A DVH‐guided IMRT optimization algorithm for automatic treatment planning and adaptive radiotherapy replanning

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135098/1/mp5700.pd

Case report: Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease: unveiling a case of recurrent fever and enlarged cervical lymph nodes in a young female patient with a literature review of the immune mechanism

The inflammatory response to viral infection is an important component of the antiviral response, a process that involves the activation and proliferation of CD8+ T, CD4+ T, and dendritic cells; thus, viral infection disrupts the immune homeostasis of the organism, leading to an increased release of inflammatory factors. Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease (KFD) is an inflammatory self-limited disorder of unknown etiology, and it is generally believed that the pathogenesis of this disease includes two aspects: viral infection and autoimmune response. Various immune cells, such as CD8+ T lymphocytes, CD4+ T lymphocytes, and CD123+ plasmacytoid dendritic cells, as well as the cytokines they induce and secrete, such as interferons, interleukins, and tumor necrosis factors, play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of KFD. In this article, we present a case study of a young female patient from China who exhibited typical symptoms of lymph node inflammation and fever. The diagnosis of KFD was confirmed through a lymph node biopsy. She presented with elevated ESR, IL-6, and IFN-γ. Viral markers showed elevated IgG and IgM of cytomegalovirus (CMV) and elevated IgG of Epstein–Barr virus (EBV), while changes occurred in the CD4+ T and CD8+ T cell counts. Eventually, the patient achieved disease relief through steroid treatment. Based on these findings, we conducted a comprehensive review of the involvement of viral infection–induced inflammatory response processes and autoimmunity in the pathogenesis of Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease

High sensitivity micro-fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometric temperature sensors with a high index ring layer

The influence of the high index ring layer (HIRL) in a tapered fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) on the interference observed, and thus on its potential applications in temperature sensing, has been investigated. The MZI was comprised of a tapered Ring Core Fiber (RCF), spliced between two single mode fibers (SMF). Since part of core mode from the SMF was converted into cladding modes in the RCF, due to the mismatch in the cores between the RCF and SMF, the residual power enters and then propagates along the center of the RCF (silica). The difference in phase between the radiation travelling along these different paths is separated by the HIRL to generate an interference effect. Compared with fiber interferometers based on core and cladding mode interference, the thin fiber HIRL is capable of separating the high order cladding modes and the silica core mode, under grazing incident conditions. Therefore, the optical path difference (OPD) and the sensitivity are both substantially improved over what is seen in conventional devices, showing their potential for interferometric temperature sensor applications. The optimum temperature sensitivity obtained was 186.6 pm/°C, which is ∼ 11.7 times higher than has been reported previously

Boson Sampling in a reconfigurable continuously-coupled 3D photonic circuit

Boson Sampling is a computational paradigm representing one of the most viable and pursued approaches to demonstrate the regime of quantum advantage. Recent results have demonstrated significant technological leaps in single-photon generation and detection, leading to progressively larger experimental instances of Boson Sampling experiments in different photonic systems. However, a crucial requirement for a fully-fledged platform solving this problem is the capability of implementing large scale interferometers, that must simultaneously exhibit low losses, high degree of reconfigurability and the realization of arbitrary transformations. In this work, we move a step forward in this direction by demonstrating the adoption of a novel compact and reconfigurable 3D-integrated platform for photonic Boson Sampling. We perform 3- and 4-photon experiments by using such platform, showing the possibility of programming the circuit to implement a large number of unitary transformations. These results show that such compact and highly-reconfigurable layout can be scaled up to experiments with larger number of photon and modes, and can provide a viable direction for hybrid computing with photonic processors.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figure

Direct Visualization of Irreducible Ferrielectricity in Crystals

In solids, charge polarity can one-to-one correspond to spin polarity phenomenologically, e.g. ferroelectricity/ferromagnetism, antiferroelectricity/antiferromagnetism, and even dipole-vortex/magnetic-vortex, but ferrielectricity/ferrimagnetism kept telling a disparate story in microscopic level. Since the definition of a charge dipole involves more than one ion, there may be multiple choices for a dipole unit, which makes most ferrielectric orders equivalent to ferroelectric ones, i.e. this ferrielectricity is not necessary to be a real independent branch of polarity. In this work, by using the spherical aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope, we visualize a nontrivial ferrielectric structural evolution in BaFe2Se3, in which the development of two polar sub-lattices is out-of-sync, for which we term it as irreducible ferrielectricity. Such irreducible ferrielectricity leads to a non-monotonic behavior for the temperature-dependent polarization, and even a compensation point in the ordered state. Our finding unambiguously distinguishes ferrielectrics from ferroelectrics in solids.Comment: 15 figure