Stationary states and quantum quench dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in a double-well potential

We consider the properties of stationary states and the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in a double-well (DW) potential with pair tunneling by using a full quantum-mechanical treatment. Furthermore, we study the quantum quench dynamics of the DW system subjected to a sudden change of the Peierls phase. It is shown that strong pair tunneling evidently influences the energy spectrum structure of the stationary states. For relatively weak repulsive interatomic interactions, the dynamics of the DW system with a maximal initial population difference evolves from Josephson oscillations to quantum self-trapping as one increases the pair tunneling strength, while for large repulsion the strong pair tunneling inhibits the quantum self-trapping. In the case of attractive interatomic interactions, strong pair tunneling tends to destroy the Josephson oscillations and quantum self-trapping, and the system eventually enters a symmetric regime of zero population difference. Finally, the effect of the Peierls phase on the quantum quench dynamics of the system is analyzed and discussed. These new features are remarkably different from the usual dynamical behaviors of a BEC in a DW potential.Comment: 9 pages,7 figures,accepted for publication in Journal of Physics

TIDE: adjuvant tislelizumab plus donafenib combined with transarterial chemoembolization for high-risk hepatocellular carcinoma after surgery: protocol for a prospective, single-arm, phase II trial

BackgroundThe high recurrence rate of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after surgery negatively affects the prognosis of patients. There is currently no widely accepted adjuvant therapy strategy for patients with HCC. A clinical study of effective adjuvant therapy is still needed.MethodsIn this prospective, single-arm, phase II clinical trial, an adjuvant regimen of donafenib plus tislelizumab combined with transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) will be used to treat enrolled HCC patients after surgery. Briefly, patients newly diagnosed with HCC by pathological examination who underwent curative resection and had a single tumor more than 5 cm in diameter with microvascular invasion as detected by pathological examination are eligible. The primary endpoint of the study is the recurrence-free survival (RFS) rate at 3 years, and secondary endpoints are the overall survival (OS) rate and the incidence of adverse events (AEs). The planned sample size, 32 patients, was calculated to permit the accumulation of sufficient RFS events in 3 years to achieve 90% power for the RFS primary endpoint.DiscussionVascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) pathways regulate the relevant immunosuppressive mechanisms of HCC recurrence. Our trial will evaluate the clinical benefit of adding donafenib plus tislelizumab to TACE in patients with early-stage HCC and a high risk of recurrence.Clinical trial registrationwww.chictr.org.cn, identifier ChiCTR2200063003

Identification of differentially expressed HERV-K(HML-2) loci in colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer is one of the malignant tumors with the highest mortality rate in the world. Survival rates vary significantly among patients at various stages of the disease. A biomarker capable of early diagnosis is required to facilitate the early detection and treatment of colorectal cancer. Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are abnormally expressed in various diseases, including cancer, and have been involved in cancer development. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to detect the transcript levels of HERV-K(HML-2) gag, pol, and env in colorectal cancer to systematically investigate the connection between HERV-K(HML-2) and colorectal cancer. The results showed that HERV-K(HML-2) transcript expression was significantly higher than healthy controls and was consistent at the population and cell levels. We also used next-generation sequencing to identify and characterize HERV-K(HML-2) loci that were differentially expressed between colorectal cancer patients and healthy individuals. The analysis revealed that these loci were concentrated in immune response signaling pathways, implying that HERV-K impacts the tumor-associated immune response. Our results indicated that HERV-K might serve as a screening tumor marker and a target for tumor immunotherapy in colorectal cancer

Aggregation-Induced Emission (AIE), Life and Health

Light has profoundly impacted modern medicine and healthcare, with numerous luminescent agents and imaging techniques currently being used to assess health and treat diseases. As an emerging concept in luminescence, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) has shown great potential in biological applications due to its advantages in terms of brightness, biocompatibility, photostability, and positive correlation with concentration. This review provides a comprehensive summary of AIE luminogens applied in imaging of biological structure and dynamic physiological processes, disease diagnosis and treatment, and detection and monitoring of specific analytes, followed by representative works. Discussions on critical issues and perspectives on future directions are also included. This review aims to stimulate the interest of researchers from different fields, including chemistry, biology, materials science, medicine, etc., thus promoting the development of AIE in the fields of life and health

Nonstationary Analysis for Bivariate Distribution of Flood Variables in the Ganjiang River Using Time-Varying Copula

Nonstationarity of univariate flood series has been widely studied, while nonstationarity of some multivariate flood series, such as discharge, water stage, and suspended sediment concentrations, has been studied rarely. This paper presents a procedure for using the time-varying copula model to describe the nonstationary dependence structures of two correlated flood variables from the same flood event. In this study, we focus on multivariate flood event consisting of peak discharge (Q), peak water stage (Z) and suspended sediment load (S) during the period of 1964–2013 observed at the Waizhou station in the Ganjiang River, China. The time-varying copula model is employed to analyze bivariate distributions of two flood pairs of (Z-Q) and (Z-S). The main channel elevation (MCE) and the forest coverage rate (FCR) of the basin are introduced as the candidate explanatory variables for modelling the nonstationarities of both marginal distributions and dependence structure of copula. It is found that the marginal distributions for both Z and S are nonstationary, whereas the marginal distribution for Q is stationary. In particular, the mean of Z is related to MCE, and the mean and variance of S are related to FCR. Then, time-varying Frank copula with MCE as the covariate has the best performance in fitting the dependence structures of both Z-Q and Z-S. It is indicated that the dependence relationships are strengthen over time associated with the riverbed down-cutting. Finally, the joint and conditional probabilities of both Z-Q and Z-S obtained from the best fitted bivariate copula indicate that there are obvious nonstationarity of their bivariate distributions. This work is helpful to understand how human activities affect the bivariate flood distribution, and therefore provides supporting information for hydraulic structure designs under the changing environments

The effect of switch therapy to tenofovir versus entecavir maintenance on recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma after surgery (SWITE): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Abstract Background Antiviral therapy has been reported to be associated with lower recurrence rate of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) for patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. While entecavir (ETV) and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) were both recommended as first-line therapies for HBV patients, recent retrospective studies proposed a lower incidence rate of HCC occurrence or recurrence in those receiving TDF compared ETV. However, the survival benefits of switching to TDF therapy after prolonged ETV treatment before surgery remain uncertain. We delineate the rationale and design of SWITE, a randomized, open-label, phase III trial contrasting TDF switch therapy versus ETV maintenance in HBV-related HCC patients. Methods and analysis This is a prospective, randomized, controlled, single-center study with two parallel groups of patients with HBV-related HCC who have received long-term ETV therapy before surgery. West China Hospital will enroll 238 patients, randomized in a 1:1 ratio to TDF switch therapy or ETV maintenance after surgery. The primary endpoint of this study is 3-year recurrence free survival (RFS), with the secondary endpoint being 3-year overall survival (OS) after curative surgery of HCC. Safety events will be diligently recorded. Ethics and dissemination The study protocol aligns with the ethical guidelines of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki. It was approved by ethics committee of West China Hospital (approval number: 2022-074) and was registered with chictr.org.cn (chiCTR2200057867). Informed consent will be obtained from all participants. The results of this trial will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at national and international conferences relevant to this topic. Trial registration chiCTR2200057867 . Date of registration is March 20 2022

The efficacy and safety of lenvatinib plus transarterial chemoembolization in combination with PD-1 antibody in treatment of unresectable recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma: a case series report

PurposeTo explore the safety and efficacy of lenvatinib in combination with trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE) and programmed death receptor 1 (PD-1) antibody in the treatment of unresectable recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma (urHCC).Patients and methodsThe clinical data of 16 patients with unresectable recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma admitted to the Department of Liver Surgery and Liver Transplantation Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, and received the conversion therapy of lenvatinib + TACE + PD-1 antibody between January 2019 and January 2022 were retrospectively analyzed.ResultsThere were 25% (4/16) patients suffering from grade 3 adverse events and no patients suffering from grade 4 or higher adverse events. After 4 months of treatment of 16 patients, according to the modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (mRECIST), two, five, three, and six cases were in complete response (CR), partial response (PR), stable disease (SD), and progressive disease (PD), respectively, and the objective response rate (ORR) was 43.8% (7/16). The 1-year overall survival (OS) rate and 1-year progression-free survival (PFS) rate were 86.2% and 46.9%, respectively. In our subgroup analysis, the ORR of patients with multiple lesions reached up to 60%, which was higher than that of patients with single lesions.ConclusionsLenvatinib in combination with TACE and PD-1 antibody is safe and effective in the treatment of unresectable recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma

Design sparse features for age estimation using hierarchical face model

A key point in automatic age estimation is to design feature set essential to age perception. To achieve this goal, this paper builds up a hierarchical graphical face model for faces appearing at low, middle and high resolution respectively. Along the hierarchy, a face image is decomposed into detailed parts from coarse to fine. Then four types of features are extracted from this graph representation guided by the priors of aging process embedded in the graphical model: topology, geometry, photometry and configuration. On age estimation, this paper follows the popular regression formulation for mapping feature vectors to its age label. The effectiveness of the presented feature set is justified by testing results on two datasets using different kinds of regression methods. The experimental results in this paper show that designing feature set for age estimation under the guidance of hierarchical face model is a promising method and a flexible framework as well. 1

Research on the decision support system for optimal operation of large reservoir power generation

In order to give full play to the efficiency of power generation and improve the utilization rate of water resources, the optimal operation of reservoir power generation has become one of the hot researches by the experts and scholars. Luntan Key Water-Control Project is taken as an example, which gives consideration to the comprehensive benefits of flood control and power generation. Based on building both the mathematical models of flood pre-release control and the medium-long term power generation, a decision support system with fast online optimization is developed by using SOA architecture and J2EE technology. The results show the system can improve the operation level of the reservoir power generation, reduce effectively the water abandoning rate, realize the scientific optimal operation, provide scientific basis for the management decision, and create more comprehensive benefits