Background and aimPancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most common tumors with a poor prognosis. The current American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system, based on the anatomical features of tumors, is insufficient to predict PC outcomes. The current study is endeavored to identify important prognosis-related genes and build an effective predictive model.MethodsMultiple public datasets were used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and survival-related genes (SRGs). Bioinformatics analysis of DEGs was used to identify the main biological processes and pathways involved in PC. A risk score based on SRGs was computed through a univariate Cox regression analysis. The performance of the risk score in predicting PC prognosis was evaluated with survival analysis, Harrell’s concordance index (C-index), area under the curve (AUC), and calibration plots. A predictive nomogram was built through integrating the risk score with clinicopathological information.ResultsA total of 945 DEGs were identified in five Gene Expression Omnibus datasets, and four SRGs (LYRM1, KNTC1, IGF2BP2, and CDC6) were significantly associated with PC progression and prognosis in four datasets. The risk score showed relatively good performance in predicting prognosis in multiple datasets. The predictive nomogram had greater C-index and AUC values, compared with those of the AJCC stage and risk score.ConclusionThis study identified four new biomarkers that are significantly associated with the carcinogenesis, progression, and prognosis of PC, which may be helpful in studying the underlying mechanism of PC carcinogenesis. The predictive nomogram showed robust performance in predicting PC prognosis. Therefore, the current model may provide an effective and reliable guide for prognosis assessment and treatment decision-making in the clinic.

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This study demonstrated that the long-term outcomes of the patients with CL-HCC in these two groups were not significantly different. For short-term outcomes, CH resulted in a lower rate of postoperative liver failure, while MH resulted in a lower incidence of biliary fistula. Nonetheless, compared with MH, CH provided CL-HCC patients with greater future remnant liver volume without an increased risk of early intra-hepatic recurrence. More multi-centre, randomized controlled trials comparing the therapeutic efficacy of CH and MH are urgently warranted.

Achieving high detection accuracy of pavement cracks with complex textures under different lighting conditions is still challenging. In this context, an encoder-decoder network-based architecture named CrackResAttentionNet was proposed in this study, and the position attention module and channel attention module were connected after each encoder to summarize remote contextual information. The experiment results demonstrated that, compared with other popular models (ENet, ExFuse, FCN, LinkNet, SegNet, and UNet), for the public dataset, CrackResAttentionNet with BCE loss function and PRelu activation function achieved the best performance in terms of precision (89.40), mean IoU (71.51), recall (81.09), and F1 (85.04). Meanwhile, for a self-developed dataset (Yantai dataset), CrackResAttentionNet with BCE loss function and PRelu activation function also had better performance in terms of precision (96.17), mean IoU (83.69), recall (93.44), and F1 (94.79). In particular, for the public dataset, the precision of BCE loss and PRelu activation function was improved by 3.21. For the Yantai dataset, the results indicated that the precision was improved by 0.99, the mean IoU was increased by 0.74, the recall was increased by 1.1, and the F1 for BCE loss and PRelu activation function was increased by 1.24.

Traffic sign detection is extremely important in autonomous driving and transportation safety systems. However, the accurate detection of traffic signs remains challenging, especially under extreme conditions. This paper proposes a novel model called Traffic Sign Yolo (TS-Yolo) based on the convolutional neural network to improve the detection and recognition accuracy of traffic signs, especially under low visibility and extremely restricted vision conditions. A copy-and-paste data augmentation method was used to build a large number of new samples based on existing traffic-sign datasets. Based on You Only Look Once (YoloV5), the mixed depth-wise convolution (MixConv) was employed to mix different kernel sizes in a single convolution operation, so that different patterns with various resolutions can be captured. Furthermore, the attentional feature fusion (AFF) module was integrated to fuse the features based on attention from same-layer to cross-layer scenarios, including short and long skip connections, and even performing the initial fusion with itself. The experimental results demonstrated that, using the YoloV5 dataset with augmentation, the precision was 71.92, which was increased by 34.56 compared with the data without augmentation, and the mean average precision mAP_0.5 was 80.05, which was increased by 33.11 compared with the data without augmentation. When MixConv and AFF were applied to the TS-Yolo model, the precision was 74.53 and 2.61 higher than that with data augmentation only, and the value of mAP_0.5 was 83.73 and 3.68 higher than that based on the YoloV5 dataset with augmentation only. Overall, the performance of the proposed method was competitive with the latest traffic sign detection approaches.

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Scalp defects can be caused by various factors, and reconstruction options for scalp defects include skin grafts, local flaps, tissue expanders, and free flaps. However, currently, it is widely accepted that the use of free flaps is the most feasible method for extensive scalp defect reconstruction. While multiple flaps have been used to reconstruct scalp defects, the reconstruction of total scalp defects still remains challenging. Pre-expansion of free flaps offers several advantages, including increasing flap size and thinning of the tissue for better contour, and is particularly important in scalp reconstruction. This report describes the successful management of total scalp defect reconstruction that involved the entire frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal regions using a pre-expanded latissimus dorsi myocutaneous flap in a 40-year-old female patient. Over 2 years of follow-up, the transplanted flap survived well and the patient eventually achieved excellent cosmetic appearance, with satisfactory durable coverage. She was able to wear a hairpiece and hat without any wound breakdown. Our report indicates that microsurgery using pre-expanded latissimus dorsi myocutaneous flap transfer is a reliable and safe choice for total scalp reconstruction, allowing reconstruction with a single-flap, an excellent aesthetic effect, and abrasive resistance.