gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Intraocular pressure effects of selective prostanoid receptor agonists involve different receptor subtypes according to radioligand binding studies. (1993)

The receptors involved in the ocular hypotensive activity of prostaglandins (PG) E2 and F2 alpha in dogs and monkeys was investigated by examining the effects of putative receptor selective agonists on intraocular pressure. A diverse variety of receptor selective agonists lowered intraocular pressure in these species. Thus, FP-receptor agonists (17-phenyl PGF2 alpha, fluprostenol), agonists with potent activity at the EP3 receptor (MB 28767, sulprostone) and a prostanoid with activity at the EP2 receptor (11-deoxy PGE1) were all potent ocular hypotensives when administered as a single dose to dogs and monkeys or b.i.d. for 5 days in monkeys. These findings were regarded as surprising and prompted us to re-examine some aspects of the current classification for prostanoid receptors. At present certain receptor subtypes, notably EP2, EP3 and FP receptors, are defined only according to the potency rank order for agonists. In these studies, we employed radioligand binding studies to determine the degree of competition between prostanoid agonists claimed to be selective on the basis of functional assays. Competition studies with a diverse variety of prostanoids at the binding site for PGE2 and sulprostone on the myometrial plasma membrane prepared from the rat uterus were consistent with the presence of an EP3 receptor. Thus, EP3-receptor agonists (MB 28767 and sulprostone) potently inhibited PGE2 and sulprostone binding, whereas FP agonists (17-phenyl PGF2 alpha, fluprostenol), a DP agonist (BW 245C), an EP1 antagonist (AH 6809), an EP2 agonist (AH 13205) and TP-receptor ligands (BM 13505, I-BOP) afforded little or no inhibition.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Acute and Chronic Estrogen Effects upon Serum Somatomedin Activity, Growth Hormone, and Prolactin in Man (1976)

Estrogen (E) reduces bioassayable GH-dependent serum somatomedin (SM) activity in acromegalics without affecting plasma growth hormone (GH) levels and inhibits the rise of SM activity normally produced by GH administration in GH-deficient subjects. We have now investigated the effect of E administration on serum SM activity and on plasma GH and prolactin (PRL) in 6 adult male subjects without pituitary pathology. Chronic E administration (ethinyl estradiol 0.5 mg/day for 7 to 70 days) reduced serum SM activity by 40 to 62% in each of 4 subjects (P less than 0.02 to less than 0.001). In 3 of the subjects, basal GH levels increased by 75 to 300% (P less than 0.05 to less than 0.001) and basal PRL levels increased by 90 to 200% (P less than 0.01 to less than 0.001). While iv administration of normal saline did not significantly affect either SM or GH, iv administration of E (bolus injection of 25 mg conjugated estrogens, USP) to 5 subjects resulted in: a) a 46 to 80% decrease in serum SM activity in all subjects, proceeding with an apparent half-life of 2 hours, becoming significant (P less than 0.05) at 2 hours (1 subject) to 3 hours (4 subjects), maximal at 6 hours, and persisting for 12 to 24 hours; b) GH elevation to 3 to 16 times baseline level (P less than 0.01) at 2 to 3 hours in 4 subjects; and c) no significant change of PRL levels in any subject. The mean GH response to iv E was maximal at a time (2 hours) when the mean SM activity had decreased only 20% and subsided well before the nadir of SM activity. The one patient without GH response to chronic or acute E administration may have been affected by absorption of triamcinolone being applied topically during the study. These results demonstrate that in males with normal pituitary function, E reduces serum SM activity, enhances basal GH and PRL secretion, and, upon iv injection, stimulates acute GH release. Although opposite chronic E effects upon GH and SM activity support a putative negative SM-GH feed-back mechanism, iv E administration apparently provokes acute GH release by a different mechanism. The half-life of serum SM activity in the human is probably much shorter than previously estimated.
Factors influencing the performance of commercial hybrid desiccant air conditioning systems (1983)

This paper investigates the use of a hybrid desiccant cooling system as a means of reducing the energy required to provide air conditioning in commercial buildings. Mathematical models for each of the hybrid system components are presented, including the desiccant dehumidifier, the indirect evaporative cooler and the vapor compression cooling unit. The system operation is described. Some of the factors which influence the performance of the hybrid system are discussed. These factors include the ambient temperature and humidity, and the size of the sensible and latent cooling loads. Cooling system simulation results are presented for Phoenix, AZ and Miami, FL. It is shown that the hybrid system can reduce the energy consumption for cooling by about 50% in these locations.
Georges Ritter et Jean Lafond. Manuscrits à peintures de l'école de Rouen. Livres d'heures normands (1920)

Jouen . Georges Ritter et Jean Lafond. Manuscrits à peintures de l'école de Rouen. Livres d'heures normands. In: Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France, tome 6, n°30, 1920. pp. 23-25.
General Organization of the Cerebral Cortex (1989)

The cerebral cortex has been parcellated into a variety of regions according to differences in the local arrangements of cell bodies and myelinated fibers (e.g., Campbell, 1905; Rose, 1929; and see review by Kemper and Galaburda, 1984) and on the basis of studies that indicate that specific functions are localized to specific cortical areas (e.g., Penfield and Rasmussen, 1950; and see Kupfermann, 1985). Anatomical evidence for the parcellation of the cerebral cortex into different areas was adduced as early as the late 18th century by Gennari, who recognized a prominent white line running within the substance of the cerebral cortex parallel to the surface of the occipital lobe. Structures corresponding to this line or stria were observed in other regions of the cortex (Gennari, 1782), but nowhere was the line as clear as in the region that became known later as the striate cortex.
Towards a methodology for evaluating expert systems (1990)

Abstract: Expert system evaluation comprises verification, validation and user acceptance testing. The nature of expert systems requires that they be evaluated carefully, and that detailed methodologies for their development be devised. This paper attempts to give practical guidance for the evaluation phase of expert system development. Empirical and logical evaluation methods are surveyed, and both types of method are applied in an evaluation case study. This case study provides insights as to the relative effectiveness of the methods, and demonstrates that empirical and logical testing are complementary to each other. The paper concludes that any evaluation methodology should incorporate both types of method, and presents prescriptions and an outline for such a methodology, which combines the methods for maximum effectiveness.
Stochastic search (1994)

Systems that select an optimal or nearly optimal member from a specified search set are reviewed with special emphasis on stochastic approaches such as simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, as well as other probabilistic heuristics. Because of local minima, selecting a global optimum may require time that increases exponentially in the problem size. Stochastic search provides advantages in robustness, generality, and simplicity over other approaches and is more efficient than exhaustive deterministic search.
Detection Rates of TT Virus DNA in Serum of Umbilical Cord Blood, Breast Milk and Saliva (2000)

To date, the routes of mother-to-infant transmission of TT virus (TTV) have not been fully elucidated. The present study examines the detection rates of TTV DNA in the serum of pregnant Japanese women and in cord blood at the time of delivery, as well as in the saliva and breast milk of mothers one-month postpartum. Primers derived from the well-known translated region N22 (N22 system), as well as the untranslated region (UTR system) were used. The prevalence of TTV DNA in the serum of pregnant women was found to be 11.9% (19/160) using the N22 system and 72.4% (55/76) using the UTR system. No TTV DNA was detected in the cord blood samples (0/160) when the N22 system was used for detection but TTV DNA was detected in 11.8% (7/76) of samples studied with the UTR system. Using the N22 system, TTV DNA was not detected in breast milk, but was detected in saliva. However using the UTR system, TTV DNA was detected in both specimens. These results imply that some babies are vertically infected with TTV via cord blood at the time of delivery or via breast milk or saliva. However, further research is necessary to confirm this hypothesis. polymerase chain reaction; pregnant women; horizontal route of transmission
Parametric image formation using clustering for dynamic cardiac SPECT (2003)

Dynamic cardiac SPECT imaging can provide quantitative and possibly even absolute measures of physiological parameters. However, a dynamic cardiac SPECT study involves a number of steps to obtain estimates of physiological parameters of interest. One of the key steps involves the selection of regions of interest. In the past, this has been done manually or by using a semi-automatic method. We propose to use cluster analysis to segment the data to obtain improved parameter estimates. The algorithm consists of using a standard k-means clustering followed by a blood input fine-tuning procedure using fuzzy k-means performed to obtain a more accurate blood input function. Computer simulations were used to test the algorithm and to compute bias in kinetic rate parameters with and without the use of blood input fine-tuning. This was followed by performing eight studies in three canines and three studies in two patients with a dynamic cardiac perfusion SPECT protocol. The short-axis slice image data were used as input for the cluster analysis program as well as for a previously validated semi-automatic method. All of the time activity curves were fit to a two-compartment model. Parametric images of the wash-in rate parameter were obtained after cluster analysis. The wash-in rate estimates from the selected regions of interest with both of the methods were compared using microsphere derived flows as a gold standard in the case of canine studies. Our results suggest that in regions with low noise, cluster analysis provides parameter estimates comparable to the semi-automatic method in addition to providing improved visual defect localization and contrast. Moreover, the clustered curves have less noise and yield reasonable fits where with the semi-automatic method the fitting routine sometimes failed to converge. The use of clustering also required less manual intervention than the semi-automatic method. These results indicate that use of clustering may bring dynamic cardiac SPECT closer to clinical feasibility.
Cytokeratins and cell differentiation in the pancreas (1998)

Keratins, or cytokeratins, represent a family of more than 20 different polypeptides which are important markers of epithelial cell differentiation. This review deals with the use of keratin immunohistochemistry in the study of pancreatic cell differentiation. Exocrine acinar cells and endocrine islet cells are well-differentiated cells which express the keratin combination 8 and 18, whereas the less-differentiated cells of the ductal tree are characterized by the additional expression of keratin 7, keratin 19, and, in the rat, keratin 20. Keratin expression is stable and can be used for cell identification after isolation and culture, and in clinical or experimental injury. The intercalated ductal cells and centroacinar cells are inconspicuous unless specific immunohistochemical markers, such as keratins, are used. In conditions where there is morphogenetic differentiation such as in fetal life, or where transdifferentiation is occurring, keratins have been used to trace the origin and fate of pancreatic cells.
Catalytic Hydrogenation of Halothiazoles (1995)

Abstract The hydrogenation of halothiazoles is described. The best results were obtained utilizing 10% palladium on carbon as catalyst at four atmospheres of pressure with the bromide derivatives.
Anatomical and Functional Phenotyping of Mice Models of Alzheimer's Disease by MR Microscopy (2007)

The wide variety of transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer's disease (AD) reflects the search for specific genes that influence AD pathology and the drive to create a clinically relevant animal model. An ideal AD mouse model must display hallmark AD pathology such as amyloid plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, reactive gliosis, dystrophic neurites, neuron and synapse loss, and brain atrophy and in parallel behaviorally mimic the cognitive decline observed in humans. Magnetic resonance (MR) microscopy (MRM) can detect amyloid plaque load, development of brain atrophy, and acute neurodegeneration. MRM examples of AD pathology will be presented and discussed. What has lagged behind in preclinical research using transgenic AD mouse models is functional phenotyping of the brain; in other words, the ability to correlate a specific genotype with potential aberrant brain activation patterns. This lack of information is caused by the technical challenges involved in performing functional MRI (fMRI) in mice including the effects of anesthetic agents and the lack of relevant "cognitive" paradigms. An alternative approach to classical fMRI using external stimuli as triggers of brain activation in rodents is to electrically or pharmacologically stimulate regions directly while simultaneously locally tracking the activated interconnected regions of rodents using, for example, the manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI) technique. Finally, transgenic mouse models, MRM, and future AD research would be strengthened by the ability to screen for AD-like pathology in other non-AD transgenic mouse models. For example, molecular biologists may focus on cardiac or pulmonary pathologies in transgenic mice models and as an incidental finding discover behavioral AD phenotypes. We will present MRM data of brain and cardiac phenotyping in transgenic mouse models with behavioral deficits.
Elastic wave behavior across linear slip interfaces (1980)

A model for an imperfectly bonded interface between two elastic media is proposed. Displacement across this surface is not required to be continuous. The displacement discontinuity, or slip, is taken to be linearly related to the stress traction which is continuous across the interface. For isotropic interface behavior, there are two complex frequency dependent interface compliances, ηN and ηT, where the component of the slip normal to the interface is given by ηN times the normal stress and the component tangential to the interface is given by ηT times the shear stress and is in the same direction. Reflection and transmission coefficients for harmonic plane waves incident at arbitrary angles upon a plane linear slip interface are computed in terms of the interface compliances. These coefficients are frequency dependent even when the compliances are real and frequency independent. Examples of the effects of buried slip interfaces on reflection coefficient spectra and on Love-wave dispersion relations are presented.
PEG-lipid micelles enable cholesterol efflux in Niemann-Pick Type C1 disease-based lysosomal storage disorder (2016)

2-Hydroxy-propyl-β-cyclodextrin (HPβCD), a cholesterol scavenger, is currently undergoing Phase 2b/3 clinical trial for treatment of Niemann Pick Type C-1 (NPC1), a fatal neurodegenerative disorder that stems from abnormal cholesterol accumulation in the endo/lysosomes. Unfortunately, the extremely high doses of HPβCD required to prevent progressive neurodegeneration exacerbates ototoxicity, pulmonary toxicity and autophagy-based cellular defects. We present unexpected evidence that a poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG)-lipid conjugate enables cholesterol clearance from endo/lysosomes of Npc1 mutant (Npc1(-/-)) cells. Herein, we show that distearyl-phosphatidylethanolamine-PEG (DSPE-PEG), which forms 12-nm micelles above the critical micelle concentration, accumulates heavily inside cholesterol-rich late endosomes in Npc1(-/-) cells. This potentially results in cholesterol solubilization and leakage from lysosomes. High-throughput screening revealed that DSPE-PEG, in combination with HPβCD, acts synergistically to efflux cholesterol without significantly aggravating autophagy defects. These well-known excipients can be used as admixtures to treat NPC1 disorder. Increasing PEG chain lengths from 350 Da-30 kDa in DSPE-PEG micelles, or increasing DSPE-PEG content in an array of liposomes packaged with HPβCD, improved cholesterol egress, while Pluronic block copolymers capable of micelle formation showed slight effects at high concentrations. We postulate that PEG-lipid based nanocarriers can serve as bioactive drug delivery systems for effective treatment of lysosomal storage disorders.
Extraction efficiency of phosphate from pre-coagulated sludge with NaHS (2006)

The recovery of phosphorus from sewage and sludge treatment systems is particularly important because it is a limited resource and a large proportion of the phosphorus currently used in Japan must be imported. We have been experimentally evaluating recovery methods with sulphide. In this study, we focussed on the extraction of phosphate from the sludge, and sought to achieve a greater extraction efficiency and to validate the extraction mechanism. We conducted three experiments, i.e. a sludge-type experiment, a coagulant ratio of pre-coagulated sludge experiment, and a concentration of pre-coagulated sludge experiment. Phosphate was extracted not with normal sewage sludge but with pre-coagulated sludge and FePO4 reagent at S/Fe = 1.0-2.0. A coagulant ratio of 23mg Fe L(-1) was required in the precoagulation process to effectively extract phosphate. A high concentration of pre-coagulated sludge was required for the phosphate extraction. The mass balance was calculated, and 44.0% of phosphorus was extracted to supernatant, and 98.5% of iron and 98.3% of sulphur (44.1% of sulphur was sulphide). Thus, phosphate can be selectively separated from iron by the phosphate extraction method with NaHS, and phosphorus and iron can be recovered and reused at sewage treatment plants using ferric chloride as a coagulant.
Programming languages and systems for prototyping concurrent applications (2000)

Concurrent programming is conceptually harder to undertake and to understand than sequential programming, because a programmer has to manage the coexistence and coordination of multiple concurrent activities. To alleviate this task several high-level approaches to concurrent programming have been developed. For some high-level programming approaches, prototyping for facilitating early evaluation of new ideas is a central goal. Prototyping is used to explore the essential features of a proposed system through practical experimentation before its actual implementation to make the correct design choices early in the process of software development. Approaches to prototyping concurrent applications with very high-level programming systems intend to alleviate the development in different ways. Early experimentation with alternate design choices or problem decompositions for concurrent applications is suggested to make concurrent programming easier. This paper presents a survey of programming languages and systems for prototyping concurrent applications to review the state of the art in this area. The surveyed approaches are classified with respect to the prototyping process.
Dephosphorylation of the small heat shock protein Hsp27 in vivo by protein phosphatase 2A. (1994)

The phosphorylation of the Hsp27 complex is rapidly altered in MRC-5 cells when they are exposed to mitogens, cytokines, stress, or serine/threonine protein phosphatase inhibitors. Here we performed experiments to identify which cellular protein phosphatase (PP1, PP2A, or PP2B) is responsible for the in vivo phosphorylation/dephosphorylation of Hsp27. In their purified forms, PP2A dephosphorylates Hsp27 more effectively than PP2B, whereas PP1 is weakly active. Measurements of enzyme activity of lysates derived from inhibitor-treated cells indicated that Hsp27 phosphatase activity is equally sensitive to okadaic acid (PPI/PP2A inhibitor) and cyclosporin (PP2B inhibitor) and that both okadaic acid and cyclosporin treatment inhibited Hsp27 phosphatase activity additively. Together the in vitro data suggest that both PP2A and PP2B can dephosphorylate Hsp27. However, the phosphorylation of Hsp27 in vivo is only affected when cells are treated with PP1 and PP2A inhibitors (okadaic acid, calyculin A) or cantharidin (PP2A inhibitor), but not the PP2B inhibitor, cyclosporin A, suggesting PP2A to be the main enzyme dephosphorylating Hsp27 in the cells. Purification and immunoblotting of Hsp27 phosphatase from MRC-5 cells also suggest it to be PP2A and not PP1 or PP2B. The ability of PP2A to dephosphorylate Hsp27 is shown to be regulated by the phosphorylation state of PP2A itself.
Privacy-aware and energy-efficient geofencing through reverse cellular positioning (2012)

Location-based services (LBSs) are gaining a significant increase in popularity these days and are about to take the next step towards proactive LBSs. In comparison to conventional LBSs, their proactive variant makes use of continuous position tracking to detect changes in spatial relationships between a user and surrounding objects and proactively perform according actions, a concept that is also known as geofencing. But tracking so far also results in tremendous battery drain in mobile devices and may conceal serious privacy issues for their users which can be seen as the biggest inhibitors to making proactive LBSs available for the masses. This paper proposes a method to detect the relationship between a user and a target location without significant overhead in power consumption by exploiting signals broadcasted from cellular radio network infrastructure at that location. In opposite to conventional cellular location determination mechanisms like WiFi or Cell-Id positioning where a radio beacon will be resolved as soon as it is detected, our proposal has to resolve only one request initially. This not only saves energy, but also preserves the user's privacy since no consecutive requests have to be sent to a location lookup server, for translating radio beacons into locations. Instead, the radio beacons that can be detected at the target location will be queried once and afterwards only compared to the currently received cellular radio signals. In some outlying areas only rudimentary cellular coverage might be provided, which leads to inaccurate positioning. In that case, the method can still serve as a basis mechanism to further improve accuracy by shortly utilizing additional positioning methods like GPS. Relying on an almost global wireless data connectivity, smartphones can access data from the internet almost anywhere, which allows this approach to be broadly available as an energy-efficient and privacy-aware alternative to conventional cellular location determination.
Heat‐Generation Rate and General Energy Balance for Insertion Battery Systems (1997)

A general energy balance has been developed for insertion battery systems by using enthalpy potentials. This leads to a new calculation method for the heat‐generation rate. The same result is also derived from an alternative model based on local heat generation in an electrochemical cell. A new concept, the effective open‐circuit potential of an insertion battery, was proposed to characterize the open‐circuit state of the battery during galvanostatic discharge. Simulation results are presented for heat generation in a lithium cell under galvanostatic discharge. The analysis of these results focuses on effects of the shape of the open‐circuit potential and ohmic losses in the electrolyte in the porous cathode. It is shown that a single reaction may look like two reactions due to the presence of two plateaus in the open‐circuit potential.