Renal vascularisation anomalies in the Polish population. Coexistence of arterial and venous anomalies in the vascular pedicle of the kidney

Background: The aim of the study was to determine the coexistence of arterial and venous anomalies in the vascular pedicle of the kidney in the Polish population.  Materials and methods: The study group comprised 550 corpses, including 281 male (mean age 52 ± 22 years), and 269 female corpses (mean age 56.4 ± ± 23 years) (p = 0.02). The vascular bundle was removed together with the kidney, “en bloc”; the vessels were subject to radiological contrasting and preparation. The obtained results were subject to statistical analysis (the exact Fisher test, c2 test of independence for cross-tabulation 2 × 2 tables, and the odds ratio with the confidence interval at a level of 0.95, calculated on the basis of the contin- gency dependence). Statistica 12 and Microsoft Excel were used for calculations.  Results: Variations in the structure of the renal venous system were observed in 33.8%; insignificantly more often in male (35.9%), as compared to female patients (31.6%). Deviations in the structure of the renal arteries were observed significantly more often in patients with renal venous system developmental disorders (p = 0.0071). In patients with a normal renal venous system, arterial kidney structure deviations were observed in 34.9% of cases, significantly more often in male (40%), as compared to female (29.7%) patients (p = 0.043). On the other hand, in venous system pathologies, the above-mentioned deviations were observed in 46.8% of cases (p = 0.002). Amongst developmental anomalies of the venous system, right-sided venous excess was observed in 20.4% of cases, including 48% of renal artery developmental pathologies, significantly more often in male (61.3%), as compared to female (32%) patients (p = 0.002).  Conclusions: Renal artery anomalies of the kidney vascular pedicle are significan- tly correlated with the coexistence of venous system variations. This is especially true for male patients, which favours female kidneys for transplantation.

Investigations on renal vascularisation pathology in the Polish population. 1. Incidence of multiple kidney arteries

Background: The aim of the study was to determine the incidence of multiple kidney arteries in the Polish population. Materials and methods: The study group comprised 924 deceased patients aged between 1 month and 94 years (mean age: 63.4 ± 22.4 years) who were subject to aortonephrography and sample preparation. The ratio of male to female patients was 479:445. Results: Multiple kidney arteries were observed in 44.8% male and 31.5% female patients (p = 0.004). Considering male patients, right multiple kidney arteries were diagnosed in 24.4%, and left multiple kidney arteries in 31.3% of cases (p = 0.017). In female patients, right multiple kidney arteries were observed in 17.8% of cases, and left multiple kidney arteries in 19.6% of cases (p = 0.49). Conclusions: The incidence of multiple kidney arteries in the Polish population is a frequent phenomenon, and should be considered in case of urological surgery and kidney transplantation.

Investigations into human tracheal cartilage osseocalcineus metaplasia. I. Radiographic findings

Osseocalcineus metaplasia (OCM) of the tracheal cartilages is well known, but no exact data are available relating it to age and sex. To resolve this problem we analysed tracheal teleradiograms of 99 female (age: 0.4&#8211;92; x = 59.98 &#177; &#177; 22.75 years) and 110 male patients (age: 0&#8211;83; x = 53.53 &#177; 19.95 years). As the first step we estimated the percentage of trachea that had complete lesions, those that had trace lesions and those that were unchanged in relation to the patient&#8217;s age and sex. Secondly we determined the extent and growth of developing lesions during the process of ageing. Data were collected for all the cartilages, with two cartilages with trace lesions considered to be of similar value to one cartilage with complete remodelling. This enabled us to determine the correlation coefficient for changed cartilages and patient age and also the dynamism of OCM in the trachea examined. The c&#178; and Student&#8217;s t tests were used in determining the mean differences between subgroups. The lesions referred to above occurred in 66.35% of men and in 33.33% of women and correlated with age (r = 0.93, p < 0.001 in men, and r = 0.27, p < 0.01 in women). Total remodelling of the OCM occurred in the oldest age group, when both sexes were taken into consideration, while cartilages with trace changes were detected in the younger group of patients. The lowest mean patient age was observed in the group without tracheal changes. Osseocalcineus metaplasia of the tracheal cartilages was conditioned by patient age and sex. In male patients it occurred twice as often as in females. Until the age of 50 it occurred as much as nine times as often, while after this age it occurred only twice as often as in female patients. (Folia Morphol 2008; 67: 143&#8211;149

Studies on renal arteries origin from the aorta in respect to superior mesenteric artery in Polish population

Background: The aim of the study was to determine the location of the branchingof the renal arteries from the aorta in respect to superior mesenteric artery. Materials and methods: Three hundred twenty four vasculorenal samples were collected from corpses (180 male and 144 female), and subject to X-ray contrasting and preparation. The distance between the branching of selected arteries from the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) was measured. Results were subject to statistical analysis. Results: Results were presented in group A (191/324; 58.9%) considering subjects with bilateral, single renal arteries, as well as group B (133/324; 41.1%) considering patients with multiple renal arteries. The average distance between SMA and the renal artery in group A male patients was 0.6 ± 0.57 cm, while in group B 1.3 ± 2.03 cm (p = 0.0001). In the case of female A patients, results amounted to 0.66 ± 0.58 cm and 1.12 ± 1.7 cm, respectively (p = 0.006). The above mentioned left-sided distance in male group A was 0.89 ± 56 cm, while the right-sided distance 0.73 ± 0.94 cm (p = 0.382). In female A patients 0.80 ± 0.50 cm and 0.71 ± 0.89 cm, respectively (p = 0.615). In left-sided group B male patients the distance amounted to 0.87 ± 0.70 cm, and the right-sided distance 0.71 ± 0.60 cm (p = 0.291). Considering female patients results were as follows: 0.82 ± 0.51 cm (left) and 71 ± 1.21 cm (right), respectively (p = 0.706). Conclusions: Knowledge of the described topography of renal artery branching from the aorta should be considered in the preoperative planning of vascular kidney system radiology examinations, as well as retroperitoneal surgical and urological procedures, especially endoscopic kidney transplantations

Final report on practical assessment of the RESCUE architecture:ICT-619555 RESCUE D4.4 Version 1.0

Abstract This deliverable summarizes the practical assessment of the links-on-the-fly concept. To do so, a software and hardware integration based on GNU Radio and SDR devices has been performed. Intensive verification and validation within three different testing facilities provided a stable framework for the subsequent assessment. The evaluation strategy comprises experiments under controllable and reproducible test conditions considering the OTAinVEE approach followed by field trials in an indoor testbed emulating the public safety use case, as well as outdoor tests emulating the V2V scenario. Finally, the outcomes of the practical evaluations are compared and analyzed jointly. These results are also analyzed in the light of previous outcomes from other work packages within the RESCUE project.Executive summary D4.4 is the final report of WP4. It presents the software and hardware integration into the selected SDR platform as well as the functional validation and first results within the OTAinVEE test facility. Moreover, two real field experimental trials have been planned and conducted for an indoor and outdoor scenario respectively. The deliverable aims to close the performance validation circle envisaged within the RESCUE project: increasing degree of realistic assumptions during the specific validation stages starting from WP1 over to WP2 and WP3 and finally to WP4. However, real field experiments are usually limited by the number of device deployments, capabilities of the selected software and hardware platform as well as limits in the available experimental time-frame. Therefore, the reported experiments cover the basic scenarios TS0 and TS1, consisting of two and three nodes, respectively. The deliverable consists of four main parts. The first part gives a detailed technical background of the software and hardware framework used to incorporate the RESCUE architecture. For this reason, and in order to obtain stable, reproducible and trustable results, the open-source GNU Radio framework and USRPs from Ettus/National Instruments have been selected as a compromise between flexibility, performance, and costs. Standard building blocks from GNU Radio have been customized to provide a basic physical and MAC layout. Contributions from WP2 and WP3 in terms of implemented software blocks were integrated, including the RESCUE coding algorithms (from WP2) and the network protocols (from WP3). Besides iterative bug fixing and code optimization, the challenging tasks during the testbed verification were the frame synchronization, SNR estimation, and calibration of the testbeds between different WP4 partners. The second part summarizes the verification and experiments based on the OTAinVEE (over-the-air in a virtual electromagnetic environment) concept. Within RESCUE, this specific validation stage turned out to be very valuable since the controllable and reproducible test conditions allowed for deep software and hardware verification followed by intensive performance validation before the real field experiments were conducted. The third part of the deliverable focuses on the real field experiments. Initially, trials were planned only for the public safety scenario with a focus on an indoor deployment. For the V2V use case, performance studies based on the OTAinVEE framework had been programmed. However, following the recommendation from the RESCUE reviewers suggesting to study the RESCUE architecture not only under synthesized traffic and propagation conditions but also to conduct real field experiments, the consortium deployed additional efforts for this purpose. Consequently, for both deployments the technical configuration and experimental test plan are detailed in this document. Whereby for the V2V setup one of the challenging parts was to integrate an efficient hence remote access to each mobile node in such a way that the individual measurements could be configured and started while the vehicles were moving. Numerous experiments have been conducted in particular for TS0 PHY and MAC as well as for TS1. However, other scenarios or more intense trials have been limited by the enormous time consumption of each single test to provide enough datasets fulfilling statistical means. The fourth part of D4.4 provides final assessments and conclusions. It aims to bridge the research and validation methods used within the RESCUE project and their subsequent performance results. The considered stages of performance validation balance between realism and simplification while moving from theory to practice. Results from three different WPs: WP2, WP3 as well as WP4 are discussed and related among each other. From the validation method perspective it can be concluded that this project was able to research the capabilities of the links-on-the-fly concept with a very ambitious approach bridging the ineluctable gap between theory and practice. It was found that the gains of this new architecture are impacted by the implementation of more practical-oriented validation methods of increasing complexity. A detailed analysis identifying the potential impact of the validation methodologies on the given results, e.g., the small number of nodes during the experiments or constraints by the software and hardware implementation and integration of the test platform, are left for future study