Construction of a nomogram for preoperative prediction of the risk of lymph node metastasis in early gastric cancer

BackgroundThe status of lymph node metastasis (LNM) in patients with early gastric cancer (EGC) is particularly important for the formulation of clinical treatment. The purpose of this study was to construct a nomogram to predict the risk of LNM in EGC before operation.MethodsUnivariate analysis and logistic regression analysis were used to determine the independent risk factors for LNM. The independent risk factors were included in the nomogram, and the prediction accuracy, discriminant ability and clinical practicability of the nomogram were evaluated by the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), calibration curve and clinical decision curve (DCA), and 100 times ten-fold cross-validation was used for internal validation.Results33 (11.3%) cases of AGC were pathologically confirmed as LNM. In multivariate analysis, T stage, presence of enlarged lymph nodes on CT examination, carbohydrate antigen 199 (CA199), undifferentiated histological type and systemic inflammatory response index (SIRI) were risk factors for LNM. The area under the ROC curve of the nomogram was 0.86, the average area under the ROC curve of the 100-fold ten-fold cross-validation was 0.85, and the P value of the Hosmer-Lemeshow test was 0.60. In addition, the clinical decision curve, net reclassification index (NRI) and Integrated Discriminant Improvement Index (IDI) showed that the nomogram had good clinical utility.ConclusionsWe found that SIRI is a novel biomarker for preoperative prediction of LNM in EGC, and constructed a nomogram for preoperative prediction of the risk of LNM in EGC, which is helpful for the formulation of the clinical treatment strategies

A Preliminary Study of Laser Directional Solidification for Potential Use in the Repair of Damaged Aviation Turbine Blades

To achieve directional solidification repair of damaged aviation turbine blades, the directional growth repair layer was prepared using a Nd:YAG laser on the surface of superalloy DZ-22. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to observe the microstructure. The element distribution was analyzed and the microhardness of the sample was measured. The results showed that primary dendrite size was proportional to the current and the pulse-width, and inversely proportional to the scanning speed. No obvious macrosegregation of the repair zone was evident. The zone exhibited a finer microstructure than the substrate and had a smaller columnar crystal size, which was approximately two orders of magnitude smaller than the substrate. The micro-segregation between the centers and the edges of the dendrites and in between adjacent dendrites and a decrease in microhardness from the repair zone (455 HV) to the substrate also were observed

InGaZnO thin-film transistors with coplanar control gates for single-device logic applications

Neuron thin-film transistors (TFTs) with coplanar control gates based on RF sputtering-deposited amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) layer are fabricated. Two coplanar control gates, capacitively coupled with the floating gate, can effectively control the neutron TFT. The drain current of the TFT can be controlled by the logic states (and the voltage magnitude) of the control gates, which is attributed to the modulation of an electron accumulation region in the IGZO channel layer. The neuron TFT can produce three output states, which could be used to implement an abacuslike counting scheme. It can also be used to implement the OR and AND logic functions on the same device.ASTAR (Agency for Sci., Tech. and Research, S’pore)MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore

The Effect of Measurement Uncertainty and Environment on Domestic Solar Water Heating Systems’ Energy Efficiency Grades

AbstractIn China, two important national standards were implemented on Aug 1st, 2012, one is ‘Specification of domestic solar water heating systems’ (GB/T 19141-2011), the other is ‘Minimum allowable values of energy efficiency and energy efficiency grades for domestic solar water heating systems’ (GB 26969-2011). According to these two standards, the energy efficiency grades indicator CTP (coefficient of thermal performance) should be tested and calculated by daily useful energy and average heat loss factor of domestic solar heating system. Through experiment and calculation, the effect of measurement uncertainty and daily average ambient temperature on the migration of domestic solar water heating systems’ (DSWHS) energy efficiency grades was discussed. The calculation and analysis methods may be helpful for data consistency co-verfication between different inspection organizations

Resistive switching in p-type nickel oxide/n-type indium gallium zinc oxide thin film heterojunction structure

We report a p-type nickel oxide/n-type indium gallium zinc oxide (p-NiO/n-IGZO) thin film heterojunction structure for resistive switching memory application. The as-fabricated structure exhibits the normal p-n junction behaviors with good rectification characteristic. The structure is turned into a bipolar resistive switching memory by a forming process in which the p-n junction is reversely biased. The device shows good memory performances; and it has the capability of multibit storage, which can be realized by controlling the compliance current or reset stop voltage during the switching operation. The mechanisms for both the forming process and bipolar resistive switching are discussed; and the current conduction at the low- and high-resistance states are examined in terms of temperature dependence of the current-voltage characteristic of the structure.NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore)ASTAR (Agency for Sci., Tech. and Research, S’pore)MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore

Histologic appearance of the mouse joints after exposure to WBV.

(A) Representative coronal sections of the knee joint, stained with Safranin O/fast green from the mice, exposed to WBV for 4 weeks and the untreated sham controls. Images are oriented with the femoral condyle on top, and the tibial plateau on the bottom. Damage to cartilage was detected within the joint in all the mice that underwent DMM surgery, regardless of whether they were exposed to 4 weeks of WBV. The mouse model of OA exposed to WBV showed more severely deteriorated cartilage than the OA model with sham WBV. No obvious damage was detected in the control mice with sham DMM. (B) Knee joints were scored using the OARSI scoring system to quantify the degree of joint degeneration, and the mean maximum OARSI scores are presented corresponding to the medial articular surface. The mice exposed to 4 weeks of WBV had obvious degeneration, compared with the mice in the sham DMM group and DMM group that were age-matched and not treated with WBV.(n = 6). Data are expressed as the mean ± SD.*PP<0.01.</p