Ventricular Tachycardia in Repaired Double Chambered Right Ventricle - Identification of the Substrate and Successful Ablation

A 35 year old female presented with recurrent ventricular tachycardia 5 years after she had undergone surgical repair of double chambered right ventricle. Electroanatomical mapping showed a localised scar in the apex with double potentials and good pace map. Ablation here resulted in non-inducibility of ventricular tachycardia. We hypothesise that the scarring in the apex is the result of sustained pressure overload and becomes arrhythmogenic similar to the apical scar in patients with mid-ventricular hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Implementation manual for launching and maintaining sentinel zones

There are several index-based drought risk financing (DRF) products available for pastoral regions, and many more new products are being proposed. These products commonly rely on indices generated from satellite-collected data as proxies for local environmental conditions, thereby avoiding costly ground-data collection for developing risk profiles, assessing local conditions, and making payments. While these index-based DRF products are promising, their accuracy and value are not guaranteed, and some ground data are required to calibrate, monitor, and assess them. Specifically, data are needed that can track the spatial and temporal dynamics between environmental conditions through household production, to household welfare, if the tools are to accurately mitigate the impacts of drought on households. Unfortunately, these data are almost entirely missing for pastoral areas in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) region. The sentinel zone concept was developed to meet this need by establishing a network of high-frequency and longitudinal data collection clusters specifically considering the pastoral production system and the social and environmental strata of the rangelands in the IGAD region. This manual provides guidance on how to launch and maintain a sentinel zone to those collaborating on this agenda

Comparative analysis of the responses to water stress in eggplant (Solanum melongena) cultivars

[EN] Little information is available on the physiological and biochemical responses to water stress in eggplant (Solanum melongena). We valuated four genetically diverse eggplant varieties (MEL3-MEL6) under control and water stress conditions. Measurements were taken for plant growth, tissue water content, levels of chlorophylls a and b, carotenoids, roline, malondialdehyde, total phenolics, total flavonoids, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase APX), and glutathione reductase (GR) activities. For most traits, the water stress treatment had a greater contribution than the variety effect to the total sums of squares in an ANOVA analysis, except for total flavonoids, SOD, APX, and GR. The water stress treatment had a strong effect on plant growth and tissue water content. In general, water tress reduced the three photosynthetic pigments, increased proline, malondialdehyde, total phenolics, and total flavonoids, although some varietal differences were ob- served. Different patterns were also detected in the activities of the four enzymes evaluated, but few differences were observed for individual varieties between the control and water stress treatments. Many significant phe- notypic orrelations were observed among the traits studied, but only eight environmental correlations were detected. A PCA analysis distinctly separated individuals according to the treatment, and revealed a clearer separation of varieties under water stress than under control conditions, pointing to varietal differences in the responses to stress. Our results suggest that proline could be used as a marker for drought stress tolerance in this species. The information obtained provides new insight on the physiological and biochemical responses of eggplant to drought stressAuthors are grateful to the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 677379 (G2P-SOL project: Linking genetic resources, genomes and phenotypes of Solanaceous crops), to Ministerio de Economfa, Industria y Competitividad and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (grant AGL2015-64755-R from MINECO/FEDER), to Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovation y Universidades, Agencia Estatal de Investigation and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (grant RTI-2018-094592-B-100 from MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE), to the Generalitat Valenciana and Fondo Social Europeo (Ayuda a Grupos Emergentes; GV/2019/033), to the Vicerrectorado de Investigacien, Innovation y Transferencia de la Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Ayuda a Primeros Proyectos de Investigation; PAID-06-18), and to the initiative "Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change: Collecting, Protecting and Preparing Crop Wild Relatives", which is supported by the Government of Norway. This latter project is managed by the Global Crop Diversity Trust with the Millennium Seed Bank of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and implemented in partnership with national and international gene banks and plant breeding institutes around the world. For further information see the project website: http://www.cwrdiversity.org/. Mariola Plazas is grateful to Generalitat Valenciana and Fondo Social Europeo for a post-doctoral contract (APOSTD/2018/014). The contribution of Huu Trong Nguyen to this paper has been developed as a result of a mobility stay funded by Erasmus + KA1 Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees Programme of the European Commission under the PLANT HEALTH project.Plazas, M.; Nguyen, HT.; González-Orenga, S.; Fita, A.; Vicente, O.; Prohens Tomás, J.; Boscaiu, M. (2019). Comparative analysis of the responses to water stress in eggplant (Solanum melongena) cultivars. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. 143:72-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plaphy.2019.08.031S728214

Coronary sinus diameter by echocardiography to differentiate atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia from atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia

Background: Coronary sinus (CS) has been shown to be larger in patients with atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT). We sought to determine if echocardiographically measured CS diameter can help identify the mechanism of tachycardia in patients with narrow complex tachycardia without preexcitation before the invasive electrophysiology study.Methods: Forty four patients with documented narrow complex, short RP tachycardia who were scheduled for an electrophysiology study were included. Based on the electrophysiology study, patients were divided into those with AVNRT and those with a concealed accessory pathway and atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia (AVRT). Proximal CS diameter (CSp) measured at the ostium and mid CS diameter (CSm) 1 cm distal to the ostium using transthoracic echocardiography.Results: CSp was significantly larger in patients with AVNRT than AVRT (14.1 ± 5 vs. 9.9 ± 2 mm, p < 0.0001). CSm diameter was not significantly different between the two groups. A cut-off of CSp > 11.2 mm identified AVNRT with a sensitivity of 92.6% and specificity of 76.9%. CSp was a better discriminant (AUC 0.89, 95% CI 0.75–0.97) compared to age (AUC 0.74, 95% CI 0.58–0.87) or tachycardia rate (AUC 0.60, 95% CI 0.44–0.76).Conclusions: Echocardiographic measurement of the diameter of CS ostium can help in identifying the mechanism of the tachycardia before the invasive electrophysiology study.