background: the late postoperative course for children with transposition of the great arteries (tga) with an intact ventricular septum (ivs) is very important because the coronary arteries may be at risk of damage during  arterial switch operation (aso). we sought to investigate left ventricular function in patients with tga/ivs by echocardiography. methods: from march 2011 to december 2012, t...

Background The arterial Switch operation (ASO) is now performed routinely for the repair of transposition of the great arteries (TGA). Neo-aortic root dilatation and reduced elasticity of the ascending aorta have been shown to impact the long-term outcomes of these patients. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of the ASO with the Lecompte maneuver on the dynamic behavior and dimensio...

We investigate the combination of answer set programming and qualitative optimization techniques. Answer set optimization programs (ASO programs) have two parts. The generating program produces answer sets representing possible solutions. The preference program expresses user preferences. It induces a preference relation on the answer sets of based on the degree to which rules are satisfied. We...

Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) are recognized therapeutic agents for the modulation of specific genes at the post-transcriptional level. Similar to any medical drugs, there are opportunities to improve their efficacy and safety. Here we develop a short DNA/RNA heteroduplex oligonucleotide (HDO) with a structure different from double-stranded RNA used for short interfering RNA and single-stra...

Defence trees are used to represent attack and defence strategies in security scenarios; the aim in such scenarios is to select the best set of countermeasures that are able to stop all the vulnerabilities. In order to represent preferences among possible countermeasures of a given attack, defence trees are enriched with conditional preferences, obtaining a new structure called CP-defence tree....

We present a new continuous adjoint method for Aerodynamic Shape Optimization (ASO) using the Euler equations, which reduces the computational cost of the gradients by reducing the volume integral part of the adjoint gradient formula to a surface integral. The savings are particularly significant for three-dimensional ASO problems on general unstructured and overset meshes. In order to validate...

Our prediction that phase II of dipotassium hydrogen chromatoarsenate, K(2)[HCr(2)AsO(10)], is ferroelectric, based on the analysis of the atomic coordinates by Averbuch-Pouchot, Durif & Guitel [Acta Cryst. (1978), B34, 3725-3727], led to an independent redetermination of the structure using two separate crystals. The resulting improved accuracy allows the inference that the H atom is located i...

OBJECTIVES The arterial switch operation (ASO) has become the standard surgical procedure for transposition of the great arteries (TGA) or variants with an excellent early outcome. However, there are concerns regarding neopulmonary stenosis, neoaortic regurgitation (neoAR) associated with neoaortic root dilatation and coronary artery disease. METHODS A total of 220 early survivors of the ASO ...

Background Abnormal aortic arch geometry, in particular the ‘gothic arch’, has been associated with reduced exercise performance in patients with repaired aortic coarctation. Following the arterial switch operation (ASO) for transposition of the great arteries (TGA), the morphology of the aorta is also known to be abnormal, presenting with dilated aortic root and ‘gothic’ deformity of the aorti...