Search

Objective The disease complexity of metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (mNSCLC) makes it difficult for physicians to make clinical decisions efficiently and accurately. The Watson for Oncology (WFO) system of artificial intelligence might help physicians by providing fast and precise treatment regimens. This study measured the concordance of the medical treatment regimens of the WFO system and actual clinical regimens, with the aim of determining the suitability of WFO recommendations for Chinese patients with mNSCLC. Methods Retrospective data of mNSCLC patients were input to the WFO, which generated a treatment regimen (WFO regimen). The actual regimen was made by physicians in a medical team for patients (medical-team regimen). The factors influencing the consistency of the two treatment options were analyzed by univariate and multivariate analyses. Results The concordance rate was 85.16% between the WFO and medical-team regimens for mNSCLC patients. Logistic regression showed that the concordance differed significantly for various pathological types and gene mutations in two treatment regimens. Patients with adenocarcinoma had a lower rate of "recommended" regimen than those with squamous cell carcinoma. There was a statistically significant difference in EGFR-mutant patients for "not recommended" regimens with inconsistency rate of 18.75%. In conclusion, the WFO regimen has 85.16% consistency rate with medical-team regimen in our treatment center. The different pathological type and different gene mutation markedly influenced the agreement rate of the two treatment regimens. Conclusion WFO recommendations have high applicability to mNSCLC patients in our hospital. This study demonstrates that the valuable WFO system may assist the doctors better to determine the accurate and effective treatment regimens for mNSCLC patients in the Chinese medical setting.

Interferon-induced transmembrane protein 3 (IFITM3) as an antiviral factor can inhibit replication of several viruses including influenza virus. A single-nucleotide polymorphism rs12252-C of IFITM3 results in a truncated IFITM3 protein lacking its first 21 amino acids, which is much higher in the Han Chinese population and associated with severe illness in adults infected with pandemic influenza H1N1/09 virus. To investigate if IFITM3 or IFITM3 rs12252-C could affect the antibody response after influenza vaccination, we detected the haemagglutination inhibition (HI) of 171 healthy young adult volunteers (IFITM3 rs12252-C/C, C/T, T/T carriers) and in an IFITM3-deletion mouse model (Ifitm3-/-) after trivalent inactivated vaccine (TIV) immunization. Seroconversion rates for H1N1, H3N2 and B viruses in IFITM3 rs12252-C/C genotype carriers was lower compared with C/T and T/T donors. Significantly lower levels of specific antibodies to H1N1, H3N2 and B viruses and total IgG were observed in Ifitm3-/- mice. Correspondingly, the numbers of splenic germinal centre (GC) B cells, plasma cells, TIV-specific IgG+ antibody secreting cells and T follicular helper cells in Ifitm3-/- mice were lower compared with wild type mice. However, the number of memory B cells was higher in Ifitm3-/- mice at day 7 after booster. The HI level of Ifitm3-/- mice remained lower than WT mice after third vaccination. Moreover, the transcriptional network regulating GC B cell and plasma cell differentiation was abnormal in Ifitm3-/- mice. Our results indicate that IFITM3 deletion attenuated the antibody response. The mechanism of influenza-IFITM3 interactions affecting the antibody response requires further investigation.

Considering the different carbonic source utilisation abilities of microbial species, we used six carbonic supplements to acclimate the microorganisms in two types of compost teas (named CT...

Combining the multivariate probit models with the multivariate partially linear single-index models, we propose new semiparametric latent variable models for multivariate ordinal response data. Bas...

As flow improvers for heavy crude oil, two oil-soluble copolymers (DM-S-VA, DA-S-VA) were successfully synthesized and characterized by 1H NMR and GPC. A rich alkyl chain and appropriate molecular weight of copolymer play fundamental role in viscosity reduction of heavy oil. Furthermore, synergistic effect of surfactants on polymers can promote the viscosity reduction, and the best formulation can increase the viscosity reduction rate to 78% to oil A. Comparing with the apparent viscosity of the different heavy oil mixing system in a wide shear rate range (0.1–200 s−1), the results show good stability and viscosity reducing effect.

The four polymers with different contents of alkyl chain (C12–C18), styrene, and vinyl acetate were synthesized and employed as the viscosity reducers for super heavy oils A and B. Compared with the apparent viscosity of heavy oil in a wide share rate range (0–200 s−1) at 50°C, it can be seen that the optimal efficiency could be achieved to reduce viscosity when the polymers have suitable length of alkyl chain in the permeation of small molecules (vinyl acetate). Furthermore, the adaptation of the polymers to different oil samples and application temperature of polymers were also studied.

Three new drimane sesquiterpenoids, 12-hydroxyalbrassitriol (1), drim-8(12)-en-6β,7α, 9α,11-tetraol (2), and drim-68(12)-dien-9α,11-diol (3), along with one known analog albrassitriol (4), were isolated from cultures of the tin mine tailings-associated fungus Penicillium sp. The new structures were determined on the basis of extensive spectroscopic analyses. All compounds were tested for their cytotoxicities against five human cancer cell lines.

Based on free-knot splines techniques, we develop a fully Bayesian method to make inference about the autoregressive and functional-coefficient moving-average models, including estimation and prediction. We approximate different functional-coefficients by polynomial splines with different orders to adapt to different smoothness. To make the estimation and prediction robust, we assign heavy-tailed student-t priors on the coefficients of both the splines and the autoregressive terms. The posterior predictive distribution is derived from a Bayesian model average over all of the possible models. The proposed method is demonstrated by both simulated and real data examples.

Partially linear single-index models play important roles in advanced non-/semi-parametric statistics due to their generality and flexibility. We generalise these models from univariate response to multivariate responses. A Bayesian method with free-knot spline is used to analyse the proposed models, including the estimation and the prediction, and a Metropolis-within-Gibbs sampler is provided for posterior exploration. We also utilise the partially collapsed idea in our algorithm to speed up the convergence. The proposed models and methods of analysis are demonstrated by simulation studies and are applied to a real data set.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is suspected to trigger primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) in susceptible individuals, yet the precise mechanism of its effect in PBC remains largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate altered responses to LPS ligand for Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in pathogenesis of PBC in vivo and in vitro.In vivo, we investigated levels of LPS and pro-inflammatory cytokines in sera and expression of LPS receptors in liver tissues from 162 patients with PBC, 325 patients with other liver diseases and 80 healthy controls. In vitro, altered responses to LPS on monocytes and cultured human biliary epithelial cells (BECs) from patients with PBC were determined.Significantly higher levels of LPS in patients with PBC were detected, compared with patients with other liver diseases and healthy controls. Immunohistochemically, expression of TLR4, CD14, CD68 and NF-κB was significantly enhanced in liver tissues from patients with PBC. Before LPS stimulation, we found significantly higher serum levels of tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6 and IL-8 in patients with PBC than those in healthy controls. After LPS stimulation, TLR4 expression and pro-inflammatory cytokine production in CD14-positive monocytes and cultured BEC from patients with PBC increased significantly.These results indicated that patients with PBC were prone to exhibit higher serum LPS level, hypersensitivity of monocytes and BEC to LPS, and enhanced production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. LPS altered expression of TLR4, CD14 and NF-κB on monocytes and BEC, which may be implicated in the pathogenesis and progression of PBC.

The treatment of infantile hemangioma must address both the effectiveness of the treatment and have as few adverse events as possible for the patient as a result of the therapy. The intense pulsed light (IPL) source can be useful in this regard in treating infantile hemangioma. IPL with optimal pulse technology (OPT) represents a new generation of IPLs and in this clinical investigation, the efficacy and adverse event profiles of treating infantile hemangiomas with an IPL with OPT will be reviewed.A total of 62 patients with infantile hemangiomas were included in this clinical trial. The mean age of the patients was 6 months old. The Fitzpatrick skin types for those enrolled was either Type III or Type IV. Each patient was subjected to a treatment protocol which included four to five IPL treatments at 4-week intervals. The patients were then assessed at 3 months following their last IPL treatment and clinical improvement was determined by comparisons of pre- and post-therapy photographs. The parents of the patients were asked to score their overall satisfaction with the treatments.From the clinical trial presented, 76% of the infantile hemangiomas were noted to improve with great satisfaction in this clinical trial. A clearance rate of more than 80% was observed. Adverse events, as a result of the IPL treatment, was minimal with less than 5% of the treatments resulting in an adverse event, all of which were noted to be transient in nature. No scarring or pigmentary disturbances were seen in any of the patients evaluated.This new generation IPL with OPT can be considered a safe and effective modality for the treatment of infantile hemangioma. Marked improvement was noted in the majority of study patients and adverse events were noted to be minimal.

It is a standard assumption for regression models that all the random errors are mutually independent and have equal variances. However, in some situations, the assumption is untenable. Tsai (Tsai, C. L. (1986). Score test for the first-order autoregreesive model with heteroscedasticity. Biometrika 73:455–460) introduced a composite test for heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation in linear regression models with AR(1) errors. In this article, we extend Tsai's (Tsai, C. L. (1986). Score test for the first-order autoregreesive model with heteroscedasticity. Biometrika 73:455–460) results to more general case. For the underlying model, we consider nonlinear regression rather than the linear one. For the random error, we extend it from AR(1) process to AR(p) process. Moreover, since the random error may behave nonlinearity sometime, we put a bilinear term in it, which is a simple way to indicate the nonlinearity. So we discuss the test of heteroscedasticity, autocorrelation and bilinearity for nonlin...