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Background: In China, gastric cancer (GC) ranks second in incidence and mortality. Over 80% of patients with GC were diagnosed at an advanced stage with poor clinical outcome. Chemotherapy was the mainstream treatment with limited benefit. Apatinib, an inhibitor of targeting vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2), has been approved for third-line treatment of advanced gastric cancer. However, the data of apatinib treatment in the real-world setting are limited. In this real-world study, we aimed to understand the current treatment pattern of apatinib, investigate the effectiveness and safety of apatinib in real-world settings, and explore the potential factors associated with the clinical outcomes. Methods: This was a prospective, multicenter observational study in a real-world setting. Patients aged ≥ 18 years with histologic diagnosis of advanced GC were eligible for enrollment. The eligible patients received either apatinib monotherapy or apatinib plus chemotherapy by physician's discretion. Apatinib treatment could be used as first-line, second-line, or third-line and above therapy. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival (PFS). The secondary endpoints were overall survival (OS), ORR, DCR, and safety profile. Results: A total of 737 patients with advanced gastric cancer treated with apatinib were included in the FAS population. A total of 54.9% patients used apatinib monotherapy and 45.1% patients used apatinib combination therapy. A total of 44.1% patients received apatinib in first-line treatment, 28.2% in second-line, and 27.7% in third-line and above. In first-line treatment, the objective response rate (ORR) was 9.09% and 16.42% in apatinib monotherapy and combination therapy groups, and disease control rate (DCR) was 78.41% and 89.29%, respectively. Patients who received combination therapy achieved significantly longer median progression-free survival (mPFS; 6.18 vs 3.52 months, p< 0.01) and median overall survival (mOS; 8.72 vs 5.92 months, p< 0.01) compared with monotherapy. In second-line and third-line therapy, combination therapy showed a better trend in tumor response and survival outcomes compared with monotherapy. For all patients, apatinib combined with paclitaxel were associated with longer mPFS compared with other combinations (8.88 vs 6.62 months). Multivariate analysis showed that combination with paclitaxel (p=0.02) and experience of apatinib-related specific AEs (p< 0.01) were independent predictors for PFS and OS. The safety profile was tolerable and no unexpected adverse events were reported. Conclusion: In a real-world setting, apatinib showed a favorable effectiveness and safety profile in patients with advanced gastric cancer. Apatinib combination therapy, especially combined with paclitaxel, might lead to better survival benefit in first-line treatment. Combination with paclitaxel and the occurrence of apatinib-specific AEs were independent factors associated with better survival outcomes. Trial Registration: NCT03333967. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An accurate and stable prediction of the corrosion rate of natural gas pipelines has a major impact on pipeline material selection, inhibitor filling process, and maintenance schedules. At present, corrosion data are impacted by non-linearity and noise interference. The traditional corrosion rate prediction methods often ignore noise data, and only a small number of researchers have carried out in-depth research on non-linear data processing. Therefore, an innovative hybrid prediction model has been proposed with four processes: data preprocessing, optimization, prediction, and evaluation. In the proposed model, a decomposing algorithm is applied to eliminate redundant noise and to extract the primary characteristics of the corrosion data. Stratified sampling is applied to separate the training set and the test set to avoid deviation due to the sampling randomness of small samples. An improved particle swarm optimization algorithm is applied to optimize the parameters of support vector regression. A comprehensive evaluation of this framework is also conducted. For natural gas pipelines in southwest China, the coefficient of determination and mean absolute percentage error of the proposed hybrid model are 0.925 and 5.73%, respectively, with better prediction performance compared to state-of-the-art models. The results demonstrate the best approach for improving the prediction accuracy of the proposed hybrid model. This can be applied to improve the corrosion control effect and to support the digital transformation of the corrosion industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Runoff and soil erosion on sloping farmland pose a serious threat to agricultural productivity. Soil and water conservation management is considered to be effective in controlling runoff and soil erosion, especially in sloped farmland. In this study, 1910 natural rainfall events were monitored to evaluate the effectiveness of soil and water conservation management and rainfall types on runoff and soil erosion. The results confirmed that fish‐scale pit plots reduced runoff and soil loss by 70.18 and 91.07%. Runoff and soil loss on sloped farmland and naturally sloped plots were significantly higher (p <.05) than the other four soil management interventions. "Intense" events were the main causes of runoff and soil loss production, but the influence of "intense" rainfall events on runoff and soil loss was weakened by narrow terraced farmland. About 10% of the largest rainfall events represented from 21 to 27% of the rainfall depth, from 35 to 54% of the total runoff, and from 71 to 88% of the total soil loss. Rainfall intensity plays a dominant role in soil erosion, while rainfall accumulation is the main influencing factor for runoff. This study showed that soil and water conservation management can have a positive effect on runoff and sediment reduction, and traditional sloping farmland should be reconstructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]