A 41-year-old African male presented with worsening dyspnea and cachexia concerning for congestive heart failure. Transesophageal echocardiogram revealed a large mass attached to the aortic valve leaflet, mass attached to the flail anterior mitral valve leaflet, severe pulmonary hypertension and dilatation of the aortic root along with fistula between the right coronary aortic cusp and the righ...

A 16.4-ha arca at the Michigan State University Water Quality Research Site was surveyed to obtain information on the habitats and prominence of taxa of the Criconematinae. Fifteen species representing six genera (Macroposthonia, Lobocriconema, Criconema, Crossonema, Nothocriconema, and Xenocriconemella) of this subfamily were recovered from the experimental site. Species occurrence and populat...

This paper makes the polarimetric and polarimetric interferometric synthetic aperture radar (PolInSAR) experiments with the highresolution X-band data acquired by Multi-mode airborne SAR system over an area around Linshui, south of China containing tropic vegetation and urban areas. Polarimetric analysis for typical tropic vegetations and man-made objects are presented, some polarimetric descri...

We have found that nanobacteria, recently discovered Gram-negative atypical bacteria, can cause local calciphylaxis on the mitral valve in a setting of high-calcium X phosphorous product in the blood. We present the case of a 33-year-old man with diabetic renal failure on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis who died as a result of multiple brain infarcts due to embolizations from mitral v...

In order to assess the reliability of the echocardiogram in detecting valvular vegetations in patients with mitral valve prolapse (MVP), echocardiograms from 85 consecutive patients with mitral valve prolapse were reviewed. Eleven patients had thick shaggy echoes confined to the anterior mitral leaflet; eighteen patients had shaggy echoes on the posterior leaflet; and five had abnormal echoes o...

The rabbit model of endocarditis was used to test the effectiveness of vancomycin and two different lysostaphin dosing regimens for the treatment of infections caused by a Staphylococcus aureus strain with reduced susceptibility to vancomycin (glycopeptide-intermediate susceptible S. aureus [GISA]). Vancomycin was ineffective, with no evidence of sterilization of aortic valve vegetations. Howev...

This technical document is a preliminary report on the study of the foliage influence on the radio wave propagation in cellular scenarios. The purpose is to evaluate the dispersion and attenuation caused by vegetations in mobile radio channels, hence we employed a channel sounder to measure received signals behind dense vegetations in the rural areas in Kanagawa, Japan. The transmitter sends a ...

Libman-Sacks endocarditis, characterized by sterile fibrofibrinous vegetations that have the potential to develop anywhere on the endocardial surface, was originally reported in 1924. The mitral valve is most commonly affected, followed by the aortic valve, whereas tricuspid and pulmonary valves are seldom involved. Libman-Sacks vegetations can be found in approximately 1 of 10 patients with sy...

With a novel real-time multiplex polymerase chain reaction test, the LightCycler SeptiFast® test, 25 bacterial and fungal species can be identified directly in blood. The SeptiFast® test has been used for rapid etiologic diagnosis in infectious endocarditis using blood samples but has not been evaluated directly on cardiac vegetations in patients being treated for infectious endocarditis. We pr...