background: atrial fibrillation is a common arrhythmia in patients with rheumatic mitral and other valve diseases who are candidates for valve repair surgeries. conversion of rhythm to sinus has positive effects on quality of life and lower use of medications. the aim of this clinical study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the radiofrequency ablation maze iii procedure in the treatment of a...

Not too long ago, the options for treatment of keratoconus were limited to contact lens wear or penetrating keratoplasty. Times have changed, which is reflected in 4 articles in this issue that have some bearing on current investigation and treatment options. One hundred fifty years ago, Dr. John Nottingham provided the first detailed description of keratoconus, with further observations by his...

The maintenance of synaptic strength and specificity in the CNS may depend on interactions among postsynaptic dendrites. We examined the effect of removing a neuron on synaptic organization. A single identified postsynaptic neuron in the adult cercal system of the cockroach was removed with photoablation. After a 30 d recovery period, the synaptic connectivity and morphology of the intact presy...

W ith the recent surge of interest in wave-front sensing technology as a new diagnostic tool in refractive surgery 1,2 , the concept of wavefront customized correction has now come to the forefront. 3,4 Among the companies leading this effort, the Summit-Autonomous Technologies provides a technology platform within CustomCornea which can be used as a model for wavefront ablation requirements. A...

PURPOSE To determine the relative contributions to aqueous outflow resistance of the tissues distal to the inner wall of Schlemm's canal. METHODS While performing constant pressure perfusion at 10 mm Hg, a 193-nm excimer laser (Questek) was used to precisely remove portions of sclera, unroofing Schlemm's canal while leaving the inner wall intact. The laser beam was masked to produce a beam 2 ...

As a key component of the solid rocket motor, nozzle ablation is very important to performance motor. In order study influence law on motor performance, two-dimensional axisymmetric model ground state and vacuum before after was constructed basis reference profile, change pressure, temperature velocity with were studied. The comprehensive calculated evaluate performance. It found that profile c...

Thin film ablation with pulsed nanosecond lasers can benefit from the use of beam shaping optics to transform the Gaussian beam profile with a circular footprint into a Top-Hat beam profile with a rectangular footprint. In general, the quality of the transformed beam profile depends strongly on the beam alignment of the entire laser system. In particular, the adjustment of the beam shaping elem...