Role of Interventional Treatment of Thoracic Aorta

An aging western and oriental population coupled with breakthrough advances in modern diagnostic imaging modalities has evoked renewed interest in the hitherto underdiagnosed acute and chronic diseases of the aorta, which also include aortic aneurysm and aortic dissection. Although classical surgical strategies still dominate the clinical management of acute and chronic pathologies of the ascending aorta and the proximal arch region, the emergence of novel endovascular concepts has offered an interesting therapy alternative for the treatment of descending aortic pathology in suitable patients and is highly likely to evolve as the primary treatment strategy in majority of the cases. Moreover, the use of hybrid approaches combining surgical head-vessel debranching and interventional stent-graft implantation in an attempt to improve clinical outcome in aortic arch pathologies has helped avoid the high risk of open arch repair or complete replacement. Notwithstanding these recent advancements, the complex nature of the underlying vascular disease still dictates that the proposed management of every diagnosed patient is discussed in a team constituting cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, anesthesiologists, and radiologists, with the conceptualization of individualized therapeutic strategies and conducted in a center with significant surgical and endovascular experience

Multi-Order Statistical Descriptors for Real-Time Face Recognition and Object Classification

We propose novel multi-order statistical descriptors which can be used for high speed object classification or face recognition from videos or image sets. We represent each gallery set with a global second-order statistic which captures correlated global variations in all feature directions as well as the common set structure. A lightweight descriptor is then constructed by efficiently compacting the second-order statistic using Cholesky decomposition. We then enrich the descriptor with the first-order statistic of the gallery set to further enhance the representation power. By projecting the descriptor into a low-dimensional discriminant subspace, we obtain further dimensionality reduction, while the discrimination power of the proposed representation is still preserved. Therefore, our method represents a complex image set by a single descriptor having significantly reduced dimensionality. We apply the proposed algorithm on image set and video-based face and periocular biometric identification, object category recognition, and hand gesture recognition. Experiments on six benchmark data sets validate that the proposed method achieves significantly better classification accuracy with lower computational complexity than the existing techniques. The proposed compact representations can be used for real-time object classification and face recognition in videos. 2013 IEEE.This work was supported by NPRP through the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation) under Grant 7-1711-1-312.Scopu

Obesity and Coronary Artery Disease

The impact of obesity can be better understood by studying the growing medical and socioeconomic burden of this often neglected public health epidemic. Traditionally associated with cardiovascular risk factors like hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes mellitus, morbid obesity has increasingly contributed to mortality among Western as well as Third World populations. Contemporary evidence has also consistently linked this patient cohort with a greater risk to develop coronary artery disease. Recent population‐based registries indicate that 43 and 24% of all cases of coronary revascularization were performed in overweight and obese patients, respectively. In this context, although popular thought has reaffirmed the positive correlation between obesity and increased cardiovascular morbidity, some authors have opined a better clinical outcome in overweight and obese patients, a phenomenon they termed “obesity paradoxon.” Conflicting data and the possibility of confounding bias have festered an ongoing debate challenging this “obesity paradox.” In this review article, we present updated evidence and discuss the validity of the “obesity paradoxon” in a variety of clinical settings

Spectroscopic properties of Sm3+ and CdS co-doped in sol-gel silica glass

157-163Sm3+- doped silica glass co-doped with CdS nanoparticles have been prepared by sol-gel method. FTIR spectra of the samples at different annealing temperatures show the gradual removal of hydroxyl group. XRD pattern shows crystalline nature of the silica host along with CdS peak. The optical absorption and fluorescence properties have been investigated using Judd-Ofelt theory. The Judd-Ofelt intensity parameters have been obtained from the absorption spectrum following the trend Ω2 > Ω4 > Ω6 and the large value of Ω2 indicates covalency of the rare earth bonding. Under excitation with 370 nm, photoluminescence peaks have been observed in the green, yellow, orange and red region as a result of radiative relaxation from the 4G5/2 state

Heart Half Implementation Sharia Banking in Indonesia

Islamic banking in Indonesia has been regulated in the law, namely Law number 10 of 1998 concerning amendments to Law number 7 of 1992 concerning banking. As time goes by, the existing Islamic banking practices are starting to be questioned, questioned, and criticized, because there are those considered deviant even out of the sharia corridor itself. Against various problems that exist in Islamic banking, it needs to be addressed appropriately. By understanding the nature of the principle of tadrij fii tasyri, we are required to better understand and focus on the processes and stages in the implementation of syariah banking. So that with all the problems of Islamic banking faced now, it must be understood that this is still the stages, not the end and purpose of the application of Islamic banking it self. However, the main problem in the implementation of Islamic banking is the commitment. Islamic banking is in a comfortable zone with its current format. Efforts to implement Islamic banking are still half-hearted, even less serious. Even though there is a lot of criticism embedded in Islamic banking, starting from the practice of improper contracting, Human Resources (HR) who are not competent with the sharia itself, and banking products that are less adaptive and responsive

Analysis of final state lepton polarization-dependent observables in H→ℓ+ℓ−γH\to \ell^{+}\ell^{-} \gamma in the SM at loop level

Recently, the CMS and ATLAS collaborations have announced the results for $H\rightarrow Z[\rightarrow \ell^{+}\ell^{-}]\gamma$ with $\ell=e$ or $\mu$, where $H\rightarrow Z\gamma$ is a sub-process of $H\rightarrow \ell^{+} \ell^{-} \gamma$. This semi-leptonic Higgs decay receives loop induced resonant $H\rightarrow Z[\rightarrow \ell^{+}\ell^{-}]\gamma$ as well as non-resonant contributions as discussed in. To probe further features coming from these contributions to $H\rightarrow \ell^{+} \ell^{-} \gamma$, we suggest that the polarization of the final state lepton is an important parameter. We show that the resonant and non-resonant cross-terms play an important role when the polarization of final state lepton is taken into account, which is negligible in the case of un-polarized leptons. For this purpose, we have calculated the polarized decay rates and the longitudinal, normal and transverse polarization asymmetries. We find that these asymmetries purely come from the loop contributions and are helpful to further investigate the resonant and non-resonant nature of $H\rightarrow Z[\rightarrow \ell^{+}\ell^{-}]\gamma$ decay. We observe that for $\ell=e,\mu$, the longitudinal decay rate is highly suppressed around $m_{\ell\ell}\approx 60$GeV when the final lepton spin is $-\frac{1}{2}$, dramatically increasing the corresponding lepton polarization asymmetries. Furthermore, we analyze another clean observable, the ratio of decay rates $\Gamma$, $R^{\ell\ell'}\equiv \frac{\Gamma_{H\rightarrow \ell^{+} \ell^{-} \gamma}}{\Gamma_{H\rightarrow \ell^{'+} \ell^{'-} \gamma}}$, where $\ell$ and $\ell'$ refer to different final state lepton generations. Therefore, the precise measurements of these observables at CMS and ATLAS can provide a fertile ground to test not only the Standard Model (SM) but also to examine the signatures of possible new physics (NP) beyond the SM.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure

Antipyretic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities of methanol extract of root bark of Acacia jacquemontii Benth (Fabaceae) in experimental animals

Purpose: To investigate the ethnomedicinal claims regarding the use of Acacia jacquemontii Benth. (Fabaceae) in fever, pain and inflammation.Methods: The methanol root bark extract (AJRBM) of the plant was used in the studies. Preliminary phytochemical screening of the extract was carried out according to established methods. Analgesic, anti-inflammatory and antipyretic activities were evaluated using acetic acid-induced writhing, carrageennan-induced rat paw edema and Brewer’s yeast-induced pyrexia models, respectively. The extract was administered at doses of 50 and 100 mg/kg. Aspirin (300 mg/kg, p.o.) was used as a reference drug in all models. Normal saline (10 mL/kg p.o.) was used as negative control.Results: Phytochemical screening results indicate the presence of cardioactive glycosides, tannins, flavonoids and saponins. In the acetic acid-induced writhing model, the methanol extract exhibited significant (p < 0.05) analgesic effect with 58.98 % reduction in writhing response at a dose of 100 mg/kg, compared with untreated control group. The extract significantly (p < 0.05) reduced carrageenan-induced edema at doses of 50 and 100 mg/kg to 36.84 and 47.36 %, respectively, after 1h of extract administration. The extract exhibited predominantly dose-dependent antipyretic effect in Brewer’s yeast-induced pyrexia model. Maximum reduction in body temperature to 37.07 and 38.29 ºC at doses of 50 and 100 mg/kg, respectively, was observed, compared with untreated group (38.90 ºC) after 1 h, but this was not significant (p < 0.05).Conclusion: The plant extract exerts inhibitory effect on peripheral pain stimuli, edema and dosedependent anti-pyrexia, and thus justifies the ethnomedicinal use of Acacia jacquemontii Benth. in the management of pain, fever and inflammation.Keywords: Acacia jacquemontii, Antipyretic, Analgesic, Anti-inflammator

BIOLOGICAL SCREENING OF ARAUCARIA COLUMNARIS

Objective: The present research is biological screening of aerial part of Araucaria columnaris (Araucariaceae). There were investigation for their antibacterial, antifungal, phytotoxic and cytotoxic activities of Dichloromethane and methanol extract.Methods: Anti-bacterial, Anti-fungal, cytotoxicity and phytotoxicity activity was performed by Disc diffusion method, Agar tube dilution assay, Brine Shrimp Lethality bioassay and Lemna bioassay respectively.Results: Dichloromethane and methanolic extract exhibited significant phytotoxicity against Lemna minor having Paraquat as standard drug and incubation condition (28±1 °C). None of extracts presented any significant antibacterial and cytotoxic activity having Imipenum and Etoposide as standard drug respectively. Both extract had non-significant antifungal activity but it has been noted that MeOH and DCM extract of Araucaria columnaris showed 10% and 20% inhibition with linear growth at 90 mm and 80 mm respectively, when compared with control; against Fusarium solani and Aspergillus flavus respectively.Conclusion: Araucaria columnaris exhibited significant phytotoxicity bioassay. The phytotoxicty assay is a useful primary screen for weedicide research. Synthetic weedicides are expensive, toxic and non-specific. This study will help to discover the phytotoxic constituents of the plant by isolation, purification and structure elucidation to find out as effective herbicidal.Â