Guideline-Optimised Treatment in Heart Failure-Do Higher Doses Reduce Systemic Inflammation More Significantly?

Chronic inflammation is a constant phenomenon which accompanies the heart failure pathophysiology. In all phenotypes of heart failure, irrespective of the ejection fraction, there is a permanent low-grade activation and synthesis of proinflammatory cytokines. Many classes of anti-remodelling medication used in the treatment of chronic heart failure have been postulated to have an anti-inflammatory effect.

Metal and Metal Oxide Nanoparticle Incorporation in Polyurethane Foams: A Solution for Future Antimicrobial Materials?

With the technological developments witnessed in recent decades, nanotechnology and nanomaterials have found uses in several common applications and products we encounter daily. On the other hand, polyurethane (PU) foams represent an extremely versatile material, being widely recognized for their extensive application possibilities and possessing a multitude of fundamental attributes that enhance their broad usability across various application fields. By combining the versatility of PU with the antimicrobial properties of nanoparticles, this emerging field holds promise for addressing the urgent need for effective antimicrobial materials in various applications.

Inflammation in Heart Failure-Future Perspectives.

Chronic heart failure is a terminal point of a vast majority of cardiac or extracardiac causes affecting around 1-2% of the global population and more than 10% of the people above the age of 65. Inflammation is persistently associated with chronic diseases, contributing in many cases to the progression of disease. Even in a low inflammatory state, past studies raised the question of whether inflammation is a constant condition, or if it is, rather, triggered in different amounts, according to the phenotype of heart failure.

Real-Life Results of Palliative Chemotherapy in Metastatic Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

Purpose: To assess the efficacy of FOLFIRINOX(FFX), gemcitabine-based regimens (GB), and gemcitabine monotherapy (Gem) in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (mPDAC).

Methods: This is a retrospective study that included 83 patients with mPDAC treated with first-line chemotherapy (L1) with either FFX, GB or Gem between 2015 and 2017. Progression-free survival (PFS) for L1 and second-line chemotherapy (L2) (PFS-L1 and PFS-L2) and overall survival (OS) were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method.

Effect of mitoTEMPO on Redox Reactions in Different Body Compartments upon Endotoxemia in Rats.

Mitochondrial ROS (mitoROS) control many reactions in cells. Biological effects of mitoROS can be investigated by modulation via mitochondria-targeted antioxidants (mtAOX, mitoTEMPO). The aim of this study was to determine how mitoROS influence redox reactions in different body compartments in a rat model of endotoxemia.

Cerebral nitric oxide and mitochondrial function in patients suffering aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage-a translational approach.

Background: Cerebral ischemia and neuroinflammation following aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) are major contributors to poor neurological outcome. Our study set out to investigate in an exploratory approach the interaction between NO and energy metabolism following SAH as both hypoxia and inflammation are known to affect nitric oxide (NO) metabolism and NO in turn affects mitochondria.

Methods: In seven patients under continuous multimodality neuromonitoring suffering poor-grade aneurysmal SAH, cerebral metabolism and NO levels (determined as a sum of nitrite plus nitrate) were determined in cerebral microdialysate for 14 days following SAH.

Oxygen Tension Strongly Influences Metabolic Parameters and the Release of Interleukin-6 of Human Amniotic Mesenchymal Stromal Cells .

The human amniotic membrane (hAM) has been used for tissue regeneration for over a century. (), cells of the hAM are exposed to low oxygen tension (1-4% oxygen), while the hAM is usually cultured in atmospheric, meaning high, oxygen tension (20% oxygen). We tested the influence of oxygen tensions on mitochondrial and inflammatory parameters of human amniotic mesenchymal stromal cells (hAMSCs).

Thiamine preserves mitochondrial function in a rat model of traumatic brain injury, preventing inactivation of the 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase complex.

Background And Purpose: Based on the fact that traumatic brain injury is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction we aimed at localization of mitochondrial defect and attempted to correct it by thiamine.

Experimental Approach: Interventional controlled experimental animal study was used. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to lateral fluid percussion traumatic brain injury.

Mitochondria-Targeted Antioxidants SkQ1 and MitoTEMPO Failed to Exert a Long-Term Beneficial Effect in Murine Polymicrobial Sepsis.

Mitochondrial-derived reactive oxygen species have been deemed an important contributor in sepsis pathogenesis. We investigated whether two mitochondria-targeted antioxidants (mtAOX; SkQ1 and MitoTEMPO) improved long-term outcome, lessened inflammation, and improved organ homeostasis in polymicrobial murine sepsis. 3-month-old female CD-1 mice ( = 90) underwent cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) and received SkQ1 (5 nmol/kg), MitoTEMPO (50 nmol/kg), or vehicle 5 times post-CLP.

Impact of mitochondrial nitrite reductase on hemodynamics and myocardial contractility.

Inorganic nitrite (NO) can be reduced back to nitric oxide (NO) by several heme proteins called nitrite reductases (NR) which affect both the vascular tonus and hemodynamics. The objective of this study was to clarify the impact of several NRs on the regulation of hemodynamics, for which hemodynamic parameters such as heart rate, blood pressure, arterial stiffness, peripheral resistance and myocardial contractility were characterized by pulse wave analysis. We have demonstrated that NO reduced to NO in RBCs predominantly influences the heart rate, while myoglobin (Mb) and mitochondria-derived NO regulates arterial stiffness, peripheral resistance and myocardial contractility.

EPR analysis of extra- and intracellular nitric oxide in liver biopsies.

Purpose: To develop an assay that can enable the quantification of intra- and extracellular nitric oxide (NO) levels in liver biopsies without application of potentially harmful exogenous NO traps.

Theory: Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy is currently the most appropriate method of measuring NO in biological samples due to the outstanding specificity resulting from the interaction of NO with exogenous NO traps. Because such traps are not allowed in clinical settings, we tested the reliability of endogenous NO traps for the determination of NO levels in blood and liver compartments.

The benefits of using Sentinel WebDashboard in medicine: IT solution for monitoring and treatment of patient with liver cirrhosis.

The global assessment of the evolution of a disease in a certain geographical area or a specific domain is useful in the medical research for the preparation of practice guidelines/protocols used in the hospitals. Cirrhosis is one of the most common disorders seen today, occupying a significant place in the gastrointestinal pathology. The disease is the final stage of various affections in terms of etiology and morphology.

[Symbol: see text]2 Optimized predictive image coding with [Symbol: see text]∞ bound.

In many scientific, medical, and defense applications of image/video compression, an [Symbol: see text]∞ error bound is required. However, pure[Symbol: see text]∞-optimized image coding, colloquially known as near-lossless image coding, is prone to structured errors such as contours and speckles if the bit rate is not sufficiently high; moreover, most of the previous [Symbol: see text]∞-based image coding methods suffer from poor rate control. In contrast, the [Symbol: see text]2 error metric aims for average fidelity and hence preserves the subtlety of smooth waveforms better than the ∞ error metric and it offers fine granularity in rate control, but pure [Symbol: see text]2-based image coding methods (e.

Efficient rate-distortion optimal packetization of embedded bitstreams into independent source packets.

This paper addresses the rate-distortion (R-D) optimal packetization (RDOP) of embedded bitstreams into independent source packets, in order to limit error propagation in transmission of images over packet noisy channels. The input embedded stream is assumed to be an interleaving of K independently decodable basic streams. To form independent source packets, the set of basic streams is partitioned into N groups.

Evaluation at patients with ventricular arrhythmias and coronary artery disease of myocardial revascularization effects.

Unlabelled: The aim of this study was to determine the relations between myocardial revascularization therapy--coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and coronary angioplasty (PTCA)--and ventricular potentially malignant arrhythmia (VPMA) (coupled VPC, VPC > 10/hour, NSVT--Morganroth classification), in patients (pts) with stable CAD.

Methods: 765 patients with stable angina and ventricular potentially malignant arrhythmia were evaluated angiochoronarographically, echographically, by programmed electrical stimulation (PES), standard ECG, Holter ECG, radiologically, and by stress test. From 765 patients with CAD and VPMA 169 pts.

Unequal erasure protection technique for scalable multistreams.

This paper presents a novel unequal erasure protection (UEP) strategy for the transmission of scalable data, formed by interleaving independently decodable and scalable streams, over packet erasure networks. The technique, termed multistream UEP (M-UEP), differs from the traditional UEP strategy by: 1) placing separate streams in separate packets to establish independence and 2) using permuted systematic Reed-Solomon codes to enhance the distribution of message symbols amongst the packets. M-UEP improves upon UEP by ensuring that all received source symbols are decoded.

Are systemic inflammatory profiles different in patients with COPD and metabolic syndrome as compared to those with COPD alone?

Background: Metabolic Syndrome (MS) is frequent in patients with COPD, almost 50% of patients with COPD had one or more components of metabolic syndrome (MS). Moreover, it was demonstrated that BMI might be one of the determinants of COPD phenotype. Chronic comorbid diseases affect health outcomes in COPD, in fact, patients with COPD mainly die of non-respiratory disorders such as cardiovascular disease.

Comments on "optimal erasure protection for scalably compressed video streams with limited retransmission".

In order to prove a key result for their development (Lemma 2), Taubman and Thie need the assumption that the upper boundary of the convex hull of the channel coding probability-redundancy characteristic is sufficiently dense. Since a floor value for the density level for which the claim to hold is not specified, it is not clear whether their lemma applies to practical situations. In this correspondence, we show that the constraint of sufficient density can be removed, and, thus, we validate the conclusion of the lemma for any scenario encountered in practice.

Fast chromosome karyotyping by auction algorithm.

We consider the problem of automated classification of human chromosomes or karyotyping and study discrete optimisation algorithms to solve the problem as one of joint maximum likelihood classification. We demonstrate that the auction algorithm offers a simpler and more efficient solution for chromosome karyotyping than the previously known transportation algorithm, while still guaranteeing global optimality. This improvement in algorithm efficiency is made possible by first casting chromosome karyotyping into a problem of optimal assignment and then exploiting the sparsity of the assignment problem due to the inherent properties of chromosome data.

Globally optimal classification and pairing of human chromosomes.

We investigate globally optimal algorithms for automated classification and pairing of human chromosomes. Even in cases where the cell data are incomplete as often encountered in practice, we can still formulate the problem as a transportation problem, and hence find the globally optimal solution in polynomial time. In addition, we propose a technique of homologue pairing via maximum-weight graph matching.

On multirate optimality of JPEG2000 code stream.

Arguably, the most important and defining feature of the JPEG2000 image compression standard is its R-D optimized code stream of multiple progressive layers. This code stream is an interleaving of many scalable code streams of different sample blocks. In this paper, we reexamine the R-D optimality of JPEG2000 scalable code streams under an expected multirate distortion measure (EMRD), which is defined to be the average distortion weighted by a probability distribution of operational rates in a given range, rather than for one or few fixed rates.

Mutilating facial sarcoidosis.

We report a patient with massive facial sarcoidosis. While skin involvement is a common manifestation of sarcoidosis, it is unusual to see it in the dramatic form of cutaneous tumors with mutilation of the central face. There are few reports of tumoral cutaneous sarcoidosis like that of our patient.

[Pathomorphologic features in several phlebopathies associated with virus, rickettsia, chlamydia, and mycoplasma infections].

Seventy-six venous specimens were examined by indirect immunofluorescence and histological techniques. 80.26% out of them gave negative I.

[Features of the patho-morphology of arteriopathies associated with viral and infra-microbial infections].

Presence of Mycoplasma Chlamydia, Rickettsia burnetii, influenza type B, herpes and adenoviruses was detected by immunofluorescence in artery fragments collected from patients with arteriopathy. Pathohistological examination of the samples revealed inflammatory--lympho-histiocytic infiltration--and mostly dystrophic alterations. Arteriopathies were localised mostly at the pelvic limb level, especially on femoral artery.