The functional duration of vascular access in dialysis patients depends on the emergence of threatening complications. Discussions are constantly being held in an attempt to discover their causality and decrease their emergence. In 260 patients undergoing haemodialysis, we have studied the potential existence of a cause-and-effect relation between the emergence of complications in the vascular ...

Explosions play an important role in many games. Yet, as explosions are sudden and highly turbulent, animating visually pleasing and dynamic realtime explosions is a very complex task. We present a method for animating explosions completely on the graphics processing unit (GPU). The simulation allows for arbitrary internal boundaries and is governed by a combustion process, a Stable Fluids solv...

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The atrioventricular (AV) node is a recurrent source of potentially life-threatening arrhythmias. Nevertheless, limited data are available on its developmental control or molecular phenotype. We used a novel AV nodal myocardium-specific reporter mouse to gain insight into the gene programs determining the formation and phenotype of the developing AV node. In this reporter, green fluorescent pro...

Nonnative speech poses a challenge to speech perception, especially in challenging listening environments. Audiovisual (AV) cues are known to improve native speech perception in noise. The extent to which AV cues benefit nonnative speech perception in noise, however, is much less well-understood. Here, we examined native American English-speaking and native Korean-speaking listeners' perception...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Quantifying changes in the human brain that occur as part of normal aging may help in the diagnosis of diseases that affect the elderly and that cause structural changes in the brain. We sought to assess diffusion changes that are inherently related to brain structure during aging. METHODS MR scans were obtained from 11 healthy volunteers and 27 patients (ages 26 to 86 ...

Auditory-visual (AV) speech enhances speech perception and facilitates auditory processing, as measured by event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Considering a perspective of shared resources between perceptual and cognitive processes, facilitated speech perception may render more resources available for higher-order functions. This study examined whether AV speech facilitation leads to better ...

MicroRNA-208a (mir-208a) is essential for cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis. Endoglin, a co-receptor of transforming growth factor-β is also essential for cardiac fibrosis. Endoglin has been shown to be a target of mir-208a in the in vitro mechanical stress model. Volume overload can lead to heart failure and cardiac fibrosis. The role of mir-208a and endoglin in volume overload heart failure is...

In the normal heart, the atrioventricular node (AVN) is part of the sole pathway between the atria and ventricles, and is responsible for the appropriate atrial-ventricular delay. Under normal physiological conditions, the AVN controls appropriate frequency-dependent delay of contractions. The AVN also plays an important role in pathology: it protects ventricles during atrial tachyarrhythmia, a...