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We experimentally demonstrate for the first time a tunable orthogonal polarized Pr3+: LiGdF4 dual-wavelength laser. We calculate the conditions for balancing the gain and loss of the orthogonal polarization dual-wavelength with the rotation angles, the Lyot filter, and the incident angle on the uncoated glass. By adjusting the rotation angles, the Lyot filter, and the incident angle on the uncoated glass, the continuous-wave (CW) orthogonal polarized dual-wavelength lasers operating at 519.6 and 522.8 nm, 604.5 and 607.2 nm, and 719.2 and 721.5 nm are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives To evaluate the impact of microwave ablation (MWA) on pain relief, quality of life, mobility, and local tumour progression in adult patients with pelvic osteolytic bone metastasis and to test the safety of MWA. Methods This study retrospectively analysed the data from 20 patients with pelvic osteolytic metastases who received MWA combined with percutaneous osteoplasty (POP). The visual analogue scale (VAS), musculoskeletal tumour society system (MSTS), and Quality of Life Questionnaire-Bone Metastases 22 (QLQ-BM22) were used to evaluate the pain, limb function, and quality of life. The intraoperative and postoperative complications were recorded. The tumour recurrence and survival time were analysed during the follow-up period (range 3-26 months). Results All (n  = 20) MWA and POP operations were completed successfully. Four patients (20%; 95% CI, 6%-44%) had mild bone cement leakage from surrounding tissues, and there were no obvious symptoms or serious complications. There were significant differences in VAS, MSTS, and QLQ-BM22 scores before and after the operation (P  < .001). During the postoperative follow-up period, 9 patients died. The median survival time was 8 months (range 3-26 months; IQR: 4.5-13; 95% CI, 4.2-15.3 months), and the 1-year survival rate was 65% (13/20; 95% CI, 41%-85%). Tumour recurrence occurred in 4 cases (20%; 95% CI, 6%-44%) after the operation, and the median time of recurrence was 12 months (range 8-16 months; IQR: 8.25-12.75; 95% CI, 5.5-18.5 months). Conclusions MWA combined with POP is an effective and safe treatment for pelvic osteolytic metastases. It can significantly relieve local pain, reconstruct limb function, improve patients' quality of life, and effectively control local tumour progression. Advances in knowledge So far, the experience of using microwave in the treatment of pelvic metastases is still limited. MWA combined with POP in the treatment of pelvic osteolytic metastases can provide significant clinical benefits in acceptable low-risk minimally invasive situations and should be provided to patients with appropriate pelvic metastases in a multidisciplinary approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, we propose an elliptical photonic crystal fiber sensor with an open ring channel, which could enhance the sensor performance. Gold is employed as the plasmonic material and coated on open ring channel. Using the finite element method, the wavelength sensitivity, the amplitude sensitivity, and the optical spectrum leakage from the fiber core to the sample channels are examined, and the influence of structural parameters on the sensor performance is investigated. The numerical results show that the proposed sensor exhibits a wide detection range of the refractive index (RI) from 1.20 to 1.40, the maximum wavelength sensitivity is 21,000 nm/RIU, where RIU is the RI unit, and the maximum amplitude sensitivity of 455.45 RIU−1 is obtained for RI of 1.33. Moreover, the feasibility of the multi-function detection to identify fluorine-containing organics, glucose concentration, and pathogens in water is also numerically investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a D-shaped open-ring photonic crystal fiber temperature sensor based on surface plasmon resonance is proposed and analyzed using the finite element method. The silver film is coated on the polished surface as a plasmonic excitation material and can effectively improve sensitivity. A mixture of ethanol and chloroform is used as a temperature-sensitive material to measure temperature. The simulation result shows that it can be detected to investigate the sensor performance in a range of temperatures from 0 to 60 °C. When the temperature is 20 °C, the sensor can detect the sensor performance in a range of refractive index from 1.33 to 1.40. The temperature sensor exhibits a maximum sensitivity of 6.1 nm/°C, a resolution of 1.63 × 10–3 °C with the adjusted R-square value of 0.9985. Due to the wide temperature detection range and high sensitivity, the proposed temperature sensor can be one of the significant potential candidates in the field of temperature sensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a new type of photonic crystal fiber is designed, which is used tellurite glass as the background material. The finite element method is implemented to study its features, for instance, dispersion, birefringence, and nonlinearity. Simulation results indicate that our designed photonic crystal fiber could obtain a higher birefringence of 3.79 × 10−2 and exhibit a maximum nonlinear coefficient of 1672.36 W−1 km−1 at 1.55 μm. About 2000 nm wide supercontinuum can be generated at the pumping wavelength of 1550 nm. The proposed photonic crystal fiber features may be utilized for optical fiber sensing, dispersion compensation, supercontinuum generation, and other fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a type of photonic crystal fiber with circular and elliptical air holes is presented to obtain high nonlinearity as well as birefringence with two zero-dispersion wavelengths. The finite element method is adapted to explore its optical characteristics. The simulation results indicate that when λ = 1.55 μm, by fixing the geometrical parameters, the birefringence reaches 2.76 × 10–2 and the nonlinear coefficient reaches the maximum value of 820.27 W−1·km−1 and the confinement loss is 1.45 × 10–8 dB/m. Moreover, two zero-dispersion wavelengths appear in the visible and near-infrared bands. About 2100 nm wide supercontinuum can be generated at the pumping wavelength of 1550 nm. These excellent features could be applied to many fields such as broadband supercontinuum generation, dispersion management, optical fiber sensing and polarization control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toripalimab as a novel PD-1 inhibitor has presented its promising efficacy in patients who developed chemo-refractory carcinomas, whereas no study has ever investigated the effectiveness of toripalimab in chemo-resistant choriocarcinoma. Here we reported the effectiveness and safety data of 4 patients with chemo-resistant choriocarcinoma who underwent PD-1 antibody therapy by toripalimab and individualized chemotherapies. From January 2019 to August 2020, 4 patients with choriocarcinoma were admitted in Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University. The patients' age ranged from 29 to 52 years with a median of 36 years. All the patients achieved CR after the combined therapy of toripalimab with individualized chemotherapies according to the decreased serum β-hcg level. Two of the four patients were observed with treatment-related adverse events (AEs), including one grade I skin rash and one grade I pruritus. Our cases showed that toripalimab combined with chemotherapy presented a tolerable safety profile and promising effectiveness in patients with chemo-resistant choriocarcinoma, indicating its potential as salvage therapy for this subset of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the problem of nuclear leakage being concerned by more and more industries, the research of coastal ecological environment monitoring has become more and more important. Therefore, it is necessary to study the current unsystematic coastal ecological environment monitoring and protection system. Aiming at the accuracy of feature fusion and representation of single short environment information, this paper compares the classification effects of the three fusion methods on four classifiers: logistic regression, SVM, random forest, and naive Bayes, to verify the effectiveness of LDA and DS model fusion and determine the consistency vector representation method of short environment information data. This paper collects and analyzes the coastal data in recent years using multisource information fusion decision-making. In this paper, DS (Dempster Shafer) evidence algorithm is used to collect the data of coastal salinization degree and air relative humidity, and then, the DS feature matching model is introduced to fuse the whole index system. The method in the article completes the standardized and standardized processing of monitoring data digital conversion, quality control, and data classification, forms interrelated four-dimensional spatiotemporal data, and establishes a distributed, object-oriented, Internet-oriented dynamic management real-time and delayed database. Finally, this paper carries out tree decision processing on the coastal ecological environment monitoring data of multisource information fusion, to achieve the extraction and intuitive analysis of special data, and puts forward targeted protection strategies for the coastal ecological environment according to the data results of the DS algorithm. The research shows that the number of indicators in multisource information fusion in this paper is 16, a total of 3251 data, 2866 meaningful information, and 1869 data including ecological cycle. These data are the results of the collection of multi-information data. Based on the multilevel nature of the existing marine environment three-dimensional monitoring system, the study established a comprehensive resource-guaranteed framework and divided it into four levels according to the level of the marine monitoring system: country, sea area, locality, and data access point. In specific analysis, the guarantee resources involved in each level are introduced. On the basis of in-depth analysis of the requirements of the marine environment three-dimensional monitoring system operation guarantee and the guarantee resource structure, the marine environment three-dimensional monitoring operation comprehensive guarantee system is described from the internal structure and the external connection. The DS algorithm extracts the status information resources of various marine environment three-dimensional monitoring systems, through the interaction of various subsystems, realizes the operation and maintenance of the monitoring system, and provides various technical supports such as system evaluation and failure analysis. After multisource information fusion and decision-making, it is obtained that the index equilibrium module in the DS algorithm in this paper is 0.52, the sensitivity is 0.68, and the independence is 0.42. Among them, the range of sensitivity is the largest. In the simulation results, the eco-economic coefficient can be increased from 12% to 36%. Therefore, using the method of multisource information fusion for quantitative index analysis can provide data support for coastal ecological environment detection, to establish a more perfect protection system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noise‐induced hearing loss (NIHL) seriously affects the life quality of humans and causes huge economic losses to society. To identify novel genetic loci involved in NIHL, we conducted a genome‐wide association study (GWAS) for this symptom in Chinese populations. GWAS scan was performed in 89 NIHL subjects (cases) and 209 subjects with normal hearing who have been exposed to a similar noise environment (controls), followed by a replication study consisting of 53 cases and 360 controls. We identified that four candidate pathways were nominally significantly associated with NIHL, including the Erbb, Wnt, hedgehog and intraflagellar transport pathways. In addition, two novel index single‐nucleotide polymorphisms, rs35075890 in the intron of AUTS2 gene at 7q11.22 (combined P = 1.3 × 10−6) and rs10081191 in the intron of PTPRN2 gene at 7q36.3 (combined P = 2.1 × 10−6), were significantly associated with NIHL. Furthermore, the expression quantitative trait loci analyses revealed that in brain tissues, the genotypes of rs35075890 are significantly associated with the expression levels of AUTS2, and the genotypes of rs10081191 are significantly associated with the expressions of PTPRN2 and WDR60. In conclusion, our findings highlight two novel loci at 7q11.22 and 7q36.3 conferring susceptibility to NIHL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Momordicoside G is a bioactive component from Momordica charantia , this study explores the contributions of macrophages to the effects of momordicoside G on lung injury and carcinoma lesion. In vitro , when administered at the dose that has no effect on cell viability in M2-like macrophages, momordicoside G decreased ROS and promoted autophagy and thus induced apoptosis in M1-like macrophages with the morphological changes. In the urethane-induced lung carcinogenic model, prior to lung carcinoma lesions, urethane induced obvious lung injury accompanied by the increased macrophage infiltration. The lung carcinoma lesions were positively correlated with lung tissue injury and macrophage infiltration in alveolar cavities in the control group, these macrophages showed mainly a M1-like (iNOS+/CD68+) phenotype. ELISA showed that the levels of IL-6 and IL-12 were increased and the levels of IL-10 and TGF-β1 were reduced in the control group. After momordicoside G treatment, lung tissue injury and carcinoma lesions were ameliorated with the decreased M1-like macrophages and the increased M2-like (arginase+/CD68+) macrophages, whereas macrophage depletion by liposome-encapsulated clodronate (LEC) decreased significantly lung tissue injury and carcinoma lesions and also attenuated the protective efficacy of momordicoside G. The M2 macrophage dependent efficacy of momordicoside G was confirmed in a LPS-induced lung injury model in which epithelial closure was promoted by the transfer of M2-like macrophages and delayed by the transfer of M1-like macrophages. To acquire further insight into the underlying molecular mechanisms by which momordicoside G regulates M1 macrophages, we conduct a comprehensive bioinformatics analysis of momordicoside G relevant targets and pathways involved in M1 macrophage phenotype. This study suggests a function of momordicoside G, whereby it selectively suppresses M1 macrophages to stimulate M2-associated lung injury repair and prevent inflammation-associated lung carcinoma lesions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pathophysiology of colorectal cancer (CRC) has not been fully elucidated. The dysregulation of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway frequently contributes to the tumorigenesis and progression of human cancer. The aim of the present study was to explore the expression and clinical significance of a number of associated factors and key components of the PI3K signaling pathway, including phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase catalytic subunit α (p110α), phosphorylated protein kinase B (p-Akt) Ser473, p-mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) Ser2448, cyclin D1, cyclin dependent kinase (CDK)4, RELA proto-oncogene, nuclear factor-κβ subunit (p65), Ras and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)1/2 in human CRC. The expression of target proteins was detected using immunohistochemistry (IHC) in 65 CRC cases and 15 colonic adenoma cases. The association between the expression of target proteins and clinical pathological parameters was analyzed using a χ² test. IHC results revealed that the expression of all target proteins was significantly increased in CRC tissues compared with in colonic adenoma tissues (P<0.05). No significant associations were observed between the expression of p110α, p-Akt Ser473, p-mTOR Ser2448 and sex, age, differentiation, lymph node metastasis or Tumor-Node-Metastasis staging (P>0.05). Cyclin D1, CDK4 and Ras were revealed to be expressed significantly higher in poorly differentiated CRC compared with moderately differentiated CRC (P<0.05). Expression of p65 and ERK1/2 were significantly increased in cancer tissues with lymph node metastasis compared with cancer tissues without lymph node metastasis (P<0.05). These results suggest that the target proteins may all participate in the tumorigenesis of CRC. Furthermore, cyclin D1, CDK4, Ras, p65 and ERK1/2 may be important in the progression of CRC. The results of the present study may provide novel predictive factors and therapeutic targets for CRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the relationship between ovarian function and ovarian limited dose in radiotherapy was evaluated in young patients with cervical cancer who underwent ovarian transposition (Fig1B). Moreover, the novel ovarian dose limit for a better preservation of ovarian function in intensity-modulated radiation therapy ( IMRT) was determined. We retrospectively analyzed data from 86 patients with cervical cancer who received radical hysterectomy and ovarian transposition from January 2013 to June 2015. In agreement with the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Guidelines ( NCCN) for Cervical Cancer Version 2.2015, 65 patients with pathological high-risk factors were administered adjuvant radiotherapy-20 of them received three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (Observation Group A), 24 patients received IMRT with no limitation on radiation dose to ovaries (Observation Group B), and 21 patients underwent IMRT with limited radiation dose(V10<20%) to ovaries (Observation Group C). Twenty-one patients without any predetermined high-risk factors did not received radiation therapy (Control Group D). Patients from all four groups were followed up, and sex hormone levels (E2, P, follicle-stimulating hormone [ FSH], LH) before radiation, postradiation, 3 month, and 6 month after the radiation therapy were measured by electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Subsequently, changes in sex hormone levels in all four groups of patients at various time points were analyzed. The levels of sexual hormones (E2, P, FSH, LH) before radiation, postradiation, 3 month, and 6 month after the radiation therapy in patients from all three observation groups were significantly lower than those in patients of the control group ( P < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the levels of sex hormones in patients of the control group at different time points ( P > 0.05). Within each observation group, there was a statistically significant difference in the sex hormone levels in patients before the radiation and after the radiation ( P < 0.05); however, when data from all three observation groups were compared, only the difference in the levels of FSH and LH between the patients from Group A and Group C was statistically significant ( P < 0.05). The results of receiver-operating characteristic ( ROC) curve analysis suggested that limiting ovarian radiation dose to V7.5 < 26% in IMRT prevents the disruption of ovarian function (area under ROC curve was 0.740, confidence interval [ CI] = 0.606-0.874). In young patients with cervical cancer who underwent radical hysterectomy and ovarian transposition without receiving adjuvant radiotherapy, ovarian endocrine function was well preserved. In patients who received any type of postoperative radiotherapy, ovarian function was affected, suggesting that the standard ovarian limited dose used in IMRT disrupted ovarian function. The results of the ROC curve analysis suggested that the new optimal dose limit of V7.5 < 26% should be used in IMRT to preserve ovarian function ( P = 0.003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A D-shaped photonic crystal fiber (PCF) low refractive index (RI) sensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is proposed, and its properties are investigated by the finite element method. Gold is selected as the plasmonic material and coated on the open-ring structure to excite the plasmonic modes. The simulation results indicate that the sensor can detect the RI in the range of 1.00 to 1.29, which is a fairly wide detection range in the detection field of SPR-based PCF low RI sensors. When the analyte of the RI varies from 1.28 to 1.29, the maximum sensitivity of 10,000 nm / RIU and the corresponding resolution of 1 × 10 − 5 RIU are obtained in the wavelength range of 1.6 to 2.4 μm. When the RI of the analyte changes from 1.00 to 1.29, the relationship curve between the RI and the resonance wavelength fits well, and the adjusted R2 value is 0.99609. Furthermore, the sensor achieves the figure of merit of 56.98 RIU − 1 and an amplitude sensitivity of 82.76 RIU − 1, respectively. Therefore, the designed sensor can be effectively applied to low RI detection, having a certain commercial potential in medical detection, organic chemistry detections, and related applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel Support Vector Machine (SVM) ensemble approach using clustering analysis is proposed. Firstly, the positive and negative training examples are clustered through subtractive clustering algorithm respectively. Then some representative examples are chosen from each of them to construct SVM components. At last, the outputs of the individual classifiers are fused through majority voting method to obtain the final decision. Comparisons of performance between the proposed method and other popular ensemble approaches, such as Bagging, Adaboost and k-fold cross validation, are carried out on synthetic and UCI datasets. The experimental results show that our method has higher classification accuracy since the example distribution information is considered during ensemble through clustering analysis. It further indicates that our method needs a much smaller size of training subsets than Bagging and Adaboost to obtain satisfactory classification accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ovarian cancer (OC) is the gynecologic cancer with the highest mortality. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play a vital role in the development and progression of cancer. This study aimed to explore the potential role of circ_0015756 in OC and its molecular mechanism. Methods: The levels of circ_0015756, microRNA-942-5p (miR-942-5p) and Cullin 4B (CUL4B) were determined by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) or Western blot assay. Cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration and invasion were assessed by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8), colony formation assay, flow cytometry and transwell assay. The levels of proliferation-related and metastasis-related proteins were measured by Western blot assay. The relationship between miR-942-5p and circ_0015756 or CUL4B was verified by dual-luciferase reporter assay, RNA immunoprecipitation assay and RNA pull-down assay. Xenograft assay was used to analyze tumor growth in vivo. Results: Circ_0015756 and CUL4B levels were increased, while miR-942-5p level was decreased in OC tissues and cells. Depletion of circ_0015756 suppressed proliferation, migration and invasion and promoted apoptosis in OC cells. Down-regulation of circ_0015756 hindered OC cell progression via modulating miR-942-5p. Also, up-regulation of miR-942-5p impeded OC cell development by targeting CUL4B. Mechanistically, circ_0015756 up-regulated CUL4B via sponging miR-942-5p. Moreover, circ_0015756 silencing inhibited tumor growth in vivo. Conclusion: Knockdown of circ_0015756 suppressed OC progression via regulating miR-942-5p/CUL4B axis, suggesting that circ_0015756 might be a potential therapeutic target for ovarian cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More efficient biomarkers are needed to facilitate the early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We aimed to identify candidate biomarkers for HCC detection by proteomic analysis. First, we performed a global proteomic analysis of 10 paired HCC and non-tumor tissues. Then, we validated the top-ranked proteins by targeted proteomic analyses in another tissue cohort. At last, we used enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays to validate the candidate biomarkers in multiple serum cohorts including HCC cases (HCCs), cirrhosis cases (LCs), and normal controls (NCs). We identified and validated 33 up-regulated proteins in HCC tissues. Among them, eight secretory or membrane proteins were further evaluated in serum, revealing that aldo–keto reductase family 1 member B10 (AKR1B10) and cathepsin A (CTSA) can distinguish HCCs from LCs and NCs. The area under the curves (AUCs) were 0.891 and 0.894 for AKR1B10 and CTSA, respectively, greater than that of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP; 0.831). Notably, combining the three proteins reached an AUC of 0.969, which outperformed AFP alone (P < 0.05). Furthermore, the serum AKR1B10 levels dramatically decreased after surgery. AKR1B10 and CTSA are potential serum biomarkers for HCC detection. The combination of AKR1B10, CTSA, and AFP may improve the HCC diagnostic efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]