Publications by authors named "P F Kemper"

Background: Some clients who access healthcare services experience problems due to the wider determinants of health which cannot be addressed (solely) by the medical sector. Social Prescribing (SP) addresses clients ' wider health needs and is based on linkworkers who support primary care clients in accessing social, community and voluntary care services that support their needs. Previous literature has provided valuable insights about what works (or not) in an early stage of implementing SP.

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Objective: Plaque characterization is essential for stroke prevention. In the study reported herein, we describe a heterogeneous phantom manufacturing technique with varying plaque compositions of different stiffness using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to emulate stenotic arteries and evaluated the use of pulse wave imaging (PWI) to assess plaque stiffness by comparing derived pulse wave velocities, with the goal of assessing plaque vulnerability and identifying high-risk patients for stroke.

Methods: Five stenotic phantoms (50% stenosis) were fabricated by pouring PVA solutions into 3-D-printed molds.

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Article Synopsis
  • Non-invasive monitoring of atherosclerosis is difficult, but Pulse Wave Imaging (PWI) can measure local arterial stiffness and blood flow dynamics without invasive procedures.
  • This study aimed to determine PWI's effectiveness in tracking changes in local stiffness and blood flow in hypercholesterolemic swine over nine months, particularly after inducing hemodynamic disturbance by carotid ligation.
  • Results showed that PWI could effectively monitor changes in wall shear stress and differentiate between two types of plaque progression, revealing distinct compliance changes based on the severity of the ligation.
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Vulnerable plaques associated with softer components may rupture, releasing thrombotic emboli to smaller vessels in the brain, thus causing an ischemic stroke. Pulse Wave Imaging (PWI) is an ultrasound-based method that allows for pulse wave visualization while the regional pulse wave velocity (PWV) is mapped along the arterial wall to infer the underlying wall compliance. One potential application of PWI is the non-invasive estimation of plaque's mechanical properties for investigating its vulnerability.

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We probe the adsorption of molecular HO on a TiO (110)-(1 × 1) surface decorated with isolated VO clusters using ultrahigh-vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy (UHV-STM) and temperature-programmed desorption (TPD). Our STM images show that preadsorbed VO clusters on the TiO (110)-(1 × 1) surface induce the adsorption of HO molecules at room temperature (RT). The adsorbed HO molecules form strings of beads of HO dimers bound to the 5-fold coordinated Ti atom (5c-Ti) rows and are anchored by VO.

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