BACKGROUNDS We aimed to evaluate the predictive power of longitudinal and circumferential fibers according to left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in successfully reperfused acute ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients. METHODS Total 691 patients (age 59±13, 20% female) underwent clinical evaluation and conventional and strain echocardiography (Global longitudinal strain (GL...

Background: This study aims to explore the extent to which the perceived oral conditions predict adolescent global life satisfaction (GLS); Methods: The sample in a cross-sectional survey consisted of 1510 Lithuanian adolescents (41.7% boys) aged 11-18. The survey was conducted by means of self-report questionnaires that were administrated in school classrooms ensuring confidentiality and anony...

Medical practice guidelines (GLs) being tools that are mainly designed to evaluate medical professionals, it sounds logical, and fair, that professionals should in turn evaluate GLs. Microbiology being a medical discipline, we used the AGREE instrument, i.e. an established evaluation tool for GLs, in order to evaluate the quality of two major microbiology guidelines, i.e. the SFM GLs and the AS...

BACKGROUND Both impaired left ventricular (LV) global longitudinal strain (GLS) and increased plasma concentrations of natriuretic peptides(NP) are associated with a poor outcome in heart failure (HF). Increased levels of NP reflect increased wall stress of the LV. However, little is known about the relationship between LV GLS and NP. This aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship betw...

BACKGROUND The renal vasculature plays important roles in both homeostasis and pathology. In this study, we examined pathological changes in the renal microvascular in mouse models of kidney diseases. METHODS Glomerular lesions (GLs) in autoimmune disease-prone male BXSB/MpJ-Yaa (Yaa) mice and tubulointerstitial lesions (TILs) in male C57BL/6 mice subjected to unilateral ureteral obstruction ...

AIMS The detection of non-ischaemic (mainly hypertension, diabetes, and obesity) stage B heart failure (SBHF) may facilitate the recognition of those at risk of progression to overt HF and HF prevention. We sought the relationship of specific electrocardiographic (ECG) markers of SBHF to echocardiographic features of SBHF and their prognostic value for development of HF. The ECG markers were Co...

BACKGROUND Left ventricular (LV) global longitudinal strain (GLS) is a measure of the active shortening of the LV in the longitudinal direction, which can be assessed with speckle-tracking echocardiography. The aims of this evaluation were to validate the prognostic value of GLS as a new index of LV systolic function in a large cohort of patients with chronic ischemic cardiomyopathy and to dete...

BACKGROUND Predicting which individuals will have a decline in left ventricular (LV) function after pacemaker implantation remains an important challenge. We investigated whether LV global longitudinal strain (GLS), measured by 2D speckle tracking strain echocardiography, can identify patients at risk of pacing-induced left ventricular dysfunction (PIVD) or pacing-induced cardiomyopathy (PICMP)...

AIMS 2 dimensional (2D) strain analysis detects subclinical left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction. Our aim was to evaluate changes in LV systolic and diastolic function in breast cancer patients early after anthracycline chemotherapy, and to identify predisposing factors. METHODS AND RESULTS 140 patients were assessed by detailed echocardiography before and within seven days post treatme...

In this paper, we show how an extended Guided Local Search (GLS) can be applied to the Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP). GLS is a general, penalty-based meta-heuristic, which sits on top of local search algorithms, to help guide them out of local minima. We present empirical results of applying several extended versions of GLS to the QAP, and show that these extensions can improve the range o...