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It is difficult to use a single edge operator in image processing to extract continuous and accurate contours of a porous bioelastomer due to the fuzzy boundary and complex background in ultrasound images. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a joint algorithm for bioelastomer contour detection and a texture feature extraction method for monitoring the degradation performance of bioelastomers. First, the mean-shift clustering method is utilized to obtain the clustering feature information of bioelastomers and native tissue from manually segmented images, and this information is used as the initial information in the image binarization algorithm for image partitioning. Second, Otsu's thresholding method and mathematical morphology are applied in the process of image binarization. Finally, the Canny edge detector is employed to extract the complete bioelastomers contour from the binary image. To verify the robustness of the proposed joint algorithm, the results using the proposed joint algorithm, where mean-shift clustering is replaced with k-means clustering are also obtained. The proposed joint algorithm based on mean-shift clustering outperforms the joint algorithm based on k-means clustering, as well as algorithms that directly apply the Canny, Sobel and Laplacian methods. Texture feature extraction is based on the computer-aided recognition of bioelastomers. The region of interest (ROI) is set in the scaffold region, and the first-order statistical features and second-order statistical features of the greyscale values of the ROI are extracted and analysed. The proposed joint algorithm can not only extract ideal bioelastomers contours from ultrasound images but also provide valuable feedback on the degradation behaviour of bioelastomers at implant sites.

Abstract Background The principal objective of this project was to investigate the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) gene mutation characteristics of lung cancer patients, which can provide a molecular basis for explaining the clinicopathological features, epidemiology and use of targeted therapy in lung cancer patients in the coal-producing areas of East Yunnan. Methodology We collected 864 pathologically confirmed lung cancer patients’ specimens in First People’s Hospital of Qujing City of Yunnan Province from September 2016 to September 2021. We thereafter employed Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology to detect all exons present in the EGFR gene. Results The overall mutation frequency of the EGFR gene was 47.22%. The frequency of EGFR gene mutations in the tissue, plasma, and cytology samples were found to be 53.40%, 23.33%, and 62.50%, respectively. Univariate analysis indicated that the coal-producing areas and Fuyuan county origin were significantly associated with relatively low EGFR gene mutation frequency. Female, non-smoking history, adenocarcinoma, non-brain metastasis, and tissue specimens were found to be related to high EGFR gene mutation frequency. Multivariate logistic regression analysis suggested the lung cancer patients in the central area of Qujing City, stage Ia, non-coal-producing areas, non-Fuyuan origin, and non-Xuanwei origin were more likely to develop EGFR gene mutations. The most common mutations were L858R point mutation (33.09%) and exon 19 deletion (19-del) (21.32%). Interestingly, the mutation frequency of G719X (p = 0.001) and G719X + S768I (p = 0.000) in the coal-producing areas were noted to be more significant than those in non-coal-producing regions. Conclusion This findings of this study might be important in establishing the correlation between routine using NGS for EGFR gene mutation diagnosis and clinical practice in the lung cancer patients.

Of all the thoracic surgical procedures, chest wall surgery is probably the lowest-risk type. In fact, it is not so. Clinical work also often has the trap of chest wall surgery. An operation to remove a mass in the axilla may result in upper limb disability on the affected side. Here, we report the case of a 47-year-old female patient with a left chest wall adjacent axillary mass, which was considered an abnormal structural lymph node on color ultrasound examination and chest CT. Otherwise, she felt no discomfort. The left upper limb moved freely without being affected by the mass. A routine resection of the tumor was performed after the preoperative examination was completed. After the operation, the incision recovered well. However, the day after the surgery, she developed numbness and pain in her left little finger and ring finger, pain that often kept her from sleeping. The mass was confirmed to be a schwannoma with cystic degeneration by pathology slicing after the operation. By this time, doctors were alerted to the fact that the removal of the chest wall mass had nearly disabled the left upper limb of the patient, which was a great warning to the thoracic surgeon. In this case report, we hope that all surgeons will be cautious and careful and will not trust the imaging diagnosis too much. It is also hoped that the patient understands that some procedures may lead to unexpected complications.

Except for the traditional chemotherapy, few treatments strategy about miliary intrapulmonary carcinomatosis (MIPC) have been reported in the existing literature. In this report, we primarily discussed the possible etiology and the potentially effective treatment options for a patient with MIPC who benefited from combined treatment. A nonsmoking woman was diagnosed with MIPC at an advanced stage. Gene detection showed an EGFR negative status. She accepted first-line chemotherapy with pemetrexed and cisplatin, and the tumor progressed. Next, PD-1 inhibitors plus pemetrexed and cisplatin were administered, and the tumor remained uncontrolled. After two cycles of recombinant human endostatin plus second-line chemotherapy, the numerous pulmonary nodules had all nearly completely disappeared, while an accentuated decrease in the primary tumor volume was observed. Moreover, biochemical markers, including the patient’s tumor markers, also trended toward normal. This report describes the first case of a MIPC patient who significantly responded to antiangiogenic therapy combined with chemotherapy. Anti-angiogenic therapy may be a possible strategy for the EGFR-negative lung adenocarcinoma population.

Objective To study the effect of panax notoginseng saponins (PNS) on the efficacy and hemorrhagic transformation (HT) of recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator (rt-PA) intravenous thrombolysis in patients with acute ischemic stroke. Methods A total of 200 patients with early acute ischemic stroke (the length of time between attack and hospital admission < 4.50 h) were divided into 2 groups according to random number table method: treatment group (N = 100) and control group (N = 100). The control group was treated with routine rt-PA intravenous thrombolysis treatment, and the treatment group was treated with rt-PA intravenous thrombolysis plus PNS injection. The ischemia-reperfusion injury index [malondialdehyde (MDA) and superoxide dismutase (SOD)], hemorrhagic transformation prediction index [matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and fibronectin (FN)] and nerve function index [National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and Barthel Index (BI)] were measured and compared before treatment, 24 h after thrombolysis and 14 d after thrombolysis. Adverse drug reactions and hemorrhagic transformation rate were observed 14 d after thrombolysis, and the prognosis (mortality and BI) was evaluated 12 months after thrombolysis. Results Compared with control group, serum SOD (P = 0.000) and BI (P = 0.000) in treatment group were significantly higher, while serum MDA (P = 0.001), MMP-9 (P = 0.001), plasma FN (P = 0.000) and NIHSS score (P = 0.006) were significantly lower. In treatment group, 24 h after rt-PA intravenous thrombolysis plus PNS injection, serum MDA (P = 0.000), MMP-9 (P = 0.000) and BI (P = 0.000) were significantly increased, while NIHSS score (P = 0.000) was significantly decreased; 14 d after treatment, serum MDA (P = 0.000) and MMP-9 (P = 0.000) were decreased, serum SOD (P = 0.000) and BI (P = 0.000) were continuously increased, plasma FN (P = 0.000) and NIHSS score (P = 0.000) were continuously decreased. On the 14th day after thrombolysis, hemorrhagic transformation rate of treatment group was lower than that of control group [9 cases (9%) vs 19 cases (19%); χ2 = 4.153, P = 0.042]. There was no significant difference in the incidence of adverse drug reactions between 2 groups [14 cases (14%) vs 11 cases (11%); χ2 = 0.411, P = 0.521]. Twelve months after thrombolysis, there were 5 cases of death (5% ) in control group and one case (1% ) of death in treatment group. There was no significant difference in the incidence of mortality between 2 groups (χ2 = 1.546, P = 0.241). The BI of treatment group was significantly higher than that of control group (88.51 ± 11.49 vs 84.47 ± 9.83; t = 2.451, P = 0.015). Conclusions PNS reduces ischemia-reperfusion injury after rt-PA intravenous thrombolysis in patients with acute ischemic stroke. It can reduce the rate of hemorrhagic transformation after rt-PA intravenous thrombolysis and improve the prognosis with good safety. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672-6731.2016.11.012

A high-salt diet often leads to a local intrarenal increase in renal hypoxia and oxidative stress, which are responsible for an excess production of pathogenic substances. Here, Wistar Kyoto/spontaneous hypertensive (WKY/SHR) rats fed a high-salt diet developed severe proteinuria, resulting from pronounced renal inflammation, fibrosis and tubular epithelial cell apoptosis. All these were mainly non-pressure-related effects. Hsp90β, TGF-β, HIF-1α, TNF-α, IL-6 and MCP-1 were shown to be highly expressed in response to salt loading. Next, we found that Hsp90β might play the key role in non-pressure-related effects of salt loading through a series of cellular signalling events, including the NF-κB, p38 activation and Bcl-2 inactivation. Hsp90β was previously proven to regulate the upstream mediators in multiple cellular signalling cascades through stabilizing and maintaining their activities. In our study, 17-dimethylaminoethylamino-17-demethoxygeldanamycin (17-DMAG) or Hsp90β knockdown dramatically alleviated the high-salt-diet-induced proteinuria and renal damage without altering blood pressure significantly, when it reversed activations of NF-κB, mTOR and p38 signalling cascades. Meanwhile, Co-IP results demonstrated that Hsp90β could interact with and stabilize TAK1, AMPKα, IKKα/β, HIF-1α and Raptor, whereas Hsp90β inhibition disrupted this process. In addition, Hsp90β inhibition-mediated renal improvements also accompanied the reduction of renal oxidative stress. In conclusion, salt loading indeed exhibited non-pressure-related impacts on proteinuria and renal dysfunction in WKY/SHR rats. Hsp90β inhibition caused the destabilization of upstream mediators in various pathogenic signalling events, thereby effectively ameliorating this nephropathy owing to renal hypoxia and oxidative stress.

The stable time for concrete permeability is of great significance to evaluate the permeability of concrete and predict the service life of actual engineering. Based on a test with an exposure time of more than 3 years in a natural tidal environment, the gas permeability and microstructure parameters of concrete with different water-binder ratios (w/b) and admixtures including fly ash (FA), slag (SG), silica fume (SF), and basalt fiber (BF) were tracked and tested. Then, the time-dependent gas permeability and main microstructure parameters and their stable time were investigated. Finally, the relationship between stable time for the gas permeability coefficient and microstructure parameters was studied. The results show that the apparent and intrinsic gas permeability coefficients of concrete both decrease with exposure time. For ordinary concrete, the gas permeability coefficient and the corresponding stable time increase with w/b. The stable time for gas permeability coefficients of SF concrete is the shortest among admixture concrete, while that of BF concrete is the longest. The timedependent gas permeability is in keeping with the change of total porosity and contributive porosity of large capillary pores (100 to 1000 nm) with exposure time. Moreover, the change trends of stable time for gas permeability, total porosity, and contributive porosity of large capillary pores with w/b and admixture type are consistent. The stable time for the intrinsic gas permeability coefficient has a better correlation with that for contributive porosity of large capillary pores than that for total porosity. The intrinsic gas permeability coefficient stabilizes first, followed by contributive porosity of large capillary pores, which is the most important factor influencing the stable time for the intrinsic gas permeability coefficient, and total porosity stabilizes last. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An investigation on the effect of misfit strain and externally applied electric field on dielectric properties of epitaxially single-domain SrTiO3 thin films is done, which is based on the a Landau-Ginsburg-Devonshire (LD)-type phenomenological model. The results shows that a high tunability may be obtained by adjusting misfit strain, especially in the vicinity of a structural phase transition.

According to the main meteorological parameters and chloride concentration of field exposure tests, indoor artificial climate and dry-wet cycle simulated tests were designed to investigate the similarity of apparent and instantaneous diffusion coefficients in different ambient environments. Results show that chloride diffusion coefficients increased with water-cement ratio (w/c) and decreased with exposure time, regardless of the environment. Besides, instantaneous diffusion coefficients are all less than the corresponding apparent diffusion coefficients; their differences decrease with the increasing of w/c and show first a decrease and then gradually an increasing trend with exposure time. Environmental factors have little effect on the similarity constant of instantaneous diffusion coefficients. A quadratic function can be used to describe the relationship between age reduction factors of apparent and instantaneous diffusion coefficients and w/c in different environments. According to the Second Similarity Theorem, specimens exposed to a natural tidal environment for 240 days can be simulated by that exposed to an artificial climate simulated environment for 80 days effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a Landau-Ginsburg-Devonshire (LD)-type phenomenological model, the effect of misfit strain and externally applied electric field on dielectric properties of epitaxially single-domain SrTiO3 thin films is investigated by taking into account the existence of two coupled instabilities (ferroelectric and antiferrodistortive). The epitaxy-induced strain may enable the phase of films transform to ferroelectric phase that is impossible for bulk “quantum paraelectric.” At low temperature, the critical tensile strain is in favor of relative high dielectric constant along [100] direction, while the critical compressive strain is useful to that of [001] direction. A high tunability may be obtained by adjusting misfit strain, especially in the vicinity of a structural phase transition. It is also shown that the electric field is facile to induce ferroelectricity in the case of purely structural orthorhombic (SO) phase or tetragonal (ST) phase under reasonable misfit strains when the external electric field is parallel with the order parameter qi. The structural order parameter induced may explain the “weak peak anomaly” phenomenon. Furthermore, the electric field dependence of dielectric responses of different structure phases is also discussed with various misfit strains. Our theoretical results are in good agreement with the experimental ones reported in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modified transverse Ising model considering double-peak probability distribution functions is constructed and applied to investigate the thermodynamic properties of compositionally graded Ba1-xSrxTiO3 thin films. Spatial nonuniformity in compositional concentration is exhibited to give rise to nonuniformity in polarization with corresponding spatial variation. It is found that the magnitude and the sign of the polarization gradients are dependent on the compositional gradient. We also find that the origin of polarization offset is strongly related to not only the compositional gradient but also the temperature. In addition, the compositional gradient plays an important role in the pyroelectric coefficient of the graded film versus temperature, where one or two broad and smooth pyroelectric peaks occur except for a sharp peak at the Curie temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thermodynamic properties of compositionally graded Ba(sub 1-x)Sr(sub x)TiO3 thin films are examined. The magnitude and the sign of polarization gradients are dependant on the compositional gradient.

Current traditional treatment options have little impact on the long-term survival of patients with ovarian cancer due to a lack of understanding of the molecular transformations that occur in ovarian carcinoma. Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) perform a key role in protein translational fidelity. Enzymes involved in tRNA modification may function as regulators of cancer progression. Human tRNA methyltransferase 9-like (hTRM9L) catalyzes tRNA wobble base modifications, which regulate ovarian cancer growth and apoptosis via the retinoblastoma protein (pRB) and p53 signaling pathways. The aim of the present study was to confirm the role of hTRM9L in the proliferation and apoptosis of ovarian cancer. Immunohistochemistry was performed to investigate the expression of hTRM9L and LIN9 in 70 ovarian tissues. hTRM9L was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and inserted into the Ubi-multiple cloning site-enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-internal ribosome entry site-puromycin lentiviral expression vector to create the Ubi-KIAA1456-EGFP-puromycin (LV-KIAA1456) vector. The lentiviruses were subsequently compounded and transduced into HO8910PM cells. hTRM9L, LIN9 and B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2)/Bcl-2 associated X protein (Bax) expression levels were examined by PCR and western blot analysis. Apoptosis was verified by flow cytometry, and cell proliferation was evaluated using Cell Counting Kit-8. hTRM9L and LIN9 expression were reduced in the ovarian cancer group, and there was a positive correlation between hTRM9L and LIN9 expression according to Pearson's correlation coefficient (r=0.406; P<0.05). hTRM9L was increased by 2-3-foldin HO8910PM cells following LV-hTRM9L transduction. The expression of hTRM9L at the mRNA and protein levels in HO8910PM cells that were transfected with LV-hTRM9L was significantly increased compared with the negative control, as confirmed by reverse transcription-quantitative PCR and western blot analysis, respectively (P<0.05).The same was observed for LIN9 and Bax (P<0.05). By contrast, Bcl-2 was downregulated in LV-hTRM9L (P<0.05). Furthermore, cell growth was inhibited (P<0.05) and apoptosis increased (P<0.05). In the present study, hTRM9L was shown to prevent tumor growth and promote apoptosis by regulating LIN9, which is associated with the pRB and p53 signaling pathways. This maybe a novel breakthrough in the treatment of ovarian cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the integrated circuit manufacturing process, the critical area extraction is a bottleneck to the layout optimization and the integrated circuit yield estimation. In this paper, we study the problem that the missing material defects may result in the open circuit fault. Combining the mathematical morphology theory, we present a new computation model and a novel extraction algorithm for the open critical area based on the net flow-axis. Firstly, we find the net flow-axis for different nets. Then, the net flow-edges based on the net flow-axis are obtained. Finally, we can extract the open critical area by the mathematical morphology. Compared with the existing methods, the nets need not to divide into the horizontal nets and the vertical nets, and the experimental results show that our model and algorithm can accurately extract the size of the open critical area and obtain the location information of the open circuit critical area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study that evaluated pretreatment concentrations of cytokines using Luminex technology and identified changes in serum cytokine concentrations during cervical cancer development. The researchers also investigated clinical uses of cytokines for helping classical serum tumor markers in the differential diagnosis of cervical cancer. Results indicated the usefulness of interleukin-10 (IL-10) in judging the severity and prognosis of cervical diseases.

The middle-phase behavior and the solubilization power of the lauric- N-methylglucamide/alcohol/alkane/water quaternary system are studied. A series of phase inversions of Winsor Type I ( 2) → III (3) → II ( $$\overline 2 $$ ) emulsions are observed from the fishlike phase diagram. The compositions of the hydrophilic-lipophilic balanced interfacial layer in the middle of the middle-phase are calculated by the HLB plane equation. The effects of different alkanes, alcohols, and the concentration of an NaCl solution on the phase behavior and solubilization power are investigated, which indicates that alkanes with short hydrocarbon chains and alcohols with long alkyl chains have large solubilization power. The concentration of NaCl solution has a small influence on the solubilization power, whereas, the larger the NaCl concentration, the smaller the weight fraction of alcohol needed to balance the hydrophilic-lipophilic layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Landau-Devonshire (LD)-type phenomenological thermodynamic theory, the electric field dependence of the dielectric properties of tetragonal single-domain barium strontium titanate(Ba1-xSrxTiO3) films on cubic substrates is theoretically investigated by taking into account the high order terms of the polarization. At room temperature, the nonlinear dielectric responses of epitaxial Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 films are provided by adjusting the film thickness and growth temperature. The strong nonlinearity of relative dielectric constant and pyroelectric coefficient are attained around critical film thickness on MgO (69 nm) and LaAlO3 (132 nm) substrates or critical growth temperature on MgO (337 °C) substrate with respect to epitaxy-induced lattice misfit and thermal stresses during deposition. This can be explained that small compressive stresses are effective to support high nonlinearity of dielectric constant and pyroelectric coefficient for Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 films irrespective of whether they are on compressive substrate or tensile substrate. It is also predicted that a large tunability may be achieved by altering processing conditions, such as the film thickness and growth temperature for different substrates. Our theoretical results are in good agreement with the experimental data reported in literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]