Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutations and the Clinical Outcome in Male Smokers with Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Lung

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have been reported to be related to certain clinical characteristics (i.e., female, non-smokers with adenocarcinoma) and gefitinib responsiveness. This exploratory analysis was performed to determine the incidence of EGFR mutations in male smokers with squamous cell carcinoma, who were treated with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor, gefitinib. Sixty-nine Korean NSCLC patients were treated with gefitinib in a prospective study. For a subset of 20 male patients with squamous cell carcinoma and a history of smoking, pretreatment tumor tissue samples were obtained and analyzed for EGFR mutations (exons 18 to 21). EGFR mutations were found in 3 (15%) patients, including in-frame deletions within exon 19 (n=2) and L858R missence mutation in exon 21 (n=1). These 3 patients with EGFR mutations responded to gefitinib, whereas only one of remaining 17 patients with wild-type EGFR achieved clinical response. Trend toward longer progression-free (5.8 vs. 2.4 months; P=0.07) was noted in patients with EGFR mutations compared to those with wild-type EGFR. Although male smokers with squamous cell carcinoma have not been considered ideal candidates for gefitinib treatment, significant incidence of EGFR mutations was observed. The molecular markers should be considered to predict clinical benefits from gefitinib

Radiofrequency Ablation of Benign Thyroid Nodules and Recurrent Thyroid Cancers: Consensus Statement and Recommendations

Thermal ablation using radiofrequency is a new, minimally invasive modality employed as an alternative to surgery in patients with benign thyroid nodules and recurrent thyroid cancers. The Task Force Committee of the Korean Society of Thyroid Radiology has developed recommendations for the optimal use of radiofrequency ablation for thyroid nodules. These recommendations are based on a comprehensive analysis of the current literature, the results of multicenter studies, and expert consensus

A new strategy for enhancing imputation quality of rare variants from next-generation sequencing data via combining SNP and exome chip data

Background: Rare variants have gathered increasing attention as a possible alternative source of missing heritability. Since next generation sequencing technology is not yet cost-effective for large-scale genomic studies, a widely used alternative approach is imputation. However, the imputation approach may be limited by the low accuracy of the imputed rare variants. To improve imputation accuracy of rare variants, various approaches have been suggested, including increasing the sample size of the reference panel, using sequencing data from study-specific samples (i.e., specific populations), and using local reference panels by genotyping or sequencing a subset of study samples. While these approaches mainly utilize reference panels, imputation accuracy of rare variants can also be increased by using exome chips containing rare variants. The exome chip contains 250 K rare variants selected from the discovered variants of about 12,000 sequenced samples. If exome chip data are available for previously genotyped samples, the combined approach using a genotype panel of merged data, including exome chips and SNP chips, should increase the imputation accuracy of rare variants. Results: In this study, we describe a combined imputation which uses both exome chip and SNP chip data simultaneously as a genotype panel. The effectiveness and performance of the combined approach was demonstrated using a reference panel of 848 samples constructed using exome sequencing data from the T2D-GENES consortium and 5,349 sample genotype panels consisting of an exome chip and SNP chip. As a result, the combined approach increased imputation quality up to 11 %, and genomic coverage for rare variants up to 117.7 % (MAF < 1 %), compared to imputation using the SNP chip alone. Also, we investigated the systematic effect of reference panels on imputation quality using five reference panels and three genotype panels. The best performing approach was the combination of the study specific reference panel and the genotype panel of combined data. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that combined datasets, including SNP chips and exome chips, enhances both the imputation quality and genomic coverage of rare variants

Emergent Multifunctional Magnetic Proximity in van der Waals Layered Heterostructures

© 2022 The Authors. Advanced Science published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.Proximity effect, which is the coupling between distinct order parameters across interfaces of heterostructures, has attracted immense interest owing to the customizable multifunctionalities of diverse 3D materials. This facilitates various physical phenomena, such as spin order, charge transfer, spin torque, spin density wave, spin current, skyrmions, and Majorana fermions. These exotic physics play important roles for future spintronic applications. Nevertheless, several fundamental challenges remain for effective applications: unavoidable disorder and lattice mismatch limits in the growth process, short characteristic length of proximity, magnetic fluctuation in ultrathin films, and relatively weak spin–orbit coupling (SOC). Meanwhile, the extensive library of atomically thin, 2D van der Waals (vdW) layered materials, with unique characteristics such as strong SOC, magnetic anisotropy, and ultraclean surfaces, offers many opportunities to tailor versatile and more effective functionalities through proximity effects. Here, this paper focuses on magnetic proximity, i.e., proximitized magnetism and reviews the engineering of magnetism-related functionalities in 2D vdW layered heterostructures for next-generation electronic and spintronic devices. The essential factors of magnetism and interfacial engineering induced by magnetic layers are studied. The current limitations and future challenges associated with magnetic proximity-related physics phenomena in 2D heterostructures are further discussed.11Nsciescopu

Single-crystalline Cu2O thin films of optical quality as obtained by the oxidation of single-crystal Cu thin films at low temperature

High-quality, single-crystal-like Cu2O thin films of various thicknesses (10 nm-45 nm) were prepared at a low temperature (150 degrees C) by controlling layer-by-layer oxidation of wafer-scale Cu thin films sputtered along the (111) direction using a pure single-crystal Cu target. The cross-sectional images of the thin films reveal high crystallinity of Cu2O layers except for 60 degrees twinning in the sequential stacking order as evidenced by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, which is consistent with the absence of the photoluminescence (PL) signals arising from atomic-scale vacancies. The optical properties of our Cu2O films were investigated using temperature-dependent PL and Raman spectroscopy. All of the Cu2O thin films exhibit characteristic band-to-band transitions together with the series of yellow excitonic transitions slightly below the fundamental bandgap. The spectral locations for the PL are approximately consistent with those for the bulk counterpart. The excellent optical quality of our Cu2O was further demonstrated by significantly reduced quasi-direct transition that occurs at symmetry breaking crystal imperfection, which relaxes the stringent momentum conservation rule. We identified the three main Raman scattering modes of the Cu2O thin films, where the two forbidden modes of Gamma((1))(15) and Gamma(-)(12) + Gamma(-)(25) are resonantly allowed by the proximity of the incident photon energy to the green bandgap. We believe that our synthesis technique can be utilized for the preparation of single-crystal-like metal oxide thin films at low production temperatures with precise thickness control for the development of novel optoelectronic devices and for the exploration of the nanoscale light-matter interaction as well. (C) 2019 Author(s

X-Band GaN Power Amplifier MMIC with a Third Harmonic-Tuned Circuit

This paper presents an X-band GaN HEMT power amplifier with a third harmonic-tuned circuit for a higher power density per area and a higher power-added efficiency (PAE) using a 0.25 μm GaN HEMT process of WIN semiconductors, Inc. The optimum load impedances at the fundamental and third harmonic frequencies are extracted from load-pull simulations at the transistor’s extrinsic plane, including the drain-source capacitance and the series drain inductance. The third harmonic-tuned circuit is effectively integrated with the output matching circuit at the fundamental frequency, without complicating the whole output matching circuit. The input matching circuit uses a lossy matching scheme, which allows a good return loss and a simple LC low-pass circuit configuration. The fabricated power amplifier monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) occupies an area of 13.26 mm2, and shows a linear gain of 20 dB or more, a saturated output power of 43.2~44.7 dBm, and a PAE of 35~37% at 8.5 to 10.5 GHz

Tunable Berry curvature and transport crossover in topological Dirac semimetal KZnBi

© 2021, The Author(s).Topological Dirac semimetals have emerged as a platform to engineer Berry curvature with time-reversal symmetry breaking, which allows to access diverse quantum states in a single material system. It is of interest to realize such diversity in Dirac semimetals that provides insight on correlation between Berry curvature and quantum transport phenomena. Here, we report the transition between anomalous Hall and chiral fermion states in three-dimensional topological Dirac semimetal KZnBi, which is demonstrated by tuning the direction and flux of Berry curvature. Angle-dependent magneto-transport measurements show that both anomalous Hall resistance and positive magnetoresistance are maximized at 0° between net Berry curvature and rotational axis. We find that the unexpected crossover of anomalous Hall resistance and negative magnetoresistance suddenly occurs when the angle reaches to ~70°, indicating that Berry curvature strongly correlates with quantum transports of Dirac and chiral fermions. It would be interesting to tune Berry curvature within other quantum phases such as topological superconductivity.11Nsciescopu

Terahertz spectroscopy of antiferromagnetic resonances in YFe1-xMnxO3(0 ≤ x ≤ 0:4) across a spin reorientation transition

© 2022 AIP Publishing LLC. We have conducted a terahertz spectroscopic study of antiferromagnetic resonances in bulk orthoferrite YFe1-xMnxO3 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.4. Both the quasi-ferromagnetic resonance mode and the quasi-antiferromagnetic resonance mode in the weak ferromagnetic Γ4 phase disappear near the spin reorientation temperature, TSR, for the onset of the collinear antiferromagnetic Γ1 phase (x ≥ 0.1). Below TSR, an antiferromagnetic resonance mode emerges and exhibits a large blueshift with decreasing temperature. However, below 50 K, this mode softens considerably, and this tendency becomes stronger with Mn doping. We provide a deeper understanding of such behaviors of the antiferromagnetic resonance modes in terms of the influence of the Mn3+ ions on the magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Our results show that terahertz time-domain spectroscopy is a useful, complementary tool in tracking magnetic transitions and probing the interaction between disparate magnetic subsystems in antiferromagnetic materials with multiple ionic species.11Nsciescopu

Gapless superconductivity in Nb thin films probed by terahertz spectroscopy

Time reversal symmetry (TRS) breaking often generates exotic quantum phases in condensed matter. In superconductors, TRS breaking by an external magnetic field not only suppresses superconductivity but also leads to a novel quantum state called the gapless superconducting state. Here we show that magneto-terahertz spectroscopy provides us with a rare opportunity to access and explore the gapless superconducting state of Nb thin films. We present the complete functional form of the superconducting order parameter for an arbitrary magnetic field, for which a fully self-consistent theory is, surprisingly, yet unavailable. We observe a Lifshitz topological phase transition with a vanishing quasiparticle gap everywhere on the Fermi surface, whereas the superconducting order parameter smoothly crosses over from the gapped to the gapless regime. Our observation of the magnetic pair-breaking effects in Nb challenges traditional perturbative theories and opens a pathway to further exploring and manipulating the exotic state of gapless superconductivity. © 2023, The Author(s).11Nsciescopu