Ultrasonic characterization of the pulmonary venous wall: echographic and histological correlation

Background: Pulmonary vein isolation with radiofrequency catheter ablation techniques is used to prevent recurrences of human atrial fibrillation. Visualization of the architecture at the venoatrial junction could be crucial for these ablative techniques. Our study assesses the potential for intravascular ultrasound to provide this information. Methods and Results: We retrieved 32 pulmonary veins from 8 patients dying from noncardiac causes. We obtained cross-sectional intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) images with a 3.2F, 30-MHz ultrasound catheter at intervals on each vein. Histological cross-sections at the intervals allowed comparisons with ultrasonic images. The pulmonary venous wall at the venoatrial junction revealed a 3-layered ultrasonic pattern. The inner echogenic layer represents both endothelium and connective tissue of the media (mean maximal thickness, 1.4±0.3 mm). The middle hypoechogenic stratum corresponds to the sleeves of left atrial myocardium surrounding the external aspect of the venous media. This layer was thickest at the venoatrial junction (mean maximal thickness, 2.6±0.8 mm) and decreased toward the lung hilum. The outer echodense layer corresponds to fibro-fatty adventitial tissue (mean maximal thickness, 2.15±0.36 mm). We found a close agreement among the IVUS and histological measurements for maximal luminal diameter (mean difference, -0.12±1.3 mm) and maximal muscular thickness (mean difference, 0.17±0.13 mm) using the Bland and Altman method. Conclusions: Our experimental study demonstrates for the first time that IVUS images of the pulmonary veins can provide information on the distal limits and thickness of the myocardial sleeves and can be a valuable tool to help accurate targeting during ablative procedures

Some inequalities on totally real submanifolds in locally conformal Kaehler space forms

In this article, we establish sharp relations between the sectional curvature and the shape operator and also between the k-Ricci curvature and the shape operator for a totally real submanifold in a locally conformal Kaehler space form of constant holomorphic sectional curvature with arbitrary codimension.Korea Research Foundation Gran

B.-Y. Chen's inequality for submanifolds of generalized space forms

In this article, we investigate sharp inequalities involving δ-invariants for submanifolds in both generalized complex space forms and generalized Sasakian space forms, with arbitrary codimension.Ministerio de Educación y CienciaPlan Andaluz de Investigación (Junta de Andalucía

Scale-dependent galaxy bias, CMB lensing-galaxy cross-correlation, and neutrino masses

One of the most powerful cosmological datasets when it comes to constraining neutrino masses is represented by galaxy power spectrum measurements, $P_{gg}(k)$. The constraining power of $P_{gg}(k)$ is however severely limited by uncertainties in the modeling of the scale-dependent galaxy bias $b(k)$. In this Letter we present a new method to constrain $b(k)$ by using the cross-correlation between the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) lensing signal and galaxy maps ($C_\ell^{\rm \kappa g}$) using a simple but theoretically well-motivated parametrization for $b(k)$. We apply the method using $C_\ell^{\rm \kappa g}$ measured by cross-correlating Planck lensing maps and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Data Release 11 (DR11) CMASS galaxy sample, and $P_{gg}(k)$ measured from the BOSS DR12 CMASS sample. We detect a non-zero scale-dependence at moderate significance, which suggests that a proper modeling of $b(k)$ is necessary in order to reduce the impact of non-linearities and minimize the corresponding systematics. The accomplished increase in constraining power of $P_{gg}(k)$ is demonstrated by determining a 95% C.L. upper bound on the sum of the three active neutrino masses $M_{\nu}$ of $M_{\nu}<0.19\, {\rm eV}$. This limit represents a significant improvement over previous bounds with comparable datasets. Our method will prove especially powerful and important as future large-scale structure surveys will overlap more significantly with the CMB lensing kernel providing a large cross-correlation signal.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Molecular clouds in the center of M81

We investigate the molecular gas content and the excitation and fragmentation properties in the central region of the spiral galaxy Messier 81 in both the ^{12}CO(1-0) and ^{12}CO(2-1) transitions. We have recently observed the two transitions of CO in the M~81 center with A, B, and HERA receivers of the IRAM 30-m telescope. We find no CO emission in the inner $\sim$ 300 pc and a weak molecular gas clump structure at a distance of around 460 pc from the nucleus. Observations of the first two CO transitions allowed us to compute the line ratio, and the average I_{21}/I_{10} ratio is 0.68 for the M~81 center. This low value, atypical both of the galactic nuclei of spiral galaxies and of interacting systems, is probably associated to diffuse gas with molecular hydrogen density that is not high enough to excite the CO molecules. After analyzing the clumping properties of the molecular gas in detail, we identify very massive giant molecular associations (GMAs) in CO(2-1) emission with masses of $\sim$ 10$^{5}$ M$_\odot$ and diameters of $\sim$ 250 pc. The deduced N(H_{2})/I_{CO} ratio for the individually resolved GMAs, assumed to be virialized, is a factor of $\sim$ 15 higher than the \textit{standard} Galactic value, showing - as suspected - that the X ratio departs significantly from the mean for galaxies with an unusual physics of the molecular gas.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 6 tables. Accepted for pubblication in A&

Sustainable natural adsorbents for heavy metal removal from wastewater: Lead sorption on pine bark (Pinus radiata D.Don)

Aqueous Pb(II) adsorption on pine bark (Pinus Radiata D.Don), an inexpensive and sustainable natural sorbent material, has been evaluated and the mechanism of metal retention characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Bark pulp densities >1.5 g l-1 achieve near 100% Pb(II) removal from aqueous solutions containing 100 mg l-1 Pb(II). Adsorption rates increased with pulp density, although adsorption capacity diminished at high densities because of blockage of adsorption sites. The effects of washing and sulfuric acid activation were assessed and found to be less important than in previous metal sorption studies. Pb(II) sorption takes place mainly at the lignocellulosic C-O groups, with adsorption at phenolic sites appearing to be most significant

Molecular line intensities as measures of cloud masses - II. Conversion factors for specific galaxy types

We present theoretically-established values of the CO-to-H2 and C-to-H2 conversion factors that may be used to estimate the gas masses of external galaxies. We consider four distinct galaxy types, represented by M51, NGC 6946, M82 and SMC N27. The physical parameters that best represent the conditions within the molecular clouds in each of the galaxy types are estimated using a chi^2 analysis of several observed atomic fine structure and CO rotational lines. This analysis is explored over a wide range of density, radiation field, extinction, and other relevant parameters. Using these estimated physical conditions in methods that we have previously established, CO-to-H2 conversion factors are then computed for CO transitions up to J=9-8. For the conventional CO(1-0) transition, the computed conversion factor varies significantly below and above the canonical value for the Milky Way in the four galaxy types considered. Since atomic carbon emission is now frequently used as a probe of external galaxies, we also present, for the first time, the C-to-H2 conversion factor for this emission in the four galaxy types considered.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Austrian Syndrome with a Delayed Onset of Heart Failure

A 59-year-old man treated with pneumococcal meningitis 4 months ago was hospitalized for acute heart failure and performed aortic valve replacement by rupture of aortic valve. The frequent association of pneumococcal meningitis and endocarditis is known as Austrian syndrome. Though Austrian syndrome is a clinically rare disease, the evolution of pneumococcal endocarditis is very aggressive and associated with high mortality, and early recognition for evidence of endocardial lesion in patients with pneumococcal meningitis is important to reduce the complications and mortality rate

Log-moment estimators of the Nakagami-lognormal distribution

[EN] In this paper, estimators of the Nakagami-lognormal (NL) distribution based on the method of log-moments have been derived and thoroughly analyzed. Unlike maximum likelihood (ML) estimators, the log-moment estimators of the NL distribution are obtained using straightforward equations with a unique solution. Also, their performance has been evaluated using the sample mean, confidence regions and normalized mean square error (NMSE). The NL distribution has been extensively used to model composite small-scale fading and shadowing in wireless communication channels. This distribution is of interest in scenarios where the small-scale fading and the shadowing processes cannot be easily separated such as the vehicular environment.This work has been funded in part by the Programa de Estancias de Movilidad de Profesores e Investigadores en Centros Extranjeros de Ensenanza Superior e Investigacion of the Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte, Spain, PR2015-00151 and by the Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad of the Spanish Government under the national project TEC2017-86779-C2-2-R, through the Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI) and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER).Reig, J.; Brennan, C.; Rodrigo Peñarrocha, VM.; Rubio Arjona, L. (2019). Log-moment estimators of the Nakagami-lognormal distribution. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13638-018-1328-6S110J. M. Ho, G. L. 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Mathiopoulos, in Adaptive M-QAM systems with diversity in correlated Nakagami-m fading and shadowing. IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (GLOBECOM 2010) (IEEEMiami, 2010), pp. 1–5.Ö. Bulakci, A. B. Saleh, J. Hämäläinen, S. Redana, Performance analysis of relay site planning over composite fading/shadowing channels with cochannel interference. IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol.62(4), 1692–1706 (2013).W. Cheng, Y. Huang, On the performance of adaptive SC/MRC cooperative systems over composite fading channels. Chin. J. Electron.25(3), 533–540 (2016).M. G. Kibria, G. P. Villardi, W. Liao, K. Nguyen, K. Ishizu, F. Kojima, Outage analysis of offloading in heterogeneous networks: Composite fading channels. IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol.66(10), 8990–9004 (2017).K. Cho, J. Lee, C. G. Kang, Stochastic geometry-based coverage and rate analysis under Nakagami & log-normal composite fading channel for downlink cellular networks. IEEE Commun. Lett.21(6), 1437–1440 (2017).R. Singh, M. 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