Upfront Cranial Radiotherapy vs. EGFR Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors Alone for the Treatment of Brain Metastases From Non-small-cell Lung Cancer: A Meta-Analysis of 1465 Patients

Background: Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) is revolutionizing the management of brain metastases (BMs). This study was to explore the value of upfront cranial radiotherapy (RT) in EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with BMs compared with EGFR-TKIs alone.Methods: We searched all topic-related comparative articles in public databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science) and conference proceedings. Outcomes of interest were intracranial objective response rate (ORR), overall survival (OS), and intracranial progression-free survival (PFS). Statistical analyses were calculated using Review Manager 5.3 software.Results: Thirteen comparative studies that included a total of 1,456 patients were eligible. Upfront brain RT had significantly higher OS (HR = 0.78, 95% CI = 0.65–0.93, P = 0.005) than EGFR-TKI alone. Upfront RT plus TKI had superior OS (HR = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.58–0.86, P = 0.0005) and intracranial PFS (HR = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.49–0.99, P = 0.04). The pooled data favored upfront whole brain RT (WBRT) plus TKI in terms of intracranial PFS (HR = 0.64, 95% CI = 0.48–0.85, P = 0.002) and OS (HR = 0.75, 95% CI = 0.57–1, P = 0.05). Upfront stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) was associated with better OS (HR = 0.37, 95% CI = 0.26–0.54, P < 0.00001). Similar results were observed when analysis was restricted to the use of erlotinib or geftinib.Conclusions: The upfront use of brain RT seemed critical, especially for SRS. Upfront administration of upfront WBRT plus EGFR-TKI had better survival outcomes and seemed superior to EGFR-TKI alone

Research of Security Constrained Dispatching for Monthly Generation Plan

The dispatching for monthly generation plan is to manage the congestion considering the security constrains of the power grid, where the monthly generation plan is the result of vary monthly power exchange, including long-term pow-er contract, power exchange among provinces and generation constitution exchanges. The application of monthly secu-rity constrained dispatching is with significant meaning for the security and stability of power grid. This paper brings forward the purpose and contents of security dispatching and introduces the working procedure and mathematic models. At last, the practical example of the Anhui Province power grid is introduced to explain the models

Vision-guided robot application for metal surface edge grinding

Abstract The combination of machine vision and grinding robots can be visualized as a collaboration between human eyes and limbs to achieve a deep integration between external perception and execution actions. This combination will give the grinding robot more operability and flexibility, which will enable it to better realize the purpose of replacing humans with machines. In response to the demand for flexible grinding of titanium surface edges proposed by a titanium manufacturer, this paper conducts an in-depth study on the prototype system of vision-guided grinding robots and related applications. Firstly, this study analyzes the shortcomings of the existing robotic regrinding process and achieves the improvement of the regrinding process by introducing machine vision technology. Subsequently, this study further utilizes machine vision and image processing algorithms to achieve high-quality recognition and high-precision positioning of metal surface edges. Then, the D–H parameter model of the regrinding robot is established, and the planning and simulation of the regrinding trajectory is carried out using the position information of the identified regrinding edges. Finally, the simulation-validated grinding trajectory is introduced into the grinding robot, and the effectiveness of the proposed scheme is verified by actual grinding experiments

Multi-versioning Performance Opportunities in BGAS System for Resilience

Resilience has become a major concern in high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Addressing the increasing risk of latent errors (or silent data corruption) is one of the biggest challenges. Multi-version checkpointing system, which keeps multi-version of the application states, has been proposed as a solution and has been implemented in Global View Resilience (GVR). The resulting more sophisticated management of data introduces overheads and the resulting impact on performance need to be investigated. In this paper we explore the performance of GVR for an HPC system with integrated non-volatile memories, namely Blue Gene Active Storage (BGAS). Our empirical study shows that the BGAS system provides a significantly more efficient basis for flexible error recovery by using GVR multi-versioning features compared to using a standard external storage system attached to the same Blue Gene/Q installation. Using BGAS especially achieves at least 10×performance boost for random traversal across multiple versions due to significantly better performance for small random I/O operations

Anaerobic Digestion of Cassava Pulp with Sewage Sludge Inocula

The effectiveness of sludge inocula from a municipal carrousel oxidation ditch wastewater treatment plant was studied for both batch and semi-continuous anaerobic digestion (AD) of cassava pulp. In 1.25-L batch experiments, the following sludge inocula were used: I1 sludge from the hydrolysis acidification tank pre-acclimated with cassava pulp; I2, predigested sludge from the hydrolysis acidification tank; and I3, predigested sludge from the gravity thickening tank. In 1.0-L semi-continuous tests, mesophilic AD of cassava pulp inoculated with I3 was carried out at organic matter loading rates (OLRs) of 1.5 to 12.5 kg volatile solids (VS)/(m3 d), whereas 1.5 to 18.0 kgVS/(m3 d) was used for thermophilic AD. For batch operations, all sludge types could be used as the inoculum for the mesophilic AD of cassava pulp, whereas only I1 was used for thermophilic AD. The maximum specific methane yields were 0.333 and 0.395 m3/kgVSadded, respectively, for mesophilic and thermophilic batch digestion with I1. During semi-continuous AD of cassava pulp inoculated with I3, high specific methane yields of 0.334 to 0.336 m3/kgVSadded were obtained under both mesophilic and thermophilic conditions. For thermophilic AD of cassava pulp with sludge inocula, the range of optimum OLR was 2.5 to 15.0 kgVS/(m3 d), and that was 2.5 to 8.7 kgVS/(m3 d) for mesophilic AD

Effects of KN-42 on Growth Performance, Diarrhea and Faecal Bacterial Flora of Weaned Piglets

This research focused on the effects of different doses of Bacillus subtilis KN-42 on the growth performance, diarrhea incidence, faecal bacterial flora, and the relative number of Lactobacillus and Escherichia coli in faeces of weaned piglets to determine whether the strain can serve as a candidate antimicrobial growth promoter. A total of 360 piglets (initial body weight 7.14±0.63 kg) weaned at 26±2 days of age were randomly allotted to 5 treatment groups (4 pens per treatment with 18 pigs per pen) for a 28-day trial. Dietary treatments were basal diet without any antimicrobial (negative control; NC), basal diet supplemented with 120 mg/kg feed of neomycin sulfate (positive control; PC) and basal diet supplemented with 2×109 (L), 4×109 (M) and 20×109 (H) CFU/kg feed of B. subtilis KN-42. During the overall period, average daily gain and feed efficiency of piglets were higher in groups PC, M, and H than those in group NC (p<0.05), and all probiotics and antibiotics groups had a lower diarrhea index than group NC (p<0.05). The 16S rDNA gene-based methods were used to analyze faecal bacterial flora on day 28 of experiment. The result of denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis analysis showed that supplementation of B. subtilis KN-42 to the diet changed the bacterial communities, with a higher bacterial diversity and band number in group M than in the other four groups. Real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that the relative number of Lactobacillus were higher in groups PC and H than in group NC (p<0.05), and the supplemented B. subtilis KN-42 to the diet also reduced the relative number of E. coli (p<0.05). These results suggest that dietary addition of B. subtilis KN-42 can improve the growth performance and gastrointestinal health of piglets