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As a promising technology for marine two-stroke engines satisfying the IMO Tier Ⅲ NO x regulation, the high-pressure exhaust gas recirculation (HP-EGR) systems in multi-mode operation significantly redistribute the waste heat, thereby complicating the design and control of the waste heat recovery (WHR) systems. In this paper, a novel dual-pressure steam Rankine cycle (SRC) is proposed to recover multi-grade waste heat from marine engines in multi-mode operation. The HP-EGR system is designed on the 6EX340 engine, followed by the evaluation of waste heat distribution in multi-modes. Detailed thermodynamic and economic analyses of the designed SRC and the combined cycle power plant are then conducted. The results show that the thermal efficiency of the designed SRC is 8.1 %–13.3 % in Tier II mode, increasing to 10.1 %–15.7 % in Tier III mode, attributable to a 16 %–42 % increase in waste heat exergy. Considering typical propulsion profiles, the reduction in weighted average fuel consumption for the combined cycle power plant reaches up to 3.4 % in Tier II operation and 6.1 % in Tier III operation. When 12.5 % of sailing time is spent within ECAs, the combined cycle power plant is expected to yield up to 4 % in annual fuel cost savings. • HP-EGR multi-mode operation redistributes waste heat energy and exergy. • A novel dual-pressure SRC was proposed considering HP-EGR multi-mode operation. • Thermal efficiency of the designed SRC reaches up to 15.7 % in Tier Ⅲ operation. • Maximum weighted average BSFC reduction of 6.1 % is achieved for the proposed SRC. • The SRC in multi-mode operation yields up to 4 % in annual fuel cost savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We demonstrated that postoperative mesenchymal circulating tumor cell (mCTC) in peripheral blood were independent risk factors for the recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after radical resection. However, few studies have been conducted on the efficacy and survival benefit of postoperative adjuvant transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (PA-TACE) for patients with mCTC-positive HCC. We evaluated the effect of PA-TACE on the prognosis of mCTC-positive/mCTC-negative HCC patients. Methods: A total of 261 HCC patients from February 2014 to December 2017 undergoing curative hepatectomy were included in this study. Recurrence-free survival (RFS) rates, overall survival (OS) rates, and prognostic factors were analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method, log-rank test, and Cox proportional hazard model. Results: The results showed that 57.8% (59/102) mCTC-positive and 43.4% (69/159) mCTC-negative patients underwent PA-TACE. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that PVTT (HR 2.370; 95% CI, 1.535–3.660; P < 0.001), BCLC stage (B+C) (HR 3.871; 95% CI, 2.544–5.892; P < 0.001), mCTC (HR 1.414; 95% CI, 1.276–1.622; P < 0.001), and without PA-TACE (HR 1.724; 95% CI, 1.152–2.580; P = 0.008) were independent risk factors for poor RFS. Meanwhile, PVTT (HR 1.744; 95% CI, 1.261–2.412; P = 0.001), multinodularity (HR 1.416; 95% CI, 1.069–1.876; P = 0.015), mCTC (HR 1.612; 95% CI, 1.471–1.796; P < 0.001), and without PA-TACE (HR 1.311; 95% CI, 1.010–1.701; P = 0.042) were independent risk factors for poor OS. Both RFS (P = 0.004) and OS (P = 0.045) in mCTC-positive patients who received PA-TACE were significantly improved relative to those who underwent hepatic resection alone. Among 102 mCTC-positive patients, the mCTC-positive rate was significantly lower in patients treated with PA-TACE than in those treated with liver resection alone (46.4% vs. 88.4%, P = 0.031). No differences were observed in DFS and OS among the mCTC-negative patients with or without PA-TACE. Early recurrence was more likely to occur in patients without PA-TACE (P = 0.006). Conclusions: PA-TACE was a safe intervention and could effectively prevent tumor recurrence and improve the survival of mCTC-positive HCC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A growing body of research indicates that the monitoring of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) may have great significance to the diagnosis of malignant tumors, assessment of condition, selection of treatment methods, and evaluation of prognosis and has a broad range of potential applications. However, the value of CTCs with different phenotypes in the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and assessment of patient condition remains unclear.Methods: We collected 5 ml of peripheral blood from 176 patients who were found to have space-occupying lesions in the liver via B-ultrasound diagnosis at Zhujiang Hospital affiliated with Southern Medical University between August 2015 and October 2017 and used CanPatrol™ CTCs assay technology to isolate and count CTCs with different phenotypes in the patients' peripheral blood. This allowed analysis of the value of CTCs with different phenotypes in the diagnosis of HCC and assessment of BCLC stage.Results: We used CanPatrol™ CTCs assay technology to isolate different types of CTCs: epithelial CTCs (only stained for epithelial markers), mesenchymal CTCs (only stained for mesenchymal markers), mixed CTCs (stained for epithelial markers and mesenchymal markers), and total CTCs (all of the foregoing CTC phenotypes). Of 176 observed patients, 6 patients were finally diagnosed as other malignant tumor liver metastasis, 113 were diagnosed as having hepatocellular carcinoma, and 57 were diagnosed as having nonmalignant liver diseases. Furthermore, we intend to evaluate the diagnostic value of different phenotype CTCs count in discrimination between hepatocellular carcinoma and nonmalignant liver diseases. We found that CTCs of all types were significantly more numerous in the peripheral blood of the HCC group patients than in the NLD group patients (P < 0.05). Furthermore, of the different types of CTCs, total CTCs had the greatest diagnostic value (AUC 0.774; 95% CI, 0.704-0.834). A further discovery was that the AUC values for total CTCs, AFP, and a combined model (combined use of total CTCs and AFP) were 0.774 (95%CI, 0.704-0.834), 0.669 (95%CI, 0.587-0.750), and 0.821 (95%CI, 0.756-0.886). Late-stage HCC patients (BCLC stage B-C) had a higher peripheral blood mesenchymal CTC count than early-stage patients (BCLC stage 0-A) (median:1 vs 0), and mesenchymal CTCs ≥ 1 was the cut-off value for the diagnosis of BCLC stage in HCC patients (sensitivity: 66.67%, specificity: 59.46%, Youden index: 0.26).Conclusions: Total CTCs are more effective than AFP in the diagnosis of HCC; combined use of total CTCs and AFP can enhance the sensitivity of HCC diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sorafenib is a first-line molecular-target drug for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and reducing sorafenib resistance is an important issue to be resolved for the clinical treatment of HCC. In the current study, we identified that ABCC5 is a critical regulator and a promising therapeutic target of acquired sorafenib resistance in human hepatocellular carcinoma cells. The expression of ABCC5 was dramatically induced in sorafenib-resistant HCC cells and was remarkably associated with poor clinical prognoses. The down-regulation of ABCC5 expression could significantly reduce the resistance of sorafenib to HCC cells. Importantly, activation of PI3K/AKT/NRF2 axis was essential for sorafenib to induce ABCC5 expression. ABCC5 increased intracellular glutathione (GSH) and attenuated lipid peroxidation accumulation by stabilizing SLC7A11 protein, which inhibited ferroptosis. Additionally, the inhibition of ABCC5 enhanced the anti-cancer activity of sorafenib in vitro and in vivo. These findings demonstrate a novel molecular mechanism of acquired sorafenib resistance and also suggest that ABCC5 is a new regulator of ferroptosis in HCC cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wide-swath and high-resolution Thermal infrared (TIR) data are limited by the mutual constraint between swath and resolution. In this paper, we propose a whisk-broom imaging method with the long-linear-array (LLA) 4-stage TDI detector (a total of 2048 pixels along splicing direction) and high-precision one-dimensional scanning mirror to achieve 30 m resolution and 300 km swath. And it is being implemented in the first SDGs satellite (SATSAT-1) thermal infrared spectrometer (TIS). Specially, the integration time of whisk-broom imaging system is limited by the speed of scanning mirror, and the shorter integration time is a huge challenge to meet the requirement of high sensitivity and dynamic range. The HgCdTe detector has been improved in its annealing process to reduce dark current and noise, and the opto-mechanical system has been regulated at 195 K to reduce instrument self-emission. To address the limitations of small satellite resources, TIS is equipped with a highly integrated and lightweight design, weighing 247.5 kg and consuming 248 watts respectively. As a result of the complexity of imaging mechanisms and the low frequency of deep space observations, positioning error and radiometric calibration resources have increased, and geometric and radiometric calibration methods have been improved. On-orbit test results show that TIS is capable of detecting temperature differences with a NEdT (noise equivalent differential temperature) less than 0.08 K@300 K, an absolute radiometric accuracy of less than 1 K @ 300 K, and MTF of greater than 0.125. Presently, a collection of more than 201,856 scenes covering land and marine and some precious TIR datasets of planes and naval vessels have been obtained and provided for United Nations for the realization of SDGs goals. • An imaging method with long-linear-array detector and whisk-broom mirror is proposed. • Biweekly and every orbit radiometric calibration modes are effective. • A optimal pixel selection for 4-TDI detectors enhances TIS sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]