Tissue processing techniques for fabrication of covered stents for small-diameter vascular intervention.

Unlabelled: Animal-derived pericardial tissue is a widely used biomaterial typically treated with glutaraldehyde (GA) to achieve immunological acceptance and long-term durability. However, GA fixation of biological tissue is associated with long-term failure due to degeneration and calcification. In this study, we evaluated two alternative tissue processing methods for the fabrication of pericardial tissue covered stents: detergent-based decellularization (decell) and limited exposure to GA (gentle-glut).

Human heart rate variability and sleep stages.

With the aim of better understanding the dynamic changes in sympatho-vagal tone occurring during the night, human heart rate variability (HRV) during the various sleep stages was evaluated by means of autoregressive spectral analysis. Each recording consisted of an electroencephalogram, an electrooculogram, and electromyogram, and electrocardiogram, and a spirometry trace. All of the data were sampled and stored in digital form.