Assessment of mitochondrial respiratory capacity in relation to cardiac contractile performance in patients with normal to mildly decreased cardiac systolic function.

Chronic heart failure (CHF) with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is associated with remodeling of cardiac energy metabolism; however, experimental data from human hearts that are still in early stages of contractile decline are very sparse. In the current study, we probed the association between LV contractility and myocardial capacity for fatty acid and carbohydrate oxidation in patients having normal-to-mildly decreased systolic function. In patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting surgery (n=40, EF ≥40%), a sample of left ventricular myocardium was obtained by subepicardial needle biopsy.

Faith in Hagiotherapy.

Background: If vegetative life carries a vegetative soul, and rational life a rational soul, what does spiritual life carry? What are the differences between a spiritual and rational soul? Can a spiritual soul somehow touch and see, can it be subjected to scientific experiments? What is hagiotherapy? Why is lack of faith a defect in spiritual terms? What happens in people who believe? The aim of this paper is to answer these questions and also explain spiritual abilities or power - faith in terms of hagiotherapy, how it affects a person's life and work, and also society.

Cases And Methods: We will be relying on the most important and recently published scientific books from the founder of hagiotherapy, Tomislav Ivančić, PhD, titled Hagiotherapy Encountering Man, Man's Total Woundedness, Hagiotherapeutic Anthropology, but also an older booklet titled "Spiritual Life in the Prayer and Word Community".

Results: We will discover the meaning of hagiotherapy in this paper - therapy for that part of a person which has not been previously therapeutically investigated and which poses a challenge to the contemporary world.

Distance vs time. Acoustic and articulatory consequences of reduced vowel duration in Polish.

This paper presents acoustic and articulatory (ultrasound) data on vowel reduction in Polish. The analysis focuses on the question of whether the change in formant value in unstressed vowels can be explained by duration-driven undershoot alone or whether there is also evidence for additional stress-specific articulatory mechanisms that systematically affect vowel formants. On top of the expected durational differences between the stressed and unstressed conditions, the duration is manipulated by inducing changes in the speech rate.

Pulmonary Embolism Associated with COVID-19 Occurs in Predominantly Elderly Patients with Comorbidities: A Single Center Retrospective Study.

Complications of COVID-19 infection have been greatly investigated. The most recent studies found strong association of COVID-19 pneumonia with thromboembolism. The aim of research was to describe clinical and computed tomography pulmonary angiograms (CTPA) characteristics of COVID-19 related pulmonary artery thromboembolism (PE).