Background - Mitral annuloplasty is the most common surgical procedure performed for ischemic mitral regurgitation (MR). Surgical mitral annuloplasty is limited by morbidity, mortality, and MR recurrence. We evaluated the safety and feasibility of a transvenous catheter-delivered implantable device to provide a percutaneous alternative to surgical mitral annuloplasty. Methods and Results - Five pa

An intensely painful stimulus may lead to hyperalgesia, the enhanced sensation of subsequent painful stimuli. This is commonly believed to involve facilitated transmission of sensory signals in the spinal cord, possibly by a long-term potentiation-like mechanism. However, plasticity of identified synapses in intact hyperalgesic animals has not been reported. Here, we show, using neuronal tracing a

Accessibility is an important factor in land-use planning and several methods have been developed to calculate and to predict it. Nevertheless, it is seldom applied in planning situations, maybe because many land-use planners and elected officials lack the knowledge and resources needed to use traffic models. Consequently, accessibility is often used as a concept and a goal in daily planning, but

Coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS) is an established technique for gas-phase thermometry in combustion. In this work, rotational CARS in the dual-broadband approach has been investigated for flame thermometry in the product gas of ethylene/air flames in a wide range of equivalence ratios (0.5 < phi < 2.5). The nitrogen lines dominated the rotational CARS spectra in the whole equivalenc

Purpose: Several tumor markers have recently been applied for prostate cancer screening. We analyze the effectiveness of prostate specific antigen (PSA), age specific PSA, PSA velocity, volume adjusted PSA densities, change in PSA level following antibacterial therapy, free-to-total PSA ratio, alpha1-antichymotrypsin bound PSA, alpha2-macroglobulin bound PSA, alpha1-protease inhibitor bound PSA an

Autoignition in SI engines is an abnormal combustion mode and may lead to engine knock which is an undesired phenomenon in SI engines. It may cause damage and it is a source of noise in engines. Knock limits the compression ratio of the engine and a low compression ratio means low fuel conversion efficiency of the engine. This thesis presents a theoretical investigation about the modeling of the e

Mass-propagation of the spruce bark beetle, Ips typographus, following windfalls and drought is a serious threat to mature spruce forests. Climate change will affect the population dynamics of I. typographus directly as the swarming activity and development rate are mainly controlled by temperature, and indirectly via changes in availability of brood trees. Today, I. typographus is in general univ

Two methods for the determination of hexahydrophthalic anhydride (HHPA) in air were developed. In a solid sorbent method, HHPA was sampled in Amberlite XAD-2 tubes, eluted in toluene and analysed by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection. The sampling rates were 0.2 and 1.0 l/min. At 15 micrograms/m3 (relative humidity less than 2%) and 27 micrograms/m3 (relative humidity 70%) no break

Migratory animals show a suite of adaptations to cope with their journeys. These include not only morphological features for efficient locomotion and storage of energy but also behavioral adjustments to exploit winds and currents or to avoid drift caused by moving fluids. Migration strategies across locomotory modes can be analyzed in the context of optimality models, using some general principles

Subchondral hematomas have been found with arthroscopy in one third of patients with dislocated distal radial fractures. The aim of the present, prospective study was to determine whether these hematomas might cause radiographic osteoarthrosis. We studied 41 patients (age 20-57 years, 22 women) with a dislocated distal radial fracture. At the time of fracture, 12 patients had subchondral hematomas

Measurement of ion current signal from HCCI combustionwas performed. The aim of the work was to investigateif a measurable ion current signal exists and if it is possible to obtain useful information about the combustion process. Furthermore, influence of mixture quality in termsof air/fuel ratio and EGR on the ion current signal wasstudied. A conventional spark plug was used as ionizationsensor.