What's New in Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathies.

Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy (ACM) is a hereditary cardiomyopathy often presenting with sudden cardiac death (SCD) in young athletic individuals [...]

Flash pulmonary edema: A rare cause and possible mechanisms

AbstractFlash pulmonary edema frequently develop in case of bilateral renal artery stenosis and unilateral renal artery stenosis with functional solitary kidney. In some rare cases, unilateral renal artery stenosis with bilaterally functional kidneys may also lead to flash pulmonary edema. Here, we present a case of flash pulmonary edema caused by accessory renal artery stenosis. To our knowledge, it is the first case reported in the literature

The relationship between functional capacity and ultrasonic tissue characterization in patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy

Background: Ultrasonic tissue characterization (UTC) has been widely used to investigate left ventricular (LV) dysfunction in various cardiac disorders. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between functional capacity and UTC in patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDCM).Methods and Results: Treadmill test according to modified-Bruce protocol was performed in 48 patients with IDCM to assess their functional capacity. Baseline clinical and echocardiographic variables were obtained and UTC was performed on images obtained from septum and posterior wall (PW). Cyclic variation (CV) index of mean gray level (MGL) was calculated according to the formula: [(MGLdiastole − MGLsystole) ÷ MGLdiastole] × 100.PW and septum CV indices were correlated with exercise duration (r = 0.63, p = 0.001 and r = 0.67, p = 0.0001, respectively) and “MET” level (r = 0.80, p = 0.0001 and r = 0.83,p = 0.0001, respectively). The ROC curve analysis revealed that the PW CV index was a strong indicator of good exercise capacity (> 8 METs) with an AUC of 0.97 (95% CI0.90–1.0), as the interventricular septum (IVS) CV index (AUC = 0.97, 95% CI 0.89–1.0). Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value to identify good exercise capacity for IVS CV index were 90%, 88%, 82%, and 94%, respectively and for the PW CV index, 90%, 88%, 82%, and 94%, respectively.Conclusions: In this particular study, we found out that in patients with severe LV dysfunction good exercise capacity was related to septum and PW CV indices measured by UTC, and these indices may be used as an indirect prognostic marker in heart failure

Assembly line rebalancing and worker assignment considering ergonomic risks in an automotive parts manufacturing plant

This paper recommends a new kind of assembly line rebalancing and worker assignment problem, taking ergonomic risks into account. Assembly line rebalancing problem (ALRBP) occurs when a current line must be rebalanced due to conditions such as changes in demand, production processes, product design, or quality issues. Although there are several research attempts on ALRBP in the relevant literature, only a few studies consider workers as unique individuals. This paper aims to solve the double reassignment problem: tasks to workers and workers to stations, considering ergonomic risk factors. This paper is the first study that comprises worker assignment and ergonomic constraints in ALRBP literature to the best of our knowledge. Objectives of our novel problem are to minimize rebalancing cost, which includes transportation of tasks and workers and minimize stations' ergonomic risk factors. A randomized constructive rule-based heuristic approach is developed to cope with the problem. The proposed solution approach is applied to benchmark data, and obtained results are promising. Moreover, the proposed solution approach is implemented in an automotive parts manufacturing plant. (c) 2022 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canad

A detailed review and analysis of assembly line rebalancing problems

Purpose - Various approaches and algorithms have been proposed since the 1950s to solve the assembly line (AL) balancing problem. These methods have established an AL configuration from the beginning. However, a prebalanced AL may have to be rebalanced in real life for many reasons, such as changes in the cycle time, production demand, product features or task operation times. This problem has increasingly attracted the interest of scientists in recent years. This study aims to offer a detailed review of the assembly line rebalancing problems (ALRBPs) to provide a better insight into the theoretical and practical applications of ALRBPs

INADVERTENT COMPLICATION OF PROSTHETIC VALVE SURGERY: LEAFLET PERFORATION

There are various complications of prosthetic valvular surgeries. Among them, leaflet perforation should be emphasized and brought to mind when there have been eccentric valvular regurgitation. In this report, we presented 2 cases of iatrogenic aortic and mitral valve leaflet perforation after prosthetic valve surgeries

Skill learning based catching motion control

Learned biomechanical strategies prepare the human body in kinematics and kinetics terms during interception tasks, such as throwing and catching, in real world. Based on this, we present a real-time physics-based approach that generates natural and physically plausible motions for a highly complex task ball catching. We showed that ball catching behavior could be achieved with the proper combination of rather simple motor skills, such as standing, walking, and reaching. The character learns some policies to know how and when to react by using reinforcement learning in order to use time accurately. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method with some of the catching animation results in different catching strategies. Copyright (c) 2015John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Relationship between right ventricular dilatation and blood copeptin levels in patients with acute pulmonary embolism

Purpose: In this study, we aimed to investigate the importance of copeptin in the diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism, detection of right ventricular dilatation and clinical severity and prognosis of pulmonary embolism

DIGOXIN TOXICITY IN THERAPEUTIC SERUM LEVELS

Aim:The purpose of this study, to evaluate digoxin toxicity and risk factors leading to digoxin toxicity in patients with therapeutic digoxin levels.Material and Methods: We studied ninety–five patients with digoxin level was above of the 1.4 ng/mL and below of the 2.0 ng/mL at admission. They were divided into two groups, drug toxicity or nontoxicity, on the basis of both clinical symptoms and electrocardiography recording. The clinical and laboratory data were compared between these groups.Results: When overall patients’ digoxin usage indications were evaluated, it was revealed that 56 patients (58.9%) had been received digoxin only for heart failure, 32 patients (33.6%) only for atrial fibrillation and 20 patients (21%) received digoxin for both conditions. The exact reason for digoxin usage could not be determined in 17 patients (17.9%). When patients were evaluated, no differences in age, gender, medical history other than coronary artery disease and laboratory findings were observed between toxic and nontoxic patients. The medical history of coronary artery disease in toxic patients was significantly higher than in nontoxic patients (p: 0.008). In these variable, no differences were observed except atrial fibrillation (p<0.001), between toxic and nontoxic patients.Conclusion: In this study, the exact reasons for digoxin use could not be determined in 17 (17.9%) patients. In appropriate usage of digoxin could be increased risk of adverse outcomes and education program may reduce in appropriate use. Clinicians should be aware that signs of toxicity may occur at levels below of the 2.0 ng/mL, and such toxicity is more likely in the presence of atrial fibrillation or coronary artery disease.Keywords: Digoxin, toxicity, intoxication, serum digoxin level