We report an adolescent with a malignant form of Brugada syndrome who presented with 15 episodes of ventricular fibrillation (VF) over 10 days, shortly after implantation of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator. Oral quinidine bisulphate at a dose of 1000 mg/day successfully suppressed the electrical storm and recurrence of VF over 18-month follow-up. It also normalized the ST-segment elev...

A 5-year-old child had a medical history of epilepsy and a newly presented mental retardation with a life-threatening dystonic storm. Neuroimagings showed bilateral calcification of the pallidum. Several treatment modalities were performed, but the symptoms showed no significant improvement. The patient was operated on in order to place a deep brain stimulation (DBS) targeting b...

On computed tomography, ground-glass opacity (GGO) appears as a hazy, increased opacity in the lungs with the preservation of the bronchial and vascular margins. GGO is less opaque than consolidation, in which the bronchovascular margins are obscured (1). We believe that GGO and consolidation are successive events depending on the intensity of the pathological changes. Using true ground-glass o...

The large numbers of people with mental illness in jails and prisons has fueled policy concern in all domains of the justice system. This includes police practice, where initial decisions to involve persons in the justice system or divert them to mental health services are made. One approach to focus police response in these situations is the implementation of Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT). T...

High-resolution ensemble simulations (∆x = 1km) are performed with the Met Office Unified Model for the Boscastle (Cornwall, UK) flash-flooding event of 16 August 2004. Forecast uncertainties arising from imperfections in the forecast model are analysed by comparing the simulation results produced by two types of perturbation strategy. Motivated by the meteorology of the event, one type of pert...

Six behavioural experiments were carried out to investigate the magnetic field effects on the nest-exiting flight directions of the honeybee Schwarziana quadripunctata (Meliponini). No significant differences resulted during six experiment days under varying geomagnetic field and the applied static inhomogeneous field (about ten times the geomagnetic field) conditions. A surprising statisticall...

The Kings Bay, Crystal River complex, located in Citrus County, Florida, is one of the world’s largest spring-fed ecosystems and a critical warm-water refuge for endangered Florida manatees. Unfortunately, large areas of Kings Bay are currently in a state of ecological degradation characterized by smothering mats of the filamentous cyanobacterium Lyngbya wollei. The causes of this ecosystem shi...

AIMS Arrhythmic storm or repetitive ventricular arrhythmia (VA) has been occasionally observed in Brugada syndrome (BS). A beta-adrenergic stimulator [isoproterenol (ISP)] has been reported to suppress this arrhythmic storm in sporadic cases. Accordingly, we investigated the antiarrhythmic effects of ISP infusion in consecutive BS patients with arrhythmic storm or repetitive VA. METHODS AND R...

In the hyperadrenergic state of VT storm where shocks are psychologically and physiologically traumatizing, suppression of sympathetic outflow from the organ level of the heart up to higher braincenters plays a significant role in reducing the propensity for VT recurrence. The autonomic nervous system continuously receives input from the heart (afferent signaling), integrates them, and sends ef...

The accurate forecasting of storm surges is an important issue in the Netherlands. With the emergence of the first numerical hydrodynamic models for surge forecasting at the beginning of the 1980s, new demands and possibilities were raised. This article describes the main phases of the development and the present operational set-up of the Dutch continental shelf model, which is the main hydrody...