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Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) has become a promising therapy for multiple cancers. However, only a small proportion of patients display a limited antitumor response. The present study aimed to classify distinct immune subtypes and investigate the tumor microenvironment (TME) of urothelial carcinoma, which may help to understand treatment failure and improve the immunotherapy response. RNA-seq data and clinical parameters were obtained from TCGA-BLCA, E-MTAB-4321, and IMVigor210 datasets. A consensus cluster method was used to distinguish different immune subtypes of patients. Infiltrating immune cells, TME signatures, immune checkpoints, and immunogenic cell death modulators were evaluated in distinct immune subtypes. Dimension reduction analysis was performed to visualize the immune status of urothelial carcinoma based on graph learning. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was performed to obtain hub genes to predict responses after immunotherapy. Patients with urothelial carcinoma were classified into four distinct immune subtypes (C1, C2, C3 and C4) with various types of molecular expression, immune cell infiltration, and clinical characteristics. Patients with the C3 immune subtype displayed abundant immune cell infiltrations in the tumor microenvironment and were typically identified as “hot” tumor phenotypes, whereas those with the C4 immune subtype with few immune cell infiltrations were identified as “cold” tumor phenotypes. The immune-related and metastasis-related signaling pathways were enriched in the C3 subtype compared to the C4 subtype. In addition, tumor mutation burden, inhibitory immune checkpoints, and immunogenic cell death modulators were highly expressed in the C3 subtype. Furthermore, patients with the C4 subtype had a better probability of overall survival than patients with the C3 subtype in TCGA-BLCA and E-MTAB-4321 cohorts. Patients with the C1 subtype had the best prognosis when undergoing anti-PD-L1 antibody treatment. Finally, the immune landscape of urothelial carcinoma showed the immune status in each patient, and TGFB3 was identified as a potential biomarker for the prediction of immunotherapy resistance after anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody treatment. The present study provided a bioinformatics basis for understanding the immune landscape of the tumor microenvironment of urothelial carcinoma.

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Background: Male urethral stricture is a disease with a high incidence rate. With social-economic development in the developing countries, the trend of etiology and treatment of male urethral stricture changed was speculated.Methods: The clinical data of the male patients with urethral stricture from 2000 to 2019 were analyzed. The subjects were divided into Group A (2000–2009) and Group B (2010–2019) according to treatment time. The pooled analysis of the data extracted from pieces of literature was also performed.Results: About 540 patients were included in the present study, including 235 patients in Group A and 305 patients in Group B. In recent 10 years, trauma has still been the main cause of urethral stricture. Iatrogenic injury, especially transurethral operation, increases significantly, while male urethral stricture secondary to radiotherapy and infection decrease. Urethroplasty increases and the reoperation rate decreases in treating simple urethral stricture, and flap urethroplasty also increases in treating complex urethral stricture. The results of a pooled analysis of data from 11 centers in Mainland China are partially consistent with it. Complications, such as urethral fistula, false canal, ejaculation disorder, and penile curvature, decrease significantly.Conclusions: The main causes of urethral stricture in the recent 10 years are still trauma and iatrogenic injuries, and the etiology of urethral stricture is related to socioeconomic development. With the increase of intracavitary minimally invasive treatment and flap urethroplasty, the curative effect is increasing, while iatrogenic urethral stricture cannot be ignored.

Large-area silicon-nitride thin films deposited from silane and ammonia by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition are investigated experimentally in a 300 mm apparatus with a vertical showerhead. The responses of deposition rate and refractive index to the process parameters are found and discussed. The effects of showerhead configuration on the full-wafer deposition rate and refractive index are further examined, and the inherent non-uniformity is improved by using a proper convex showerhead. The residual gases are analyzed online, and a good correlation between the partial pressure of hydrogen and the deposition rate is found.

Showerhead is a typical and important part in a vertical plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) reactor. A contrast experiment with the same recipe but different showerhead configurations was carried out, where the effects of the blocked area, position and drilling depth of the arrayed holes on the full-wafer deposition rate and the ratio of nitrogen to silicon of the silicon-nitride thin film were examined. The results of the blocking-hole scheme demonstrate that: the deposition rate is higher under the blocked region; the gradients of the deposition rate in the edge-opened configurations are larger than those in the center-opened configurations; the tendency of the ratio of nitrogen to silicon goes up towards to the centroid in the edge-opened configurations. The results of the drilling-hole scheme show a similar characteristic, however, the gradients are much smoother than those in the blocking-hole scheme. These results indicate that it is a feasible way to globally or locally refine the qualities of the large-area thin film through tailoring or varying the drilling depth of the arrayed holes on the showerhead face plate. This paper contributes to the structural design for the large-area silicon-nitride thin-film PECVD rector with vertical showerhead, and can also be referred to the other large-area thin-film reactor with multi-hole arrayed showerhead.

Plasma enhanced vapor deposition is a complex multi-physics process which couples plasma dynamics, chemical reactions, fluid dynamics, heat, and mass transfer. The structure of a reactor has significant effects on the process performance. In order to simulate the behaviors of silicon-nitride thin-film processing in a 300 mm reactor with a vertical showerhead, a comprehensive multi-model framework is developed to deal with the multi-physics phenomena in the entire reactor. Full-wafer deposition rate and ratio of nitrogen to silicon are compared between model and experiment to verify the multi-model simulation. The experiments are carried out with different showerhead configurations but the same process recipe, and the mechanisms of the thin-film profiles are analyzed based on the models. The results indicate that the spatial gradients of deposition rate and ratio of nitrogen to silicon are determined by the hole configurations on the showerhead.