OBJECTIVES This study sought to assess the diagnostic impact of stress echocardiography (SE) in patients with suspected low-flow, low-gradient aortic stenosis but normal resting transvalvular flow rate. BACKGROUND SE may help to distinguish between true severe aortic stenosis and pseudosevere aortic stenosis in patients with low aortic valve area (AVA) and mean gradient. However, if rest flow...

The propagation of audible acoustic waves in two-dimensional square lattice tunable sonic crystals (SC) made of square cross-section infinitely rigid rods embedded in air is investigated experimentally. The band structure is calculated with the plane wave expansion (PWE) method and compared with experimental measurements carried out on a finite extend structure of 200 cm width, 70 cm depth and ...

The pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics of a single-phase micro-channel heat sink were investigated both experimentally and numerically. The heat sink was fabricated from oxygen-free copper and fitted with a polycarbonate plastic cover plate. The heat sink consisted of an array of rectangular micro-channels 231 lm wide and 713 lm deep. Deionized water was employed as the cooling liq...

Transparent conducting tin oxide thin films have been prepared by electron beam evaporation and spray pyrolysis methods. Structural, optical and electrical properties were studied under different preparation conditions like substrate temperature, solution flow rate and rate of deposition. Resistivity of undoped evaporated films varied from 2⋅65 × 10 Ω-cm to 3⋅57 × 10 Ω-cm in the temperature ran...

The tropical storm, floodwater, and the floodplainsediment layer of a 100-year recurrence flood are examined to better understand characteristics of large monsoon floods on medium-sized rivers in northern Thailand. Storms producing large floods in northern Thailand occur early or late in the summer rainy season (May–October). These storms are associated with tropical depressions evolving from t...

We present the final results of an extensive aging test, performed at the CERN Gamma Irradiation Facility on two bakelite Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC) detectors. With a method based on a model describing the behaviour of an RPC under high particle flux conditions, we have periodically measured the electrode resistivity r of the two RPC prototypes over 3 years. We observed a large spontaneous ...

We present, for the first time, the design of an instrument capable of measuring the high energy (>60MeV) muon-induced neutron flux deep underground. The instrument is based on applying the Gd-loaded liquid-scintillator technique to measure the rate of multiple low energy neutron events produced in a Pb target and from this measurement to infer the rate of high energy neutron events. This uniqu...

AIM To examine the effects of obesity phenotype on abdominal fat responses to regular aerobic exercise. METHOD Fifty-seven obese men aged 34-70 years were divided into two groups based on baseline intra-abdominal fat (IF) area measured by computerized tomography: moderate (<200 cm(2)) IF (MIF; n=33, age: 52.9+/-10.6 [SD] yr, body mass index [BMI]: 29.2+/-3.1 kg/m(2)) or high (>or=200 cm(2)) I...

Present study investigated the effect of red wine polyphenolic compounds (Provinols) on blood pressure (BP), nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity and vascular function in Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats exposed to chronic social stress produced by crowding. Adult male rats were divided into four groups: control (480 cm(2)/rat), Provinols-treated (20 mg/kg/day, 480 cm(2)/rat), crowded (200 cm(2)/rat) an...

Optimum planting geometries have been shown to increase crop yields in maize-soybean intercrop systems. However, little is known about whether changes in planting geometry improve the seasonal water use of maize and soybean intercrops. We conducted two different field experiments in 2013 and 2014 to investigate the effects of changes in planting geometry on water use efficiency (WUE) and evapot...