Spatially resolved penetration depth measurements and vortex manipulation in the ferromagnetic superconductor ErNi2B2C

We present a local probe study of the magnetic superconductor, ErNi$_2$B$_2$C, using magnetic force microscopy at sub-Kelvin temperatures. ErNi$_2$B$_2$C is an ideal system to explore the effects of concomitant superconductivity and ferromagnetism. At 500 mK, far below the transition to a weakly ferromagnetic state, we directly observe a structured magnetic background on the micrometer scale. We determine spatially resolved absolute values of the magnetic penetration depth $\lambda$ and study its temperature dependence as the system undergoes magnetic phase transitions from paramagnetic to antiferromagnetic, and to weak ferromagnetic, all within the superconducting regime. In addition, we estimate the absolute pinning force of Abrikosov vortices, which shows a position- and temperature dependence as well, and discuss the possibility of the purported spontaneous vortex formation

The genomic landscape of thyroid cancer tumourigenesis and implications for immunotherapy

Thyroid cancer is the most prevalent endocrine malignancy that comprises mostly indolent differentiated cancers (DTCs) and less frequently aggressive poorly differentiated (PDTC) or anaplastic cancers (ATCs) with high mortality. Utilisation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) and advanced sequencing data analysis can aid in understanding the multi-step progression model in the development of thyroid cancers and their metastatic potential at a molecular level, promoting a targeted approach to further research and development of targeted treatment options including immunotherapy, especially for the aggressive variants. Tumour initiation and progression in thyroid cancer occurs through constitutional activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway through mutations in BRAF, RAS, mutations in the phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway and/or receptor tyrosine kinase fusions/translocations, and other genetic aberrations acquired in a stepwise manner. This review provides a summary of the recent genetic aberrations implicated in the development and progression of thyroid cancer and implications for immunotherapy

Enhanced Switching Pattern to Improve Cell Balancing Performance in Active Cell Balancing Circuit using Multi-winding Transformer

Cell balancing performance is an important factor in determining the operational efficiency of the active cell balancing circuit. Thus, this study approached this need by developing an enhanced switching pattern. The circuit is designed to transfer energy between arbitrary source and target cells. It has been operated in flyback and buck-boost modes according to the position of the source and target cells. In this circuit, the coupling coefficient of the transformer considerably affects the balancing performance of the flyback operation. The energy transferred to the non-target cell is increased by the low-coupling coefficient due to the leakage inductance. Therefore, the high energy transfer ratio cannot be achieved using conventional switching patterns. In this paper, a new flyback switching pattern is proposed, which can minimize the effect of the coupling coefficient in the cell balancing operation. The proposed switching pattern uses the cells which do not participate in the balancing process to control the voltage applied to each winding, which results in a high energy transfer ratio irrespective of the coupling coefficient. In addition, an enhanced operating method has been proposed to improve the cell balancing speed by reducing the energy transfer path in specific cell conditions. The performance of the proposed switching pattern was verified in a 15 W cell balancing circuit

Sinabro: A Smartphone-Integrated Opportunistic Electrocardiogram Monitoring System

In our preliminary study, we proposed a smartphone-integrated, unobtrusive electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring system, Sinabro, which monitors a user’s ECG opportunistically during daily smartphone use without explicit user intervention. The proposed system also monitors ECG-derived features, such as heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV), to support the pervasive healthcare apps for smartphones based on the user’s high-level contexts, such as stress and affective state levels. In this study, we have extended the Sinabro system by: (1) upgrading the sensor device; (2) improving the feature extraction process; and (3) evaluating extensions of the system. We evaluated these extensions with a good set of algorithm parameters that were suggested based on empirical analyses. The results showed that the system could capture ECG reliably and extract highly accurate ECG-derived features with a reasonable rate of data drop during the user’s daily smartphone use

CardioGuard: A Brassiere-based Reliable ECG Monitoring Sensor System for Supporting Daily Smartphone Healthcare Applications

We propose CardioGuard, a brassiere-based reliable electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring sensor system, for supporting daily smartphone healthcare applications. It is designed to satisfy two key requirements for user-unobtrusive daily ECG monitoring: reliability of ECG sensing and usability of the sensor. The system is validated through extensive evaluations. The evaluation results showed that the CardioGuard sensor reliably measure the ECG during 12 representative daily activities including diverse movement levels; 89.53% of QRS peaks were detected on average. The questionnaire-based user study with 15 participants showed that the CardioGuard sensor was comfortable and unobtrusive. Additionally, the signal-to-noise ratio test and the washing durability test were conducted to show the high-quality sensing of the proposed sensor and its physical durability in practical use, respectively

Fully-automatic deep learning-based analysis for determination of the invasiveness of breast cancer cells in an acoustic trap

A single-beam acoustic trapping technique has been shown to be very useful for determining the invasiveness of suspended breast cancer cells in an acoustic trap with a manual calcium analysis method. However, for the rapid translation of the technology into the clinic, the development of an efficient/accurate analytical method is needed. We, therefore, develop a fully-automatic deep learning-based calcium image analysis algorithm for determining the invasiveness of suspended breast cancer cells using a single-beam acoustic trapping system. The algorithm allows to segment cells, find trapped cells, and quantify their calcium changes over time. For better segmentation of calcium fluorescent cells even with vague boundaries, a novel deep learning architecture with multi-scale/multi-channel convolution operations (MM-Net) is devised and constructed by a target inversion training method. The MM-Net outperforms other deep learning models in the cell segmentation. Also, a detection/quantification algorithm is developed and implemented to automatically determine the invasiveness of a trapped cell. For the evaluation of the algorithm, it is applied to quantify the invasiveness of breast cancer cells. The results show that the algorithm offers similar performance to the manual calcium analysis method for determining the invasiveness of cancer cells, suggesting that it may serve as a novel tool to automatically determine the invasiveness of cancer cells with high-efficiency. © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.1

Longitudinal Patterns in Antithrombotic Therapy in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation after Percutaneous Coronary Intervention in the Non-Vitamin K Oral Anticoagulant Era:A Nationwide Population-Based Study

We investigated whether longitudinal patterns in antithrombotic therapy have changed after the introduction of non-vitamin K oral anticoagulants (NOACs) in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Using a claims database of the Korean AF population who underwent PCI between 2012 and 2016 (n = 18,691), we analyzed prescription records of oral anticoagulants (OACs) and antiplatelets at 3-month intervals over 2 years after PCI. The study population was stratified (pre-NOAC, transition, and NOAC era) using time-periods of NOAC introduction in Korea and an expansion of reimbursement for NOAC in AF as indicators. The overall rates of OAC were low at baseline (24.9%, 26.9%, and 35.2% in pre-NOAC, transition, and NOAC era, respectively), contrary to high rates of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) (73.3%, 71.4%, and 63.6%). However, OAC prescription rates were increased at 1-year (18.5%, 22.5%, and 31.6%), and 2-year follow-up (17.8%, 24.2%, and 31.8%) from pre-NOAC to NOAC era. In NOAC era, 63.5% of baseline OAC prescriptions comprised NOAC, of which 96.4% included triple therapy with DAPT. Over 2 years, we observed increasing rates of double therapy with a single antiplatelet (18.3% and 20.0% at 1- and 2-year follow-up) and OAC monotherapy (2.7% and 8.9% at 1- and 2-year follow-up)

Net clinical benefit of antithrombotic therapy for atrial fibrillation patients with stable coronary artery disease

OBJECTIVES: To compare the net clinical benefit of oral anticoagulant (OAC) monotherapy to OAC plus single antiplatelet therapy (SAPT) in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and stable coronary artery disease (CAD) at 1- and 3-year after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). BACKGROUND: It has not been studied whether the net clinical benefit of the antithrombotic treatment options differs depending on the elapsed time from the index PCI. METHODS: Using the Korean nationwide claims database, we included AF patients who underwent PCI from 2009 to 2019 and constructed two cohorts: 1- and 3-year after PCI. In each cohort, the baseline characteristics of two groups were balanced using propensity score weighting. Ischemic stroke, myocardial infarction, major bleeding, and composite clinical outcomes were analyzed. RESULTS: Among patients with 1-year after PCI, OAC monotherapy (n = 678), and OAC plus SAPT (n = 3,159) showed comparable results for all clinical outcomes. In patients with 3-year after PCI, OAC monotherapy (n = 1,038) and OAC plus SAPT (n = 2,128) showed comparable results for ischemic stroke and myocardial infarction, but OAC monotherapy was associated with a lower risk of composite clinical outcomes (HR 0.762, 95% CI 0.607–0.950), mainly driven by the reduction of major bleeding risk (HR 0.498, 95% CI 0.345–0.701). CONCLUSION: Oral anticoagulant monotherapy may be a comparable choice for patients with AF and stable CAD compared to OAC plus SAPT. In patients with stable CAD more than 3-year after index PCI, OAC monotherapy would be a better choice, being associated with less major bleeding and a positive net clinical benefit