Multiple sclerosis (MS), a progressive neurological disease, can lead to impairments in the autonomic control of cardiovascular function. We tested the hypothesis that individuals with relapsing-remitting MS (n = 10; 7 females, 3 males; 13 ± 4 yr from diagnosis) exhibit impaired carotid baroreflex control of blood pressure and heart rate compared with sex, age, and body weight-matched healthy i...

Transplantation is often the only viable treatment for pediatric patients with end-stage liver disease. Making well-informed decisions on when to proceed with transplantation requires accurate predictors of transplant survival. The standard Cox proportional hazards (PH) model assumes that covariate effects are time-invariant on right-censored failure time; however, this assumption may not alway...

Blood flow to contracting skeletal muscle is tightly coupled to the oxygenation state of hemoglobin. To investigate if ATP could be a signal by which the erythrocyte contributes to the regulation of skeletal muscle blood flow and oxygen (O2) delivery, we measured circulating ATP in 8 young subjects during incremental one-legged knee-extensor exercise under conditions of normoxia, hypoxia, hyper...

BACKGROUND Smart phone technology is becoming increasingly integrated into medical care.Our study compared an iPhone modified flexible fibreoptic bronchoscope as an intubation aid and clinical teaching tool with an unmodified bronchoscope, Glidescope® and Macintosh laryngoscope in a simulated normal and difficult airway scenario. METHODS Sixty three anaesthesia providers, 21 consultant anaest...

Desalination technologies improve water quality, greatly reduce water shortage problems, and improve quality of life and economic status. Two main technologies are currently used in water desalination: thermal (phase-change) processes and membrane processes. The primary thermal distillation processes include multistage flash distillation (MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED), and vapor compres...

We investigated the nature of color and luminance processes under threshold and suprathreshold conditions in normal trichromatic observers. Detection and discrimination contours as well as threshold-vs-contrast (Tvc) functions were measured in the Derrington-Krauskopf-Lennie (DKL) color space using a masking paradigm. Such contours revealed substantial threshold asymmetries along the three card...

BACKGROUND To evaluate the association between the isolated single umbilical artery (iSUA) and perinatal outcomes, including pregnancy outcomes and perinatal complications. MATERIAL AND METHODS We performed a meta-analysis of 15 eligible studies regarding the relationship between the iSUA and perinatal outcomes, including gestational age at delivery, nuchal cord, placental weight, small for ges...

In this paper, we present the concept and design of a time-to-voltage converter (TVC), and demonstrate its application to on-chip phase-locked loop (PLL) jitter measurement. The TVC operates in an analog, continuous mode without using a sampling clock. It compares the signal under measurement with a reference signal by charging and discharging a capacitor. First, the low-frequency reference sig...

BACKGROUND Microbiological standards within pork slaughter processing plants in the European Union are currently governed by Commission Regulation (EC) 2073/2005, which describes detailed performance criteria at specific stages of the procedure (following carcass dressing and before chilling) for total viable counts (TVC), Enterobacteriaceae (EB) and Salmonella spp. In this study, 95 carcasses ...