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This paper provides a thorough investigation on the leakage reason of the ERW steel pipeline in an oil field. Through appearance inspection, physicochemical inspection, metallographic inspection and scanning electron microscope (SEM), it was found that the main reason of corrosions was caused by residual liquid at the bottom of the pipeline and O2 and CO2 in the air pressure test. The corrosion medium was large volume of O2 and CO2 forming continuously saturated corrosive aqueous solution in small volume of residual liquid, and the corrosion type was the under-deposit corrosion. It is recommended to conduct hot air purging on the pipelined before pressure test for building pipelines in the future, and if the pipeline is not put into use in time, it is recommended to use nitrogen to maintain pressure.

Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), with Hepatitis B viurs X protein (HBx) as one of the main etiology, harbors various metabolic phenotypes for distinct nutrient availability inside solid tumors. Trichostatin A is a histone inhibitor, supposed to inhibit cancer development. However, the role of TSA in tumor cells with metabolic stress has received little investigation. Methods We built a HBx-overexpression hepatoma cell model with HBx plasmids transfection, and EBSS was applied in nutrient-deprived cell model. Through western blot, Q-PCR and immunoprecipitation, we further explored the molecular mechanism of TSA-related anti-cancer function. Results In our study here, we found that TSA inhibited HBx-enhanced metastasis in metabolic stress, and demonstrated that Sirtuin 3 (SIRT3), one of tumor suppressors in HCC, played a role in TSA-related anti-cancer function in metabolic stress, and TSA promoted SIRT3 transcription. Conclusions We suggest that TSA alleviated specific subset of HCC, the HBx-induced HCC in metabolic stress, through promoting SIRT3 transcription, suggesting that TSA is a potential drug for HCC treatment.

Background:There is controversy about the characteristics and prognostic implications of signet ring cell gastric cancers and non-signet ring cell gastric cancers.Objective:This study aims to evaluate clinicopathological characteristics and prognoses of signet ring cell carcinoma (SRCC) and non-signet ring cell carcinoma (NSRCC) of stomach.Methods:Studies compared between SRCC and NSRCC of the stomach after gastrectomy and published before September 1st, 2020, in the PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase databases, were identified systematically.Results:A total of 2,865 studies were screened, and 36 studies were included, with 19,174 patients in the SRCC group and 55,942 patients in the NSRCC group. SRCC patients were younger in age (P< 0.001), less likely to be male patients (P< 0.001), more afflicted with upper third lesions (P< 0.001), and presenting with more Borrmann type IV tumors (P= 0.005) than NSRCC patients. Lymph nodes metastasis was similar between SRCC and NSRCC patients with advanced tumor stage (OR: 0.86, 95% CI: 0.67–1.10,P= 0.23), but lower in the SRCC than NSRCC patients with early tumor stage (OR: 0.73; 95% CI: 0.56–0.98,P= 0.02). SRCC patients had comparable survival outcomes with NSRCC patients for early gastric cancers (HR: 1.05, 95% CI: 0.65–1.68,P< 0.001) but had significantly poor prognosis for patients with advanced tumor stage (HR: 1.50, 95% CI: 1.28–1.76,P< 0.001).Conclusions:Signet ring cell carcinomas of the stomach are an increasingly common histopathological subtype of gastric cancers. These kinds of patients tend to be younger in age and more often female. Although, signet ring cell gastric cancer is a negative prognostic factor for patients with advanced stage. The difference is that for early stage of signet ring cell gastric cancers, it has low lymph nodes metastasis rate and comparable prognosis with non-signet ring cell cancers.

Obesity may impact surgical outcomes of gastrectomy. Whether visceral fat area (VFA) is a better obesity parameter than body mass index (BMI) is still controversial. The aim of this study is to compare the accuracy and effectiveness of VFA and BMI in predicting the short-term surgical outcomes of gastrectomy. Patients who were diagnosed with gastric cancer were measured for BMI and VFA preoperatively and then divided into a VFA-H (VFA-high) group and VFA-L (VFA-low) group, at the cutoff point of 100 cm2, and a BMI-H (BMI-high) group and BMI-L (BMI-low) group, at the cutoff point of 25 kg/m2. The short-term surgical outcomes were compared between the different groups. In total, 276 patients were enrolled in this study; 55 (19.9%) patients were classified into the BMI-H group, and 122 (44.2%) patients were classified into the VFA-H group. There was a significant correlation between BMI and VFA (r = 0.652, p

A 16-channel closed-loop neuromodulation system-on-chip (SoC) for human epileptic seizure control is proposed and designed. In the proposed SoC, a 16-channel neural-signal acquisition unit (NSAU), a biosignal processor (BSP), a 16-channel high-voltage-tolerant stimulator (HVTS), and wireless power and bidirectional data telemetry are designed. In the NSAU, the input protection circuit is used to prevent MOSFET from overstressing by the high-voltage stimulations. Hence, NSAUs can share electrodes with stimulators. The auto-reset chopper-stabilized capacitive-coupled instrumentation amplifiers (AR-CSCCIAs) are designed with the chopper-stabilized technique with a new offset reduction loop. The measured input-referred noise is 2.09 $\mu \textrm {V}_{\mathrm {rms}}$ and the noise-efficiency factor (NEF) is 3.78. The entropy-and-spectrum seizure detection algorithm is implemented in the BSP with 0.76-s seizure detection latency and 97.8% detection accuracy. When the seizure onset is detected by the BSP, the HVTS with adaptive supply control delivers 0.5–3-mA biphasic current stimulation to suppress the seizure onset. The proposed SoC is powered wirelessly, and the bidirectional data telemetry is realized through the same pair of coils in 13.56 MHz. The downlink data rate is 211 Kb/s with the binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) modulation and a new BPSK demodulator. The uplink data rate is 106 Kb/s with the load-shift keying (LSK) modulation. The proposed SoC is fabricated in a 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS technology and occupies 25 mm2. Electrical tests have been performed to characterize the SoC performance. In vivo animal experiments using mini-pigs have been performed to successfully verify the closed-loop neuromodulation functions on epileptic seizure suppression.

Xiaonan Yin,1,* Yuan Yin,1,* Chaoyong Shen,1 Huijiao Chen,2 Jiang Wang,1 Zhaolun Cai,1 Zhixin Chen,1 Bo Zhang1 1Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China; 2Department of Pathology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China *These authors contributed equally to this work Background: Regorafenib is a novel multikinase inhibitor (MKI) approved for use in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC), treatment-refractory gastrointestinal stromal tumors, and other solid tumor malignancies. However, the adverse events (AEs) associated with regorafenib have not been systematically investigated. Hence, we performed a meta-analysis to identify AEs associated with regorafenib in patients with advanced solid tumors.Methods: The databases of PubMed, MEDLINE, and Embase and abstracts presented in American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meetings were searched for relevant publications from January 2004 to September 2017. Eligible studies were limited to prospective randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluate the use of regorafenib in patients with advanced solid tumors. Incidence, relative risk (RR), and 95% CIs were calculated using a random or fixed effects model on the basis of the heterogeneity of the included studies.Results: A total of 2,065 patients from six RCTs were included, and 1,340 of them received regorafenib and 725 received a placebo. Sixteen all-grade AEs and 15 high-grade AEs were investigated for their association with regorafenib. Results showed that hand–foot skin reaction (HFSR; 54%), diarrhea (33%), fatigue (32%), hypertension (31%), oral mucositis (28%), and anorexia (23%) were the most frequent clinical AEs. The most common high-grade (grade, $3) AEs were HFSR (16%), hypertension (13%), fatigue (6%), increased aspartate aminotransferase (AST; 6%), and hypophosphatemia (6%). Pooled RR showed that the use of regorafenib was associated with an increased risk of developing AEs. Subgroup analysis based on the prior MKI treatment showed that prior MKI treatment was associated with an increased incidence of all-grade anorexia (P=0.03) and a reduced incidence of high-grade increased AST (P=0.04). However, subgroup analysis based on the tumor type showed that no significant differences were found when comparing the RR of all-grade and high-grade AEs in patients with CRC or non-CRC.Conclusion: The meta-analysis systematically investigated regorafenib-associated AEs. Knowledge of these AEs is essential for minimizing treatment-related toxicities and improving clinical outcomes. Keywords: regorafenib, adverse event, AE, safety, multikinase inhibitor, meta-analysis&nbsp

Background Different preoperative, postoperative or perioperative treatment strategies, including chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy, are available for patients with gastric cancer, but conventional meta-analyses that assess two alternative treatments are unable to compare differences in overall survival. Thus, we performed a network meta-analysis to identify the best treatment strategy. Methods We systematically searched and assessed studies for eligibility and extracted data. We then pooled the data and conducted a Bayesian network meta-analysis to combine direct comparisons with indirect evidence. The node-splitting method was used to assess the inconsistency. Rank probabilities were assessed by the probability of treatment rankings. Results Thirty-three eligible randomized controlled trials were included in the network meta-analysis. Four treatments that had significantly improved prognoses when compared with surgery only were postoperative chemotherapy [HR = 0.80 with 95% CrI: (0.73, 0.88)], postoperative chemoradiotherapy [HR = 0.73 with 95% CrI: (0.61, 0.87)], preoperative chemoradiotherapy [HR = 0.77 with 95% CrI: (0.62, 0.98)] and perioperative chemotherapy [HR = 0.69 with 95% CrI: (0.55, 0.84)]. Preoperative chemotherapy, however, did not significantly improve survival when compared with surgery alone [HR = 0.94 with 95% CrI: (0.71, 1.2)]. There was no statistically significant difference between postoperative chemotherapy, postoperative chemoradiotherapy, preoperative chemoradiotherapy and perioperative chemotherapy in terms of overall survival. Chemoradiotherapy after D2 lymphadenectomy did not significantly improve OS when compared with postoperative chemotherapy [HR = 0.95 with 95% CrI: (0.73, 1.3)]. Conclusion Among patients with operable gastric cancer, perioperative chemotherapy had the highest probability of being the best treatment. Further clinical resources may be required to assess the efficacy and safety of perioperative chemotherapy for patients with gastric cancer.

The efficacy of agents targeting epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in patients with various cancers was well elucidated. However, the safety profile of EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR‐TKIs) has not been systematically investigated. This meta‐analysis aimed to evaluate the safety profile of EGFR‐TKIs in patients with cancer. A systematic search of PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library databases, ASCO, and ESMO abstracts were conducted. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared safety profile of EGFR‐TKIs with placebo were included. The end points included treatment‐related adverse events (AEs), treatment discontinuation, and toxic death. Twenty‐eight RCTs containing 17,800 patients were included. The analyses showed that the most frequently observed all‐grade AEs in patients treated with EGFR‐TKIs were diarrhea (53.7%), rash (48.6%), mucositis (46.5%), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) increased (38.9%), and skin reaction (35.2%). The most common high‐grade (grade ≥3) AEs were mucositis (14.8%), pain (8.2%,), metabolism and nutrition disorders (7.4%), diarrhea (6.2%), dyspnea (6.1%), and hypertension (6.1%). The incidence of serious AEs, treatment discontinuation, and toxic death due to AEs were 18.2%, 12.36%, and 3.0%, respectively. Pooled risk ratio (RR) showed that the use of EGFR‐TKIs was associated with an increased risk of developing AEs. Subgroup analysis indicated that the risk of AEs varied significantly according to tumor type, generation line, and drug type. Our meta‐analysis indicates EGFR‐TKIs was associated with a significant increased risk of a series of unique AEs. Early detection and proper management of AEs are important to reduce morbidity, avoid treatment discontinuation, and improve patient quality of life. Study Highlights WHAT IS THE CURRENT KNOWLEDGE ON THE TOPIC? The safety profile of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)‐tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) varied in different trials, and has not been systemically investigated. WHAT QUESTION DID THIS STUDY ADDRESS? We conducted this meta‐analysis of randomized control trials (RCTs) to provide a comprehensive evaluation of adverse event in patients with cancer receiving EGFR‐TKIs. WHAT DOES THIS STUDY ADD TO OUR KNOWLEDGE? Our meta‐analysis indicates EGFR‐TKIs was associated with a significant increased risk of a series of unique adverse events (AEs). HOW MIGHT THIS CHANGE CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY OR TRANSLATIONAL SCIENCE? The integrated understanding of safety profile of EGFR‐TKIs will help in the future design of new EGFR‐TKIs with a better safety profile.

Background Bladder cancer is one of the most frequent cancers in the world. Muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) is the aggressive subtype with higher morbidity and mortality. Immune check point blockade (ICB) therapy has shown its potential for treating MIBC, but is limited due to the lack of predictive biomarkers. Methods 1601 MIBC transcriptomic profiles were obtained from 10 datasets. Unsupervised clustering of immune phenotypes in MIBC was performed based on immune-related signature genes selected by us. We analyzed the characteristics including microenvironments, metabolic pathways, and survival rates in different phenotypes. Multi-omics analysis and WGCNA plus protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis were performed to identify hub genes of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) distinguishing phenotypes related to prognosis. The hub DEGs were further validated by real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR). A model was established and CART was employed to predict the responses of patients treated with ICB. Results Of various immune phenotypes, cluster 3C was the most “inflamed” subcluster with the best prognosis, while cluster 1A was associated with “non-inflammation” and worst prognosis. There was no intersection of hub DEGs selected by WGCNA plus PPI analysis and multi-omics analysis. WGCNA plus PPI analysis identified 5 hub genes related to the survival rate of patients, IFNG, CXCR6, IL2RB, LCK, and PSMB10. Real-time qPCR results indicated that the expression levels of 5 hub genes were significantly lower in tumors. The 5 hub genes were further utilized for prognostic score model and decision tree analysis. The areas under the curve (AUC) of the ROC curves predicting 5-year endpoint generated from the risk-based prediction model were 0.652. The mean accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of CART for predicting stable disease/progressive disease were 70.1%, 70.0% and 71.7%. Conclusions The 5 hub genes and generated models showed the potential for predicting the prognosis for patients receiving ICB therapy. The molecular mechanisms regulating the expression of the hub genes require further studies in the future.

Objective Whether neutrophil could be a risk factor of renal impairment in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) remains unclear. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of renal impairment in RA and determine its correlation with neutrophils. Methods We retrospectively investigated renal function of 602 RA patients in the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine by estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Potential risk factors for renal dysfunction were collected in all RA patients. We used univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis to evaluate association between neutrophils and renal impairment. Results A total of 89 cases (14.8%) had renal impairment with GFR 2, and 75 cases (84.3%) were female. Compared to RA patients with normal renal function, age, white blood cell count, serum levels of triglyceride, uric acid, C-reactive protein level, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, Cystatin-C, and creatinine in those with renal impairment increased, but red blood cell count and hemoglobin level decreased (all p 7.5 × 10^9/L (OR = 1.7, 95% CI: 1.03 to 2.98), hemoglobin 360umol/l (OR = 6.1, 95%CI: 3.71 to 10.10) significantly correlated with a higher risk of renal impairment. Conclusions Neutrophil count > 7.5 × 10^9/L may be associated with a high risk of renal impairment in RA. Prospective studies are needed to verify our results.

Background Suprapancreatic lymphadenectomy is the essence of D2 radical gastric cancer surgery. The present study aimed to describe clockwise modularized laparoscopic lymphadenectomy in the suprapancreatic area. Methods The data from gastric cancer patients who underwent surgical treatment from September 2016 to December 2018 were collected. Patients were divided into clockwise modularized lymphadenectomy (CML) and traditional open gastrectomy (OG) groups according to the surgical treatment strategy. The propensity score matching method was utilized to balance the baseline characteristics between the two groups. Results Finally, 551 gastric cancer patients were included in the present study. Following propensity score matching, 106 pairs of patients in the CML group and OG group were included in the final analysis. The CML group had more total examined lymph nodes (36, IQR 28–44.74 vs. 29, IQR 29–39.5, p = 0.002) and no. 9 station nodes (2, IQR 1–5 vs. 2, IQR 1–3, p = 0.007) than the OG group. There was less intraoperative blood loss (30, IQR 20–80 ml vs. 80, IQR 50–80 ml, p p p = 0.591) and postoperative hospital stay (8, IQR 7–9 days vs. 8, IQR 7–9 days, p = 0.452) were comparable between the CML and OG groups. Conclusion Laparoscopic lymphadenectomy for gastric cancer surgery is technically demanding. Clockwise modularized laparoscopic lymphadenectomy in the suprapancreatic area can attain similar effects as traditional open surgery and without an increase in postoperative adverse events.

Recently, biosensors have become widely deployed in consumer wearable devices, e.g., smart watches and wrist bands, to track user health conditions during sport, sleep, and daily activity. However, unlike biosignal acquisition in well-controlled medical settings, signal acquisition in consumer devices inevitably suffers from degraded signal quality due to poor sensor interfaces, motion artifacts, and environmental interferences, such as ambient light and power-line coupling, which can be >60dB stronger than the wanted signals. These challenges result in demanding AFE specifications, even under tight constraints on sensor area, chip size, and battery capacity, which are all necessary for wearable devices. This paper presents a multimodal biosensing SoC that addresses these issues to enable reliable Photoplethysmography (PPG), Electrocardiography (ECG), and Bio-impedance (BIOZ) acquisition under highly variable conditions in wearable devices. It contains a 130dB-DR PPG readout, which is 11dB higher than the state of the art [1], to tolerate strong ambient light; an ECG AFE with a pseudo Right-Leg-Drive (RLD) tolerant of >130V PP common-mode interference (CMI) from power-line coupling, which is 3× higher than the technique presented in [2]; and a BIOZ AFE for body-fat measurement using 1cm2 electrodes rather than the typically >10cm2 electrodes in conventional body-fat meters. The area for the entire PPG/ECG/BIOZ AFE is ~3mm2, which is around 50% smaller than prior AFEs with similar features [3], [4].

High-precision current-measurement front-ends are widely used in various applications, such as photoplethysmography (PPG) recording by biomedical sensors and molecular-concentration detection by electrochemical sensors. They usually require a low noise level down to pA to monitor small signal variations and a wide input range over µA to avoid saturation caused by large input fluctuations. The low-noise-level and wide-input-range requirements typically result in a dynamic range (DR) greater than 120dB. Prior high-DR current measurement front-ends either operate in the time domain using a capacitive-feedback TIA to integrate the input current and then digitize the output voltage via a digital counter [1], or operate in the frequency domain using an Hourglass ADC [2] or asynchronous DFFs [3]. Such methods can reduce the noise level by extending the integration time but suffer from a low conversion frequency (F conv ) as a result. To extend the input range, DC cancellation servo loops [1] or predictive DACs [2] are adopted, but the limited loop bandwidth results in a slow settling or saturation when the signal experiences a rapid change. Utilizing these methods, the previous works achieved an effective DR of ~120dB at F conv of 300-500Hz. This work adopts a different approach of simply increasing the DR of a continuous-time (CT) incremental ADC (IADC) to 140dB without any of the aforementioned methods and achieve a high F conv of 4 kHz. While the noise level and input range of the current-input CT-IADC are both determined by the feedback DAC within the modulator loop, this high DR is realized by increasing the number of DAC MSBs to extend the input range and disconnecting the inactive DAC cells to remove their noise contribution. The noise level is further minimized by adding extra LSB bits so that only the small LSB cells are active when the input approaches 0. In this work, an 11b resistive DAC (RDAC) together with a 12b SAR quantizer are implemented to achieve an input range of 200µA. Meanwhile, a tri-level {−1, 0, +1} DAC with reset-then-open (RTO) operation is introduced to disconnect the MSB cells dynamically without the issue of inter-symbol interference (ISI). To linearize the 11b DAC, a hybrid mismatch error shaping (HMES) scheme which combines segmented noise-shaped scrambling (SNSS) [4] and mismatch error shaping (MES) [5] is presented. This IADC with on-chip voltage references consumes 1.011mW from 1.2V and achieves >200dB FoM with an integral non-linearity (INL) of 8ppm.

Background The role of surgical resection for patients with recurrent or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors is still controversial. This meta-analysis aims to investigate the clinical outcomes of surgery combined with tyrosine kinase inhibitors among patients with recurrent or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors. Methods We systematically searched PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library and Wanfangdata without language restriction. Random effect models were used to estimate pooled hazard ratio and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals. Subgroup analyses, sensitivity analysis and trim and fill analysis were also performed. Results A total of 1416 patient from 9 studies were finally enrolled in this meta-analysis. The summary results showed that surgery combined with tyrosine kinase inhibitors showed a tendency of a longer overall survival compared with tyrosine kinase inhibitors treatment alone (HR by random-effects model 0.68, 95% CI 0.54–0.85, I2 = 44.7%) and improved progress-free survival (HR by random-effects model 0.50,95% CI, 0.33–0.76, I2 = 17.9%). The trim and fill analysis and sensitive analysis indicated the relatively robust result. Conclusion Surgery combined with tyrosine kinase inhibitors therapy is associated with a better overall survival and progression free survival for patients with recurrent or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors as compared with TKIs treatment alone.

Background Malignant growth and metastasis of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) occur in some patients even during the course of treatment, but their mechanisms remains poorly understand at the molecular level so far. Methods Profiles of protein expression in gastric GIST tissues were explored using protein microarray analysis, down-regulation of SPARCL1 (secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine-like protein 1) was validated by RT-qPCR, western blot and immunohistochemistry. The effect of specific shRNA-induced SPARCL1 downregulation on the biological traits of GIST 882 cell was investigated. We then employed a mouse xenograft model to investigate whether the low-expression of SPARCL1 impact the metastasis ability of GIST cells in vivo. Results SPARCL1 was significantly downregulated in the gastric GIST with high-grade malignance as compared with low-grade malignance, its expression was closely correlated with tumor size, mitotic index, distant metastasis at the time of initial diagnosis and tumor progression of GIST (P

Background To study metastasis to the infra-pyloric (no. 6) lymph nodes and their subgroups and the related risk factors of gastric cancer patients. Methods Gastric cancer patients who underwent gastrectomy with complete postoperative pathological information on the no. 6 lymph node station and its subgroups from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2011, were included. The clinicopathological characteristics and survival outcomes were analyzed. Results A total of 121 patients were included; they had 6.1 ± 7.7 positive lymph nodes, and 35.1 ± 14.2 lymph nodes were examined. The overall lymph node positivity rate was 67.8% (82/121) with a positivity rate of 28.1% (34/121) for the no. 6 lymph nodes. The metastasis rate was 6.6% for the no. 6a nodes, 6.6% for the no. 6b nodes, and 21.5% for the no. 6c nodes. Also, no. 8a (OR = 1.329, p = 0.017) and no. 9 (OR = 1.250, p = 0.022) nodal positivity and lower third tumor location (OR = 1.278, p = 0.001) were independent risk factors for no. 6 lymph nodal metastasis. There was a significant survival difference between patients with positive and negative no. 6 lymph nodes and patients with metastasis to other lymph node stations (p

We present an approach that realizes the ground state cooling of the membrane-in-middle optomechanical system. Instead of straightforwardly using the continuous-wave (CW) or pulsed external drives, we consider the combinations of them for having a more efficient cooling process. Due to the dynamical nature of the joint action of both CW and pulse fields, it is necessary to explore the real-time evolutions of the system under various conditions, from which the optimal cooling can be found. Given such setup, the cooling limit previously discovered for the simple optomechanical systems under a single CW drive can be easily broken. The achieved cooling effect indicated by a defined cooling rate is one or more order lower than the cooling limit of a simple optomechanical systems, thus providing an efficient way of ground state cooling. Furthermore, the ground state cooling can be realized for a membrane with much lower mechanical quality factor and with the external drives of the lower intensities, to considerably relax the requirements for optomechanical cooling with the current experimental technology.

The aim of this study is to investigate the clinicopathological characteristics, as well as explore the prognostic accuracy of the proposed new classification in gastrointestinal NENs (GI-NENs) patients.Patients diagnosed with GI-NENs were retrospectively indentified from existing databases of the pathological institute at our institution from January 2009 to November 2015.We identified 414 patients with GI-NENs, 250 cases were diagnosed as neuroendocrine tumor G1 (NET G1), 25 as neuroendocrine tumor G2 (NET G2), 53 as neuroendocrine tumor G3 (NET G3), 55 as neuroendocrine carcinoma G3 (NEC G3), and 31 as mixed adenoneuroendocrine carcinoma (MANEC); the overall survival (OS) rate at three years were 94.9%, 91.7%, 74.3%, 62.7% and 38.1%, respectively. The difference in progression-free survival (PFS) duration among the patients with NET G1, NET G2, NET G3, NEC G3, and MANEC was statistically significant (P 0.001). However, the PFS of NEC G3 and MANEC was low and similar (P = 0.090). In multivariate analysis of patients with GI-NENs, surgical margin, comorbidity, proposed new classification and tumor location were useful predictors of OS (P 0.05).Our findings suggest that the proposed new classification can accurately reflect the clinical outcome, together with surgical margin, comorbidity, and tumor location may be meaningful prognostic factors for the OS of GI-NENs.

This paper describes the preparation of nanoarrays composed of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs: 20–50 nm) for use as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates. The AgNPs were grown on porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates by electrochemical plating, and the inter-channel gap of AAO channels is between 10 and 20 nm. The size and interparticle gap of silver particles were adjusted in order to achieve optimal SERS signals and characterized by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. The fluctuation of SERS intensity is about 10–20% when measuring adenine solutions, showing a great reproducible SERS sensing. The nanoparticle arrays offer a large potential for practical applications as shown by the SERS-based quantitative detection and differentiation of adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), guanine (G), β-carotene, and malachite green. The respective detection limits are

Background Preoperative imatinib mesylate (IM) treatment has not yet been standardized. Here, we aim to further explore such therapy on patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) retrospectively. Methods Patients experiencing preoperative IM were identified from January 2009 to February 2015. Results A total of 28 GIST patients were identified. The patients received preoperative IM treatment for a median length of 13.5 months, ranging from 5 to 37 months. PR and SD were observed in 24 (85.7%) and 4 (15.3%) patients, respectively. The tumor shrinkage occurred predominantly within 6 to 12 months, and slight tumor shrinkage could be observed after 12 months in certain patients. Nineteen patients (67.9%) received surgery, and R0 resection was acquired in 18 (94.7%) patients. The initial mean maximum diameter was 10.5 (5.2 to 19.0) cm and decreased to 5.9 (2.7 to 19.0) cm after preoperative treatment with a median length of 12 (ranging from 5 to 36) months (P

// Chaoyong Shen 1, * , Yuan Yin 1, * , Huijiao Chen 2 , Sumin Tang 1 , Xiaonan Yin 1 , Zongguang Zhou 1, 3 , Bo Zhang 1 , Zhixin Chen 1 1 Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China 2 Department of Pathology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China 3 Institute of Digestive Surgery and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Zongguang Zhou, email: zhou767@163.com Bo Zhang, email: hxwcwk@126.com Keywords: neuroendocrine tumors, colorectal, prognosis, WHO classifications, ENETS TNM systems Received: August 23, 2016 Accepted: November 08, 2016 Published: November 26, 2016 ABSTRACT Background/Aims: This study evaluated and compared the clinical and prognostic values of the grading criteria used by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Neuroendocrine Tumors Society (ENETS). Moreover, this work assessed the current best prognostic model for colorectal neuroendocrine tumors (CRNETs). Results: The 2010 WHO classifications and the ENETS systems can both stratify the patients into prognostic groups, although the 2010 WHO criteria is more applicable to CRNET patients. Along with tumor location, the 2010 WHO criteria are important independent prognostic parameters for CRNETs in both univariate and multivariate analyses through Cox regression ( P

This work presents a time-multiplexing SAR ADC to support up to 5-lead ECG monitoring with >100dB SNDR per readout channel. Its noise and linearity performance are enhanced by a combination of dual-reference architecture and mismatch error shaping (MES) technique without using amplifiers or calibration, resulting in >106dB SFDR and 109.4dB DR within 250Hz bandwidth (FoM S,DR =178.9dB). The ECG analog front-end (AFE), including 3 DC-coupled instrumentation amplifiers (IAs) and 1 ADC, occupies only 0.48mm2 in 55nm CMOS. Each ECG channel achieves 1μV rms (0.5-250Hz) input-referred noise at a low IA gain of 6V/V with a 667mV pp-diff linear input range.

The uncertainty relation, as one of the fundamental principles of quantum physics, captures the incompatibility of noncommuting observables in the preparation of quantum states. In this work, we derive two strong and universal uncertainty relations for $N(N\ge2)$ observables with discrete and bounded spectra, one in multiplicative form and the other in additive form. To verify their validity, for illustration, we implement in the spin-1/2 system an experiment with single-photon measurement. The experimental results exhibit the validity and robustness of these uncertainty relations, and indicate the existence of stringent lower bounds., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. Slightly extended