Fluorescent optical mapping of cardiac electrophysiology in animal models has produced a wealth of information about the function of the cardiac pacemaking and conduction system. However, expanding optical mapping studies to the human conduction system will significantly increase our understanding of clinically relevant phenomena, such as atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia, that are d...

BACKGROUND Hemodynamic optimization of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) can be achieved reproducibly and--with bulky, nonimplantable equipment--noninvasively. We explored whether a simple photoplethysmogram signal might be used instead. METHOD Twenty patients (age 65 ± 12) with CRT underwent automatic atrioventricular (AV) delay optimization, using a multiple-transitions protocol, at t...

We have studied the effects of the biogenic amine noradrenaline (NA) on motor activity in the isolated neonatal rat spinal cord. The motor output was recorded with suction electrodes from the lumbar ventral roots. When applied on its own, NA (0.5-50 microM) elicited either no measurable root activity, or activity of a highly variable nature. When present, the NA-induced activity consisted of ei...

Unlike simple biological rhythms, the rhythm of the oscine bird song is a learned time series of diverse sounds that change dynamically during vocal ontogeny. How to quantify rhythm development is one of the most important challenges in behavioural biology. Here, we propose a simple method, called 'rhythm landscape', to visualize and quantify how rhythm structure, which is measured as durationa...

This review describes recent advances in our knowledge about the pathogenesis and therapeutic approaches to human gastric dysrhythmias. A number of clinical conditions has been found to be associated with gastric slow-wave rhythm disturbances that may relate to the induction of nausea and vomiting. Human and animal studies indicate that multiple neurohumoral factors are involved in the generati...

Business processes are not only variable they are as well dynamic. A key benefit of Business Process Management (BPM) is the ability to adjust business processes accordingly in response to changing market requirements. In parallel to BPM, enterprise cloud computing technology has emerged to provide a more cost effective solution to businesses and services while making use of inexpensive computi...

BACKGROUND Postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a common form of chronic orthostatic intolerance. The remarkable increase in heart rate (HR) upon standing is the hallmark of this syndrome. Treatment of POTS patients is challenging and includes drugs that slow the HR. Ivabradine is a selective If channel blocker designed to slow the HR, as an anti-anginal agent. In view of its ability to slow...

A fundamental problem in music is to classify songs according to their rhythm. A rhythm is represented by a sequence of “Quick” (Q) and “Slow” (S) symbols, which correspond to the (relative) duration of notes, such that S = 2Q. In this paper, we present an efficient algorithm for locating the maximum-length substring of a music text t that can be covered by a given rhythm r.

A 20-year-old woman presents to the emergency department with fatigue and the sudden onset of palpitations. She reports no history of significant illness or surgery. She says she is not currently taking prescription or over-the-counter medications. She does not smoke, drink alcohol, or use illicit drugs. Her weight is 52 kg (115 lb), her height is 170 cm (67 in), and her body mass index (BMI) i...

Precise localization of the slow atrioventricular nodal pathway (SP) is crucial to safe and successful ablation re-entrant tachycardia (AVNRT). However, interpatient anatomic variability can limit efficacy increase risk for heart block. Activation mapping in sinus rhythm using omnipolar technology (OT) delineate areas abrupt change propagation direction, which may reflect connections between fa...