Publications by authors named "Alan Lau"

In this paper, a chromatic-dispersion-aware non-orthogonal discrete Fourier transform precoding (CDA-NODFTP) scheme is proposed for CD-constrained intensity-modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) multicarrier-signal transmission systems. The performance of the proposed CDA-NODFTP scheme is experimentally evaluated and compared with conventional DFTP and NODFTP schemes over a 50-km C-band dispersion-uncompensated link, utilizing 90-Gb/s orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and filter bank multicarrier (FBMC) signals. Experimental results show that the proposed CDA-NODFTP with adaptive spectral compression outperforms conventional DFTP, NODFTP, and the non-precoding schemes in terms of bit error rate (BER) performance.

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An ultra-low-complexity third-order weight-sharing trigonometric nonlinear equalizer (WS-TNLE) is proposed to eliminate nonlinear signal distortions in short-reach optical interconnects exceeding net 200 Gb/s/λ. By replacing the second- and third-order nonlinear terms in a third-order weight-sharing diagonally pruned Volterra nonlinear equalizer (WS-DP-VNLE) with cosine and sine terms, respectively, the required number of real-valued multiplications per symbol of the proposed third-order WS-TNLE is significantly reduced to the same value as the number of weight-sharing kernels. When transmitting probabilistically shaped 16-level pulse amplitude modulation (PS-PAM-16) signals at net rates ranging from 200.

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Background: Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 and 2 (PARP1/2) inhibitors (PARPi) are targeted therapies approved for homologous recombination repair (HRR)-deficient breast, ovarian, pancreatic, and prostate cancers. Since inhibition of PARP1 is sufficient to cause synthetic lethality in tumors with homologous recombination deficiency (HRD), PARP1 selective inhibitors such as saruparib (AZD5305) are being developed. It is expected that selective PARP1 inhibition leads to a safer profile that facilitates its combination with other DNA damage repair inhibitors.

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As a crucial nonlinear phenomenon, stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) plays multifaceted roles involved in forward and inverse problems. In fibre-optic systems, these roles range from detrimental interference that impairs optical performance to beneficial effects that enables various devices such as Raman amplifier. To obtain solutions of SRS, various numerical methods customized for different scenarios have been proposed.

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The Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) inhibitor ceralasertib in combination with the PD-L1 antibody durvalumab demonstrated encouraging clinical benefit in melanoma and lung cancer patients who progressed on immunotherapy. Here we show that modelling of intermittent ceralasertib treatment in mouse tumor models reveals CD8 T-cell dependent antitumor activity, which is separate from the effects on tumor cells. Ceralasertib suppresses proliferating CD8 T-cells on treatment which is rapidly reversed off-treatment.

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A novel inline Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) for simultaneous relative humidity (RH) and temperature monitoring is proposed. The sensing probe consists of a section of hollow core Bragg fiber (HCBF) spliced with a single-mode fiber pigtail. The end-face of the HCBF is coated with Chitosan and ultraviolet optical adhesive (UVOA), forming two polymer layers using a well-designed fabrication process.

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Ataxia-telangiectasia mutated gene (ATM) is a key component of the DNA damage response (DDR) and double-strand break repair pathway. The functional loss of ATM (ATM deficiency) is hypothesised to enhance sensitivity to DDR inhibitors (DDRi). Whole-exome sequencing (WES), immunohistochemistry (IHC), and Western blotting (WB) were used to characterise the baseline ATM status across a panel of ATM mutated patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models from a range of tumour types.

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Chromatic dispersion (CD) is always an obstacle to C-band high-speed intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) transmissions, especially with a fiber reach of > 20 km. To reach beyond net-100-Gb/s IM/DD transmission over 50-km standard single mode fiber (SSMF), we for the first time present a CD-aware probabilistically shaped four-ary pulse amplitude modulation (PS-PAM-4) signal transmission scheme with a FIR-filter-based pre-electronic dispersion compensation (FIR-EDC) for C-band IM/DD transmission system. With the help of the FIR-EDC at the transmitter, 100-GBaud PS-PAM-4 signal transmission at 150-Gb/s line rate and 115.

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Mode-group-division multiplexing (MGDM)-based intensity modulation direct detection (IM/DD) transmission is an attractive approach to increase the capacity for short-reach optical communication. In this Letter, a simple but versatile scheme of mode group (MG) filtering for MGDM IM/DD transmission is proposed. The scheme is applicable to any mode basis in the fiber, and it satisfies the needs of low complexity, low power consumption, and high system performance.

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We propose and demonstrate a high-efficiency silicon microring modulator for next-generation optical transmitters operating at line rates above 300 Gb/s. The modulator supports high-order PAM-8 modulation up to 110 Gbaud (330 Gb/s), with a driving voltage of 1.8 V.

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To establish a pharmacist-led olaparib follow-up program for ovarian cancer patients, provide patient education, get information on adverse drug reactions (ADRs), and identify and manage drug-related problems. Ambulatory adult patients with ovarian cancer receiving olaparib were enrolled. At least one follow-up session was conducted by clinical pharmacists.

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A highly sensitive relative humidity (RH) sensor based on Fabry-Perot interferometers (FPI) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The sensor is fabricated by splicing a segment of hollow core Bragg fiber (HCBF) with single mode fiber (SMF) and functionalized with chitosan and ultraviolet optical adhesive (UVOA) composite at the end of HCBF to form a hygroscopic polymer film. The reflection beams from the splicing point and the two surfaces of the polymer film generate the Vernier effect in the reflection spectrum, which significantly improves the humidity sensitivity of the sensor.

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We propose a simple two-step amplifier configuration algorithm based on signal power across different channels to improve the generalized signal-to-noise ratio (GSNR) performance of dynamic C + L-band links in the presence of amplifier spontaneous emission (ASE) noise, Kerr nonlinearity, and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) using erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA). In step 1, ASE noise and Kerr nonlinearity are taken into account to derive sub-optimal signal power profiles at the beginning of each span using the local optimization global optimization (LOGO) strategy. The effect of SRS is compensated through amplifier gain pre-tilt in step 2.

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Article Synopsis
  • PARP inhibitors (PARPi) are effective for treating HRR-deficient tumors but face resistance; combining them with WEE1 inhibitors (WEE1i) can enhance antitumor effects by increasing replication stress.
  • Research shows different resistance mechanisms for PARPi, with WEE1i and ATR inhibitors (ATRi) providing distinct strategies to overcome these challenges in breast and ovarian cancer models.
  • Targeting replication stress may help treat even tumors that aren't HRR-deficient, with ongoing clinical trials testing PARPi alongside WEE1i and ATRi to improve outcomes.
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Background: Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is a rare acquired immune-mediated polyneuropathy. Updated population-based data concerning paediatric GBS is needed.

Methods: Paediatric patients aged below 18 years diagnosed with GBS between 2009 and 2018 in all 11 paediatric departments in Hong Kong were identified from the Hong Kong Hospital Authority Clinical Data Analysis and Reporting System.

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The outstanding chemical and physical properties of 2D materials, together with their atomically thin nature, make them ideal candidates for metaphotonic device integration and construction, which requires deep subwavelength light-matter interaction to achieve optical functionalities beyond conventional optical phenomena observed in naturally available materials. In addition to their intrinsic properties, the possibility to further manipulate the properties of 2D materials via chemical or physical engineering dramatically enhances their capability, evoking new science on light-matter interaction, leading to leaped performance of existing functional devices and giving birth to new metaphotonic devices that were unattainable previously. Comprehensive understanding of the intrinsic properties of 2D materials, approaches and capabilities for chemical and physical engineering methods, the resulting property modifications and novel functionalities, and applications of metaphotonic devices are provided in this review.

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A nonlinearity-aware signal transmission scheme based on a low-complexity 3rd-order diagonally pruned absolute-term nonlinear equalizer (NLE) with weight sharing (DP-AT-NLE-WS) and rate-adaptable probabilistically shaped 16-level pulse amplitude modulation (PS-PAM-16) signal is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for C-band net-300-Gbit/s/λ short-reach optical interconnects. By replacing the multiplication operation with the absolute operation and applying weight sharing to reduce the kernel redundancy, the computational complexity of the proposed 3rd-order DP-AT-NLE-WS is reduced by >40% compared with the 3rd-order DP-Volterra NLE (DP-VNLE), DP-AT-NLE, and DP-VNLE-WS, with the achieved normalized general mutual information (NGMI) above a threshold of 0.857.

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A very-high-bandwidth integrated silicon microring modulator (MRM) designed on a commercial silicon photonics (SiP) platform for C-band operation is presented. The MRM has a 3 dB electro-optic (EO) bandwidth of over 67 GHz and features a small footprint of 24 µm × 70 µm. Using the MRM, we demonstrate intensity modulation-direct detection (IM-DD) transmission with 4-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4)  signaling of over 100 Gbaud.

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A low-complexity absolute-term based nonlinear feed-forward equalizer (FFE) combined with a decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) with weight sharing (AT-NLE-WS) is proposed and experimentally performed in a C-band 85-GBaud on-off keying (OOK) transmission system over a 100-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF). By applying the k-means clustering algorithm to reduce weight redundancy, the required number of real-valued multiplications per symbol (RNRM) of the proposed AT-NLE-WS is only 14 for a bit error ratio (BER) under a KP4-forward error correction (FEC) threshold of 2.4 × 10.

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Unlabelled: AZD6738 (ceralasertib) is a potent and selective orally bioavailable inhibitor of ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) kinase. ATR is activated in response to stalled DNA replication forks to promote G2-M cell-cycle checkpoints and fork restart. Here, we found AZD6738 modulated CHK1 phosphorylation and induced ATM-dependent signaling (pRAD50) and the DNA damage marker γH2AX.

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Article Synopsis
  • Gemcitabine is a treatment for pancreatic cancer, but its effectiveness may be hindered by the tumor stroma, which obstructs the drug's distribution to cancer cells.
  • Researchers developed an advanced imaging technique combining various methods to study the distribution and metabolism of gemcitabine and its active metabolites in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer.
  • The study found that while gemcitabine's active metabolites reached viable tumor cells, they had a different distribution compared to the parent drug, and their presence correlated more with areas of high cell proliferation and DNA damage rather than the concentration of the parent drug.
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To combat chromatic dispersion (CD) in intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) systems, three chirp-free demonstrations are experimentally performed with an iterative pre-electronic dispersion compensation (pre-EDC) algorithm at the transmitter end, for 28 GBaud non-return-to-zero on-off keying (NRZ-OOK), 56 GBaud NRZ-OOK and 28 GBaud four-level pulse-amplitude-modulation (PAM-4) signals, over distances of 100 km, 50 km and 40 km of single mode fiber (SMF), respectively. The iterative pre-EDC algorithm is based on the Gerchberg-Saxton (GS) algorithm, which treats the unconstrained phase at the direct detection receiver as a degree of freedom. At the receiver side, only a linear fractionally-spaced (T/2) post-feed-forward equalizer (post-FFE) is employed to combat the residual inter-symbol interference (ISI).

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Wearable and highly sensitive pressure sensors are of great importance for robotics, health monitoring and biomedical applications. For simultaneously achieving high sensitivity within a broad working range, fast response time (within a few milliseconds), minimal hysteresis and excellent cycling stability are critical for high performance pressure sensors. However, it remains a major challenge.

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Microphysiological in vitro systems are platforms for preclinical evaluation of drug effects and significant advances have been made in recent years. However, existing microfluidic devices are not yet able to deliver compounds to cell models in a way that reproduces the real physiological drug exposure. Here, we introduce a novel tumour-on-chip microfluidic system that mimics the pharmacokinetic profile of compounds on 3D tumour spheroids to evaluate their response to the treatments.

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Purpose: This study reports the safety, tolerability, MTD, recommended phase II dose (RP2D), pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic profile, and preliminary antitumor activity of ceralasertib combined with carboplatin in patients with advanced solid tumors. It also examined exploratory predictive and pharmacodynamic biomarkers.

Patients And Methods: Eligible patients (n = 36) received a fixed dose of carboplatin (AUC5) with escalating doses of ceralasertib (20 mg twice daily to 60 mg once daily) in 21-day cycles.

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