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Neuro-inspired vision systems hold great promise to address the growing demands of mass data processing for edge computing, a distributed framework that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data. In addition to the capability of static image sensing and processing, the hardware implementation of a neuro-inspired vision system also requires the fulfilment of detecting and recognizing moving targets. Here, we demonstrated a neuro-inspired optical sensor based on two-dimensional NbS 2 /MoS 2 hybrid films, which featured remarkable photo-induced conductance plasticity and low electrical energy consumption. A neuro-inspired optical sensor array with 10 × 10 NbS 2 /MoS 2 phototransistors enabled highly integrated functions of sensing, memory, and contrast enhancement capabilities for static images, which benefits convolutional neural network (CNN) with a high image recognition accuracy. More importantly, in-sensor trajectory registration of moving light spots was experimentally implemented such that the post-processing could yield a high restoration accuracy. Our neuro-inspired optical sensor array could provide a fascinating platform for the implementation of high-performance artificial vision systems. Neuro-inspired vision systems hold great promise to address the growing demands of mass data processing for edge computing. Here the authors, develop a neuro-inspired optical sensor based on NbS 2 /MoS 2 films that can operate with monolithically integrated functions of static image enhancement and dynamic trajectory registration.

Two-dimensional (2D) layered semiconductors with nonlinear optical (NLO) properties hold great promise to address the growing demand of multifunction integration in electronic-photonic integrated circuits (EPICs). However, electronic-photonic co-design with 2D NLO semiconductors for on-chip telecommunication is limited by their essential shortcomings in terms of unsatisfactory optoelectronic properties, odd-even layer-dependent NLO activity and low NLO susceptibility in telecom band. Here we report the synthesis of 2D SnP 2 Se 6 , a van der Waals NLO semiconductor exhibiting strong odd-even layer-independent second harmonic generation (SHG) activity at 1550 nm and pronounced photosensitivity under visible light. The combination of 2D SnP 2 Se 6 with a SiN photonic platform enables the chip-level multifunction integration for EPICs. The hybrid device not only features efficient on-chip SHG process for optical modulation, but also allows the telecom-band photodetection relying on the upconversion of wavelength from 1560 to 780 nm. Our finding offers alternative opportunities for the collaborative design of EPICs. 2D semiconductors with nonlinear optical properties hold promise for multifunction integration in electronic-photonic integrated circuits. Here, the authors report the synthesis of 2D SnP 2 Se 6 and its integration with a SiN photonic platform, showing strong odd-even layer-independent second harmonic generation activity at 1550 nm and broadband photoresponse.

The human microbiome is defined as the microorganisms that reside in or on the human body, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa, and their genomes. The human microbiome participates in the modulation of human metabolism by influencing several intricate pathways. The association between specific bacteria or viruses and the efficacy of cancer treatments and the occurrence of treatment-related toxicity in cancer patients has been reported. However, the understanding of the interaction between the host microbiome and the cancer treatment response is limited, and the microbiome potentially plays a greater role in the treatment of cancer than reported to date. Here, we provide a thorough review of the potential role of the gut and locally resident bacterial microbiota in modulating responses to different cancer therapeutics to demonstrate the association between the gut or locally resident bacterial microbiota and cancer therapy. Probable mechanisms, such as metabolism, the immune response and the translocation of microbiome constituents, are discussed to promote future research into the association between the microbiome and other types of cancer. We conclude that the interaction between the host immune system and the microbiome may be the basis of the role of the microbiome in cancer therapies. Future research on the association between host immunity and the microbiome may improve the efficacy of several cancer treatments and provide insights into the cause of treatment-related side effects.

A previous individual patient data meta-analysis by the Meta-Analysis of Chemotherapy in Nasopharynx Carcinoma (MAC-NPC) collaborative group to assess the addition of chemotherapy to radiotherapy showed that it improves overall survival in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. This benefit was restricted to patients receiving concomitant chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The aim of this study was to update the meta-analysis, include recent trials, and to analyse separately the benefit of concomitant plus adjuvant chemotherapy. We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Controlled Trials meta-register, ClinicalTrials.gov, and meeting proceedings to identify published or unpublished randomised trials assessing radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy in patients with non-metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma and obtained updated data for previously analysed studies. The primary endpoint of interest was overall survival. All trial results were combined and analysed using a fixed-effects model. The statistical analysis plan was pre-specified in a protocol. All data were analysed on an intention-to-treat basis. We analysed data from 19 trials and 4806 patients. Median follow-up was 7·7 years (IQR 6·2–11·9). We found that the addition of chemotherapy to radiotherapy significantly improved overall survival (hazard ratio [HR] 0·79, 95% CI 0·73–0·86, p<0·0001; absolute benefit at 5 years 6·3%, 95% CI 3·5–9·1). The interaction between treatment effect (benefit of chemotherapy) on overall survival and the timing of chemotherapy was significant (p=0·01) in favour of concomitant plus adjuvant chemotherapy (HR 0·65, 0·56–0·76) and concomitant without adjuvant chemotherapy (0·80, 0·70–0·93) but not adjuvant chemotherapy alone (0·87, 0·68–1·12) or induction chemotherapy alone (0·96, 0·80–1·16). The benefit of the addition of chemotherapy was consistent for all endpoints analysed (all p<0·0001): progression-free survival (HR 0·75, 95% CI 0·69–0·81), locoregional control (0·73, 0·64–0·83), distant control (0·67, 0·59–0·75), and cancer mortality (0·76, 0·69–0·84). Our results confirm that the addition of concomitant chemotherapy to radiotherapy significantly improves survival in patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma. To our knowledge, this is the first analysis that examines the effect of concomitant chemotherapy with and without adjuvant chemotherapy as distinct groups. Further studies on the specific benefits of adjuvant chemotherapy after concomitant chemoradiotherapy are needed. French Ministry of Health (Programme d'actions intégrées de recherche VADS), Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer, and Sanofi-Aventis.

Reirradiation in standard fractionation for locally advanced recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma after a previous course of high-dose radiotherapy is often associated with substantial late toxicity, negating its overall benefit. We therefore aimed to investigate the efficacy and safety of hyperfractionation compared with standard fractionation in intensity-modulated radiotherapy. This multicentre, randomised, open-label, phase 3 trial was done in three centres in Guangzhou, China. Eligible patients were aged 18–65 years with histopathologically confirmed undifferentiated or differentiated, non-keratinising, advanced locally recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to either receive hyperfractionation (65 Gy in 54 fractions, given twice daily with an interfractional time interval of at least 6 h) or standard fractionation (60 Gy in 27 fractions, given once a day). Intensity-modulated radiotherapy was used in both groups. A computer program generated the assignment sequence and randomisation was stratified by treatment centre, recurrent tumour stage (T2–T3 vs T4), and recurrent nodal stage (N0 vs N1–N2), determined at the time of randomisation. The two primary endpoints were the incidence of severe late complications defined as the incidence of grade 3 or worse late radiation-induced complications occurring 3 months after the completion of radiotherapy until the latest follow-up in the safety population, and overall survival defined as the time interval from randomisation to death due to any cause in the intention-to-treat population. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02456506. Between July 10, 2015, and Dec 23, 2019, 178 patients were screened for eligibility, 144 of whom were enrolled and randomly assigned to hyperfractionation or standard fractionation (n=72 in each group). 35 (24%) participants were women and 109 (76%) were men. After a median follow-up of 45·0 months (IQR 37·3–53·3), there was a significantly lower incidence of grade 3 or worse late radiation-induced toxicity in the hyperfractionation group (23 [34%] of 68 patients) versus the standard fractionation group (39 [57%] of 68 patients; between-group difference –23% [95% CI –39 to –7]; p=0·023). Patients in the hyperfractionation group had better 3-year overall survival than those in the standard fractionation group (74·6% [95% CI 64·4 to 84·8] vs 55·0% [43·4 to 66·6]; hazard ratio for death 0·54 [95% CI 0·33 to 0·88]; p=0·014). There were fewer grade 5 late complications in the hyperfractionation group (five [7%] nasal haemorrhage) than in the standard fractionation group (16 [24%], including two [3%] nasopharyngeal necrosis, 11 [16%] nasal haemorrhage, and three [4%] temporal lobe necrosis). Hyperfractionated intensity-modulated radiotherapy could significantly decrease the rate of severe late complications and improve overall survival among patients with locally advanced recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Our findings suggest that hyperfractionated intensity-modulated radiotherapy could be used as the standard of care for these patients. Key-Area Research and Development of Guangdong Province, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Special Support Program for High-level Talents in Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, the Guangzhou Science and Technology Plan Project, and the National Ten Thousand Talents Program Science and Technology Innovation Leading Talents, Sun Yat-Sen University Clinical Research 5010 Program.

Dyslipidemia, a hallmark of metabolic syndrome (MetS), contributes to atherosclerotic and cardiometabolic disorders. Due to days-long analysis, current clinical procedures for cardiotoxic blood lipid monitoring are unmet. This study used AI-assisted attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy to identify MetS and precisely quantify multiple blood lipid levels with a blood sample of 0.5 µl and the assaying time is approximately 10 minutes. ATR-FTIR spectroscopy with 1738 data points in the spectral range of 4000-650 cm-1 was used to analyze the blood samples. An adaptive synthetic technique was used to establish a prevalence-balanced dataset. LDL-C, HDL-C, TG, VLDL-C, and cholesterol levels were defined as the predicted targets of lipid absorption profiles. Linear regression (LR), gradient boosting regression tree (GBT), and histogram-based gradient boosting regression tree (HGBTR) were used to train the models. Lipid profile value prediction was evaluated using R2 and MAE, whereas MetS prediction was evaluated using area under the ROC curve. A total of 150 blood samples from 25 individuals without MetS and 25 with MetS yielded 491 spectral measurements. In the regression models, HGBT best predicted the targets of TG, CHOL, HDL-C, LDL-C, and VLDL-C with R2 values of 0.854 (0.12), 0.684 (0.08), 0.758 (0.10), and 0.419 (0.11), respectively. The classification model with the greatest AUC was RF (0.978), followed by HGBT (0.972) and GBT (0.967). The results of this study revealed that predicting MetS and determining blood lipid levels with high R2 values and limited errors are feasible for monitoring during therapy and intervention.

This paper proposes a modified maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm for photovoltaic systems under rapidly changing partial shading conditions (PSCs). The proposed algorithm integrates a genetic algorithm (GA) and the firefly algorithm (FA) and further improves its calculation process via a differential evolution (DE) algorithm. The conventional GA is not advisable for MPPT because of its complicated calculations and low accuracy under PSCs. In this study, we simplified the GA calculations with the integration of the DE mutation process and FA attractive process. Results from both the simulation and evaluation verify that the proposed algorithm provides rapid response time and high accuracy due to the simplified processing. For instance, evaluation results demonstrate that when compared to the conventional GA, the execution time and tracking accuracy of the proposed algorithm can be, respectively, improved around 69.4% and 4.16%. In addition, in comparison to FA, the tracking speed and tracking accuracy of the proposed algorithm can be improved around 42.9% and 1.85%, respectively. Consequently, the major improvement of the proposed method when evaluated against the conventional GA and FA is tracking speed. Moreover, this research provides a framework to integrate multiple nature-inspired algorithms for MPPT. Furthermore, the proposed method is adaptable to different types of solar panels and different system formats with specifically designed equations, the advantages of which are rapid tracking speed with high accuracy under PSCs.

The meta-analysis of chemotherapy for nasopharynx carcinoma (MAC-NPC) collaborative group previously showed that the addition of adjuvant chemotherapy to concomitant chemoradiotherapy had the highest survival benefit of the studied treatment regimens in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Due to the publication of new trials on induction chemotherapy, we updated the network meta-analysis. For this individual patient data network meta-analysis, trials of radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy in patients with non-metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma that completed accrual before Dec 31, 2016, were identified and updated individual patient data were obtained. Both general databases (eg, PubMed and Web of Science) and Chinese medical literature databases were searched. Overall survival was the primary endpoint. A frequentist network meta-analysis approach with a two-step random effect stratified by trial based on hazard ratio Peto estimator was used. Global Cochran Q statistic was used to assess homogeneity and consistency, and p score to rank treatments, with higher scores indicating higher benefit therapies. Treatments were grouped into the following categories: radiotherapy alone, induction chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy, induction chemotherapy without taxanes followed by chemoradiotherapy, induction chemotherapy with taxanes followed by chemoradiotherapy, chemoradiotherapy, chemoradiotherapy followed by adjuvant chemotherapy, and radiotherapy followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. This study is registered with PROSPERO, CRD42016042524. The network comprised 28 trials and included 8214 patients (6133 [74·7%] were men, 2073 [25·2%] were women, and eight [0·1%] had missing data) enrolled between Jan 1, 1988, and Dec 31, 2016. Median follow-up was 7·6 years (IQR 6·2–13·3). There was no evidence of heterogeneity (p=0·18), and inconsistency was borderline (p=0·10). The three treatments with the highest benefit for overall survival were induction chemotherapy with taxanes followed by chemoradiotherapy (hazard ratio 0·75; 95% CI 0·59–0·96; p score 92%), induction chemotherapy without taxanes followed by chemoradiotherapy (0·81; 0·69–0·95; p score 87%), and chemoradiotherapy followed by adjuvant chemotherapy (0·88; 0·75–1·04; p score 72%), compared with concomitant chemoradiotherapy (p score 46%). The inclusion of new trials modified the conclusion of the previous network meta-analysis. In this updated network meta-analysis, the addition of either induction chemotherapy or adjuvant chemotherapy to chemoradiotherapy improved overall survival over chemoradiotherapy alone in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Institut National du Cancer and Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer.

This paper presents a novel modified Complementary SuDoKu puzzle (MC-SDKP) topology for the static reconfiguration of photovoltaic (PV) arrays. It was developed with the aim of enhancing the power output of a PV array which is exposed to partially shaded conditions (PSCs). To disperse patterns of both center shading and corner shading, the MC-SDKP technique modified and combined the Optimal SDKP and the Complementary SDKP (C-SDKP) topologies. An 8 × 8 PV array configured with the MC-SDKP topology was exposed to nine different shading patterns, and its performance was compared with that of the other four topologies. The results of the performance evaluation confirmed that, when configured according to the MC-SDKP, the PV array produced the highest average power output among all five topologies, with a 15.07% higher output on average than the total-cross tied. The PV array with the MC-SDKP topology also exhibited the lowest average power loss (1.34%). This study clearly established the effectiveness of the MC-SDKP topology at mitigating the effects of both center and corner shading. The advantages of the MC-SDKP reconfiguration technique are: an increase in extracted power, a reduction in current mismatch losses, an improvement in shade dispersion under conditions of center shading, and good scalability.

It is critical to understand factors associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) metastasis. To track the evolutionary route of metastasis, here we perform an integrative genomic analysis of 163 matched blood and primary, regional lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis tumour samples, combined with single-cell RNA-seq on 11 samples from two patients. The mutation burden, gene mutation frequency, mutation signature, and copy number frequency are similar between metastatic tumours and primary and regional lymph node tumours. There are two distinct evolutionary routes of metastasis, including metastases evolved from regional lymph nodes (lymphatic route, 61.5%, 8/13) and from primary tumours (hematogenous route, 38.5%, 5/13). The hematogenous route is characterised by higher IFN-γ response gene expression and a higher fraction of exhausted CD8 + T cells. Based on a radiomics model, we find that the hematogenous group has significantly better progression-free survival and PD-1 immunotherapy response, while the lymphatic group has a better response to locoregional radiotherapy. It is critical to understand the factors that are associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) progression, metastasis and response to therapy. Here, the authors analyse primary and metastatic NPC samples using bulk and single-cell sequencing, and find two distinct evolutionary routes that lead to metastasis.