The combination of preoperative fibrinogen and neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio is a predictive prognostic factor in esophagogastric junction and upper gastric cancer

Objective: Cancer-associated systemic inflammation response and hyperfibrinogenemia play crucial roles in cancer progression and prognosis. In this study, we assessed the clinical value of the preoperative fibrinogen and the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in patients with adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction (AEG) and upper gastric cancer (UGC).

Methods: Patients with AEG or UGC who underwent curative surgery were divided into a training set (n=161) and a validation set (n=195). Univariate and multivariate Cox analyses were performed to evaluate the prognostic indicators for overall survival (OS). The optimization cut-off values for fibrinogen and the NLR were 3.09g/L and 1.84, respectively. The combination of fibrinogen and NLR (F-NLR) was 2 for patients with high fibrinogen (≥3.09g/L) and elevated NLR (≥1.84), whereas those with one or neither were indexed as 1 or 0, respectively.

Results: F-NLR was identified as an independent prognostic indicator for OS in the training set (P=0.007) which was confirmed in the validation set (P=0.003). In the subgroup analyses, the prognostic significance of F-NLR was still maintained for stages I-II (P = 0.030 in the training set; and P =0.020 in the validation set) and III (P = 0.001 in the training set; and P <0.001 in the validation set).Notably, among patients with F-NLR 2 could benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy compared with those with F-NLR 0-1 (P = 0.020 in the training set; and P =0.005 in the validation set).

Conclusions: The preoperative F-NLR score is an independent prognosis indicator for patients with AEG and UGC. And it may help clinicians to identify those patients who at high prognostic risk and will benefit from planning individualized treatment strategies.

The Role of Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 1 in Common Diseases of the Digestive Tract and the Cardiovascular and Respiratory System

Transient receptor potential vanilloid subtype 1 (TRPV1), a member of the transient receptor potential vanilloid (TRPV) channel family, is a nonselective cation channel that is widely expressed in sensory nerve fibers and nonneuronal cells, including certain vascular endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells. The activation of TRPV1 may be involved in the regulation of various physiological functions, such as the release of inflammatory mediators in the body, gastrointestinal motility function, and temperature regulation. In recent years, a large number of studies have revealed that TRPV1 plays an important role in the physiological and pathological conditions of the digestive system, cardiovascular system, and respiratory system, but there is no systematic report on TRPV1. The objective of this review is to explain the function and effects of TRPV1 on specific diseases, such as irritable bowel syndrome, hypertension, and asthma, and to further investigate the intrinsic relationship between the expression and function of TRPV1 in those diseases to find new therapeutic targets for the cure of related diseases.

[Epidemiological survey of mental disorders in the rural left behind elderly aged 60 years and older in Gansu]

Objective: To investigate the prevalence, demographic characteristics and social life function of mental disorders in the rural left behind elderly aged 60 years and older in Gansu. Methods: Between November 2017 and June 2018, a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling method was used to randomly select the rural left behind elderly aged 60 years and older in Gansu, and totally 6 000 elderly were enrolled. By using the extended general health questionnaire (GHQ-12) and the American Handbook for Diagnosis and Statistics of Mental Disorders (DSM-Ⅳ) Axis Ⅰ Disorders Formal Clinical Examination Patient Edition, all the included subjects were screened and diagnosed. Functional status was assessed by the Global Assessment Function scale (GAF). Statistical analysis of the prevalence of various mental illnesses, as well as the differences in the prevalence of different gender, marital status and age groups was performed. Results: Totally, 6 000 subjects completed the survey. The adjusted current prevalence of any mental disorder was 20.11% (95%CI 17.70%-22.85%). The six most prevalent specific disorders were major depressive disorder (9.20%), pain disorder (2.71%), mood disorder due to the body condition (2.08%), generalized anxiety disorder (1.99%), anxiety disorder not otherwise specified (1.15%) and dysthymic disorder (0.84%). The lifetime prevalence of mental disorders was 20.54% (95%CI 18.40%-23.39%). The overall current prevalence of mental disorders was higher in women (242.89‰) than in men (119.55‰), and the unmarried (248.37‰) was higher than those married (187.53‰). There was no significant difference in the prevalence of mental disorders among different age groups (P>0.05). The GAF score of mental disorders was 56±11, and 71.82% was moderate to severe functional impairment. Conclusions: The prevalence of mental disorders is high in rural left-behind population aged 60 years and over in Gansu Province. Major depression is a condition that deserves special attention.

Genome-Wide Scan for Runs of Homozygosity Identifies Candidate Genes in Three Pig Breeds

Runs of homozygosity (ROH) are contiguous homozygous genotype segments in the genome that are present in an individual since the identical haplotypes are inherited from each parent. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency and distribution of ROH in the genomes of Landrace, Songliao black and Yorkshire pigs. We calculated two types of genome inbreeding coefficients and their correlation, including the inbreeding coefficient based on ROH (FROH) and the inbreeding coefficient based on the difference between the observed and expected number of homozygous genotypes (FHOM). Furthermore, we identified candidate genes in the genomic region most associated with ROH. We identified 21,312 ROH in total. The average number of ROH per individual was 32.99 ± 0.38 and the average length of ROH was 6.40 ± 0.070 Mb in the three breeds. The FROH results showed that Yorkshire pigs exhibited the highest level of inbreeding (0.092 ± 0.0015) and that Landrace pigs exhibited the lowest level of inbreeding (0.073 ± 0.0047). The average correlation between FROH and FHOM was high (0.94) within three breeds. The length of ROH provides insight into the inbreeding history of these three pig breeds. In this study, Songliao black pigs presented a higher frequency and average length of long ROH (>40 Mb) compared with those of Landrace and Yorkshire pigs, which indicated greater inbreeding in recent times. Genes related to reproductive traits (GATM, SPATA46, HSD17B7, VANGL2, DAXX, CPEB1), meat quality traits (NR1I3, APOA2, USF1) and energy conversion (NDUFS2) were identified within genomic regions with a high frequency of ROH. These genes could be used as target genes for further marker-assisted selection and genome selection.

LARGE SCALE RANDOMIZED LEARNING GUIDED BY PHYSICAL LAWS WITH APPLICATIONS IN FULL WAVEFORM INVERSION

The rapid convergence rate, high fidelity learning outcome and low computational cost are key targets in solving the learning problem of the complex physical system. Guided by physical laws of wave propagation, in full waveform inversion (FWI), we learn the subsurface images through optimizing the media velocity model in a large scale non-linear problem. In this paper, we combine randomized subsampling techniques with a second-order optimization algorithm to propose the Sub-Sampled Newton (SSN) method for learning velocity model of FWI. By incorporating the curvature information, SSN preserves comparable convergence rate to Newtons method and significantly reduces the iteration cost by approximating the Hessian matrix through a non-uniform subsampling scheme. The numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed SSN method has a faster convergence rate, and achieves a more accurate velocity model in terms of mean squared error than commonly used methods.

Nanocomposite Hydrogels with Optic-Sonic Transparency and Hydroacoustic-Sensitive Conductivity for Potential Antiscouting Sonar

In this paper, we report on the design and simple fabrication of novel nanocomposite hydrogels with optic-sonic transparency and hydroacoustic-sensitive conductivity. The proposed nanocomposite hydrogels are constructed by poly( N, N-dimethylacrylamide) and exfoliated Laponite clay nanosheets via free radical polymerization. With lithium chloride (LiCl) as ionic additives inside the polymeric networks of the hydrogels, the lithium cations (Li⁺) could be stored on and in the clay nanosheets owing to the electrostatic adsorption and cation exchange. Triggered by hydroacoustic wave oscillation, the stored Li⁺ ions could escape from the clay nanosheets, resulting in the augmentation of ionic concentration inside the polymeric networks and thus the increase of the conductivity of the nanocomposite hydrogel. Inversely, upon removing the hydroacoustic signals, the Li⁺ ions could be readsorbed again by the clay nanosheets; as a result, the conductivity of the nanocomposite hydrogel decreases again. Moreover, the fabricated nanocomposite hydrogels also feature high stretchability and spliceable and antifreezing properties. Such novel nanocomposite hydrogels are highly promising for development of systems for camouflaging and sensing sonar scanning.

Bearing fault diagnosis with nonlinear adaptive dictionary learning

The monitoring of rotating machinery condition has been a critical component of the Industry 4.0 revolution in enhancing machine reliability and facilitating intelligent manufacturing. The introduction of condition-based monitoring has effectively reduced the catastrophic events and maintenance cost across various industries. One of the major challenges of the diagnosis remains as majority of the diagnostic model requires off-line analysis and human intervention. The offline analysis, which is normally done by previous experience, involves tuning model parameters to improve the performance of the diagnostic model. However, for newly developed models, the knowledge of the unknown parameters does not exist. One way to resolve this issue is through learning using adaptation. The adaptation algorithm adjusts itself by newly acquired data. Hence, improvement of the model performance is achieved. In this paper, a nonlinear adaptive dictionary learning algorithm is proposed to achieve early fault detection of bearing elements without using the conventional computation heavy algorithm to update the dictionary. Deterministic and random data separation is implemented using the autoregressive model to reduce the background noise. The filtered data is further analyzed by the Infogram to reveal the impulsiveness and cyclostationary signature of the vibration signal. The dictionary is initialized using random parameters. Instead of using the k means singular value decomposition algorithm to compute the dictionary for adaptation, the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is implemented to update the dictionaries using the filtered signal from the Infogram. The updating algorithm does not require computation of the dictionary, and no previous knowledge of the dictionary's parameters is needed. The updated dictionary contains the detected fault signature from the Infogram and, therefore, is used for further fault analysis. The proposed algorithm has the advantage of self-adaptation, the capability to map the non-linear relationship of the signal and dictionary weights. The algorithm can be used in the various condition-based monitoring of rotating machineries to avoid additional human efforts and improve the performance of the diagnostic model.

Endoscopic features and associated histology of an basaloid squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus at the very early stage

Background

Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus (BSCCE) is generally detected at advanced stage and the prognosis is poorer than advanced conventional esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Therefore, early detection is a critical to improve patients’ survival. However, only a few cases of early BSCCE have been reported and the endoscopic features of early BSCCE are not well described. We herein report the endoscopic features and associated histology of an early BSCCE limited within the mucosal lamina propria (m2). To our knowledge, this is the earliest BSCCE reported to date.

Case presentation

A 62-year-old male patient was admitted to our hospital because of epigastric pain for 3 months. White light endoscopy revealed a flat lesion with mild sloping at the periphery. The lesion was covered with leukoplakia, and normal vascular network could not be seen in the lesion. Magnifying endoscopy with narrow-band imaging showed abnormal intra-papillary capillary loop categorized as type B1 according to the classification of the Japan Esophageal Society. Iodine staining revealed a less-stained lesion. The lesion was completely resected through endoscopic submucosal dissection. Histopathologically, tumor cells, which were limited within the mucosal lamina propria, formed solid nests and lobule structures, with ribbon-like arrangement of sparse cytoplasm and round to ovoid hyperchromatic nuclei. A final diagnosis of early BSCCE was established.

Conclusions

This is the earliest BSCCE reported to date. The prominent lesion with a gentle rising slope and less-staining or abnormal stain might be initial feature of early BSCCE.

Optimal Seismic Reflectivity Inversion: Data-driven ℓ p -loss-ℓ q -regularization Sparse Regression

Seismic reflectivity inversion is widely applied to improve the seismic resolution to obtain detailed underground understandings. Based on the convolution model, seismic inversion removes the wavelet effect by solving an optimization problem. Taking advantage of the sparsity property, the ℓ ₁ norm is commonly adopted in the regularization terms to overcome the noise/interference vulnerability observed in the ℓ _p -losses minimization. However, no one has provided a deterministic conclusion that ℓ₁ norm regularization is the best choice for seismic reflectivity inversion. Instead of using an unproved fixed regularization norm, we propose an optimal seismic reflectivity inversion approach. Our method adaptively adopts a ℓ _p -loss-ℓ _q -regularization (i.e. ℓ _p,q regularization) for p = 2, 0 < q < 1 to estimate a more accurate and detailed reflectivity profile. In addition, we employ a K fold cross-validation based approach to obtain the optimal damping factor λ to further improve the seismic inversion results. The letter starts with the introduction of non-convex constraint for seismic inversion, and the necessity of the ℓ _q norm regularization. Then the majorization-minimization and cross validation algorithms are briefly described. The performance of the proposed seismic inversion approach is evaluated through synthetic examples and a field example from the Bohai Bay Basin, China.

Predictive values of FAP and HGF for tumor angiogenesis and metastasis in colorectal cancer

This study aims to explore the correlation of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and fibroblast activation protein (FAP) expressions with the angiogenesis and metastasis in colorectal cancer (CRC). The immunohistochemical SABC method was used to detect HGF and FAP expressions in 127 CRC tissues, 51 colorectal polyp tissues and 28 normal tissues. HGF and FAP expressions in liver metastasis were detected using western blot to analyze the correlation of their expressions with lymph node metastasis and liver metastasis. Micro-vessel density (MVD) and clinic-pathologic information of CRC patients were recorded and analyzed. In CRC group, HGF and FAP expressions were greatly higher than those in normal group and colorectal polyps group (P < 0.05). Moreover, the positive rates of HGF and FAP expressions in lymph node metastasis were evidently higher than those in non-lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05). In liver metastasis group, HGF and FAP expressions were obviously higher than non-liver metastasis group (P < 0.05). CRC group had much more MVD in comparison with normal group and colorectal polyps group (P < 0.05).When compared with negative group, MVD was significantly higher than that in CRC tissue with positive HGF and FAP (P < 0.05). Spearman rank correlation analysis showed that HGF and FAP were in positive correlation with MVD (r = 0.542, P < 0.001; r = 0.753, P < 0.001). These results indicate that FAP and HGF play an important role in CRC angiogenesis, and their expression levels are valuable to predict CRC liver metastasis and lymph node metastasis.

Cyclase-Associated Protein Cap with Multiple Domains Contributes to Mycotoxin Biosynthesis and Fungal Virulence in Aspergillus flavus

In Aspergillus, the cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) signaling modulates asexual development and mycotoxin biosynthesis. Here, we characterize the cyclase-associated protein Cap in the pathogenic fungus Aspergillus flauvs. The cap disruption mutant exhibited dramatic reduction in hyphal growth, conidiation, and spore germination, while an enhanced production of the sclerotia was observed in this mutant. Importantly, the cap gene was found to be important for mycotoxin biosynthesis and virulence. The domain deletion study demonstrated that each domain played an important role for the Cap protein in regulating cAMP/protein kinase A (PKA) signaling, while only P1 and CARP domains were essential for the full function of Cap. The phosphorylation of Cap at S35 was identified in A. flavus, which was found to play a negligible role for the function of Cap. Overall, our results indicated that Cap with multiple domains engages in mycotoxin production and fungal pathogenicity, which could be designed as potential control targets for preventing this fungal pathogen.

Online Decentralized Leverage Score Sampling for Streaming Multidimensional Time Series

Estimating the dependence structure of multidimensional time series data in real-time is challenging. With large volumes of streaming data, the problem becomes more difficult when the multidimensional data are collected asynchronously across distributed nodes, which motivates us to sample representative data points from streams. We propose a leverage score sampling (LSS) method for efficient online inference of the streaming vector autoregressive (VAR) model. We define the leverage score for the streaming VAR model so that the LSS method selects informative data points in real-time with statistical guarantees of parameter estimation efficiency. Moreover, our LSS method can be directly deployed in an asynchronous decentralized environment, e.g., a sensor network without a fusion center, and produce asynchronous consensus online parameter estimation over time. By exploiting the temporal dependence structure of the VAR model, the LSS method selects samples independently on each dimension and thus is able to update the estimation asynchronously. We illustrate the effectiveness of the LSS method in synthetic, gas sensor and seismic datasets.

Unexplained abdominal pain due to a fish bone penetrating the gastric antrum and migrating into the neck of the pancreas: A case report

BACKGROUND

Ingestion of foreign bodies results in gastrointestinal perforation in approximately 1% of patients, and fish bones are the objects that most commonly lead to bowel perforation. When it does occur, the terminal ileum is the most common site of perforation, followed by the duodenal C-loop. However, involvement of the pancreas is very rare. Because clinical symptoms are nonspecific and gastrointestinal perforation may present as only odynophagia or abdominal pain, a definite preoperative diagnosis and clinical intervention may be delayed.

CASE SUMMARY

We report the case of a 32-year-old man who presented to our hospital because of abdominal pain that had worsened over 5 d. He had no significant past history except that he had eaten fish 1 wk previously. Upper endoscopy revealed an irregular submucosal tumor on the front wall of the gastric antrum. Endoscopic ultrasonography and computed tomography showed a fish bone penetrating the gastric antrum and migratingin to the neck of the pancreas. The patient underwent laparoscopic surgery and had no complications one week after the operation.

CONCLUSION

A recent history of foreign body ingestion and imaging examinations are helpful for diagnosis of unexplained abdominal pain caused by foreign bodies.

Genomic variant in porcine TNFRSF1A gene and its effects on TNF signaling pathway in vitro

Our initial genome-wide association study (GWAS) revealed the presence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) related to immune traits in the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily member 1A (TNFRSF1A) gene, suggesting the association of this gene with immune function in pigs. To better understand the immune functions of the TNFRSF1A gene, SNPs within the TNFRSF1A gene were detected by sequencing. One SNP (c.1394C > T) in exon 6 of TNFRSF1A was identified, and association analysis in two pig populations was subsequently performed. The results showed that this SNP was significantly associated with CD4^-CD8^-CD3^-, CD4⁺CD8^-CD3⁺, and CD4⁺/CD8⁺ (P = 0.0038, P = 0.0007, and P = 0.0076, respectively). Based on quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), the TNFRSF1A mRNA was shown to be widely expressed in six different tissues. Finally, functional verification of the TNFRSF1A gene was performed in vitro to better understand its role. RNAi was used to generate a porcine PK15 cell line with a silenced TNFRSF1A gene, and a vector was also constructed to assess overexpression of TNFRSF1A. RT-qPCR was then used to detect changes in the expression levels of five critical genes. Our results indicated that TNFRSF1A activated the TNF signaling pathway and inhibited the NFκB signaling pathway in vitro. These findings provide evidence for an immune-related regulatory function for porcine TNFRSF1A.

[Corrigendum] NHE1 is upregulated in gastric cancer and regulates gastric cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasion

After the publication of the article, the authors informed us that they had consent from the patients involved in the study, but not from the next‑of‑kin of the patients, for their clinical data to have been published (Fig. 1A‑E). Following on from a request made by the Ethics Committee of the Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical College that these data either be replaced in the article, or that the article be retracted, the authors identified 10 new volunteers and asked the patients and their families to sign informed consent according to ethical requirements. The experiments were repeated according to the previous experimental design, and novel data were obtained. The results obtained were consistent with the previous clinical data.The revised version of Fig. 1, including the data from the new patients, is shown opposite. As stated, the revised data shown for Fig. 1A‑E do not affect the overall conclusions reported in the paper. The authors apologize to the Editor of Oncology Reports and to the readership for any inconvenience caused. [the original article was published in Oncology Reports 37: 1451‑1460, 2017; DOI: 10.3892/or.2017.5386].

Expression of HDAC4 in Stage B Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Its Influence on Survival

OBJECTIVES

Histone deacetylase 4 (HDAC4) is involved in the development of multiple types of cancers. In this study, we aimed to investigate the expression and clinical significance of HDAC4 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

METHODS

49 patients with stage B HCC who underwent surgical resection were enrolled in this study. All patients were followed up with an observation time of 4.8 to 7 years. Immunohistochemistry was applied to investigate the expression level of HDAC4.

RESULTS

HDAC4 protein is over-expressed in HCC tissues compared with matched adjacent non-cancer tissues. Kaplan-Meier analysis shows that the positive expression of HDAC4 is associated with poor survival in these patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study shows that HDAC4 over-expression is important for the development of advanced HCC, which may serve as a useful prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target for this malignancy.