Publications by authors named "Nicholas Villa"

Introduction: In pediatric heart transplantation, donor: recipient weight ratio (DRWR) has long been the sole metric for size matching. Total cardiac volume (TCV)-based size matching has emerged as a novel method to precisely identify an upper limit of donor organ size of a heart transplant recipient while minimizing the risk of complications from oversizing. The clinical adoption of donor: recipient volume ratio (DRVR) to prevent short-term adverse outcomes of oversizing is unknown.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Donor-to-recipient size matching for heart transplantation typically involves comparing donor and recipient body weight; however, weight is not linearly related to cardiac size. Attention has shifted toward the use of computed tomography- (CT-) derived total cardiac volume (TCV), that is, CT-TCV, to compare donor and recipient heart organ size. At this time, TCV size matching is near impossible for most centers due to logistical limitations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ecosystem accounts, as formalized by the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA EEA), have been compiled in a number of countries, yet there have been few attempts to develop them for the U.S. We explore the potential for U.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The pediatric heart transplant community uses weight-based donor-to-recipient size matching almost exclusively, despite no evidence to validate weight as a reliable surrogate of cardiac size. Donor size mismatch is the second most common reason for the refusal of donor hearts in current practice (∼30% of all refusals). Whereas case-by-case segmentation of total cardiac volume (TCV) by computed tomography (CT) for direct virtual transplantation is an attractive option, it remains limited by the unavailability of donor chest CT.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The article Phase‑contrast magnetic resonance imaging to assess renal perfusion: a systematic review and statement paper, written by Giulia Villa, Steffen Ringgaard, Ingo Hermann, Rebecca Noble, Paolo Brambilla, Dinah S. Khatir, Frank G. Zöllner, Susan T.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Species distribution models (SDMs), like MaxEnt, often rely on natural history collections (NHCs) for data, but these collections can be spatially biased, affecting model accuracy.
  • A study tested the relationship between NHC distribution and a spatial abundance model (IDW) for Amazonian tree species, finding a weak positive correlation for most species analyzed.
  • The proposed new pipeline effectively reduced NHC inconsistencies and trimmed unnecessary data, offering a more conservative estimate of species occupancy, which is vital for large biodiversity assessments and conservation status evaluations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF