Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma

AbstractBronchioloalveolar carcinoma is a subtype of adenocarcinoma of the lung with a relatively better prognosis. We reviewed the cases of 50 consecutive patients with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma treated during a 10-year period and attempted to analyze factors related to prognosis. During the 10-year study period, the prevalence of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma relative to adenocarcinoma of the lung remained steady. The subjects included 32 male and 18 female patients with mean ages of 64.7 years and 55.1 years, respectively (p = 0.0030). The preoperative radiographic findings included 40 cases of localized and 10 cases of diffuse bronchioloalveolar carcinoma. The clinicopathologic TNM staging included 20 patients with stage I cancer, 4 with stage II cancer, 11 with stage IIIa cancer, 3 with stage IIIb cancer, and 12 with stage IV cancer. Forty patients with clinical stage I, II, or III disease underwent operation (operability 80%). The resectability rate was 90% (36 of 40). Thirty-four procedures were considered as curative. The overall cumulative survival at 5 years was 22.2% (46.4% for stage I). Different TNM stages showed significant differences in survival time (p = 0.0001). The median survival times were 64.6 months for stage I, 48.0 months for stage II, 24.7 months for stage IIIa, 9.0 months for stage IIIb, and 4.5 months for stage IV disease. The median survival time for localized bronchioloalveolar carcinoma was 27.5 months, and the median survival time for diffuse bronchioloalveolar carcinoma was 4.3 months (p = 0.0002). The median survival time for the curative resection group was 30.6 months, and the median survival time for the noncurative resection or nonresection group was 5.8 months (p = 0.0001). On the basis of this study we conclude that (1) the prevalence of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma is quite steady, (2) bronchioloalveolar carcinoma presents at an earlier age in women, (3) bronchioloalveolar carcinoma frequently presents with lymphatic spread or systemic metastasis at diagnosis, (4) most localized bronchioloalveolar carcinomas are resectable and the prognosis with this type is better than that of the diffuse type, and (5) long-term survival correlates closely with initial roentgenographic appearance, TNM stage, and completeness of surgical resection. (J THORAC CARDIOVASC SURG 1995;110:374-81

Disentangling Boosted Higgs Boson Production Modes with Machine Learning

Higgs Bosons produced via gluon-gluon fusion (ggF) with large transverse momentum ($p_T$) are sensitive probes of physics beyond the Standard Model. However, high $p_T$ Higgs Boson production is contaminated by a diversity of production modes other than ggF: vector boson fusion, production of a Higgs boson in association with a vector boson, and production of a Higgs boson with a top-quark pair. Combining jet substructure and event information with modern machine learning, we demonstrate the ability to focus on particular production modes. These tools hold great discovery potential for boosted Higgs bosons produced via ggF and may also provide additional information about the Higgs Boson sector of the Standard Model in extreme phase space regions for other production modes as well.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure

Synthesis and Morphological Transformation of Conjugated Amphiphilic Diblock Copolymers in Mixed Solvents

The synthesis, morphological transformation, and photophysical properties of a rod-coil block copolymer, poly[2,7-(9,9-dihexylfluorene)]-block-poly(2-vinylpyridine) (PF-b-P2VP), with P2VP coils of various lengths in a mixed methanol/tetrahydrofuran (MeOH/THF) solvent are reported. Various morphological structures of PF-b-P2VP aggregates, including spheres, short worm-like structures, long cylinders, and large compound micelles (LCMs), were observed after varying the coil length of PF-b-P2VP and the selectivity of mixed solvents. These aggregated structures demonstrated considerable variation with regard to optical absorption, fluorescence, and the PL quantum yield of rod-coil copolymers. The degree of hypsochromic spectral shift was enhanced as the length of P2VP coils and the content of poor solvent increased. This study reveals the influence of coil length and selectivity of solvents on the morphology and the optical characteristics of rod-coil amphiphilic copolymers

Genome-Wide Sequence Variation among Mycobacterium avium Subspecies paratuberculosis Isolates: A Better Understanding of Johne’s Disease Transmission Dynamics

Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (M. ap), the causative agent of Johne’s disease, infects many farmed ruminants, wild-life animals, and recently isolated from humans. To better understand the molecular pathogenesis of these infections, we analyzed the whole-genome sequences of several M. ap and M. avium subspecies avium (M. avium) isolates to gain insights into genomic diversity associated with variable hosts and environments. Using Next-generation sequencing technology, all six M. ap isolates showed a high percentage of similarity (98%) to the reference genome sequence of M. ap K-10 isolated from cattle. However, two M. avium isolates (DT 78 and Env 77) showed significant sequence diversity (only 87 and 40% similarity, respectively) compared to the reference strain M. avium 104, a reflection of the wide environmental niches of this group of mycobacteria. Within the M. ap isolates, genomic rearrangements (insertions/deletions) were not detected, and only unique single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were observed among M. ap isolates. While more of the SNPs (~100) in M. ap genomes were non-synonymous, a total of ~6,000 SNPs were detected among M. avium genomes, most of them were synonymous suggesting a differential selective pressure between M. ap and M. avium isolates. In addition, SNPs-based phylo-genomics had a enough discriminatory power to differentiate between isolates from different hosts but yet suggesting a bovine source of infection to other animals examined in this study. Interestingly, the human isolate (M. ap 4B) was closely related to a M. ap isolate from a dairy facility, suggesting a common source of infection. Overall, the identified phylo-genomes further supported the idea of a common ancestor to both M. ap and M. avium isolates. Genome-wide analysis described here could provide a strong foundation for a population genetic structure that could be useful for the analysis of mycobacterial evolution and for the tracking of Johne’s disease transmission among animals

Exploring the Universality of Hadronic Jet Classification

The modeling of jet substructure significantly differs between Parton Shower Monte Carlo (PSMC) programs. Despite this, we observe that machine learning classifiers trained on different PSMCs learn nearly the same function. This means that when these classifiers are applied to the same PSMC for testing, they result in nearly the same performance. This classifier universality indicates that a machine learning model trained on one simulation and tested on another simulation (or data) will likely be optimal. Our observations are based on detailed studies of shallow and deep neural networks applied to simulated Lorentz boosted Higgs jet tagging at the LHC.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, 7 table