gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Smart surgical tools and augmenting devices (2003)

In this survey paper, the authors analyze the general structure of robotic systems for computer-assisted surgery, present a classification of such systems based on the degree of "intelligence" of the tools, and discuss some examples of different classes of devices. Computer-assisted surgery accelerated progress is related, on the one hand, to the improvement of medical imaging techniques and, on the other hand, to the evolution of surgical instrumentation. The integration of these two factors has determined an extraordinary progress that is not just a "linear" temporal development, but it is a "discontinuity" as regards traditional surgical procedures. Specifically, the authors consider the following classes of robotic-derived surgical devices/systems: a) handheld tools augmenting the capabilities of the surgeon; b) teleoperated surgical tools; and c) autonomous surgical robots. The paper will focus essentially on the analysis of systems and components of robots and tools designed for minimally invasive surgery. Although different classification methods exist on the basis of the clinical needs and/or on the design approach, the devices which will be illustrated in this paper are classified on the basis of their scale, degrees of freedom, autonomy, embedded intelligence, and features of the interface between the surgeon and the patient.
Whole Body Vibration Amplitude Levels Differentially Affect Tendon and Ligament Structural Properties (2011)

Recently there have been a large number of studies examining the potential therapeutic effects of whole body vibration (WBV). Numerous studies have shown that low magnitude, high frequency vibration (LMHFV) can be anabolic for muscle and bone. Vibration has been applied to both animals and humans with notable increases in muscle cross-sectional area as well as strength [1, 4, 7]. Both high (3 G) and low (0.3 G) vibratory stimuli have been reported to initiate an increase in bone density and subsequently bone strength [3, 5]. The effects of LMHFV on other dense connective tissue types have been relatively unexplored. Legerlotz et al. investigated the response of rat Achilles tendons to 2 G WBV and found no effect on biomechanical properties [2]. However, Legerlotz’s experiment applied between 2–7 minutes of vibration a day which is significantly less than other studies as well as clinical applications. The goal of our study was to determine the effects of vibration level on the structural and material properties of intact ligaments and tendons. We hypothesized that vibration, a passive surrogate for exercise, may contribute to ligament and tendon strengthening.
Duvoglustat HCl Increases Systemic and Tissue Exposure of Active Acid α-Glucosidase in Pompe Patients Co-administered with Alglucosidase α (2017)

Duvoglustat HCl (AT2220, 1-deoxynojirimycin) is an investigational pharmacological chaperone for the treatment of acid α-glucosidase (GAA) deficiency, which leads to the lysosomal storage disorder Pompe disease, which is characterized by progressive accumulation of lysosomal glycogen primarily in heart and skeletal muscles. The current standard of care is enzyme replacement therapy with recombinant human GAA (alglucosidase alfa [AA], Genzyme). Based on preclinical data, oral co-administration of duvoglustat HCl with AA increases exposure of active levels in plasma and skeletal muscles, leading to greater substrate reduction in muscle. This phase 2a study consisted of an open-label, fixed-treatment sequence that evaluated the effect of single oral doses of 50 mg, 100 mg, 250 mg, or 600 mg duvoglustat HCl on the pharmacokinetics and tissue levels of intravenously infused AA (20 mg/kg) in Pompe patients. AA alone resulted in increases in total GAA activity and protein in plasma compared to baseline. Following co-administration with duvoglustat HCl, total GAA activity and protein in plasma were further increased 1.2- to 2.8-fold compared to AA alone in all 25 Pompe patients; importantly, muscle GAA activity was increased for all co-administration treatments from day 3 biopsy specimens. No duvoglustat-related adverse events or drug-related tolerability issues were identified.
Subject-oriented assessment of numerical simulation techniques for induction heating applications (2007)

The evaluation of different computer modelling approaches tailored for the needs of induction heating and induction heat treating is discussed in this article. The most popular numerical techniques, including the finite difference method, finite element analysis, the mutual impedance technique and the boundary element method and their use in developing subject-oriented software, are also discussed here.
Implementation of passive force control with redundant manipulators (2002)

An investigation is made of how physical quantities such as velocities, forces, and admittance and impedance matrices transform between task-space and joint-space of redundant manipulators. It is found that parallel redundant manipulators have joint-space force redundancy. The joint-space velocities are subjected to constraints, the violation of which would induce mechanical failure of the manipulator. Serial redundant manipulators, on the other hand, have a higher DOF only in joint-space velocities. The joint-space forces, in this case, are subjected to constraints, the violation of which would require infinite joint velocities.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>
Feasibility of Motion Compensation using Inertial Measurement in C-arm CT (2018)

C-arm cone-beam CT (CBCT) systems are highly flexible regarding patient position and scan trajectory, which enables scanning a subject's knee joint under weight-bearing conditions. This is of interest, since the knee joint has shown to have different properties under load. However, involuntary subject motion during these acquisitions results in motion artifacts in the reconstruction and thereby degrades image quality noticeably. A current state-of-the-art approach to correct for this motion tracks fiducial markers attached to the knee. However, the marker placement is tedious and time-consuming. To overcome this issue, in this work the feasibility of a novel approach for motion correction based on an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) attached to the subject is investigated. In a study, a moved pumpkin phantom with attached fiducial markers is scanned four times by a C-arm CBCT system moving on a horizontal trajectory. Simultaneously, the phantom's motion is recorded by an attached IMU measuring acceleration and angular velocity. The IMU measurements are validated against the motion estimates of the fiducial marker-based approach, which are transformed to the IMU's coordinate system beforehand. While the rotational signals show average correlations of up to 0.85, the translational signals do not show similarity, except for one axis with an average correlation of 0.75. A spectral analysis reveals that the frequencies of the C-arm movement during scanning overlap with those of the phantom motion. While the C-arm movement is estimated by the marker-based approach, it is not measured by the IMU, preventing a valid comparison of the signals with each other. Although these initial results indicate some challenges for further work, they also already show the potential of the IMU-based motion tracking.
ChemInform Abstract: Synthesis of Tetrahydropyrido‐ and Pyrido‐[1′,2′:1,2]imidazo[4,5‐b]pyrazine Derivatives. (2011)

Abstract Novel polyfluorinated imidazolopyrazine scaffolds (III) and (IX) are obtained in a one‐step procedure from tetrafluoropyrazine (I).
Cardiac system bioenergetics: metabolic basis of the Frank‐Starling law (2006)

The fundamental principle of cardiac behaviour is described by the Frank-Starling law relating force of contraction during systole with end-diastolic volume. While both work and respiration rates increase linearly with imposed load, the basis of mechano-energetic coupling in heart muscle has remained a long-standing enigma. Here, we highlight advances made in understanding of complex cellular and molecular mechanisms that orchestrate coupling of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation with ATP utilization for muscle contraction. Cardiac system bioenergetics critically depends on an interrelated metabolic infrastructure regulating mitochondrial respiration and energy fluxes throughout cellular compartments. The data reviewed indicate the significance of two interrelated systems regulating mitochondrial respiration and energy fluxes in cells: (1) the creatine kinase, adenylate kinase and glycolytic pathways that communicate flux changes generated by cellular ATPases within structurally organized enzymatic modules and networks; and (2) a secondary system based on mitochondrial participation in cellular calcium cycle, which adjusts substrate oxidation and energy-transducing processes to meet increasing cellular energy demands. By conveying energetic signals to metabolic sensors, coupled phosphotransfer reactions provide a high-fidelity regulation of the excitation-contraction cycle. Such integration of energetics with calcium signalling systems provides the basis for 'metabolic pacing', synchronizing the cellular electrical and mechanical activities with energy supply processes.
Anisotropic Elastic-Plastic Mechanical Properties of Thermally Bonded Bicomponent Fibre Nonwovens (2010)

Having a unique structure, nonwoven fabrics possess distinct mechanical properties dissimilar to those of woven fabrics and composites. Anisotropic elastic-plastic mechanical properties of core/sheath type thermally bonded bicomponent fibre nonwoven textiles are computed based on manufacturing parameters and fibre properties. Initially, tensile tests are performed on nonwoven fabrics and their single fibres to assess their mechanical behaviour and obtain input parameters for the developed algorithms. Random orientation of individual fibres is introduced into the model in terms of the orientation distribution function (ODF). An algorithm, based on the Hough transform, is developed to determine the ODF and calculate the structure’s anisotropy. The nonwoven fabric is modelled as an assembly of two regions — bond points and a fibre matrix, having distinct mechanical properties. Bond points are treated as a deformable bicomponent composite material composed of the sheath material of fibres as matrix reinforced with the core material as fibres with random orientation of reinforcement. On the other hand, the fibre matrix is treated as a composite membrane structure having low stiffness in thickness direction. A second algorithm is developed to calculate anisotropic material properties of these regions based on fibre characteristics and manufacturing parameters; it can be used in numerical modelling as well as product development and optimization of nonwovens.
Dual Optimization of an H-Bridge SPWM Microinverter by an Optimal Switching Frequency Tracking Technique (2018)

The switching frequency is among many design parameters of grid-tied single-phase H-bridge sinusoidal pulsewidth modulation (SPWM) microinverters. The selection of the switching frequency is a tradeoff between improving the power quality by reducing the total harmonic distortion (THD) and improving the efficiency by reducing the switching loss. This paper proposes two algorithms to optimize both the power quality and the efficiency of the microinverter by using a frequency tracking technique that requires no hardware modification. The first algorithm tracks the optimal switching frequency for maximum efficiency at a given THD value, while the second maximizes the power quality of the H-bridge micro-inverter by tracking the switching frequency that corresponds to the minimum THD. Experimental verification followed by results evaluation are presented.
Francisella tularensisSchu S4 O-Antigen and Capsule Biosynthesis Gene Mutants Induce Early Cell Death in Human Macrophages (2010)

Francisella tularensis is capable of rampant intracellular growth and causes a potentially fatal disease in humans. Whereas many mutational studies have been performed with avirulent strains of Francisella, relatively little has been done with strains that cause human disease. We generated a near-saturating transposon library in the virulent strain Schu S4, which was subjected to high-throughput screening by transposon site hybridization through primary human macrophages, negatively selecting 202 genes. Of special note were genes in a locus of the Francisella chromosome, FTT1236, FTT1237, and FTT1238. Mutants with mutations in these genes demonstrated significant sensitivity to complement-mediated lysis compared with wild-type Schu S4 and exhibited marked defects in O-antigen and capsular polysaccharide biosynthesis. In the absence of complement, these mutants were phagocytosed more efficiently by macrophages than wild-type Schu S4 and were capable of phagosomal escape but exhibited reduced intracellular growth. Microscopic and quantitative analyses of macrophages infected with mutant bacteria revealed that these macrophages exhibited signs of cell death much earlier than those infected with Schu S4. These data suggest that FTT1236, FTT1237, and FTT1238 are important for polysaccharide biosynthesis and that the Francisella O antigen, capsule, or both are important for avoiding the early induction of macrophage death and the destruction of the replicative niche.
Micelle Formation of Endothelin-1 (1991)

Circular dichroism of endothelin-1 synthesized through a continuous flow process reveals, when dissolved in water, a strong concentration dependence of the spectrum. Furthermore, the general feature of the spectrum rules out the possibility of the existence of any alpha and beta structures. In addition, surface tension and conductivity measurements suggest that the peptide aggregates through formation of micelles.
Speech analysis homomorphic prediction (1977)

Linear prediction is a generally accepted method for obtaining all-pole speech representations. However, in many situations (e.g., nasalization studies) spectral zeros are important and a more general modeling procedure is required. Unfortunately, the need for pitch synchronization has limited the success of available techniques. This paper explores a novel approach to pole-zero analysis, called homomorphic prediction, which seems to avoid the synchronization problem. A minimum-phase estimate of the vocal-tract impluse response is obtained by homomorphic filtering of the speech waveform. Such a signal, by definition, has a known time registration. Linear prediction is applied to this waveform to identify its poles. The LPC "residual" (error signal) is computed by inverse filtering. This signal contains the information about the zeros. Its z transform is then approximated by a polynomial either through a weighted least squares procedure (homomorphic prediction, using Shanks' method of finding zeros), or by spectral inversion followed by a second pass of LPC (homomorphic prediction involving "inverse LPC"). Results of a preliminary evaluation on real and synthetic speech are presented.
Cleaning of EUVL masks using 172-nm and 13.5-nm radiation (2004)

In this paper, we describes the cleaning of masks 172-nm excimer VUV radiation, which is more efficient for masks than the others.
Optical bistability on silicon microphotonics (2004)

We demonstrate optical bistability on a silicon-based integrated optical device. Hysteresis curves and modulation measurements show bistable modulation depth of 10 dB and sub-microsecond time response.
pNFS for Everyone: An Empirical Study of a Low-cost, Highly Scalable Networked Storage (2016)

This paper presents empirical experience on a scalable, high-performance storage with two existing low-cost technologies. One technology is Ethernet-Attached Disks (E-AD) which are iSCSI-like disks but with low cost controllers. Another is Network File System (NFS) which is an open standard supported through open source. In particular, NFS version 4.0 (NFSv4.0) has been the de-facto distributed file system protocol for generations. Unfortunately, in this age of mass data, scalability of NFSv4.0 has become an issue. The NFS community has developed the pNFS protocol that takes advantage of parallel accesses to the pool of storage, and announced NFS version 4.1 including the pNFS protocol. We evaluated the scalability and performance of our storage system under various environments and benchmarks. The results show that NFSv4.1 has substantial benefits on large I/O units due to direct disk access and parallelism
miR-191 promotes radiation resistance of prostate cancer through interaction with RXRA (2019)

Radiation therapy is a common treatment for prostate cancer, however recurrence remains a problem. MicroRNA expression is altered in prostate cancer and may promote therapy resistance. Through bioinformatic analyses of TCGA and CPC-GENE patient cohorts, we identified higher miR-191 expression in tumor versus normal tissue, and increased expression in higher Gleason scores. In vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrated that miR-191 overexpression promotes radiation survival, and contributes to a more aggressive phenotype. Retinoid X receptor alpha, RXRA, was discovered to be a novel target of miR-191, and knockdown recapitulated radioresistance. Furthermore, treatment of prostate cancer cells with the RXRA agonist 9-cis-retinoic acid restored radiosensitivity. Supporting this relationship, patients with high miR-191 and low RXRA abundance experienced quicker biochemical recurrence. Reduced RXRA translated to a higher risk of distant failure after radiotherapy. Notably, this miR-191/RXRA interaction was conserved in a novel primary cell line derived from radiorecurrent prostate cancer. Together, our findings demonstrate that miR-191 promotes prostate cancer survival after radiotherapy, and highlights retinoids as a potential option to improve radiotherapy response.
A split microchannel design and analytical model to compensate for electroosmotic instabilities in micro-separations (2002)

Organic polymers offer many advantages as materials for the construction of microfluidic devices but suffer frequently from the limitation that the electrodynamic flow they support can exhibit considerable instability. This article describes a split-channel microfluidic device that can be used to compensate for changes in electroosmotic flow. The design of the separation system divides an analyte plug after injection between two separation channels of differing length. The two channels are later recombined for single point detection, eliminating the need for a scanning optical detection system. The utility of this simple design lies in the fact that the migration time of any analyte can be referenced to its twin in the parallel separation channel. This eliminates the need for a separate electroosmotic marker and allows mobilities measured in multiple devices to be compared quantitatively. Using a model adopted from the literature, the data from the split channel system can be used to precisely account for the drift that characterizes electrophoretic separations made in a polymer chip. The relative standard deviations of the analyte mobilities measured for replicate runs on multiple devices were reduced from values as high as 20% to ca. 1% RSD. This internal standardization procedure also appears to address other sources of drift in the electroosmotic flow (EOF) supported by the polymer microchannel, eliminating the need for careful monitoring of either the temperature or reservoir pH between separation runs.
Enobosarm: A targeted therapy for metastatic, androgen receptor positive, breast cancer. (2014)

568 Background: The androgen receptor (AR) is the most highly expressed steroid receptor in breast cancer (BC) with 75-95% of estrogen receptor positive (ER+) and 50% of ER negative BCs expressing AR. Prior studies have shown that women with metastatic BC (MBC) who are progressing on tamoxifen subsequently respond to non-tissue-selective, synthetic androgens with overall response rates of 20-60%. Unfortunately steroidal androgens have unwanted virilizing effects which limit clinical use. Enobosarm, a nonsteroidal, tissue-selective, AR modulator (SARM), provides a novel targeted approach to exploit the therapeutic benefits of AR activation without virilization or estrogenic effects. Methods: A proof of concept, phase II study is examining efficacy and safety of enobosarm 9mg daily in 22 postmenopausal women with ER+ MBC who previously responded to adjuvant and/or salvage endocrine therapy. Treatment continues until disease progression (PD). Primary endpoint is clinical benefit response (CBR) by 6 months (m) defined as patients (pts) having a complete response (CR), partial response (PR), or stable disease (SD). CBR will be correlated with AR status of metastatic tumor biopsy. Serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) will be evaluated as a biomarker of AR activity. Results: Pt demographics: mean age 63.7 years, mean time from diagnosis 11 years, 68% prior chemo, 94% (15/16) AR+. After a median f/u of 85 days (d) (range 84-209d), preliminary results of 16 pts: 8 SD as best response, median duration 4.5m; 9 PD after a median 84d. Among pts who reached 6m, 3 are AR+ with SD and increased PSA. 7 have yet to reach 6m and no CR or PR has been observed. Enobosarm is well-tolerated, with no drug related serious adverse events. Conclusions: Enobosarm is well tolerated and demonstrates promise as a novel targeted therapy for AR+ MBC. The primary endpoint has been achieved, with 3/15 AR+ pts meeting statistical threshold for success. Serum PSA appears to be a surrogate marker for AR activity and disease response. Final analysis is due in June 2014. Clinical trial information: NCT01616758.
Robust transfer function identification via an enhanced magnitude vector fitting algorithm (2010)

The study introduces an enhanced version of the magnitude vector fitting (magVF) algorithm, a robust procedure for the identification of a transfer function from magnitude frequency domain data. The approach is based on the rational approximation of the magnitude square function with enforcement of symmetric poles and zeros, followed by the elimination of poles and zeros located in the right half-plane. The obtained transfer function is stable and of minimum-phase shift type. Robustness and accuracy of the basic magVF algorithm are enhanced by enforcing that the magnitude square rational function is non-negative definite and by introducing a new method to remove purely imaginary conjugate poles from the approximation. Practical application of the proposed approach is demonstrated for measured transformer responses and transmission line propagation functions.
Studies of carcino‐fetal proteins. II. Biochemical comparison of α‐fetoprotein from human fetuses and patients with hepatocellular cancer (1971)

Abstract α‐fetoprotein from human fetuses and patients with a hepatocelhlar cancer was isolated and characterized. In accordance with earlier reports, the two proteins had similar electrophoretic mobilities and gave a reaction of immunological identity. They had very similar amino acid compositions. Each was composed of a single polypeptide chain with a molecular weight of 70,000. Protein from both sources had about 4 % carbohydrate with 2 moles of sialic acid per mole of protein. Tryptic digests of the isolated fetal and cancer α‐fetoproteins were compared by peptic mapping. About 30 peptides were seen and the patterns given by the two proteins were indistinguishable. Thus both fetal and cancerous liver cells produce α‐fetoproteins which are structurally indistinguishable and probably identical.
ChemInform Abstract: Synthesis of Monocationic and Dicationic Analogues of Hoechst 33258. (1997)

Abstract ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.