Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enzymatic and Chemoenzymatic Three‐Step Cascades for the Synthesis of Stereochemically Complementary Trisubstituted Tetrahydroisoquinolines

Abstract Chemoenzymatic and enzymatic cascade reactions enable the synthesis of complex stereocomplementary 1,3,4‐trisubstituted tetrahydroisoquinolines (THIQs) with three chiral centers in a step‐efficient and selective manner without intermediate purification. The cascade employs inexpensive substrates (3‐hydroxybenzaldehyde and pyruvate), and involves a carboligation step, a subsequent transamination, and finally a Pictet–Spengler reaction with a carbonyl cosubstrate. Appropriate selection of the carboligase and transaminase enzymes enabled the biocatalytic formation of (1R,2S)‐metaraminol. Subsequent cyclization catalyzed either enzymatically by a norcoclaurine synthase or chemically by phosphate resulted in opposite stereoselectivities in the products at the C1 position, thus providing access to both orientations of the THIQ C1 substituent. This highlights the importance of selecting from both chemo‐ and biocatalysts for optimal results.
Sensitivity of Different Ecotypes and Mutants ofArabidopsis thaliana toward the Bacterial Elicitor Flagellin Correlates with the Presence of Receptor-binding Sites*

Flagellin, the main building block of the bacterial flagellum, acts as potent elicitor of defense responses in different plant species. Genetic analysis in Arabidopsis thaliana identified two distinct loci, termed FLS1and FLS2, that are essential for perception of flagellin-derived elicitors. FLS2 was found to encode a leucine-rich repeat transmembrane receptor-like kinase with similarities to Toll-like receptors involved in the innate immune system of mammals and insects. Here we used a radiolabeled derivative of flg22, a synthetic peptide representing the elicitor-active domain of flagellin, to probe the interaction of flagellin with its receptor in A. thaliana. The high affinity binding site detected in intact cells and membrane preparations exhibited specificity for flagellin-derived peptides with biological activity as agonists or antagonists of the elicitor responses. Specific binding activity was measurable in all ecotypes ofA. thaliana that show sensitivity to flagellin but was barely detectable in the flagellin-insensitive ecotype Ws-0 affected inFLS1. A strongly impaired binding of flagellin was observed also in several independent flagellin-insensitive mutants isolated from the flagellin-sensitive ecotype La-er. In particular, no binding was found in plants carrying a mutation in the LRR domain ofFLS2. These data indicate that the formation of functional receptor-binding sites depends on genes encoded by both loci,FLS1 and FLS2. The tight correlation between the presence of the binding site and elicitor response provides strong evidence that this binding site acts as the physiological receptor of flagellin.
Neurocognitive function after chemo-radiotherapy for head and neck cancer prospective study

To assess and understand the impact of chemo-radiation in head and neck cancer on Neurocognitive function, and to determine the parameters to reduce treatment-related neurotoxicity. Neurocognitive function has been assessed with NIMHANS neuropsychological battery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients who received chemo radiation for head and neck cancers have been studied in two groups, one as study arm and other as control arm. Study was done exclusively for IMRT planning technique. Both the arm included cisplatin chemotherapy. Study arm included patients in which hippocampal region received radiation and the subsets included nasopharynx, hypopharynx, oropharynx and supraglottic larynx. The control arm had patients who did not receive dose to hippocampal region and the subsets included are tongue, buccal mucosa, lip and larynx. Initial assessment and patient were selected based on mini mental stateexamination. NIMHANS neuropsychological battery was used to assess the performance for each individual and this battery consists of 5 kinds of test in which each have different subsets. RESULTS: Neuropsychological assessment was done before the start of treatment and 12 weeks after completion of chemo radiation. It was found that in the control arm, the dose to the hippocampus was 12Gy to the hippocampus region. After neuropsychological assessment, it was found that cognitive impairment was present in 63-65% in study group for patients those who received >12Gy to the hippocampus and 36% for those who receive RT 10-12Gy. There was no significant variation in the control group. CONCLUSION: This study has shown that there is impairment in neurocognitive function of patients, receiving more than the tolerance dose to the hippocampus. It reflects that dose to hippocampus region plays an important factor in determining the memory of an individual.
A Lean Six Sigma Quality Improvement Project to Increase Discharge Paperwork Completeness for Admission to a Comprehensive Integrated Inpatient Rehabilitation Program

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) process analysis can be used to increase completeness of discharge summary reports used as a critical communication tool when a patient transitions between levels of care. The authors used the LSS methodology as an intervention to improve systems process. Over the course of the project, 8 required elements were analyzed in the discharge paperwork. The authors analyzed the discharge paperwork of patients (42 patients preintervention and 143 patients postintervention) of a comprehensive integrated inpatient rehabilitation program (CIIRP). Prior to this LSS project, 61.8% of required discharge elements were present. The intervention improved the completeness to 94.2% of the required elements. The percentage of charts that were 100% complete increased from 11.9% to 67.8%. LSS is a well-established process improvement methodology that can be used to make significant improvements in complex health care workflow issues. Specifically, the completeness of discharge documentation required for transition of care to CIIRP can be improved.
Extracellular Matrix-mediated Tissue Remodeling Following Axial Movement of Teeth

Tooth eruption is a multifactorial process involving movement of existing tissues and formation of new tissues coordinated by a complex set of genetic events. We have used the model of the unopposed rodent molar to study morphological and genetic mechanisms involved in axial movement of teeth. Following extraction of opposing upper molars, lower molars supererupted by 0.13 mm. Labeled tissue sections revealed significant amounts of new bone and cementum apposition at the root apex of the unopposed side following supereruption for 12 days. Newly apposited cementum and alveolar bone layers were approximately 3-fold thicker in the experimental vs the control group, whereas periodontal ligament width was maintained. Tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase staining indicated bone resorption at the mesial alveolar walls of unopposed molars and provided in tandem with new bone formation at the distal alveolar walls an explanation for the distal drift of molars in this model. Microarray analysis and semiquantitative RT-PCR demonstrated a significant increase in collagen I, integrin β5, and SPARC gene expression as revealed by comparison between the unopposed molar group and the control group. Immunohistochemical verification revealed increased levels of integrin β5 and SPARC labeling in the periodontal ligament of the unopposed molar. Together our findings suggest that posteruptive axial movement of teeth was accomplished by significant formation of new root cementum and alveolar bone at the root apex in tandem with upregulation of collagen I, integrin β5, and SPARC gene expression.
Improving children speech recognition in acoustically mismatched condition using eigenvoices and feature projections

The automatic recognition of children's speech in acoustically mismatched conditions is a challenging problem on account of large difference in adults' and children's speech. In literature, this challenge is often addressed through concatenation of various feature/model domain adaptation methods like vocal tract length normalization (VTLN), maximum likelihood linear regression (MLLR) and heteroscedastic linear discriminant analysis (HLDA). But a significant gap in the performance of adults and children still remains. This work explores the eigenvoices (EV) based adaptation for addressing the gap in recognition performance of children's speech on adults' speech trained acoustic models. EV is a fast adaptation approach and helps in an effective gender biasing of the acoustic models. On combining EV with VTLN, MLLR and HLDA, under mismatched condition an absolute improvement of about 50% over the unadapted speaker independent system performance is obtained and thus significantly reducing the gap between the performances for adults and children.
Mitochondrial biogenesis contributes to ischemic neuroprotection afforded by LPS pre‐conditioning

Although alterations in mitochondrial dynamics are associated with cellular responses to injury, the functional role of these dynamic changes in ischemic neurons is underexplored. One of these dynamic responses to injury includes mitochondrial biogenesis. Various sublethal pre‐conditioning stimuli that induce an ischemic‐tolerant state [e.g., lipopolysaccharide (LPS)] may also induce mitochondrial biogenesis. Using neuron‐enriched cultures, we found that sublethal LPS pre‐conditioning induced both ischemic tolerance and markers of mitochondrial biogenesis with overlapping dose–response temporal kinetics. Sublethal LPS transiently increased the expression of critical components of the mitochondrial transcriptional machinery, including nuclear respiratory factor 1 (NRF1) and mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM), as well as mtDNA copy number, mitochondrial protein levels, and markers of functional mitochondria, such as increased cellular ATP content, citrate synthase activity, and maximal respiration capacity. Importantly, knockdown of TFAM abrogated both the induction of mitochondrial biogenesis and the neuroprotective pre‐conditioning effects of LPS. Several signaling pathways coordinated these events. AMPK inhibition suppressed NRF1 and TFAM expression by LPS, whereas PI3K/Akt signaling was necessary for the nuclear translocation of NRF1 and subsequent induction of TFAM. This is the first demonstration that LPS pre‐conditioning initiates multiple signaling pathways leading to mitochondrial biogenesis in neurons and that these dynamic changes contribute to ischemic tolerance.
Influence of solar irradiation on power transformer thermal balance

In countries with a high ambient temperature and strong solar irradiation, transformer winding hot-spot temperature may increase over its maximum permissible limit. This can considerably reduce the insulation life of the transformer by enhanced degradation of the paper insulation. According to current loading guides, for each 6 K increase in working temperature, the ageing rate increases with approximately a factor two. Therefore, it is important to take into consideration the impact of the sun on the power transformer thermal behavior. In this paper, a modified hot-spot temperature model is presented to account for the effect of transformer winding temperature rise by solar irradiation. The effects of solar irradiation on transformer winding paper insulation are shown by comparing the degree of polymerisation (DP), the fault probability and the remaining life. Here, the fault probability is defined as the probability that the estimated DP-value at a certain moment in time is below a certain end-of-life criterion (threshold value). An additional winding hot-spot temperature rise of 9 K during the summer and a temperature rise of 6 K during the winter may occur in countries with strong solar irradiation. This may result in a reduction of the remaining lifetime by up to 40%.
Involvement of Cellular Calcium in Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency during Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetes Mellitus

This study investigates the effects of the islet hormones insulin (Ins), glucagon (Glu), and somatostatin (Som) with nerve stimulation (EFS) acetylcholine (ACh) and cholecytokinin-octapeptide (CCK-8) on amylase secretion and intracellular free calcium concentration [Ca2+]i in the pancreas of age-matched control and diabetic rats. Either Ins, Glu or Som elicited small increases in amylase secretion from the pancreas of age-matched control animals compared to a much larger increase in amylase secretion with either EFS, ACh or CCK-8. Combining the islet hormones with either EFS, ACh or CCK-8 resulted in marked potentiation of amylase output. In the diabetic pancreas, the islet hormones had no effect on amylase secretion compared to diabetic control. Moreover, either EFS, ACh or CCK-8 evoked a much smaller increase in amylase output compared to age-matched control. In addition, the islet hormones failed to potentiate the secretory effects of either EFS, ACh or CCK-8. In fura-2 loaded acinar cells from age-matched control pancreas either Ins or Glu elicited a small increase in [Ca2+]i whereas Som had no effect. Both ACh and CCK-8 evoked large increases in [Ca2+]i compared to control. Combining either Ins, Glu or Som with either ACh or CCK-8 resulted in a marked elevation in [Ca2+]i compared to the responses obtained with either the islet hormones, ACh or CCK-8 alone. In diabetic fura-2 loaded pancreatic acinar cells, the islet hormones had no effect on [Ca2+]i compared to control and moreover, the responses were much smaller than those obtained in acinar cells from age-matched control. Both ACh and CCK-8 induced large increases in [Ca2+]i in diabetic acinar cells. However, combining the islet hormones with either ACh or CCK-8 failed to enhance [Ca2+]i compared to the reponses obtained in acinar cells from age-matched control. The results suggests that [Ca2+]i homeostasis is deranged during diabetes mellitus and this in turn is probably associated with reduced pancreatic amylase secretion.
Proteolytic activation of human factors IX and X by recombinant human factor VIIa: effects of calcium, phospholipids, and tissue factor.

Previous studies indicated that factor VIIa, in complex with tissue factor, readily activates either factor X or factor IX in the presence of calcium ions. In order to assess the relative physiological importance of the activation of factor IX versus the activation of factor X by recombinant factor VIIa, we have obtained steady-state kinetic parameters for the factor VIIa catalyzed activation of factor IX and factor X under a variety of cofactor conditions that include calcium alone, calcium and phospholipids, calcium, phospholipids, and tissue factor apoprotein, and calcium and cell-surface tissue factor. Calcium alone stimulated the activation of factors IX and X by factor VIIa maximally at 1 and 2.5 mM, respectively. In the presence of 25 microM phospholipids, maximal rates of factor IX and factor X activation were achieved at 2.5-5 mM calcium. With calcium alone, or with phospholipid and calcium, the initial rates of factor IX activation by factor VIIa were significantly higher than that observed for factor X. Kinetic studies revealed that the Km for the factor VIIa catalyzed activation of factor IX was essentially constant in the presence of 5 mM calcium and 1-500 microM phospholipid, whereas the Km for factor X activation varied with phospholipid concentration, reaching a minimum at 7-20 microM phospholipid. At all concentrations of added phospholipid, the kcat/Km ratio for the activation of factor IX by factor VIIa appeared to be considerably greater than that observed for the activation of factor X. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Comparative analysis of estrogenic activity in sewage treatment plant effluents involving three in vitro assays and chemical analysis of steroids

In this study, we assessed and compared the suitability of three in vitro screening tools for the measurement of estrogenic activity in sewage treatment plant effluents (STPEs). These assays were the yeast estrogen screen (YES), production of zona radiata proteins (ZRPs) in trout hepatocytes, and the induction of reporter gene expression in the transfected rainbow trout gonad cell line RTG‐2. Data obtained with the YES were additionally compared with calculated estrogenicity, based on steroid analysis data of the effluents. For comparison purposes, the response of the in vitro systems toward the estrogenic chemicals β‐estradiol, ethinyl estradiol, bisphenol—A, nonylphenol, and octylphenol was assessed. All three assays showed sensitivities in the same order of magnitude in response to the steroid compounds tested, with ZRP production being the least sensitive. Regarding the estrogenic environmental chemicals tested, the RTG‐2 assay was more than an order of magnitude more sensitive than the other two assays. Despite their different sensitivities toward selected test chemicals, the three in vitro systems indicated estrogenic activity in the same concentration range for the tested STPEs. Calculated estrogenicity (chemical analysis) and measured estrogenicity (YES) were of the same order of magnitude for the STPEs tested. The present study indicates that all three in vitro systems, with the yeast‐based system being the easiest and most robust, are applicable for the screening of estrogenic activity in effluent samples.
Sketching Gesture-Based Applications in a Collaborative Working Environment with Wall-Sized Displays

Informal sketching has many advantages over strict formal languages and diagrams, especially in cross-functional teams with varying technical background. Sketches are used to elicit different application aspects and highlight stakeholder needs. Tool support for sketching activities has increased in recent years, especially in the area of UI prototyping. When quickly developing a first impression of future UIs, designers, engineers, and domain experts use sketches to gain a common understanding of layout and dialog flows. Although multi-touch gestures have gained importance in recent years, tools for sketching gesture-based applications lack support for custom gestures and typically just integrate a basic predefined gesture set. We demonstrate how UIs based on custom gestures can be developed in an augmented team room equipped with wall-sized interactive displays using formal gesture description and recognition techniques integrated in storyboards and UI sketches.
Dynamic Total Skull Remodeling by a Combination of Morcellation Craniotomy With Distraction Osteogenesis: The MoD Procedure

There are no procedures available to reconstruct the normal cranial shape irrespective of the type of cranial deformity with minimal patient stress and morbidity. To achieve dynamic total skull remodeling, we considered a new remodeling concept and developed a new procedure by combining morcellation craniotomy and distraction osteogenesis, termed the MoD procedure, and designed a distraction device, namely the angle variable distraction (AVD) system. Between 2000 and 2009, we treated 41 patients with craniosynostosis (28 and 13 cases of isolated and syndromic craniosynostosis, respectively) by using the MoD procedure with the AVD system. Compared with the conventional methods, the mean operative time was significantly shorter, and the mean transfusion volume was significantly less for the MoD procedure. In all the patients, good cranial shape and adequate cranial volume were achieved without serious complications. In conclusion, the MoD procedure with the AVD system is safe, effective, and reliable for dynamic total skull remodeling with minimal morbidity. It could be used to improve the previous surgical concepts for treating craniosynostosis.
Vitamin D deficiency and frailty in older Americans

Abstract. Wilhelm‐Leen ER, Hall YN, deBoer IH, Chertow GM. (Stanford University School of Medicine; University of Washington; Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA, USA). Vitamin D deficiency and frailty in older Americans. J Intern Med 2010; 268: 171–180.
Evaluating a Spoken Dialogue System for recording clinical observations during an endoscopic examination

Paper, keyboard or mouse-driven systems may not be suitable for data capture because of the hands-busy constraint imposed by an endoscopic examination. A Spoken Dialogue System (SDS) has a number of advantages when compared to keyboard and mouse-driven input modalities, particularly with respect to hands free and eyes-free control of a system. However, any emerging technology will never deliver improved organizational effectiveness if it is not accepted and used [1]. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) provides a framework that helps explain the determinants of computer acceptance [2]. This study, through the application of TAM, demonstrates a high level of user acceptance with clinicians wanting to use spoken dialogue technology for recording clinical observations during an endoscopic examination. Clinicians would also prefer to use a SDS for recording endoscopy rather than use a paper-based or keyboard and mouse-driven system. Using a clinical narrative during an endoscopic examination was also perceived to be a natural way to record findings. Relationships between basic TAM variables were confirmed and relationships between quality of dialogue measures and TAM variables were established.
Visual perception affected by motivation and alertness controlled by a noninvasive brain-computer interface

The influence of motivation and alertness on brain activity associated with visual perception was studied experimentally using the Necker cube, which ambiguity was controlled by the contrast of its ribs. The wavelet analysis of recorded multichannel electroencephalograms (EEG) allowed us to distinguish two different scenarios while the brain processed the ambiguous stimulus. The first scenario is characterized by a particular destruction of alpha rhythm (8–12 Hz) with a simultaneous increase in beta-wave activity (20–30 Hz), whereas in the second scenario, the beta rhythm is not well pronounced while the alpha-wave energy remains unchanged. The experiments were carried out with a group of financially motivated subjects and another group of unpaid volunteers. It was found that the first scenario occurred mainly in the motivated group. This can be explained by the increased alertness of the motivated subjects. The prevalence of the first scenario was also observed in a group of subjects to whom images with higher ambiguity were presented. We believe that the revealed scenarios can occur not only during the perception of bistable images, but also in other perceptual tasks requiring decision making. The obtained results may have important applications for monitoring and controlling human alertness in situations which need substantial attention. On the base of the obtained results we built a brain-computer interface to estimate and control the degree of alertness in real time.