The Role of Microtubules in Pancreatic Cancer: Therapeutic Progress

Pancreatic cancer has an extremely low prognosis, which is attributable to its high aggressiveness, invasiveness, late diagnosis, and lack of effective therapies. Among all the drugs joining the fight against this type of cancer, microtubule-targeting agents are considered to be the most promising. They inhibit cancer cells although through different mechanisms such as blocking cell division, apoptosis induction, etc. Hereby, we review the functions of microtubule cytoskeletal proteins in tumor cells and comprehensively examine the effects of microtubule-targeting agents on pancreatic carcinoma

Safety and Efficacy of Exclusive Enteral Nutrition for Percutaneously Undrainable Abdominal Abscesses in Crohn’s Disease

Background. The percutaneously undrainable abdominal abscesses in Crohn’s disease (CD) are not uncommon. The treatment protocol is still under debate. This study was conducted to assess the safety and efficacy of exclusive enteral nutrition (EEN) for percutaneously undrainable abscesses in CD. Methods. A consecutive cohort of 83 CD patients with percutaneously undrainable abdominal abscesses between January 2011 and June 2015 was retrospectively analyzed. They were divided into the EEN group and the non-EEN group. Results. The cumulative surgical rate was significantly lower in the EEN group than in the non-EEN group (P=0.001). Fifteen percent patients treated with EEN avoided surgery. EEN (P=0.002) was associated with a decreased need for surgery. Previous abdominal surgery (P=0.009) and abscess diameter > 3 cm (P=0.022) were associated with an increased need for operation. EEN increased the albumin level, while decreased ESR and CRP significantly for patients requiring surgery. The risk of postoperative intra-abdominal septic complications (P=0.036) was significantly lower in the EEN group compared with the non-EEN group. Conclusions. EEN is feasible in CD patients presenting with percutaneously undrainable abdominal abscesses. It is associated with a reduction in surgical rate, optimized preoperative condition, and improved postoperative outcomes in these specific groups of patients

Methylprednisolone as Adjunct to Endovascular Thrombectomy for Large-Vessel Occlusion Stroke

Importance It is uncertain whether intravenous methylprednisolone improves outcomes for patients with acute ischemic stroke due to large-vessel occlusion (LVO) undergoing endovascular thrombectomy. Objective To assess the efficacy and adverse events of adjunctive intravenous low-dose methylprednisolone to endovascular thrombectomy for acute ischemic stroke secondary to LVO. Design, Setting, and Participants This investigator-initiated, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was implemented at 82 hospitals in China, enrolling 1680 patients with stroke and proximal intracranial LVO presenting within 24 hours of time last known to be well. Recruitment took place between February 9, 2022, and June 30, 2023, with a final follow-up on September 30, 2023.InterventionsEligible patients were randomly assigned to intravenous methylprednisolone (n = 839) at 2 mg/kg/d or placebo (n = 841) for 3 days adjunctive to endovascular thrombectomy. Main Outcomes and Measures The primary efficacy outcome was disability level at 90 days as measured by the overall distribution of the modified Rankin Scale scores (range, 0 [no symptoms] to 6 [death]). The primary safety outcomes included mortality at 90 days and the incidence of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage within 48 hours. Results Among 1680 patients randomized (median age, 69 years; 727 female [43.3%]), 1673 (99.6%) completed the trial. The median 90-day modified Rankin Scale score was 3 (IQR, 1-5) in the methylprednisolone group vs 3 (IQR, 1-6) in the placebo group (adjusted generalized odds ratio for a lower level of disability, 1.10 [95% CI, 0.96-1.25]; P = .17). In the methylprednisolone group, there was a lower mortality rate (23.2% vs 28.5%; adjusted risk ratio, 0.84 [95% CI, 0.71-0.98]; P = .03) and a lower rate of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (8.6% vs 11.7%; adjusted risk ratio, 0.74 [95% CI, 0.55-0.99]; P = .04) compared with placebo. Conclusions and Relevance Among patients with acute ischemic stroke due to LVO undergoing endovascular thrombectomy, adjunctive methylprednisolone added to endovascular thrombectomy did not significantly improve the degree of overall disability.Trial RegistrationChiCTR.org.cn Identifier: ChiCTR210005172

L2-Gain-Based Practical Stabilization of an Underactuated Surface Vessel

To obtain a stabilizer for an underactuated surface vessel with disturbances, an L2-gain design is proposed. Surge, sway, and yaw motions are considered in the dynamics of a surface ship. To ob-tain a robust adaptive controller, a diffeomorphism transformation and the Lyapunov function are employed in controller design. Two auxiliary controllers are introduced for an equivalent sys-tem after the diffeomorphism transformation. Different from the commonly used disturbance ob-server-based approach, the L2-gain design is used to suppress random uncertain disturbances in ship dynamics. To evaluate the controller performance in suppressing disturbances, two error sig-nals are defined in which the variables to be stabilized are incorporated. Both time-invariant dis-continuous and continuous feedback laws are proposed to obtain the control system. Stability analysis and simulation results demonstrate the validity of the controllers proposed. A comparison with a sliding mode controller is performed, and the results prove the advantage of the proposed controller in terms of faster convergence rate and chattering avoidance

A Moderated Mediation Model of Academic Supervisor Developmental Feedback and Postgraduate Student Creativity: Evidence from China

Academic supervisors plays a significant role in the cultivation of postgraduate students, but little is known about how academic supervisor feedback affects their creativity. This study hypothesizes and tests a moderated mediation model to explore how and when academic supervisor developmental feedback (ASDF) affects postgraduate student creativity (PSC), including the mediating effect of intrinsic motivation and the moderating effect of creative self-efficacy. After collecting three-wave time-lagged data from 374 postgraduate students and their academic supervisors, SPSS and Amos software were used to test the research hypotheses and the whole model. The results show that ASDF is positively related to intrinsic motivation and PSC. Intrinsic motivation not only has a positive effect on PSC, but it also plays a mediating role in the relationship between ASDF and PSC. Creative self-efficacy plays a moderating role in the relationships between ASDF, intrinsic motivation, and PSC, that is, ASDF can cause postgraduate students with high creative self-efficacy to develop higher levels of intrinsic motivation than those with low creative self-efficacy, which ultimately leads to more PSC. These findings not only enrich the literature on feedback, motivation, and creativity research in the field of education, but also provide some suggestions for promoting PSC from the perspective of universities, academic supervisors, and postgraduate students

Multi-Timescale Control of Variable-Speed Wind Turbine for Inertia Provision

The increasing deployment of power converters has led to a significant reduction in the power system inertia and consequently resulted in frequency stability issues. To improve the robustness of the grid against frequency disturbances, it is becoming more expected in many countries that renewable energy generation, such as wind turbine power systems, should provide equivalent inertia support to the power system. This can be achieved through advanced control of power converters, in addition to adding extra energy storage devices, e.g., batteries. In wind turbine systems, although the ancillary service of inertia provision can be realized by coupling the rotor speed with the grid frequency, the rotor speed recovery process affects the inertia response if the controller is not properly designed or well-tuned. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a multi-timescale control strategy for a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) wind turbine system. Synthetic inertia control and speed recovery control are simultaneously incorporated into the controller of the rotor-side converter, whereas their dynamics are decoupled under different timescales to avoid control conflict. Extensive simulation results are provided, which validate the efficacy of the proposed inertia emulation scheme

A Dynamic Deployment Method of Security Services Based on Malicious Behavior Knowledge Base

In view of various security requirements, there are various security services in the network. In particular, DDoS attacks have various types and detection methods. How to flexibly combine security services and make full use of the information provided by security services have become urgent problems to be solved. This paper combines the reasoning ability of the malicious behavior knowledge base to realize the dynamic deployment of the service function chain and dynamic configuration of the security service function. The method feeds back the information generated by the security service to the knowledge base. After the analysis of the knowledge base, the service function chain path and the security service configuration policies are generated, and these policies will be dynamically distributed to the security service function. Finally, security services can be dynamically arranged for different network traffic, realizing the coordinated use of various security services and improving the overall detection rate of the network. The experimental results show that by arranging the paths under the UDP and the TCP, the overall detection rate of the network can reach 99% and 88%, respectively, indicating that it has a good overall detection performance for multiple distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks

Multi-Timescale Control of Variable-Speed Wind Turbine for Inertia Provision

The increasing deployment of power converters has led to a significant reduction in the power system inertia and consequently resulted in frequency stability issues. To improve the robustness of the grid against frequency disturbances, it is becoming more expected in many countries that renewable energy generation, such as wind turbine power systems, should provide equivalent inertia support to the power system. This can be achieved through advanced control of power converters, in addition to adding extra energy storage devices, e.g., batteries. In wind turbine systems, although the ancillary service of inertia provision can be realized by coupling the rotor speed with the grid frequency, the rotor speed recovery process affects the inertia response if the controller is not properly designed or well-tuned. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a multi-timescale control strategy for a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) wind turbine system. Synthetic inertia control and speed recovery control are simultaneously incorporated into the controller of the rotor-side converter, whereas their dynamics are decoupled under different timescales to avoid control conflict. Extensive simulation results are provided, which validate the efficacy of the proposed inertia emulation scheme