gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Banner Advertising on Internet Purchasing (2006)

This article focuses on whether banner advertising affects purchasing patterns on the Internet. Using a behavioral database that consists of customer purchases at a Web site along with individual advertising exposure, the authors measure the impact of banner advertising on current customers' probabilities of repurchase, while accounting for duration dependence. The authors model the probability of a current customer making a purchase in any given week (since the last purchase) with a survival model that uses a flexible, piecewise exponential hazard function. The advertising covariates are purely advertising variables and advertising/individual browsing variables. The model is cast in a hierarchical Bayesian framework, which enables the authors to obtain individual advertising response parameters. The results show that the number of exposures, number of Web sites, and number of pages all have a positive effect on repeat purchase probabilities, whereas the number of unique creatives has a negative effect. Returns from targeting are the highest for the number of advertising exposures. The findings also add to the general advertising literature by showing that advertising affects the purchase behavior of current (versus new) customers.
Cellular Immune Responses to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) Infection in Senescent BALB/c Mice: CD4<sup>+</sup>T Cells Are Important in Control of SARS-CoV Infection (2009)

We characterized the cellular immune response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) infection in 12- to 14-month-old BALB/c mice, a model that mimics features of the human disease. Following intranasal administration, the virus replicated in the lungs, with peak titers on day 2 postinfection. Enhanced production of cytokines (tumor necrosis factor alpha [TNF-alpha] and interleukin-6 [IL-6]) and chemokines (CXCL10, CCL2, CCL3, and CCL5) correlated with migration of NK cells, macrophages, and plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC) into the lungs. By day 7, histopathologic evidence of pneumonitis was seen in the lungs when viral clearance occurred. At this time, a second wave of enhanced production of cytokines (TNF-alpha, IL-6, gamma interferon [IFN-gamma], IL-2, and IL-5), chemokines (CXCL9, CXCL10, CCL2, CCL3, and CCL5), and receptors (CXCR3, CCR2, and CCR5), was detected in the lungs, associated with an influx of T lymphocytes. Depletion of CD8(+) T cells at the time of infection did not affect viral replication or clearance. However, depletion of CD4(+) T cells resulted in an enhanced immune-mediated interstitial pneumonitis and delayed clearance of SARS-CoV from the lungs, which was associated with reduced neutralizing antibody and cytokine production and reduced pulmonary recruitment of lymphocytes. Innate defense mechanisms are able to control SARS-CoV infection in the absence of CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells and antibodies. Our findings provide new insights into the pathogenesis of SARS, demonstrating the important role of CD4(+) but not CD8(+) T cells in primary SARS-CoV infection in this model.
Doxorubicin conjugated gold nanoparticles as water-soluble and pH-responsive anticancer drug nanocarriers (2009)

Water-soluble, doxorubicin (DOX) conjugated gold nanoparticles (DOX conjugated Au NPs) exhibiting a significant pH-responsive drug release profile have been prepared and characterized in this study. The Au NPs were stabilized by thiolated methoxy polyethylene glycol (MPEG-SH) and methyl thioglycolate (MTG) at an equal molar ratio. The anticancer drug DOX was conjugated to the MTG segments of the thiol-stabilized Au NPs using hydrazine as the linker. The resulting hydrazone bonds formed between the DOX molecules and the MTG segments of the thiol-stabilized Au NPs are acid cleavable, thereby providing a strong pH-responsive drug release profile. The MPEG segments attached to the Au NPs provide the Au NPs with excellent solubility and stability in an aqueous medium while potentially enhancing the circulation time. The DOX loading level was determined to be 23 wt.%. The DOX release rate from the DOX conjugated Au NPs in an acid medium (i.e., pH 5.3) was dramatically higher than that in physiological conditions (i.e., pH 7.4). The DOX conjugated Au NPs and/or the DOX released from them were found both at the perinuclear regions and the nuclei of 4T1 tumor cells after incubation in a DOX conjugated Au NPs solution for 28 h. These novel DOX conjugated Au NPs have the potential to simultaneously enhance CT imaging contrast and facilitate photothermal cancer therapy while delivering anticancer drugs to their target sites.
Application of poly(ethylene glycol)&ndash; distearoylphosphatidylethanolamine (PEG-DSPE) block copolymers and their derivatives as nanomaterials in drug delivery (2012)

Poly(ethylene glycol)-distearoylphosphatidylethanolamine (PEG-DSPE) block copolymers are biocompatible and amphiphilic polymers that can be widely utilized in the preparation of liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, polymer hybrid nanoparticles, solid lipid nanoparticles, lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles, and microemulsions. Particularly, the terminal groups of PEG can be activated and linked to various targeting ligands, which can prolong the circulation time, improve the drug bioavailability, reduce undesirable side effects, and especially target specific cells, tissues, and even the intracellular localization in organelles. This review herein aims to describe recent developments in drug carriers exploiting PEG-DSPE block copolymers and their derivatives, and the incorporation of different ligands to the end groups of PEG-DSPE to target delivery, focusing on their modification approaches, advantages, applications, and the probable associated drawbacks.
In vivo assessment of hepatic-arterial and portal-venous components of liver perfusion: concise communication. (1981)

An in vivo technique for assessment of the relative contributions of hepatic artery and portal vein to liver perfusion has been developed in the rat. Dynamic scintigrams have been obtained following i.v. bolus injection of Tc-99m sulfur colloid. Temporal separation of the arterial and venous phases has been verified by hepatic-arterial ligation and portacaval diversion. The former procedure abolishes the early arterial phase of normal uptake. Portacaval diversion similarly eliminates the delayed venous phase. Assessment of the individual components of liver perfusion is of promise in the investigation of hepatic dysfunction.
On the Role of Leading-Edge Bumps in the Control of Stall Onset in Axial Fan Blades (2013)

Taking a lead from the humpback whale flukes, characterized by a series of bumps that result in a sinusoidal-like leading edge, this paper reports on a three-dimensional numerical study of sinusoidal leading edges on cambered airfoil profiles. The turbulent flow around the cambered airfoil with the sinusoidal leading edge was computed at different angles of attack with the open source solver OpenFOAM, using two different eddy viscosity models integrated to the wall. The reported research focused on the effects of the modified leading edge in terms of lift-to-drag performance and the influence of camber on such parameters. For these reasons a comparison with a symmetric airfoil is provided. The research was primarily concerned with the elucidation of the fluid flow mechanisms induced by the bumps and the impact of those mechanisms on airfoil performance, on both symmetric and cambered profiles. The bumps on the leading edge influenced the aerodynamic performance of the airfoil, and the lift curves were found to feature an early recovery in post-stall for the symmetric profile with an additional gain in lift for the cambered profile. The bumps drove the fluid dynamic on the suction side of the airfoil, which in turn resulted in the capability to control the separation at the trailing edge in coincidence with the peak of the sinusoid at the leading edge.
Extracellular vesicles in parasitic diseases (2014)

Parasitic diseases affect billions of people and are considered a major public health issue. Close to 400 species are estimated to parasitize humans, of which around 90 are responsible for great clinical burden and mortality rates. Unfortunately, they are largely neglected as they are mainly endemic to poor regions. Of relevance to this review, there is accumulating evidence of the release of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in parasitic diseases, acting both in parasite-parasite inter-communication as well as in parasite-host interactions. EVs participate in the dissemination of the pathogen and play a role in the regulation of the host immune systems. Production of EVs from parasites or parasitized cells has been described for a number of parasitic infections. In this review, we provide the most relevant findings of the involvement of EVs in intercellular communication, modulation of immune responses, involvement in pathology, and their potential as new diagnostic tools and therapeutic agents in some of the major human parasitic pathogens.
A low cost indoor mapping robot based on TinySLAM algorithm (2016)

It is important for a robot or a smart device to locate itself and create a map of its indoor environment. A number of approaches and techniques exist for indoor mapping, many of which require expensive devices and highly complex computational algorithms. In our work, we introduce a low cost robot architecture based on a cheap LiDAR system and a NVIDIA Jetson tk1 platform and perform real-time indoor mapping based on the tiny SLAM algorithm.
Transmit processing in MIMO wireless systems (2004)

By restricting the receive filter to be scalar, we derive the optimizations for linear transmit processing from the respective joint optimizations of transmit and receive filters. We can identify three filter types similar to receive processing: the transmit matched filter (TxMF), the transmit zero-forcing filter (TxZF), and the transmit Wiener filter (TxWF). The TxWF has similar convergence properties as the receive Wiener filter, i.e. it converges to the matched filter and the zero-forcing filter for low and high signal to noise ratio, respectively. Additionally, the mean square error (MSE) of the TxWF is a lower bound for the MSEs of the TxMF and the TxZF. The optimizations for the linear transmit filters are extended to obtain the respective Tomlinson-Harashima preceding (THP) solutions. The new formulation of the THP optimizations directly leads to an algorithm to compute the preceding order. We also discuss the reasons why the linear transmit filters are outperformed by the respective THP schemes.
The effect of anaesthesia on the inhibition of pentagastrin‐evoked gastric acid secretion induced by atropine in the rat (1977)

1. In the anaesthetized, vagally intact rat, with a perfused gastric lumen, atropine produced a maximum inhibition of 60% of maximal pentagastrin-evoked gastric acid secretion. Sub-maximal pentagastrin-stimulated secretion was also inhibited by atropine.2. In the anaesthetized, vagotomized rat, with a perfused gastric lumen, atropine had no inhibitory effect on maximal pentagastrin-evoked gastric acid secretion.3. In the conscious fistula rat, atropine totally abolished both the basal gastric acid secretion and the maximal gastric acid secretion evoked by pentagastrin. In the anaesthetized chronic fistula rat, doses of atropine up to 1.6 mg.kg(-1) administered subcutaneously produced a maximum inhibition of 70% of maximal pentagastrin-evoked gastric acid secretion. Vagotomy did not affect the response to atropine.4. In the conscious Heidenhain pouch rat, doses of atropine up to 1.6 mg.kg(-1) administered subcutaneously produced a maximum inhibition of 70.9% of maximal pentagastrin-evoked gastric acid secretion. Both anaesthesia and vagotomy, alone or in combination, did not affect the response to atropine.
Serotypes, Virulence Genes, and Intimin Types of Shiga Toxin (Verotoxin)-Producing <i>Escherichia coli</i> Isolates from Human Patients: Prevalence in Lugo, Spain, from 1992 through 1999 (2004)

We have analyzed the prevalence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in stool specimens of patients with diarrhea or other gastrointestinal alterations from the Xeral-Calde Hospital of Lugo City (Spain). STEC strains were detected in 126 (2.5%) of 5,054 cases investigated, with a progressive increase in the incidence from 0% in 1992 to 4.4% in 1999. STEC O157:H7 was isolated in 24 cases (0.5%), whereas non-O157 STEC strains were isolated from 87 patients (1.7%). STEC strains were (after Salmonella and Campylobacter strains) the third most frequently recovered enteropathogenic bacteria. A total of 126 human STEC isolates were characterized in this study. PCR showed that 43 (34%) isolates carried stx(1) genes, 45 (36%) possessed stx(2) genes and 38 (30%) carried both stx(1) and stx(2). A total of 88 (70%) isolates carried an ehxA enterohemolysin gene, and 70 (56%) isolates possessed an eae intimin gene (27 isolates with type gamma1, 20 with type beta1, 8 with type zeta, 5 with type gamma2, and 3 with type epsilon). STEC isolates belonged to 41 O serogroups and 66 O:H serotypes, including 21 serotypes associated with hemolytic uremic syndrome and 30 new serotypes not previously reported among human STEC strains in other studies. Although the 126 STEC isolates belonged to 81 different seropathotypes (associations between serotypes and virulence genes), only four accounted for 31% of isolates. Seropathotype O157:H7 stx(1) stx(2) eae-gamma1 ehxA was the most common (13 isolates) followed by O157:H7 stx(2) eae-gamma1 ehxA (11 isolates), O26:H11 stx(1) eae-beta1 ehxA (11 isolates), and O111:H- stx(1) stx(2) eae-gamma2 ehxA (4 isolates). Our results suggest that STEC strains are a significant cause of human infections in Spain and confirm that in continental Europe, infections caused by STEC non-O157 strains are more common than those caused by O157:H7 isolates. The high prevalence of STEC strains (both O157:H7 and non-O157 strains) in human patients, and their association with serious complications, strongly supports the utilization of protocols for detection of all serotypes of STEC in Spanish clinical microbiology laboratories.
Differences in Response to Muscarinic Activation Between First and Higher Order Thalamic Relays (2007)

The mammalian thalamus is composed of two types of thalamocortical relay. First order relays receive information from subcortical sources and relay it to cortex, whereas higher order relays receive information from layer 5 of one cortical area and relay it to another. Recent reports suggest that modulatory inputs to first and higher order relays may differ. We used rat thalamic brain slices and whole cell recordings from relay cells in various first order (the lateral geniculate nucleus, the ventral posterior nucleus, and the ventral portion of the medial geniculate body) and higher order (the lateral posterior, the posterior medial nucleus, and the dorsal portion of the medial geniculate body) relays to explore their responses to activation of muscarinic receptors. We found that, whereas all first order relay cells show a depolarizing response to muscarinic activation, approximately 20% of higher order relay cells respond with hyperpolarization. The depolarization is accompanied by an overall increase in input resistance, whereas the hyperpolarization correlates with a decrease in resistance. Because activation of cholinergic brain stem afferents to thalamus increases with increasing behavioral vigilance, the findings suggest that increased vigilance will depolarize all first order and most higher order relay cells but will hyperpolarize a significant subset of higher order relay cells. Such hyperpolarization is expected to bias these relay cells to the burst firing mode, and so these results are consistent with evidence of more bursting among higher order than first order relay cells.
Apigenin Inhibits Human SW620 Cell Growth by Targeting Polyamine Catabolism (2017)

Apigenin is a nonmutagenic flavonoid that has antitumor properties. Polyamines are ubiquitous cellular polycations, which play an important role in the proliferation and differentiation of cancer cells. Highly regulated pathways control the biosynthesis and degradation of polyamines. Ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the metabolism, and spermidine/spermine-N1-Acetyl transferase (SSAT) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the catabolism of polyamines. In the current study, the effect of increasing concentrations of apigenin on polyamine levels, ODC and SSAT protein expression, mRNA expression, cell proliferation and apoptosis, and the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was investigated in SW620 colon cancer cells. The results showed that apigenin significantly reduced cell proliferation, decreased the levels of spermidine and spermine, and increased previously downregulated putrescine contents. Apigenin also enhanced SSAT protein and mRNA levels and the production of reactive oxygen species in SW620 cells, though it had no significant effect on the levels of ODC protein or mRNA. Apigenin appears to decrease the proliferation rate of human SW620 cells by facilitating SSAT expression to induce polyamine catabolism and increasing ROS levels to induce cell apoptosis.
Finite-Element Analysis of Physical Phenomena of a Lab-Scale Electromagnetic Launcher (2007)

As electromagnetic launcher (EML) is an apparatus that uses the electromagnetic (EMAG) force to propel an armature along a rail. An applied electric current, coupled with the resulting magnetic field, creates an EMAG force capable of accelerating an armature to velocities up to several thousand meters per second. The high sliding velocity, coupled with the electric current density, creates extreme thermal conditions at the interface between the rail and the armature that can cause melting at the interface. This project considers a lab-scale EML which is pre-loaded to establish the initial contact between arils and armature. This contact area influences the flow of the electric current and, therefore, it affects the thermal conditions significantly. This work presents a finite-element analysis (FEA) of the aforementioned physical phenomena of the lab-scale EML. This work is aimed at improving the understanding of the armature-to-rail performance and the useful life of an EML by developing a computer simulation which can be used as a design tool to acquire conditiodecoup for the best performance. A two-dimensional structural FEA is used to determine the structural deformation, the contact area, the contact pressure, the von Mises stress, and the material properties of the structural compliance. The vibration characteristics of the lab-scale EML armature are studied using Modal analysis. A three-dimensional electromagnetic FEA is performed to determine the EMAG force. Frictional and Joule heating are determined from a two-dimensional thermal FEA. The commercial finite-element package, ANSYS, is used in the simulation.
Novel approach to secure broadcast in distributed systems (2002)

We present a scheme for secure broadcasting confidential data messages in distributed system or networking environments. The scheme is based on the theory of linear block codes and does not make use of any encryption algorithms. In addition, we show how to achieve reliable message transmission in the presence of channel errors by sending an error correcting parity message in the secure broadcast scheme.
Mammalian patatin domain containing proteins: a family with diverse lipolytic activities involved in multiple biological functions (2008)

The human genome expresses nine patatin-like phospholipase domain containing proteins (PNPLA1-9). Members of this family share a protein domain discovered initially in patatin, the most abundant protein of the potato tuber. Patatin is a lipid hydrolase with an unusual folding topology that differs from classical lipases. Mammalian PNPLAs include lipid hydrolases with specificities for diverse substrates such as triacylglycerols, phospholipids, and retinol esters. Analysis of induced mutant mouse models and the clinical phenotype of patients with mutations revealed important insights into the physiological role of several members of the PNPLA family. This review aims to summarize current knowledge of PNPLA proteins and to document their emerging importance in lipid and energy homeostasis.
Cystic fibrosis lung environment and Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection (2016)

CF lung infection is a complex disease and requires a broad multidisciplinary approach to improve CF disease outcomes. A holistic understanding of the underlying mechanisms and non-genetic contributing factors in CF is central to development of new and targeted therapeutic strategies.
Successful Treatment of an Adynamic Bone Disorder with Bone Morphogenetic Protein-7 in a Renal Ablation Model (2004)

ABSTRACT. An adynamic bone disorder (ABD) is an important complication of chronic kidney disease (CKD) of unknown etiology for which there is no adequate treatment. Reported is an animal model of ablative CKD complicated by an ABD characterized by the absence of secondary hyperparathyroidism and its successful treatment with a skeletal anabolic factor, bone morphogenetic protein-7 (BMP-7). Adult mice were subjected to electrocautery of the right kidney followed by left nephrectomy. Animals were randomized into groups fed normal chow or fed low-phosphate chow supplemented with calcitriol to maintain normophosphatemia in CKD. All groups were maintained on the regimens for 12 wk. Hyperphosphatemia, secondary hyperparathyroidism, and a mild osteodystrophy developed in the CKD/chow-fed group, as expected. When dietary phosphorus was restricted and calcitriol was administered in the CKD low-phosphate/calcitriol group (ABD), Ca, PO<sub>4</sub>, and parathyroid hormone levels were maintained normal. A significant ABD developed in the ABD group characterized by significant depressions in osteoblast number, perimeters, bone formation rates, and mineral apposition rates when compared with the sham-operated, chow-fed group. The abnormal skeletal histomorphometry was reversed by BMP-7 therapy to normal values and significantly improved from the ABD group (<i>P</i> < 0.05). The sham-operated low-phosphate/calcitriol–fed control group and the CKD low-phosphate/calcitriol/BMP-7 groups had reduced phosphate levels compared with the other groups (<i>P</i> < 0.05). ABD produced in mice with CKD in the absence of hyperparathyroidism was successfully reversed with a bone anabolic, BMP-7, associated with a reduction in plasma phosphorus.