New Insights into the Pathogenesis of Systemic Mastocytosis

Mastocytosis is a type of myeloid neoplasm characterized by the clonal, neoplastic proliferation of morphologically and immunophenotypically abnormal mast cells that infiltrate one or more organ systems. Systemic mastocytosis (SM) is a more aggressive variant of mastocytosis with extracutaneous involvement, which might be associated with multi-organ dysfunction or failure and shortened survival. Over 80% of patients with SM carry the KIT D816V mutation. However, the KIT D816V mutation serves as a weak oncogene and appears to be a late event in the pathogenesis of mastocytosis. The management of SM is highly individualized and was largely palliative for patients without a targeted form of therapy in past decades. Targeted therapy with midostaurin, a multiple kinase inhibitor that inhibits KIT, has demonstrated efficacy in patients with advanced SM. This led to the recent approval of midostaurin by the United States Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency. However, the overall survival of patients treated with midostaurin remains unsatisfactory. The identification of genetic and epigenetic alterations and understanding their interactions and the molecular mechanisms involved in mastocytosis is necessary to develop rationally targeted therapeutic strategies. This review briefly summarizes recent developments in the understanding of SM pathogenesis and potential treatment strategies for patients with SM.     

4D Printing of Shape Memory Materials for Textiles: Mechanism,Mathematical Modeling,and Challenges

Shape memory materials (SMMs) in 3D printing (3DP) technology garnered much attention due to their ability to respond to external stimuli, which direct this technology toward an emerging area of research, “4D printing (4DP) technology.” In contrast to classical 3D printed objects, the fourth dimension, time, allows printed objects to undergo significant changes in shape, size, or color when subjected to external stimuli. Highly precise and calibrated 4D materials, which can perform together to achieve robust 4D objects, are in great demand in various fields such as military applications, space suits, robotic systems, apparel, healthcare, sports, etc. This review, for the first time, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, focuses on recent advances in SMMs (e.g., polymers, metals, etc.) based wearable smart textiles and fashion goods. This review integrates the basic overview of 3DP technology, fabrication methods, the transition of 3DP to 4DP, the chemistry behind the fundamental working principles of 4D printed objects, materials selection for smart textiles and fashion goods. The central part summarizes the effect of major external stimuli on 4D textile materials followed by the major applications. Lastly, prospects and challenges are discussed, so that future researchers can continue the progress of this technology.     

No-Reference Video Quality Assessment using novel hybrid features and two-stage hybrid regression for score level fusion

This paper presents a novel No-Reference Video Quality Assessment (NR-VQA) model that utilizes proposed 3D steerable wavelet transform-based Natural Video Statistics (NVS) features as well as human perceptual features. Additionally, we proposed a novel two-stage regression scheme that significantly improves the overall performance of quality estimation. In the first stage, transform-based NVS and human perceptual features are separately passed through the proposed hybrid regression scheme: Support Vector Regression (SVR) followed by Polynomial curve fitting. The two visual quality scores predicted from the first stage are then used as features for the similar second stage. This predicts the final quality scores of distorted videos by achieving score level fusion. Extensive experiments were conducted using five authentic and four synthetic distortion databases. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other published state-of-the-art benchmark methods on synthetic distortion databases and is among the top performers on authentic distortion databases. The source code is available at https://github.com/anishVNIT/two-stage-vqa.     

涪陵地区茅三段热液白云岩展布影响因素分析

针对热液白云岩展布非均质性强的问题,开展基底断裂与茅三段沉积演化关系研究,分析断裂样式与白云岩分布关系,建立沉积演化模式,预测白云岩的分布。研究结果表明:茅三段可划分为5个小层,1~3小层为白云岩发育主要时期,4~5小层为台地均一化时期,不发育白云岩;15-1、15-2和16号基底断裂控制了早期“台-洼”相间的沉积地貌,断裂附近的地貌高部位为生屑滩发育有利部位,为白云岩的发育提供物质基础;15-1、15-2号基底断裂样式为花状,周边生屑滩白云石化程度高,为白云岩发育最有利区;16号基底断裂为直立状,附近白云石化发育程度较低,为白云岩发育较有利区。研究成果可为热液白云岩领域的进一步勘探提供指导依据。     

Nanogrooved carbon microtubes for wet three‐dimensional printing of conductive composite structures

Recent advances in three‐dimensional (3D) printing have enabled the fabrication of interesting structures which are not achievable using traditional fabrication approaches. The 3D printing of carbon microtube composite inks allows fabrication of conductive structures for practical applications in soft robotics and tissue engineering. However, it is challenging to achieve 3D printed structures from solution‐based composite inks, which requires an additional process to solidify the ink. Here, we introduce a wet 3D printing technique which uses a coagulation bath to fabricate carbon microtube composite structures. We show that through a facile nanogrooving approach which introduces cavitation and channels on carbon microtubes, enhanced interfacial interactions with a chitosan polymer matrix are achieved. Consequently, the mechanical properties of the 3D printed composites improve when nanogrooved carbon microtubes are used, compared to untreated microtubes. We show that by carefully controlling the coagulation bath, extrusion pressure, printing distance and printed line distance, we can 3D print composite lattices which are composed of well‐defined and separated printed lines. The conductive composite 3D structures with highly customised design presented in this work provide a suitable platform for applications ranging from soft robotics to smart tissue engineering scaffolds. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry     

In Vivo Albumin-Binding of a C-Functionalized Cyclam Platform for 64Cu-PET/CT Imaging in Breast Cancer Model

An improved glucose-chelator-albumin bioconjugate (GluCAB) derivative, GluCAB-2^Mal, has been synthesized and studied for in vivo ⁶⁴Cu-PET/CT imaging in breast cancer mice models together with its first-generation analogue GluCAB-1^Mal. The radioligand works on the principle of tumor targeting through the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect with a supportive role played by glucose metabolism. [⁶⁴Cu]Cu-GluCAB-2^Mal (99 % RCP) exhibited high serum stability with immediate binding to serum proteins. In vivo experiments for comparison between tumor targeting of [⁶⁴Cu]Cu-GluCAB-2^Mal and previous-generation [⁶⁴Cu]Cu-GluCAB-1^Mal encompassed microPET/CT imaging and biodistribution analysis in an allograft E0771 breast cancer mouse model. Tumor uptake of [⁶⁴Cu]Cu-GluCAB-2^Mal was clearly evident with twice as much accumulation as compared to its predecessor and a tumor/muscle ratio of up to 5 after 24 h. Further comparison indicated a decrease in liver accumulation for [⁶⁴Cu]Cu-Glu-CAB-2^Mal.     

Epitaxial Growth of 2D Materials on High-Index Substrate Surfaces

Recently, the successful synthesis of wafer-scale single-crystal graphene, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), and MoS₂ on transition metal surfaces with step edges boosted the research interests in synthesizing wafer-scale 2D single crystals on high-index substrate surfaces. Here, using hBN growth on high-index Cu surfaces as an example, a systematic theoretical study to understand the epitaxial growth of 2D materials on various high-index surfaces is performed. It is revealed that hBN orientation on a high-index surface is highly dependent on the alignment of the step edges of the surface as well as the surface roughness. On an ideal high-index surface, well-aligned hBN islands can be easily achieved, whereas curved step edges on a rough surface can lead to the alignment of hBN along with different directions. This study shows that high-index surfaces with a large step density are robust for templating the epitaxial growth of 2D single crystals due to their large tolerance for surface roughness and provides a general guideline for the epitaxial growth of various 2D single crystals.