gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Rhinorrhea is decreased in dogs after nasal application of botulinum toxin (1995)

At this time no effective long-term therapy exists for the excessive secretion of vasomotor rhinitis. Because rhinorrhea is under parasympathetic control, it was theorized that botulinum toxin--a powerful and long-acting cholinergic blocker that has been successful in the treatment of dystonia--might be useful in blocking the cholinergic control of rhinorrhea. Four male mongrel dogs were studied. Fifty units of type A botulinum toxin was soaked into sterile gauze, which was then packed into the left nasal cavity of each dog for 1 hour. Saline-soaked gauze was similarly introduced into the right nasal cavity to serve as control. Six days later, rhinorrhea was produced by inserting a bipolar needle electrode into the sphenopalatine ganglion and electrically stimulating for 10 minutes (6 mA, 50 Hz). Nasal secretions were collected with a suction catheter placed in the nasal vestibule. Three of four dogs exposed to the toxin showed a 41% average decrease in rhinorrhea (specifically 53%, 41%, and 30%). One dog showed a 10% increase in secretion after exposure to the toxin. We conclude that topically applied botulinum toxin reduced neurally evoked rhinorrhea by an average of 41%. Because some secretion is mediated by noncholinergic neurotransmitters such as vasoactive intestinal peptide, topical application of an anticholinergic substance has limitations. However, because all the nasal parasympathetic nerves appear to originate from cholinergic synapses in the sphenopalatine ganglion, direct injections of toxin into this ganglion may possibly allow complete blockade of all cholinergically mediated rhinorrhea.
Fibrin sealant: alternative to nasal packing in endonasal operations. A prospective randomized study. (2005)

Our results show that fibrin sealant by aerosol spray in endonasal surgery is more effective and convenient than nasal packing. It requires no special treatment, e.g., antibiotics, which are usually used if nasal packing is involved.
BioChain (2006)

Lexical chaining is a technique for identifying semantically-related terms in text. We propose concept chaining to link semantically-related concepts within biomedical text together. The resulting concept chains are then used to identify candidate sentences useful for extraction. The extracted sentences are used to produce a summary of the biomedical text. The concept chaining process is adapted from existing lexical chaining approaches, which focus on chaining semantically-related terms, rather than semantically-related concepts. The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus and Semantic Network are used as semantic resources. The UMLS MetaMap Transfer tool is used to perform text-to-concept mapping. The goal is to propose concept chaining and develop a novel concept chaining system for the biomedical domain using UMLS lexicon and the ideas of lexical chaining. The resulting concept chains from the full-text are evaluated against the concepts of a human summary (the paper's abstract). Precision is measured at 0.90 and recall at 0.92. The resulting concept chains are used to summarize the text. We also evaluate generated summaries using existing summarization systems using sentence matching, and confirm the generated summaries are useful to a domain expert. Our results show that the proposed concept chaining is a promising methodology for biomedical text summarization.
Design Parameters to Control Synthetic Gene Expression in Escherichia coli (2009)

The systematic analysis of gene design parameters shown in this study has allowed us to identify codon usage within a gene as a critical determinant of achievable protein expression levels in E. coli. We propose a biochemical basis for this, as well as design algorithms to ensure high protein production from synthetic genes. Replication of this methodology should allow similar design algorithms to be empirically derived for any expression system.
Temporal relationships of F-actin bundle formation, collagen and fibronectin matrix assembly, and fibronectin receptor expression to wound contraction. (1990)

Wound contraction can substantially reduce the amount of new tissue needed to reestablish organ integrity after tissue loss. Fibroblasts, rich in F-actin bundles, generate the force of wound contraction. Fibronectin-containing microfibrils link fibroblasts to each other and to collagen bundles and thereby provide transduction cables across the wound for contraction. The temporal relationships of F-actin bundle formation, collagen and fibronectin matrix assembly, and fibronectin receptor expression to wound contraction have not been determined. To establish these relationships, we used a cutaneous gaping wound model in outbred Yorkshire pigs. Granulation tissue filled approximately 80% of the wound space by day 5 after injury while wound contraction was first apparent at day 10. Neither actin bundles nor fibronectin receptors were observed in 5-d wound fibroblasts. Although fibronectin fibrils were assembled on the surfaces of 5-d fibroblasts, few fibrils coursed between cells. Day-7 fibroblasts stained strongly for nonmuscle-type F-actin bundles consistent with a contractile fibroblast phenotype. These cells expressed fibronectin receptors, were embedded in a fibronectin matrix that appeared to connect fibroblasts to the matrix and to each other, and were coaligned across the wound. Transmission EM confirmed the presence of microfilament bundles, cell-cell and cell-matrix linkages at day 7. Fibroblast coalignment, matrix interconnections, and actin bundles became more pronounced at days 10 and 14 coinciding with tissue contraction. These findings demonstrate that granulation tissue formation, F-actin bundle and fibronectin receptor expression in wound fibroblasts, and fibroblast-matrix linkage precede wound contraction.
Insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA-binding proteins (IGF2BPs): post-transcriptional drivers of cancer progression? (2012)

The insulin-like growth factor-2 mRNA-binding proteins 1, 2, and 3 (IGF2BP1, IGF2BP2, IGF2BP3) belong to a conserved family of RNA-binding, oncofetal proteins. Several studies have shown that these proteins act in various important aspects of cell function, such as cell polarization, migration, morphology, metabolism, proliferation and differentiation. In this review, we discuss the IGF2BP family's role in cancer biology and how this correlates with their proposed functions during embryogenesis. IGF2BPs are mainly expressed in the embryo, in contrast with comparatively lower or negotiable levels in adult tissues. IGF2BP1 and IGF2BP3 have been found to be re-expressed in several aggressive cancer types. Control of IGF2BPs' expression is not well understood; however, let-7 microRNAs, β-catenin (CTNNB1) and MYC have been proposed to be involved in their regulation. In contrast to many other RNA-binding proteins, IGF2BPs are almost exclusively observed in the cytoplasm where they associate with target mRNAs in cytoplasmic ribonucleoprotein complexes (mRNPs). During development, IGF2BPs are required for proper nerve cell migration and morphological development, presumably involving the control of cytoskeletal remodeling and dynamics, respectively. Likewise, IGF2BPs modulate cell polarization, adhesion and migration in tumor-derived cells. Moreover, they are highly associated with cancer metastasis and the expression of oncogenic factors (KRAS, MYC and MDR1). However, a pro-metastatic role of IGF2BPs remains controversial due to the lack of 'classical' in vivo studies. Nonetheless, IGF2BPs could provide valuable targets in cancer treatment with many of their in vivo roles to be fully elucidated.
Association of Tumor Necrosis Factor α Gene Promoter Polymorphism with the Presence of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (2001)

Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), a potent proinflammatory cytokine, may be involved in the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The production of TNF-alpha is elevated in the airways of these patients. A polymorphism at position -308 of the TNF-alpha gene promoter (TNF-alpha-308*1/2) is known to be associated with alteration of TNF-alpha secretion in vitro. In this study we examined the differences in TNF-alpha-308*1/2 allele frequency to investigate the association of this polymorphism with the presence of smoking-related COPD. TNF-alpha-308*1/2 allele frequency in 106 patients (73 men and 33 women) was compared with 110 asymptomatic smoker/ex-smoker control subjects matched for sex and age and population control subjects consisting of 129 blood donors. Genotype was analyzed by the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism technique on genomic DNA isolated from peripheral blood lymphocytes. TNF-alpha-308*1/2 allele frequencies were significantly different among the groups: 0.835/0.165 in patients with COPD, 0.918/0.082 in smoker/ex-smoker control subjects, and 0.922/0.078 in population control subjects. These results indicate that TNF-alpha-308*1/2 alleles are significantly associated with the presence of smoking-related COPD.
Role of the palmitoylation of surfactant-associated protein C in surfactant film formation and stability (1996)

The effect of palmitoylation of pulmonary surfactant-associated protein C (SP-C) on the surface activity of phospholipid mixtures of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylglycerol was studied. Phospholipids reconstituted with palmitoylated or depalmitoylated bovine SP-C were examined at neutral and acidic pH using a captive bubble surfactometer. At low pH, effective lipid adsorption and near zero surface tensions upon compression were obtained even with protein-free samples. At physiological pH, only SP-C-containing samples achieved such properties. Lipid adsorption was decreased by prior SP-C depalmitoylation. Bubbles with palmitoylated SP-C were more mechanically stable and required less compression to reach low surface tensions. Subphase depletion experiments showed that dynamically cycled surface layers containing palmitoylated SP-C maintained their surface activity after subphase lipid depletion. In contrast, surface activity was rapidly lost where depalmitoylated SP-C or SP-B was included. Our results indicate that although SP-C palmitoylation has little effect on its ability to enhance lipid adsorption and surface tension reduction, it greatly enhances lipid respreading and film stability and is therefore important for surfactant function.
Immunoglobulin G subclasses in human colostrum, milk and saliva (1992)

Previous studies have suggested local production of IgG4 in human colostrum and mature milk. We extended these observations to examine all IgG subclasses in mammary secretions and in saliva, a mucosal secretion. In human colostrum and milk, the geometric mean percentages of IgG contributed by IgG2 were 44% and 43%, respectively, and by IgG4, 6% in both. These percentages are significantly increased compared to the contributions in matched plasma, 29% for IgG2 and 2% for IgG4. The contribution of IgG1 (47%) and IgG3 (less than 4%) were decreased compared to plasma which contained 64% IgG1 and 6% IgG3. Similarly, in salivary secretions the percentages of IgG contributed by IgG2 and IgG4 were increased compared to serum while the percentage of IgG1 was decreased. IgG3 was not measurable in any saliva specimen by the technique used. These data demonstrate that IgG subclass distribution in two separate mucosal secretions is uniquely different from that in matching plasma or serum.
Reflectance modeling by neural texture synthesis (2016)

We extend parametric texture synthesis to capture rich, spatially varying parametric reflectance models from a single image. Our input is a single head-lit flash image of a mostly flat, mostly stationary (textured) surface, and the output is a tile of SVBRDF parameters that reproduce the appearance of the material. No user intervention is required. Our key insight is to make use of a recent, powerful texture descriptor based on deep convolutional neural network statistics for "softly" comparing the model prediction and the examplars without requiring an explicit point-to-point correspondence between them. This is in contrast to traditional reflectance capture that requires pointwise constraints between inputs and outputs under varying viewing and lighting conditions. Seen through this lens, our method is an indirect algorithm for fitting photorealistic SVBRDFs. The problem is severely ill-posed and non-convex. To guide the optimizer towards desirable solutions, we introduce a soft Fourier-domain prior for encouraging spatial stationarity of the reflectance parameters and their correlations, and a complementary preconditioning technique that enables efficient exploration of such solutions by L-BFGS, a standard non-linear numerical optimizer.
Model-based signal analysis and interpretation in the intensive care unit (1992)

This paper describes the architecture and functionality of a distributed intelligent signal analysis and interpretation system developed for the monitoring of neonates in the intensive care unit. In this system, named SIMON, various aspects of a monitoring task are performed by three independent modules running asynchronously: the feature extraction, the patient model, and the display modules. Central to SIMON is the notion of context sensitivity which permits the adaptation of the monitoring strategy in response to changes either in the patient state or in the monitoring equipment as well as the contextual interpretation of incoming data.
Genomic targets of the human c-Myc protein (2003)

The transcription factor Myc is induced by mitogenic signals and regulates downstream cellular responses. If overexpressed, Myc promotes malignant transformation. Myc modulates expression of diverse genes in experimental systems, but few are proven direct targets. Here, we present a large-scale screen for genomic Myc-binding sites in live human cells. We used bioinformatics to select consensus DNA elements (CACGTG or E-boxes) situated in the 5' regulatory region of genes and measured Myc binding to those sequences in vivo by quantitative chromatin immunoprecipitation. Strikingly, most promoter-associated E-boxes showed selective recovery with Myc, unlike non-E-box promoters or E-boxes in bulk genomic DNA. Promoter E-boxes were distributed in two groups bound by Myc at distinct frequencies. The high-affinity group included an estimated 11% of all cellular loci, was highly conserved among different cells, and was bound independently of Myc expression levels. Overexpressed Myc associated at increased frequency with low-affinity targets and, at extreme levels, also with other sequences, suggesting that some binding was not sequence-specific. The strongest DNA-sequence parameter defining high-affinity targets was the location of E-boxes within CpG islands, correlating with an open, preacetylated state of chromatin. Myc further enhanced histone acetylation, with or without accompanying induction of mRNA expression. Our findings point to a high regulatory and biological diversity among Myc-target genes.
Nutrient effects on anthracycline production by Streptomyces peucetius in a defined medium (1985)

A defined medium was developed for Streptomyces peucetius that optimally contained 0.5 mM magnesium, 1 mM phosphate, 75-125 mM glucose, 10 mM nitrate, and microelements. Poorer results were obtained with nitrite, aspartate, or ammonia as sole nitrogen sources. Other carbon sources which supported best growth and highest anthracycline titers were fructose, maltose, and soluble starch. In each case, substantial residual carbon remained at the end of 6 days, suggesting a lack of catabolite repression by the carbohydrate carbon sources on anthracycline biosynthesis. Studies involving limiting and nonlimiting concentrations of glucose supplemented with arabinose, a poorly utilizable carbon source, indicated that high carbon concentrations were not necessary for osmotic stabilization. Inorganic phosphate was found to have an inhibitory effect on anthracycline production. Furthermore, when cultures at early stages of anthracycline production were spiked with inorganic phosphate, a delay in further anthracycline production resulted until the added phosphate was depleted. A 10% inoculum of stationary phase cells yielded the best growth and most consistent anthracycline production. Spectrophotometric analyses at 495 nm of chloroform--methanol-extracted material were also found to be useful for the determination of total anthracyclines in culture extracts.
Enhanced calibration method for camera distortion (2009)

Distortion is the main problem of CCD camera in image processing. In this paper, two self-tuning calibration methods of camera lens distortion are presented. Both the methods improve the calibration of camera when solving the problems of radial distortion, decentering distortion and prism distortion. In addition, the proposed methods do not need complex mathematical equation to calibrate the camera. This helps to calibrate the camera on line. Simulation and experimental results with the conventional method verify the good performance of the proposed methods.
Biomass fast pyrolysis (2004)

Bioenergy is now accepted as having the potential to provide the major part of the projected renewable energy provisions of the future. Fast pyrolysis is one of the three main thermal routes, with gasification and combustion, to providing a useful and valuable biofuel. It is one of the most recent renewable energy processes to have been introduced and offers the advantages of a liquid product bio-oil that can be readily stored and trans ported, and used as a fuel, an energy carrier and a source of chemicals. Fast pyrolysis has now achieved commercial success for production of some chemicals, liquid fuel and electricity. Bio-oils have been success fully tested in engines turbines and boilers, and have been upgraded to high quality hydrocarbon fuels although at a presently unacceptable energetic and financial cost. This review concentrates on the technology of pyrolysis and applications for the liquid product. The basic pyrolysis process and the characteristics of the main liquid product bio-oil are first summarized followed by a review of applications for bio-oil. The main technical and non-technical barriers to implementation are identified.
TREATMENT OF ANEMIA AND IMPROVEMENT OF QUALITY OF LIFE AMONG PATIENTS WITH CROHN'S DISEASE: experience using ferric carboxymaltose (2015)

Anemia is a frequent complication for Crohn's disease patients. Intravenous iron therapy has been recommended for Crohn's disease patients, because for these patients, oral iron absorption is very limited. This is because of the inflammatory state and "blocking" of iron entry into enterocytes through hepcidin action on ferroportin, along with the elevated rates of gastrointestinal adverse events that compromise adherence to treatment and possibly aggravate the intestinal inflammatory state. The degree of Crohn's disease activity, as measured using CDAI and C-reactive protein, correlates with the severity of anemia. Carboxymaltose is a safe drug, which can be administrated in high doses (up to 1,000 mg per application per week) and corrects anemia and iron stocks over a short period of time, with consequent improvement in quality of life.
OPIOID NEUROTOXICITY: COMPARISON OF MORPHINE AND TRAMADOL IN AN EXPERIMENTAL RAT MODEL (2004)

Histopathologic changes in rat brain due to chronic use of morphine and/or tramadol in progressively increased doses were investigated in this study. Thirty male Wistar rats (180-220 g) were included and divided into three groups. Normal saline (1 ml/kg) was given intraperitoneally as placebo in the control group (n = 10). Morphine group (n = 10) received morphine intraperitoneally at a dose of 4 mg/kg/day for the first 10 days, 8 mg/kg/day between 11-20 days, and 12 mg/kg/day between 21-30 days. The tramadol group (n = 10) received the drug intraperitoneally at doses of 20, 40, and 80 mg/kg/day in the first, second, and the third 10 days of the study, respectively. All rats were decapitated on the 30th day and the brain was removed intact for histology. The presence and the number of red neurons, which are a histologic marker of apoptosis, were investigated in the parietal, frontal, temporal, occipital, entorhinal, pyriform, and hippocampal CA1, CA2, CA3 regions. Red neurons were found in morphine and tramadol groups but not in the control group. The total number of red neurons was not different in morphine and tramadol groups, but the numbers of red neurons were significantly higher in the temporal and occipital regions in tramadol group as compared with the morphine group (p < .05). In conclusion, chronic use of morphine and/or tramadol in increasing doses is found to cause red neuron degeneration in the rat brain, which probably contributes to cerebral dysfunction. These findings should be taken into consideration when chrome use of opioids is indicated.
Serial Biomarker Measurements in Ambulatory Patients With Chronic Heart Failure (2007)

Elevations of cTnT or BNP from normal detected at any time during clinical follow-up in ambulatory patients with chronic heart failure are highly associated with an increased risk of events. Further increases in cTnT contribute to additional risk. Combined elevations of cTnT and BNP contribute the highest risk. The ability to monitor changes by serial measurements adds substantially to the assessment of risk in this patient population.