Cardiovascular imaging 2010 in the International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging

Cardiovascular Aspects of Radiolog

Echocardiography in takotsubo cardiomyopathy; a useful approach?

Cardiac Dysfunction and Arrhythmia

Foraging patterns of acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) on valley oak (Quercus lobata Née) in two California oak savanna-woodlands

Landscape characteristics and social behavior can affect the foraging patterns of seed-dependent animals. We examine the movement of acorns from valley oak (Quercus lobata) trees to granaries maintained by acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) in two California oak savanna-woodlands differing in the distribution of Q. lobata within each site. In 2004, we sampled Q. lobata acorns from 16 granaries at Sedgwick Reserve in Santa Barbara County and 18 granaries at Hastings Reserve in Monterey County. Sedgwick has lower site-wide density of Q. lobata than Hastings as well as different frequencies of other Quercus species common to both sites. We found acorn woodpeckers foraged from fewer Q. lobata seed source trees (Kg = 4.1 ± 0.5) at Sedgwick than at Hastings (Kg = 7.6 ± 0.6) and from fewer effective seed sources (Nem* = 2.00 and 5.78, respectively). The differences between sites are due to a greater number of incidental seed sources used per granary at Hastings than at Sedgwick. We also found very low levels of seed source sharing between adjacent granaries, indicating that territoriality is strong at both sites and that each social group forages on its own subset of trees. We discovered an interesting spatial pattern in the location of granaries. At Sedgwick, acorn woodpeckers situated their granaries within areas of higher-than-average tree density, while at Hastings, they placed them within areas of lower-than-average tree density, with the outcome that granaries at the two sites were located in areas of similar valley oak density. Our results illustrate that landscape characteristics might influence the number of trees visited by acorn woodpeckers and the locations of territories, while woodpecker social behavior, such as territoriality, shapes which trees are visited and whether they are shared with other social groups

Cellular Radiosensitivity: How much better do we understand it?

Purpose: Ionizing radiation exposure gives rise to a variety of lesions in DNA that result in genetic instability and potentially tumorigenesis or cell death. Radiation extends its effects on DNA by direct interaction or by radiolysis of H2O that generates free radicals or aqueous electrons capable of interacting with and causing indirect damage to DNA. While the various lesions arising in DNA after radiation exposure can contribute to the mutagenising effects of this agent, the potentially most damaging lesion is the DNA double strand break (DSB) that contributes to genome instability and/or cell death. Thus in many cases failure to recognise and/or repair this lesion determines the radiosensitivity status of the cell. DNA repair mechanisms including homologous recombination (HR) and non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) have evolved to protect cells against DNA DSB. Mutations in proteins that constitute these repair pathways are characterised by radiosensitivity and genome instability. Defects in a number of these proteins also give rise to genetic disorders that feature not only genetic instability but also immunodeficiency, cancer predisposition, neurodegeneration and other pathologies. Conclusions: In the past fifty years our understanding of the cellular response to radiation damage has advanced enormously with insight being gained from a wide range of approaches extending from more basic early studies to the sophisticated approaches used today. In this review we discuss our current understanding of the impact of radiation on the cell and the organism gained from the array of past and present studies and attempt to provide an explanation for what it is that determines the response to radiation

The 20 year evolution of dobutamine stress cardiovascular magnetic resonance

Over the past 20 years, investigators world-wide have developed and utilized dobutamine magnetic resonance stress testing procedures for the purpose of identifying ischemia, viability, and cardiac prognosis. This article traces these developments and reviews the data utilized to substantiate this relatively new noninvasive imaging procedure

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Search for the neutral Higgs bosons of the minimal supersymmetric standard model in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for neutral Higgs bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is reported. The analysis is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The data were recorded in 2011 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb-1 to 4.8 fb-1. Higgs boson decays into oppositely-charged muon or τ lepton pairs are considered for final states requiring either the presence or absence of b-jets. No statistically significant excess over the expected background is observed and exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level are derived. The exclusion limits are for the production cross-section of a generic neutral Higgs boson, φ, as a function of the Higgs boson mass and for h/A/H production in the MSSM as a function of the parameters mA and tan β in the mhmax scenario for mA in the range of 90GeV to 500 GeV. Copyright CERN

Search for R-parity-violating supersymmetry in events with four or more leptons in sqrt(s) =7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for new phenomena in final states with four or more leptons (electrons or muons) is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of $\sqrt{s}=7\;\mathrm{TeV}$ proton-proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in two signal regions: one that requires moderate values of missing transverse momentum and another that requires large effective mass. The results are interpreted in a simplified model of R-parity-violating supersymmetry in which a 95% CL exclusion region is set for charged wino masses up to 540 GeV. In an R-parity-violating MSUGRA/CMSSM model, values of m 1/2 up to 820 GeV are excluded for 10 < tan β < 40