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Simple Summary The mainstay of treatment for locoregionally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is either surgery followed by adjuvant radiation therapy or definitive concurrent chemoradiation (CRT) reserving surgery as salvage therapy, referred to as the organ-preservation approach. Head and neck cancer treatment requires a multidisciplinary approach with medical, surgical, and radiation oncology, pathology, radiology, and supportive services including physical and occupational therapy, speech and swallow therapy, and nutrition. The field has rapidly evolved with rising rates of HPV positive oropharyngeal cancers leading to treatment de-escalation studies that are currently ongoing. Additionally, multiple trials are ongoing to evaluate the role of novel agents including immune checkpoint inhibitors, less invasive surgical approaches, and radiation field and dose reductions in order to maintain effective tumor control while improving quality of life outcomes for our head and neck cancer patients. Abstract The complexity of head and neck cancers (HNC) mandates a multidisciplinary approach and radiation therapy (RT) plays a critical role in the optimal management of patients with HNC, either as frontline or adjuvant treatment postoperatively. The advent of both definitive and post-operative RT has significantly improved the outcomes of patients with HNC. Herein, we discuss the role of postoperative RT in different subtypes of HNC, its side effects, and the importance of surveillance. The treatment regions discussed in this paper are the oral cavity, nasopharynx, paranasal sinus cavity, oropharynx, larynx and hypopharynx. Multiple studies that demonstrate the importance of definitive and/or postoperative RT, which led to an improved outlook of survival for HNC patients will be discussed.

In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of a low-cost, open-source prosthetic hand that enables both motor control and sensory feedback for people with transradial amputations. We integrate electromyographic pattern recognition for motor control along with contact reflexes and sensory substitution to provide feedback to the user. Compliant joints allow for robustness to impacts. The entire hand can be built for around $550. This low cost makes research and development of sensorimotor prosthetic hands more accessible to researchers worldwide, while also being affordable for people with amputations in developing nations. We evaluate the sensorimotor capabilites of our hand with a subject with a transradial amputation. We show that using contact reflexes and sensory substitution, when compared to standard myoelectric prostheses that lack these features, improves grasping of delicate objects like an eggshell and a cup of water both with and without visual feedback. Our hand is easily integrated into standard sockets, facilitating long-term testing of sensorimotor capabilities.

We study the problem of temperature regulation in a network of building thermal zones. The control objective is to keep zone temperatures within a comfort range while consuming the least energy by using predictive knowledge of weather and occupancy. First, we present a simplified two-mass nonlinear system for modeling thermal zone dynamics. Model identification and validation based on historical measured data are presented. Second, a distributed model-based predictive control (DMPC) is designed for optimal heating and cooling. The DMPC is implemented by using sequential quadratic program and dual decomposition. Simulation results show good performance and computational tractability of the resulting scheme.

We present a laser‐target scaling model which permits approximate prediction of the dependence of ablation pressure, mechanical coupling coefficient, and related parameters in vacuum upon single‐pulse laser intensity (I), wavelength (λ), and pulse width (τ) over extremely broad ranges. We show that existing data for vacuum mechanical coupling coefficient for metallic and endothermic nonmetallic, surface‐absorbing planar targets follows this empirical trend to within a factor of 2 over 7 orders of magnitude in the product (Iλ(τ)1/2). The comparison we present is valid for intensity equal to or greater than the peak‐coupling intensity Imax, where denseplasma formation mediates laser‐target coupling. Mechanical coupling coefficients studied ranged over two orders of magnitude. The data supporting this trend represent intensities from 3 MW/cm2 to 70 TW/cm2, pulse widths from 1.5 ms to 500 ps, wavelengths from 10.6 μm to 248 nm, and pulse energies from 100 mJ to 10 kJ. With few exceptions, data approximating one‐dimensional or planar expansions were selected. Previously, meaningful scaling of ablation pressure parameters with I, λ, τ was not possible because existing data concentrated in a small range of these parameters. Our own data, obtained in the low‐ and midrange of (Iλ(τ)1/2), completes the experimental picture. Since this new data was derived from five separate experiments with specialized character and purpose, detailed accounts of this work will appear separately. In this paper, we summarize the experimental conditions and selectonly those data which are relevant to the scaling issue. We find that laboratory‐scale laser experiments can often give impulse coupling data which agree with results from much higher‐energy experiments without much error, and at much lower cost. We review a theory of vacuum laser ablation, specialize it to a quantitative description of mechanical coupling, and show that the resulting model provides a simple physical description which comes quite close to the observed empirical trend. This is accomplished with minor elaborations of the theory as originally presented to account for the temperature dependence of plasma ionization states, while adhering to the premise that a simple and generally applicable treatment of laser impulse production should be available. The theoretical model can quantitatively predict vacuum ablation pressure foropaque targets without adjustable parameters to the factor‐of‐2 accuracy in which we are interested. Other published scaling models omit one or more of the important variables, lack broad applicability, or deviate more noticeably from the observed trend.

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International audience; Background: Despite the limited evidence, accelerated early postnatal growth (EPG) is commonly believed to benefit neurodevelopment for term-born infants, especially those small for gestational age.Objectives: To investigate the existence of critical time windows in the association of EPG with neurodevelopment, considering birth size groups.Study design: In the French ELFE birth cohort, 12,854 term-born neonates were classified as small, appropriate or large for gestational age (SGA, AGA, LGA, respectively). Parents reported their child's development by using the Child Development Inventory (CDI-score) at age 12 months and the MacArthur-Bates Development Inventory (MAB-score; 100 score units) assessing language ability at age 24 months. Predictions of individual weight, body mass index (BMI), length, and head circumference (HC) from birth to age 24 months were obtained from repeated measurements fitted with the Jenss-Bayley mixed-effects model. For each infant, conditional gains (CG) in these growth parameters were generated at four-time points (3, 6, 12 and 24 months) representing specific variations in growth parameters during 0-3, 3-6, 6-12, 12-24 months, independent of previous measures. Using multivariable linear regression models, we provided the estimate differences of the neurodevelopmental scores according to variation of each growth parameter CG, by birth size group.Results: For SGA infants, the MAB-score differed by 5.8 (95% confidence interval [CI] -0.2, 11.8), 6.7 (95% CI -0.1, 13.3), and 9.7 (95% CI 1.9, 17.5) score units when CG in BMI, weight, and HC at 3 months varied from -2 to 1 standard deviation, respectively. For all infants, MAB-score was linearly and positively associated with length conditional gains at 12 months, with stronger magnitude for SGA infants. Results for the CDI-score were overall consistent with those for MAB-score.Conclusions: For term-born SGA infants, moderate catch-up in HC, BMI and weight within the first 3 months of life may benefit later neurodevelopment, which could guide clinicians to monitor EPG.

Introduction Our main objective was to evaluate whether antenatal corticosteroids increase the risk of small head circumference in children born at term. Secondary objectives were to evaluate whether they increase the risk of small birthweight and birth length among those children. Material and methods A historical cohort included 275 270 live term born children between 2000 and 2013 in 175 French maternity units. The rate of head circumference below the 5th percentile among children born at term and exposed to antenatal corticosteroids was compared with that of two unexposed groups: those children born at term whose mothers had an episode of threatened preterm labor without corticosteroids and those whose mothers had neither threatened preterm labor nor corticosteroids. The association between this treatment and head circumference was evaluated by calculating adjusted risk ratios (aRRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The main outcome measure was a head circumference below the 5th percentile at birth, adjusted for sex, and gestational age according to the Pediatric, Obstetrics, and Gynecology Electronic Records Users Association (AUDIPOG) curves. Secondary outcomes were birthweight and birth length below the 5th percentile. Results The rate of head circumference below the 5th percentile was 5.8% (n = 3388) among children exposed to antenatal corticosteroids and 4.3% (n = 7077) and 4.6% (n = 198 462), respectively, for the two unexposed groups. After adjustment, the risk of having a head circumference below the 5th percentile did not differ between the exposed group and the two control groups (aRR 1.28, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.97-1.69] and aRR 0.91, 95% CI 0.74-1.13). We did not find an association between antenatal corticosteroids and the rate of birthweight below the 5th percentile. Children exposed to antenatal corticosteroids had a higher risk of a birth length below the 5th percentile when compared with those not exposed to threatened preterm labor or corticosteroids. Conclusions We found no association between antenatal corticosteroids and increased risk of head circumference below the 5th percentile in children born at term.