Rock Mass Classification for Columnar Jointed Basalt: A Case Study of Baihetan Hydropower Station

Rock mass classification is important in preliminary design of geotechnical engineering projects. Using the columnar jointed basalt at the foundation of Baihetan Hydropower Station as an example, this paper presents a classification scheme of the columnar jointed rock. Unlike many common rock masses, an obvious characteristic of columnar jointed rock is that it is discontinuous in geometry while continuous in mechanics. Due to the inapplicability of existing rock mass classification systems, a classification scheme, combined with rock mass integrity, weak plane tightness, and permeability, is proposed. The new classification system has five grades with quantitative factors, which takes into account the features of columnar joints. As an easy-to-use scheme and case study, it would be helpful as a reference in the rock mass classification of similar problems

Global Standard Stratotype-Section and Point (GSSP) for the Base of the Jiangshanian Stage (Cambrian: Furongian) at Duibian, Jiangshan, Zhejiang, Southeast China

The International Commission on Stratigraphy and the IUGS Executive Committee have recently approved a Global Standard Stratotype-section and Point (GSSP) defining the base of the second stage of the Furongian Series, Cambrian System. This stage is named the Jiangshanian Stage, after Jiangshan City, western Zhejiang Province, China, where the GSSP is located. The GSSP is exposed in a natural outcrop near Duibian Village. It is defined at the base of a limestone (wackestone) layer 108.12 m above the base of the Huayansi Formation in the Duibian B section, coinciding with the first appearance of the cosmopolitan agnostoid trilobite Agnostotes orientalis (base of the A. orientalis Zone). The GSSP is at a position of 28 degrees 48.977'N latitude and 118 degrees 36.887 'E longitude. Secondary global markers at or near the base of the stage include the first appearance of the cosmopolitan polymerid trilobite Irvingella angustilimbata, which coincides with the FAD of the primary marker in the stratotype section, and near the end of a large positive carbon isotopic excursion (SPICE excursion). Faunal turnovers close to the base of the Jiangshanian Stage have been recognized as being at the base of the Iverian Stage in Australia, the Gonggrian Stage in Korea, and the Agnostotes orientalis Irvingella perfecta Zone in Siberia, and near the base of the Aksayan Stage in Kazakhstan, the Sunwaptan Stage in Laurentia, and the Parabolina brevispina Zone in Baltica

High-affinity human programmed death-1 ligand-1 variant promotes redirected T cells to kill tumor cells

Tumor cells can escape immune surveillance through the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) axis suppressing T cells. However, we recently demonstrated that high-affinity variants of soluble human programmed death-ligand 1 (shPD-L1) could diminish the suppression. We propose that in comparison to the wild-type shPD-L1, the further affinity enhancement will confer the molecule with opposite characteristics that augment T-cell activation and immunotherapeutic drug potential. In this study, a new shPD-L1 variant, L3C7c, has been generated to demonstrate 167 fold greater affinity than wild-type hPD-Ll. The L3C7c-Fc fusion protein demonstrated completely opposite effects of conventional PD-1 axis by promoting redirected T-cell proliferation, activation and cytotoxicity in vitro, as being slightly better than that of anti-PD1-Ab (Pembrolizumab). Moreover, L3C7c-Fc was more effective than Pembrolizumab in enhancing redirected T cells' ability to suppress Me1624 melanoma growth in vivo. As a downsized L3C7c-Fc variant, L3C7v-Fc improved the anti-tumor efficacy in vivo when combined with dendritic cell vaccines. In conclusion, our studies demonstrate that high-affinity hPD-L1 variants could be developed as the next generation reagents for tumor immunotherapy based on the blockade of the PD-1 axis

Combining metaphase cytogenetics with single nucleotide polymorphism arrays can improve the diagnostic yield and identify prognosis more precisely in myelodysplastic syndromes

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) encompass a group of heterogeneous haematopoietic stem cell malignancies characterised by ineffective haematopoiesis, cytological aberrations, and a propensity for progression to acute myeloid leukaemia. Diagnosis and disease prognostic stratification are much based on genomic abnormalities. The traditional metaphase cytogenetics analysis (MC) can detect about 40–60% aberrations. Single-nucleotide polymorphism arrays (SNP-A) karyotyping can detect copy number variations with a higher resolution and has a unique advantage in detection of copy number neutral loss of heterozygosity (CN-LOH). Combining these two methods may improve the diagnostic efficiency and accuracy for MDS. We retrospectively analysed the data of 110 MDS patients diagnosed from January 2012 to December 2019 to compare the detection yield of chromosomal abnormalities by MC with by SNP-A, and the relationship between chromosomal abnormalities and prognosis. Our results showed that SNP-A improved the detection yield of chromosomal aberrations compared with MC (74.5 vs. 55.5%, p 65 years, bone marrow blasts ≥5%, with acquired CN-LOH, new aberrations detected by SNP-A, TGA value > the median (81.435 Mb), higher risk by IPSS-R-MC, higher risk by IPSS-R-SNP-A all had poorer prognosis. More critically, multivariable analysis showed that age >65 years and higher risk by IPSS-R-SNP-A were independent predictors of inferior OS in MDS patients. The combination of MC and SNP-A based karyotyping can further improve the diagnostic yield and provide more precise prognostic stratification in MDS patients. However, SNP-A may not completely replace MC because of its inability to detect balanced translocation and to detect different clones. From a practical point of view, we recommend the concurrent use of SNP-A and MC in the initial karyotypic evaluation for MDS patients on diagnosis and prognosis stratification.KEY MESSAGESSNP-A based karyotyping can further improve the MDS diagnostic yield and provide more precise prognostic stratification in MDS patients.Acquired CN-LOH is a characteristic chromosomal aberration of MDS, which should be integrated to the diagnostic project of MDS.The concurrent use of SNP-A and MC in the initial karyotypic evaluation for MDS patients can be recommended. SNP-A based karyotyping can further improve the MDS diagnostic yield and provide more precise prognostic stratification in MDS patients. Acquired CN-LOH is a characteristic chromosomal aberration of MDS, which should be integrated to the diagnostic project of MDS. The concurrent use of SNP-A and MC in the initial karyotypic evaluation for MDS patients can be recommended.</p

No-reference stereoscopic image-quality metric accounting for left and right similarity map and spatial structure degradation

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Optics Letters and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OL.41.005640Blind quality assessment of 3D images is used to confront more real challenges than 2D images. In this Letter, we develop a no-reference stereoscopic image quality assessment (SIQA) model based on the proposed left and right (LR)-similarity map and structural degradation. In the proposed method, local binary pattern features are extracted from the cyclopean image that are effective for describing the distortion of 3D images. More importantly, we first propose the LR-similarity map that can indicate the stereopair quality and demonstrate that the use of LR-similarity information results in a consistent improvement in the performance. The massive experimental results on the LIVE 3D and IRCCyN IQA databases demonstrate that the designed model is strongly correlated to subjective quality evaluations and competitive to the state-of-the-art SIQA algorithms