Deriving the extinction to young stellar objects using [FeII] near-infrared emission lines. Prescriptions from GIANO high-resolution spectra

The near-infrared emission lines of Fe$^{+}$ at 1.257, 1.321, and 1.644 $\mu$m share the same upper level; their ratios can then be exploited to derive the extinction to a line emitting region once the relevant spontaneous emission coefficients are known. This is commonly done, normally from low-resolution spectra, in observations of shocked gas from jets driven by Young Stellar Objects. In this paper we review this method, provide the relevant equations, and test it by analyzing high-resolution ($R \sim 50000$) near-infrared spectra oftwo young stars, namely the Herbig Be star HD 200775 and the Be star V1478 Cyg, which exhibit intense emission lines. The spectra were obtained with the new GIANO echelle spectrograph at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo. Notably, the high-resolution spectra allowed checking the effects of overlapping telluric absorption lines. A set of various determinations of the Einstein coefficients are compared to show how much the available computations affect extinction derivation. The most recently obtained values are probably good enough to allow reddening determination within 1 visual mag of accuracy. Furthermore, we show that [FeII] line ratios from low-resolution pure emission-line spectra in general are likely to be in error due to the impossibility to properly account for telluric absorption lines. If low-resolution spectra are used for reddening determinations, we advice that the ratio 1.644/1.257, rather than 1.644/1.321, should be used, being less affected by the effects of telluric absorption lines.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, to be published in PAS

Aetiologic diagnosis of coronary artery aneurysm in a patient with pancreatitis, dacryoadenitis, and sialadenitis

No abstract available

Cardiac Pacemaker Battery Discharge After External Electrical Cardioversion for Broad QRS Complex Tachycardia

External electrical cardioversion or defibrillation may be necessary in patients with implanted cardiac pacemaker (PM) or implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). Sudden discharge of high electrical energy employed in direct current (DC) transthoracic countershock may damage the PM/ICD system resulting in a series of possible device malfunctions. For this reason, when defibrillation or cardioversion must be attempted in a patient with a PM or ICD, some precautions should be taken, particularly in PM dependent patients, in order to prevent damage to the device. We report the case of a 76-year-old woman with a dual chamber PM implanted in the right subclavicular region, who received two consecutive transthoracic DC shocks to treat haemodynamically unstable broad QRS complex tachycardia after cardiac surgery performed with a standard sternotomic approach. Because of the sternal wound and thoracic drainage tubes together with the severe clinical compromise, the anterior paddle was positioned near the pulse generator. At the following PM test, a complete battery discharge was detected

Cardiac pacemaker battery discharge after external electrical cardioversion for broad QRS Complex Tachycardia

External electrical cardioversion or defibrillation may be necessary in patients with implanted cardiac pacemaker (PM) or implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). Sudden discharge of high electrical energy employed in direct current (DC) transthoracic countershock may damage the PM/ICD system resulting in a series of possible device malfunctions. For this reason, when defibrillation or cardioversion must be attempted in a patient with a PM or ICD, some precautions should be taken, particularly in PM dependent patients, in order to prevent damage to the device. We report the case of a 76-year-old woman with a dual chamber PM implanted in the right subclavicular region, who received two consecutive transthoracic DC shocks to treat haemodynamically unstable broad QRS complex tachycardia after cardiac surgery performed with a standard sternotomic approach. Because of the sternal wound and thoracic drainage tubes together with the severe clinical compromise, the anterior paddle was positioned near the pulse generator. At the following PM test, a complete battery discharge was detected

A Comparison of Atrial Fibrillation Monitoring Strategies After Cryptogenic Stroke (from the Cryptogenic Stroke and Underlying AF Trial)

Ischemic stroke cause remains undetermined in 30% of cases, leading to a diagnosis of cryptogenic stroke. Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF) is a major cause of ischemic stroke but may go undetected with short periods of ECG monitoring. The Cryptogenic Stroke and Underlying Atrial Fibrillation trial (CRYSTAL AF) demonstrated that long-term electrocardiographic monitoring with insertable cardiac monitors (ICM) is superior to conventional follow-up in detecting AF in the population with cryptogenic stroke. We evaluated the sensitivity and negative predictive value (NPV) of various external monitoring techniques within a cryptogenic stroke cohort. Simulated intermittent monitoring strategies were compared to continuous rhythm monitoring in 168 ICM patients of the CRYSTAL AF trial. Short-term monitoring included a single 24-hour, 48-hour, and 7-day Holter and 21-day and 30-day event recorders. Periodic monitoring consisted of quarterly monitoring through 24-hour, 48-hour, and 7-day Holters and monthly 24-hour Holters. For a single monitoring period, the sensitivity for AF diagnosis was lowest with a 24-hour Holter (1.3%) and highest with a 30-day event recorder (22.8%). The NPV ranged from 82.3% to 85.6% for all single external monitoring strategies. Quarterly monitoring with 24-hour Holters had a sensitivity of 3.1%, whereas quarterly 7-day monitors increased the sensitivity to 20.8%. The NPVs for repetitive periodic monitoring strategies were similar at 82.6% to 85.3%. Long-term continuous monitoring was superior in detecting AF compared to all intermittent monitoring strategies evaluated (p <0.001). Long-term continuous electrocardiographic monitoring with ICMs is significantly more effective than any of the simulated intermittent monitoring strategies for identifying AF in patients with previous cryptogenic stroke

Successful ventricular tachycardia radioablation in a patient with previous chemical pleurodesis: A case report

IntroductionStereotactic arrhythmia radioablation (STAR) is a novel technique for the ablation of ventricular tachycardia in patients with contraindications to standard procedures, i.e., radiofrequency ablation.Case presentationWe report the case of a 73-year-old man with non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy and recurrent VT episodes. Electroanatomic mapping showed VT prevalently of epicardial origin, but direct epicardial access through subxyphoid puncture could not be performed due to pleuropericardial adhesions from a past history of chemical pleurodesis. STAR was performed, with no VT recurrence at 6 months follow-up.ConclusionsPrevious experiences with STAR have demonstrated its importance in the management of patients with refractory VT in whom other ablation strategies were not successful. Our case report highlights the use of STAR as a second choice in a patient with an unfavorable VT anatomical location and technical limitations to an optimal radiofrequency ablation. Moreover, it confirms STAR's effectiveness in the ablation of complex transmural lesions, which are more often associated with non-ischemic structural heart disease

Deconvolution of bulk blood eQTL effects into immune cell subpopulations

BACKGROUND: Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) studies are used to interpret the function of disease-associated genetic risk factors. To date, most eQTL analyses have been conducted in bulk tissues, such as whole blood and tissue biopsies, which are likely to mask the cell type-context of the eQTL regulatory effects. Although this context can be investigated by generating transcriptional profiles from purified cell subpopulations, current methods to do this are labor-intensive and expensive. We introduce a new method, Decon2, as a framework for estimating cell proportions using expression profiles from bulk blood samples (Decon-cell) followed by deconvolution of cell type eQTLs (Decon-eQTL). RESULTS: The estimated cell proportions from Decon-cell agree with experimental measurements across cohorts (R ≥ 0.77). Using Decon-cell, we could predict the proportions of 34 circulating cell types for 3194 samples from a population-based cohort. Next, we identified 16,362 whole-blood eQTLs and deconvoluted cell type interaction (CTi) eQTLs using the predicted cell proportions from Decon-cell. CTi eQTLs show excellent allelic directional concordance with eQTL (≥ 96-100%) and chromatin mark QTL (≥87-92%) studies that used either purified cell subpopulations or single-cell RNA-seq, outperforming the conventional interaction effect. CONCLUSIONS: Decon2 provides a method to detect cell type interaction effects from bulk blood eQTLs that is useful for pinpointing the most relevant cell type for a given complex disease. Decon2 is available as an R package and Java application (https://github.com/molgenis/systemsgenetics/tree/master/Decon2) and as a web tool (www.molgenis.org/deconvolution)

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio