Orbital hemangiopericytoma in an Asian population

Background/PurposeHemangiopericytoma is a very rare orbital tumor. The purpose of this study was to report the clinical and histopathological features of six cases of orbital hemangiopericytoma in an Asian population.MethodsClinical and histopathological features were reviewed in six patients who were histopathologically confirmed as having primary orbital hemangiopericytoma in National Taiwan University Hospital between May 2001 and December 2010.ResultsAmong the six cases who were diagnosed as having primary orbital hemangiopericytoma, all lesions were reported as vascular tumors and featured branching “staghorn appearance” vessels. All patients, including one male and five females, presented with progressive proptosis and some associated symptoms such as extraocular motility limitation with diplopia, displacement of the globe, afferent pupillary defect, congested vessels of conjunctiva, or decreased visual acuity. On computed tomography, the orbital tumors tended to manifest as circumscribed masses with homogeneous medium-to-high enhancement with contrast studies. All six patients received surgical treatments, and four of them had additional radiotherapy. Three patients had recurrence after surgeries, and one of them had multiple metastases to lung and liver. All patients were still alive after a follow-up period of 5–10 years.ConclusionOrbital hemangiopericytoma has malignant potential, which may lead to local recurrence and/or metastasis. Histopathological findings alone are insufficient to predict the behavior of this tumor. Therefore, both clinical and histopathological findings are important to evaluate the treatment outcomes. Total excision accompanied with radiotherapy is suggested and long-term follow-up is required

Twin-Free GaAs Nanosheets by Selective Area Growth: Implications for Defect-Free Nanostructures

Highly perfect, twin-free GaAs nanosheets grown on (111)B surfaces by selective area growth (SAG) are demonstrated. In contrast to GaAs nanowires grown by (SAG) in which rotational twins and stacking faults are almost universally observed, twin formation is either suppressed or eliminated within properly oriented nanosheets are grown under a range of growth conditions. A morphology transition in the nanosheets due to twinning results in surface energy reduction, which may also explain the high twin-defect density that occurs within some III–V semiconductor nanostructures, such as GaAs nanowires. Calculations suggest that the surface energy is significantly reduced by the formation of {111}-plane bounded tetrahedra after the morphology transition of nanowire structures. By contrast, owing to the formation of two vertical {11̅0} planes which comprise the majority of the total surface energy of nanosheet structures, the energy reduction effect due to the morphology transition is not as dramatic as that for nanowire structures. Furthermore, the surface energy reduction effect is mitigated in longer nanosheets which, in turn, suppresses twinning

Direct growth of mm-size twisted bilayer graphene by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) techniques have been shown to be an efficient method to achieve single-step synthesis of high-quality monolayer graphene (MLG) without the need of active heating. Here we report PECVD-growth of single-crystalline hexagonal bilayer graphene (BLG) flakes and mm-size BLG films with the interlayer twist angle controlled by the growth parameters. The twist angle has been determined by three experimental approaches, including direct measurement of the relative orientation of crystalline edges between two stacked monolayers by scanning electron microscopy, analysis of the twist angle-dependent Raman spectral characteristics, and measurement of the Moiré period with scanning tunneling microscopy. In mm-sized twisted BLG (tBLG) films, the average twist angle can be controlled from 0° to approximately 20°, and the angular spread for a given growth condition can be limited to < 7°. Different work functions between MLG and BLG have been verified by the Kelvin probe force microscopy and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy. Electrical measurements of back-gated field-effect-transistor devices based on small-angle tBLG samples revealed high-quality electric characteristics at 300 K and insulating temperature dependence down to 100 K. This controlled PECVD-growth of tBLG thus provides an efficient approach to investigate the effect of varying Moiré potentials on tBLG

Association of Chinese Herbal Medicine use with the depression risk among the long-term breast cancer survivors: A longitudinal follow-up study

Background Breast cancer patients are at elevated risk of depression during treatment, thus provoking the chance of poor clinical outcomes. This retrospective cohort study aimed to investigate whether integrating Chinese herbal medicines citation(CHM) into conventional cancer therapy could decrease the risk of depression in the long-term breast cancer survivors. Methods A cohort of patients aged 20–70 years and with newly diagnosed breast cancer during 2000–2008 was identified from a nationwide claims database. In this study, we focused solely on survivors of breast cancer at least1 year after diagnosis. After one-to-one matching for age, sex, and baseline comorbidities, breast cancer patients who received (n = 1,450) and did not receive (n = 1,450) CHM treatment were enrolled. The incidence rate and hazard ratio citation(HR) for depression between the two groups was estimated at the end of 2012. A Cox proportional hazard model was constructed to examine the impact of the CHM use on the risk of depression. Results During the study period, the incidence rate of depression was significantly lower in the treated cohort than in the untreated cohort [8.57 compared with 11.01 per 1,000 person-years citation(PYs)], and the adjusted HR remained significant at 0.74 (95% CI 0.58–0.94) in a Cox proportional hazards regression model. The corresponding risk further decreasing to 43% among those using CHM for more than 1 year. Conclusion Finding from this investigation indicated that the lower risk of depression observed in breast cancer patients treated with CHM, suggesting that CHM treatment should be considered for disease management toward breast cancer. Yet, the optimal administered dose should be determined in further clinical trials

Integrated Access and Backhaul in Millimeter-Wave Cellular : Benefits and Challenges

The recently proposed NR-ready integrated access and backhaul (IAB) architecture promises to bring a cost-efficient deployment solution for both coverage extension and capacity boosting in the emerging 5G/5G+ systems. While its impact on the coverage extension was thoroughly addressed in the literature, the effect of advanced functionalities such as multihop, multi-connectivity, and multi-beam operations on the throughput remained unclear. We review and characterize the system-level impact of these capabilities on the performance of self-backhauled IAB systems operating in half-duplex mode and utilizing millimeter-wave (mmWave) technology across both access and backhaul. Our results indicate that the throughput gain of multihopping and multi-beaming is significant even without multi-connectivity operation. Another important lesson is that in all-mmWave systems with link blockage, multi-connectivity with link switching allows achieving self-load balancing. Finally, we outline future research directions.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

A chronological review of COVID-19 case fatality rate and its secular trend and investigation of all-cause mortality and hospitalization during the Delta and Omicron waves in the United States: a retrospective cohort study

IntroductionCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused more than 690 million deaths worldwide. Different results concerning the death rates of the Delta and Omicron variants have been recorded. We aimed to assess the secular trend of case fatality rate (CFR), identify risk factors associated with mortality following COVID-19 diagnosis, and investigate the risks of mortality and hospitalization during Delta and Omicron waves in the United States.MethodsThis study assessed 2,857,925 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the United States from January 2020, to June 2022. The inclusion criterion was the presence of COVID-19 diagnostic codes in electronic medical record or a positive laboratory test of the SARS-CoV-2. Statistical analysis was bifurcated into two components, longitudinal analysis and comparative analysis. To assess the discrepancies in hospitalization and mortality rates for COVID-19, we identified the prevailing periods for the Delta and Omicron variants.ResultsLongitudinal analysis demonstrated four sharp surges in the number of deaths and CFR. The CFR was persistently higher in males and older age. The CFR of Black and White remained higher than Asians since January 2022. In comparative analysis, the adjusted hazard ratios for all-cause mortality and hospitalization were higher in Delta wave compared to the Omicron wave. Risk of all-cause mortality was found to be greater 14–30 days after a COVID-19 diagnosis, while the likelihood of hospitalization was higher in the first 14 days following a COVID-19 diagnosis in Delta wave compared with Omicron wave. Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed the cumulative probability of mortality was approximately 2-fold on day 30 in Delta than in Omicron cases (log-rank p &lt; 0.001). The mortality risk ratio between the Delta and Omicron variants was 1.671 (95% Cl 1.615–1.729, log-rank p &lt; 0.001). Delta also had a significantly increased mortality risk over Omicron in all age groups. The CFR of people aged above 80 years was extremely high as 17.33%.ConclusionMale sex and age seemed to be strong and independent risk factors of mortality in COVID-19. The Delta variant appears to cause more hospitalization and death than the Omicron variant