abstract background: the current practice to measure rv is either by bpg or helium dilution methods which may not be available in all clinics due to their cost. methods: this paper outlines a method for both direct and indirect calculation of rv via pft with acceptable sensitivity (81 %, 60% ), specificity (71 %, 94%) and validity (76%, 78%) for obstructive and restrictive lung disease respecti...

BACKGROUND Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a hereditary condition in which lung disease affects all patients. In addition to pulmonary involvement, the multisystemic components of CF cause significant physical limitations. However, the impact of lung function on balance control in CF has not been studied. OBJECTIVE To assess body balance in adults with CF and to test its possible associations with lu...

A new indexing method is presented which is capable of indexing multiple crystal lattices from narrow wedges of diffraction data. The method takes advantage of a simplification of Fourier transform-based methods that is applicable when the unit-cell dimensions are known a priori. The efficacy of this method is demonstrated with both semi-synthetic multi-lattice data and real multi-lattice data ...

OBJECTIVE To assess the applicability of three prognostic indexes--APACHE II, SAPS II and UNICAMP II--in a subgroup of critical heart failure (HF) patients. METHODS Ninety patients were studied, being 12 females and 78 males. Mean age was 56 (18-83). Patients were ranked in functional class IV (NYHA) or cardiogenic shock secondary to cardiomyopathies: dilated (44%), chagasic (25.5%), ischemic...

A proper alignment of the ultrasound beam to the aortic or pulmonary outflow tracts is essential to acquire accurate signals. This study aimed to investigate the influence of different positions on the acquisition of Doppler signals using a noninvasive transcutaneous Doppler ultrasound. This was a prospective observational crossover study. Two operators performed hemodynamics measurements on ea...

STUDY OBJECTIVES In patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH) secondary to congestive heart failure, inhaled nitric oxide (NO) increases pulmonary vascular smooth-muscle intracellular cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) concentration, thereby decreasing pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) and increasing cardiac index (CI). However, these beneficial effects of inhaled NO are limited in magnitu...

Both right and left ventricles are developed from two adjacent segments of the primary heart tube. Though they are different with regard to shape and power, they mirror each other in terms of behavior. This is the first level of symmetry in cardiac function assessment. Both cardiac muscle contraction and relaxation are active. This constructs the second level of symmetry in cardiac function ass...

the work exposure conditions such as dust concentration, exposure time, use of respiratory protection devices and smoking status are effective to cause pulmonary function disorder. the objective of this study was prediction of pulmonary disorders in workers exposed to silica dust using artificial neural networks and logistic regression. a sample of 117 out of 150 workers employed in the stone c...

We study the self-duality operator on conic 4-manifolds. The self-duality operator can be identified as a regular singular operator in the sense of Brüning and Seeley, based on which we construct its parametrizations and closed extensions. We also compute the indexes.