The Predictive Value of Carotid Artery Strain and Strain-Rate in Assessing the 3-Year Risk for Stroke and Acute Coronary Syndrome in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome.

Purpose: The goal of this study is to see if carotid strain and strain rate can predict major cardio-vascular events (MACE) in people who have metabolic syndrome (MS) over a 3-year period of time.

Methods: In this prospective observational research, we enrolled 220 adult MS patients (60.7 7.

Left Atrial Strain Helps Identifying the Cardioembolic Risk in Transient Ischemic Attacks Patients with Silent Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation.

Purpose: Patients with transient ischemic attacks often present asymptomatic and paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Since atrial fibrillation initiates in the atria, we aimed to identify whether the abnormalities in left atrial structure and function could identify the cardioembolic etiology of the transient ischemic attacks in patients at sinus rhythm.

Patients And Methods: A total of 190 patients over 50 years old with sinus rhythm discharged after a transient ischemic attack were included in the study and divided into two groups according to the presence (group I) or absence (group II) of documented paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.

Significant Association Between Left Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction, Left Atrial Performance and Liver Stiffness in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

Purpose: The constitutive elements of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) are linked with both non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and cardiovascular disease. Controlled attenuation parameter (CAP), and vibration controlled transient elastography (VCTE), are able to detect and quantify NAFLD, while conventional and two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (2D-STE) is capable to identify subclinical changes in cardiac function. We wanted to evaluate whether there is any correspondence between left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction and different degrees of liver steatosis and fibrosis in MetS subjects with NAFLD.

Left Ventricular Remodeling Risk Predicted by Two-Dimensional Speckle Tracking Echocardiography in Acute Myocardial Infarction Patients with Midrange or Preserved Ejection Fraction in Western Romania.

Background: Patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are at high risk for left ventricular (LV) remodeling and heart failure. We aimed to study whether LV strains (S) and strain rates (SR) could predict cardiac remodeling in patients with AMI having a midrange or preserved LV ejection fraction (EF) following a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) within the first 12 hours from the onset of symptoms.

Patients And Methods: This is a case-control observational study including patients admitted for their first AMI, either with ST-segment elevation (STEMI) or without ST elevation (NSTEMI), with an LVEF > 40% after a successful PCI.

Tracking people's hands and feet using mixed network AND/OR search.

We describe a framework that leverages mixed probabilistic and deterministic networks and their AND/OR search space to efficiently find and track the hands and feet of multiple interacting humans in 2D from a single camera view. Our framework detects and tracks multiple people's heads, hands, and feet through partial or full occlusion; requires few constraints (does not require multiple views, high image resolution, knowledge of performed activities, or large training sets); and makes use of constraints and AND/OR Branch-and-Bound with lazy evaluation and carefully computed bounds to efficiently solve the complex network that results from the consideration of interperson occlusion. Our main contributions are: 1) a multiperson part-based formulation that emphasizes extremities and allows for the globally optimal solution to be obtained in each frame, and 2) an efficient and exact optimization scheme that relies on AND/OR Branch-and-Bound, lazy factor evaluation, and factor cost sensitive bound computation.