Short-Term Outcomes After COVID-19-Related Treatment Interruption Among Patients with Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration Receiving Intravitreal Bevacizumab

Purpose: To assess outcomes and recovery strategy of patients undergoing intravitreal injections for exudative age-related macular degeneration who experienced COVID-19 related interruption in treatment during complete lockdown. Methods: This was a retrospective, observational case study. We used a mixed effect model with random intercepts to evaluate best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) accounting for measured central macular thickness (CMT) and individual variability of each eye. Furthermore, we analysed measures of the pigmented epithelium detachment as well as presence of subretinal fluid and intraretinal cysts. Results: We included 39 patients and we found a significant reduction in the BCVA between the pre- and post-lockdown controlling for CMT. There was no significant difference in pigmented epithelium detachment and in presence of subretinal fluid and intraretinal cysts. Conclusion: We detected a significant loss in visual function. The magnitude of the average loss was, however, limited suggesting good efficacy of the recovery strategy

Curcumin in Retinal Diseases: A Comprehensive Review from Bench to Bedside

Recent evidence in basic science is leading to a growing interest in the possible role of curcumin in treating retinal diseases. Curcumin has been demonstrated to be able to modulate gene transcription and reduce ganglion cell apoptosis, downgrade VEGF, modulate glucose levels and decrease vascular dysfunction. So far, the use of curcumin has been limited by poor bioavailability; to overcome this issue, different types of carriers have been used. Multiple recent studies disclosed the efficacy of using curcumin in treating different retinal conditions. The aim of this review is to comprehensively review and discuss the role of curcumin in retinal diseases from bench to bedside

Effect of Systemic Hypertension With Versus Without Left Ventricular Hypertrophy on the Progression of Atrial Fibrillation (from the Euro Heart Survey).

Hypertension is a risk factor for both progression of atrial fibrillation (AF) and development of AF-related complications, that is major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE). It is unknown whether left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) as a consequence of hypertension is also a risk factor for both these end points. We aimed to assess this in low-risk AF patients, also assessing gender-related differences. We included 799 patients from the Euro Heart Survey with nonvalvular AF and a baseline echocardiogram. Patients with and without hypertension were included. End points after 1 year were occurrence of AF progression, that is paroxysmal AF becoming persistent and/or permanent AF, and MACCE. Echocardiographic LVH was present in 33% of 379 hypertensive patients. AF progression after 1 year occurred in 10.2% of 373 patients with rhythm follow-up. In hypertensive patients with LVH, AF progression occurred more frequently as compared with hypertensive patients without LVH (23.3% vs 8.8%, p = 0.011). In hypertensive AF patients, LVH was the most important multivariably adjusted determinant of AF progression on multivariable logistic regression (odds ratio 4.84, 95% confidence interval 1.70 to 13.78, p = 0.003). This effect was only seen in male patients (27.5% vs 5.8%, p = 0.002), while in female hypertensive patients, no differences were found in AF progression rates regarding the presence or absence of LVH (15.2% vs 15.0%, p = 0.999). No differences were seen in MACCE for hypertensive patients with and without LVH. In conclusion, in men with hypertension, LVH is associated with AF progression. This association seems to be absent in hypertensive women

Progression From Paroxysmal to Persistent Atrial Fibrillation. Clinical Correlates and Prognosis

Objectives: We investigated clinical correlates of atrial fibrillation (AF) progression and evaluated the prognosis of patients demonstrating AF progression in a large population. Background: Progression of paroxysmal AF to more sustained forms is frequently seen. However, not all patients will progress to persistent AF. Methods: We included 1,219 patients with paroxysmal AF who participated in the Euro Heart Survey on AF and had a known rhythm status at follow-up. Patients who experienced AF progression after 1 year of follow-up were identified. Results: Progression of AF occurred in 178 (15%) patients. Multivariate analysis showed that heart failure, age, previous transient ischemic attack or stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and hypertension were the only independent predictors of AF progression. Using the regression coefficient as a benchmark, we calculated the HATCH score. Nearly 50% of the patients with a HATCH score >5 progressed to persistent AF compared with only 6% of the patients with a HATCH score of 0. During follow-up, patients with AF progression were more often admitted to the hospital and had more major adverse cardiovascular events. Conclusions: A substantial number of patients progress to sustained AF within 1 year. The clinical outcome of these patients regarding hospital admissions and major adverse cardiovascular events was worse compared with patients demonstrating no AF progression. Factors known to cause atrial structural remodeling (age and underlying heart disease) were independent predictors of AF progression. The HATCH score may help to identify patients who are likely to progress to sustained forms of AF in the near future. \ua9 2010 American College of Cardiology Foundation

Data for: Stencil Selection Algorithms for WENO Schemes on Unstructured Meshes

Videos of 1)Transonic flow past cylinder using WENO 5th-order scheme2) Kelvin-Helmholtz instability with three stencil types (T1, T2, T3) using WENO 3rd and WENO 6th-order schemes3) Blown-up version Kelvin-Helmholtz instability with three stencil types (T1, T2, T3) using WENO 3rd and WENO 6th-order scheme

Data for: Stencil Selection Algorithms for WENO Schemes on Unstructured Meshes

Videos of 1)Transonic flow past cylinder using WENO 5th-order scheme2) Kelvin-Helmholtz instability with three stencil types (T1, T2, T3) using WENO 3rd and WENO 6th-order schemes3) Blown-up version Kelvin-Helmholtz instability with three stencil types (T1, T2, T3) using WENO 3rd and WENO 6th-order schemesTHIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOV

Part-load performance of gas turbines - Part II: Multi-point adaptation with compressor map generation and ga optimization

Accurate gas turbine performance simulation is a vital aid to the operational and maintenance strategy of thermal plants having gas turbines as their prime mover. Prediction of the part load performance of a gas turbine depends on the quality of the engine's component maps. Taking into consideration that compressor maps are proprietary information of the manufacturers, several methods have been developed to encounter the above limitation by scaling and adapting component maps. This part of the paper presents a new off-design performance adaptation approach with the use of a novel compressor map generation method and Genetic Algorithms (GA) optimization. A set of coefficients controlling a generic compressor performance map analytically is used in the optimization process for the adaptation of the gas turbine performance model to match available engine test data. The developed method has been tested with off-design performance simulations and applied to a GE LM2500+ aeroderivative gas turbine operating in Manx Electricity Authority's combined cycle power plant in the Isle of Man. It has been also compared with an earlier off-design performance adaptation approach, and shown some advantages in the performance adaptation. Copyright © 2012 by ASME

Blade-resolved CFD simulations of a periodic array of NREL 5 MW rotors with and without towers

A fully resolved (FR) NREL 5 MW turbine model is employed in two unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) simulations (one with and one without the turbine tower) of a periodic atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) to study the performance of an infinitely large wind farm. The results show that the power reduction due to the tower drag is about 5% under the assumption that the driving force of the ABL is unchanged. Two additional simulations using an actuator disc (AD) model are also conducted. The AD and FR results show nearly identical tower-induced reductions of the wind speed above the wind farm, supporting the argument that the AD model is sufficient to predict the wind farm blockage effect. We also investigate the feasibility of performing delayed-detached-eddy simulations (DDES) using the same FR turbine model and periodic domain setup. The results show complex turbulent flow characteristics within the farm, such as the interaction of large-scale hairpin-like vortices with smaller-scale blade-tip vortices. The computational cost of the DDES required for a given number of rotor revolutions is found to be similar to the corresponding URANS simulation, but the sampling period required to obtain meaningful time-averaged results seems much longer due to the existence of long-timescale fluctuations

Part-load performance of gas turbines - Part I: A novel compressor map generation approach suitable for adaptive simulation

Part-load performance prediction of gas turbines is strongly dependent on detailed understanding of engine component behavior and mainly that of compressors. The accuracy of gas turbine engine models relies on the compressor performance maps, which are obtained in costly rig tests and remain manufacturer's proprietary information. The gas turbine research community has addressed this limitation by scaling default generic compressor maps in order to match the targeted off-design measurements. This approach is efficient in small range of operating conditions but becomes less accurate for wide range of operating conditions. In this part of the paper a novel method of compressor map generation which has a primary objective to improve the accuracy of engine models performance at part load conditions is presented. This is to generate a generic form of equations to represent the lines of constant speed and constant efficiency of the compressor map for a generic compressor. The parameters that control the shape of the compressor map have been expressed in their simplest form in order to aid the adaptation p rocess. The proposed compressor map generation method has the capacity to refine current gas turbine performance adaptation techniques, and it has been integrated into Cranfield's PYTHIA gas turbine performance simulation and diagnostics software tool. Copyright © 2012 by ASME