gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Impact of sex on the early and long-term outlook of patients undergoing carotid artery stenting with a single embolic protection device-stent combo (2020)

Aims: Whether men and women benefit similarly from carotid artery stenting (CAS) remains uncertain. We hypothesized that CAS, especially when performed with the same combination of embolic protection device (EPD) and stent, may have a different risk-benefit profile in men and women. Methods: We retrospectively collected data on all patients undergoing CAS with the Angioguard EPD and Precise RX stent. A total of 447 patients were included, 285 (64%) men and 162 (36%) women. Results: Despite several baseline, lesion and procedural differences, procedural success and clinical outcomes were similar (all p > 0.05), at both discharge and long-term follow-up (1921 months). Specifically, the composite of death, myocardial infarction, stroke or transient ischemic attack occurred in 5 (2%) men and 2 (1%) women at discharge, and 32 (11%) men and 12 (7%) women at follow-up (both p > 0.05). Even after propensity score matching, no significant differences were found (all p > 0.05). Conclusion: In conclusion, despite several baseline disparities, there are no differences in the early and long-term incidence of adverse events in men versus women undergoing CAS.
75 years of opioid research: the exciting but vain quest for the Holy Grail (2006)

Over the 75-year lifetime of the British Pharmacological Society there has been an enormous expansion in our understanding of how opioid drugs act on the nervous system, with much of this effort aimed at developing powerful analgesic drugs devoid of the side effects associated with morphine--the Holy Grail of opioid research. At the molecular and cellular level multiple opioid receptors have been cloned and characterised, their potential for oligomerisation determined, a large family of endogenous opioid agonists has been discovered, multiple second messengers identified and our understanding of the adaptive changes to prolonged exposure to opioid drugs (tolerance and physical dependence) enhanced. In addition, we now have greater understanding of the processes by which opioids produce the euphoria that gives rise to the intense craving for these drugs in opioid addicts. In this article, we review the historical pathway of opioid research that has led to our current state of knowledge.
Preoperative thalamus volume is not associated with preoperative cognitive impairment (preCI) or postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) (2023)

A growing body of literature suggests the important role of the thalamus in cognition and neurodegenerative diseases. This study aims to elucidate whether the preoperative thalamic volume is associated with preoperative cognitive impairment (preCI) and whether it is predictive for postoperative cognitive dysfunction at 3 months (POCD). We enrolled 301 patients aged 65 or older and without signs of dementia who were undergoing elective surgery. Magnetic resonance imaging was conducted prior to surgery. Freesurfer (version 5.3.) was used to automatically segment the thalamus volume. A neuropsychological test battery was administered before surgery and at a 3 month follow-up. It included the computerized tests Paired Associate Learning (PAL), Verbal Recognition Memory (VRM), Spatial Span Length (SSP), Simple Reaction Time (SRT), the pen-and-paper Trail-Making-Test (TMT) and the manual Grooved Pegboard Test (GPT). Using a reliable change index, preCI and POCD were defined as total Z-score > 1.96 (sum score over all tests) and/or Z-scores > 1.96 in ≥ 2 individual cognitive test parameters. For statistical analyses, multivariable logistic regression models were applied. Age, sex and intracranial volume were covariates in the models. Of 301 patients who received a presurgical neuropsychological testing and MRI, 34 (11.3%) had preCI. 89 patients (29.5%) were lost to follow-up. The remaining 212 patients received a follow-up cognitive test after 3 months, of whom 25 (8.3%) presented with POCD. Independently of age, sex and intracranial volume, neither preCI (OR per cm<sup>3</sup> increment 0.81 [95% CI 0.60-1.07] p = 0.14) nor POCD (OR 1.02 per cm<sup>3</sup> increment [95% CI 0.75-1.40] p = 0.87) were statistically significantly associated with patients' preoperative thalamus volume. In this cohort we could not show an association of presurgical thalamus volume with preCI or POCD.Clinical Trial Number: NCT02265263 ( https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT02265263 ).
The role of p-type buffer layers between ZnO:Al and P a-SiC:H for improving fill factor and V<inf>oc</inf> of a-Si:H solar cells (2009)

This study addresses the role of p-type buffer layers between ZnO:Al (AZO) TCO and p a-SiC:H window layer. When AZO is used as a front TCO in conventional a-Si:H solar cells incorporating p a-SiC:H window, the fill factor (FF) significantly decreases in different with SnO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> :F (FTO). Various buffer layers with different conductivity and crystalline properties are inserted between AZO and p a-SiC:H and solar cell performances are compared. The FF deterioration of AZO/p a-SiC:H cells is directly related to the interface potential barrier. This potential barrier can be controlled by tuning electron affinity and mobility gap as well as electrical conductivity of buffer layers. The p ¿c-Si:H buffer improves FF up to 0.72, which results from high conductivity of buffer layer. The p a-Si:H buffers also improves FF although they have similarly low conductivity with p a-SiC:H because of low electron affinity and/or mobility gap.
Decumbenones A–C from marine fungus &lt;i&gt;Aspergillus sulphureus&lt;/i&gt; as stimulators of the initial stages of development of agricultural plants (2012)

The effect of decumbenones A (1), B (2) and C (3) from the marine-derived strain of the fungus Aspergillus sulphureus on the growth of seedling roots of buckwheat, wheat, barley and corn at the concentration range 10﹣5 - 10﹣18 M was studied. It was shown that decumbenone B had a stimulatory effect on the growth of seedling roots of buckwheat, decumbenone A—on the growth of seedling roots of spring soft wheat, decumbenone C—on the growth of seedling roots of spring barley, decumbenone A, B and C —on the growth of seedling roots of corn. The stimulatory effect for some substances was shown at ultra-low concentrations 10﹣12 - 10﹣18 M. It is possible to recommend decumbenones A, B and C for studying in field conditions as growth factors of buckwheat, wheat, barley and corn.
Thin-Film Non-Precious Metal Model Catalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction (2014)

In this work, a novel systematic bottom-up approach in the investigation of the role of each component in non-precious metal ORR electrocatalysts is developed. Liquid-phase exfoliated graphite and graphene oxide were used as model two-dimensional carbon precursors. Nitrogen doping of these precursors was achieved via high-temperature ammonia treatment, as well as a novel technique of energetic neutral atom beam lithography/epitaxy (ENABLE), introduced for the first time. ENABLE offers the ability of working at high kinetic energies, overcoming high thermal limitation barriers, and allowing for direct chemical bond activation of graphitic systems at lower temperatures. The correlation of chemical-structure to ORR activity of these model nitrogen-doped systems was investigated using ultrathin film electrodes.
An Endoscopic Subcutaneous Dissector for Obtaining Vein Grafts (1998)

Recent improvements in internal mechanical retractors have resulted in a commercially available endoscopic subcutaneous dissector that has an inverted pistol grip for ease of retraction, an end-mounted endoscope channel, and a distal, translucent spoon-shaped shield that maintains the optical cavity. This provides an effective reach that is valuable for the minimally invasive harvest of any long, narrow structure--the greater saphenous vein in particular--as shown in this preliminary study with 2 patients. Such extracted vein grafts taken grossly from above and below the knee appear normal. Long-term histological changes and rates of conduit patency are still unknown. The limited-access incisions necessary for this endoscopic vein harvest definitely are smaller, and can be oriented transversely to minimize further the disfigurement from any resulting scar when compared with traditional methods.
Extract and Extend Parallelism using C/C++ Extension for Array Notation on Multicore and Many-core Platforms (2014)

In this paper, we explore the newly introduced array notion syntax extension in recent release of Intel Compiler with a few representative quantitative finance workloads. We will explore the array syntax both as an abstraction tool to allow the user to succinctly express the intended operations and as a performance tool that facilitates the most efficient implementation which can take advantage of the parallel hardware resource such as vector processing units and ever increasing number of processor cores. We specifically look at how these new array style programming capability can help the financial modeler and software developers to extract the parallelism from the numerical algorithm and extend it from multicore host processor to a hybrid of multicore many-core accelerated computing environment.
Kynurenine pathway metabolism and neuroinflammatory disease (2017)

Immune-mediated activation of tryptophan (TRYP) catabolism <i>via</i> the kynurenine pathway (KP) is a consistent finding in all inflammatory disorders. Several studies by our group and others have examined the neurotoxic potential of neuroreactive TRYP metabolites, including quinolinic acid (QUIN) in neuroinflammatory neurological disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), multiple sclerosis, amylotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and AIDS related dementia complex (ADC). Our current work aims to determine whether there is any benefit to the affected individuals in enhancing the catabolism of TRYP <i>via</i> the KP during an immune response. Under physiological conditions, QUIN is metabolized to the essential pyridine nucleotide, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD<sup>+</sup>), which represents an important metabolic cofactor and electron transporter. NAD<sup>+</sup> also serves as a substrate for the DNA 'nick sensor' and putative nuclear repair enzyme, poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). Free radical initiated DNA damage, PARP activation and NAD<sup>+</sup> depletion may contribute to brain dysfunction and cell death in neuroinflammatory disease.
A Likelihood and Local Constraint Level Set Model for Liver Tumor Segmentation from CT Volumes (2013)

In computed tomography of liver tumors there is often heterogeneous density, weak boundaries, and the liver tumors are surrounded by other abdominal structures with similar densities. These pose limitations to accurate the hepatic tumor segmentation. We propose a level set model incorporating likelihood energy with the edge energy. The minimization of the likelihood energy approximates the density distribution of the target and the multimodal density distribution of the background that can have multiple regions. In the edge energy formulation, our edge detector preserves the ramp associated with the edges for weak boundaries. We compared our approach to the Chan-Vese and the geodesic level set models and the manual segmentation performed by clinical experts. The Chan-Vese model was not successful in segmenting hepatic tumors and our model outperformed the geodesic level set model. Our results on 18 clinical datasets showed that our algorithm had a Jaccard distance error of 14.4 ± 5.3%, relative volume difference of -8.1 ± 2.1%, average surface distance of 2.4 ± 0.8 mm, RMS surface distance of 2.9 ± 0.7 mm, and the maximum surface distance of 7.2 ± 3.1 mm.
Forensic Study of Warranty Project on US82 (2002)

This forensic study is unique in that it involves a pavement warranty specification. Extensive field and laboratory testing was conducted to determine the cause(s) of longitudinal cracks observed on the surface. Four trenches were cut and removed to allow more testing on top of each pavement layer. The tests found that the stiffness of the foamed asphalt base is higher than that of a typical flexible base. However, the subgrade modulus is low compared with the average subgrade modulus in Texas. Water seeped into two trenches (dug into the road where there were surface cracks) within 20 min of digging. No water was observed in the other two trenches, where there were no surface cracks. The two trenches with surface cracks have lower base density and higher base moisture content than the two with no surface cracks. Based on observations of the trenching and coring operations, the same surface cracks have been detected in the base layer. Cracks up to 150 mm into the base layer have been observed. Although cracks have been observed in the base (and they can be related to lower stiffness and higher falling weight deflectometer deflections), it is difficult to determine if the cause of surface cracks is due to the base layer alone. It is difficult to prove if the layer is responsible for the failure, except by properties listed in the specification. One faulty pavement layer can easily cause the failure of other layers. For warranty purposes, layer-specific failure criteria should be clearly outlined. The base did not meet the gradation specification. The field material was substantially finer than specified. While some specifications may have been violated, there is little evidence to show that the cause of the longitudinal cracking is primarily related to the foamed-asphalt-stabilized base.
Edge-Aware Monocular Dense Depth Estimation with Morphology (2021)

Dense depth maps play an important role in Computer Vision and AR (Augmented Reality). For CV applications, a dense depth map is the cornerstone of 3D reconstruction allowing real objects to be precisely displayed in the computer. And Dense depth maps can handle correct occlusion relationships between virtual content and real objects for better user experience in AR. However, the complicated computation limits the development of computing dense depth maps. We present a novel algorithm that produces low latency, spatio-temporally smooth dense depth maps using only a CPU. The depth maps exhibit sharp discontinuities at depth edges in low computational complexity ways. Our algorithm obtains the sparse SLAM reconstruction first, then extracts coarse depth edges from a down-sampled RGB image by morphology operations. Next, we thin the depth edges and align them with image edges. Finally, an effective initialization scheme and an improved optimization solver are adopted to accelerate convergence. We evaluate our proposal quantitatively and the result shows improvements on the accuracy of depth map with respect to other state-of-the-art and baseline techniques.
Treatment with C‐peptide slows the progression of diabetic renal disease in the streptozotocin (STZ)‐induced diabetic rat (2011)

Diabetic renal disease includes progressive deterioration of renal function, fibrosis, and changes in the microcirculation. C-peptide is a biologically active pro-insulin product; however, its potential role in the diabetic kidney and mechanisms of its action are unknown. After 8 weeks of untreated diabetes, male STZ-induced diabetic Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided in untreated (D) or treatment with C-peptide (D+Cp) for additional 4 weeks. Urine albumin excretion (UAE) and HbA1C were measured at 8 weeks, while glomerulosclerosis (GSI) and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) measured by 125I-[iothalamate] clearance, were assessed only at the end of the study. Furthermore, renal microvascular (MV) density was quantified ex vivo using a 3D micro-CT reconstruction of the microcirculation. Treatment with C-peptide was associated with a 17% reduction in HbA1C as compared with the baseline. While no difference in UAE were observed in the D+Cp between baseline and time of sacrifice, UAE was reduced by 58% compared with the untreated D at the time of sacrifice. C-peptide also preserved the renal microcirculation and attenuated glomerulosclerosis, but did not affect GFR or blood pressure. The study suggests a renoprotective effect for C-peptide in slowing the progression of diabetes-associated albuminuria and renal MV disease, possibly via improved glycemic control. Supported by RO1DK075832 D D+Cp P value Baseline Sacrifice Baseline Sacrifice HbA1C 10.7± 0.1 11.3±0.3 10.4± 0.2 8.6±0.7*,# *0.05 vs Baseline in the same treatment group #0.05 vs. D at sacrifice UAE (mg/day) 9.3±3.1 19.0±4.3* 8.3±2. 8 8.0±2.1# GFR (ml/min/kid ney) - 1.3±0.1 - 1.5±0.08 GSI (AU) - 0.8±0.2 - 0.2±0.1 MV density/cm2 - 56.3±3.7 - 81.3±5.6#
Design and Simulation of Liquid Krypton as Gamma Ray Detector (2013)

Monte Carlo simulations were used to model gamma ray interactions at 1 MeV and 11 MeV within liquid krypton to understand geometry effects and energy containment. Two Monte Carlo codes were used in this work: Geant4 and MCNP5. The agreement of the two codes was shown by the comparison of the calculated average energy deposition and fraction of incident gamma energy deposited as a function of chamber lengths and gamma ray offsets. Modeling shows that good energy containment for 1 MeV gamma rays occurs for chamber depths of 20 cm. For gamma rays entering parallel to the central axis of the detector, 1 MeV showers are well contained up to approximately 1 cm of the detectors' edge. For 11 MeV gamma rays the acceptance plateau occurs at a depth of 40 cm and 20 cm from the detectors' edge.
Design and Comparison of 4-kV Neutral-Point-Clamped, Flying-Capacitor, and Series-Connected H-Bridge Multilevel Converters (2007)

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> This paper describes the design of a (4-kV, 4.16-MVA) three-level neutral-point-clamped-, three-level flying-capacitor-, four-level flying-capacitor-, and nine-level seriesconnected H-bridge voltage-source converter on the basis of state-of-the-art 6.5-, 4.5-, 3.3- and 1.7-kV insulated gate bipolar transistors. The semiconductor loss distribution and the design of semiconductors and passive components are compared for a medium switching frequency assuming a constant converter efficiency of about 99%. To evaluate the converter characteristics in high switching frequency applications, a second comparison is realized for the maximum switching frequencies assuming a constant expense of semiconductors in all converters. </para>
Can knowledge of the molecular structure of allergens improve immunotherapy? (2001)

Conventional immunotherapy may be associated with the development of adverse reactions, including anaphylaxis, due to the use of increasing doses of allergen. Standardization of extracts is necessary in order to assess the correct amount of allergen administered. In recent years, increased knowledge on the molecular structure of allergens has allowed the development of novel alternatives for immunotherapy. Initially, allergens were cloned and expressed as recombinant proteins in eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems. Crystallization of the purified proteins led to the elucidation of the tertiary structure of the allergen. Molecular biology techniques were used to construct modified allergens whose new IgE binding properties were studied. IgE antibody mapping combined with molecular modeling has allowed the recognition of IgE binding sites on the surface of the molecule. This information has been applied to the engineering of new modified allergens, with and without adjuvants, that retain immunogenicity but with reduced allergenicity. The use of these molecules for immunotherapy should allow the administration of greater doses of allergen, without the undesired side effects characteristic of conventional immunotherapy.
Boosting Dictionary Learning with Error Codes (2017)

In conventional sparse representations based dictionary learning algorithms, initial dictionaries are generally assumed to be proper representatives of the system at hand. However, this may not be the case, especially in some systems restricted to random initializations. Therefore, a supposedly optimal state-update based on such an improper model might lead to undesired effects that will be conveyed to successive iterations. In this paper, we propose a dictionary learning method which includes a general feedback process that codes the intermediate error left over from a less intensive initial learning attempt, and then adjusts sparse codes accordingly. Experimental observations show that such an additional step vastly improves rates of convergence in high-dimensional cases, also results in better converged states in the case of random initializations. Improvements also scale up with more lenient sparsity constraints.
Antioxidant effects of pineapple vinegar in reversing of paracetamol-induced liver damage in mice (2015)

Oral administration of pineapple vinegar at 0.08 and 2 mL/kg BW reduced serum enzyme biomarker levels, restored liver antioxidant levels, reduced inflammatory factor expressions, and down regulated liver cytochrome P450 protein expression in paracetamol-induced liver damage in mice.
Extracavitary Primary Effusion Lymphoma Affecting the Oral Cavity: A Rare Case Report (2023)

Primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) is an aggressive neoplasm often diagnosed in immunosuppressed patients demonstrating peritoneal, pleural, or pericardial effusions. This high-grade lymphoma is strongly associated with human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) infection and most of the lesions also show the presence of Epstein-Barr virus in tumor cells, which lacks CD20 expression and reveals a plasmablastic morphology and phenotype. The extracavitary or solid variant of PEL is even rarer and usually affects the lymph nodes and is currently considered a clinical manifestation of the classic PEL. In the oral cavity, extracavitary PEL is extremely rare and only a few patients have been previously reported, with no detailed clinicopathological description. The recognition of oral extracavitary PEL is even more important given the occurrence of plasmablastic lymphoma in the oral mucosa, which shares many clinical, microscopic, and phenotypic features with PEL, therefore, demanding from pathologists the search for HHV8, especially in immunosuppressed patients, and an appropriate clinical evaluation. In this report, we aim to describe a very rare extracavitary PEL affecting the palate of a 36-year-old patient and to review the literature regarding the extracavitary presentation of this aggressive lymphoma. This report demonstrates the importance of searching for HHV8 infection in oral lymphomas with plasmablastic features.
Functional physiological phenotyping with functional mapping: A general framework to bridge the phenotype-genotype gap in plant physiology (2021)

The recent years have witnessed the emergence of high-throughput phenotyping techniques. In particular, these techniques can characterize a comprehensive landscape of physiological traits of plants responding to dynamic changes in the environment. These innovations, along with the next-generation genomic technologies, have brought plant science into the big-data era. However, a general framework that links multifaceted physiological traits to DNA variants is still lacking. Here, we developed a general framework that integrates functional physiological phenotyping (FPP) with functional mapping (FM). This integration, implemented with high-dimensional statistical reasoning, can aid in our understanding of how genotype is translated toward phenotype. As a demonstration of method, we implemented the transpiration and soil-plant-atmosphere measurements of a tomato introgression line population into the FPP-FM framework, facilitating the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that mediate the spatiotemporal change of transpiration rate and the test of how these QTLs control, through their interaction networks, phenotypic plasticity under drought stress.