Response of angina and ischemia to long-term treatment in patients with chronic stable angina: A double-blind randomised individualized dosing trial of nifedipine, propranolol and their combination

AbstractSeventy-four patients with chronic stable mild angina, mild coronary artery disease (83% had one- or two-vessel disease) and normal left ventricular function were studied to measure the response of treadmill exercise performance and painful and silent ischemia in the ambulatory setting to randomly assigned treatment with nifedipine or propranolol and their combination; titration to maximal tolerated dosages was performed in doubleblind manner.At 3 months both nifedipine and propranolol reduced the weekly angina rate (p < 0.05); during treadmill exercise testing, increases (p < 0.05) were noted in time to angina and total exercise time and decreases in maximal ST depression at the end of exercise. There were no differences between the responses to nifedipine and propranolol and no significant additional changes were seen after another 3 months of therapy. The combination of nifedipine and propranolol reduced the number of patients with angina on exercise treadmill testing from 64% to 38% (p < 0.05).During ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring before treatment, there were 1.4 ± 2.4 (mean ± SD) episodes/24 h of painful ischemia and a very low silent ischemia frequency: mean 1.1 ± 2.7 episodes/24 h, mean duration 16 ± 25 min/24 h. Treatment with propranolol and nifedipine resulted in reduction of episodes and duration of painful and painless ischemia; approximately 77% of patients were free of all ischemic episodes.It is concluded that patients with chronic stable mild angina have a low incidence of silent ischemia. Nifedipine or propranolol alone, titrated to individualized maximally tolerated dosages, are equally effective in long-term control of painful and painless ischemia, anginal episodes and exercise-induced ischemia. Combination therapy further reduced only exercise-induced angina and maximal exercise-induced ST depression

The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

This paper describes the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), marking the completion of the original goals of the SDSS and the end of the phase known as SDSS-II. It includes 11663 deg^2 of imaging data, with most of the roughly 2000 deg^2 increment over the previous data release lying in regions of low Galactic latitude. The catalog contains five-band photometry for 357 million distinct objects. The survey also includes repeat photometry over 250 deg^2 along the Celestial Equator in the Southern Galactic Cap. A coaddition of these data goes roughly two magnitudes fainter than the main survey. The spectroscopy is now complete over a contiguous area of 7500 deg^2 in the Northern Galactic Cap, closing the gap that was present in previous data releases. There are over 1.6 million spectra in total, including 930,000 galaxies, 120,000 quasars, and 460,000 stars. The data release includes improved stellar photometry at low Galactic latitude. The astrometry has all been recalibrated with the second version of the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC-2), reducing the rms statistical errors at the bright end to 45 milli-arcseconds per coordinate. A systematic error in bright galaxy photometr is less severe than previously reported for the majority of galaxies. Finally, we describe a series of improvements to the spectroscopic reductions, including better flat-fielding and improved wavelength calibration at the blue end, better processing of objects with extremely strong narrow emission lines, and an improved determination of stellar metallicities. (Abridged)Comment: 20 pages, 10 embedded figures. Accepted to ApJS after minor correction

SEGUE : a spectroscopic survey of 240,000 stars with g=14-20

The Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) Survey obtained approximate to 240,000 moderate-resolution (R similar to 1800) spectra from 3900 angstrom to 9000 angstrom of fainter Milky Way stars (14.0 10 per resolution element, stellar atmospheric parameters are estimated, including metallicity, surface gravity, and effective temperature. SEGUE obtained 3500 deg(2) of additional ugriz imaging (primarily at low Galactic latitudes) providing precise multicolor photometry (sigma(g, r, i) similar to 2%), (sigma(u, z) similar to 3%) and astrometry (approximate to 0 ''.1) for spectroscopic target selection. The stellar spectra, imaging data, and derived parameter catalogs for this survey are publicly available as part of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7

The sixth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

This paper describes the Sixth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. With this data release, the imaging of the northern Galactic cap is now complete. The survey contains images and parameters of roughly 287 million objects over 9583 deg(2), including scans over a large range of Galactic latitudes and longitudes. The survey also includes 1.27 million spectra of stars, galaxies, quasars, and blank sky ( for sky subtraction) selected over 7425 deg2. This release includes much more stellar spectroscopy than was available in previous data releases and also includes detailed estimates of stellar temperatures, gravities, and metallicities. The results of improved photometric calibration are now available, with uncertainties of roughly 1% in g, r, i, and z, and 2% in u, substantially better than the uncertainties in previous data releases. The spectra in this data release have improved wavelength and flux calibration, especially in the extreme blue and extreme red, leading to the qualitatively better determination of stellar types and radial velocities. The spectrophotometric fluxes are now tied to point-spread function magnitudes of stars rather than fiber magnitudes. This gives more robust results in the presence of seeing variations, but also implies a change in the spectrophotometric scale, which is now brighter by roughly 0.35 mag. Systematic errors in the velocity dispersions of galaxies have been fixed, and the results of two independent codes for determining spectral classifications and red-shifts are made available. Additional spectral outputs are made available, including calibrated spectra from individual 15 minute exposures and the sky spectrum subtracted from each exposure. We also quantify a recently recognized underestimation of the brightnesses of galaxies of large angular extent due to poor sky subtraction; the bias can exceed 0.2 mag for galaxies brighter than r = 14 mag