A Prospective Pilot Study to Identify a Myocarditis Cohort who may Safely Resume Sports Activities 3 Months after Diagnosis

International cardiovascular society recommendations to return to sports activities following acute myocarditis are based on expert consensus in the absence of prospective studies. We prospectively enrolled 30 patients with newly diagnosed myocarditis based on clinical parameters, laboratory measurements and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging with mildly reduced or pre served left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) with a follow-up of 12 months. Cessation of physical activity was recommended for 3 months. The average age was 35 (19–80) years with 73% male patients. One case of non-sustained ventricular tachycardia was recorded during 48-h-Holter electrocardiogram. Except for this case, all patients were allowed to resume physical exercise after 3 months. At 6- (n = 26) and 12-month (n = 19) follow-up neither cardiac events nor worsening LVEF were recorded. The risk of cardiac events at 1 year after diagnosis of myocarditis appears to be low after resumption of exercise after 3 months among patients who recover from acute myocarditis

Production of 232 Pa from thorium

A procedure is described for the accelerator production of 232 Pa and its isolation in radiochemically pure form, suitable for isotope tracing of protactinium/thorium chemical separations.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43132/1/10967_2005_Article_BF02167207.pd

Happy heart syndrome. role of positive emotional stress in takotsubo syndrome

AIMS: Takotsubo syndrome (TTS) is typically provoked by negative stressors such as grief, anger, or fear leading to the popular term 'broken heart syndrome'. However, the role of positive emotions triggering TTS remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to analyse the prevalence and characteristics of patients with TTS following pleasant events, which are distinct from the stressful or undesirable episodes commonly triggering TTS. METHODS AND RESULTS: Takotsubo syndrome patients with preceding pleasant events were compared to those with negative emotional triggers from the International Takotsubo Registry. Of 1750 TTS patients, we identified a total of 485 with a definite emotional trigger. Of these, 4.1% (n = 20) presented with pleasant preceding events and 95.9% (n = 465) with unequivocal negative emotional events associated with TTS. Interestingly, clinical presentation of patients with 'happy heart syndrome' was similar to those with the 'broken heart syndrome' including symptoms such as chest pain [89.5% (17/19) vs. 90.2% (412/457), P = 1.0]. Similarly, electrocardiographic parameters, laboratory findings, and 1-year outcome did not differ. However, in a post hoc analysis, a disproportionate higher prevalence of midventricular involvement was noted in 'happy hearts' compared with 'broken hearts' (35.0 vs. 16.3%, P = 0.030). CONCLUSION: Our data illustrate that TTS can be triggered by not only negative but also positive life events. While patient characteristics were similar between groups, the midventricular TTS type was more prevalent among the 'happy hearts' than among the 'broken hearts'. Presumably, despite their distinct nature, happy and sad life events may share similar final common emotional pathways, which can ultimately trigger TTS

Clinical correlates and prognostic impact of neurologic disorders in Takotsubo syndrome

© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Cardiac alterations are frequently observed after acute neurological disorders. Takotsubo syndrome (TTS) represents an acute heart failure syndrome and is increasingly recognized as part of the spectrum of cardiac complications observed after neurological disorders. A systematic investigation of TTS patients with neurological disorders has not been conducted yet. The aim of the study was to expand insights regarding neurological disease entities triggering TTS and to investigate the clinical profile and outcomes of TTS patients after primary neurological disorders. The International Takotsubo Registry is an observational multicenter collaborative effort of 45 centers in 14 countries (ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT01947621). All patients in the registry fulfilled International Takotsubo Diagnostic Criteria. For the present study, patients were included if complete information on acute neurological disorders were available. 2402 patients in whom complete information on acute neurological status were available were analyzed. In 161 patients (6.7%) an acute neurological disorder was identified as the preceding triggering factor. The most common neurological disorders were seizures, intracranial hemorrhage, and ischemic stroke. Time from neurological symptoms to TTS diagnosis was ≤ 2 days in 87.3% of cases. TTS patients with neurological disorders were younger, had a lower female predominance, fewer cardiac symptoms, lower left ventricular ejection fraction, and higher levels of cardiac biomarkers. TTS patients with neurological disorders had a 3.2-fold increased odds of in-hospital mortality compared to TTS patients without neurological disorders. In this large-scale study, 1 out of 15 TTS patients had an acute neurological condition as the underlying triggering factor. Our data emphasize that a wide spectrum of neurological diseases ranging from benign to life-threatening encompass TTS. The high rates of adverse events highlight the need for clinical awareness.The International Takotsubo Registry was supported by the Biss Davies Charitable Trust. Dr. Scheitz has been supported by the Corona Foundation. Dr. Templin has been supported by the H.H. Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al-Thani Research Programme and the Swiss Heart Foundation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Beginning English Teacher Attrition, Mobility, And Retention

Although much research on teacher attrition and mobility exists, few researchers have addressed English teachers specifically. The present authors, using the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the Teacher Follow-Up Survey (TFS; National Center for Education Statistics, 2005) examined individual and school characteristics and mentoring and induction activities that affect beginning English teachers\u27 attrition, mobility, and retention. The results indicated that only salary was statistically significantly related to increased odds of beginning English teachers\u27 leaving the profession. No factors related to decreased attrition. In terms of mobility, no teacher or school characteristics were associated with migration (i.e., changing schools). Reviewing combined effects of mentoring and induction activities when controlling for teacher and school characteristics, the authors found that the results suggested none of the activities were related to attrition and migration. © 2008 Heldref Publications

Stability of Silicon based homojunction and heterojunction solar cells undere space conditions

Two different types of n-a-Si:H/p-c-Si heterostructure solar cells with intrinsic buffer layer, one type with and one type without back surface field (BSF), and one purely crystalline silicon solar cell have been irradiated with protons at 1.7 MeV For both types of heterojunctions and for the c-Si homojunction cells a similar dose been found for which degradation starts and also a similar decrease of the effective minority carrier diffusion length with increasing irradiation dose. For one type of heterojunction cells we observed a small increase of the collection efficiency in the blue part of the spectrum after irradiation what can be explained only by modifications of the interface between the crystalline silicon and the amorphous silicon or of the thin intrinsic a-SM layer. As a new tool for the evaluation of the solar cell degradation due to proton irradiation, electroluminescence measurements under forward bias have been used. The emission spectra confirms that for doses up to 5 x 10(12) protonS/cm(2), silicon band-to-band recombination is the most important contribution to the light emission and the emission efficiency decreases monotonically with increasing proton dose

Basic electronic properties and optimization of TCO a Si H n c Si p hetero solar cells

Basic electronic properties and optimisation of TCO a Si H c Si p heterostructure solar cell