Standards for conducting and reporting consensus and recommendation documents: European Society of Cardiovascular Radiology policy from the Guidelines Committee.

Cardiovascular imaging is exponentially increasing in the diagnosis, risk stratification, and therapeutic management of patients with cardiovascular disease. The European Society of Cardiovascular Radiology (ESCR) is a non-profit scientific medical society dedicated to promoting and coordinating activities in cardiovascular imaging. The purpose of this paper, written by ESCR committees and Executive board members and approved by the ESCR Executive Board and Guidelines committee, is to codify a standardized approach to creating ESCR scientific documents. Indeed, consensus development methods must be adopted to ensure transparent decision-making that optimizes national and global health and reaches a certain scientific credibility. ESCR consensus documents developed based on a rigorous methodology will improve their scientific impact on the management of patients with cardiac involvement. CRITICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT: This document aims to codify the methodology for producing consensus documents of the ESCR. These ESCR indications will broaden the scientific quality and credibility of further publications and, consequently, the impact on the diagnostic management of patients with cardiac involvement. KEY POINTS: Cardiovascular imaging is exponentially increasing for diagnosis, risk stratification, and therapeutic management. The ESCR is committed to promoting cardiovascular imaging. A rigorous methodology for ESCR consensus documents will improve their scientific impact

NQR study of phase transitions in CH 3\mathsf{_3} HgX (X=Cl, Br, I)

The temperature dependence of halogen nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) in the series CH 3HgX (X=Cl, Br, I) is measured with special emphasis on the structural phase transitions at T c =162 K, 310 K, and $\sim$ 400 K, respectively. In the temperature dependences of NQR frequencies similarities are observed and discussed in relation with the structure and thermal vibrations on both sides of the phase transition. On the basis of known data a mechanism for the three analogous phase transitions is proposed. The chlorine spin-lattice relaxation behaviour in CH 3HgCl can be explained by a competition of fast thermal fluctuations of MMX molecules across the high temperature (h.t.) mirror plane and of infrequent transitions to the other equivalent fluctuation mode across the orthogonal h.t. mirror plane. Proton high temperature relaxation is probably dominated by the same slow motion, but at lower temperatures some other mechanism involving magnetic coupling prevails. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2003

Application of 14N NQR to the Study of Sulfanilamide, Piroxicam, and Nifedipine Polymorphism

14N NQR is a new method in pharmacy that has a potential to establish itself as an additional and valuable analytical tool for characterizing solid state of a substance [1]. [...

Magnetic properties of ErxY1-xF3 solid solutions

The ErxY1-xF3 (x = 0. 1. 0.2. 0.7 0.9. 1) solid solutions were synthesized and characterized by X-ray powder diffraction and magnetic measurements. The crystal structure refinements done by the Rietveld profile method show that no significant change of the structure parameters with the erbium concentration occurs. On the basis of DC susceptibility measurements in the 2300 K ran-e the lowest four crystal field levels have been determined. giving the ground level magnetic moment value of 6.7 mu(B). Results of M(H) studies point to the presence of complex exchange interactions between erbium ions. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

X-ray powder diffraction line broadening analysis and magnetism of interacting ferrite nanoparticles obtained from acetylacetonato complexes

A study of the microstructures and magnetic properties of nanosize Zn ferrite (ZnFe2O4), Mn ferrite (MnFe2O4), and the cation deficit Zn-Mn ferrites Zn0.70Mn0.23Fe1.89O4 (S1), Zn0.41Mn0.50Fe1.84O4 (S2) and Zn0.18Mn0.67Fe1.85O4 (S3) was performed. The crystallite size for all samples was determined by x-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) analysis using four different methods, and was close to the particle size found from transmission electron microphotography. Among different methods of XRPD line broadening analysis it seems that the cubic harmonic function method is more precise and reliable than the Warren-Averbach and simplified integral breadth methods. M(T) and M(H) magnetization curves at different fields/temperatures indicate superparamagnetic behaviour of the samples. Asymmetric hysteresis loops and differences in coercive fields, H-C-(FC)-H-C- (ZFC), are discussed by both the core/shell model of nanoparticles and spin canting. The magnetic measurements with a maximum in the FC magnetization branches, the difference in M/M-S versus H/T curves above T-max, (temperature of maximum in ZFC magnetization), the nonlinearity in H-C versus T-1/2, the remanence/saturation ratio value, M-R/M-S and observation of the Almeida/Thouless line for low-field magnetization data (T-max versus H-2/3) indicate that the samples consist of an interacting ferrite nanoparticle ensemble