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Three-dimensional printing (3DP) is considered to be one of the important technologies for a new manufacturing mode. When ceramsite sand is used as a 3DP material to produce a mold (core), the prin...

DESs based nanofluids were utilized for the first time as a medium for recycling lithium ion batteries. 100% liberation efficiency and doubled leaching efficiency compared to pristine DES were achieved under mild conditions.

Purpose Recent studies have indicated some differences in the prognosis of patients with stage III-N2 lung adenocarcinoma, and the prognosis of patients with skip N2 lymph node metastasis (SKN2) is good. This study grouped patients with stage III-N2 lung adenocarcinoma by propensity score matching (PSM) to evaluate the impact of SKN2 on the prognosis of these patients. Methods The clinical data for patients who underwent radical lobectomy and had a postoperative pathological diagnosis of stage III-N2 lung adenocarcinoma at our centre from 2016 to 2018 were collected, and PSM was performed at a ratio of 1:1. Results A total of 456 patients were enrolled in this study. After PSM, 112 patients were included in the SKN2 group, and 112 patients were included in the non-SKN2 group. When comparing the SKN2 group with the non-SKN2 group, the 3-year OS rate was (71.4% vs. 12.5%, p Conclusion For patients with stage III-N2 lung adenocarcinoma, the prognosis of SKN2 patients is better than non-SKN2 patients’, and SKN2 may be used as an important factor in the N2 subgroup classification in future TNM staging.

A mixed-lanthanide MOF with multiple readouts has been developed, which presents a promising paradigm for real-time and in situ determination of trace water and temperature.

This article investigates the problem of fixed-time fault estimation and fault-tolerant control (FTC) for interconnected systems subject to both multiplicative and additive actuator faults. On the basis of the bilimit homogeneous theory, the proposed fault estimation observer can acquire the exact system state and fault information in a specified time, and such a time is determined by a constant upper bound, independent of the initial observation errors. Next, the prescribed performance function (PPF) is employed to impose the anticipant performance criterion on the trajectory tracking errors, for the purpose of preserving both desirable transient and steady-state responses. Afterward, we incorporate the recursive fast terminal sliding-mode technique into the active FTC (AFTC) design procedure to eliminate the influence of faults. In such a way, the fixed-time convergence property of tracking errors can be guaranteed without any restriction on the initial conditions. Finally, comparative simulation results are provided to illustrate the feasibility and superiority of the proposed strategy.

Applying computer vision and machine learning techniques into sport tests is an effective way to realize “intelligent sports.” Facing practical application, we design a real-time and lightweight deep learning network to realize intelligent pull-ups test in this study. The main contributions are as follows: (1) a new self-produced pull-ups dataset is established under the requirement of including a human body and horizontal bar. In addition, a semiautomatic annotating software is developed to enhance annotation efficiency and increase labeling accuracy. (2) A novel lightweight deep network named PEPoseNet is designed to estimate and analyze a human pose in real time. The backbone of the network is made up of the heatmap network and key point network, which conduct human pose estimation based on the key points extracted from a human body and horizontal bar. The depth-wise separable convolution is adopted to speed up the training and convergence. (3) An evaluation criterion of intelligent pull-ups test is defined based on action quality assessment (AQA). The action quality of five states, i.e., ready or end, hang, pull, achieved, and resume in one pull-ups test cycle is automatically graded using a random forest classifier. A mobile application is developed to realize intelligent pull-ups test in real time. The performance of the proposed model and software is confirmed by verification and ablation experiments. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed PEPoseNet has competitive performance to the state of the art. Its PCK @ 0.2 and frames per second (FPS) achieved were 83.8 and 30 fps, respectively. The mobile application has promising application prospects in pull-ups test under complex scenarios.

Uneven and insufficient encapsulation caused by surface tension between supporting and phase change materials (PCMs) can be theoretically avoided if the encapsulation process co-occurs with the formation of supporting materials in the same environment. Herein, for the first time, a one-pot one-step (OPOS) protocol is developed for synthesizing TiO

Phase-change materials (PCMs) play a key role in thermal energy storage owing to their high-energy storage density and small temperature fluctuation during the phase-transition stage. Polymers, either as a supporting material to prevent liquid leakage during the phase-change process or used with specific target, have been widely recognized in the fabrication of PCM composites. In the meantime, due to the continued demand for variety of PCMs, a single thermal energy storage function seems to be insufficient to meet these needs. Thanks to the good compatibility with PCMs and the structural adjustable properties of polymers, they have been broadly used as the second component in the multifunctional PCMs composite. In this Review, strategies for multifunctional PCMs supported by polymers and their potential energy applications, such as thermal energy harvesting and storage, shape memory, wearable devices, self-cleaning, and other forms of applications, are summarized comprehensively. The future research directions and challenges of multifunctional PCMs with polymers are also discussed.

Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common cancer in the world. In recent years, the incidence of synchronous multiple primary lung cancer (SMPLC) has gradually increased. Surgery is the preferred method to treat these patients. The management of SMPLC patients who cannot tolerate surgical treatment is controversial. We report a rare case in which a 70-year-old Chinese woman with no history of smoking had three primary lung adenocarcinoma lesions. Two lesions had epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 deletion mutations, and one lesion had the L858R mutation. After first-generation EGFR–tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) treatment, the three lesions all showed a good response until disease progression. After the corresponding drug treatments were given based on the different drug resistance mechanisms, good responsiveness was shown in each lessions. This case suggests that in the treatment of SMPLC, it is necessary to learn the molecular-biological information of each lesion due to the differences thereof, and a targeted treatment regimen should be developed on this basis.

BackgroundIt is still unclear whether stage I lung adenocarcinoma patients with tumour spread through air spaces (STAS) can benefit from postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) after lobectomy. This study investigated the effect of ACT on the postoperative survival of patients with stage I (STAS+) lung adenocarcinoma.MethodsWe retrospectively analysed the clinical data of stage I (STAS+) invasive lung adenocarcinoma patients who underwent lobectomy in the Department of Thoracic Surgery of our hospital from January 1, 2013 to January 1, 2016. Propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to group patients to investigate whether ACT could lead to better prognosis of patients.ResultsA total of 593 patients with stage I (STAS+) lung adenocarcinoma were enrolled. The study after PSM included 406 patients. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed the experimental group had a better 3-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) rate (p = 0.037) and the 5-year RFS rate (p = 0.022) than the control group. It also had higher 5-year overall survival (p = 0.017). The multivariate analysis by Cox proportional hazard regression model showed that stage I STAS+ lung adenocarcinoma patients with lymphatic vessel invasion (HR: 1.711, 95% CI: 1.052-2.784; p = 0.045), vascular invasion (HR: 5.014, 95% CI: 3.154-7.969; p < 0.001), and visceral pleural invasion (HR: 2.086, 95% CI: 1.162-3.743; p = 0.014), and without ACT (HR: 1.675, 95% CI: 1.043-2.689; p = 0.033) had a significant survival disadvantage.ConclusionACT can boost the postoperative survival of patients with stage I (STAS+) lung adenocarcinoma.

In this article, Cu is found to have a great influence on the graphite morphology and growth mode in compacted graphite iron (CGI). Metallographic pictures show that the number of vermicular graphite of the surface of CGI casting is significantly higher than that of the core, and there is more spheroidal graphite in the core of casting. In addition, a special form of graphite, which is defined as distorted graphite appears in the matrix. From the EPMA results, it can be concluded that the segregation of Cu promotes the distortion of graphite, and part of distorted graphite is transformed into vermicular graphite under the action of vermicular elements (Mg, La, and Ce). The increase in the number of spheroidal graphite improves the strength of casting, but it reduces the thermal conductivity.

This article investigates the observer-based finite-time $H_\infty$ control problem for interconnected fuzzy systems with quantization and random network attacks, where two types of network attacks including denial-of-service (DoS) and fault data injection (FDI) attacks are considered. In order to achieve the occupancy reduction of network resources, the measured outputs of interconnected systems are quantized through a logarithmic quantizer before being transmitted by the communication channel. Combining the effects of quantization and random network attacks, an observer-based control model is first constructed. Then, based on Lyapunov functional approach and stochastic analysis technique, some sufficient conditions are presented such that the considered closed-loop interconnected system is stochastically finite-time bounded with a prescribed disturbance attenuation level, and the gain matrices of fuzzy observer and fuzzy controller can be found by solving an optimization algorithm with linear matrix inequalities constraints. Finally, two simulation examples are given to illustrate the validity of the proposed approach.

CeOx as a (co-)catalyst has been proved a promising material toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in water splitting. In this study, a novel two-step method for the synthesis of cerium oxide nanoparticles in-situ generatedon CoP nanosheets toward OER is presented. Interestingly, Ce ions were gradually hydrolyzed and oxidized under the action of alkaline ligand andsolvothermal environment, and eventually existed in the form of CeOx on the 2D Co-MOF nanosheets in the first step. In the followed selective phosphating process, 2D Co-MOF nanosheets act as the template are transformed into CoP nanosheets but CeOx is still maintained. Optimal CeOx/CoP nanosheets exhibit low OER overpotential, small Tafel slope and robust durability. Furthermore, in situ electrochemical Raman spectroscopy demonstrates the transformation of the active catalytic species during the oxidation process. This in situ generation of a cocatalyst and selective phosphidation strategy provides some guidelines for the designing of highly efficient catalysts for OER and even other explorations.

Microstructure and mechanical properties of compacted graphite iron (CGI) alloyed with different additions of rare earth (RE) elements are analysed in this paper. Experimental results show that gra...

From the perspective of cold air mass (CAM) analysis, we examine the characteristics and mechanisms of regional cold events (RCEs) over northwestern and northeastern China in the past 58 years (1958/59–2015/16). The RCEs in northwestern (northeastern) China are shown to have an average duration of 6.8 (4.7) days with a moderate (sharp) temperature drop. We quantitatively estimate the RCE-related CAM, for the first time, using an isentropic analysis method. Before an RCE in northwestern China, CAM is accumulated in western Siberia with convergent CAM flux under a blocking pattern in the Urals region. During RCE outbreak, CAM penetrates the valleys of the Tianshan-Altay Mountains to the Tarim Basin and Hexi Corridor. The CAM moves slowly because of the blocking pattern and orographic effect, which explains the relatively long duration of RCEs. Comparatively, during RCEs in northeastern China, the CAM depth anomaly originates more to the east and quickly passes the Mongolian Plateau guided by an eastward-moving trough. Diagnostic analyses further show that adiabatic processes play a crucial role in regulating the local change of CAM depth during the two kinds of RCEs. The advection term of adiabatic processes mainly increases the CAM depth during RCE outbreak, while the convergence term increases (reduces) CAM depth before (after) RCE outbreak. Both terms are relatively strong during RCEs in northeastern China, resulting in the rate of change in CAM depth being ∼50% larger than for those in northwestern China. Therefore, the variations of RCEs in duration and intensity can be well explained by the different evolution of CAM depth and flux.

Background and objective Compared with tissue biopsy, liquid biopsy is the most preferable non-invasive promising method in personalized medicine, although it has many limitations in isolating circulating tumor cells (CTC). Lung cancer associated mortality is drastically increased due to a shortfall of early-stage detection, which remains a challenge. Herein, we aimed to detect lung cancer at an early-stage using CellCollector device. Methods 39,627 volunteers underwent low-dose computed tomography; 2508 cases with pulmonary nodules and 7080 with no pulmonary nodules were chosen. After follow-up, 24 patients were diagnosed with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and subjected to CTC detection using CellCollector, along with 72 healthy volunteers. Immunofluorescence staining for EpCAM/CKs and CD45 were performed for CTC validation. Results Fifteen out of twenty-four (stage I, n = 18; stage II, n = 6) early-stage lung cancer patients were found to be CTC-positive, whereas no CTC was found in the control group. Genetic mutation of TP53, ERBB2, PDGFRA, CFS1R and FGFR1 in the CTC revealed 71.6% of the mutation sites similar to the tumor tissues of 13 patients. Molecular characterization revealed higher expression of protein PD-LI in CTC (40%) as compared to tumor tissue (26.7%). Moreover, CTC clusters were detected in 40% of patients. Conclusion CTC detection using the CellCollector in early-stage NSCLC had a relative high capture rate. Moreover, CTC analysis is a prospective setting for molecular diagnostic in cases when tumor tissue biopsy is not desirable.

LiMnPO4 has been attracting attention for high energy density (701 Wh kg−1) and excellent safety. However, LiMnPO4 suffers from the cycling instability coming from the fragile solid electrolyte interface, besides the Jahn-Teller effect of Mn3+, the poor electrical conductivity and the sluggish ionic conductivity. The substitution of cation with less ionic radius for Mn2+ is conducive to stabilize the solid-electrolyte interface and retard the erosion from electrolyte; therefore, the gradient Co-doped LiMn0.98Co0.02PO4 was synthesized with 25.93 (mol) % Co on the surface by the secondary solvothermal method, and the permeated depth reaches more than 20 nm because of the coprecipitation and cation exchange of Co2+ and Mn2+. LiMn0.98Co0.02PO4/Li cell that demonstrates the cycling performance is remarkably enhanced with 87% capacity retention after 380 cycles at room temperature, even 87% after 100 cycles at 60 °C. Meanwhile, the preferential growth along the a–c plane results in the highly [010]-oriented LiMnPO4 by the solvothermal, which afford more channels for Li+ migration by exposing more reaction sites, and the infrared spectrum also reflects the less Mn2+-Li+ antisite defects in the crystal. So the samples show the superior rate performance as well.

Ultra-dense small cell networks (UD-SCNs) will be an integral part of next generation network (NGN). How to deal with serious interference is one of the important challenges in a UD-SCN. In this paper, the cooperative interference management problem for a UD-SCN is explored by allowing small cell base stations (SBSs) to collaborate with their neighbors. The proposed coalitional structure generation among SBSs can mitigate the co-tier interference within a coalition, thus improving the network capacity. Specifically, a cooperative scheme among the neighboring SBSs is formulated as a coalitional structure generation with characteristic forms. Furthermore, the relative sub-channel resources are allocated in the process of cluster generation. Compared with the existing SBS cooperative schemes, the novelty of the proposed SBS cooperation method, which uses a hierarchical clustering algorithm (SC-HCA) to compute the pairs of members, is demonstrated. The computation can enhance the efficiency of the proposed algorithm and is especially suitable for UD-SCN scenarios with tens and even hundreds of cells. The simulation results show that the proposed SC-HCA achieves a 422.13% system data rate improvement relative to that of the non-cooperative scheme in a UD-SCN scenario.

A pulse-coupled neural network (PCNN) is a promising image segmentation approach that requires no training. However, it is challenging to successfully apply a PCNN to medical image segmentation due to common but difficult scenarios such as irregular object shapes, blurred boundaries, and intensity inhomogeneity. To improve this situation, a novel framework incorporating fuzzy connectedness ( FC ) is proposed. First, a comparative study of the traditional PCNN models is carried out to analyze the framework and firing mechanism. Then, the characteristic matrix of fuzzy connectedness ( CMFC ) is presented for the first time. The CMFC can provide more intensity information and spatial relationships at the pixel level, which is helpful for producing a more reasonable firing mechanism in the PCNN models. Third, by integrating the CMFC into the PCNN framework models, a construction scheme of FC-PCNN models is designed. To illustrate this concept, a general solution that can be applied to different PCNN models is developed. Next, the segmentation performances of the proposed FC-PCNN models are evaluated by comparison with the traditional PCNN models, the traditional segmentation methods, and deep learning methods. The test images include synthetic and real medical images from the Internet and three public medical image datasets. The quantitative and visual comparative analysis demonstrates that the proposed FC-PCNN models outperform the traditional PCNN models and the traditional segmentation methods and achieve competitive performance to the deep learning methods. In addition, the proposed FC-PCNN models have favorable capability to eliminate inference from surrounding artifacts.

Introduction: Pantoea dispersa belongs to the genus Pantoea, which is isolated from Enterobacteriaceae. It has been reported to cause some kinds of infections, but there are few detailed studies on it, especially its characteristics and identification methods, which has caused a lot of trouble in clinical work. Patient concerns: A 51-year-old Chinese man was admitted to our hospital with a 7-hour history of progressive abdominal pain. He was previously diagnosed with liver cirrhosis secondary to chronic hepatitis B infection and hepatocellular carcinoma. An emergency hepatic artery embolization for hemostasis was performed under local anesthesia. Forty-eight hours later, the patient presented sudden onset of high fever up to 39.0 °C and chill. Diagnosis: Morphological and phenotypic profiles were performed for preliminary identification for P dispersa. The biochemical features were obtained by VITEK 2 Test Kit. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry analysis and 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing were performed to accurately identify P dispersa. Intervention: Antibiotic therapy of intravenous ceftazidime was started empirically. The antibiotic treatment was switched to intravenous cefepime at the same time because of suspected ceftazidime treatment failure and microbiological sensitivity. Outcomes: The patient remained afebrile, and the second blood culture results were negative. Chest X-ray was normal as well. In order to control the progression of the hepatic lesion, transarterial chemoembolization was performed under local anesthesia. After completion of 14 days of antibiotic treatment, the patient was discharged with no signs of recurrence. Conclusion: P dispersa, a gram-negative bacterium rod, were facultative anaerobic, which displayed yellow pigmentation, round, raised, smooth on culture plates. Conventional analysis was difficult to complete its identification. With biochemical tests, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry analysis and 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing, P dispersa can be accurately identified. It will help physicians understand the related clinical manifestations and make timely and effective treatment for patients.

Automatic body region localization in medical three-dimensional (3D)-CT images is a critical step of computerized body-wide Automatic Anatomy Recognition (AAR) system, which can be applied for radiotherapy planning and interest slices retrieving. Currently, the complex internal structure of human body and time consuming computation are the main challenges for the localization. Therefore, this paper introduces and improves the YOLO-v3 model into the body region localization for these problems. First, seven categories of body regions in a CT volume image I are defined based on the modification version of our previous work. Second, an improved YOLO-v3 model is trained to classify each axial slice into one of the seven categories. Then, the effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated on 3D-CT images that collected from 220 subjects. The experimental results demonstrate that the slice localizing error is less than 3 NoS (Number of slices), which is competitive to the state-of-the-art methods. Beyond this, our method is simple and computationally efficient owing to its less training time, and the average computational time for localizing a volume CT images is about 3 second, which shows potential for a further application.

BackgroundSynchronous multiple ground-glass nodules (SMGGNs) in synchronous multiple lung cancers are associated with specific imaging findings. It is difficult to distinguish whether multiple nodules are primary tumors or metastatic lesions in the lungs. The need for PET/CT and contrast-enhanced brain MRI for these patients remains unclear. This study investigated the necessity of these two imaging examinations for SMGGN patients by means of retrospective analysis.MethodsSMGGN patients who were diagnosed and treated in our hospital from October 2017 to May 2020 and underwent whole-body PET/CT(Cranial excepted) and/or contrast-enhanced brain MRI+DWI were enrolled in this study. We analyzed the imaging and clinical characteristics of these patients to evaluate SMGGN patients’ need to undergo whole-body PET/CT and brain MRI examination.ResultsA total of 87 SMGGN patients were enrolled. 51 patients underwent whole-body PET/CT examinations and did not show signs of primary tumors in other organs, metastatic foci in other organs, or metastasis to surrounding lymph nodes. 87 patients underwent whole-brain MRI, which did not reveal brain metastases but did detect an old cerebral infarction in 23 patients and a new cerebral infarction in one patient. 87 patients underwent surgical treatment in which 219 nodules were removed. All nodules were diagnosed as adenocarcinoma or atypical adenomatous hyperplasia. No lymph node metastasis was noted.ConclusionFor SMGGN patients, PET/CT and enhanced cranial MRI are unnecessary for SMGGNs patients, but from the perspective of perioperative patient safety, preoperative MRI+DWI examination is recommended for SMGGNs patients.

At present, most of the classic Discriminative Correlation Filter (DCF) use rectangle to track targets. Although this method of selecting targets by rectangle is convenient, the shortcomings are also particularly obvious. For example, DCF may mistake some background information as target. Moreover, the DCF simply uses the linear method to update the target template, which will introduce interference into the model. In order to solve the above problems, we propose a mask and multi-peaks re-prediction correlation filter algorithm. First, the segmentation algorithm is used to extract the edge information in the target region, and the target mask is made according to the edge information. In this way more accurate target information is obtained. Secondly, when the target is interfered, the filtered response graph will fluctuate drastically. We compare the similarity between the target of the first frame and the alternative region that made through multiple peaks to select the most accurate and effective target, and use this target to update the model. We evaluated the proposed algorithm on the OTB-2013 dataset and UAV123 dataset, experiments show that our algorithm can better deal with background interference and has better performance than other advanced algorithms.

Whether smokers respond to anti-cancer drugs differently than non-smokers remains controversial. The objective of this study is to explore whether the better response of the smokers is specific to therapy of anti-PD-1/PD-L1, anti-checkpoint inhibitor, individual drugs on the cell surface, or lung cancer. Our results showed that among all non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, when the data from anti-PD-1/PD-L1, anti-CTLA-4, and anti-MUC1 drugs are combined, the mean hazard ratios (HR) of smokers and non-smokers were 0.751 and 1.016, respectively. A meta-analysis with a fixed effect (FE) model indicated that the smokers have an HR value of 0.023 lower than that of the non-smokers. A stratified subgroup meta-analysis indicated that when treated with anti-CTLA-4 drugs, smokers had reduced HR values of 0.152 and 0.165 on average and FE model meta-analysis, respectively. When treated with an anti-MUC1 drug, smokers had reduced HR values of 1.563 and 0.645, on average and FE model meta-analysis, respectively. When treated with a combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab drugs, smokers had, on average, reduced HR and FE model meta-analysis values (0.257 and 0.141), respectively. Smoking is a clinical response predictor for anti-PD/PD-L1 monotherapy or first-line treatment in lung, urothelial carcinoma, and head and neck cancer. Smokers treated with other drugs have shown worse responses in comparison to non-smokers. These data suggest that, along with the progress in the development of new drugs for cancer, drugs acting on specific genotypes of smokers likely will arise.

The electromigration (EM) of a solder joint under high-current stressing causes damage and reduces its service life. Previous studies have suggested that EM-induced cracks typically initiate at the cathode corner where the electron current enters, and propagate across the intermetallic compound and solder interface. Herein, however, another type of propagation is experimentally demonstrated whereby cracks initiate from voids located in the middle of the interface and propagate in two directions. This phenomenon was investigated further with finite element simulations. These simulations showed that, when the solder corners become rounded via the wetting phenomenon that occurs during solder reflow, the current density around the voids is greater than that at the solder corner. Under these conditions, cracking will initiate from the side of an existing void, instead of the corner from where electron current flows into the solder ball, when tensile stress is present at the void and compressive stress at the electron current entrance.

The 9-bp deletion of CCCCCTCTA at position 8272 in region V of mitochondrial DNA is one of the mitochondrial DNA microsatellite instability (mtMSI) sites that associated with cancers. In the present study, we investigated the association of 8272 deletion with the cancer risk and outcome for colorectal cancer (CRC). By the log-rank analysis, the 8272 CCCCCTCTA/del was identified as a prognostic marker for outcome of colorectal cancer patients with the deleted ones associated with shorter postoperative survival. After adjusted with Cox Hazard model, this MSI was associated independently with CRC outcome (relative risk, 2.038; 95%CI, 1.20-3.707; p = 0.020). The analysis of mtMSI can help to identify patient subgroups that are at high risk for poor disease outcomes.

BackgroundLung cancer is a malignant tumor that has the highest morbidity and mortality rate among all cancers. Early diagnosis of lung cancer is a key factor in reducing mortality and improving prognosis.MethodsIn this study, we performed CTC next-generation sequencing (NGS) in early-stage lung cancer patients to identify lung cancer-related gene mutations. Meanwhile, a serum liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS) untargeted metabolomics analysis was performed in the CTC-positive patients. To screen potential diagnostic markers for early lung cancer.Results62.5% (30/48) of lung cancer patients had ≥1 CTC. By CTC NGS, we found that > 50% of patients had 4 commonly mutated genes, namely, NOTCH1, IGF2, EGFR, and PTCH1. 47.37% (9/19) patients had ARIDH1 mutations. Additionally, 30 CTC-positive patients and 30 healthy volunteers were subjected to LC-MS untargeted metabolomics analysis. We found 100 different metabolites, and 10 different metabolites were identified through analysis, which may have potential clinical application value in the diagnosis of CTC-positive early-stage lung cancer (AUC >0.9).ConclusionsOur results indicate that NGS of CTC and metabolomics may provide new tumor markers for the early diagnosis of lung cancer.

Background: Synchronous multiple ground-glass nodules (SMGGNs) in synchronous multiple lung cancers (SMLCs) are associated with specific imaging findings. It is difficult to distinguish whether multiple nodules are primary tumors or metastatic lesions in the lungs. The need for positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) and contrast-enhanced brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for these patients remains unclear. This study investigated the necessity of these two imaging examinations for SMGGN patients by means of retrospective analysis. Methods: SMGGN patients who were diagnosed and treated in the Department of Thoracic Surgery in our hospital from October 2017 to May 2020 and underwent whole-body PET/CT and/or contrast-enhanced brain MRI examinations were enrolled in this study. We analyzed the imaging and clinical characteristics of these patients to evaluate SMGGN patients’ need to undergo whole-body PET/CT and brain MRI examination. Results: A total of 87 SMGGN patients (26 men and 61 women, with a median age of 58 years at onset) were enrolled. Fifty-one patients underwent whole-body PET/CT examinations and did not show signs of primary tumors in other organs, metastatic foci in other organs, or metastasis to surrounding lymph nodes. Eighty-seven patients underwent whole-brain MRI, which did not reveal brain metastases but did detect an old cerebral infarction in 23 patients and a new cerebral infarction in one patient. Eighty-seven patients underwent surgical treatment in which 219 nodules were removed. All nodules were diagnosed as adenocarcinoma or atypical adenomatous hyperplasia. No lymph node metastasis was noted. Conclusion: For SMGGN patients, it is not necessary to perform a whole-body PET/CT examination before surgery. Contrast-enhanced brain MRI can assess the patient’s cerebrovascular function before surgery and reduce the risk of perioperative cerebrovascular accidents. Thus, it is a necessary examination.

Purpose The major concern technologies during the processing through three-dimensional printing (3DP) are the mechanical and boundary properties of sand models. The parameters such as activator content, resolution X, layer thickness and re-coater speed play a vital role in 3DP sand components. The purpose of this paper is to recommend the optimal process parameters for the best sand mold properties. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, taking the parameters of the activator content, resolution X, layer thickness and re-coater speed as the influence factors, an orthogonal test of L16(44) was designed to discuss the influences of those parameters on the mechanical and boundary properties. Three-point bending (3PB) test was used to characterize the actual bending strength, and the boundary accuracy was assessed by the deviation of the three-point bending samples compared with its design scale. Findings The experimental results showed that the resolution X and layer thickness are the main parameters affecting sand mold properties. The strength will attain its maximum when the resolution X and layer thickness are the minimum. The optimal parameters were screened and verified by the confirmation test. The optimal process parameters for best strength and less gas evolution are the activator of 0.19%, resolution X of 0.1 mm, layer thickness of 0.28 mm and re-coater speed of 210 mm/s. Originality/value The novelty of this paper is the select of significant parameters on 3D-printed sand model properties. A mathematical model was built to analyze the effect of these parameters. The optimal process parameters for the best properties were got.

The performance of dorsal hand vein image segmentation is limited due to low contrast and intensity inhomogeneity. In this paper, a novel method is proposed by integrating matched filter and local binary fitting level set model with the aim of overcoming the fault or incomplete segmentation in dorsal hand vein image. Following is the main work and contributions of this paper. First, 12-direction matched filters are adopted to enhance the vein patterns. Then, the local binary fitting level set model is introduced to segment the image enhanced by the first step. Third, a spurious vascular removal solution is presented to reduce the interference of metacarpal bones. 380 dorsal hand vein images collected from 69 subjects are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. Compared with 5 existing vein segmentation methods, the proposed method achieves superior accuracy and shows great potential in image segmentation.