PURPOSE This guideline reviews the evidence and provides recommendations for the indications and appropriate techniques of radiation therapy (RT) in the treatment of nonmetastatic cervical cancer. METHODS The American Society for Radiation Oncology convened a task force to address 5 key questions focused on the use of RT in definitive and postoperative management of cervical cancer. These questions included the indications for postoperative and definitive RT, the use of chemotherapy in sequence or concurrent with RT, the use of intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), and the indications and techniques of brachytherapy. Recommendations were based on a systematic literature review and created using a predefined consensus-building methodology and system for grading evidence quality and recommendation strength. RESULTS The guideline recommends postoperative RT for those with intermediate risk factors, and chemoradiation for those with high-risk factors. In the definitive setting, chemoradiation is recommended for stages IB3-IVA, and RT or chemoradiation is conditionally recommended for stages IA1-IB2 if medically inoperable. IMRT is recommended for postoperative RT and conditionally recommended for definitive RT, for the purposes of reducing acute and late toxicity. Brachytherapy is strongly recommended for all women receiving definitive RT, and several recommendations are made for target dose and fractionation, the use of intraoperative imaging, volume-based planning, and recommendations for doses limits for organs at risk. CONCLUSIONS There is strong evidence supporting the use of RT with or without chemotherapy in both definitive and postoperative settings. Brachytherapy is an essential part of definitive management and volumetric planning is recommended. IMRT may be used for the reduction of acute and late toxicity. The use of radiation remains an essential component for women with cervical cancer to achieve cure.
A new version of CSSTA catalog of the lower main-sequence stars with solar-type activity was presented. It comprises 314618 objects, and the database that is realized on its basis is a developing project that contains hyperlinks to the original photometric and spectral observations.
I take a reflection of the mathematical method of integration applied in physics and astrophysics in the research. I examine the theoretical premise of integration entailed in its applications in the fields, and with qualitative comparative analysis, regard the inconsistency of the mathematical method in physical and astrophysical theories. I seek to uncover the formal science’s affinity to the natural sciences in the research, and assert that number theory and set theory are better substitutes in modern physics and astrophysics. With a relativistic (astro-) physics perspective, I discuss and compare the representations of causality, capacities for deviations, and error tolerance with the methodological approach. I discuss the implications with the example of the Cosmic Microwave Background, and conclude with the teleology of the (astro-) physical sciences.
PURPOSE This guideline reviews the evidence and provides recommendations for the indications and appropriate technique and dose of neoadjuvant radiation therapy (RT) in the treatment of localized rectal cancer. METHODS The American Society for Radiation Oncology convened a task force to address 4 key questions focused on the use of RT in preoperative management of operable rectal cancer. These questions included the indications for neoadjuvant RT, identification of appropriate neoadjuvant regimens, indications for consideration of a nonoperative or local excision approach after chemoradiation, and appropriate treatment volumes and techniques. Recommendations were based on a systematic literature review and created using a predefined consensus-building methodology and system for grading evidence quality and recommendation strength. RESULTS Neoadjuvant RT is recommended for patients with stage II-III rectal cancer, with either conventional fractionation with concurrent 5-FU or capecitabine or short-course RT. RT should be performed preoperatively rather than postoperatively. Omission of preoperative RT is conditionally recommended in selected patients with lower risk of locoregional recurrence. Addition of chemotherapy before or after chemoradiation or after short-course RT is conditionally recommended. Nonoperative management is conditionally recommended if a clinical complete response is achieved after neoadjuvant treatment in selected patients. Inclusion of the rectum and mesorectal, presacral, internal iliac, and obturator nodes in the clinical treatment volume is recommended. In addition, inclusion of external iliac nodes is conditionally recommended in patients with tumors invading an anterior organ or structure, and inclusion of inguinal and external iliac nodes is conditionally recommended in patients with tumors involving the anal canal. CONCLUSIONS Based on currently published data, the American Society for Radiation Oncology task force has proposed evidence-based recommendations regarding the use of RT for rectal cancer. Future studies will look to further personalize treatment recommendations to optimize treatment outcomes and quality of life.
Nicholas D. J. Yates, Natasha E. Hatton, Martin A. Fascione
et al.
AbstractAryl diazonium cations are versatile bioconjugation reagents due to their reactivity towards electron‐rich aryl residues and secondary amines, but historically their usage has been hampered by both their short lifespan in aqueous solution and the harsh conditions required to generate them in situ. Triazabutadienes address many of these issues as they are stable enough to endure multiple‐step chemical syntheses and can persist for several hours in aqueous solution, yet upon UV‐exposure rapidly release aryl diazonium cations under biologically‐relevant conditions. This paper describes the synthesis of a novel maleimide‐functionalized triazabutadiene suitable for site‐selectively installing aryl diazonium cations into proteins at neutral pH; we show reaction with this molecule and a surface‐cysteine of a thiol disulfide oxidoreductase. Through photoactivation of the site‐selectively installed triazabutadiene motifs, we generate aryl diazonium functionality, which we further derivatize via azo‐bond formation to electron‐rich aryl species, showcasing the potential utility of this strategy for the generation of photoswitches or protein‐drug conjugates.
Madhusudan Ghosh, Payel Santra, SK Asif Iqbal
et al.
Scientific research requires reading and extracting relevant information from existing scientific literature in an effective way. To gain insights over a collection of such scientific documents, extraction of entities and recognizing their types is considered to be one of the important tasks. Numerous studies have been conducted in this area of research. In our study, we introduce a framework for entity recognition and identification of NASA astrophysics dataset, which was published as a part of the DEAL SharedTask. We use a pre-trained multilingual model, based on a natural language processing framework for the given sequence labeling tasks. Experiments show that our model, Astro-mT5, out-performs the existing baseline in astrophysics related information extraction.
Large Language Models (LLMs) are transforming software engineering tasks, including code vulnerability detection-a critical area of software security. However, existing methods often rely on resource-intensive models or graph-based techniques, limiting their accessibility and practicality. This paper introduces K-ASTRO, a lightweight Transformer model that combines semantic embeddings from LLMs with structural features of Abstract Syntax Trees (ASTs) to improve both efficiency and accuracy in code vulnerability detection. Our approach introduces an AST-based augmentation technique inspired by mutation testing, a structure-aware attention mechanism that incorporates augmented AST features, and a joint adaptation pipeline to unify code semantics and syntax. Experimental results on three large-scale datasets, including BigVul, DiverseVul, and PrimeVul-demonstrate state-of-the-art performance while enabling rapid inference on CPUs with minimal training time. By offering a scalable, interpretable, and efficient solution, K-ASTRO bridges the gap between LLM advancements and practical software vulnerability detection, providing open-sourced tools to foster further research.
The study of flaring astrophysical events in the multi-messenger approach requires instantaneous follow-up observations to better understand the nature of these events through complementary observational data. We present Astro-COLIBRI as a platform that integrates specific tools in the real-time multi-messenger ecosystem. The Astro-COLIBRI platform bundles and evaluates alerts about transients from various channels. It further automates the coordination of follow-up observations by providing and linking detailed information through its comprehensible graphical user interface. We present the functionalities with documented examples of Astro-COLIBRI usage through the community since its public release in August 2021. We highlight the use cases of Astro-COLIBRI for planning follow-up observations by professional and amateur astronomers, as well as checking predictions from theoretical models.
V. E. Sarris, Constantinos Costa, Panos K. Chrysanthis
CAPRIO is an indoor-outdoor pedestrian path rec-ommendation system that optimizes for shortest distance. Its path-finding algorithm, ASTRO, takes into account a set of user-provided congestion constraints and as such can recommend paths that can reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure. In this paper, we extend ASTRO to consider the changes on congestion when providing path recommendations for overlapping requests. Our new algorithm, called ASTRO-K, can provide K alternative paths that satisfy the congestion constraints of all the path requests within a short time-window. Our experimental eval-uation is conducted using two real-world datasets and shows that ASTRO-K can reduce the total average congestion of the recommended paths up to 4.5X with the trade-off of up to 7% increased total path time.
We develop and present a geometrical and an analytical derivation of the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium in spherically symmetric stars with a generalized stress tensor. The analytical derivation is based on the Navier-Cauchy equation. We also critically examine the derivation of this equation found in textbooks on stellar astrophysics and show that there are errors in many of the derivations presented in textbooks.
Astro-COLIBRI is a novel tool that evaluates alerts of transient observations in real time, filters them by user-specified criteria, and puts them into their multiwavelength and multimessenger context. Through fast generation of an overview of persistent sources as well as transient events in the relevant phase space, Astro-COLIBRI contributes to an enhanced discovery potential of both serendipitous and follow-up observations of the transient sky. The software’s architecture comprises a Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interface, both a static and a real-time database, a cloud-based alert system, as well as a website and apps for iOS and Android as clients for users. The latter provide a graphical representation with a summary of the relevant data to allow for the fast identification of interesting phenomena along with an assessment of observing conditions at a large selection of observatories around the world.
Chrysovalantis Anastasiou, Constantinos Costa, Panos K. Chrysanthis
et al.
The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance and benefits of recommending paths that reduce the exposure to and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus by avoiding crowded indoor or outdoor areas. Existing path discovery techniques are inadequate for coping with such dynamic and heterogeneous (indoor and outdoor) environments—they typically find an optimal path assuming a homogeneous and/or static graph, and hence they cannot be used to support contact avoidance. In this article, we pose the need for Mobile Contact Avoidance Navigation and propose ASTRO (Accessible Spatio-Temporal Route Optimization), a novel graph-based path discovering algorithm that can reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure by taking into consideration the congestion in indoor spaces. ASTRO operates in an A* manner to find the most promising path for safe movement within and across multiple buildings without constructing the full graph. For its path finding, ASTRO requires predicting congestion in corridors and hallways. Consequently, we propose a new grid-based partitioning scheme combined with a hash-based two-level structure to store congestion models, called CM-Structure, which enables on-the-fly forecasting of congestion in corridors and hallways. We demonstrate the effectiveness of ASTRO and the accuracy of CM-Structure’s congestion models empirically with realistic datasets, showing up to one order of magnitude reduction in COVID-19 exposure.
Aim/Objectives/Background: To standardize the practice of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), the American College of Radiology (ACR) and the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) cooperatively developed the practice parameter for SBRT. SBRT is a treatment technique that delivers radiation dose to a well-defined extracranial target in 5 fractions or less and usually employs a higher dose per fraction than used in conventional radiation. Methods: The ACR–ASTRO Practice Parameter for the Performance of Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy was revised according to the process described on the ACR website (“The Process for Developing ACR Practice Parameters and Technical Standards,” www.acr.org/ClinicalResources/Practice-Parameters-and-Technical-Standards) by the Committee on Practice Parameters of the ACR Commission on Radiation Oncology in collaboration with the ASTRO. Both societies then reviewed and approved the document. Results: Given the complexities of SBRT, a separate document was created to develop a technical standard for the medical physics of SBRT (ACR–AAPM Technical Standard for Medical Physics Performance Monitoring of Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy). Workflow, qualifications and responsibilities of personnel, specifications, documentation, quality control/safety/improvement, simulation/treatment, and follow-up were addressed in this practice parameter. Conclusions: This practice parameter assists practitioners in providing safe and appropriate SBRT treatment and care for patients when clinically indicated. As technologies and techniques continue to evolve, this document will be reviewed, revised and renewed accordingly to a 5 year or sooner timeline specified by the ACR.
Well-defined doubly pH-responsive schizophrenic diblock copolymer nanoparticles with tunable isoelectric points are prepared via RAFT aqueous dispersion polymerization using an efficient one-pot protocol.