Assessing the cardiac valves conditions in athletic horses with poor performance.

Heart murmurs and valvular regurgitation are common in horses and often have no effect on their performance. However, when structural changes occur in the heart size, they can affect performance adversely. This study aimed to examine the correlation between cardiac valves disease and poor performance in athletic horses.

Dependence of electron transfer dynamics on the number of graphene layers in π-stacked 2D materials: insights from ab initio nonadiabatic molecular dynamics.

Recent time-resolved transient absorption studies demonstrated that the rate of photoinduced interfacial charge transfer (CT) from Zn-phthalocyanine (ZnPc) to single-layer graphene (SLG) is faster than to double-layer graphene (DLG), in contrast to the expectation from Fermi's golden rule. We present the first time-domain non-adiabatic molecular dynamics (NA-MD) study of the electron injection process from photoexcited ZnPc molecules into SLG and DLG substrates. Our calculations suggest that CT occurs faster in the ZnPc/SLG system than in the ZnPc/DLG system, with 580 fs and 810 fs being the fastest components of the observed CT timescales, respectively.

Echocardiographic measurement of cardiac valvular thickness in healthy cows, cows with bacterial endocarditis, and cows with cardiorespiratory diseases.

Objective: To determine valvular thickness in healthy cows, cows with bacterial endocarditis, and cows with various cardiorespiratory diseases.

Animals: 40 healthy Holstein adult cows (CONTROL), 6 adult cows with confirmed bacterial endocarditis (BE), and 10 cows with other cardiorespiratory disorders (NONBE).

Methods: Prospective study using right transthoracic echocardiographic examination in CONTROL, BE and NONBE cows.

Effect of lactation on functional and morphological echocardiographic variables in adult dairy cows.

Objectives: To study the effect of pregnancy and lactation on echocardiographic parameters in Holstein dairy cows.

Animals: Nine multiparous high milk producing (HMP) dairy cows (producing more than 40 kg of milk per day in peak production) and 9 low milk producing (LMP) cows (producing less than 30 kg or milk per day in peak production).

Methods: Echocardiography was performed twice; one month before calving and two months after calving.

Echocardiographic findings of tricuspid blood cyst mimicking bacterial endocarditis in a dairy cow.

The most common endocardial disease in cattle is bacterial endocarditis. The diagnosis of the disease in living animals is mainly based on clinical findings and echocardiographic detection of an irregularly thickened valve. Despite its presumed good sensitivity, little is known on the specificity of transthoracic echocardiography with regards to endocarditis.

Heart disease in cattle: diagnosis, therapeutic approaches and prognosis.

Heart disease in cattle remains medically challenging both to diagnose and to treat. This is in part due to its low incidence in the bovine species but also because the prognosis is typically guarded to poor. The majority of published data concerning bovine heart disease are case studies and case reports.