Overcoming strength-ductility tradeoff with high pressure thermal treatment.

Conventional material processing approaches often achieve strengthening of materials at the cost of reduced ductility. Here, we show that high-pressure and high-temperature (HPHT) treatment can help overcome the strength-ductility trade-off in structural materials. We report an initially strong-yet-brittle eutectic high entropy alloy simultaneously doubling its strength to 1150 MPa and its tensile ductility to 36% after the HPHT treatment.

Preparation of hepatocellular carcinoma mRNA vaccines based on potential tumor targets and immunophenotypes.

Background: With the development of messenger RNA (mRNA)-based therapeutics for malignant tumor, mRNA vaccines have shown considerable promise for tumor immunotherapy. Immunophenotypes can reflect the tumor microenvironment, which might have a significant influence on the effect of immunotherapy. This study seeks to discover and validate effective antigens that can be employed to develop mRNA vaccines for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and to construct immunophenotypes and immune landscapes to identify potential beneficiaries.

Comparison of survival benefit and safety between surgery following conversion therapy versus surgery alone in patients with surgically resectable hepatocellular carcinoma at CNLC IIb/IIIa stage: a propensity score matching study.

Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate and compare the survival benefit and safety of surgery following conversion therapy versus surgery alone in patients diagnosed with surgically resectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) at China Liver Cancer Staging (CNLC) IIb/IIIa stage.

Methods: A total of 95 patients diagnosed with surgically resectable CNLC IIb/IIIa HCC were retrospectively enrolled in our study from November 2018 to December 2022. Among them, 30 patients underwent conversion therapy followed by hepatectomy, while the remaining 65 received surgery alone.

Exploration of the causal effects of leukocyte telomere length and four gastrointestinal diseases: a two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization study.

Background: To explore the underlying causality between leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and four gastrointestinal diseases, we designed a two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization study.

Methods: Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) was used to explore genetic causality between LTL and four gastrointestinal diseases, including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gastrointestinal ulcers disease (GUD), and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). We utilized inverse-variance weighted (IVW) as the primary method for MR analysis.

Case report: Surgical strategies of a giant thrombus from the ascending aorta to the arch.

Large mural thrombi in the relatively normal ascending aorta are extremely uncommon conditions that may lead to major adverse cardiovascular events due to new embolism. Because of their changeable variations, the management of these unstable thrombi is challenging and controversial. The size, morphology, location, embolic involvement, and patients' conditions are all crucial for therapeutic decision-making.

Anomalous Blue Shift of Exciton Luminescence in Diamond.

Generally speaking, for a semiconductor, the temperature dependence of excitonic emission corresponds to that of its band gap. However, an anomalous behavior is exhibited by the excitonic luminescence of diamond where as the temperature increases (from 10 to 300 K), its indirect exciton luminescence peak displays a spectral-distinguishable blue shift, whereas the indirect band-gap absorption shows a weak red shift. According to experimental high-resolution deep-ultraviolet spectra and theoretical analysis, the weak red shift of its indirect band gap is ascribed to its large Debye temperature (Θ ≈ 2220 K), which makes the lattice constant change comparatively little in a large temperature range, so the change of its band gap is relatively small; in this case, as the temperature rises, the thermal population of valence-band holes that moves to a high-energy state far away from the Fermi surface contributes to the macroscopic blue shift of its excitonic emission.

Note: An anvil-preformed gasket system to extend the pressure range for large volume cubic presses.

An anvil-preformed gasket system has been developed to extend the pressure range for the widely used large volume cubic press without sacrificing the sample volume. The relationship of the sample chamber pressure versus press load for this system was calibrated at room temperature using transitions in Bi, Tl, and Ba. With similar sample volumes (8-11 mm in diameter and 8 mm in length), the anvil-preformed gasket system can generate pressures up to about 8.