Parametry morfologiczne tętnic obwodowych w ocenie ryzyka sercowo-naczyniowego

Introduction. The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that ultrasound measurements of common carotid artery (CCAd) and brachial artery (BAd) diameters represent markers of higher coronary artery disease risk (CAD, defined as ≥ 50% reduction in diameter of at least one large coronary artery segment). Materials and methods. Seventy-one patients (pts) evaluated for suspected stable CAD (23.9% women, age 61.5 ± 7.5) underwent ultrasound measurements of averaged diameters of both common carotid arteries and the brachial artery diameter of dominant arm. Clinical protocol included also: standard medical examination, assessment of biochemical parameters, resting electrocardiography, treadmill exercise test and transthoracic echocardiography. Diagnosis was established using quantitative coronary angiography measurements and calculation of Gensini Score (GS). Results. Angiographic CAD was present in 43 (60.5%) patients. Average CCAd was larger in CAD group (7.97 ± 0.96 mm vs. 7.37 ± 0.67 mm, p = 0.0052), similar to BAd (5.06 ± 0.65 vs. 4.68 ± 0.75, p = 0.03), respectively. The peripheral arterial diameters correlated with values of GS index, more pronounced for CCAd (ρ = 0.35, p = 0.0023) than for BAd (ρ = 0.24, p = 0.0368). CCAd significantly more positively correlated with the distal coronary artery segments values of the GS index (ρ = 0.35, p = 0.0024), whereas the diameter of BA with the proximal segments values of GS index (ρ = 0.239, p = 0.045). CCA and BD diameters indexed to body surface area (BSA) showed a strong trend toward larger average diameters in CAD patients: CCAd/BSA index: 4.06 ± 0.46 mm/m2 vs. 3.85 ± 0.56 mm/m2, p = 0.087, BAd/BSA index: 2.57 ± 0.29 mm/m2 vs. 2.42 ± 0.35 mm/m2, p = 0.057. Gensini score significantly correlated with CCAd/BSA index (ρ = 0.24, p = 0.043) with a strong trend of positive correlation between GS index and BAd/BSA index (ρ = 0.21, p = 0.076). Conclusions. The diameters of common carotid arteries and the brachial artery of dominant arm are greater in CAD pts. Peripheral arteries ultrasound may complement classic diagnostic pathway of stable coronary artery disease.Wstęp. Celem badania była weryfikacja hipotezy, czy ultrasonograficzny pomiar średnic tętnic szyjnych wspólnych (CCAd) i tętnicy ramiennej (BAd) może stanowić marker zwiększonego ryzyka wystąpienia choroby wieńcowej (CAD), definiowanej jako zwężenie większe lub równe 50% średnicy co najmniej jednego segmentu dużej tętnicy wieńcowej. Materiały i metody. Diagnozowanych w kierunku choroby wieńcowej 71 pacjentów (23,9% kobiet, średni wiek 61,5 ± 7,5) poddano ultrasonograficznej ocenie średnic obu tętnic szyjnych wspólnych i tętnicy ramiennej dominującej kończyny górnej. Protokół badania obejmował również ocenę kliniczną, ocenę wskaźników biochemicznych, spoczynkowy zapis elektrokardiograficzny, elektrokardiograficzny test wysiłkowy, przezklatkowe badanie echokardiograficzne, z weryfikacją wyników w koronarografii i oceną zmian w naczyniach wieńcowych metodą cyfrowej angiografii ilościowej i wyliczeniem wskaźnika Gensiniego (GS). Wyniki. Obecność istotnych zwężeń w koronarografii stwierdzono u 43 (60,5%) pacjentów. Średnia wartość CCAd była większa u pacjentów z CAD (7,97 ± 0,96 mm vs. 7,37 ± 0,67 mm; p = 0,0052), podobnie jak wartość BAd (5,06 ± 0,65 vs. 4,68 ± 0,75; p = 0,03). Wartości średnic tętnic obwodowych korelowały ze wskaźnikiem GS bardziej wyraźnie w przypadku CCAd (ρ = 0,35; p = 0,0023) niż dla BAd (ρ = 0,24; p = 0,0368). Wartości CCAd znacząco wyraźniej dodatnio korelowały z dystalnymi segmentami (ρ = 0,35; p = 0,0024), natomiast średnica BA — z proksymalnymi segmentami tętnic wieńcowych ocenianych według GS (ρ = 0,239; p = 0,045). Po zastosowaniu metody indeksacji do pola powierzchni ciała (BSA) stwierdzono obecność silnego trendu w kierunku wyższych wartości średnic badanych tętnic obwodowych wśród pacjentów z chorobą wieńcową — wskaźnik CCAd/BSA: 4,06 ± 0,46 mm/m2 vs. 3,85 ± 0,56 mm/m2, p = 0,087, wskaźnik BAd/BSA: 2,57 ± 0,29 mm/m2 vs. 2,42 ± 0,35 mm/m2, p = 0,057. Wskaźnik Gensiniego znacząco korelował z indeksem CCAd/BSA (ρ = 0,24; p = 0,043) oraz wykazano dodatni trend w korelacji między wskaźnikiem GS i indeksem BAd/BSA (ρ = 0,21; p = 0,076). Wnioski. Średnice tętnic szyjnych wspólnych i średnicy ramiennej dominującej kończyny górnej są większe u pacjentów z CAD. Ultrasonografia tętnic obwodowych może stanowić uzupełniającą metodę w diagnostyce CAD

Prioritized Repairing and Consistent Query Answering in Relational Databases

A consistent query answer in an inconsistent database is an answer obtained in every (minimal) repair. The repairs are obtained by resolving all conflicts in all possible ways. Often, however, the user is able to provide a preference on how conflicts should be resolved. We investigate here the framework of preferred consistent query answers, in which user preferences are used to narrow down the set of repairs to a set of preferred repairs. We axiomatize desirable properties of preferred repairs. We present three different families of preferred repairs and study their mutual relationships. Finally, we investigate the complexity of preferred repairing and computing preferred consistent query answers.Comment: Accepted to the special SUM'08 issue of AMA

Statement by a Working Group conceived by the Polish National Consultants in Cardiology and Neurology addressing the use of implantable cardiac monitors in patients after ischaemic embolic stroke of undetermined source

Introduction. Stroke remains one of the main causes of death and the most common cause of long-term disability in adults. Embolic strokes of undetermined source (ESUS) amount to a significant proportion of all ischaemic strokes. Detection of atrial fibrillation (AF) in this group of patients would allow for a major therapeutic decision to switch from antiplatelets to oral anticoagulants and therefore significantly reduce the risk of recurrence. State of the Art. Current technology allows long-term continuous ECG monitoring with different systems, including implantable cardiac monitors (ICM). However, in Poland lack of reimbursement does not allow their use in everyday clinical practice. Clinical Implications. This is a statement by a Working Group conceived by the Polish National Consultants in Cardiology and Neurology addressing the use of ICM in patients after ischaemic embolic strokes of undetermined source. The aim was to develop reasonable and comprehensive guidance on how to select and manage candidates for ICM in order to obtain the maximum benefit for Polish public health. Future Directions. This expert opinion is not intended as a guideline but it provides advice as to how to optimise the potential use of ICM in patients after ESUS in the Polish setting

Assessment of Olfactory Function in MAPTAssociated Neurodegenerative Disease Reveals Odor-Identification Irreproducibility as a Non-Disease-Specific, General Characteristic of Olfactory Dysfunction

Olfactory dysfunction is associated with normal aging, multiple neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body disease and Alzheimer’s disease, and other diseases such as diabetes, sleep apnea and the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis. The wide spectrum of neurodegenerative disorders associated with olfactory dysfunction suggests different, potentially overlapping, underlying pathophysiologies. Studying olfactory dysfunction in presymptomatic carriers of mutations known to cause familial parkinsonism provides unique opportunities to understand the role of genetic factors, delineate the salient characteristics of the onset of olfactory dysfunction, and understand when it starts relative to motor and cognitive symptoms. We evaluated olfactory dysfunction in 28 carriers of two MAPT mutations (p.N279K, p.P301L), which cause frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism, using the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test. Olfactory dysfunction in carriers does not appear to be allele specific, but is strongly age-dependent and precedes symptomatic onset. Severe olfactory dysfunction, however, is not a fully penetrant trait at the time of symptom onset. Principal component analysis revealed that olfactory dysfunction is not odor-class specific, even though individual odor responses cluster kindred members according to genetic and disease status. Strikingly, carriers with incipient olfactory dysfunction show poor inter-test consistency among the sets of odors identified incorrectly in successive replicate tests, even before severe olfactory dysfunction appears. Furthermore, when 78 individuals without neurodegenerative disease and 14 individuals with sporadic Parkinson’s disease were evaluated twice at a one-year interval using the Brief Smell Identification Test, the majority also showed inconsistency in the sets of odors they identified incorrectly, independent of age and cognitive status. While these findings may reflect the limitations of these tests used and the sample sizes, olfactory dysfunction appears to be associated with the inability to identify odors reliably and consistently, not with the loss of an ability to identify specific odors. Irreproducibility in odor identification appears to be a non-disease-specific, general feature of olfactory dysfunction that is accelerated or accentuated in neurodegenerative disease. It may reflect a fundamental organizational principle of the olfactory system, which is more “error-prone” than other sensory systems

Schemas for Unordered XML on a DIME

We investigate schema languages for unordered XML having no relative order among siblings. First, we propose unordered regular expressions (UREs), essentially regular expressions with unordered concatenation instead of standard concatenation, that define languages of unordered words to model the allowed content of a node (i.e., collections of the labels of children). However, unrestricted UREs are computationally too expensive as we show the intractability of two fundamental decision problems for UREs: membership of an unordered word to the language of a URE and containment of two UREs. Consequently, we propose a practical and tractable restriction of UREs, disjunctive interval multiplicity expressions (DIMEs). Next, we employ DIMEs to define languages of unordered trees and propose two schema languages: disjunctive interval multiplicity schema (DIMS), and its restriction, disjunction-free interval multiplicity schema (IMS). We study the complexity of the following static analysis problems: schema satisfiability, membership of a tree to the language of a schema, schema containment, as well as twig query satisfiability, implication, and containment in the presence of schema. Finally, we study the expressive power of the proposed schema languages and compare them with yardstick languages of unordered trees (FO, MSO, and Presburger constraints) and DTDs under commutative closure. Our results show that the proposed schema languages are capable of expressing many practical languages of unordered trees and enjoy desirable computational properties.Comment: Theory of Computing System

Adsorption of n-alkanes in ZIF-8: Influence of crystal size and framework dynamics

Due to its exceptional chemical and thermal stability, ZIF-8 is one of the most promising representatives of nanoporous metal-organic frameworks. In this work, we investigate adsorption properties of this material both experimentally and theoretically. The experiments were carried out on 8 preparations differing in morphology of the crystals. Adsorption was studied in isothermal approach exploiting standard adsorbates, such as N2 or CO2, as well as in isobaric regime with C5–C9 linear alkanes. The latter were performed with the novel quasi-equilibrated temperature-programmed desorption and adsorption (QE-TPDA) technique showing that a complexity of n-alkanes adsorption mechanism in ZIF-8 depends on the nature of adsorbate. Unexpectedly, for adsorption of C7–C9 n-alkanes a two-step process was found. QE-TPDA yielded high quality adsorption isobars which were successfully reproduced by Grand-Canonical Monte Carlo molecular simulations. The calculations showed that the specific adsorption behaviour of ZIF-8 is due to the fact that its structure undergoes conformational changes in order to adapt to the guest molecules. QE-TPDA measurements with n-nonane were performed at conditions close to saturation of the adsorbate. This allowed to observe surface-related adsorption on the ZIF-8 crystals, which was correlated with their size.</p

Enhancing the water capacity in Zr-based metal-organic framework for heat pump and atmospheric water generator applications

\u3cp\u3eAccording to the European Commission, in 2016 the residential sector represented 25.4% of the final energy consumption. Heating and cooling in EU households account for 69.1% of the total energy consumption. The fraction of 84% for heating and cooling is still generated from fossil fuels, and only 16% is generated from renewable energy. To decrease carbon dioxide emissions of fossil fuel consumption, it is crucial to find alternatives to supply the heating and cooling demand. Alternatives such as adsorption-based heat pumps and desiccant cooling systems are receiving much attention because of their moderate energy consumption. These systems are based on the energetic exchange during the adsorption/desorption of working fluids. In this work, we combined experiments and simulations to evaluate the viability of several zeolites and MOFs with water for cooling systems applications. We combined the study of adsorption mechanisms and the dynamics of water inside the pores of the structures, thereby obtaining an overall understanding of the working pair. We found that the Al content in FAU-topology zeolites is a key factor for an efficient process. We also identify ZJNU-30 metal-organic framework as a suitable candidate for cooling applications because of its outstanding water capacity, cooling capacity, and coefficient of performance.\u3c/p\u3

π-Complexation for olefin/paraffin separation using aluminosilicates

International audienc

Enhancing the Water Capacity in Zr-Based Metal–Organic Framework for Heat Pump and Atmospheric Water Generator Applications

According to the European Commission, in 2016 the residential sector represented 25.4% of the final energy consumption. Heating and cooling in EU households account for 69.1% of the total energy consumption. The fraction of 84% for heating and cooling is still generated from fossil fuels, and only 16% is generated from renewable energy. To decrease carbon dioxide emissions of fossil fuel consumption, it is crucial to find alternatives to supply the heating and cooling demand. Alternatives such as adsorption-based heat pumps and desiccant cooling systems are receiving much attention because of their moderate energy consumption. These systems are based on the energetic exchange during the adsorption/desorption of working fluids. In this work, we combined experiments and simulations to evaluate the viability of several zeolites and MOFs with water for cooling systems applications. We combined the study of adsorption mechanisms and the dynamics of water inside the pores of the structures, thereby obtaining an overall understanding of the working pair. We found that the Al content in FAU-topology zeolites is a key factor for an efficient process. We also identify ZJNU-30 metal–organic framework as a suitable candidate for cooling applications because of its outstanding water capacity, cooling capacity, and coefficient of performance.Accepted Author ManuscriptEngineering Thermodynamic