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Background: Alectinib has demonstrated promising disease-free survival (DFS) benefit for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with ALK rearrangement positive in phase 3 ALINA trial. However, real-world evidence for the efficacy and safety of alectinib in early-stage ALK-positive NSCLC is limited. Materials and methods: We retrospectively reviewed 68 patients with stage IB-IIIB ALK-positive NSCLC who underwent complete pulmonary resections from April 2010 to July 2023 at a single institution. 38 (55.9%) enrolled patients had N2 lymph node metastasis, and 17 (24.9%) patients had multi-station N2 metastasis. Patients were stratified into two groups according to the adjuvant treatment regimen, with 19 patients in the alectinib group and 49 patients in the chemotherapy group. There were no significant differences in clinicopathological characteristics between the two groups. After curative resection surgery, patients in alectinib group received oral alectinib at a dose of 600 mg twice daily and patients in chemotherapy group received platinum-based doublet chemotherapy regimen every 3 weeks for 4 cycles. The primary endpoint was 3-year DFS. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate DFS and overall survival (OS). Safety analyses were conducted by comparing the incidence of adverse events between the two groups. Results: At the last follow-up date (January 22th, 2024), A total of 1 (5.3%) and 28 (57.1%) DFS events were observed in alectinib group and chemotherapy group respectively. The 3-year DFS showed significant improvement in the alectinib group compared with chemotherapy group (91.7% vs 60.7%, P=0.051). In the IIIAN2 subgroup, the 3-year DFS rate in the alectinib group reached a satisfactory 87.5%. In both groups, the majority of AEs were graded as level 1 or 2, No grade 3-4 AEs were observed in alectinib group. Conclusion: Alectinib, as adjuvant therapy, demonstrated favorable efficacy and manageable safety in patients with completely resected ALK-positive stage I B-IIIB non-small cell lung cancer. A limitation of this study is the small sample size, and a larger-scale real-world sample study is needed to further evaluate the efficacy and safety of alectinib as adjuvant therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study was designed to assess the advantages of radical antegrade modular pancreatosplenectomy (RAMPS) over standard retrograde pancreatosplenectomy (SPRS) in terms of disease-free survival (DFS) by comparing clinical outcomes. Methods: Clinical data from 154 patients who underwent distal pancreatectomy at Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital between January 2015 and August 2018 were collected. We compared the preoperative conditions, postoperative complications, and survival outcomes of patients who underwent two different surgical procedures. By creating a LASSO-Cox model, we determined the parameters affecting DFS and the risk ratios of the two surgical procedures on DFS. Results: The R0 resection rate (85.23% vs. 68.18%, P = 0.003), negative posterior margin rate (96.59% vs. 75.76%, P < 0.001), and tumor bed recurrence rate (15.29% vs. 40.00%, P = 0.001) significantly differed between the RAMPS and SPRS groups. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival and DFS rates of the RAMPS group were significantly better than those of the SPRS group (P < 0.05). Disease-free survival analysis based on Kaplan–Meier curves revealed that RAMPS was superior to SPRS (P < 0.001). Conclusions: We recommend RAMPS as the preferred procedure for treating ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreatic body and tail due to its enhanced lymph node repair capacity and visualization of posterior pancreatic sections, which can increase DFS in patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is an aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma and is characterized by heterogeneity in biology and clinical behavior. Mutations in the myeloid differentiation primary response 88 (MYD88) are found in different lymphoproliferative disorders and are associated with variable clinical and prognostic impact. Aim: To investigate the frequency of MYD88 L265P mutation and its clinical impact in a cohort of Egyptian DLBCL patients. Methods: FFPE lymph node samples from 87 DLBCL patients (46 males / 41 females; median age, 58 years) were included and analyzed for MYD88 L265P by an allele-specific PCR. Results: MYD88 L265P mutations were found in 52 patients (59.8%) out of 87 DLBCL cases. Patients with L265 mutation were significantly younger than non-mutated patients (p = 0.022). None of the patients with the L265P mutation showed a significant association with the clinical parameters of DLBCL. Interestingly, MYD88 L265 mutated patients were found to be significantly correlated with HCV infection (p = 0.037). The median follow-up time across the entire cohort was 26 months. Univariate analysis showed that overall survival (OS) was affected by gender, LDH level, and CNS-IPI scoring (p = 0.048, 0.008, and 0.046, respectively), while disease-free survival (DFS) was affected by B symptoms and LDH level (p = < 0.000 and 0.02, respectively). However, the MYD88 mutation status and other prognostic factors showed no association with OS or DFS. Conclusions: Our findings indicate a high frequency of MYD88 L265P mutations in our study population and not associated with prognostic markers or the outcome of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The most frequent subtype of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) is diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), which accounts for 25% to 30% of cases. The mean platelet volume (MPV) indicates the size, function, and activity of platelets in circulation. Red cell distribution width (RDW) is regarded an inflammatory related marker, both indicators are potential predictors of overall mortality in a variety of cancers. Objective: This study aimed to find out the association between MPV and RDW with disease free survival (DFS) in adults with DLBCL. Patients and methods: This observational retrospective study was conducted on 112 patients of a total of 140 DLBCL patients who achieved CR after receiving R-CHOP protocol to clarify the association of MPV and RDW with 2-year DFS outcome in a cohort of adults diagnosed as de novo DLBCL (NOS) who were treated at The Haematology Units of International Medical Centre, Zagazig and Menoufia University Hospitals. Results: A total of 140 patients with DLBCL were observed in this study of which 112 patients achieved CR after receiving R-CHOP protocol the remaining who didn’t achieve CR were ruled out. The mean age for those 112 patients was 53.12 years and 70 (62.5%) were males. The cut-off value for detecting DFS in MPV was 9.1 with 82.6% sensitivity and 59.1% specificity (P < 0.001) indicating better DFS in DLBCL patients with higher MPV. The cut-off value for detecting DFS in RDW was 14.1 with 77% sensitivity and 63% specificity (P=0.041) indicating better DFS in DLBCL patients with lower RDW. Conclusion: Lower baseline MPV values, and higher baseline RDW values were associated with inferior DFS outcome in patients with Denovo DLBCL after achieving CR upon receiving standard R-CHOP protocol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shortcomings of traditional pile fabric design and simulation in simulating clustered structures are addressed in this study by proposing a new three-dimensional (3D) simulation method. To accurately capture the details of clustered pile fabrics, a fine geometric model of a single pile loop is first established, and a novel geometric transformation algorithm, combined with rotational transformations and trigonometric calculations, is employed to achieve the natural aggregation of pile fibers, resulting in a highly realistic clustered structure. Additionally, to enhance design flexibility and accuracy, a pile design pattern is introduced, and for the first time, a Depth-First Search (DFS) algorithm is utilized for precise pattern recognition and determination of the directions of pile fibers, effectively solving the challenges of clustered area identification. To enhance the visual realism of the simulation, the Phong illumination model is adopted to simulate the lighting effects on the fabric surface, and blurring processes are applied to eliminate sharp edges and noise, resulting in a softer and more natural simulation output. Based on the recognition results from the DFS algorithm, the directions of the pile fibers are finely adjusted to achieve a realistic simulation of clustered pile fabrics. Experimental validation demonstrates that the proposed method produces 3D simulation results that closely resemble actual pile fabrics, demonstrating significant practical value and innovation.

Abstract Background Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is an aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma and is characterized by heterogeneity in biology and clinical behavior. Mutations in the myeloid differentiation primary response 88 (MYD88) are found in different lymphoproliferative disorders and are associated with variable clinical and prognostic impact. Aim To investigate the frequency of MYD88 L265P mutation and its clinical impact in a cohort of Egyptian DLBCL patients. Methods FFPE lymph node samples from 87 DLBCL patients (46 males / 41 females; median age, 58 years) were included and analyzed for MYD88 L265P by an allele-specific PCR. Results MYD88 L265P mutations were found in 52 patients (59.8%) out of 87 DLBCL cases. Patients with L265 mutation were significantly younger than non-mutated patients (p = 0.022). None of the patients with the L265P mutation showed a significant association with the clinical parameters of DLBCL. Interestingly, MYD88 L265 mutated patients were found to be significantly correlated with HCV infection (p = 0.037). The median follow-up time across the entire cohort was 26 months. Univariate analysis showed that overall survival (OS) was affected by gender, LDH level, and CNS-IPI scoring (p = 0.048, 0.008, and 0.046, respectively), while disease-free survival (DFS) was affected by B symptoms and LDH level (p =

Conventional prefetching methods that look at access correlations operate under the presumption that two files that were previously viewed often and in close proximity will probably be accessed together shortly. Access correlation detection techniques primarily use frequent sequence mining to find recurrent access patterns. Since establishing patterns of access might have a substantial impact on the accuracy of future access predictions, it might be exceedingly challenging. Thus, it is important to choose values for confidence, gap, and lowest level support carefully in order to exclude low-quality access correlations. This work presents a novel DFS model using dynamic prefetching, which consists of four processes: (i) popular file identification (ii) improved support value estimation, (iii) extraction of frequent block access patterns (FBAP), and (iv) matching algorithm, Essentially, a new threshold computation is used to determine the most common input file sizes. New threshold-based FBAPs are extracted in the next phase after the support value has been calculated. Lastly, weight-optimized Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) based on Upgraded Shark Smell with Opposition Solution (USS-OS) are employed for matching. For the best case scenario, the proposed method achieves higher value of (~ 0.98) as compared to the existing models such as HC + Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm (AOA) (~ 0.96), HC + Bald Eagle Search (BES) (~ 0.97), HC + Shark Smell Algorithm (SSA) (0.97), HC + Hunger Games Search (HGS) (0.97), and HC + Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO) (~ 0.95) respectively. Finally, the studies are conducted to analyze the developed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of this study was to study the energy consumption of the on-board computer of the CubeSat nanosatellite. The subject of this study is the on-board computer energy consumption model and its energy efficiency optimization method. The purpose of this work was to develop a model of an on-board computer’s energy consumption and a method of optimizing its energy efficiency, followed by an experimental verification of the effectiveness of this method. Task: justify the feasibility of finding new methods for optimizing the energy efficiency of the on-board computer of the CubeSat nanosatellite; prepare for the experiment, namely, develop a model of the on-board computer's energy consumption and a method of optimizing its energy efficiency, develop an experiment plan, and conduct measurement methodology; conduct experimental research and present the main results of the experiment; provide a meaningful interpretation of the obtained experimental results; generalize the conclusions, formulate the advantages and disadvantages of this work, and propose directions for further research. Conclusions. The power consumption of the on-board computers of nanosatellites must be reduced by hardware and software means. This study examines the effectiveness of known energy-saving methods for the authors' "Falco SBC 1.0" computing platform. These methods include dynamic frequency scaling (DFS), the race-to-dark (RTD) algorithm, and the combined algorithm, which proved to be the most effective. The results were idealized because they did not consider OS overhead. The proposed methodology can be used to evaluate other platforms. The following studies will consider the following areas: energy consumption in various processor energy-saving modes, overhead costs of multi-threaded real-time operating systems, and power management of non-processor components. Solving these problems remains an important area of scientific research.

Breast cancer (BC) is a heterogenous disease with multiple pathways implicated in its development, progression, and drug resistance. Autophagy, a cellular process responsible for self-digestion of damaged organelles, had been recognized as eminent player in cancer progression and chemotherapeutic resistance. The haploinsufficiency of Beclin 1 (BECN1), autophagy protein, is believed to contribute to cancer pathogenesis and progression. In our study, we investigated the expression of BECN1 in a BC female Egyptian patient cohort, as well as its prognostic role through evaluating its association with disease free survival (DFS) after 2 years follow up and association of tumor clinicopathological features. Twenty frozen female BC tissue samples and 17 adjacent normal tissue were included and examined for the expression levels of BECN1. Although the tumor tissues showed lower expression 0.73 (0–8.95) than their corresponding normal tissues 1.02 (0.04–19.59), it was not statistically significant, p: 0.463. BECN1 expression was not associated with stage, nodal metastasis or tumor size, p:0.435, 0.541, 0.296, respectively. However, statistically significant negative correlation was found between grade and BECN1 mRNA expression in the studied cases, p:0.028. BECN1 expression had no statistically significant association with DFS, P = 0.944. However, we observed that triple negative (TNBC) cases had significantly lower DFS rate than luminal BC patients, p: 0.022, with mean DFS 19.0 months, while luminal BC patients had mean DFS of 23.41 months. Our study highlights the potential role of BECN1 in BC pathogenesis, showing that BECN1 expression correlates with poorer differentiation of BC, indicating its probable link with disease aggressiveness. DFS two years follow up showed that TNBC subtype remains associated with less favorable prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparative study was conducted using Python and Pmaze to evaluate the performance of DFS, BFS, and A* search algorithms in path planning for a maze. The main objective of the project was to compare the efficiency of these algorithms in terms of path cost and algorithmic complexity. No physical robot was used in this study as it focused solely on the analysis of search algorithms. This study contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field of path planning by exploring different approaches for mazes using Python and Pmaze. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In vascular medicine, peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and diabetic foot syndrome (DFS) are often considered synonymous with respect to the need for revascularization. In PAD patients, clinical symptoms reflect the degree of atherosclerotic disease, since peripheral innervation, including pain sensation, is not usually compromised. In DFS patients, however, symptoms of relevant foot ischemia are often absent and progression of ischemia goes unnoticed owing to diabetic polyneuropathy, the loss of nociception being the main trigger for foot ulcers. This review analyzes the fundamental differences between PAD and DFS against the background of polyneuropathy. Methods: The literature research for the 2014 revision of the German evidence-based S3-PAD-guidelines was extended to 2023. Results: Vascular examination is imperative for both, PAD and DFS. Stage-dependent revascularization is of utmost importance in PAD patients, especially those suffering from critical limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI). Successful therapy of DFS goes further, including infection and metabolic control, wound management, offloading the foot and lifelong prophylaxis in the course of a multidisciplinary treatment concept. Revascularization is not needed in all cases of DFS. Conclusions: There are fundamental differences between PAD and DFS with respect to pathophysiology, the anatomical distribution of arterial occlusive processes, the clinical symptoms, the value of diagnostic tools such as the ankle-brachial index, and classification. Also, therapeutic concepts differ substantially between the two patient populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Insulin resistance has been proven to be associated with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). However, the prognostic value of the triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index, as a marker for insulin resistance (IR), is still unclear. Therefore, we conducted research to explore the prognostic value and the predictive performance of the TyG index in postoperative RCC patients. Methods: A total of 651 postoperative RCC patients from January 2016 to June 2018 were enrolled in the final study. Their clinical and laboratory parameters were collected from medical records and through follow-up by phone. The triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index was calculated as follows: TyG = Ln[TG (mg/dl) × FBG (mg/dL)/2]. The overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were identified as the main outcomes. Results: The TyG index is an independent prognostic factor for OS (HR = 2.340, 95% CI = 1.506 to 3.64, P < 0.001) and DFS (HR = 2.027, 95% CI = 1.347 to 3.051, P < 0.001) in postoperative RCC patients. Kaplan-Meier survival curves of the different TyG index levels showed statistically significant differences in terms of OS and DFS (log-rank test, P < 0.0001). Furthermore, the TyG index was significantly associated with RCC risk factors. Conclusion: The TyG index is significantly associated with RCC survival. The mechanisms responsible for these results may contribute toward the improvement of RCC prognosis and immunotherapy efficacy and the development of new immunotherapeutic targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An optimized robot path-planning algorithm is required for various aspects of robot movements in applications. The efficacy of the robot path-planning model is vulnerable to the number of search nodes, path cost, and time complexity. The conventional A-star (A*) algorithm outperforms other grid-based algorithms because of its heuristic approach. However, the performance of the conventional A* algorithm is suboptimal for the time, space, and number of search nodes, depending on the robot motion block (RMB). To address these challenges, this paper proposes an optimal RMB with an adaptive cost function to improve performance. The proposed adaptive cost function keeps track of the goal node and adaptively calculates the movement costs for quickly arriving at the goal node. Incorporating the adaptive cost function with a selected optimal RMB significantly reduces the searches of less impactful and redundant nodes, which improves the performance of the A* algorithm in terms of the number of search nodes and time complexity. To validate the performance and robustness of the proposed model, an extensive experiment was conducted. In the experiment, an open-source dataset featuring various types of grid maps was customized to incorporate the multiple map sizes and sets of source-to-destination nodes. According to the experiments, the proposed method demonstrated a remarkable improvement of 93.98% in the number of search nodes and 98.94% in time complexity compared to the conventional A* algorithm. The proposed model outperforms other state-of-the-art algorithms by keeping the path cost largely comparable. Additionally, an ROS experiment using a robot and lidar sensor data shows the improvement of the proposed method in a simulated laboratory environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The role of microsatellite instability (MSI) and prognosis for stage II-III colorectal cancer (CRC) has been described, but the role of MSI in stage I and IV CRC is controversial. Methods: A total of 2,540 CRC patients were collected from Huzhou Central Hospital, China, from January 2006 to 2016, and 783 cases were excluded. This retrospective study illustrates the correlation between MMR status and prognosis for 1,757 CRC patients as well as the correlation between MSI and prognosis for CRC patients. Two groups were classified as MSI-H and MSI-L&MSS. If the expression of one or more mismatch repair (MMR) proteins was negative, it was considered as microsatellite instability high expression (MSI-H), whereas positive expression was considered as microsatellite instability low expression and microsatellite stability (MSI-L&MSS), as assessed by correlation analyses. Overall and disease-free survival were analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method. Univariable and multivariable analyses were conducted using Cox regression. Results: Preoperative serum S-CEA, positive lymph, tumor size, pathologic tumor (Pt) status, node (N) stage, differentiation, chemotherapy, and the 8th Edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC-8) were significantly correlated with MSI (P=0.028, 0.037, 0.019, 0.007, 0.002, <0.001, <0.001, and <0.001, respectively), whereas tumor location was not associated with MSI. Univariable and multivariable analyses showed that MSI was an independent factor for CRC. The 5-year overall survival (OS) and 5-year disease-free survival (DFS, P<0.001) rates differed significantly between the two groups in stages II, III, and IV, whereas stage I did not show a significant difference (P>0.05). Conclusion: MSI-H was associated with a good prognosis for stages II to IV, whereas stage I did not show any significant correlation. Moreover, MSI expression was an independent prognostic factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article summarizes a study published in the Cumhuriyet Dental Journal that investigated the impact of music therapy on dental anxiety in patients undergoing periodontal surgery. The study included 46 patients, with half of them listening to music during the surgery and the other half not. The results showed that music therapy significantly reduced dental anxiety in the study group compared to the control group. The study suggests that music therapy can be an effective non-pharmacological method for managing anxiety in dental procedures. [Extracted from the article]

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of PTK6 in different groups of triple negative breast cancer and its impact on prognosis. Methods Retrospective study of a total of 209 surgical specimens of breast cancer were identified by IHC or FISH methods as triple negative,and divided into a lymph node metastasis positive (LNM +)group (n = 102) and a lymph node metastasis negative(LNM-) group (n = 107) according to the lymph node status of the surgical specimen. PTK6 expression was detected by IHC technique in all surgical specimens. PTK6 expression and clinicopathological features was explored by Chi-square test. The prognosis of different groups of patients was analyzed by Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and COX analysis. Results The incidence of PTK6 expression in the LNM + group (78.4%) was significantly higher than in the LNM- group (28%). Clinicopathological analysis showed that PTK6 expression in the LNM + group was negatively correlated with the 5-year survival of patients. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that only PTK6 expression in the LNM + group was negatively correlated with OS and DFS. COX analysis also showed that PTK6 expression and N stage were independent prognostic factors for DFS in the LNM + group. No correlation was observed between HER2 and PTK6 expression in any of the groups. Conclusions This study suggests that PTK6 promotes tumor development and was associated with poor prognosis in the LNM + group of triple negative breast cancer. Inhibition of PTK6 may be a new approach for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer patients, especially those with metastasis.

Background: Up to now, endometrial cancer (EC) treatments are mainly represented by surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The updated guidelines give a 2A recommendation for the use of hormone therapy only in advanced low-grade ECs, underlying the need for more data on the role of hormone therapy in the adjuvant setting. Methods: The clinicopathological data of 158 early-stage EC patients was retrospectively collected. A Ki-67 cut-off value of 40% was established based on literature data. Disease-free survival (DFS) and Overall survival (OS) were evaluated. Results: Results: Multivariate analysis of DFS and OS showed a significantly increased risk of progression in patients with >40% Ki-67 [HR = 3.13 (95% CI; 1.35–7.14); p = 0.007] and a significantly higher relative risk of death [HR = 3.70 (95% CI; 1.69–8.33); p = 0.001]. The predictive role of the Ki-67 index was highlighted by the clinical benefit of adjuvant hormone in patients with high Ki-67. Conclusions: Our results suggest a positive role of the Ki-67 index as a prognostic and potentially predictive marker in EC, although further studies are warranted to reach a definitive conclusion.

Abstract Background Oral cancer is a common cause of death worldwide. The search for novel biomarkers for oral cancer is an ongoing struggle. Prognostic biomarkers are of great importance in diagnosis, and prediction of the cancer outcome. There are several disagreements in oral cancer studies over the role of heat shock proteins as prognostic markers. The current study investigated HSP70 expression in diverse tissues ranging from normal oral mucosa to dysplastic oral epithelium and oral squamous cell carcinoma to determine its role in oral carcinogenesis. Moreover, HSP70 was evaluated concerning different prognostic parameters to determine its capability in predicting cancer progression. Recurrence of tumor was recorded, and patients` disease-free survival was calculated and analyzed considering HSP70 expression to determine the potential utility of HSP70 immuno-expression in predicting recurrence. Methods A retrospective study was accomplished on 50 cases of OSCC. Biopsies from the cancerous tissue, the free surgical margin, and the normal oral mucosa were used. The grading of dysplastic epithelium and OSCCs followed the criteria of WHO classification (2017). The clinicopathological and follow-up records for each patient were retrieved. Pearson’s Chi-square test, one-way ANOVA, and post hoc tests were used to analyze the variance of HSP70 immuno-expression concerning different parameters. The Kaplan–Meier method was used to compute and visualize disease-free survival, and the log-rank test was used to analyze the data. With Cox regression, univariate and multivariate survival analyses were run. A P-value of 0.05 or less was regarded as statistically significant. Results A significant increased expression of HSP70 was observed as the tissue progressed from normal to dysplastic epithelium, and carcinoma (P = 0.000). HSP70 revealed a significant increased expression by progression from mild to severe dysplasia (P = 0.023), and also from well to moderately and poorly differentiated carcinoma (P = 0.000). High HSP70 immuno-expression was significantly associated with progression of OSCC; large-sized tumors (P = 0.002), advanced TNM clinical stages (P = 0.001), positive nodal involvement (P = 0.001), presence of recurrence (P = .008), and reduced DFS (P = 0.014). Conclusion HSP70 has a crucial contribution to oral carcinogenesis, and its immune-expression could potentially be used as predictor of progression and recurrence of OSCC patients. Trial registration: Retrospectively registered.

Background: Up to now, endometrial cancer (EC) treatments are mainly represented by surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The updated guidelines give a 2A recommendation for the use of hormone therapy only in advanced low-grade ECs, underlying the need for more data on the role of hormone therapy in the adjuvant setting. Methods: The clinicopathological data of 158 early-stage EC patients was retrospectively collected. A Ki-67 cut-off value of 40% was established based on literature data. Disease-free survival (DFS) and Overall survival (OS) were evaluated. Results: Results: Multivariate analysis of DFS and OS showed a significantly increased risk of progression in patients with >40% Ki-67 [HR = 3.13 (95% CI; 1.35–7.14); p = 0.007] and a significantly higher relative risk of death [HR = 3.70 (95% CI; 1.69–8.33); p = 0.001]. The predictive role of the Ki-67 index was highlighted by the clinical benefit of adjuvant hormone in patients with high Ki-67. Conclusions: Our results suggest a positive role of the Ki-67 index as a prognostic and potentially predictive marker in EC, although further studies are warranted to reach a definitive conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of PTK6 in different groups of triple negative breast cancer and its impact on prognosis. Methods: Retrospective study of a total of 209 surgical specimens of breast cancer were identified by IHC or FISH methods as triple negative,and divided into a lymph node metastasis positive (LNM +)group (n = 102) and a lymph node metastasis negative(LNM-) group (n = 107) according to the lymph node status of the surgical specimen. PTK6 expression was detected by IHC technique in all surgical specimens. PTK6 expression and clinicopathological features was explored by Chi-square test. The prognosis of different groups of patients was analyzed by Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and COX analysis. Results: The incidence of PTK6 expression in the LNM + group (78.4%) was significantly higher than in the LNM- group (28%). Clinicopathological analysis showed that PTK6 expression in the LNM + group was negatively correlated with the 5-year survival of patients. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that only PTK6 expression in the LNM + group was negatively correlated with OS and DFS. COX analysis also showed that PTK6 expression and N stage were independent prognostic factors for DFS in the LNM + group. No correlation was observed between HER2 and PTK6 expression in any of the groups. Conclusions: This study suggests that PTK6 promotes tumor development and was associated with poor prognosis in the LNM + group of triple negative breast cancer. Inhibition of PTK6 may be a new approach for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer patients, especially those with metastasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Oral cancer is a common cause of death worldwide. The search for novel biomarkers for oral cancer is an ongoing struggle. Prognostic biomarkers are of great importance in diagnosis, and prediction of the cancer outcome. There are several disagreements in oral cancer studies over the role of heat shock proteins as prognostic markers. The current study investigated HSP70 expression in diverse tissues ranging from normal oral mucosa to dysplastic oral epithelium and oral squamous cell carcinoma to determine its role in oral carcinogenesis. Moreover, HSP70 was evaluated concerning different prognostic parameters to determine its capability in predicting cancer progression. Recurrence of tumor was recorded, and patients' disease-free survival was calculated and analyzed considering HSP70 expression to determine the potential utility of HSP70 immuno-expression in predicting recurrence. Methods: A retrospective study was accomplished on 50 cases of OSCC. Biopsies from the cancerous tissue, the free surgical margin, and the normal oral mucosa were used. The grading of dysplastic epithelium and OSCCs followed the criteria of WHO classification (2017). The clinicopathological and follow-up records for each patient were retrieved. Pearson's Chi-square test, one-way ANOVA, and post hoc tests were used to analyze the variance of HSP70 immuno-expression concerning different parameters. The Kaplan–Meier method was used to compute and visualize disease-free survival, and the log-rank test was used to analyze the data. With Cox regression, univariate and multivariate survival analyses were run. A P-value of 0.05 or less was regarded as statistically significant. Results: A significant increased expression of HSP70 was observed as the tissue progressed from normal to dysplastic epithelium, and carcinoma (P = 0.000). HSP70 revealed a significant increased expression by progression from mild to severe dysplasia (P = 0.023), and also from well to moderately and poorly differentiated carcinoma (P = 0.000). High HSP70 immuno-expression was significantly associated with progression of OSCC; large-sized tumors (P = 0.002), advanced TNM clinical stages (P = 0.001), positive nodal involvement (P = 0.001), presence of recurrence (P =.008), and reduced DFS (P = 0.014). Conclusion: HSP70 has a crucial contribution to oral carcinogenesis, and its immune-expression could potentially be used as predictor of progression and recurrence of OSCC patients. Trial registration: Retrospectively registered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aqueous ions influence the properties of air bubbles and, therefore, the recovery of flotation. This study aims to reveal the synergistic effect of frequently found ions in the flotation of Pb-Zn sulfide ores. In this context, dynamic surface tension measurements, bubble coalescence time, Sauter mean diameter (SMD), bubble size distribution (BSD), and dynamic foam stability (DFS) measurements were carried out using artificial process waters (APWs). APW with the minimum ion concentration is expressed as "APW1" with the ionic strength (I) of 0.03 mol/dm3. The concentration of the ions in APW1 was increased by 3, 5, and 10 times, and thus APW3 (I = 0.08 mol/dm3), APW5 (I = 0.13 mol/dm3), and APW10 (I = 0.26 mol/dm3) were prepared, respectively. The results of this study indicated that the surface tension increased slightly in the presence of APW related to the ion concentration. Potassium ethyl xanthate (KEX) at high concentrations was effective in the reduction of surface tension. As the APW concentration increased, finer bubbles were obtained with a narrower size range. The stability of the foam increased with butyl glycol (BG) and APW concentration. There was no need to use a frother (BG) for the flotation experiments in the presence of APW1 or APWs with higher ionic strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Salivary gland carcinomas (SGCs) represent various groups of tumors that demonstrate marked diversity in their prognosis owing to different histology and clinical characteristics. One of the poor prognostic indicators is distant metastasis which is considered the major reason for death in SGC patients. Discovering new biomarkers is urgently required to aid in the detection of cancer onset and progression. Cathepsin K (CTSK), the lysosomal cysteine protease has a principal role in cancer invasion and progression through interaction with the tumor microenvironment, degradation of extracellular membrane proteins and destruction of the elastic lamina of blood vessels. In the English literature, little information was present about the role of CTSK in SGCs. The current study aimed to assess the immunohistochemical expression of CTSK in SGCs and correlate its expression to different clinicopathologic parameters. Methods The retrospective study applied to 45 cases of SGCs categorized as high-grade (33 cases) and low-grade SGCs (12 cases) following the criteria of WHO classification (2017) of head and neck tumors. All patients` clinicopathological and follow-up records were retrieved. The following statistical tests were used to study the variance of CTSK expression in SGCs concerning different clinicopathological parameters; Pearson`s Chi-square test, unpaired two-tailed student t-test, One-way ANOVA, and Post Hoc tests. Disease-free survival (DFS) and Overall survival (OS) were calculated and displayed with the Kaplan–Meier strategy and analyzed with the log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate survival analyses were performed with Cox regression. A P-value lesser than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results Strong CTSK expression was significantly related to high-grade SGCs (P = 0.000), large infiltrating carcinomas (P = 0.000), presence of nodal (P = 0.041) and distant metastasis (P = 0.009), advanced TNM clinical stage (P = 0.000), the incidence of recurrence (P = 0.009), and reduced DFS (P = 0.006). Distant metastasis was the independent predictor for DFS using Cox regression model. Conclusions CTSK has a great role in cancer progression by triggering many signaling pathways. Its level in cancerous tissue is considered an effective index for predicting the severity and prognosis of cancer. Therefore, we indicate its utility as a prognostic tool and therapeutic target for cancer treatment. Trial registration Retrospectively registered.

Yudi Jin,1,2 Ailin Lan,1 Yuran Dai,1 Linshan Jiang,1 Shengchun Liu1 1Department of Breast and Thyroid Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Pathology, Chongqing Key Laboratory for Intelligent Oncology in Breast Cancer (iCQBC), Chongqing University Cancer Hospital, Chongqing, 400030, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Shengchun Liu, Department of Breast and Thyroid Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, People’s Republic of China, Email liushengchun1968@163.comBackground: Recent studies have investigated the features of breast cancer (BC) with low human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) expression or HER2-0 expression. However, the results were inconsistent. In this study, we investigated the differences in the pathological complete response (pCR) rate and disease-free survival (DFS) between HER2-low and HER2-0 BC patients and between subgroups.Methods: HER2-negative BC patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy between January 2013 and December 2019 in our hospital were retrospectively reviewed. First, the pCR rate and DFS were compared between HER2-low and HER2-0 patients and among different hormone receptor (HR) and HER2 statuses. Subsequently, DFS was compared between different HER2 status populations with or without pCR. Finally, a Cox regression model was used to identify the prognostic factors.Results: Overall, 693 patients were selected: 561 were HER2-low, and 132 were HER2-0. Between the two groups, there were significant differences in N stage (P = 0.008) and HR status (P = 0.007). No significant difference in the pCR rate (12.12% vs 14.39%, P = 0.468) or DFS was observed, independent of HR status. HR+/HER2-low patients had a significantly worse pCR rate (P < 0.001) and longer DFS (P < 0.001) than HR-/HER2-low or HER2-0 patients. In addition, a longer DFS was found in HER2-low patients versus HER2-0 patients among those who did not achieve pCR. Cox regression showed that N stage and HR status were prognostic factors in the overall and HER2-low populations, while no prognostic factor was found in the HER2-0 group.Conclusion: This study suggested that HER2 status is not associated with the pCR rate or DFS. Longer DFS was found only among patients who did not achieve pCR in the HER2-low versus HER2-0 population. We speculated that the interaction of HR and HER2 might have played a crucial role in this process.Keywords: HER2-low, HER2-0, hormone receptor, pCR, DFS

With the rapid development of computer and network technology, to deal with explosively growing mass data correctly, distributed file systems have come into being, and they have been applied in many enterprises. However, in the packet storage process, the traditional TCP/IP transmission protocol has to pass through the operating system and application software layer. It takes up many server resources and memory bus bandwidth, which places a heavy burden on the server's CPU and memory. In this paper, we analyze the research status of the distributed file system based on analyzing and comparing the advantages of RDMA over traditional TCP Ethernet communication architecture. We propose an optimization scheme for the network transmission performance of the original FastDFS to replace the original TCP module with an RDMA network communication module, and we design a lightweight distributed file system with higher performance than the original FastDFS, which is suitable for small file storage. Using the zero-copy technology and kernel bypass technology of soft RDMA, the network communication mechanism in FastDFS is optimized to free the server's CPU from heavy data processing work. In this paper, the RDMA-based FastDFS is compared with the original FastDFS. The test results show that the network transmission performance of the optimized FastDFS is improved compared with the original FastDFS, which achieves the expected effect and can better meet the requirements of mass small file storage for today's Internet applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Salivary gland carcinomas (SGCs) represent various groups of tumors that demonstrate marked diversity in their prognosis owing to different histology and clinical characteristics. One of the poor prognostic indicators is distant metastasis which is considered the major reason for death in SGC patients. Discovering new biomarkers is urgently required to aid in the detection of cancer onset and progression. Cathepsin K (CTSK), the lysosomal cysteine protease has a principal role in cancer invasion and progression through interaction with the tumor microenvironment, degradation of extracellular membrane proteins and destruction of the elastic lamina of blood vessels. In the English literature, little information was present about the role of CTSK in SGCs. The current study aimed to assess the immunohistochemical expression of CTSK in SGCs and correlate its expression to different clinicopathologic parameters. Methods: The retrospective study applied to 45 cases of SGCs categorized as high-grade (33 cases) and low-grade SGCs (12 cases) following the criteria of WHO classification (2017) of head and neck tumors. All patients' clinicopathological and follow-up records were retrieved. The following statistical tests were used to study the variance of CTSK expression in SGCs concerning different clinicopathological parameters; Pearson's Chi-square test, unpaired two-tailed student t-test, One-way ANOVA, and Post Hoc tests. Disease-free survival (DFS) and Overall survival (OS) were calculated and displayed with the Kaplan–Meier strategy and analyzed with the log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate survival analyses were performed with Cox regression. A P-value lesser than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Strong CTSK expression was significantly related to high-grade SGCs (P = 0.000), large infiltrating carcinomas (P = 0.000), presence of nodal (P = 0.041) and distant metastasis (P = 0.009), advanced TNM clinical stage (P = 0.000), the incidence of recurrence (P = 0.009), and reduced DFS (P = 0.006). Distant metastasis was the independent predictor for DFS using Cox regression model. Conclusions: CTSK has a great role in cancer progression by triggering many signaling pathways. Its level in cancerous tissue is considered an effective index for predicting the severity and prognosis of cancer. Therefore, we indicate its utility as a prognostic tool and therapeutic target for cancer treatment. Trial registration: Retrospectively registered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An optimized robot path-planning algorithm is required for various aspects of robot movements in applications. The efficacy of the robot path-planning model is vulnerable to the number of search nodes, path cost, and time complexity. The conventional A-star (A*) algorithm outperforms other grid-based algorithms because of its heuristic approach. However, the performance of the conventional A* algorithm is suboptimal for the time, space, and number of search nodes, depending on the robot motion block (RMB). To address these challenges, this paper proposes an optimal RMB with an adaptive cost function to improve performance. The proposed adaptive cost function keeps track of the goal node and adaptively calculates the movement costs for quickly arriving at the goal node. Incorporating the adaptive cost function with a selected optimal RMB significantly reduces the searches of less impactful and redundant nodes, which improves the performance of the A* algorithm in terms of the number of search nodes and time complexity. To validate the performance and robustness of the proposed model, an extensive experiment was conducted. In the experiment, an open-source dataset featuring various types of grid maps was customized to incorporate the multiple map sizes and sets of source-to-destination nodes. According to the experiments, the proposed method demonstrated a remarkable improvement of 93.98% in the number of search nodes and 98.94% in time complexity compared to the conventional A* algorithm. The proposed model outperforms other state-of-the-art algorithms by keeping the path cost largely comparable. Additionally, an ROS experiment using a robot and lidar sensor data shows the improvement of the proposed method in a simulated laboratory environment.

It might be quite difficult to search for words or phrases in the many file formats that are based on various operating systems. To deal with this level of heterogeneity in different file systems, several academics have put up a number of alternative strategies. Given that data is stored in various formats and is controlled by several operating systems, such solutions, however, proved to be extremely time-consuming. The suggested techniques work best when the data is kept in a single source. The idea of bottlenecking and the resulting heterogeneity in file systems are two main issues with looking for a certain collection of data objects (folder, file, or directory) across many platforms (Windows, Linux, and so forth). We made an effort to suggest fundamental searching methods that may deal with the issue of heterogeneity while increasing efficiency and maintaining dependability. Our method makes use of a concept known as tree-based breadth first search (BFS) and depth first search techniques (DFS) to limit to an absolute minimum the amount of I/O operations that might be required in the heterogeneous environment. The experiment was run on Windows and Linux computers, and it was discovered that by using these strategies, the heterogeneity issues may be greatly decreased, leading to some encouraging outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract There are different subsets of T regulatory cells (Tregs), orchestrating critical roles in the regulation of anti-tumor immunity in colorectal cancer (CRC). In this study, we report that a high frequency of circulating CD4+FoxP3+ Tregs was associated with poorer disease-free survival (DFS), while their higher frequencies in tumor-infiltrating CD4+ Tregs was associated with better DFS. We further investigated such associations with four Tregs/T cells expressing or lacking FoxP3 and Helios (FoxP3±Helios±). For the first time, we report that a high frequency of circulating CD4+FoxP3+Helios+ Tregs was associated with poorer DFS, while a high frequency of tumor-infiltrating CD4+FoxP3−Helios− T cells was associated with poorer DFS. In the four FoxP3±Helios± T cell subsets expressing any of the immune checkpoints (ICs) investigated, we found that a high frequency of CD4+FoxP3+Helios−PD-1+ Tregs in circulation was associated with worse DFS. We also found that high frequencies of FoxP3+Helios+CTLA-4+ Tregs, FoxP3+Helios−CTLA-4+ Tregs, and FoxP3−Helios+CTLA-4+ CD4+ T cells in circulation were associated with worse DFS. In contrast, high frequencies of CD4+TIM-3+ T cells, FoxP3+Helios+TIM-3+ Tregs, and FoxP3−Helios+TIM-3+ CD4+ T cells in circulation were associated with longer DFS. Our data show that certain CD4+ Treg/T cell subsets could serve as independent predictive biomarkers in CRC patients. Identification of the exact subpopulations contributing to clinical outcomes is critical for prognoses and therapeutic targeting.

Hengyu Zhai, Wenhai Li, Kun Jiang, Yanan Zhi, Zhao Yang Department of Thoracic Surgery, Xi’an International Medical Center Hospital, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710000, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Zhao Yang, Department of Thoracic Surgery, Xi’an International Medical Center Hospital, No. 777 Xitai Road, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710000, People’s Republic of China, Email Zhaoyang_666@aliyun.comBackground: Patients with locally advanced (stage III) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) demonstrate broad anatomic heterogeneity with modest survival benefits. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have shown survival benefit in metastatic NSCLC. We conducted this study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of neoadjuvant nivolumab in combination with chemotherapy in the treatment of this population.Methods: We retrospectively evaluated patients with locally advanced NSCLC receiving neoadjuvant nivolumab and chemotherapy (paclitaxel with carboplatin) followed by surgery at our institution from January 2019 to January 2020.Results: A total of 46 eligible patients, 26 males, and 20 females were diagnosed with NSCLC in a stage IIIA (30 cases) and IIIB (16 cases) to receive neoadjuvant treatment. The treatment was well tolerated with just 7 (15.2%) typical immune-related adverse events (hyperthyroidism, hyperglycemia, and rash) recorded. A total of 45 patients underwent surgical resection, and 43 (95.6%) of them achieved a R0 resection. No major surgical complications were observed. There was a complete response (CR), partial response (PR), stable disease (SD), and progressive disease (PD) in 2 (4.3%), 26 (56.5%), 17 (37.0%), 6 (26.1%), and 1 (2.2%) patients. Eight patients resulted in a major pathological response (MPR) (17.4%) and 24 patients had a pathological complete response (pCR) (52.2%). At the time of data cutoff (June 1, 2021), the median follow-up period was 15.5 months (IQR 3.9– 29) and 27 (60%) of 45 patients who had tumor resection were progression free. At 24 months, progression-free survival was 45.8% and overall survival was 79.9%.Conclusion: Nivolumab plus paclitaxel and carboplatin could be a potential neoadjuvant regimen for patients with locally advanced NSCLC, rendering a potentially lethal disease to one that is curable.Keywords: non-small cell lung cancer, neoadjuvant therapy, immunotherapy, chemotherapy, DFS, OS

Background: In antinuclear antibody (ANA) testing, antidense fine speckled 70 (DFS70) antibodies are commonly detected as a specific indirect immunofluorescence assay pattern (IIFA in HEp-2-based substrates) or as bands/blot lines in immunoblotting. A negative association between anti-DFS70 antibodies and the presence of autoimmune diseases is often reported. However, some studies found that this may not be true in females. We conducted this study to see the positivity rate of anti DFS70 antibodies and their association with other autoantibodies in the predominantly hilly population of our state. Methods: Serum samples sent for ANA testing between February 2018 and December 2020 were included. ANA IIFA-positive cases underwent immunoblot profiling with 16 targets (including DFS70) blotting kit. Those with DFS70 band in the immunoblot) underwent tests for other autoantibodies such as antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies, and anti-dsDNA. Association analysis was performed in a software package (SPSS version 23). Results: Out of 1770 samples, about 15.3% yielded a meaningful IIFA pattern. About 10.7% of ANA positives (1.6% of total samples) had the DFS70 band on immunoblotting. Isolated DFS70 was found in the predominantly male population (6 out of 7), while most females had this antibody in the presence of other autoantibodies (17 of 22). Conclusion: Male population had predominantly isolated anti DFS70 antibody detection (with the likely possibility of using it as a marker for the absence of autoimmune disease), while in females, mostly, it was along with other autoantibodies.

Spectrum sharing in radar bands with interference forecasting for enhanced radar protection can help design proactive resource allocation solutions which can achieve high data rates for wireless communication networks on one hand and help protect the incumbent radar systems. We consider radar spectrum sharing in 5.6GHz where a weather radar operates as a primary system and the dominant secondary system is an enterprise network consisting of access points (APs) in a university campus. Our work models transmit the power of the APs as a time series with multinomial distribution based on real collected data. The aggregated interference due to the transmissions from the APs at the radar is forecasted using a long short-term memory (LSTM) based neural network. Monte Carlo dropout is utilized to generate prediction intervals that capture the uncertainties in the interference from the APs. Finally, by using both average and upper limits of predicted interference time series a cloud-assisted efficient sharing and radar protection algorithm is proposed. Tracking the rotating radar is not required in the proposed system. The results show that the proposed efficient sharing and radar protection system ensures better radar protection and increased throughput for wireless communication users.

Abstract Background Metastasis and/or recurrence can decrease the survival time of gastric cancer patients undergoing radical operation. Among them, those with stage IIIb and IIIc are especially at a high risk of metastasis and recurrence. The traditional Chinese medicine collaborative model (TCMCM) has been used in the treatment of cancer; however, its effects have not been systematically evaluated. This study is designed to evaluate whether TCMCM can decrease adverse effects after chemotherapy and reduce the recurrence and metastasis of stage IIIb and IIIc gastric cancer. Methods/design This prospective, multicenter, randomized, open-label trial will recruit 260 patients with stage IIIb and IIIc gastric cancer who undergo radical surgery for D2 lymphadenectomy. The patients will be randomly assigned to receive usual adjuvant chemotherapy and TCMCM (intervention group) in a 1:1 ratio. Patients in the intervention group will receive an oral traditional Chinese formula, auricular acupressure, and acupoint therapy. All participants will receive usual adjuvant chemotherapy. The primary outcome is a 3-year disease-free survival rate. Secondary outcomes include quality of life, side effects caused by chemotherapy, and safety-related measures. Assessments will be performed during the screening period, at 4 and 8 cycles after adjuvant chemotherapy, and 9, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months after randomization. Adverse events will be recorded. In addition, biological samples will be collected for mechanism analysis. Discussion This will be the first clinical trial to evaluate the effects of TCMCM on disease-free survival (DFS) and quality of life in patients with stage IIIb and IIIc gastric cancer. Our results may be used to standardize TCMCM. We will also perform a larger-scale clinical trial in the future. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03607656 . Registered on 1 July 2018. The final protocol version is V1.1.

Background: In antinuclear antibody (ANA) testing, antidense fine speckled 70 (DFS70) antibodies are commonly detected as a specific indirect immunofluorescence assay pattern (IIFA in HEp-2-based substrates) or as bands/blot lines in immunoblotting. A negative association between anti-DFS70 antibodies and the presence of autoimmune diseases is often reported. However, some studies found that this may not be true in females. We conducted this study to see the positivity rate of anti DFS70 antibodies and their association with other autoantibodies in the predominantly hilly population of our state. Methods: Serum samples sent for ANA testing between February 2018 and December 2020 were included. ANA IIFA-positive cases underwent immunoblot profiling with 16 targets (including DFS70) blotting kit. Those with DFS70 band in the immunoblot) underwent tests for other autoantibodies such as antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies, and anti-dsDNA. Association analysis was performed in a software package (SPSS version 23). Results: Out of 1770 samples, about 15.3% yielded a meaningful IIFA pattern. About 10.7% of ANA positives (1.6% of total samples) had the DFS70 band on immunoblotting. Isolated DFS70 was found in the predominantly male population (6 out of 7), while most females had this antibody in the presence of other autoantibodies (17 of 22). Conclusion: Male population had predominantly isolated anti DFS70 antibody detection (with the likely possibility of using it as a marker for the absence of autoimmune disease), while in females, mostly, it was along with other autoantibodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spanning trees of a graph constructed by the graph searches BFS and DFS are some of the most elementary structures in algorithmic graph theory. BFS-trees are first-in trees, i.e., every vertex is connected to its first visited neighbor. DFS-trees are last-in trees, i.e., every vertex is connected to its most recently visited neighbor. It is known since the 1980s that the problem of deciding whether a given spanning tree of a graph is a BFS-tree or a DFS-tree can be solved in linear time. Here, we will show that swapping the search-tree paradigms between these searches makes the problem hard, i.e., it is NP -complete to decide whether a spanning tree of a graph is a first-in-tree of a DFS or a last-in-tree of a BFS. To the best of our knowledge the latter result is the first hardness result for the recognition of last-in-trees for some graph search. Additionally, we study the complexity of both problems on split graphs. • Hardness of the recognition of last-in trees of BFS. • Hardness of the recognition of first-in trees of DFS. • Linear-time algorithm for the recognition of first-in trees of DFS on split graphs. • Better understanding of the last-in trees of generic search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As gastric cancer is associated with poor prognosis, the preferred management of locally advanced gastric cancer (GC) and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer in European patients is perioperative chemotherapy using the FLOT regimen. Previously published data demonstrate that such treatment is associated with improved disease-free survival (DFS) as well as overall survival (OS) compared to ECF/ECX regimen. In order to collect biomaterial for the identification of serum biomarkers of an early response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, we performed a prospective study and here, we report the safety and clinical efficacy of this prospective cohort. It was an academic, nonrandomized, prospective study, conducted at Maria Sklodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology in Warsaw, Poland. Between January 2018 and November 2019, we analyzed a total of 61 patients aged 30-77 (median 63 years, 52.5% males and 47.5% females) with histologically confirmed GC or GEJ cancer. The patients were qualified by a multidisciplinary team for perioperative treatment (FLOT regimen). All cases of reported adverse events were recorded and analyzed. All patients received G-CSF prophylactically. After gastrectomy, an assessment of pathological regression was performed according to the Becker classification. A total of 93.4% (57) patients completed four cycles of preoperative chemotherapy and 78.7% (48) received postoperative chemotherapy. All of them experienced grade 1/2 toxicities. The common AE G1/G2 in preoperative versus postoperative chemotherapy were: fatigue (75% vs. 60%), anemia (64% vs. 62%), nausea (60% vs. 60%), peripheral neuropathy (60% vs. 60%), and oral mucositis (59% vs. 50%), respectively. Only 24.6% (15) had G3/4 adverse events during preoperative chemotherapy and only 20.8% (10) during postoperative chemotherapy. The estimated DFS at 3 years was 53% (95% CI 40.5-66.1%) and the estimated OS at 3 years was 60.2% (95% CI 45.1-72.3%). FLOT regimen significantly improved GC and GEJ cancer patients' prognosis with acceptable side-effect profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Metastasis and/or recurrence can decrease the survival time of gastric cancer patients undergoing radical operation. Among them, those with stage IIIb and IIIc are especially at a high risk of metastasis and recurrence. The traditional Chinese medicine collaborative model (TCMCM) has been used in the treatment of cancer; however, its effects have not been systematically evaluated. This study is designed to evaluate whether TCMCM can decrease adverse effects after chemotherapy and reduce the recurrence and metastasis of stage IIIb and IIIc gastric cancer. Methods/design: This prospective, multicenter, randomized, open-label trial will recruit 260 patients with stage IIIb and IIIc gastric cancer who undergo radical surgery for D2 lymphadenectomy. The patients will be randomly assigned to receive usual adjuvant chemotherapy and TCMCM (intervention group) in a 1:1 ratio. Patients in the intervention group will receive an oral traditional Chinese formula, auricular acupressure, and acupoint therapy. All participants will receive usual adjuvant chemotherapy. The primary outcome is a 3-year disease-free survival rate. Secondary outcomes include quality of life, side effects caused by chemotherapy, and safety-related measures. Assessments will be performed during the screening period, at 4 and 8 cycles after adjuvant chemotherapy, and 9, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months after randomization. Adverse events will be recorded. In addition, biological samples will be collected for mechanism analysis. Discussion: This will be the first clinical trial to evaluate the effects of TCMCM on disease-free survival (DFS) and quality of life in patients with stage IIIb and IIIc gastric cancer. Our results may be used to standardize TCMCM. We will also perform a larger-scale clinical trial in the future. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.govNCT03607656. Registered on 1 July 2018. The final protocol version is V1.1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]