Absolute monocyte and lymphocyte count prognostic score for patients with gastric cancer

AIM:To measure the prognostic significance of absolute monocyte count/absolute lymphocyte count prognostic score(AMLPS) in patients with gastric cancer.METHODS:We retrospectively examined the combination of absolute monocyte count(AMC) and absolute lymphocyte count(ALC) as prognostic variables in a cohort of 299 gastric cancer patients who underwent surgical resection between 2006 and 2013 and were followed at a single institution.Both AMC and ALC were dichotomized into two groups using cut-off points determined by receiving operator characteristic curve analysis.An AMLPS was generated,which stratified patients into three risk groups:low risk(both low AMC and high ALC),intermediate risk(either high AMC or low ALC),and high risk(both high AMC and low ALC).The primary objective of the study was to validate the impact of AMLPS on both disease-free survival(DFS) and overall survival(OS),and the second objective was to assess the AMLPS as an independent prognostic factor for survival in comparison with known prognostic factors.RESULTS:Using data from the entire cohort,the most discriminative cut-off values of AMC and ALC selected on the receiver operating characteristic curve were 672.4/μL and 1734/μL for DFS and OS.AMLPS risk groups included 158(52.8%) patients in the lowrisk,128(42.8%) in the intermediate-risk,and 13(4.3%) in the high-risk group.With a median followup of 37.2 mo(range:1.7-91.4 mo),five-year DFS rates in the low-,intermediate-,and high-risk groups were 83.4%,78.7%,and 19.8%,respectively.And fiveyear OS rates in the low-,intermediate-,and high-risk groups were 89.3%,81.1%,and 14.4%,respectively.On multivariate analysis performed with patient- and tumor-related factors,we identified AMLPS,age,and pathologic tumor-node-metastasis stage as the most valuable prognostic factors impacting DFS and OS.CONCLUSION:AMLPS identified patients with a poor DFS and OS,and it was independent of age,pathologic stage,and various inflammatory markers.

Effect of tellurium on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Fe-14Cr oxide-dispersion-strengthened steels produced by additive manufacturing

Conventionally,Te has primarily been used to improve the machinability of steel and its alloys.In this work,Te was used to refine the grains of an oxide-dispersion-strengthened(ODS)steel produced by additive manufacturing(AM)with fixed processing parameters.Addition of Te to the raw powder produced an ODS steel with a fine-grained microstructure,in contrast to the ODS steel manufactured without Te.Moreover,the addition of Te resulted in superior yield strength and ultimate tensile strength,which was attributed to the combined effects of grain refinement and the finer nanoparticles(NPs)composed of Terich composite NPs and Cr-rich NPs.For the first time,the AM technique was used to obtain grain and nanoparticle sizes of~3.4μm and 6 nm,respectively,from the Te-added ODS steel.

Materialization of strained CVD-graphene using thermal mismatch

Theoretical physics foretells that ＂strain engineering＂ of graphene could hold the key to finding treasures still hidden in two-dimensional （2D） condensed matter physics and commercializing graphene-based devices. However, to produce strained graphene in large quantities is not an easy task by any means. Here, we demonstrate that thermal annealing of graphene placed on various substrates could be a surprisingly simple method for preparing strained graphene with a large area. We found that enhanced graphene-substrate interfacial adhesion plays a critical role in developing strained graphene. Creative device architectures that consider the thermal mismatch between graphene and the target substrate could enable the resulting strain to be intentionally tailored. We believe that our proposed method could suggest a shortcut to realization of graphene straintronics.