An integer programming approach to mixed model assembly line balancing.

Dept. of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1981 .A448. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 40-07, page: . Thesis (M.A.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1981

Diffuse Involvement of Aorta in Patient with Familial Hyperlipidemia

Familial hyperlipidemia (FH) is an inherited metabolic disorder caused by low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor abnormality. The delayed clearance of serum LDL results in severe hypercholesterolemia, which leads to the accumulation of LDL-derived cholesterol in skin, tendons, and arterial walls.In homozygous form of the disease, severely atheromatous involvement of the aorta extending to the coronary ostia is almost always present, and particular surgical strategy is required to prevent atheroembolic events

The treatment of acute myocardial infarction due to the occlusion of the left main coronary disease

Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) due to the occlusion of the left main coronary artery (LMCA) is a rare but serious condition in the era of percutaneus coronary intervention (PCI). Even more rare is AMI involved with both LMCA and its branches like trifurcartion or bifurcation: this is challenging for interventional cardiologists, because it involves the extension of the myocardium complicated by cardiogenic shock and its technical difficulties. Trifurcating coronary artery disease is a complex atherosclerotic process involving the origin of one or more of three side branches arising from a left main coronary vessel or trunk, with or without the involvement of LMCA itself. There is no classification or standardized methodology to treat LMCA disease in elective percutaneous intervention procedures. Furthermore, acute myocardial infarction presenting with left main coronary artery trifurcation lesion seems to be more troublesome, especially in young patients. Few series of PCI on significant lesions of the left main trifurcations have been described. Herein, we describe a patient who successfully underwent PCI and was supported by post intravascular ultrasound sonography and multislice computed angiography (MSCA), and after an uneventful follow-up with MSCA is now on the ninth month. (Cardiol J 2011; 18, 1: 77-82

Acute alcohol consumption is associated with increased interatrial electromechanical delay in healthy men

Background: Acute alcohol consumption can cause atrial fibrillation in patients with, and without, heart disease. Increased atrial electromechanical delay (EMD) has been associated with atrial fibrillation. We evaluated the atrial conduction properties by tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) echocardiography in healthy men following acute alcohol intake. Methods: Thirty healthy male volunteers were included in this study. Baseline ECG, heart rate, blood pressure, and TDI echocardiographic findings were compared to readings taken one hour after drinking six 12-oz cans of beer (76.8 g of ethanol). Results: Although the blood pressure and heart rate remained similar before and one hour after alcohol intake, Pmax and Pd values were significantly prolonged (114.2 &#177; 10.4 vs 100.8 &#177; 10.6, p = 0.002; 50.6 &#177; 9.6 vs 34.5 &#177; 8.8, p < 0.0001). Interatrial EMD was significantly increased after drinking alcohol compared to the baseline (19.8 &#177; 9.2 vs 14.0 &#177; 5.5 ms, p < 0.0002). Conclusions: Acute moderate alcohol intake was associated with an increased interatrial EMD obtained by TDI echocardiography. This finding may help explain how these patients express increased susceptibility to atrial fibrillation. (Cardiol J 2011; 18, 6: 682&#8211;686

Semi-Supervised Deep Learning for Multi-Tissue Segmentation from Multi-Contrast MRI

Segmentation of thigh tissues (muscle, fat, inter-muscular adipose tissue (IMAT), bone, and bone marrow) from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans is useful for clinical and research investigations in various conditions such as aging, diabetes mellitus, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and their associated comorbidities. Towards a fully automated, robust, and precise quantification of thigh tissues, herein we designed a novel semi-supervised segmentation algorithm based on deep network architectures. Built upon Tiramisu segmentation engine, our proposed deep networks use variational and specially designed targeted dropouts for faster and robust convergence, and utilize multi-contrast MRI scans as input data. In our experiments, we have used 150 scans from 50 distinct subjects from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA). The proposed system made use of both labeled and unlabeled data with high efficacy for training, and outperformed the current state-of-the-art methods with dice scores of 97.52%, 94.61%, 80.14%, 95.93%, and 96.83% for muscle, fat, IMAT, bone, and bone marrow tissues, respectively. Our results indicate that the proposed system can be useful for clinical research studies where volumetric and distributional tissue quantification is pivotal and labeling is a significant issue. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed system is the first attempt at multi-tissue segmentation using a single end-to-end semi-supervised deep learning framework for multi-contrast thigh MRI scans.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, Journal of Signal Processing System

Determinants of high sensitivity troponin T concentration in chronic stable patients with heart failure: Ischemic heart failure versus non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy

Background: Cardiac troponin T is a marker of myocardial injury, especially when measured by means of the high-sensitivity assay (hs-cTnT). The echocardiographic and clinical predictors of hs-cTnT may be different in ischemic heart failure (IHF) and non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM).Methods: Sixty consecutive patients (19 female, 41 male; mean age 56.3 ± 13.9 years) with stable congestive heart failure (33 patient with IHF and 27 patients with DCM), with New York Heart Association functional class I–II symptoms, and left ventricular ejection fraction &lt; 40% were included.Results: In patients with IHF peak early mitral inflow velocity (E), E/peak early diastolic mitral annular tissue Doppler velocity (Em) lateral, peak systolic mitral annular tissue Doppler velocity (Sm) lateral and logBNP were univariate predictors of hs-cTnT above median. But only E/Em lateral was an independent predictor of hs-cTnT above median (p = 0.04, HR: 1.2,CI: 1–1.4). In patients with DCM; left atrial volume index, male sex, Sm lateral and global longitudinal strain (LV-GLS) were included in multivariate model and LV-GLS was detected to be an independent predictor for hs-cTnT above median (p &lt; 0.05, HR: 0.7, CI: 0.4–1.0).Conclusions: While LV-GLS is an independent predictor of hs-cTnT concentrations in patients with DCM, E/Em lateral predicted hs-TnT concentrations in patients with IHF

Risk factors for preoperative and postoperative late seizure in supratentorial meningiomas: A retrospective analysis of 63 patients

Introduction. Seizure following meningioma surgery is common and management may be challenging. Identifying risk factors may help physicians to initiate optimal medical management. The aim of this study is to report seizure outcome and risk factors for perioperative seizure. Materials and Methods.&nbsp;Sixty-three adult patients who underwent supratentorial meningioma resection were included, and perioperative data and long-term follow-up were provided in this retrospective study. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify the risk factors for perioperative seizure and postoperative late seizure. Results.&nbsp;The results showed that 20 (37.1 %) patients had preoperative seizure and 10 (50 %) patients were seizure free at the long-term follow-up. Absence of headache was associated with preoperative seizure (p=0.002) while presence of early seizure was significant predictor for postoperative late seizure (p=0.03). Although not significant, occurrence of surgical complications (p=0.08) and non-skull base location (p=0.06) tended toward being a significant risk factor for postoperative late seizure. Conclusion.&nbsp;Presence of early seizures, surgical complications and locations out of skull base may direct postoperative anti-epileptic treatment to decrease seizure incidence which, indeed, increases quality of life for patients with meningioma

Diagnostic value of preoperative systemic inflammatory markers in patients with intracranial meningiomas

Introduction: The role of inflammation in cancer has been defined, and now, inflammation is accepted as one of the hallmarks of cancer development. The aim of this study was to evaluate the difference regarding preoperative neutrophil to lymphocyte (NLR) and platelet to lymphocyte ratios (PLR) in patients with meningioma between patients and healthy controls and between grade-I and grade-II meningiomas. Methods: Retrospective analysis of preoperative neutrophil, lymphocyte, monocyte, and platelet counts and NLR, and PLR were evaluated in 61 patients underwent meningioma surgery. Results: Neutrophil count was significantly increased while lymphocyte count significantly decreased patients compared to controls. Similar findings were obtained in grade-II meningiomas compared with grade-I meningiomas. NLR were significantly higher in both grade-I and grade-II meningiomas than controls. Conclusion: We for the first time provided that higher NLR may be associated with grading of meningioma and be a predictive factor for progression of meningiomas. The use of medication against neutrophil-related inflammation may be helpful for patients with higher grade of meningioma decreasing peritumoral edema before and after surgery

Demographic and microbial characteristics of extrapulmonary tuberculosis cases diagnosed in Malatya, Turkey, 2001-2007

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) has an increasing rate in Turkey. The reason remains largely unknown. A better understanding of the demographic and microbial characteristics of EPTB in the Turkish population would extend the knowledgebase of EPTB and allow us to develop better strategies to control tuberculosis (TB).</p> <p><b>Methods</b></p> <p>We retrospectively evaluated clinical and laboratory data of 397 bacteriologically-confirmed TB cases diagnosed during an eight year-period using by chi-square analysis and multivariate logistic regression model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 397 study patients, 103 (25.9%) had EPTB and 294 (74.1%) had pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). The most commonly seen two types of EPTB were genitourinary TB (27.2%) and meningeal TB (19.4%). TB in bone/joints, pleural cavity, lymph nodes, skin, and peritoneal cavity occurred at a frequency ranging from 9.7% to 10.7%. The age distribution was significantly different (P < 0.01) between PTB and EPTB, with patients older than 45 years tending to have an increased risk of EPTB. Furthermore, the distribution of different types of EPTB differed significantly among age groups (P = 0.03). Meningeal and bone and/or joint TB were more commonly observed among the male patients, while lymphatic, genitourinary, and peritoneal TB cases were more frequently seen among females. Unique strain infection was statistically significantly associated with EPTB (OR: 2.82, 95% CI [1.59, 5.00])</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>EPTB accounted for a significant proportion of TB cases in Malatya, Turkey between 2001 and 2007. The current study has provided an insight into the dynamics of EPTB in Malatya, Turkey. However, the risk factors for having EPTB in Malatya, Turkey remain to be assessed in future studies using population-based or randomly selected sample.</p