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Objective This article is a Meta-analysis aiming to systematically evaluate the difference in efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitor in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) by age. Methods We performed a Meta-analysis of published randomized controlled trials concerning for patients with NSCLC by age. We compared overall survival among three groups (age < 65 years, age ≥ 65 years, age ≥ 75 years). Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were collected and pooled. Results A total of 10,291 patients from 17 RCTs were included. In the group under age 65 years, immune checkpoint inhibitor can significantly prolong the overall survival of patients with NSCLC (HR = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.66∼0.81, P 0.05) in the group older than 75 years. Conclusions According to the Meta-analysis, immune checkpoint inhibitor can prolong the overall survival of patients with NSCLC between the two groups(age

Azygia hwangtsiyui (Trematoda, Azygiidae), a neglected parasite of predatory fishes, is little-known in terms of its molecular epidemiology, population ecology and phylogenetic study. In the present study, the complete mitochondrial genome of A. hwangtsiyui was sequenced and characterized: it is a 13,973 bp circular DNA molecule and encodes 36 genes (12 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, two ribosomal RNA genes) as well as two non-coding regions. The A+T content of the A. hwangtsiyui mitogenome is 59.6% and displays a remarkable bias in nucleotide composition with a negative AT skew (–0.437) and a positive GC skew (0.408). Phylogenetic analysis based on concatenated amino acid sequences of twelve protein-coding genes reveals that A. hwangtsiyui is placed in a separate clade, suggesting that it has no close relationship with any other trematode family. This is the first characterization of the A. hwangtsiyui mitogenome, and the first reported mitogenome of the family Azygiidae. These novel datasets of the A. hwangtsiyui mt genome represent a meaningful resource for the development of mitochondrial markers for the identification, diagnostics, taxonomy, homology and phylogenetic relationships of trematodes.

Background Annexin A2, a calcium-dependent phospholipid binding protein, is involved in osteogenesis. The objective of the present study was to explore the expression of Annexin A2 in spinal ligament tissues (LT) of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients and determine its pathological functions. Methods mRNA and protein expression of Annexin A2 was detected by real-time PCR and Western blotting, respectively. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) concentration in serum was assessed by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity was measured with ALP activity kit on a microplate reader. Results mRNA and protein expression of Annexin A2 in LT, and IL-6 concentration in serum were significantly increased in AS patients. Moreover, exogenous IL-6 treatment significantly up-regulated Annexin A2 expression and ALP activity. Silencing of Annexin A2 expression significantly ameliorated IL-6-induced ossification of fibroblasts from AS patients, as indicated by ALP activity, expression of proteins associated with osteogenic differentiation, including bone morphogenetic protein-2, osteocalcin and osterix, and the ratio of osteoprotegerin to receptor activator of NF-κB ligand. Further MEK inhibitor experiments suggested that Annexin A2 may exert its function through extracellular signal-related kinase pathway. Conclusions Annexin A2, up-regulated by IL-6, may promote ligament ossification of AS patients.

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is an autoimmune condition characterized by chronic inflammation and abnormal ossification as the primary features of the disease. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of C‑X‑C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) in ossification from patients with AS. CXCR4 expression was assessed by western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry analysis of tissues obtained from patients with AS and controls. Fibroblasts were isolated, cultured and incubated with AMD 3100 and stromal cell‑derived factor‑1 to inhibit and promote CXCR4 levels, respectively. CXCR4 was upregulated in hip synovial tissues from patients with AS compared with that observed in controls. AS fibroblasts exhibited increased proliferation and growth rates. Inhibition of CXCR4 increased the phosphorylation of β‑catenin and downregulated the expression of β‑catenin, v‑myc avian myelocytomatosis viral oncogene homolog, cyclin D1 and osteocalcin. Alizarin red staining demonstrated a decrease in biomineralization activity following the inhibition of CXCR4. These data support the hypothesis that inhibiting CXCR4 in patients with AS may suppress the ossification of fibroblasts.

In this work, spontaneous emission enhancement inducted by surface plasmon on nano-metallic particle systems embedded in GaN-based LED is investigated numerically. The systems under study consist of two nano-Ag balls or cylinders. By numerically tuning geometrical parameters of the system and polarization of the photon emitting source, we investigate the dependence of spontaneous emission enhancement effect on those factors. It is found that the enhancement magnitude level and peak position are subject to geometrical characteristics of the nano-Ag components in different manners for symmetrical and asymmetrical systems respectively. Higher enhancement ratio for a specific wavelength can be obtained by tweaking parameters of asymmetrical system. Polarization dependence of enhancement effect can be utilized to improve performance of bi-color LED.

The percentage rate of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive cases of Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) ranges between 20 and 70% in various studies worldwide. To further explore the definite rate in China, three methods, including immunohistochemistry for EBV latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1), in situ hybridization (ISH) for EBV-encoded RNA (EBER)-1 and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for EBV BamHI‑W fragment, were employed to detect EBV in 59 cases of HL in China using paraffin-embedded tissue samples. Our results revealed that the PCR method presented the highest (44/59, 74.6%) detection rate among the three methods. The other two methods identified 66.1% (39/59, LMP1) and 67.8% (40/59, EBER1 ISH) EBV-positive results, respectively. Three samples were positive for LMP1 but negative when using EBER1 ISH, while another four samples were EBER1-positive but LMP1-negative. Of the four major histopathological subtypes of HL, the lymphocyte predominant (LR) subtype is the one most frequently associated with EBV, followed by the mixed cellularity (MC), nodular sclerosis (NS) and lymphocyte depletion (LD) subtypes. Our results also indicated the seldomly reported fact that EBV-positive cases in children were more numerous than those of adults with HL.

We investigate the coherent interaction between two cavity modes with left or right circular polarizations and a traveling atom in the four-level Y configuration. With large single-photon detunings for both cavity modes and in the presence of a strong classical field, all one-photon and two-photon transitions may be well eliminated so that a close-loop four-photon transition starting from the only populated ground state becomes absolutely dominant. This physical scenario is then exploited to devise an efficient controlled-NOT gate for manipulating polarization states of two intracavity photons. In the Lamb–Dicke limit and in the strong coupling regime, the expected controlled-NOT operation is found to have a rather high gate fidelity and a moderate photon loss.

We study and compare the steady and transient optical responses of a four-level system and a three-level system, which are dressed by two and three laser fields, respectively. In the three-level system, a transmissivity window (a reflectivity platform) may be induced on the probe resonance by a traveling-wave (standing-wave) coupling field. In the four-level system, both transmissivity window and reflectivity platform are remarkably modified when a traveling-wave driving field is applied on two-photon resonance with the probe, but change little when the traveling-wave driving field is largely two-photon detuned. This implies that the four-level system can be safely treated as a three-level one in certain frequency regions of interest. Transient behaviors of atomic coherence on the probe resonance are also examined in both three-level and four-level systems to further confirm this conclusion. Our new findings are beneficial to achieve a novel all-optical routing scheme by simultaneously creating a transmissivity window and a reflectivity platform on a single resonance, and may also be used to simplify theoretical treatments in the situations where numerical calculations are complicated and intractable in the presence of at least one standing-wave field.

We propose a new scheme for realizing left-handed electromagnetic properties in a coherently driven four-level system. At the presence of spontaneously generated coherence and the local field effect, both dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability may have negative real parts of the same order in a small frequency band. Thus, one can achieve the negative refractive index and then manipulate it by modulating the coherent field or changing the atomic density. With incoherent pumping applied to have more remarkable spontaneously generated coherence, one can further obtain a wider frequency band of negative refraction and simultaneously reduce the accompanied absorption.

Immunoglobulin (Ig) and T-cell receptor (TCR) gene rearrangement (GR) studies have been successfully employed to investigate the clonality and cell lineage of various lymphoid malignancies. Several lymphoma cell lines, such as BJAB, RAJI, DG75 and Jurkat cell lines, were often used as the positive controls in GR detection assays. Of those, the DG75 B-cell lymphoma line was found to exhibit biclonality [two or more homoduplex and heteroduplex bands in a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product of clonality assay] in the PCR of GR detection assays. To further explore these characteristics of the biclonal phenomenon, the PCR products were purified and cloned into a pEGM-T clone vector. The sequences were analyzed using DNA analysis software. The results demonstrated that the two bands originated from two forms of GR of DG75 cell lines, i.e., DG75 is a biclonal cell line in Ig GRs, which has not been reported before.

We study a cold atomic sample coherently driven into the five-level triple-$\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ configuration for attaining a dynamically controlled triple photonic band-gap structure. Our numerical calculations show that three photonic band gaps with homogeneous reflectivities up to $92%$ can be induced on demand around the probe resonance by a standing-wave driving field in the presence of spontaneously generated coherence. All these photonic band gaps are severely malformed with probe reflectivities declining rapidly to very low values when spontaneously generated coherence is gradually weakened. The triple photonic band-gap structure can also be attained in a five-level chain-$\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ system of cold atoms in the absence of spontaneously generated coherence, which however requires two additional traveling-wave fields to couple relevant levels.

We study the steady optical response of a five-level atomic system in the parametric region where resonant two-photon transitions are much stronger than far-detuned single-photon transitions. We find that the concurrent absorption of two weak probe fields can be well suppressed in a narrow spectral region to attain electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) via quantum destructive interference between different two-photon transition pathways. To gain a deeper insight into relevant physics, we adiabatically reduce this five-level system with trivial single-photon transitions into a three-level system with vanishing single-photon transitions by deriving an effective Hamiltonian. The two systems have almost the same two-photon absorption spectra exhibiting typical EIT features but are a little different in fine details. This means that most characteristics of two-photon quantum destructive interference are reserved after the adiabatic elimination approximation. In addition, we verify by numerical calculations that the two-photon EIT spectra are insensitive to the dipole-dipole interaction of cold Rydberg atoms when the uppermost level has a high principle quantum number.

A tripod atomic system driven by two standing-wave fields (a coupling and a driving) is explored to generate tunable double photonic bandgaps in the regime of electromagnetically induced transparency. Both photonic bandgaps depend critically on frequency detunings, spatial periodicities, and initial phases of the two standing-wave fields. When the coupling and driving detunings are very close, a small fluctuation of one standing-wave field may demolish both photonic bandgaps. If the two detunings are greatly different, however, each standing-wave field determines only one photonic bandgap in a less sensitive way. Dynamic generation and elimination of a pair of photonic bandgaps shown here may be exploited toward the end of simultaneous manipulation of two weak light signals even at the single-photon level.

We study a four-level double-Lambda system with spontaneously generated coherence driven by a standing-wave coupling field. It is found that two well-developed photonic bandgaps with reflectivities of about 90% can be generated on the probe resonance in the presence of maximal spontaneously generated coherence. The induced double photonic bandgaps become, however, severely malformed when spontaneously generated coherence vanishes. Dynamic control of the double photonic bandgaps may be exploited to achieve a novel two-port double-channel routing scheme for weak light signals in quantum networks.

By investigating the steady optical response of a cold atomic ensemble, we find that one high-reflection band gap and one high-transmission region with comparable widths may be dynamically induced and well controlled around the probe resonance by a traveling-wave coupling field and a standing-wave grating field. The high-reflection band gap and the high-transmission region are then applied to devise a scheme for all-optical routing of two different light signals toward either the opposite or the same directions. This all-optical routing scheme is very efficient because both reflected and transmitted signals experience little loss and deformation, and thus it may have important applications in quantum information networks.

We theoretically study the coherent interaction of a tripod-type atomic system with three laser fields, i.e., one probe and two coupling, or two probe and one coupling field. Our analytical and numerical results show that, when all three fields are on two-photon resonance, in addition to the Rabi frequencies of the coupling fields, the probe group velocities also depend on the spontaneous decay rates and the initial population distribution. So we can manipulate the probe pulses to achieve controllable ultraslow group velocities by preparing different initial atomic states. With an incoherent pump field applied, a narrow transparent window accompanied by abnormal dispersion may occur in the probe absorption spectrum, which then allows us to switch a probe pulse from ultraslow to superluminal propagation.

We propose an efficient scheme for the robust and controlled generation of beating signals in a sample of stationary atoms driven into the tripod configuration. This scheme relies on an asymmetric procedure of light storage and retrieval where the two classical coupling fields have equal detunings in the storage stage but opposite detunings in the retrieval stage. A quantum probe field, incident upon such an atomic sample, is first transformed into two spin coherence wave-packets and then retrieved with two optical components characterized by different time-dependent phases. Therefore the retrieved quantum probe field exhibits a series of maxima and minima (beating signals) in intensity due to the alternative constructive and destructive interference. This interesting phenomenon involves in fact the coherent manipulation of two dark-state polaritons and may be explored to achieve the fast quantum limited measurement.