as well as with the increase in the densities of electrons and dust particles. It is shown that THz waves may have potential applications in radio communications with a spacecraft at its re-entry into the atmosphere.

The prognostic value of IDH1 mutations has been systematically evaluated in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients recently. However, the role of IDH1 expression in AML is still under exploration. To investigate the clinical significance, we analyzed the IDH1/2 expression in 320 patients with cytogenetically normal AML (CN-AML) by quantitative real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction. High expression of IDH1 was predominant in patients with FLT3-ITD and DNMT3A mutations and less prevalent in cases with CEBPA double allele mutations. Strong association was observed between high IDH1 expression and low expression of microRNA 181 family. Prognosis was adversely affected by high IDH1 expression, with shorter overall survival and event-free survival in the context of clinical characteristics, including age, WBC count, and gene mutations of NPM1, FLT3-ITD, CEBPA, IDH1, IDH2 and DNMT3A in CN-AML. Moreover, the clinical outcome of IDH1 expression in terms of overall survival, event-free survival and complete remission rate still remained in multivariate models in CN-AML. Importantly, the prognostic value was validated using the published microarray data from 79 adult patients treated according to the German AMLCG-1999 protocol. Our results demonstrated that high IDH1 expression is associated with a poor prognosis of CN-AML.

Patients with secondary acute myeloid leukemia (sAML) arising from myelodysplastic syndromes have a poor prognosis marked by an increased resistance to chemotherapy. An urgent need exists for adjuvant treatments that can enhance or replace current therapeutic options. Here we show the potential of LB100, a small-molecule protein phosphatase 2 A (PP2A) inhibitor, as a monotherapy and chemosensitizing agent for sAML using an in-vitro and in-vivo approach. We demonstrate that LB100 decreases cell viability through caspase activation and G2/M cell-cycle arrest. LB100 enhances daunorubicin (DNR) cytotoxicity resulting in decreased xenograft volumes and improved overall survival. LB100 profoundly upregulates miR-181b-1, which we show directly binds to the 3' untranslated region of Bcl-2 mRNA leading to its translational inhibition. MiR-181b-1 ectopic overexpression further diminishes Bcl-2 expression leading to suppression of sAML cell growth, and enhancement of DNR cytotoxicity. Our research highlights the therapeutic potential of LB100, and provides new insights into the mechanism of LB100 chemosensitization.

A substrate integrated waveguide filter with two reversely arranged square complementary split-ring resonators (CSRRs) etched on the SIW surface is presented in this paper. The proposed filter allow the implementation of a forward-wave passband propagating below the characteristic cutoff frequency of the substrate integrated waveguide. The circuit area of the bandpass filter was only 16 × 16 mm. The proposed filter demonstrated a minimum passband insertion loss of 3.5dB and a bandwidth of 5.5% at a center frequency of 5.15 GHz. The filter implementation showed a rejection which was larger than 37 dB at the stopband.

Patients with secondary acute myeloid leukemia (sAML) arising from myelodysplastic syndromes have a poor prognosis marked by an increased resistance to chemotherapy. An urgent need exists for adjuvant treatments that can enhance or replace current therapeutic options. Here we show the potential of LB100, a small-molecule protein phosphatase 2 A (PP2A) inhibitor, as a monotherapy and chemosensitizing agent for sAML using an in-vitro and in-vivo approach. We demonstrate that LB100 decreases cell viability through caspase activation and G2/M cell-cycle arrest. LB100 enhances daunorubicin (DNR) cytotoxicity resulting in decreased xenograft volumes and improved overall survival. LB100 profoundly upregulates miR-181b-1, which we show directly binds to the 3′ untranslated region of Bcl-2 mRNA leading to its translational inhibition. MiR-181b-1 ectopic overexpression further diminishes Bcl-2 expression leading to suppression of sAML cell growth, and enhancement of DNR cytotoxicity. Our research highlights the therapeutic potential of LB100, and provides new insights into the mechanism of LB100 chemosensitization.

Huntingtin interacting protein 1 (HIP1) is an endocytic protein which is overexpressed in a variety of human cancers and involved in cancer-causing translocation in leukemia. However, the prognostic impact of HIP1 expression on AML remains unclear. In this study, quantification of HIP1 transcript by real-time quantitative PCR in bone marrow blasts was performed in 270 AML patients. As a result, high HIP1 expression was seen more frequently in older patients, M4/M5 morphology and genes of NPM1 and DNMT3A mutations, and underrepresented in favorable karyotype subgroups and CEBPA double allele mutations in our AML patients. We also found high HIP1 expressers showed lower levels of hemoglobin. In addition, overexpression of HIP1 was associated with an inferior overall survival. The prognostic value of HIP1 expression was validated in patients from an independent TCGA cohort. Notably, up-regulation of miR-16, miR-15a, miR-28 and miR-660 were seen in high HIP1 expressers from the two independent cohorts. In vitro, interfereing of HIP1 expression by siRNA suppressed the proliferation of leukemic cells, and downregulation of these miRNAs were seen in THP-1 and Kasumi cell lines after silencing HIP1 expression. In conclusion, the HIP1 gene expression might serve as a reliable predictor for overall survival in AML patients.

Chidamide, a novel histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi), has been approved for treatment of T-cell lymphomas in multiple clinical trials. It has been demonstrated that chidamide can inhibit cell cycle, promote apoptosis and induce differentiation in leukemia cells, whereas its effect on acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients with FLT3-ITD mutation has not been clarified. In this study, we found that chidamide specifically induced G0/G1 arrest and apoptosis in FLT3-ITD positive AML cells in a concentration and time-dependent manner. We also found chidamide had the cytotoxicity effect on FLT3-ITD positive and negative AML cells. Moreover, with respect to relapsed/refractory patients, chidamide showed the same effectiveness as that in de novo AML patients. Notably, chidamide synergistically enhanced apoptosis caused by cytarabine. Our results support chidamide alone or combine with cytarabine may be used as an alternative therapeutic choice for AML patients especially those with FLT3-ITD mutation or relapsed/refractory ones.

Human musical ability is proposed to play a key phylogenetical role in the evolution of language, and the similarity of hierarchical structure in music and language has led to considerable speculation about their shared mechanisms. While behavioral and electrophysioglocial studies have revealed associations between music and linguistic abilities, results from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies on their relations are contradictory, possibly because these studies usually treat music or language as single entities without breaking down to their components. Here, we examined the relations between different components of music (i.e., melodic and rhythmic analysis) and language (i.e., semantic and phonological processing) using both behavioral tests and resting-state fMRI. Behaviorally, we found that individuals with music training experiences were better at semantic processing, but not at phonological processing, than those without training. Further correlation analyses showed that semantic processing of language was related to melodic, but not rhythmic, analysis of music. Neurally, we found that performances in both semantic processing and melodic analysis were correlated with spontaneous brain activities in the bilateral precentral gyrus (PCG) and superior temporal plane at the regional level, and with the resting-state functional connectivity of the left PCG with the left supramarginal gyrus and left superior temporal gyrus at the network level. Together, our study revealed the shared spontaneous neural basis of music and language based on the behavioral link between melodic analysis and semantic processing, which possibly relied on a common mechanism of automatic auditory-motor integration.

The transfer matrix method is developed to probe bianisotropic biomolecules via a Kretschmann configuration surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor. This method employs wave vectors and 4 × 4 transfer matrices derived by using anisotropic and magnetoelectric coupling constitutive relations. The transfer matrices relate four eigenstates and trace four transverse field components through the multilayer to account for cross-polarization coupling due to the chirality of the biomolecule layer. The validity of the method is confirmed by means of numerical results. It is shown that cross-polarized reflection waves are enhanced around the SPR angle, as the water solution and bianisotropic biomolecules to be detected are placed in contact with the graphene layer of the sensor. The effects of optical activity and bianisotropy on the SPR sensor are investigated. This work enriches the transfer matrix theory for SPR sensors to detect the chirality parameter of bianisotropic chiral material, and may lead to a better design of SPR sensors against the chirality parameter variation.

The effect of time from diagnosis to treatment (TDT) on overall survival of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remains obscure. Furthermore, whether chemotherapy delay impacts overall survival (OS) of patients with a special molecular subtype has not been investigated. Here, we enrolled 364 cases of AML to assess the effect of TDT on OS by fractional polynomial regression in the context of clinical parameters and genes of FLT3ITD, NPM1, CEBPA, DNMT3a, and IDH1/2 mutations. Results of the current study show IDH1/2 mutations are associated with older age, M0 morphology, an intermediate cytogenetic risk group, and NPM1 mutations. TDT associates with OS for AML patients in a nonlinear pattern with a J shape. Moreover, adverse effect of delayed treatment on OS was observed in patients with IDH1/2 mutations, but not in those with IDH1/2 wildtype. Therefore, initiating chemotherapy as soon as possible after diagnosis might be a potential strategy to improve OS in AML patients with IDH1/2 mutations.

Previous studies on the association between alcohol intake and the risk of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) have been inconclusive. We conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate alcohol intake as a risk factor for MDS. We performed a systematic literature search of articles published before March, 2014 using Web of Science, PubMed and the Cochrane Library. Two evaluators independently selected and reviewed studies based on predetermined selection criteria. The fixed- or random-effects models were used to summarize the estimates of odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). A total of 9 studies (8 case-control and 1 cohort) met the inclusion criteria of this meta-analysis. No significant association was observed between alcohol consumption and MDS when comparing drinkers to non-drinkers (OR=1.16, 95% CI: 0.88–1.53) or between subgroups stratified by alcohol history, gender, ethnicity, study design, source of patients or MDS subtypes. However, the data indicated a stronger association of alcohol with MDS in individuals who consumed ≥10 g/day (OR=1.55, 95% CI: 1.08–2.21) vs. those who consumed

Adult T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) has a poor prognosis. Although it has been found that activation of Notch1 signaling occurs in >50% T-ALL patients, γ-secretase inhibitors that target Notch1 signaling are of limited efficacy. However, c-Myc is an important direct target of Notch1 and, thus, c-Myc is another potential therapeutic target for T-ALL. Valproic acid (VPA), a histone deacetylase inhibitor, has been reported to treat various hematological malignancies. In the present study, we showed that c-Myc expression, at a transcriptional level, was dose-dependently downregulated in VPA-induced growth inhibition in T-ALL cell lines, Jurkat and CCRF-CEM cells. 10058-F4, a small molecule c-Myc inhibitor, could increase the downregulation of c-Myc and markedly increase the growth inhibition and cell death induced by VPA in Jurkat and CCRF-CEM cells, which was accompanied by obvious cleavage of capase-3. Z-VAD-FMK, a caspase inhibitor, partially prevented the anti-leukemic effect. The results of the present study suggest that c-Myc inhibitors increase cell death induced by VPA in a caspase-dependent and -independent manner, and their combination could be a potent therapeutic strategy for adult T-ALL patients.

BACKGROUNDIn recent years, epidemiologic studies have reported controversial results relating cigarette smoking to myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) risk. A meta-analysis was performed to assess such potential relationship between cigarette smoking and incidence of MDS.METHODSA search of literature published before October 2012 for observational studies evaluating the association between cigarette smoking and MDS, returned 123 articles and of these, 14 were selected for this study. The outcomes from these studies were calculated and reported as odds ratios (OR). Quality assessments were performed with the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Heterogeneity was evaluated by the I(2) index and source of heterogeneity was detected by sensitivity analyses. Finally, publication bias was assessed through visual inspection of funnel plots and Egger's test.RESULTSThe pooled OR of developing MDS in ever-smokers was 1.45 (95% CI, 1.25 to 1.68) versus non-smokers. Current and former smokers had increased risks of MDS, with ORs of 1.81 (95% CI, 1.24 to 2.66) and 1.67 (95% CI, 1.42 to 1.96), respectively. In subset analyses, ever-smokers had increased risks of developing MDS if they were living in the United States, or in Europe, female in gender, had refractory anemia (RA)/RA with ringed sideroblasts (RARS) or RA with excess blasts (RAEB)/RAEB in transformation (RAEBt), respectively. Our results demonstrated that the association was stronger in individuals who smoked ≥20 cigarettes/day (OR, 1.62; 95% CI, 1.03 to 2.55) versus those who smoked CONCLUSIONOur outcomes show that smoking increases the risk of developing MDS in ever-smokers who are current or former smokers. We also demonstrate here that positive association between cigarette smoking and risk of MDS exists, and occurs in a dose-dependent manner.

In this paper, a novel compact ultra-wideband (UWB, 3.1 GHz-10.6 GHz, defined by U.S. Federal Communications Commission) band-pass filter with good transmission characteristic and flat group delay is presented by using multiple-mode resonator (MMR) and open stubs. The proposed structure consists of a main multiple-mode resonator and four open stubs. The dimension of this structure is 10 mm × 2.2 mm (not including the 50 Ω microstrip), which is much less than conventional structure. By properly optimizing the parameters of the multiple-mode resonator and open stubs, four resonator modes can be allocated within the UWB band. It can cover the frequency band of 3.1 GHz to over 11 GHz and has 3-dB bandwidth of more than 110% that can satisfy the requirement of UWB band communication system.

The direct frequency synthesizer has advantages of excellent frequency stability, low phase noise, but it is difficult to suppress its spurious signals very well. This paper describes a optimized circuit scheme of direct frequency synthesizer, which output power up to 15 dBm, spurious signals suppression reaches −55dBc and the phase noise at 1kHz offset from carrier is about −90dBc/Hz.

In this paper, a compact wideband low-noise amplifier (LNA) is proposed, where the lumped component is employed as the matching network. Both the simulation and measurement verifies that the improved performance is achieved compared with the conventional LNA. Concretely, the operating frequency band of the proposed LNA is from 30MHz to 1500MHz with its noise figure (NF) smaller than 1.2dB and the voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) below 1.5, the gain of the LNA is above 16dB while pass-band fluctuation is smaller than 2dB.

This paper presents a highly integrated chip set for low-cost Ka-band receiver applications. The receiver consists of a low noise amplifier (LNA), an image rejection mixer (IR mixer), a quadruple and a medium power amplifier. A Ka-band receiver module is realized using this kind of chip set, and is got a good performance.

Objective Pesticide exposure has been linked to increased risk of cancer at several sites, but its association with risk of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) is still unclear. A meta-analysis of studies published through April, 2014 was performed to investigate the association of pesticide exposure with the risk of MDS. Methods Studies were identified by searching the Web of Science, Cochrane Library and PubMed databases. Summary odds ratios (ORs) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using random- or fixed-effect models. Results This meta-analysis included 11 case-control studies, all of which demonstrated a correlation between pesticide exposure and a statistically significant increased risk of MDS (OR = 1.95, 95% CI 1.23–3.09). In subgroup analyses, patients with pesticide exposure had increased risk of developing MDS if they were living in the Europe or Asia and had refractory anemia (RA) or RA with ringed sideroblasts (RARS). Moreover, in the analysis by specific pesticides, increased risk was associated with exposure to insecticides (OR = 1.71, 95% CI 1.22–2.40) but not exposure to herbicides or fungicides. Conclusion This meta-analysis supports the hypothesis that exposure to pesticides increases the risk of developing MDS. Further prospective cohort studies are warranted to verify the association and guide clinical practice in MDS prevention.

How are Chinese characters recognized and represented in the brain of skilled readers? Functional MRI fast adaptation technique was used to address this question. We found that neural adaptation effects were limited to identical characters in bilateral ventral visual system while no activation reduction was observed for partially overlapping characters regardless of the spatial location of the shared sub-character components, suggesting highly selective neuronal tuning to whole characters. The consistent neural profile across the entire ventral visual cortex indicates that Chinese characters are represented as mutually distinctive wholes rather than combinations of sub-character components, which presents a salient contrast to the left-lateralized, simple-to-complex neural representations of alphabetic words. Our findings thus revealed the cultural modulation effect on both local neuronal activity patterns and functional anatomical regions associated with written symbol recognition. Moreover, the cross-language discrepancy in written symbol recognition mechanism might stem from the language-specific early-stage learning experience.