Clinical Observation of Erlotinib in the Treatment of Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer: A Report of 92 Eases

Background and objective Erlotinib, a selective inhibitor of epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase, has been approved effective in local advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of erlotinib for the treatment of advanced NSCLC. Methods Ninety-two patients with advanced NSCLC who had failed or not tolerated or refused chemotherapy received 150 mg oral doses of erlotinib once daily until the disease progression or intolerable toxicity. Results Among the 92 NSCLC patients, 2 patient got complete response (2.2%), 22 partial response (23.9%), 48 stable disease (52.2%) and 20 progressive disease (21.7%). The overall response rate and the disease controlled rate of erlotinib was 26.1% (24/92) and 78.3% (72/92), respectively. The response rate of erlotinib were significantly higher in rash and ECOG 0-1 than no rash and ECOG ≥ 2. The disease controlled rate of erlotinib was significantly higher in female and non-smokers than male and smokers (P < 0.05). The response rate of erlotinib did not show significant differences within pathological type or previous treatment. The most common side effects were rash and diarrhea with 84.8% and 31.5%, respectively, but usually were mild. Conclusion Erlotinib is effective and safe in the treatment of advanced NSCLC patients

Highly Selective Transformation of Biomass Derivatives to Valuable Chemicals by Single-Atom Photocatalyst Ni/TiO2

Selective C-C cleavage of the biomass derivative glycerol under mild conditions has been recognised as a promising yet challenging synthesis route to produce value-added chemicals. Here, a highly selective catalyst is presented for the transformation of glycerol to the high-value product glycolaldehyde, which is composed of nickel single atoms confined to the titanium dioxide surface. Driven by light, the catalyst operates under ambient conditions using air as a green oxidant. The optimised catalyst shows a selectivity of over 60% to glycolaldehyde, resulting in 1058 μmol·gCat -1 ·h-1 production rate, and nearly 3 times higher turnover number than NiOx nanoparticle-decorated TiO2 photocatalyst. Diverse operando and in-situ spectroscopies (including operando XANES, in-situ XPS, O2 -TPD, EXAFS, etc.) unveil the unique function of the Ni single atom, which can significantly promote oxygen adsorption, work as an electron sink and accelerate the production of superoxide radicals, thereby improving the selectivity towards glycolaldehyde over other by-products. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

On Fatigue Detection for Air Traffic Controllers Based on Fuzzy Fusion of Multiple Features

Fatigue detection for air traffic controllers is an important yet challenging problem in aviation safety research. Most of the existing methods for this problem are based on facial features. In this paper, we propose an ensemble learning model that combines both facial features and voice features and design a fatigue detection method through multifeature fusion, referred to as Facial and Voice Stacking (FV-Stacking). Specifically, for facial features, we first use OpenCV and Dlib libraries to extract mouth and eye areas and then employ a combination of M-Convolutional Neural Network (M-CNN) and E-Convolutional Neural Network (E-CNN) to determine the state of mouth and eye closure based on five features, i.e., blinking times, average blinking time, average blinking interval, Percentage of Eyelid Closure over the Pupil over Time (PERCLOS), and Frequency of Open Mouth (FOM). For voice features, we extract the Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) features of speech. Such facial features and voice features are fused through a carefully designed stacking model for fatigue detection. Real-life experiments are conducted on 14 air traffic controllers in Southwest Air Traffic Management Bureau of Civil Aviation of China. The results show that the proposed FV-Stacking method achieves a detection accuracy of 97%, while the best accuracy achieved by a single model is 92% and the best accuracy achieved by the state-of-the-art detection methods is 88%

Bone Mineral Density of the Spine in 11,898 Chinese Infants and Young Children: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Bone mineral density (BMD) increases progressively during childhood and adolescence and is affected by various genetic and environmental factors. The aim of this study was to establish reference values for lumbar BMD in healthy Chinese infants and young children and investigate its influencing factors. Methods and Findings: Healthy children aged 0 to 3 years who underwent regular physical examinations at the Child Health Care Clinic of Hubei Maternal and Child Health Hospital (N = 11,898) were recruited for this study. We also chose 379 preterm infants aged 0 to 1 years to preliminarily explore the development of BMD in this special population. BMD (g/cm2) measurements of the lumbar spine (L2–L4) were carried out with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and a questionnaire was administered to full-term children's parents to gather information on various nutritional and lifestyle factors as well as mothers' nutritional supplement use during pregnancy. Lumbar BMD significantly increased with age among both boys and girls (p0.05), either among healthy reference children or preterm infants. However, BMD values in preterm infants were significantly lower than those in term infants 3 to 8 months old (p<0.05) after adjustment for gestational age. Multivariable linear regression analysis indicated significant positive associations between lumbar BMD of healthy children and the child's age and current weight, mother's weight gain during pregnancy, birth weight, children's outdoor activity duration and children's physical activity duration. Conclusion: Our study provides reference values of lumbar BMD for healthy Chinese children aged 0 to 3 years and identifies several influencing factors

Proteomics analysis reveals differentially activated pathways that operate in peanut gynophores at different developmental stages

Specific proteins identified in S3 gynophores. (XLS 91 kb

CoAl2O4/Kaoline Hybrid Pigment Prepared via Solid-Phase Method for Anticorrosion Application

In this study, kaoline is incorporated to prepare CoAl2O4/kaoline hybrid pigments via traditional solid-state reaction, and the introduction of kaoline decreases the preparation temperature for formation of spinel CoAl2O4, and reduces the production cost of cobalt blue as well. More importantly, kaoline may participate in the crystallization of spinel CoAl2O4 during calcining process, and the hybrid pigments prepared using 8.1% Co3O4 and 81.5% kaoline features bright blue and good chemical resistance. Due to the synergistic effect between the sheet-like kaoline and the loaded CoAl2O4, the as-prepared CoAl2O4/kaoline hybrid pigments can be incorporated into epoxy paint system to obtain the high-performance blue anticorrosion coating, especially for acetic acid-salt fog corrosion

In-situ synthesis of single-atom Ir by utilizing metal-organic frameworks: An acid-resistant catalyst for hydrogenation of levulinic acid to γ-valerolactone

The hydrogenation of levulinic acid (LA) to gamma-valerolactone (GVL) is a key reaction for the production of renewable chemicals and fuels, wherein acid-resistant and robust catalysts are highly desired for practical usage. Herein, an ultra-stable 0.6 wt% Ir@ZrO2@C single-atom catalyst was prepared via an in-situ synthesis approach during the assembly of UiO-66, followed by confined pyrolysis. The Ir@ZrO2@C offered not only a quantitative LA conversion and an excellent GVL selectivity (>99%), but also an unprecedented stability during recycling runs under harsh conditions (at T= 453 K, P-H2 = 40 bar in pH = 3 or pH =1 aqueous solution). By thorough spectroscopy characterizations, a well-defined structure of atomically dispersed Ir delta+ atoms onto nano-tetragonal ZrO2 confined in the amorphous carbon was identified for the Ir@ZrO2@C. The strong metal-support interaction and the confinement of the amorphous carbon account for the ultra-stability of the Ir@ZrO2@C. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Fabrication of CMC-g-PAM Superporous Polymer Monoliths via Eco-Friendly Pickering-MIPEs for Superior Adsorption of Methyl Violet and Methylene Blue

A series of superporous carboxymethylcellulose-graft-poly(acrylamide)/palygorskite (CMC-g-PAM/Pal) polymer monoliths presenting interconnected pore structure and excellent adsorption properties were prepared by one-step free-radical grafting polymerization reaction of CMC and acrylamide (AM) in the oil-in-water (O/W) Pickering-medium internal phase emulsions (Pickering-MIPEs) composed of non-toxic edible oil as a dispersion phase and natural Pal nanorods as stabilizers. The effects of Pal dosage, AM dosage, and co-surfactant Tween-20 (T-20) on the pore structures of the monoliths were studied. It was revealed that the well-defined pores were formed when the dosages of Pal and T-20 are 9–14 and 3%, respectively. The porous monolith can rapidly adsorb 1,585 mg/g of methyl violet (MV) and 1,625 mg/g of methylene blue (MB). After the monolith was regenerated by adsorption-desorption process for five times, the adsorption capacities still reached 92.1% (for MV) and 93.5% (for MB) of the initial maximum adsorption capacities. The adsorption process was fitted with Langmuir adsorption isotherm model and pseudo-second-order adsorption kinetic model very well, which indicate that mono-layer chemical adsorption mainly contribute to the high-capacity adsorption for dyes. The superporous polymer monolith prepared from eco-friendly Pickering-MIPEs shows good adsorption capacity and fast adsorption rate, which is potential adsorbent for the decontamination of dye-containing wastewater