Magnetic dichroism study on Mn1.8_{1.8}Co1.2_{1.2}Ga thin film using a combination of X-ray absorption and photoemission spectroscopy

Using circularly polarised radiation and a combination of bulk-sensitive hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray-absorption spectroscopy (XAS) we studied the electronic and magnetic structure of epitaxial Mn$_{1.8}$Co$_{1.2}$Ga thin films. Spin resolved Bloch spectral functions, density of states as well as charge and magnetisation densities were investigated by a first-principles analysis of full potential, fully relativistic Korringa--Kohn--Rostoker calculations of the electronic structure. The valence states were experimentally investigated by using linear dichroism in the angular distribution and comparing the results to spin-resolved densities of states. The linear dichroism in the valence band enabled a symmetry analysis of the contributing states. The spectra were in good agreement with the theoretical partial density of states. The element-specific, spin-resolved, unoccupied densities of states for Co and Mn were analysed by using XAS and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) at the $L_{3,2}$ edges. The spectra were influenced by strong correlation effects. XMCD was used to extract the site resolved magnetic moments. The experimental values of $m_{\rm Mn}=0.7\:\mu_B$ and $m_{\rm Co}=1.05\:\mu_B$ agree very well with the calculated magnetic moments. Magnetic circular dichroism in angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy at the Mn and Co $2p$ core level exhibited a pronounced magnetic dichroism and confirmed the localised character of the Mn $d$ valence states

Physics-informed convolutional neural network with bicubic spline interpolation for sound field estimation

A sound field estimation method based on a physics-informed convolutional neural network (PICNN) using spline interpolation is proposed. Most of the sound field estimation methods are based on wavefunction expansion, making the estimated function satisfy the Helmholtz equation. However, these methods rely only on physical properties; thus, they suffer from a significant deterioration of accuracy when the number of measurements is small. Recent learning-based methods based on neural networks have advantages in estimating from sparse measurements when training data are available. However, since physical properties are not taken into consideration, the estimated function can be a physically infeasible solution. We propose the application of PICNN to the sound field estimation problem by using a loss function that penalizes deviation from the Helmholtz equation. Since the output of CNN is a spatially discretized pressure distribution, it is difficult to directly evaluate the Helmholtz-equation loss function. Therefore, we incorporate bicubic spline interpolation in the PICNN framework. Experimental results indicated that accurate and physically feasible estimation from sparse measurements can be achieved with the proposed method.Comment: Accepted to International Workshop on Acoustic Signal Enhancement (IWAENC) 202

Electronic structures of B-2p and C-2p of boron-doped diamond film by soft X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy

X-ray absorption (XAS) and emission (XES) spectroscopy near B-K and C-K edges have been performed on metallic (~1at%B, B-diamond) and semiconducting (~0.1at%B and N, BN-diamond) doped-diamond films. Both B-K XAS and XES spectra shows metallic partial density of state (PDOS) with the Fermi energy of 185.3 eV, and there is no apparent boron-concentration dependence in contrast to the different electric property. In C-K XAS spectrum of B-diamond, the impurity state ascribed to boron is clearly observed near the Fermi level. The Fermi energy is found to be almost same with the top of the valence band of non-doped diamond, E_V, 283.9 eV. C-K XAS of BN-diamond shows both the B-induced shallow level and N-induced deep-and-broad levels as the in-gap states, in which the shallow level is in good agreement with the activation energy (E_a=0.37 eV) estimated from the temperature dependence of the conductivity, namely the change in C-2p PDOS of impurity-induced metallization is directly observed. The electric property of this diamond is mainly ascribed to the electronic structure of C-2p near the Fermi level. The observed XES spectra are compared with the DVX-alpha cluster calculation. The DVX-alpha result supports the strong hybridization between B-2p and C-2p observed in XAS and XES spectra, and suggests that the small amount of borons (<1at%) in diamond occupy the substitutional site rather than interstitial site.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. B, 5 pages and 5 figure

HER2 G776S mutation promotes oncogenic potential in colorectal cancer cells when accompanied by loss of APC function

Clinical cancer genome sequencing detects oncogenic variants that are potential targets for cancer treatment, but it also detects variants of unknown significance. These variants may interact with each other to influence tumor pathophysiology, however, such interactions have not been fully elucidated. Additionally, the effect of target therapy for those variants also unclarified. In this study, we investigated the biological functions of a HER2 mutation (G776S mutation) of unknown pathological significance, which was detected together with APC mutation by cancer genome sequencing of samples from a colorectal cancer (CRC) patient. Transfection of the HER2 G776S mutation alone slightly increased the kinase activity and phosphorylation of HER2 protein, but did not activate HER2 downstream signaling or alter the cell phenotype. On the other hand, the HER2 G776S mutation was shown to have strong oncogenic potential when loss of APC function was accompanied. We revealed that loss of APC function increased Wnt pathway activity but also increased RAS-GTP, which increased ERK phosphorylation triggered by HER2 G776S transfection. In addition, afatinib, a pan-HER tyrosine kinase inhibitor, suppressed tumor growth in xenografts derived from HER2 G776S-transfected CRC cells. These findings suggest that this HER2 mutation in CRC may be a potential therapeutic target

Impact of neoadjuvant intensity-modulated radiation therapy on borderline resectable pancreatic cancer with arterial abutment; a prospective, open-label, phase II study in a single institution

BACKGROUND: Borderline resectable pancreatic cancer (BRPC) is a category of pancreatic cancer that is anatomically widely spread, and curative resection is uncommon with upfront surgery. Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is a form of radiation therapy that delivers precise radiation to a tumor while minimizing the dose to surrounding normal tissues. Here, we conducted a phase 2 study to estimate the curability and efficacy of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy using IMRT (NACIMRT) for patients with BRPC with arterial abutment (BRPC-A). METHODS: A total of 49 BRPC-A patients were enrolled in this study and were treated at our hospital according to the study protocol between June 2013 and March 2021. The primary endpoint was microscopically margin-negative resection (R0) rates and we subsequently analyzed safety, histological effect of the treatment as well as survivals among patients with NACIMRT. RESULTS: Twenty-nine patients (59.2%) received pancreatectomy after NACIMRT. The R0 rate in resection patients was 93.1% and that in the whole cohort was 55.1%. No mortality was encountered. Local therapeutic effects as assessed by Evans classification showed good therapeutic effect (Grade 1, 3.4%; Grade 2a, 31.0%; Grade 2b, 48.3%; Grade 3, 3.4%; Grade 4, 3.4%). Median disease-free survival was 15.5 months. Median overall survival in the whole cohort was 35.1 months. The only independent prognostic pre-NACIMRT factor identified was serum carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) > 400 U/ml before NACIMRT. CONCLUSIONS: NACIMRT showed preferable outcome without significant operative morbidity for BRPC-A patients. NACIMRT contributes to good local tumor control, but a high initial serum CA19-9 implies poor prognosis even after neoadjuvant treatment. TRIAL REGISTRATION: UMIN-CTR Clinical Trial: https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr_e/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000011776 Registration number: UMIN000010113. Date of first registration: 01/03/2013

Conversion to complete resection with mFOLFOX6 with bevacizumab or cetuximab based on K‐RAS status for unresectable colorectal liver metastasis (BECK study): Long‐term results of survival

[Background/Purpose]To investigate the long‐term outcome and entire treatment course of patients with technically unresectable CRLM who underwent conversion hepatectomy and to examine factors associated with conversion to hepatectomy. [Methods]Recurrence and survival data with long‐term follow‐up were analyzed in the cohort of a multi‐institutional phase II trial for technically unresectable colorectal liver metastases (the BECK study). [Results]A total of 22/12 patients with K‐RAS wild‐type/mutant tumors were treated with mFOLFOX6 + cetuximab/bevacizumab. The conversion R0/1 hepatectomy rate was significantly higher in left‐sided primary tumors than in right‐sided tumors (75.0% vs 30.0%, P = .022). The median follow‐up was 72.6 months. The 5‐year overall survival (OS) rate in the entire cohort was 48.1%. In patients who underwent R0/1 hepatectomy (n = 21), the 5‐year RFS rate and OS rate were 19.1% and 66.3%, respectively. At the final follow‐up, seven patients had no evidence of disease, five were alive with disease, and 20 had died from their original cancer. All 16 patients who achieved 5‐year survival underwent conversion hepatectomy, and 11 of them underwent further resection for other recurrences (median: 2, range: 1‐4). [Conclusions]Conversion hepatectomy achieved a similar long‐term survival to the results of previous studies in initially resectable patients, although many of them experienced several post‐hepatectomy recurrences. Left‐sided primary was found to be the predictor for conversion hepatectomy

Coincidence analysis to search for inspiraling compact binaries using TAMA300 and LISM data

Japanese laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors, TAMA300 and LISM, performed a coincident observation during 2001. We perform a coincidence analysis to search for inspiraling compact binaries. The length of data used for the coincidence analysis is 275 hours when both TAMA300 and LISM detectors are operated simultaneously. TAMA300 and LISM data are analyzed by matched filtering, and candidates for gravitational wave events are obtained. If there is a true gravitational wave signal, it should appear in both data of detectors with consistent waveforms characterized by masses of stars, amplitude of the signal, the coalescence time and so on. We introduce a set of coincidence conditions of the parameters, and search for coincident events. This procedure reduces the number of fake events considerably, by a factor $\sim 10^{-4}$ compared with the number of fake events in single detector analysis. We find that the number of events after imposing the coincidence conditions is consistent with the number of accidental coincidences produced purely by noise. We thus find no evidence of gravitational wave signals. We obtain an upper limit of 0.046 /hours (CL $= 90$) to the Galactic event rate within 1kpc from the Earth. The method used in this paper can be applied straightforwardly to the case of coincidence observations with more than two detectors with arbitrary arm directions.Comment: 28 pages, 17 figures, Replaced with the version to be published in Physical Review

Results of the search for inspiraling compact star binaries from TAMA300's observation in 2000-2004

We analyze the data of TAMA300 detector to search for gravitational waves from inspiraling compact star binaries with masses of the component stars in the range 1-3Msolar. In this analysis, 2705 hours of data, taken during the years 2000-2004, are used for the event search. We combine the results of different observation runs, and obtained a single upper limit on the rate of the coalescence of compact binaries in our Galaxy of 20 per year at a 90% confidence level. In this upper limit, the effect of various systematic errors such like the uncertainty of the background estimation and the calibration of the detector's sensitivity are included.Comment: 8 pages, 4 Postscript figures, uses revtex4.sty The author list was correcte

Characterization of the Soybean Genome Using EST-derived Microsatellite Markers

We generated a high-density genetic linkage map of soybean using expressed sequence tag (EST)-derived microsatellite markers. A total of 6920 primer pairs (10.9%) were designed to amplify simple sequence repeats (SSRs) from 63 676 publicly available non-redundant soybean ESTs. The polymorphism of two parent plants, the Japanese cultivar ‘Misuzudaizu’ and the Chinese line ‘Moshidou Gong 503’, were examined using 10% polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Primer pairs showing polymorphism were then used for genotyping 94 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from a cross between the parents. In addition to previously reported markers, 680 EST-derived microsatellite markers were selected and subjected to linkage analysis. As a result, 935 marker loci were mapped successfully onto 20 linkage groups, which totaled 2700.3 cM in length; 693 loci were detected using the 668 EST-derived microsatellite markers developed in this study, the other 242 loci were detected with 105 RFLP markers, 136 genome-derived microsatellite markers, and one phenotypic marker. We examined allelic variation among 23 soybean cultivars/lines and a wild soybean line using 668 mapped EST-derived microsatellite markers (corresponding to 686 marker loci), in order to determine the transferability of the markers among soybean germplasms. A limited degree of macrosynteny was observed at the segmental level between the genomes of soybean and the model legume Lotus japonicus, which suggests that considerable genome shuffling occurred after separation of the species and during establishment of the paleopolyploid soybean genome