The utility of high-frequency 18 MHz ultrasonography for preoperative evaluation of acral melanoma thickness in Chinese patients

BackgroundDespite the increasing use of preoperative ultrasound evaluation for melanoma, there is limited research on the use of this technique for Acral Melanoma (AM).MethodsThis retrospective study analyzed the electronic medical records of patients who underwent preoperative evaluation for cutaneous melanoma maximum thickness using an 18 MHz probe and histopathological examination between December 2017 and March 2021 at the Department of Dermatology in Xiangya Hospital, Central South University.ResultsA total of 105 patients were included in the study. The mean tumor thickness was 3.9 mm (s.d., 2.3), with 63% of the specimens showing ulceration and 44 patients showing lymph node metastasis. The results showed a good correlation between the high-frequency ultrasonography (HFUS) and histopathological thickness measurements, with a Spearman’s correlation coefficient of 0.83 [(95% CI 0.73–0.90) (P < 0.001)]. The positive predictive value (PPV) of sonography in identifying tumor thickness was also found to be high.ConclusionOur study suggests that high-frequency 18 MHz ultrasonography is an effective tool for the preoperative evaluation of AM thickness. The HFUS measurements correlated well with the histopathological thickness measurements, making it a valuable and reliable method for clinicians to assess the thickness of melanoma lesions preoperatively

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Novel Allobetulon/Allobetulin–Nucleoside Conjugates as AntitumorAgents

Allobetulin is structurally similar tobetulinic acid, inducing the apoptosis of cancer cells with low toxicity. However, both of them exhibited weak antiproliferation against several tumor cell lines. Therefore, the new series of allobetulon/allobetulin–nucleoside conjugates 9a–10i were designed and synthesized for potency improvement. Compounds 9b, 9e, 10a, and 10d showed promising antiproliferative activity toward six tested cell lines, compared to zidovudine, cisplatin, and oxaliplatin based on their antitumor activity results. Among them, compound 10d exhibited much more potent antiproliferative activity against SMMC-7721, HepG2, MNK-45, SW620, and A549 human cancer cell lines than cisplatin and oxaliplatin. In the preliminary study for the mechanism of action, compound 10d induced cell apoptosis and autophagy in SMMC cells, resulting in antiproliferation and G0/G1 cell cycle arrest by regulating protein expression levels of Bax, Bcl-2, and LC3. Consequently, the nucleoside-conjugated allobetulin (10d) evidenced that nucleoside substitution was a viable strategy to improve allobetulin/allobetulon’s antitumor activity based on our present study

Blockchain-based fake news traceability and verification mechanism

The rapid development of the Internet and Internet of Things has rapidly introduced human society into the information age, and the way of fake news production has been updated, which has greatly affected the normal life of human beings. In order to identify worthless fake news and trace massive fake news data from unknown sources, and share valuable news data to fully disseminate effective real news, news owners usually store news data in cloud. Users of IoT terminals can access news data on demand without storing it locally. However, the authenticity of the fictive newspaper numbers source, which is easy to destroy, and the social media platform. Besides, when massive news data is saved on cloud server, the news owners have to at the risk of lose physical control over news data and it will face the risk of fake news being disseminated and real news being falsified. Thus, this paper proposes a novel mechanism for secure storage of news data using blockchain technology. Firstly, traceability and verification of fake news data is improved by the cooperative storage model on and off the chain. Secondly due to the inability of past polynomial commitment to update the commitment, we will be a hindrance to use polynomial commitment to build a secure authentication protocol. Therefore, in this paper, we design the update algorithm for polynomial commitment in order to be able to guarantee the consistency of on-chain and blockchain database news data

Compiler-assisted software verification using plug-ins

We present Protagoras, a new plug-in architecture for the GNU compiler collection that allows one to modify GCC’s internal representation of the program under compilation. We illustrate the utility of Protagoras by presenting plug-ins for both compile-time and runtime software verification and monitoring. In the compiletime case, we have developed plug-ins that interpret the GIMPLE intermediate representation to verify properties statically. In the runtime case, we have developed plug-ins for GCC to perform memory leak detection, array bounds checking, and reference-count access monitoring.

Comprehensive Measurement of the Coordinated Development of China’s Economic Growth, Energy Consumption, and Environmental Conservation

Since the Industrial Revolution, fossil fuels have become the main energy source for economic development. However, fossil fuels have also been linked to serious environmental impacts. China has recently undergone rapid economic growth, but its development model demands large amounts of energy and causes severe pollution. Therefore, there has been a recent shift toward the development of coordinated strategies to achieve economic growth while minimizing energy consumption and preserving the environment. This study sought to explore the spatiotemporal evolution of the coordination degree between economic growth, energy consumption, and environmental conservation (i.e., the “3E” system) in China, thus establishing a basis to improve coordinated development and minimize regional differences. This study evaluated 30 Chinese provinces using mathematical models. Between 2000 and 2019, the coordinated development level of the components of the 3E system in China increased steadily but remained generally low. Clear spatial agglomeration was also identified at the provincial scale, with the highest values occurring on the east coast and lower values occurring in the west and middle provinces

Comprehensive Measurement of the Coordinated Development of China’s Economic Growth, Energy Consumption, and Environmental Conservation

Since the Industrial Revolution, fossil fuels have become the main energy source for economic development. However, fossil fuels have also been linked to serious environmental impacts. China has recently undergone rapid economic growth, but its development model demands large amounts of energy and causes severe pollution. Therefore, there has been a recent shift toward the development of coordinated strategies to achieve economic growth while minimizing energy consumption and preserving the environment. This study sought to explore the spatiotemporal evolution of the coordination degree between economic growth, energy consumption, and environmental conservation (i.e., the “3E” system) in China, thus establishing a basis to improve coordinated development and minimize regional differences. This study evaluated 30 Chinese provinces using mathematical models. Between 2000 and 2019, the coordinated development level of the components of the 3E system in China increased steadily but remained generally low. Clear spatial agglomeration was also identified at the provincial scale, with the highest values occurring on the east coast and lower values occurring in the west and middle provinces