OBJECTIVE To investigate left ventricular elastance (Emax) and effective arterial elastance (Ea) in postinfarction left ventricular aneurysm and evaluate their role in left ventricular function improvement after endoventricular circular patch plasty (EVCPP). Ventriculoarterial coupling has never been studied in these patients. PATIENTS 22 consecutive patients (49 to 73 years) with left ventri...

It is important to estimate the ridge distance accurately, an intrinsic texture property of a fingerprint image. Up to now, only several articles have touched directly upon ridge distance estimation. Little has been published providing detailed evaluation of methods for ridge distance estimation, in particular, the traditional spectral analysis method applied in the frequency field. In this pap...

Memetic algorithms with an appropriate trade-off between the exploration and exploitation can obtain very good results in continuous optimisation. That implies the evolutionary algorithm should be focused in exploring the search space while the local search method exploits the achieved solutions. To tackle this issue, we propose to maintain a higher diversity in the evolutionary algorithm's pop...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Carrier screening for Tay-Sachs disease is performed by sequence analysis of the HEXA gene and/or hexosaminidase A enzymatic activity testing. Enzymatic analysis (EA) has been suggested as the optimal carrier screening method, especially in non-Ashkenazi Jewish (non-AJ) individuals, but its utilization and efficacy have not been fully evaluated in the general population. Thi...

The effect of ethacrynic acid (EA) at different blood O(2) saturations on cochlear potentials of guinea pigs was investigated. All 18 young healthy guinea pigs received 50 mg/kg/h of EA intravenously and were divided into three groups: first group, normal (90.00+/-6.30-86.17+/-4.83 mm Hg); second group, lower Po(2) (78.00+/-4.74-70.00+/-4.42 mm Hg); and third group, high Po(2) (174.40+/-13.41-1...

OBJECTIVE Research indicates that low parental monitoring increases the risk for early substance use. Because low parental monitoring tends to co-occur with other familial and neighborhood factors, the specificity of the association is challenging to establish. Using logistic regression and propensity score analyses, we examined associations between low parental monitoring and early substance u...

BACKGROUND Cumulating evidence has revealed the effectiveness of acupuncture therapy in relieving pain via immunoregulation. However, its underlying mechanism remains unknown. The present study was designed to determine the changes of immunogenic responses at different time-points of electroacupuncture (EA) interventions in neuropathic pain rats. METHODS The neuropathic pain model was establi...

Citation: Ramalho SP, Lins L, Bueno-Pardo J, Cordova EA, Amisi JM, Lampadariou N, Vanreusel A and Cunha MR (2017) Deep-Sea Mega-Epibenthic Assemblages from the SW Portuguese Margin (NE Atlantic) Subjected to Bottom-Trawling Fisheries. Front. Mar. Sci. 4:350. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2017.00350 Deep-Sea Mega-Epibenthic Assemblages from the SW Portuguese Margin (NE Atlantic) Subjected to Bottom-Trawlin...

Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders all over the world. Available anti-arthritic medications have only partial efficacy and their long-term use is associated with adverse events. Elaeagnus Angustifolia (EA) is a medicinal plant with analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties. The present study evaluated the impact of two doses of EA extract compared with ibup...

Somatosensory Evoked Potentials (SEPs) are brain electrical physiological signals elicited by the direct electrical stimulation of peripheral nerves. In other words, SEP is viewed as the nerve electric response produced by spinal cord sending or receiving sensory information in response to a stimulus (Turner et al., 2003). SEP has been widely used during the clinical testing and monitoring of t...