• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.545-552
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• 2018

Blast-induced ground vibrations by a significant amount of explosives may cause many problems for mining slope stability. Geological discontinuities have a significant influence on the transmission of dynamic pressure of detonation and according to their position relative to the slope face may have damaging or useful impacts on the slope stability. In this study, the effect of geological discontinuities was investigated by modelling a slope with geological discontinuities through applying the dynamic pressure in three-dimensional discrete element code (3DEC). The geological discontinuities in four states that generally apperceived in mine slopes are considered. Given the advantages of the pressure decay function defined by some researcher, this type of function was used to develop the pressure-time profile. The peak particle velocities (PPV) values were monitored along an axis by utilization of Fish programming language and the results were used as an indicator to measure the effects. As shown in the discontinuity-free model, PPV empirical models are reliable in rocks lacking discontinuities or tightly jointed rock masses. According to the other results, the empirical models cannot be used for the case where the rock mass contains discontinuities with any direction or dip. With regard to PPVs, when the direction of discontinuities is opposite to that of the slope face, the dynamic pressure of detonation is significantly damped toward the slope direction at the surface of discontinuities. On the other hand, when the discontinuities are horizontal, the dynamic pressure of detonation affects the rock mass to a large distance.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.116-124
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• 2014

Purpose: To investigate the frequency and clinical significance of detected incidental lung nodules found on computed tomography (CT) simulation images for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) using computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) and a physician review. Materials and Methods: Sixty-seven treatment-$na{\ddot{i}}ve$ HCC patients treated with transcatheter arterial chemoembolization and radiotherapy (RT) were included for the study. Portal phase of simulation CT images was used for CAD analysis and a physician review for lung nodule detection. For automated nodule detection, a commercially available CAD system was used. To assess the performance of lung nodule detection for lung metastasis, the sensitivity, negative predictive value (NPV), and positive predictive value (PPV) were calculated. Results: Forty-six patients had incidental nodules detected by CAD with a total of 109 nodules. Only 20 (18.3%) nodules were considered to be significant nodules by a physician review. The number of significant nodules detected by both of CAD or a physician review was 24 in 9 patients. Lung metastases developed in 11 of 46 patients who had any type of nodule. The sensitivities were 58.3% and 100% based on patient number and on the number of nodules, respectively. The NPVs were 91.4% and 100%, respectively. And the PPVs were 77.8% and 91.7%, respectively. Conclusion: Incidental detection of metastatic nodules was not an uncommon event. From our study, CAD could be applied to CT simulation images allowing for an increase in detection of metastatic nodules.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.711-716
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• 2010

New electroluminescent polymers with fluoro groups in vinylene units, poly(m-silylphenyl-p-phenylene-difluorovinylene) (m-SiP-PPDFV) have been synthesized by GILCH polymerization. These polymers have been used as the electroluminescent (EL) layers in single layer light-emitting diodes (LEDs) (ITO/PEDOT/polymer/Ca:Al). m-SiP-PPDFV shows PL around $\lambda_{max}$ = 452 nm and green EL around $\lambda_{max}$ = 497 nm. The current-voltage-luminance (I-V-L) characteristics of the polymers show turn-on voltages of 4.0 V approximately. Two fluoro groups were introduced on every vinylene units of m-SiP-PPV to give m-SiP-PPDFV in an attempt to increase the electron affinity of the parent polymer, and the devices show an increased color stability even with vinylene units. The color stability is attributed to the electron-withdrawing effect of the fluoro groups, which protect vinylene units from oxidation in PPV derivatives. We believe that fluoro groups can be introduced in vinylene units in order to attain excellent stability of PPV derivatives.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1015-1021
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• 2014

This study aimed at summarizing published study findings on the diagnostic value of rectal bleeding (RB) and informing clinical practice, preventive interventions and future research areas. We searched Medline and Embase for studies published by September 13, 2013 examining the risk of colorectal cancer in patients with RB using highly inclusive algorithms. Data for sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio and positive predictive value (PPV) of RB were extracted by two researchers and analyzed applying Meta-Disc (version 1.4) and Stata (version 11.0). Methodological quality of studies was assessed according to QUADAS. A total of 38 studies containing 5,626 colorectal cancer patients and 73,174 participants with RB were included. The pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.47 (95% CI: 0.45-0.48) and 0.96 (95% CI: 0.96-0.96) respectively. The overall PPVs ranged from 0.01 to 0.21 with a pooled value of 0.06 (95% CI: 0.05-0.08). Being over the age of 60 years, change in bowel habit, weight loss, anaemia, colorectal cancer among first-degree relatives and feeling of incomplete evacuation of rectum appeared to increase the predictive value of RB. Although RB greatly increases the probability of diagnosing colorectal cancer, it alone may not be sufficient for proposing further sophisticated investigations. However, given the high specificity, subjects without RB may be ruled out of further investigations. Future studies should focus on strategies using RB as an "alarm" symptom and finding additional indications to justify whether there is a need for further investigations.