Evaluating changes in radiation treatment volumes from post-operative to same-day planning MRI in High-grade gliomas.

BACKGROUND: Adjuvant radiation therapy (RT) with temozolomide (TMZ) is standard of care for high grade gliomas (HGG) patients. RT is commonly started 3 to 5 weeks after surgery. The deformation of the tumor bed and brain from surgery to RT is poorly studied. This study examined the magnitude of volume change in the postoperative tumor bed and the potential impact of RT planning. METHOD AND MATERIALS: This study includes 24 patients with HGG who underwent craniotomy and adjuvant RT with TMZ at our institution. All patients had immediate postoperative MRI and repeat MRI during the day of RT simulation. Gross tumor volumes (GTV), clinical target volumes (CTV) of initial 46 Gy (CTV1) and boost to 60 Gy (CTV2) were contoured on both sets of MRIs according to RTOG (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group) guidelines. For patients who recurred after RT, the recurrence pattern was evaluated. RESULTS: An average of 17 days elapsed between immediate and delayed MRIs. GTV1 (FLAIR abnormality and tumor bed) decreased significantly on the delayed MRI as compared to immediate post-operative MRI (mean = 30.96cc, p = 0.0005), while GTV2 (contrast-enhanced T1 abnormality and tumor bed) underwent a non-significant increase (mean = 6.82cc, p = 0.07). Such changes lead to significant decrease of CTV1 (mean decrease is 113.9cc, p CONCLUSION: The postoperative tumor bed of HGGs undergoes substantial volumetric changes after surgery. Treatment planning based on delayed MRI significantly reduces the volume of treated brain tissue without local control detriment. The marked reduction of volume treated to 46 Gy based on delayed MRI scan, could result in increased sparing of organs at risk. There may be a small risk of inadequate radiation field design if radiation planning is based on immediate post-operative MRI

A novel data-driven multi-energy load forecasting model

With the increasing concern on energy crisis, the coordination of multiple energy sources and low-carbon economic operation of integrated energy system (IES) have drawn more and more attention in recent years. In IES, accurate and effective multi-energy load forecasting becomes a research hotspot, especially using the high-performance data mining and machine learning algorithms. However, due to the huge difference in energy utilization between IES and traditional energy systems, the load forecasting of IES is more difficult and complex. In fact, in IES, load forecasting is not only related to external factors such as meteorological parameters and different seasons, but the correlation between energy consumption of different types of loads also plays an important role. In order to deal with the strong coupling and high uncertainty issues in IES, a novel data-driven multi-energy load forecasting model is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a feature extraction method based on Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) for multi-energy load of the IES is developed, which reduces the dimension of the complex nonlinear input data. Then, considering multi-energy coupling correlation, a combined TCN-NBeats model is proposed for the joint prediction of multi-energy loads, aiming to improve the prediction accuracy through ensemble learning. Finally, the numerical case analysis using the multi-energy consumption data of an actual campus verifies the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed data-driven multi-energy load forecasting model

Inadequate Weight Gain According to the Institute of Medicine 2009 Guidelines in Women with Gestational Diabetes: Frequency, Clinical Predictors, and the Association with Pregnancy Outcomes

Background: In the care of women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), more attention is put on glycemic control than in factors such as gestational weight gain (GWG). We aimed to evaluate the rate of inadequate GWG in women with GDM, its clinical predictors and the association with pregnancy outcomes. Methods: Cohort retrospective analysis. Outcome variables: GWG according to Institute of Medicine 2009 and 18 pregnancy outcomes. Clinical characteristics were considered both as GWG predictors and as covariates in outcome prediction. Statistics: descriptive, multinomial and logistic regression. Results: We assessed 2842 women diagnosed with GDM in the 1985-2011 period. GWG was insufficient (iGWG) in 50.3%, adequate in 31.6% and excessive (eGWG) in 18.1%; length of follow-up for GDM was positively associated with iGWG. Overall pregnancy outcomes were satisfactory. GWG was associated with pregnancy-induced hypertension, preeclampsia, cesarean delivery and birthweight-related outcomes. Essentially, the direction of the association was towards a higher risk with eGWG and lower risk with iGWG (i.e., with Cesarean delivery and excessive growth). Conclusions: In this cohort of women with GDM, inadequate GWG was very common at the expense of iGWG. The associations with pregnancy outcomes were mainly towards a higher risk with eGWG and lower risk with iGWG

Observing Human Mobility Internationally During COVID-19

This article analyzes visual data captured from five countries and three U.S. states to evaluate the effectiveness of lockdown policies for reducing the spread of COVID-19. The main challenge is the scale: nearly six million images are analyzed to observe how people respond to the policy changes

Fluorescent probes and functionalized nanoparticles for bioimaging: synthesis, photophysical properties and applications

The development of new organic molecular probes with excellent photophysical properties and high fluorescence quantum yields is of considerable interest to many research areas including one- and two-photon fluorescence microscopy, fluorescence-based sensing methodologies, and cancer therapy. Series of organic linear-/non-linear optical molecules including squaraine derivatives, and fluorene derivatives as well as other bioconjugates are designed and synthesized during the doctoral study for the aim of ion detection (Chapter 5), photo dynamic therapy, and deep-tissue imaging (Chapter 4). These optical probes are capable of absorbing light in the near infrared (NIR) window and thus have deeper penetration and cause less photodamage to the biological sample (Chapter 2). To realize the specific targeting, molecules are functionalized by peptide conjugation such as the recruitment of RGD-peptide. There have been numerous fluorescent probes reported over the past few decades and many suffer from the ability to introduce them into biological systems, undergo fluorescent quenching in aqueous media, or are not biocompatible. Delivery of hydrophobic materials in biological materials into the biological systems, for example, contrast agents or drugs, is an obdurate challenge, severely restricting the use of materials with otherwise advantageous properties. Incorporating promising organic molecules in nanovessicles, nanoparticles, and polymeric carriers to achieve new types of biocompatible probes and bioimaging is another vital aim for this doctoral research. Combining with powerful imaging methods, such as in vivo two-photon fluorescence microscopy (2PFM), vasculature imaging during angiogenesis (Chapter 4), cellular organelles labelling and tracking (Chapter 3, 6) is accomplished using nanostructured fluorescent probes or complex. These represent powerful new tools that should have broad impact as high fidelity fluorescent contrast agents

Expansion of vowel space following alcohol intoxication

Alcohol intoxication is characterized by hypermetric movements in fine motor skills, but it remains unknown whether hypermetric movements manifest in speech following alcohol intoxication. Vowel space areas were compared across 162 speakers (85 male, 77 female) before and after alcohol intoxication using an unsupervised method based on cluster center detection. We observed that vowel space area expanded following intoxication, however this effect was only substantial across male participants (~10%), while only a moderate expansion was observed for female participants (~2%). These results support recent observations of vowel space expansion following alcohol intoxication, but further research is necessary to identify the cause of sex-specific differences observed