Conventional echocardiography selleck compound failed to demonstrate significant differences between carriers and controls in systolic function. All carriers had multi-focal, minimal to marked myofiber necrosis, fibrosis, mineralization, inflammation, and/or fatty change in their hearts. Immunohistochemistry revealed a mosaic dystrophin deficiency in scattered cardiac myofibers in all carriers. No controls had cardiac histologic lesions; all had uniform dystrophin staining. Despite cardiac mosaic dystrophin expression and degenerative cardiac lesions, GRMD
carriers at up to 3 years of age could not be distinguished statistically from normal controls by echocardiography or 24-h Holter monitoring. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Recently, a renewed interest in Zener tunneling has arisen because of its increasing impact on semiconductor device performance at nanometer dimensions. In this paper we evaluate the tunnel probability under the action of a nonuniform electric field using MK5108 a two-band model and arrive at significant deviations from the commonly used Kane’s model, valid for weak uniform fields only. A threshold on the junction bias where Kane’s model for Zener tunneling breaks down is determined. Comparison with Kane’s model particularly shows that our calculation yields a higher tunnel probability for
intermediate electric fields and a lower tunnel probability for high electric fields. When performing a current calculation comparing to the WKB approximation for the case of an abrupt p-n junction significant differences concerning the shape of the I-V curve are demonstrated. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3311550]“
“Purpose: To determine whether unenhanced magnetic resonance (MR) angiography performed with a three-dimensional (3D) segmented steady-state free
precession (SSFP) sequence would be an alternative to contrast material-enhanced MR angiography for evaluating pulmonary veins find more (PVs) prior to and following radiofrequency (RF) ablation for atrial fibrillation.
Materials and Methods: MR angiographic examinations of PVs, performed in 20 patients (nine men, 11 women; mean age, 56.4 years +/- 12.7 [standard deviation]), were retrospectively reviewed according to an institutional review board-approved protocol. The number of PVs and their orthogonal measurements obtained from the 3D SSFP images were compared with those obtained from contrast-enhanced MR angiography. Signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios were also compared. Qualitative assessment of both techniques was performed by independent reviewers who scored the image quality (on a scale of 1 to 5) on the basis of PV conspicuity. The presence of cardiac and extracardiac pathologic indicators was also determined. Bland-Altman and Wilcoxon signed rank statistical analyses were performed.
Results: The mean difference in PV diameter measurements between contrast-enhanced MR angiography and 3D SSFP was -0.02 cm +/- 0.25.