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Background. This research is aimed at establishing a scoring system alpha-fetoprotein+alkaline phosphatase (A-A score) based on preoperative serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels and to investigate its clinical significance in patients with ruptured hepatocellular carcinoma (rHCC) after hepatectomy. Methods. 175 ruptured hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients treated with hepatectomy were included. Survival analysis was assessed by the Kaplan-Meier method. Prognostic factors were analyzed in a multivariate model. Preoperative serum AFP and ALP values are assigned a score of 1 if they exceed the threshold value and 0 if they are below the threshold value, A-A score is obtained by summing the scores of two variables (AFP, ALP), and the predictive values of AFP, ALP, and A-A score were compared by receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis, and subgroup analyses were performed to further evaluate the power of A-A scores. Results. Of the 175 patients, 67 (38.3%) had an A-A score of 0, 72 (41.1%) had an A-A score of 1, and 36 (20.6%) had an A-A score of 2. In multivariate analysis, the A-A score, the BCLC stage, and the extent of resection were independent predictors of OS in patients with rHCC. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year OS and RFS in patients with an A-A score of 1 were better than those with an A-A score of 0 and worse than those with an A-A score of 1 (all p < 0.05). Based on the results of ROC analysis, the A-A score is superior to AFP or ALP alone in predicting the prognosis of patients with ruptured HCC. In subgroup analysis, A-A score could accurately predict the prognosis of patients with or without microvascular invasion (MVI) and with different Child-Pugh grades or gender. Conclusions. The A-A score can effectively predict the prognosis of patients after hepatectomy of ruptured hepatocellular carcinoma. At the same time, it also has good evaluation ability in different subgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims. Conflicting results are often observed in the prognosis of patients with ruptured hepatocellular carcinoma (rHCC), and there are currently very few studies on the long-term postoperative outcomes of ruptured hepatocellular carcinoma patients. This study aimed to distinguish between the postoperative prognosis of rHCC patients with cirrhosis (rHCC-C) and those without cirrhosis (rHCC-NC) using some serum markers. Methods. We collected the data of 151 rHCC patients treated at our centers from January 2010 to March 2021. 62 had no cirrhosis, and 89 had cirrhosis. The prognosis of rHCC-C and rHCC-NC groups was compared using the Kaplan-Meier method. We used multivariate Cox regression to analyze prognostic factors in rHCC patients, and subgroup analysis was performed on the two groups of patients. Results. The long-term prognosis of rHCC-NC patients was better than that of rHCC-C patients. Tumor diameter, Barcelona clinic liver cancer (BCLC) stage, HBsAg, positive Hepatitis C virus (HCV) antibodies, elevated creatinine, and elevated T-bilirubin were prognostic factors for overall survival (OS) in rHCC-C patients. However, only alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) > 92 ng/mL was a prognostic factor for OS in rHCC-NC patients. In noncirrhotic patients, HBsAg positivity was only associated with OS. Similarly, the presence or absence of microvascular invasion (MVI) also had different results in the two groups. Conclusions. There are differences in serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels, the presence of microvascular invasion (MVI), and HBsAg positivity between rHCC-C and rHCC-NC patients, indicating that the analysis of these prognostic factors may help improve the management of rHCC patients and provide a direction for future treatment options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the passage of Typhoon Nida, the raindrop size distribution parameters, the raindrop spectra, the shape and slope (μ–Λ) relationship, the radar reflectivity factor, and rain rate (Z–R) relationship were investigated based on a two-dimensional (2D) video disdrometer in Guangdong, China, from August 1 to 2, 2016. Due to the underlying surface difference between the ocean and land, this process was divided into two distinct periods (before landfall and after landfall). The characteristics of raindrop size distribution between the period before landfall and the period after landfall were quite distinct. The period after landfall exhibited higher concentrations of each size bin (particularly small drops) and wider raindrop spectral width than the period before landfall. Compared with the period before landfall, the period after landfall had a higher average mass-weighted mean diameter Dm that was smaller than those of other TCs from the same ocean (the Pacific). The μ–Λ relationship and Z–R relationship in this study were also compared with other TCs from the same ocean (the Pacific). This investigation of the microphysical characteristics of Typhoon Nida before landfall and after landfall may improve radar quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) products and microphysical schemes by providing useful information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socially aware networking (SAN) provides a new paradigm for intermittently connected networks which exploits social properties of mobile users to guide the design of protocols. In SAN, data forwarding performance will be degraded dramatically due to the existence of users' selfish behaviors. To address the selfishness problem, barter-based incentive scheme is a fair approach in which two encounter nodes exchange the same amount of data with one another. However, it is a challenging issue for nodes to decide when two nodes contact and how many messages they will exchange for their next contacts. We consider this problem as a resource allocation problem and propose a community-based Barter incentive scheme for SAN paradigm (Com-BIS). In this method, network nodes are grouped into communities and they allocate their forwarding services for different communities optimally using 0-1 knapsack algorithm. The simulation results show that Com-BIS stimulates selfish nodes to cooperate in data delivery for other nodes effectively which improves the forwarding performance considerably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]