Low Quantitative Blush Evaluator score predicts larger infarct size and reduced left ventricular systolic function in patients with STEMI regardless of diabetes status

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and diminished myocardial perfusion increase the risk of heart failure (HF) and/or all-cause mortality during 6-year follow up following primary percutaneous coronary intervention (pPCI) for ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of myocardial perfusion on infarct size and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in patients with T2DM and STEMI treated with pPCI. This is an ancillary analysis of an observational cohort study of T2DM patients with STEMI. We enrolled 406 patients with STEMI, including 104 with T2DM. Myocardial perfusion was assessed with the Quantitative Myocardial Blush Evaluator (QUBE) and infarct size with the creatine kinase myocardial band (CK-MB) maximal activity and troponin area under the curve. LVEF was measured with biplane echocardiography using Simpson's method at admission and hospital discharge. Analysis of covariance was used for modeling the association between myocardial perfusion, infarct size and left ventricular systolic function. Patients with T2DM and diminished perfusion (QUBE below median) had the highest CK-MB maximal activity (252.7 ± 307.2 IU/L, P < 0.01) along with the lowest LVEF (40.6 ± 10.0, P < 0.001). Older age (p = 0.001), QuBE below median (p = 0.026), and maximal CK-MB activity (p < 0.001) were independent predictors of LVEF. Diminished myocardial perfusion assessed by QuBE predicts significantly larger enzymatic infarct size and lower LVEF among patients with STEMI treated with pPCI, regardless of diabetes status

Stand-Off Detection of Alcohol Vapors Exhaled by Humans

Early detection of humans under the influence of alcohol in public places (workplace, public gathering) is particularly important for safety reasons. In this article, the theoretical analysis of stand-off detection of alcohol in the air exhaled by humans as well as experimental results of the developed experimental setup is presented. The concept of differential absorption of two laser beams at different wavelengths was used. The idea of using standard deviation of the relative difference of the amplitudes of two signals to detect the alcohol was applied for the first time. The idea was verified by the experiments and it was shown that a reliable device can be developed that can efficiently detect alcohol concentration in the exhaled air at the level of 0.3 mg/L (0.63&permil;). Moreover, the concept of such device examining humans entering a specific area was proposed. The results of this article may be useful to scientists or engineers working on alcohol detection in human blood

Design status of the ITER core CXRS diagnostic setup

The Charge eXchange Recombination Spectroscopy diagnostic system on the ITER plasma core (CXRS core) will provide spatially resolved measurements of plasma parameters. The optical front-end is located in upper port 3 and the light of 460–665 nm is routed to spectrometers housed in the tritium building. This paper describes the layout of the optical system in the port plug, cell and interspace areas. The layout is a continuation of the developments described in [1] and takes into account changes in the design of the upper port plug, considerations for the system lifetime as well as internal and external tolerances on the optical chain. The layout was selected also with a number of additional criteria, including optical performance, radiation shielding, maintainability and robustness. A free-space optical chain was added pushing the optical fibres to the port cell. A line-of-sight finder imaging apertures and masks in the optical chain was added to enable determination of deviations within the optical chain and stabilise the image on the fibres. Where feasible, existing solutions for sub-systems such as the shutter were adapted to the layout