Radiomics-Based Outcome Prediction for Pancreatic Cancer Following Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy

(1) Background: Radiomics use high-throughput mining of medical imaging data to extract unique information and predict tumor behavior. Currently available clinical prediction models poorly predict treatment outcomes in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Therefore, we used radiomic features of primary pancreatic tumors to develop outcome prediction models and compared them to traditional clinical models. (2) Methods: We extracted and analyzed radiomic data from pre-radiation contrast-enhanced CTs of 74 pancreatic cancer patients undergoing stereotactic body radiotherapy. A panel of over 800 radiomic features was screened to create overall survival and local-regional recurrence prediction models, which were compared to clinical prediction models and models combining radiomic and clinical information. (3) Results: A 6-feature radiomic signature was identified that achieved better overall survival prediction performance than the clinical model (mean concordance index: 0.66 vs. 0.54 on resampled cross-validation test sets), and the combined model improved the performance slightly further to 0.68. Similarly, a 7-feature radiomic signature better predicted recurrence than the clinical model (mean AUC of 0.78 vs. 0.66). (4) Conclusion: Overall survival and recurrence can be better predicted with models based on radiomic features than with those based on clinical features for pancreatic cancer

A CD8 T Cell/Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase Axis Is Required for Mesenchymal Stem Cell Suppression of Human Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

published_or_final_versio

WNK1-OSR1 kinase-mediated phospho-activation of Na+-K+-2Cl- cotransporter facilitates glioma migration

Background: The bumetanide (BMT)-sensitive Na+-K+-2Cl- cotransporter isoform 1 (NKCC1) maintains cell volume homeostasis by increasing intracellular K+ and Cl- content via regulatory volume increase (RVI). Expression levels of NKCC1 positively correlate with the histological grade and severity of gliomas, the most common primary adult brain tumors, and up-regulated NKCC1 activity facilitates glioma cell migration and apoptotic resistance to the chemotherapeutic drug temozolomide (TMZ). However, the cellular mechanisms underlying NKCC1 functional up-regulation in glioma and in response to TMZ administration remain unknown. Methods: Expression of NKCC1 and its upstream kinases With-No-K (Lysine) kinase 1 (WNK1) and oxidative stress-responsive kinase-1 (OSR1) in different human glioma cell lines and glioma specimens were detected by western blotting and immunostaining. Live cell imaging and microchemotaxis assay were applied to record glioma cell movements under different treatment conditions. Fluorescence indicators were utilized to measure cell volume, intracellular K+ and Cl- content to reflect the activity of NKCC1 on ion transportation. Small interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated knockdown of WNK1 or OSR1 was used to explore their roles in regulation of NKCC1 activity in glioma cells. Results of different treatment groups were compared by one-way ANOVA using the Bonferroni post-hoc test in the case of multiple comparisons. Results: We show that compared to human neural stem cells and astrocytes, human glioma cells exhibit robust increases in the activation and phosphorylation of NKCC1 and its two upstream regulatory kinases, WNK1 and OSR1. siRNA-mediated knockdown of WNK1 or OSR1 reduces intracellular K+ and Cl- content and RVI in glioma cells by abolishing NKCC1 regulatory phospho-activation. Unexpectedly, TMZ activates the WNK1/OSR1/NKCC1 signaling pathway and enhances glioma migration. Pharmacological inhibition of NKCC1 with its potent inhibitor BMT or siRNA knockdown of WNK1 or OSR1 significantly decreases glioma cell migration after TMZ treatment. Conclusion: Together, our data show a novel role for the WNK1/OSR1/NKCC1 pathway in basal and TMZ-induced glioma migration, and suggest that glioma treatment with TMZ might be improved by drugs that inhibit elements of the WNK1/OSR1/NKCC1 signaling pathway

l-connectivity, l-edge-connectivity and spectral radius of graphs

Let G be a connected graph. The toughness of G is defined as t(G)=min{\frac{|S|}{c(G-S)}}, in which the minimum is taken over all proper subsets S\subset V(G) such that c(G-S)\geq 2 where c(G-S) denotes the number of components of G-S. Confirming a conjecture of Brouwer, Gu [SIAM J. Discrete Math. 35 (2021) 948--952] proved a tight lower bound on toughness of regular graphs in terms of the second largest absolute eigenvalue. Fan, Lin and Lu [European J. Combin. 110 (2023) 103701] then studied the toughness of simple graphs from the spectral radius perspective. While the toughness is an important concept in graph theory, it is also very interesting to study |S| for which c(G-S)\geq l for a given integer l\geq 2. This leads to the concept of the l-connectivity, which is defined to be the minimum number of vertices of G whose removal produces a disconnected graph with at least l components or a graph with fewer than l vertices. Gu [European J. Combin. 92 (2021) 103255] discovered a lower bound on the l-connectivity of regular graphs via the second largest absolute eigenvalue. As a counterpart, we discover the connection between the l-connectivity of simple graphs and the spectral radius. We also study similar problems for digraphs and an edge version

Spectral expansion properties of pseudorandom bipartite graphs

An $(a,b)$-biregular bipartite graph is a bipartite graph with bipartition $(X, Y)$ such that each vertex in $X$ has degree $a$ and each vertex in $Y$ has degree $b$. By the bipartite expander mixing lemma, biregular bipartite graphs have nice pseudorandom and expansion properties when the second largest adjacency eigenvalue is not large. In this paper, we prove several explicit properties of biregular bipartite graphs from spectral perspectives. In particular, we show that for any $(a,b)$-biregular bipartite graph $G$, if the spectral gap is greater than $\frac{2(k-1)}{\sqrt{(a+1)(b+1)}}$, then $G$ is $k$-edge-connected; and if the spectral gap is at least $\frac{2k}{\sqrt{(a+1)(b+1)}}$, then $G$ has at least $k$ edge-disjoint spanning trees. We also prove that if the spectral gap is at least $\frac{(k-1)\max\{a,b\}}{2\sqrt{ab - (k-1)\max\{a,b\}}}$, then $G$ is $k$-connected for $k\ge 2$; and if the spectral gap is at least $\frac{6k+2\max\{a,b\}}{\sqrt{(a-1)(b-1)}}$, then $G$ has at least $k$ edge-disjoint spanning 2-connected subgraphs. We have stronger results in the paper

Kerr-nonlinearity Enhanced Conventional Photon Blockade in Second-order-nonlinear System

In the recent publication [Phys. Rev. B 87, 235319 (2013)], the conventional photon blockade(CPB) was studied for the low frequency mode in a second-order nonlinear system. In this paper, we will study the CPB for the high frequency mode in a second-order nonlinear system with the Kerr nonlinearity filling in the low-frequency cavity. By solving the master equation and calculating the zero-delay-time second order correlation function $g^{(2)}(0)$, strong photon antibunching can be obtained in the high frequency cavity. The optimal condition for strong antibunching is found by analyticcal culations and discussions of the optimal condition are presented. We find that the Kerr-nonlinearities can enhanced the CPB effect. In addition, this scheme is not sensitive to the reservoir temperature, which make the current system easier to implement experimentally

Visualization study on the instabilities of phase-change heat transfer in a flat two-phase closed thermosyphon

This paper presents systematic experiments and visualization on the instabilities of phase-change heat transfer for water, ethanol and acetone in a flat evaporator of a two phase closed system, respectively. The effects of the heat flux, filling ratio, coolant temperature and working fluid type on the instabilities and their mechanisms have been systematically investigated. The experimental results show that the instabilities of phase-change heat transfer are strongly related to the corresponding heat transfer modes. The instabilities of temperature and heat transfer coefficient (HTC) of the evaporator are mainly caused by the bubble behaviours, the physical properties and the operation pressures. Natural convection, intermittent boiling and fully developed nucleate boiling are the main heat transfer modes in the present study. The condensate droplets may affect the instabilities due to inducing periodic boiling at lower heat fluxes. The maximum standard deviations of the evaporator temperature and vapor pressure fluctuations can reach 3.1 °C and 0.8 kPa respectively during the intermittent boiling. There is no intermittent boiling regime for ethanol and acetone in the present study. Therefore, no instability phenomena of nucleate boiling with ethanol and acetone are observed in the present study

A genetic variation map for chicken with 2.8 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms

We describe a genetic variation map for the chicken genome containing 2.8 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms ( SNPs). This map is based on a comparison of the sequences of three domestic chicken breeds ( a broiler, a layer and a Chinese silkie) with that of their wild ancestor, red jungle fowl. Subsequent experiments indicate that at least 90% of the variant sites are true SNPs, and at least 70% are common SNPs that segregate in many domestic breeds. Mean nucleotide diversity is about five SNPs per kilobase for almost every possible comparison between red jungle fowl and domestic lines, between two different domestic lines, and within domestic lines - in contrast to the notion that domestic animals are highly inbred relative to their wild ancestors. In fact, most of the SNPs originated before domestication, and there is little evidence of selective sweeps for adaptive alleles on length scales greater than 100 kilobases