The value of VI-RADS combined with tumor contact length in the detection of muscle-invasive bladder cancer

Background and purpose: The value of Vesical Imaging-Reporting and Data System (VI-RADS) based on multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the preoperative assessment of bladder cancer muscle-invasive is increasingly recognized. However, there is still a high number of false positives when the diagnostic cut-off value is 3 points. Tumor size has certain auxiliary diagnostic value in the assessment of tumor infiltration. Therefore, this study mainly explored the diagnostic performance of VI-RADS combined with tumor size in assessing bladder cancer muscle-invasive. Methods: The preoperative bladder multiparametric MRI and clinical data of 119 patients with bladder cancer confirmed by surgery and pathology (a total of 159 lesions) who were treated in Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center from November 2019 to February 2022 were retrospectively collected. VI-RADS score and tumor contact length (TCL) measurements were performed independently for each lesion by two radiologists. Lesions with differences in score or size were given consistent results following discussion by two physicians. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to analyze the diagnostic performance of VI-RADS, TCL and their combined models for muscle invasion, and the corresponding area under curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and diagnostic accuracy were compared. Results: Postoperative pathology confirmed that there were 75 and 84 lesions of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) and muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), respectively. The mean TCL of MIBC group (6.15-6.23 cm) was significantly different from that of NMIBC group (2.26-2.35 cm), and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). The specificity, PPV and diagnostic accuracy of VI-RADS combined with TCL in predicting bladder cancer muscle-invasive were significantly higher than those of VI-RADS with a diagnostic threshold of 3 points alone (P<0.05), whereas there was no statistically significant difference in the sensitivity and NPV (P>0.05). There was no significant difference in AUC between TCL (AUC = 0.89), VI-RADS (AUC = 0.90) and VI-RADS combined with TCL (AUC = 0.91) (P>0.05). Conclusion: VI-RADS combined with TCL can reduce the false positive rate of VI-RADS 3-point lesions in the evaluation of bladder cancer muscle-invasive to a certain extent, which is beneficial for avoiding overtreatment

High-speed ghost imaging by an unpredictable optical phased array

Ghost imaging (GI) retrieves an image from the correlation between a sequence of illumination patterns on the object and their corresponding bucket detections. Traditionally, GI requires the precise information of the illumination patterns, which raises technology barriers on building a high-speed illumination source, limiting the scope of its application. In this study, we propose a high-speed GI system, which implements a self-correlation with a purely optical operation without determining illumination patterns. The light source is an optical phased array (OPA), built of a set of waveguide-type electro-optic phase modulators. The OPA is driven to randomly change the phases in every 200 ns, generating speckle patterns at a rate of 5 MHz. Although the speckle patterns are not predictable or post-determinable, with the help of the naked-eye GI scheme, the system in real time optically generates the images of the object at a frame rate of more than 1 kHz, which can be directly observed by eyes or using a camera. This method avoids acquiring the information of the illumination, thus providing a simple and easy way to realize high-speed GI. It also inspires a different way of applying OPAs to high-speed imaging

Neuromatch Academy: a 3-week, online summer school in computational neuroscience

Neuromatch Academy (https://academy.neuromatch.io; (van Viegen et al., 2021)) was designed as an online summer school to cover the basics of computational neuroscience in three weeks. The materials cover dominant and emerging computational neuroscience tools, how they complement one another, and specifically focus on how they can help us to better understand how the brain functions. An original component of the materials is its focus on modeling choices, i.e. how do we choose the right approach, how do we build models, and how can we evaluate models to determine if they provide real (meaningful) insight. This meta-modeling component of the instructional materials asks what questions can be answered by different techniques, and how to apply them meaningfully to get insight about brain function

Hot topics and frontier evolution of research on entrepreneurial intentions——Visual analysis based on the core collection of Web of science database

Since the Chinese slogan “Mass Entrepreneurship, Mass Innovation” was put forward, entrepreneurship has become a hot topic of research in academic circles and even people from all walks of life. Entrepreneurial Intentions is the best indicator to effectively predict entrepreneurial behavior. In order to understand the research status and trends of entrepreneurship intentions, based on the bibliometric method, this paper uses citespace software to visually analyze 1,038 core collections published in the Web of science database platform from January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2020. The results show that in the past 20 years, the research on entrepreneurial intentions has mainly focused on scholars from foreign universities. The distribution of research institutions is relatively concentrated, but the distribution of journals is relatively loose. Antecedent variables have become the focus of research. Future research should focus on outcome variables

mRNA and protein levels of IL-37 in active and inactive GD as well as HC.

<p>According to the levels of TSH and FT4, the study GD patients were divided into disease activity (n = 14) and inactive (n = 26) groups. (A) Serum IL-37 protein levels were detected by ELISA in active and inactive GD patients as well as HCs (n = 30). Bars show the expression levels of IL-37 in different groups (mean ± SEM). (B) Levels of IL-37 mRNA in PBMCs from active (n = 14) and inactive (n = 26) GD patients as well as HCs (n = 30) were measured by RT-PCR. Each symbol represents an individual inactive, active patient or healthy control. Horizontal lines indicate median values. Mann-Whitney U-test and associated P values are indicated.</p

Correlation of serum IL-37 levels with pro-inflammatory cytokines as well as laboratory values.

<p>Each symbol represents an individual GD patient. (A–C) Serum IL-37 levels were positively correlated with pro-inflammatory cytokine TNF-a, IL-6, IL-17. (D) Negative relationship was observed between serum IL-37 levels and TSH. (E-G) Positively relationship was observed between serum IL-37 levels and FT3, FT4, TRAB. The correlations were evaluated with Spearman's non-parametric test.</p