gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Damage to Pseudohyphal Forms of Candida albicans by Neutrophils in the Absence of Serum In Vitro (1978)

Large forms of Candida are characteristically present in invasive lesions and are often cleared by host defenses. Therefore, an in vitro system was developed to study interactions between leukocytes and pseudohyphae. By light, phase contrast, and electron microscopic observations, in the absence of serum, neutrophils attached to and spread over the surfaces of partially ingested pseudohyphae, which then appeared damaged. Using a new assay which measured neutrophil-induced inhibition of uptake of [(14)C]cytosine by Candida, damage to Candida in the absence of serum was 53.04+/-2.96% by neutrophils from 27 normal subjects. With serum, damage to Candida increased because of opsonization by low levels of anti-Candida immunoglobulin G in normal sera. Damage to Candida was inhibited by colchicine, cytochalasin B, and 2-deoxyglucose, which interfered with spreading of neutrophils over the surfaces of Candida. Dibutyryl cyclic AMP, theophylline, and isoproterenol also inhibited damage to Candida. Hydrocortisone was inhibitory in levels (10 muM) achievable with pharmacologic doses in man. Light, fluorescence, and electron microscopy indicated that neutrophils degranulated after contact with Candida. Quantitative studies revealed only a minimal increase in specific release of lysosomal enzymes from azurophil granules, but much greater release of lysozyme from specific granules. Candida activated neutrophil oxidative microbicidal mechanisms, as shown by iodination of Candida by neutrophils, and chemiluminescence from neutrophils interacting with Candida. Unlike live Candida, killed Candida did not induce chemiluminescence, were not iodinated, and did not attach to neutrophils by microscopy. Like Candida pseudohyphae, contact between neutrophils and hyphal forms of Aspergillus and Rhizopus occurred in the absence of serum. This did not occur with Cryptococcus neoformans, an encapsulated yeast, and was low with Candida yeasts. These findings indicate that neutrophils can recognize and attach to Candida pseudohyphae, then damage the Candida. This may represent a general reaction between neutrophils and large forms of fungi. Though the size of the organisms precludes complete ingestion, neutrophil oxidative microbicidal mechanisms are activated, and preferential release of contents of specific granules appears to occur.
Multistep coding of speech parameters for compression (1998)

This paper presents specific new techniques for coding of speech representations and a new general approach to coding for compression that directly utilizes the multidimensional nature of the input data. Many methods of speech analysis yield a two-dimensional (2-D) pattern, with time as one of the dimensions. Various such speech representations, and power spectrum sequences in particular, are shown here to be amenable to 2-D compression using specific models which take account of a large part of their structure in both dimensions. Newly developed techniques, multistep adaptive flux interpolation (MAFI) and multistep flow-based prediction (MFBP) are presented. These are able to code power spectral density (PSD) sequences of speech more completely and accurately than conventional methods. This is due to their ability to model nonstationary, but piecewise-continuous, signals, of which speech is a good example. Initially, MAFI and MFBP are applied in the time domain, then reapplied to the encoded data in the second dimension. This approach allows the coding algorithm to exploit redundancy in both dimensions, giving a significant improvement in the overall compression ratio. Furthermore, the compression may be reapplied several times. The data is further compressed with each application.
Modification of a hydrophilic linear polyurethane by crosslinking with a polydimethylsiloxane. Influence of the crosslink density and of the hydrophobic/hydrophilic balance on the water transport properties (2005)

Abstract A hydrophilic thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) was modified by reactive extrusion to obtain in a first step a grafted and soluble material and to finally form by a hydrolysis condensation process a weakly crosslinked network. Different isocyanates were used as grafting agents and a α,ω‐dihydroxypoly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) was used to modify the hydrophilic/hydrophobic balance of the material and the chain length between the crosslinks. The influence of the isocyanate functionality and of the PDMS content were studied on the network formation and on the thermomechanical and water sorption properties. The networks properties were also compared with those of a TPU/PDMS blend. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 48–61, 2006
Surface antigens of melanocytes and melanomas. Markers of melanocyte differentiation and melanoma subsets. (1982)

The surface antigens of melanocytes from newborn and adult skin have been analyzed with monoclonal antibodies detecting cell surface antigens of malignant melanoma. Antigenic markers that distinguish early, intermediate, and mature stages in melanocyte differentiation have been defined. The characteristics of the normal melanocyte precursor have been inferred from the features of melanomas that express early markers of melanocyte differentiation. A rudimentary surface antigen map of cells undergoing melanocyte differentiation and a new classification of melanomas based on the expression of melanocyte differentiation antigens are proposed.
Comparison of border irrigation practices in different morphologic fields (2010)

&lt;span class="MedBlackText"&gt;To evaluate the effect of field morphologic change on irrigation performance, the field soil characteristics and irrigation performance of 4 types of irrigation fields i.e. border-strip irrigation (BSI), rill irrigation (RI), shallow-furrow-border irrigation (SFBI) and border-furrow irrigation (BFI) were calculated and simulated with WinSRFR3.1 model. The differences induced by the change of field morphologic between these irrigation patterns were compared, and reasonable border lengths for different morphologics were suggested. It was concluded that soil infiltration characteristics and field roughness were quite diverse in different morphologic fields, characterized with the highest roughness in BFI while lowest in BSI, and the rapidest infiltration rate in BSI while slowest in SFBI. For long border, the performance is in order of SFBI &amp;gt; BFI &amp;gt; RI &amp;gt; BSI. Under a feasible inflow rate of 4.5 L/(m &amp;middot; s), to obtain above 80% application efficiency, the optimum border length should be 200-220 m, 170-190 m, 150-170 m, and 150-170 m for SFBI, BFI, RI, and BSI, respectively. Field morphologic playes an important role in surface irrigation performance, and it is necessary to be considered in the futher study and practice of surface irrigation.&lt;/span&gt;
The natural history of EGFR and EGFRvIII in glioblastoma patients (2005)

The over expressed wild-type EGFR and EGFRvIII are not independent predictors of median overall survival in the cohort of patients who did not undergo extensive tumor resection.
Low-threshold GaInAsSb/AlGaAsSb quantum-well ridge-waveguide lasers emitting at 2.1 mu m (1992)

The authors report on a laser structure consisting of the following layers grown on an n-GaSb substrate by molecular beam epitaxy: n-GaSb buffer, n-AlGaAsSb cladding, active consisting of GaInAsSb wells and AlGaAsSb barriers, p-AlGaAsSb cladding, and p/sup +/-GaSb contacting. Ridges 8- mu m wide were defined by reactive ion etching. For CW operation of a 300- mu m-long device at a heat-sink temperature of 20 degrees C, the threshold current is 29 mA and the maximum power is 12.5 mW/facet limited by junction heating. Initial slope efficiency is approximately 0.1 W/A per facet. Fundamental-mode emission is maintained up to 200 mA, with lateral full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 15 degrees . For the transverse far-field pattern, the FWHM is approximately 50 degrees . The emission spectra show multiple longitudinal modes at approximately 2.13 mu m.
Acute Treatments: Future Developments (2001)

In Chapter 14, blind alleys in acute anti-migraine drug development were discussed. In this chapter, future therapies are covered. There is growing interest and support for the use of CGRP antagonists, nitric oxide synthase inhibitors, and ionotropic glutamate receptor antagonists. The hope is to strike the balance of high efficacy with minimal to no safety concern and good tolerability. Some of the targets discussed in this chapter have been in early efficacy trials and others are in first human dose stages. Large-scale efficacy and safety trials are eagerly awaited.
Bisquinolines. 1. N,N-bis(7-chloroquinolin-4-yl)alkanediamines with potential against chloroquine-resistant malaria (1992)

On the basis of observations that several bisquinolines such as piperaquine possess notable activity against chloroquine-resistant malaria, 13 N,N-bis-(7-chloroquinolin-4-yl)alkanediamines were synthesized and screened against Plasmodium falciparum in vitro and Plasmodium berghei in vivo. Twelve of the thirteen bisquinolines had a significantly lower resistance index than did chloroquine; the resistance index was apparently unrelated to either in vitro or in vivo activity. Except for two compounds, there was a reasonable correlation between in vitro and in vivo activities. Seven of the thirteen bisquinolines had IC50's of less than 6 nM against both chloroquine-sensitive (D-6) and -resistant (W-2) clones of P. falciparum and were curative against P. berghei at doses of 640 mg/kg. In contrast to chloroquine, these bisquinolines did not show any toxic deaths at curative dose levels. Four bisquinolines, however, caused skin lesions at the site of injection. Maximum activity was seen in bisquinolines with a connecting bridge of two carbon atoms where decreased conformational mobility seemed to increase activity. Bisquinoline 3 (+/-)-trans-N1,N2-bis(7-chloroquinolin-4-yl)cyclohexane-1,2-diamin e was not only the most potent bisquinoline in vitro, but was clearly unique in its in vivo activity--80% and 100% cure rates were achieved at doses of 160 and 320 mg/kg, respectively. In summary, these preliminary results support the premise that bisquinolines may be useful agents against chloroquine-resistant malaria.
Why Do We Need Multifunctional Neuroprotective and Neurorestorative Drugs for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Diseases as Disease Modifying Agents (2010)

Parkinson's disease (PD) and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) are severe neurodegenerative disorders, with no drugs that are currently approved to prevent the neuronal cell loss characteristic in brains of patients suffering from PD and AD and all drug treatment are synptomactic. Due to the complex pathophysiology, including a cascade of neurotoxic molecular events that results in neuronal death and predisposition to depression and eventual dementia and etiology of these disorders, an innovative approach towards neuroprotection or neurorestoration (neurorescue) may be the development and use of multifunctional pharmaceuticals. Such drugs target an array of pathological pathways, each of which is believed to contribute to the cascades that ultimately lead to neuronal cell death. In this short review, we discuss examples of novel multifunctional ligands that may have potential as neuroprotective-neurorestorative therapeutics in PD and AD. The compounds discussed originate from synthetic chemistry as well as from natural sources.
Tissue transcriptome-driven identification of epidermal growth factor as a chronic kidney disease biomarker (2015)

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects 8 to 16% people worldwide, with an increasing incidence and prevalence of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). The effective management of CKD is confounded by the inability to identify patients at high risk of progression while in early stages of CKD. To address this challenge, a renal biopsy transcriptome-driven approach was applied to develop noninvasive prognostic biomarkers for CKD progression. Expression of intrarenal transcripts was correlated with the baseline estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in 261 patients. Proteins encoded by eGFR-associated transcripts were tested in urine for association with renal tissue injury and baseline eGFR. The ability to predict CKD progression, defined as the composite of ESKD or 40% reduction of baseline eGFR, was then determined in three independent CKD cohorts. A panel of intrarenal transcripts, including epidermal growth factor (EGF), a tubule-specific protein critical for cell differentiation and regeneration, predicted eGFR. The amount of EGF protein in urine (uEGF) showed significant correlation (P < 0.001) with intrarenal EGF mRNA, interstitial fibrosis/tubular atrophy, eGFR, and rate of eGFR loss. Prediction of the composite renal end point by age, gender, eGFR, and albuminuria was significantly (P < 0.001) improved by addition of uEGF, with an increase of the C-statistic from 0.75 to 0.87. Outcome predictions were replicated in two independent CKD cohorts. Our approach identified uEGF as an independent risk predictor of CKD progression. Addition of uEGF to standard clinical parameters improved the prediction of disease events in diverse CKD populations with a wide spectrum of causes and stages.
Automaticity and conduction properties of bio-artificial pacemakers assessed in an in vitro monolayer model of neonatal rat ventricular myocytes (2010)

We conclude that the combination of I(K1) and I(f) primes CMs for bio-artificial pacing by determining the threshold. However, I(f) functions as a membrane potential oscillator to determine the basal firing frequency. Future engineering of automaticity in the multicellular setting needs to have conduction taken into consideration.
Safe and effective poxvirus vectors--NYVAC and ALVAC. (1994)

This paper describes the development and in vitro/in vivo characterization of two highly attenuated recombinant poxvirus vectors. The vectors, NYVAC and ALVAC, exhibit a restricted host range and a greatly enhanced degree of attenuation following inoculation into a range of animal species by a variety of routes. The safety profile of these vectors, together with their demonstrated ability to induce both humoral and cell-mediated immune responses to extrinsic antigens, makes them ideal candidates for use as vaccines in both human and veterinary disease situations.
The role of body position and gravity in the symptoms and treatment of various medical diseases (2004)

Postural medicine studies the effects of gravity on human body functions and the ability to influence various diseases by changing the body's position. Orthostasis requires numerous cardiovascular and neurohumoral adaptations to prevent hypotension and a resulting decrease in cerebral perfusion. Sitting upright or in a semi-sitting position reduces venous return in patients with heart failure, intracranial pressure in patients with intracranial hypertension, intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients and may decrease gastro-oesophageal reflux. A left recumbent posture also decreases reflux. A right lateral position results in a lower sympathetic tone than lying on the left side and is beneficial in patients with heart failure or after an infarction without bradycardia. A 40 to 70% decreased prevalence of the sudden infant death syndrome has been observed since the recommendation to avoid laying infants to sleep in a prone position. Sleeping in a supine posture increases the severity of sleep apnoea compared to a lateral position. In patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, a prone position can rapidly improve blood oxygenation. Idiopathic oedema, orthostatic proteinuria, intradiscal pressure and venous circulation in legs are improved in the decubitus position, whereas arterial flow is reduced. Health risks due to microgravity and prolonged bed rest, such as osteoporosis, venous thrombosis or pressure sores, are discussed.
Design and performance of a multiwavelength airborne polarimetric lidar for vegetation remote sensing (2004)

The University of Nebraska has developed a multiwavelength airborne polarimetric lidar (MAPL) system to support its Airborne Remote Sensing Program for vegetation remote sensing. The MAPL design and instrumentation are described in detail. Characteristics of the MAPL system include lidar waveform capture and polarimetric measurement capabilities, which provide enhanced opportunities for vegetation remote sensing compared with current sensors. Field tests were conducted to calibrate the range measurement. Polarimetric calibration of the system is also discussed. Backscattered polarimetric returns, as well as the cross-polarization ratios, were obtained from a small forested area to validate the system's ability for vegetation canopy detection. The system has been packaged to fly abroad a Piper Saratoga aircraft for airborne vegetation remote sensing applications.
New automatic equaliser employing modulo arithmetic (1971)

The limitations of present automatic and adaptive equalisers stem from the use of feedforward transversal filters. These drawbacks may be obviated by using a feedback transversal filter, the inverse filter, but this is only suitable for limited use since it can be an unstable circuit. It is shown that modulo arithmetic may be used in the inverse filter to eliminate completely the possibility of instability, and a very simple automatic or adaptive equalisation system is presented. Some interesting properties of the modulo inverse filter are included.
Cu/SiO<inf>2</inf> hybrid bonding: Finite element modeling and experimental characterization (2016)

Among the numerous ways to address 3D stacking of integrated circuits, a promising method is Cu/SiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> hybrid bonding, which is the simultaneous metallic bonding of the interconnection pads and direct bonding of the dielectric surfaces. Prior to bonding, a chemical-mechanical polishing step is necessary, resulting in copper pads being slightly overpolished compared to the surrounding oxide regions (dishing effect). This effect, if too important, can prevent bonding and thereby lead to electrical connection failure between top and bottom parts. In order to better understand the involved phenomena and to perform virtual prototyping, a 3D finite element model for the thermal annealing of Cu/SiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> hybrid bonded pads is presented, taking into account the dishing effect. In this work, the contributions to bonding of thermoelastic deformation and cohesive interactions are investigated, and the impact of pad shape on Cu-Cu interface closure during thermal annealing studied. In addition, a parametric study is conducted, in order to identify the most efficient design and process parameters to improve bonding quality.
β2-glycoprotein I–dependent lupus anticoagulant highly correlates with thrombosis in the antiphospholipid syndrome (2004)

The antiphospholipid syndrome is characterized by the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies in plasma of patients with thromboembolic complications. A major problem in defining the syndrome is that serologic assays to detect antiphospholipid antibodies have a low specificity. We recently published a method that specifically detects lupus anticoagulant (LAC) caused by anti-beta(2)-glycoprotein I antibodies. Here, we studied the clinical relevance of detecting beta(2)-glycoprotein I-dependent LAC. Plasma samples were collected from 198 patients with autoimmune diseases. In those samples with a positive partial thromboplastin time-lupus anticoagulant (PTT-LA), a modified activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT)-based LAC test was performed with cardiolipin as confirming agent. Twenty-five of 58 patients with an aPTT-based LAC were dependent on the presence of anti-beta(2)-glycoprotein I antibodies. Presence of beta(2)-glycoprotein I-dependent LAC was almost completely associated with a history of thromboembolic complications (odds ratio, 42.3; 95% confidence interval, 194.3-9.9). An increased frequency of thrombosis was not found in 33 patients with LAC independent of anti-beta(2)-glycoprotein I antibodies (odds ratio, 1.6; 95% confidence interval, 3.9-0.8). The use of an LAC assay with cardiolipin as confirming agent strongly improves the detection of patients at risk of thrombosis. Our findings suggest that anti-beta(2)-glycoprotein I antibodies with LAC activity are antibodies that are responsible for the thromboembolic complications in the antiphospholipid syndrome.
Selective permeability of different connexin channels to the second messenger inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (2000)

Intercellular propagation of signals through connexin32-containing gap junctions is of major importance in physiological processes like nerve activity-dependent glucose mobilization in liver parenchymal cells and enzyme secretion from pancreatic acinar cells. In these cells, as in other organs, more than one type of connexin is expressed. We hypothesized that different permeabilities towards second messenger molecules could be one of the reasons for connexin diversity. In order to investigate this, we analyzed transmission of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate-mediated calcium waves in FURA-2-loaded monolayers of human HeLa cells expressing murine connexin26, -32 or -43. Gap junction-mediated cell coupling in different connexin-transfected HeLa cells was standardized by measuring the spreading of microinjected Mn(2+) that led to local quenching of FURA-2 fluorescence. Microinjection of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate into confluently growing HeLa connexin32 transfectants induced propagation of a Ca(2+) wave from the injected cell to neighboring cells that was at least three- to fourfold more efficient than in HeLa Cx26 cells and about 2.5-fold more efficient than in HeLa Cx43 transfectants. Our results support the notion that diffusion of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate through connexin32-containing gap junctions is essential for the optimal physiological response, for example by recruiting liver parenchymal cells that contain subthreshold levels of this short lived second messenger.
Q-warping: Direct computation of quadratic reference surfaces (2001)

We consider the problem of wrapping around an object, of which two views are available, a reference surface and recovering the resulting parametric flow using direct computations (via spatio-temporal derivatives). The well known examples are affine flow models and eight-parameter flow models-both describing a flow field of a planar reference surface. We extend those classic flow models to deal with a quadric reference surface and work out the explicit parametric form of the flow field. As a result we derive a simple warping algorithm that maps between two views and leaves a residual flow proportional to the 3D deviation of the surface from a virtual quadric surface. The applications include image morphing, model building, image stabilization, and disparate view correspondence.
Improved Training of End-to-end Attention Models for Speech Recognition (2018)

Sequence-to-sequence attention-based models on subword units allow simple open-vocabulary end-to-end speech recognition. In this work, we show that such models can achieve competitive results on the Switchboard 300h and LibriSpeech 1000h tasks. In particular, we report the state-of-the-art word error rates (WER) of 3.54% on the dev-clean and 3.82% on the test-clean evaluation subsets of LibriSpeech. We introduce a new pretraining scheme by starting with a high time reduction factor and lowering it during training, which is crucial both for convergence and final performance. In some experiments, we also use an auxiliary CTC loss function to help the convergence. In addition, we train long short-term memory (LSTM) language models on subword units. By shallow fusion, we report up to 27% relative improvements in WER over the attention baseline without a language model.