• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1469-1472
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• 2016

Cancer pathology reports play an important role in choice of patient care. They provide crucial information concerning diagnosis, therapy options, and prognosis. Professional pathology institutions, such as the College of American Pathologists (CAP), have developed checklists to ensure the presence of all the required elements in reports. In this study, 438 surgical pathology reports of patients with breast (148), colon (147), and stomach cancer (143) were evaluated with respect to the presence of mandated elements according to CAP checklists. The most common missing element in all the three types of cancer was 'staging' (73.6, 53.1, and 56.6% in breast, colon, and stomach cancer reports missed 'staging', respectively). The second most missing element was 'tumor site' in breast (64.2%) and stomach cancer (30.1%), and 'procedure' in colon cancer (29.3%). 'Perineural invasion' was the third most missing element in the three types of cancer (25.7, 17.0, and 22.4% in breast, colon, and stomach cancer, respectively). Only 11.4% of reports included all key elements required by CAP. The use of checklists was associated with higher rate of completeness. This study demonstrates that the key elements requiring the information on the requisition forms from the clinicians are commonly missed, leading to ambiguity.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.51-54
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• 2010

Surgery has a key role in the treatment of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs), but the resectability of paraspinal MPNSTs is only 20%. Therefore, spinal MPNSTs show frequent recurrence and poor prognosis. Local recurrence is much more common than metastasis for MPNSTs, and surgery still has a key role in the treatment of local recurrence. Therefore, it is important that recurrence must be detected before resectability is lost. However, no evidence-based follow-up protocol has been established for MPNST. The authors performed gross total resection in a 34-year-old woman presented with thoracic MPNST. Adjuvant radiotherapy and chemotherapy were not administered since these adjuvant therapies generally do not improve survival in MPNST and may cause additional neurovascular damage. Instead, the authors monitored the primary site every 3 months using magnetic resonance imaging to detect local recurrence at the earliest opportunity. The tumor recurred locally on two occasions without overt symptoms at 21 and 24 months postoperatively. These recurrences were treated successfully by gross total removal.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.21-41
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• 2016

Cold-formed steel structures are increasingly attractive due to their benefits of good mechanical performance and constructional advantages. However, this type of construction is still not fully exploited as a result of the acknowledged difficulties involved in forming construction-efficient and cost-effective connections. Furthermore, there is a lack of information on the structural behavior of the cold-formed steel connections. In this study, the research on various cold-formed steel connections was comprehensively reviewed from both fundamental and structural points of view, based on the available experimental and analytical data. It reveals that the current design codes and guidelines for cold-formed steel connections tend to focus more on the individual bearing capacity of the fasteners rather than the overall structural behavior of the connections. Significant future work remains to be conducted on the structural performance of cold-formed steel connection. In addition, extensive previous research has been carried out to propose and evaluate an economical and efficient connection system that is obtained from the conventional connecting techniques used in the hot-rolled industry. These connecting techniques may not be suitable, however, as they have been adopted from hot-rolled steel portal frames due to the thinness of the sheet in cold-formed steels. The review demonstrates that with the increasing demand for cold-formed steel constructions throughout the world, it is crucial to develop an efficient connection system that can be prefabricated and easily assembled on site.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.781-798
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• 2014

Estimating the workability of self-compacting concrete (SCC) is very important both in laboratories and on construction site. A method using visual information during the mixing process was proposed in this paper to estimate the workability of SCC. First, fourteen specimens of concrete were produced by a single-shaft mixer. A digital camera was used to record all the mixing processes. Second, employing the digital image processing, the visual information from mixing process images was extracted. The concrete pushed by the rotating blades forms two boundaries in the images. The shape of the upper boundary and the vertical distance between the upper and lower boundaries were used as two visual features. Thirdly, slump flow test and V-funnel test were carried out to estimate the workability of each SCC. Finally, the vertical distance between the upper and lower boundaries andthe shape of the upper boundary were used as indicators to estimate the workability of SCC. The vertical distance between the upper and lower boundaries was related to the slump flow, the shape of the upper boundary was related to the V-funnel flow time. Based on these relationships, the workability of SCC could be estimated using the mixing process images. This estimating method was verified by three more experiments. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method could be used to automatically estimate SCC workability.

• Water for future
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.67-72
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• 1991

Various modeling approaches to study along term behavior of streamflow or groundwater storagge have been conducted. In this study, a Multivariate AR (1) Model has been applied to generate monthly flows of the one key station which has historical flows using monthly flows of the three subordinate stations. The Model performance was examined using statistical comparisons between the historical and generated monthly series such as mean, various, skewness. Also, the correlation coefficients(lag-zero, and lag-one)between the two monthly flows were compared. The results showed that the modeled generated flows were statistically similar to the historical flows.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.347-359
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• 2019

Modular construction has been increasingly used for mid-to-high rise buildings attributable to the high construction speed, improved quality and low environmental pollution. The individual and repetitive room-sized module unit is usually fully finished in the factory and installed on-site to constitute an integrated construction. However, there is a lack of design guidance on modular structures. This paper mainly focuses on the evaluation of the initial stiffness of corrugated steel plate shears walls (CSPSWs) in container-like modular construction. A finite element model was firstly developed and verified against the existing cyclic tests. The theoretical formulas predicting the initial stiffness of CSPSWs were then derived. The accuracy of the theoretical formulas was verified by the related numerical and test results. Furthermore, parametric analysis was conducted and the influence of the geometrical parameters on the initial stiffness of CSPSWs was discussed and evaluated in detail. The present study provides practical design formulas and recommendations for CSPSWs in modular construction, which are useful to broaden the application of modular construction in high-rise buildings and seismic area.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.181-188
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• 2019

A production system is a management system that supports all activities to perform production operations at the manufacturing site. From the point-of-view of a smart factory, smart manufacturing systems redesigned the concept of onsite production systems to fit the entire system and its necessary functional composition. In this study, we select the key functions needed to build a smart factory for a PCB line and propose a new six-step model for the deployment of a smart manufacturing system by integrating essential functions. The smart manufacturing system newly classified the production and operation tasks of PCB manufacturing and selected necessary functions through requirement analysis and benchmarking of advanced companies. The selected production operation tasks are mapped to the functions of the system and configured into seven modules, and the optimal deployment model is presented to allow flexible responses to the characteristics of the tasks. These methodologies are first presented in this study, and the proposed model was applied to the PCB line to confirm that they had significant changes in the work method, qualitative effects, and quantitative effects. Typically, lead time and WIP have reduced by about 50%.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.309-323
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• 2024

The gust factor and turbulence intensity are two crucial parameters that characterize the properties of turbulence. In tropical cyclones (TCs), these parameters exhibit significant variability, yet there is a lack of established formulas to account for their probabilistic characteristics with consideration of their inherent connection. On this condition, a probabilistic analysis of gust factors and turbulence intensities of TCs is conducted based on fourteen sets of wind data collected at the Sutong Cable-stayed Bridge site. Initially, the turbulence intensities and gust factors of recorded data are computed, followed by an analysis of their probability densities across different ranges categorized by mean wind speed. The Gaussian, lognormal, and generalized extreme value (GEV) distributions are employed to fit the measured probability densities, with subsequent evaluation of their effectiveness. The Gumbel distribution, which is a specific instance of the GEV distribution, has been identified as an optimal choice for probabilistic characterizations of turbulence intensity and gust factor in TCs. The corresponding empirical models are then established through curve fitting. By utilizing the Gumbel distribution as a template, the nexus between the probability density functions of turbulence intensity and gust factor is built, leading to the development of a generalized probabilistic model that statistically describe turbulence intensity and gust factor in TCs. Finally, these empirical models are validated using measured data and compared with suggestions recommended by specifications.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.909-913
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• 2013

Purpose: The liver is the organ to which colorectal carcinomas (CRCs) most commonly metastasize, and surgical resection has been established as the most effective and potentially curative treatment for CRC with liver metastasis (LM). Therefore, surveillance of LM is vital for improvement of prognosis of CRC patients. In this study, we aimed to explore the potential value of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA 19-9), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and marker enzymes in indicating LM with CRC. Methods: Three groups of eligible patients with metastatic cancers were retrospectively included: CRC patients with LM (CRC-LM) or without LM (CRC-NLM), and non-CRC patients with LM (NCRC-LM). All metastatic lesions were identified by CT or MRI. Data on characteristics of the patients, the primary site, the locations of metastasis, CA 19-9, CEA, and biochemical parameters were collected for analysis. Results: A total of 493 patients were retrospectively included. More alcohol consumption was found in CRC-LM than CRC-NLM. Some biochemical enzymes were found to be significantly higher in groups with LM than without (CRC-LM or NCRC-LM v.s CRC-NLM). Both CEA and CA 19-9 were much higher in CRC-LM than CRC-NLM or NCRC-LM. For CRC patients, CA 19-9, ${\gamma}$-glutamyl transpeptidase, CEA and alcohol consumption were identified as independent factors associated with LM. Conclusion: Our analysis suggested the CA 19-9 might be a potential valuable indicator for LM of CRC in the clinic.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.3123-3128
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• 2014

The liver is normally the major site of glucose metabolism in intact organisms and the most important target organ for the action of insulin. It has been widely accepted that insulin resistance (IR) is closely associated with postoperative recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the relationship between IR and drug resistance in liver cancer cells is unclear. In the present study, IR was induced in HepG2 cells via incubation with a high concentration of insulin. Once the insulin-resistant cell line was established, the stability of HepG2/IR cells was further tested via incubation in insulin-free medium for another 72h. Afterwards, the biological effects of insulin resistance on adhesion, migration, invasion and sensitivity to cis-platinum (DDP) of cells were determined. The results indicated that glucose consumption was reduced in insulin-resistant cells. In addition, the expression of the insulin receptor and glucose transportor-2 was downregulated. Furthermore, HepG2/IR cells displayed markedly enhanced adhesion, migration, and invasion. Most importantly, these cells exhibited a lower sensitivity to DDP. By contrast, HepG2/IR cells exhibited decreased adhesion and invasion after treatment with the insulin sensitizer pioglitazone hydrochloride. The results suggest that IR is closely related to drug resistance as well as adhesion, migration, and invasion in HepG2 cells. These findings may help explain the clinical observation of limited efficacy for chemotherapy on a background of IR, which promotes the invasion and migration of cancer cells.