Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of exercise pressor reflex activation on carotid baroreflex function during exercise in humans

1 This investigation was designed to determine the contribution of the exercise pressor reflex to the resetting of the carotid baroreflex during exercise. 2 Ten subjects performed 3.5 min of static one‐legged exercise (20 % maximal voluntary contraction) and 7 min dynamic cycling (20 % maximal oxygen uptake) under two conditions: control (no intervention) and with the application of medical anti‐shock (MAS) trousers inflated to 100 mmHg (to activate the exercise pressor reflex). Carotid baroreflex function was determined at rest and during exercise using a rapid neck pressure/neck suction technique. 3 During exercise, the application of MAS trousers (MAS condition) increased mean arterial pressure (MAP), plasma noradrenaline concentration (dynamic exercise only) and perceived exertion (dynamic exercise only) when compared to control (P < 0.05). No effect of the MAS condition was evident at rest. The MAS condition had no effect on heart rate (HR), plasma lactate and adrenaline concentrations or oxygen uptake at rest and during exercise. The carotid baroreflex stimulus‐response curve was reset upward on the response arm and rightward to a higher operating pressure by control exercise without alterations in gain. Activation of the exercise pressor reflex by MAS trousers further reset carotid baroreflex control of MAP, as indicated by the upward and rightward relocation of the curve. However, carotid baroreflex control of HR was only shifted rightward to higher operating pressures by MAS trousers. The sensitivity of the carotid baroreflex was unaltered by exercise pressor reflex activation. 4 These findings suggest that during dynamic and static exercise the exercise pressor reflex is capable of actively resetting carotid baroreflex control of mean arterial pressure; however, it would appear only to modulate carotid baroreflex control of heart rate.
Neutralization of Circulating Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) by Anti-VEGF Antibodies and Soluble VEGF Receptor 1 (sFlt-1) Induces Proteinuria*

There are about 2.5 million glomeruli in the kidneys each consisting of a barrel of glomerular basement membrane surrounded by glomerular endothelial cells on the inside and glomerular epithelial cells with established foot processes (podocytes) on the outside. Defects in this filtration apparatus lead to glomerular vascular leak or proteinuria. The role of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in the regulation of glomerular vascular permeability is still unclear. Recent studies indicate that patients receiving anti-VEGF antibody therapy may have an increased incidence of proteinuria. In a different setting, pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia are associated with elevated soluble VEGF receptor 1 protein (sFlt-1), endothelial cell dysfunction and proteinuria. These studies suggest that neutralization of physiologic levels of VEGF, a key endothelial survival factor, may lead to proteinuria. In the present study, we evaluated the potential of anti-VEGF neutralizing antibodies and sFlt-1 in the induction of proteinuria. Our studies demonstrate that anti-VEGF antibodies and sFlt-1 cause rapid glomerular endothelial cell detachment and hypertrophy, in association with down-regulation of nephrin, a key epithelial protein in the glomerular filtration apparatus. These studies suggest that down-regulation or neutralization of circulating VEGF may play an important role in the induction of proteinuria in various kidney diseases, some forms of cancer therapy and also in women with preeclampsia.
Characterization of kappa and delta opioid receptors in isolated organs by using type/subtype selective agonists and antagonists.

BACKGROUND The kappa and delta opioid receptors were characterized in longitudinal muscle strip of guinea-pig ileum (GPI, mu, kappa), mouse (MVD, delta, mu, kappa) and rabbit (LVD, kappa) vas deferens and rabbit ear artery (ART, delta, kappa) with particular attention to the presence of receptor subtypes. MATERIAL AND METHODS For this purpose, type/subtype selective agonist and antagonist were used such as [D-Ala2, D-Leu5]-enkephalin (delta agonist) [D-Pen2,5]-enkephalin (delta 1 agonist), deltorphin II (delta 2 agonist) naltriben (NTB, delta 2 antagonist), BOC-YPGFLT(OtBu) (delta antagonist) on the one hand and ethylketocyclazocine (EKC, kappa/(agonist), PD-117 302 (kappa 1 agonist), [Met5]-enkephalin-Arg6, Phe7 (ME-RF, delta/kappa 2/(agonist) and its amide ME-RF-NH2, kappa 2/(agonist), naltrexone (NTX, mu > delta = kappa antagonist) and norbinaltorphimine (nBNI, kappa antagonist) on the other hand. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION In MVD the Ke of NTB against different (agonists revealed no receptor type heterogeneity. In LVD the Ke of nBNI but not of NTX against EKC versus the ones against ME-RF and ME-RF-NH2 indicated inhomogenous (receptor population. The (receptor antagonist BOC-YPGFLT(OtBu) antagonized the action of ME-RF-NH2 in ART but not in MVD or LVD indicating a special receptor subtype in ART (kappa, possibly delta).
Intracellular chloride regulation in amphibian dorsal root ganglion neurones studied with ion‐selective microelectrodes.

1. Intracellular Cl‐ activity (aiCl) and membrane potential (Em) were measured in frog dorsal root ganglion neurones (DRG neurones) using double‐barrelled Cl‐ ‐selective microelectrodes. In standard Ringer solution buffered with HEPES (5 mM), equilibrated with air or 100% O2, the resting membrane potential was ‐57.7 +/‐ 1.0 mV and aiCl was 23.6 +/‐ 1.0 mM (n = 53). The value of aiCl was 2.6 times the activity expected for an equilibrium distribution and the difference between Em and ECl was 25 mV. 2. Removal of external Cl‐ led to a reversible fall in aiCl. Initial rates of decay and recovery of aiCl were 4.1 and 3.3 mM min‐1, respectively. During the recovery of aiCl following return to standard Ringer solution, most of the movement of Cl‐ occurred against the driving force for a passive distribution. Changes in aiCl were not associated with changes in Em. Chloride fluxes estimated from initial rates of change in aiCl when external Cl‐ was removed were too high to be accounted for by electrodiffusion. 3. The intracellular accumulation of Cl‐ was dependent on the extracellular Cl‐ activity (aoCl). The relationship between aiCl and aoCl had a sigmoidal shape with a half‐maximal activation of about 50 mM‐external Cl‐. 4. The steady‐state aiCl depended on the simultaneous presence of extracellular Na+ and K+. Similarly, the active reaccumulation of Cl‐ after intracellular Cl‐ depletion was abolished in the absence of either Na+ or K+ in the bathing solution. 5. The reaccumulation of Cl‐ was inhibited by furosemide (0.5‐1 x 10(‐3) M) or bumetanide (10(‐5) M). The decrease in aiCl observed in Cl‐ ‐free solutions was also inhibited by bumetanide. 6. Cell volume changes were calculated from the observed changes in aiCl. Cells were estimated to shrink in Cl‐ ‐free solutions to about 75% their initial volume, at an initial rate of 6% min‐1. 7. The present results provide direct evidence for the active accumulation of Cl‐ in DRG neurones. The mechanism of Cl‐ transport is electrically silent, dependent on the simultaneous presence of external Cl‐, Na+ and K+ and inhibited by loop diuretics. It is suggested that a Na+:K+:Cl‐ co‐transport system mediates the active transport of Cl‐ across the cell membrane of DRG neurones.
Rolipram and its optical isomers, phosphodiesterase 4 inhibitors, attenuated the scopolamine-induced impairments of learning and memory in rats.

We investigated the effects of (+/-)-rolipram, a phosphodiesterase (PDE) 4 inhibitor, and its isomers on scopolamine-induced deficits of learning and memory in rats using an 8-arm radial maze task and a passive avoidance task. 1) In the 8-arm radial maze task, (+/-)-rolipram (0.02-0.2 mg/kg, p.o.), (-)-rolipram (0.01-0.02 and 0.2-0.5 mg/kg, p.o.) and (+)-rolipram (20-50 mg/kg, p.o.) attenuated the scopolamine-induced deficits of spatial cognition. As for the minimum effective dose of each drug, (-)-rolipram was 2 and 2000 times as potent as (+/-)-rolipram and (+)-rolipram, respectively. (-)-Rolipram produced a biphasic dose-response and (+/-)-rolipram produced a broad dose-response. 2) (+/-)-Rolipram and its isomers also attenuated the scopolamine-induced deficits in the passive avoidance response. Also for the minimum effective dose, (-)-rolipram (0.01-0.02 mg/kg) was 2 and 200 times as potent as (+/-)-rolipram (0.02-0.1 mg/kg) and (+)-rolipram (2mg/kg). 3) The behaviorally effective doses of (+/-)-rolipram and its isomers also enhanced the oxotremorine-induced tremors in mice. Comparing these racemic isomers, (-)- and (+/-)-rolipram have more potent effects than (+)-rolipram on scopolamine-induced deficits in the 8-arm radial maze task and passive avoidance task. Especially (+/-)-rolipram has a wide dose range in these behavioral study. These results suggest that the ameliorating effects of rolipram might result from the indirect potentiation of various transmitters including cholinergic and noradrenergic systems by an increase in cAMP with the inhibition of PDE4.
Gail model for prediction of absolute risk of invasive breast cancer: independent evaluation in the Florence-European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition cohort.

BACKGROUND The Gail model 2 (GM) for predicting the absolute risk of invasive breast cancer has been used for counseling and to design intervention studies. Although the GM has been validated in US populations, its performance in other populations is unclear because of the wide variation in international breast cancer rates. METHODS We used data from a multicenter case-control study in Italy and from Italian cancer registries to develop a model (IT-GM) that uses the same risk factors as the GM. We evaluated the accuracy of the IT-GM and the GM using independent data from the Florence-European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. To assess model calibration (i.e., how well the model predicts the observed numbers of events in subsets of the population), we compared the number of expected incident breast cancers (E) predicted by these models with the number of observed incident breast cancers (O), and we computed the concordance statistic to measure discriminatory accuracy. RESULTS The overall E/O ratios were 0.96 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.84 to 1.11) and 0.93 (95% CI = 0.81 to 1.08) for the IT-GM and the GM, respectively. The IT-GM was somewhat better calibrated than GM in women younger than 50 years, but the GM was better calibrated when age at first live birth categories were considered (e.g., 20- to 24-year age-at-first-birth category E/O = 0.68, 95% CI = 0.53 to 0.94 for the IT-GM and E/O = 0.75, 95% CI = 0.58 to 1.03 for the GM). The concordance statistic was approximately 59% for both models, with 95% confidence intervals indicating that the models perform statistically significantly better than pure chance (concordance statistic of 50%). CONCLUSIONS There was no statistically significant evidence of miscalibration overall for either the IT-GM or the GM, and the models had equivalent discriminatory accuracy. The good performance of the IT-GM when applied on the independent data from the Florence-EPIC cohort indicates that GM can be improved for use in populations other than US populations. Our findings suggest that the Italian data may be useful for revising the GM to include additional risk factors for breast cancer.
Robust lumen segmentation of coronary arteries in 2D angiographic images

Diagnosis and treatment of coronary diseases depends on the data acquired during angiographic investigations. To provide better assistance for angiographic procedures, a segmentation of the lumen is required. A new algorithm for vessel centerline computation and lumen segmentation in 2D projection coronary angiograms is presented. Centerlines are extracted by a graph-based optimization technique, which searches for paths with minimal costs. The search starts from a source point, which is automatically set by the proposed algorithm. A new objective function for determining the costs of the graph edges is proposed. It consists of the response from the medialness filter and is regularized by the centerline potential function. In the medialness filter a vessel cross-section is represented by a 1D profile parameterized by center position and radius. The medialness filter at a point optimizes a gradient-based response over the profile radius. The proposed centerline potential function defines likeliness of each point of the image to be a centerline. Both the medialness filter and the centerline potential function are multi-scale. The entire lumen segmentation is achieved by the radii extracted during the medialness response computation. Application to clinical data shows that the presented algorithm segments coronary lumen with good accuracy and allows for subsequent assessment of the quantitative characteristics (i.e. diameter, curvature, etc.) of the vessels.
Material properties of the normal medial bovine meniscus

The intrinsic compressive and tensile properties of normal bovine medial menisci were measured, and the variations in these properties with respect to the structural organization of the tissue and test specimen location were examined. Using a confined compression experiment, the compressive aggregate modulus and permeability of the meniscus were determined. The permeability of the tissue was also compared with the permeability as measured experimentally using a direct permeation experiment. Deep posterior specimens are significantly stiffer in compression than deep anterior and central‐anterior specimens, while deep anterior specimens are significantly less stiff than deep posterior and central‐posterior sepcimens. Posterior specimens have a significantly higher average water content. In addition, the permeability of the bovine meniscus was found to be about one‐tenth that of bovine articular cartilage. The tensile stiffness of meniscal tissue was determined from constant strain rate uniaxial tension tests. To asses the directional variations in the tensile properties, specimens were obtained from the circumferential and radial orientations. The results indicate that the femoral surface of the meniscus is isotropic in tension, while specimens from within the meniscus are anisotropic—the circumferential specimens are much stiffer than the radial specimens. Furthermore, circumferential posterior specimens from the interior of the meniscus are significantly stiffer than similar anterior specimens. Layer inhomogeneities in the tensile properties with respect to distance from the femoral surface are also present.
New Frontiers in Secure Computation

The notion of secure computation is central to cryptography. Introduced in the seminal works of Yao [FOCS'82, FOCS'86] and Goldreich, Micali and Wigderson [STOC'87], secure multiparty computation allows a group of (mutually) distrustful parties to jointly compute any functionality over their individual private inputs in such a manner that the honest parties obtain the correct outputs and no group of malicious parties learn anything beyond their inputs and the prescribed outputs. General feasibility results for secure computation were given by Yao [FOCS'86] and Goldreich et al. [STOC'87] more than two decades ago. Subsequent to these works, designing secure computation protocols that can tolerate more powerful adversaries and satisfy stronger notions of security has been a very active area of research. In this dissertation, we study two such new frontiers in the area of secure computation. In the first part of this dissertation, we initiate a study of designing leakage-resilient interactive protocols. Specifically, we consider the scenario where an adversary, in addition to corrupting a subset of parties, can leak (potentially via physical attacks) arbitrary information from the secret state of any honest party. This is in contrast to the standard notion of secure computation where it is assumed that the adversary only has "black-box'' access to the honest parties. In particular, we formalize a meaningful definition of leakage-resilient zero knowledge proof systems and provide constructions that satisfy our notion. We also discuss various applications of our results. The second part of this dissertation concerns with the general question of whether it is possible to securely run cryptographic protocols over an insecure network environment such as the Internet. It is well-known that the standard notion of secure computation is only relevant to the "stand-alone" setting where a single protocol is being executed in isolation; as such it does not guarantee security when multiple protocol sessions may be executed concurrently under the control of an adversary who is present across all sessions. We consider the open problem of constructing secure password-based authenticated key exchange protocols in such a setting in the "plain model" (i.e., without assuming any trusted infrastructure or random oracles). We give the first construction of such a protocol based on standard cryptographic assumptions. Our results are in fact much more general, and extend to other functionalities w.r. t. a (necessarily) weakened notion of concurrently secure computation. The results presented in this dissertation stem from two papers which are joint works with Sanjam Garg and Amit Sahai, and with Vipul Goyal and Rafail Ostrovsky, respectively.
Inhibitory Effects of Isolated Compounds from Black Coloured Rice Bran on the Complement Classical Pathway

The present study evaluated the anticomplement effects of isolated compounds from black coloured rice bran in the classical pathway of the complement system. Using column chromatography, three compounds: oryzafuran, quercetin and protocatechuic acid, were isolated and evaluated for in vitro anticomplement activity. Oryzafuran showed the most potent inhibitory activity against the complement system, with 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) values of 126.2 µg/mL. This is the first report of anticomplement activity of isolated compounds from black coloured rice bran. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Prise en compte des préférences des utilisateurs pour l'estimation de la pertinence multidimensionnelle d'un document

Dans ce papier, nous proposons une nouvelle approche d’agregation personnalisee pour l’estimation de la pertinence multidimensionnelle. L’approche est basee sur un operateur d’agregation mathematique qui utilise une mesure floue permettant la quantification de l’importance estimee des criteres pour chaque utilisateur ainsi que leur degre d’interactivite ou d’interdependance. Nous evaluons l’operateur d’agregation propose en utilisant la collection de test standard fournie avec par la tâche “Contextual Suggestion” de TREC 2013. Les resultats experimentaux obtenus montrent l’impact de la personnalisation sur les performances de recherche.
An insight into the mechanism of inhibition and reactivation of the F(1)-ATPases by tentoxin.

The mechanism of inhibition and reactivation of chloroplast ATP-synthase by the fungal cyclotetrapeptide tentoxin was investigated by photolabeling experiments, binding studies, and kinetic analysis using synthetic analogues of tentoxin. The alpha-subunit of chloroplast F(1)-ATPase (CF(1)) was specifically labeled by a photoactivatable tentoxin derivative, providing the first direct evidence of tentoxin binding to the alpha-subunit, and 3D homology modeling was used to locate tentoxin in its putative binding site at the alpha/beta interface. The non-photosynthetic F(1)-ATPase from thermophilic bacterium (TF(1)) proved to be also tentoxin-sensitive, and enzyme turnover dramatically increased the rate of tentoxin binding to its inhibitory site, contrary to what was previously observed with epsilon-depleted CF(1) [Santolini, J., Haraux, F. , Sigalat, C. , Moal, G. , and André, F. (1999) J. Biol. Chem. 274, 849-858]. We propose that tentoxin preferentially binds to an ADP-loaded alpha beta pair, and mechanically blocks the catalytic cycle, perhaps by the impossibility of converting this alpha beta pair into an ATP-loaded alpha beta pair. Using (14)C-tentoxin and selected synthetic analogues, we found that toxin binding to the tight inhibitory site of CF(1) exerts some cooperative effect on the loose reactivatory site, but that no reciprocal effect exists. When the two tentoxin-binding sites are filled in reactivated F(1)-ATPase, they do not exchange their role during catalytic turnover, indicating an impairment between nucleotide occupancy and the shape of tentoxin-binding pocket. This analysis provides a mechanical interpretation of the inhibition of F(1)-ATPase by tentoxin and a clue for understanding the reactivation process.
PRODUCT INFORMATION EXTRACTION

Online shopping has become a very popular web application in the recent times and received lot of attention from both consumers and retail merchants. With this growing popularity, lots of information is generated on many products to assist users across the globe. This has resulted in information explosion with lots of information for the consumers to digest. This has created need for techniques to identify useful and relevant content for the consumers from the huge amounts available. In this thesis, we have explored application of information extraction techniques for extracting relevant product information. We have focused on the following subproblems in the context of products: Attribute Extraction, Attribute Ranking. We have explored algorithms to automatically extract product attributes from text descriptions. We have come up with unsupervised methods which do not require any domain specific information for extraction. Our algorithms are based on the hypothesis that attributes should repeat across descriptions. We have explored two clustering methods in this work for extraction : Noun Phrase(NP) Clustering and Word Clustering. In the first method, clusters of noun phrases are computed so that all the phrases describing an attribute are grouped together and a representative attribute is extracted from each cluster. In the second method, we cluster words appearing in the descriptions such that all the words related to an attribute are grouped together in one cluster. We construct a graph from the word occurrences in descriptions and compute word clusters using a graph clustering algorithm. Attributes are extracted from word clusters using word associations inside a cluster. We have throughly evaluated our methods by conducting various experiments. Our experiments show that the methods are robust and extract product attributes accurately. We have also compared the two algorithms and presented an analysis on the trade offs in the two approaches. We have defined attribute ranking in the context of product comparison and came up new features for ranking the attributes. We have also designed a new kind of summaries called Comparative Summaries that delivers majority of the comparable content found in an input set of documents. We have presented how comparative summaries could be generated for products using our attribute extraction and ranking algorithms. We have carried out experiments to evaluate the performance of our ranking algorithm and showed that it is effective in identifying useful attributes.