gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Effect of Dietary Restriction on Estrous Cyclicity and Follicular Reserves in Aging C57BL/6J Mice1 (1985)

Restricting the food intake of female mice by alternating days of feeding and fasting delayed the age-related loss of estrous cycling potential and retarded the rate of follicular depletion, as determined after reinstatement of ad libitum (AL) feeding. During the period of food restriction (FR; 3.5-10.5 mo), food intake and body weight were about 80% of AL values. Mice were acyclic and predominantly in a state of diestrus during FR, but after reinstatement of an AL diet at 10.5 mo all FR mice resumed cycling regularly. By contrast, 80% of AL controls had become acyclic by this age, and the cycles of the remaining mice were significantly longer than those of the reinstated FR mice. Follicular reserves of 12.5-mo-old FR mice were twice those of age-matched AL controls. Cycling performance of reinstated FR mice, measured by cycle length and the proportion of mice still cycling, was equivalent to that of AL mice when the latter were 2-5 mo younger. Ovarian age, measured by the size of the follicular reserve, was similarly retarded in FR mice. Based on these data and previous evidence that follicular depletion plays a major role in the cessation of cyclicity in this strain, we hypothesize that the delayed loss of estrous cyclicity in aging FR mice is mediated at least in part by the retarding effect of dietary restriction on the rate of follicular depletion.
An assessment of the annual and long-term direct costs of rheumatoid arthritis: The impact of poor function and functional decline (1999)

Medical care costs for RA over 1 year and 1 decade are highly skewed. Persons with RA with poor and declining function experience much higher costs of care.
[Screening and identification of genes associated with multi-drug resistance in colonic cancer]. (2012)

Multi-gene and multi-pathway are involved in the development of multi-drug resistance of colorectal cancer cells. CAP-G, RhoGDI2 and Maspin are potential multi-drug resistant genes.
Synthesis of large-pore ordered mesoporous silicas containing aminopropyl groups (2005)

Ordered mesoporous silicas with large-pore diameters incorporating aminopropyl groups in variable quantity have been synthesized via the co-condensation of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) and 3-tert-butyloxycarbonylaminopropyltriethoxysilane templated with nonionic surfactant P123 under acidic conditions. The deprotection of amino groups was then quantitatively achieved either by thermal treatment or acid hydrolysis followed by Et3N treatment, both routes leading to exactly the same materials. We showed that the free amino centers are fully accessible, by using the condensation of the amine function with benzaldehyde.
Textbook of Pediatric Neuropsychiatry (1999)

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Separation of Escherichia coli Bacteria from Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells Using Standing Surface Acoustic Waves (2013)

A microfluidic device was developed to separate heterogeneous particle or cell mixtures in a continuous flow using acoustophoresis. In this device, two identical surface acoustic waves (SAWs) generated by interdigital transducers (IDTs) propagated toward a microchannel, which accordingly built up a standing surface acoustic wave (SSAW) field across the channel. A numerical model, coupling a piezoelectric effect in the solid substrate and acoustic pressure in the fluid, was developed to provide a better understanding of SSAW-based particle manipulation. It was found that the pressure nodes across the channel were individual planes perpendicular to the solid substrate. In the separation experiments, two side sheath flows hydrodynamically focused the injected particle or cell mixtures into a very narrow stream along the centerline. Particles flowing through the SSAW field experienced an acoustic radiation force that highly depends on the particle properties. As a result, dissimilar particles or cells were laterally attracted toward the pressure nodes at different magnitudes, and were eventually switched to different outlets. Two types of fluorescent microspheres with different sizes were successfully separated using the developed device. In addition, Escherichia coli bacteria premixed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were also efficiently isolated using the SSAW-base separation technique. Flow cytometric analysis on the collected samples found that the purity of separated E. coli bacteria was 95.65%.
In vivo topological analysis of Ste2, a yeast plasma membrane protein, by using beta-lactamase gene fusions. (1991)

Gene fusions were constructed between Ste2, the receptor for the Saccharomyces cerevisiae alpha-factor, and beta la, the secreted form of beta-lactamase encoded by the bla gene of pBR322. The Ste2 and beta la components were linked by a processing fragment (P) from the yeast killer preprotoxin containing a C-terminal lysine-arginine site for cleavage by the Golgi-associated Kex2 protease. Ste2 is predicted to have a rhodopsinlike topology, with an external N terminus and seven transmembrane segments. Fusions to three of the four Ste2 domains predicted to be external resulted in beta la secretion from yeast cells. A fusion at a site just preceding the first transmembrane segment was an exception; the product was cell associated, indicating that the first 44 residues of Ste2 are insufficient to direct secretion of beta la; translocation of this domain presumably requires the downstream transmembrane segment. Expression of fusions located in two domains predicted to be cytoplasmic failed to result in beta la secretion. Following insertion of the preprotoxin signal peptide (S) between the Ste2 and P components of these cytoplasmic fusions, secretion of beta la activity occurred, which is consistent with inversion of the orientation of the beta la reporter. Conversely, insertion of S between Ste2 and P in an external fusion sharply reduced beta la secretion. Complementary information about both cytoplasmic and external domains of Ste2 was therefore provided, and most aspects of the predicted topology were confirmed. The steady-state levels of beta la detected were low, presumably because of efficient degradation of the fusions in the secretory pathway; levels, however, were easily detectable. This method should be valuable in the analysis of in vivo topologies of both homologous and foreign plasma membrane proteins expressed in yeast cells.
Current research on the treatment of primary sclerosing cholangitis (2014)

Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a progressive disease of the liver characterized by inflammation and destruction of the intra- and/or extra-hepatic bile ducts, leading to fibrosis and ultimately liver failure, cirrhosis and an increased risk of malignancy. The etiology of PSC is unclear. It is often associated with the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), particularly Ulcerative Colitis (UC); up to 75% of PSC patients have UC. PSC is more prevalent in men than in women. Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) has been extensively studied in PSC in randomized clinical trials but failed to show a positive impact on the natural course of the disease. Currently, there is no effective medical therapy for PSC, and the majority of patients will eventually require liver transplantation. PSC is one of the leading indications for liver transplantation. In this paper, we review the current research on the potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of PSC.
Regulation of apoptosis by bcl-2 family proteins and its role in cancer and chemoresistance (1995)

In essentially all tissues that have self-renewal capacity, there exists a delicate balance between cell production by mitogenesis and cell loss due to programmed cell death (PCD), which maintains total cell numbers within physiologically appropriate ranges. Genetic alterations that either dysregulate the cell division process, resulting in faster cell proliferation, or that affect physiological cell death mechanisms that cause slower rates of cell loss, occur frequently in human tumor cells and contribute to the clonal expansion of cancer cells in vivo. PCD is an active form of cell suicide that sometimes requires new gene expression for its initiation and that in many, but not all, cases culminates in a characteristic set of biochemical and morphological events. These include genomic DNA cleavage by endonucleases, chromatin condensation (pyknosis), nuclear fragmentation, proteolysis of cytoskeletal and other proteins, plasma membrane blebbing, and cell shrinkage. In many ways, these biochemical events can be viewed as a form of cellular autodigestion in which the macromolecular components of cells are degraded so that their constituent subunits can be recycled in the body. When present in their classical form, the morphological events accompanying this type of cell death are broadly termed apoptosis. Though well known for its role in the normal physiological cell death mechanisms that maintain tissue homeostasis, a wide variety of pathological conditions and external factors can trigger the PCD pathway. Included among these apoptotic stimuli are essentially all chemotherapeutic drugs and radiation, a finding of considerable relevance to our understanding of how currently available treatments of cancer work and for devising strategies for improving them. In this review, the regulation of PCD by members of the bcl-2 family of proteins is discussed, primarily within the context of human cancers where abnormalities in the expression of BCL2 family genes frequently occur and contribute both to the origins of cancer and our difficulty in treating it.
Vasopressors for hypotensive shock (2011)

There is some evidence of no difference in mortality between norepinephrine and dopamine. Dopamine appeared to increase the risk for arrhythmia. There is not sufficient evidence of any difference between any of the six vasopressors examined. Probably the choice of vasopressors in patients with shock does not influence the outcome, rather than any vasoactive effect per se. There is not sufficient evidence that any one of the investigated vasopressors is clearly superior over others.
Characterization of unique binding kinetics of follistatin and activin or inhibin in serum (1994)

Serum binding proteins (BPs) have been identified for several peptide and protein hormones, and their presence has significant implications for the biological action of the hormone. Follistatin (FS) has been identified as an activin- and inhibin-BP in tissues, serum, and follicular fluid of several species, including humans. In this study, the binding kinetics of FS for activin and inhibin were characterized in human serum using gel filtration chromatography and compared to those of pure recombinant hormones using chromatography and a new solid phase assay. When complexed with radiolabeled activin or inhibin, FS eluted at a volume corresponding to a mol wt range of 67,000-150,000, an elution volume identical to the lower mol wt BP peak observed in serum. Furthermore, kinetic analyses of recombinant FS binding to activin using a solid phase assay revealed that 1) the FS-activin interaction is of high affinity, similar to or exceeding that estimated for activin binding to its receptor; 2) binding to activin is essentially irreversible at physiological pH; and 3) the potency of inhibin is approximately 500- to 1000-fold lower than that of activin in the FS binding assay. The lack of FS-[125I]activin complex reversibility observed in the solid phase assay was confirmed using a modified gel filtration chromatography protocol. Thus, preincubation of pure FS or serum with unlabeled activin for 2 h eliminated all binding of subsequently added labeled activin despite a much longer incubation period. However, when labeled activin was incubated with FS for 2 h, subsequent addition of unlabeled activin or inhibin was unable to displace labeled activin from FS, again demonstrating a lack of reversibility. Finally, to map this high affinity interaction, overlapping synthetic peptides were used to compete with labeled activin for FS binding. Two potential contact sites between FS and activin were identified, one near the N-terminus (amino acids 15-29) and the other near the C-terminus (amino acids 99-116). Given its apparently irreversible nature, high affinity, and ability to neutralize activin's biological activity, FS is quite different from the typical hormone-BP. These unique properties of FS undoubtedly attest to the potency of activin in many physiological and developmental settings and, therefore, to the importance of BPs, such as FS for regulating activin's bioactivity, distribution, and/or clearance.
Incorporation of oxygen contribution by plant roots into classical dissolved oxygen deficit model for a subsurface flow treatment wetland (2009)

It has been long established that plants play major roles in a treatment wetland. However, the role of plants has not been incorporated into wetland models. This study tries to incorporate wetland plants into a biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) model so that the relative contributions of the aerobic and anaerobic processes to meeting BOD can be quantitatively determined. The classical dissolved oxygen (DO) deficit model has been modified to simulate the DO curve for a field subsurface flow constructed wetland (SFCW) treating municipal wastewater. Sensitivities of model parameters have been analyzed. Based on the model it is predicted that in the SFCW under study about 64% BOD are degraded through aerobic routes and 36% is degraded anaerobically. While not exhaustive, this preliminary work should serve as a pointer for further research in wetland model development and to determine the values of some of the parameters used in the modified DO deficit and associated BOD model. It should be noted that nitrogen cycle and effects of temperature have not been addressed in these models for simplicity of model formulation. This paper should be read with this caveat in mind.
Pneumococcal VncR Strain-Specifically Regulates Capsule Polysaccharide Synthesis (2019)

Capsular polysaccharides (CPS), a major virulence factor in <i>Streptococcus pneumoniae</i>, become thicker during blood invasion while not during asymptomatic nasopharyngeal colonization. However, the underlying mechanism controlling this differential pneumococcal CPS regulation remain unclear. Here, we show how VncR, the response regulator of the vancomycin resistance locus (<i>vncRS</i> operon), regulates CPS expression in <i>vncR</i> mutants in three serotype (type 2, 3, and 6B) backgrounds upon exposure to serum lactoferrin (LF). Comparative analysis of CPS levels in the wild type (WT) of three strains and their isogenic <i>vncR</i> mutants after LF exposure revealed a strain-specific alteration in CPS production. Consistently, VncR-mediated strain-specific CPS production is correlated with pneumococcal virulence, <i>in vivo</i>. Electrophoretic mobility-shift assay and co-immunoprecipitation revealed an interaction between VncR and the <i>cps</i> promoter (<i>cpsp</i>) in the presence of serum. In addition, <i>in silico</i> analysis uncovered this protein-DNA interaction, suggesting that VncR binds with the <i>cpsp</i>, and recognizes the strain-specific significance of the tandem repeats in <i>cpsp</i>. Taken together, the interaction of VncR and <i>cpsp</i> after serum exposure plays an essential role in regulating differential strain-specific CPS production, which subsequently determines strain-specific systemic virulence. This study highlights how host protein LF contributes to pneumococcal VncR-mediated CPS production. As CPS plays a significant role in immune evasion, these findings suggest that drugs designed to interrupt the VncR-mediated CPS production could help to combat pneumococcal infections.
A Psychiatric Diagnostic System Integrating Probabilistic and Categorical Reasoning (1995)

We describe a diagnostic support system for clinical psychiatry and its evaluation results. The system has two inter-related components: a rule-based reasoning part associated with uncertainty, and a deterministic part, that uses heuristics to perform categorical reasoning. The system includes the 30 groups of psychiatric diagnoses which are classified under the categories 290 to 319 of the DSM-III-R and the ICD-9. There are, in fact, 1508 rules relating 208 clinical findings with 257 diagnoses. The reasoning strategy is based on selecting and differentiating diagnostic categories in a hierarchical classification tree. The system is intended to be used for education of medical students, and to help non-specialist clinicians, residents in psychiatry, or experts with few years of experience in decision making. We tested the diagnostic performance of the system using case reports extracted from a specialized journal. In 52.8% of the cases, the correct diagnosis was ranked as the first hypothesis using only the rule-based part. In combination with the deterministic strategy, the correct diagnosis could be made for 73.6% of the analyzed cases.
Clinical effectiveness of lidocaine and benzocaine for topical anesthesia. (1999)

The effectiveness of lidocaine and benzocaine in reducing pain produced by needle insertion into the palate was evaluated in a double-blind and placebo-controlled study using a more suitable method. Twenty subjects, 10 men and 10 women, submitted to 4 sessions in which they were randomly treated with 5% lidocaine, a placebo that tasted like lidocaine, 20% benzocaine, and a placebo that tasted like benzocaine. At each session, a 27-gauge needle was inserted into the palate twice, once before (baseline) and once after drug application for 1 minute. Immediately after each insertion, subjects indicated on a visual analog scale the pain intensity perceived. Lidocaine and benzocaine were equally efficient, and both were better than placebo in reducing pain caused by insertion of needles into the palate.
The complete sequence and gene organization of the short unique region of herpesvirus of turkeys (1993)

The DNA sequence of the whole of the short unique region (U(s)) and that of part of the short terminal repeat (TRs) of herpesvirus of turkeys (HVT) were determined. HVT U(s) is 8.6 kbp long and contains eight potential open reading frames (ORFs). Seven of these have counterparts in the U(s) of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). The homologous proteins include US1, US2, US10, protein kinase (US3) and the glycoproteins gD, gI and gE. In addition, HVT contains one ORF which has a counterpart in the U(s) of Marek's disease virus (MDV) but is not homologous to any other known herpesvirus gene. Although HVT and MDV proteins encoded by U(s) genes have evident similarities with proteins encoded by alphaherpesviruses, multiple alignment analysis of predicted amino acid sequences show that HVT proteins are more closely related to MDV proteins than to homologous proteins of mammalian alphaherpesviruses. The percentage amino acid identity between HVT and MDV U(s)-encoded proteins ranges from 35 to 65, the most conserved protein being encoded by the homologues of the HSV-1 US2 gene. Most of the genes are colinear with those of HSV-1 except US10 which is transposed in HVT and MDV. A characteristic feature of HVT is the fact that approximately two-thirds of the gE gene is located in the inverted repeats flanking U(s).
Randomized, Double Blind Controlled Trial of Subcutaneous Recombinant Human Interleukin-11 Versus Prednisolone in Active Crohn's Disease (2005)

rhIL-11 is well tolerated but significantly inferior when compared to prednisolone in short-term remission induction in patients with active CD. In this patient cohort, both treatments appeared to be poor in maintaining remission over a period of 3 months.
Human and murine phosphorycholine-binding immunoglobulins: conserved subgroup and first hypervariable region of heavy chains. (1976)

The NH2-terminal 36 residues of the heavy chain and the NH2-terminal 40 residues of the light chain from a human Waldenström's IgM with binding activity for phosphorylcholine (phosphocholine) are compared with the published sequences of five mouse IgA myeloma proteins with the same activity. An extensive structural similarity; i.e., 3 amino acid interchanges within framework residues, and one in the hypervariable region, is noted between the heavy chains of both species. The light chains, however, show a considerable diversity and, in contrast to the heavy chain, no correlation between the primary structure of the first hypervariable region and the binding specificity is apparent. The finding of a very similar heavy chain variable region in two different species that are separated by about 75 million years in evolution favors the concept of stable transmission of variable region genes throughout evolution.
Key variables and data requirements in modelling drug systems (2001)

The author of the present article explores factors that account for variation in drug use and drug-related harm over time. A model of a drug system is presented, consisting of dependent variables, proximate causes and underlying determinants. The dependent variables concern drug use (level and pattern), adverse health consequences and drug-related crime. The major proximate causes of drug use and drug-related harm include drug availability (price and physical availability), attitudes towards use (fear of legal sanctions, health beliefs regarding risks and cultural beliefs) and alternatives to the illicit market (home cultivation and legal intoxicants for users, alternative career and income prospects for sellers). The underlying determinants that influence those proximate causes include policy (drug laws, preventive education and risk management programming) and environmental factors (geographical isolation, climate and fauna, and threat of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and other infectious diseases). Despite recent improvements in the measurement of problematic patterns of drug use, there is still a paucity of data on patterns of use and drug-related harm. The viability of drug policy is thus often measured in terms of changes in levels of drug use and/or changes in the number of persons detected and charged with drug crimes. Until valid and reliable data are available on its key variables, any model of drug systems will have very limited applicability.