The older the better: The characteristic of localized prostate cancer in Chinese men

AbstractObjectiveTo assess the clinicopathological features and overall survival between two groups of Chinese patients older or younger than 70 years after retropubic radical prostatectomy.MethodsFrom January 2001 to February 2010, 390 patients receive dretropubic radical prostatectomy. After excluding 89 patients with adjuvant or neoadjuvant hormonal therapy or radiotherapy, a total of 301 patients were included in this study. We arbitrarily divided these patients into younger age group (<70 years, 140 cases, 46.5%) and older age group (≥70 years, 161 cases, 53.5%). The differences in serum prostate specific antigen (PSA), Gleason score, clinical tumor stage, and biochemical-free survival were analyzed between the two groups.ResultsThere were not significant differences between the two groups in high Gleason score rate and clinical tumor stage. However, older patients had significantly lower biochemical recurrence rate than those of younger patients, and had significantly higher PSA levels. Multivariate analysis showed that older age, PSA level and clinical tumor stage were significantly associated with biochemical recurrence free survival.ConclusionIn Chinese men, older age (≥70 years) is associated with better outcome. If the physical condition permits, older age alone should not exclude patients from radical prostatectomy

Thermodynamic entropy as an indicator for urban sustainability?

As foci of economic activity, resource consumption, and the production of material waste and pollution, cities represent both a major hurdle and yet also a source of great potential for achieving the goal of sustainability. Motivated by the desire to better understand and measure sustainability in quantitative terms we explore the applicability of thermodynamic entropy to urban systems as a tool for evaluating sustainability. Having comprehensively reviewed the application of thermodynamic entropy to urban systems we argue that the role it can hope to play in characterising sustainability is limited. We show that thermodynamic entropy may be considered as a measure of energy efficiency, but must be complimented by other indices to form part of a broader measure of urban sustainability

Identification of hub genes significantly linked to tuberous sclerosis related-epilepsy and lipid metabolism via bioinformatics analysis

BackgroundTuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is one of the most common genetic causes of epilepsy. Identifying differentially expressed lipid metabolism related genes (DELMRGs) is crucial for guiding treatment decisions.MethodsWe acquired tuberous sclerosis related epilepsy (TSE) datasets, GSE16969 and GSE62019. Differential expression analysis identified 1,421 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Intersecting these with lipid metabolism related genes (LMRGs) yielded 103 DELMRGs. DELMRGs underwent enrichment analyses, biomarker selection, disease classification modeling, immune infiltration analysis, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) and AUCell analysis.ResultsIn TSE datasets, 103 DELMRGs were identified. Four diagnostic biomarkers (ALOX12B, CBS, CPT1C, and DAGLB) showed high accuracy for epilepsy diagnosis, with an AUC value of 0.9592. Significant differences (p &lt; 0.05) in Plasma cells, T cells regulatory (Tregs), and Macrophages M2 were observed between diagnostic groups. Microglia cells were highly correlated with lipid metabolism functions.ConclusionsOur research unveiled potential DELMRGs (ALOX12B, CBS, CPT1C and DAGLB) in TSE, which may provide new ideas for studying the psathogenesis of epilepsy

Secure Transformer Inference Made Non-interactive

Secure transformer inference has emerged as a prominent research topic following the proliferation of ChatGPT. Existing solutions are typically interactive, involving substantial communication load and numerous interaction rounds between the client and the server. In this paper, we propose NEXUS the first non-interactive protocol for secure transformer inference, where the client is only required to submit an encrypted input and await the encrypted result from the server. Central to NEXUS are two innovative techniques: SIMD ciphertext compression/decompression, and SIMD slots folding. Consequently, our approach achieves a speedup of 2.8$\times$ and a remarkable bandwidth reduction of 368.6$\times$, compared to the state-of-the-art solution presented in S&P \u2724

Impact of glutathione-S-transferases (GST) polymorphisms and hypermethylation of relevant genes on risk of prostate cancer biochemical recurrence: a meta-analysis.

IntroductionAccurate prediction of the biochemical recurrence (BCR) is critical for patients after intended curative therapy like radical prostatectomy (RP) or definitive radiotherapy for prostate cancer. Glutathione-S-transferases polymorphisms as well as hypermethylation of GSTP1 and functional genes in carcinogenesis, including tumor suppression gene (APC), hormone receptor that regulates cell growth and differentiation gene (RARbeta) were reported to be associated with BCR. Nevertheless, the reported results are inconsistent. To evaluate the relationship between glutathione-S-transferases polymorphisms and hypermethylation of these genes and the risk of prostate cancer BCR, we carried out a meta-analysis of the published studies.Methods and materialsWe performed a search in Medline, Embase and CNKI database with GST, APC, RARbeta in combination with single nucleotide polymorphism, hypermethylation, prostate cancer and recurrence. Languages were restricted to English and Chinese.ResultsOur study included 4 case-control studies and 7 cohort studies including 12 data sets and 3,037 prostate cancer patients. We confirmed that APC hypermethylation is associated with a modest hazard for biochemical recurrence after RP (HR = 1.85, 95%CI = 1.12-3.06). We also suggest GSTP1 polymorphism and CpG hypermethylation tested in serum are associated with BCR (HR = 1.94, 95%CI = 1.13-3.34). We also identified a possible association between GSTM1 null polymorphism and prostate cancer biochemical recurrence risk with borderline significance (HR = 1.29, 95%CI = 0.97-1.71).ConclusionTo our knowledge, this is the first meta-analysis evaluating the relationship of polymorphisms and hypermethylation in GSTs and biochemical recurrence. GSTM1, GSTP1 polymorphisms and hypermethylation of GSTP1, APC may be potential biomarkers for the evaluation of the probability of BCR. Further studies are warranted to validate these findings in larger cohorts with longer follow-up

An Improved Asphalt Penetration Test Method

A traditional penetration test only measures the total penetration within 5 s. The penetration process is not monitored, and therefore, a large amount of information on the deformation properties of asphalt is not used. This paper documents a study to use a high-speed camera to quantify the entire penetration process and use the Finite Element Method (FEM) to interpret the penetration process using a viscoelastic model. The penetration&ndash;time relationships of several asphalt binders (70#, 90#, a rubber modified binder, and a styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) modified binder) have been acquired using the new method, and the FEM modeling of the penetration processes is performed. The results show that both stress relaxation and creep appear during the penetration process. The results indicate that the improved test method and its data interpretation procedure may better characterize the properties of asphalt binder, which may extend the applications of the traditional penetration test

Results of meta-analysis of RAR-beta hypermethylation.

<p>Results of meta-analysis of RAR-beta hypermethylation.</p