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Exercise Doppler echocardiography (EDE) is a well-validated tool in ischemic and valvular heart diseases. However, its use in the assessment of the right heart and pulmonary circulation unit (RH-PCU) is limited. The aim of this study is to assess the semi-recumbent bicycle EDE feasibility for the evaluation of RH-PCU in a large multi-center population, from healthy individuals and elite athletes to patients with overt or at risk of developing pulmonary hypertension (PH). From January 2019 to July 2019, 954 subjects [mean age 54.2 ± 16.4years, range 16–96, 430 women] underwent standardized semi-recumbent bicycle EDE with an incremental workload of 25 watts every 2min, were prospectively enrolled among 7 centers participating to the RIGHT Heart International NETwork (RIGHT-NET). EDE parameters of right heart structure, function and pressures were obtained according to current recommendations. Right ventricular (RV) function at peak exercise was feasible in 903/940 (96%) by tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE), 667/751 (89%) by tissue Doppler-derived tricuspid lateral annular systolic velocity (S′) and 445/672 (66.2%) by right ventricular fractional area change (RVFAC). RV—right atrial pressure gradient [RV–RA gradient = 4 × tricuspid regurgitation velocity2 (TRV)] was feasible in 894/954 patients (93.7%) at rest and in 816/954 (85.5%) at peak exercise. The feasibility rate in estimating pulmonary artery pressure improved to more than 95%, if both TRV and/or right ventricular outflow tract acceleration time (RVOT AcT) were considered. In high specialized echocardiography laboratories semi-recumbent bicycle EDE is a feasible tool for the assessment of the RH-PCU pressure and function.

Background Current guidelines suggest to consider dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) continuation for longer than 12 months in selected patients with myocardial infarction (MI). Hypothesis We sought to assess the criteria used by cardiologists in daily practice to select patients with a history of MI eligible for DAPT continuation beyond 1 year. Methods We analyzed data from the EYESHOT Post-MI, a prospective, observational, nationwide study aimed to evaluate the management of patients presenting to cardiologists 1 to 3 years from the last MI event. Results Out of the 1633 post-MI patients enrolled in the study between March and December 2017, 557 (34.1%) were on DAPT at the time of enrolment, and 450 (27.6%) were prescribed DAPT after cardiologist assessment. At multivariate analyses, a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with multiple stents and the presence of peripheral artery disease (PAD) resulted as independent predictors of DAPT continuation, while atrial fibrillation was the only independent predictor of DAPT interruption for patients both at the second and the third year from MI at enrolment and the time of discharge/end of the visit. Conclusions Risk scores recommended by current guidelines for guiding decisions on DAPT duration are underused and misused in clinical practice. A PCI with multiple stents and a history of PAD resulted as the clinical variables more frequently associated with DAPT continuation beyond 1 year from the index MI.

Since the very beginning of astronomy the location of objects on the sky has been a fundamental observational quantity that has been taken for granted. While precise two dimensional positional information is easy to obtain for observations in the electromagnetic spectrum, the positional accuracy of current and near future gravitational wave detectors is limited to between tens and hundreds of square degrees, which makes it extremely challenging to identify the host galaxies of gravitational wave events or to confidently detect any electromagnetic counterparts. Gravitational wave observations provide information on source properties and distances that is complementary to the information in any associated electromagnetic emission and that is very hard to obtain in any other way. Observing systems with multiple messengers thus has scientific potential much greater than the sum of its parts. A gravitational wave detector with higher angular resolution would significantly increase the prospects for finding the hosts of gravitational wave sources and triggering a multi-messenger follow-up campaign. An observatory with arcminute precision or better could be realised within the Voyage 2050 programme by creating a large baseline interferometer array in space and would have transformative scientific potential. Precise positional information of standard sirens would enable precision measurements of cosmological parameters and offer new insights on structure formation; a high angular resolution gravitational wave observatory would allow the detection of a stochastic background and resolution of the anisotropies within it; it would also allow the study of accretion processes around black holes; and it would have tremendous potential for tests of modified gravity and the discovery of physics beyond the Standard Model.

How did the universe evolve? The fine angular scale (l>1000) temperature and polarization anisotropies in the CMB are a Rosetta stone for understanding the evolution of the universe. Through detailed measurements one may address everything from the physics of the birth of the universe to the history of star formation and the process by which galaxies formed. One may in addition track the evolution of the dark energy and discover the net neutrino mass. We are at the dawn of a new era in which hundreds of square degrees of sky can be mapped with arcminute resolution and sensitivities measured in microKelvin. Acquiring these data requires the use of special purpose telescopes such as the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), located in Chile, and the South Pole Telescope (SPT). These new telescopes are outfitted with a new generation of custom mm-wave kilo-pixel arrays. Additional instruments are in the planning stages.

Using the Cosmic Background Imager, a 13-element interferometer array operating in the 26-36 GHz frequency band, we have observed 40 sq deg of sky in three pairs of fields, each ~ 145 x 165 arcmin, using overlapping pointings (mosaicing). We present images and power spectra of the cosmic microwave background radiation in these mosaic fields. We remove ground radiation and other low-level contaminating signals by differencing matched observations of the fields in each pair. The primary foreground contamination is due to point sources (radio galaxies and quasars). We have subtracted the strongest sources from the data using higher-resolution measurements, and we have projected out the response to other sources of known position in the power-spectrum analysis. The images show features on scales ~ 6 - 15 arcmin, corresponding to masses ~ (5 - 80)*10^{14} Msun at the surface of last scattering, which are likely to be the seeds of clusters of galaxies. The power spectrum estimates have a resolution Delta-l = 200 and are consistent with earlier results in the multipole range l, Comment: Accepted by The Astrophysical Journal; 16 pages including 17 color figures. Additional information at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/CBI/

The curvature on codimension-two and higher branes is not regular for arbitrary matter sources. Nevertheless, the low-energy theory for an observer on such a brane should be well-defined and independent to any regularization procedure. This is achieved via appropriate classical renormalization of the brane couplings, and leads to a natural hierarchy between standard model couplings and couplings to gravity., Comment: 4 pages, PASCOS-07 conference proceedings, 2-7 July 2007, Imperial College

Templates for polarised emission from Galactic foregrounds at frequencies relevant to Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarisation experiments are obtained by modelling the Galactic Magnetic Field (GMF) on large scales. This work extends the results of O'Dea et al. by including polarised synchrotron radiation as a source of foreground emission. The polarisation direction and fraction in this calculation are based solely on the underlying choice of GMF model and therefore provide an independent prediction for the polarisation signal on large scales. Templates of polarised foregrounds may be of use when forecasting effective experimental sensitivity. In turn, as measurements of the CMB polarisation over large fractions of the sky become routine, this model will allow for the data to constrain parameters in the, as yet, not well understood form of the GMF., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures

The upcoming generation of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments face a major challenge in detecting the weak cosmic B-mode signature predicted as a product of primordial gravitational waves. To achieve the required sensitivity these experiments must have impressive control of systematic effects and detailed understanding of the foreground emission that will influence the signal. In this paper, we present templates of the intensity and polarisation of emission from one of the main Galactic foregrounds, interstellar dust. These are produced using a model which includes a 3D description of the Galactic magnetic field, examining both large and small scales. We also include in the model the details of the dust density, grain alignment and the intrinsic polarisation of the emission from an individual grain. We present here Stokes parameter template maps at 150GHz and provide an on-line repository (http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/c.contaldi/fgpol) for these and additional maps at frequencies that will be targeted by upcoming experiments such as EBEX, Spider and SPTpol., 7 pages, 4 figures

We use Minkowski Functionals (MF) to constrain a primordial non-Gaussian contribution to the CMB intensity field as observed in the 150 GHz and 145 GHz BOOMERanG maps from the 1998 and 2003 flights, respectively, performing for the first time a joint analysis of the two datasets. A perturbative expansion of the MF formulae in the limit of a weakly non-Gaussian field yields analytical formulae, derived by Hikage et al. (2006), which can be used to constrain the coupling parameter f_NL without the need for non-Gaussian simulations. We find -1020, Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures

We assess the strengths and weaknesses of several likelihood formalisms, including the XFaster likelihood. We compare the performance of the XFaster likelihood to that of the Offset Lognormal Bandpower likelihood on simulated data for the Planck satellite. Parameters estimated with these two likelihoods are in good agreement. The advantages of the XFaster likelihood can therefore be realized without compromising performance., 16 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, submitted to MNRAS

We develop the XFaster Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropy power spectrum and likelihood technique for the Planck CMB satellite mission. We give an overview of this estimator and its current implementation and present the results of applying this algorithm to simulated Planck data. We show that it can accurately extract the power spectrum of Planck data for the high-l multipoles range. We compare the XFaster approximation for the likelihood to other high-l likelihood approximations such as Gaussian and Offset Lognormal and a low-l pixel-based likelihood. We show that the XFaster likelihood is not only accurate at high-l, but also performs well at moderately low multipoles. We also present results for cosmological parameter Markov Chain Monte Carlo estimation with the XFaster likelihood. As long as the low-l polarization and temperature power are properly accounted for, e.g., by adding an adequate low-l likelihood ingredient, the input parameters are recovered to a high level of accuracy., 25 pages, 20 figures, updated to reflect published version: slightly extended account of XFaster technique, added improved plots and minor corrections. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present final results on the angular power spectrum of total intensity anisotropies in the CMB from the CBI. Our analysis includes all primordial anisotropy data collected between January 2000 and April 2005, and benefits significantly from an improved maximum likelihood analysis pipeline. It also includes results from a 30 GHz foreground survey conducted with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) which places significant constraints on the possible contamination due to foreground point sources. We improve on previous CBI results by about a factor of two in the damping tail. These data confirm, at ~3-sigma, the existence of an excess of power over intrinsic CMB anisotropy on small angular scales (l > 1800). Using the GBT survey, we find currently known radio source populations are not capable of generating the power; a new population of faint sources with steeply rising spectral indices would be required to explain the excess with sources... We also present a full cosmological parameter analysis of the new CBI power spectrum... With CBI alone, the full parameter analysis finds the excess is 1.6-sigma above the level expected for a sigma_8=0.8 universe. We find the addition of high-l CMB data substantially improves constraints on cosmic string contributions to the TT power spectrum as well as the running of the scalar spectral index... We also present forecasts for what other experiments should see at different frequencies and angular resolutions given the excess power observed by CBI. We find that the reported high-l bandpowers from current high resolution CMB bolometer experiments are consistent with each other and CBI if the excess power is due to the SZE at the CBI-level of 2.5 +/- 1 times the sigma_8=0.8 standard SZ template., Comment: 38 Pages, 9 Figures, 5 Tables v2 - fixed typos

Modern cosmology has sharpened questions posed for millennia about the origin of our cosmic habitat. The age-old questions have been transformed into two pressing issues primed for attack in the coming decade: How did the Universe begin? and What physical laws govern the Universe at the highest energies? The clearest window onto these questions is the pattern of polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which is uniquely sensitive to primordial gravity waves. A detection of the special pattern produced by gravity waves would be not only an unprecedented discovery, but also a direct probe of physics at the earliest observable instants of our Universe. Experiments which map CMB polarization over the coming decade will lead us on our first steps towards answering these age-old questions., Comment: Science White Paper submitted to the US Astro2010 Decadal Survey. Full list of 212 author available at http://cmbpol.uchicago.edu

A study on cyclosporine A (CyA) monitoring in the January 1992-December 1995 period is reported. The aim of this work was to give epidemiological data on the use of CyA, to verify the progressive increase of CyA determinations and to evaluate the use in other diseases as well as to compare the different technics of CyA assay in blood samples, to stress the timing of blood samples and to underline the CyA monitoring importance.The CyA dosage was evaluated by fluorescence polarization immunoassay (FPIA) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).The study showed that 70% of CyA determinations come from patients undergone to renal, bone marrow and liver transplantations; the remaining 30% was associated to other diseases (psoriasis, uveitis, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis).The results obtained showed a progressive and constant increase of CyA determinations. Moreover, the use of drug was increased in autoimmune diseases. It is stressed that CyA monitoring in blood samples is essential to optimize the therapeutic efficacy of drug and minimizing its toxicity.

A time-dependent bosonic string configuration is discussed, in graviton and dilaton backgrounds, leading to Weyl-symmetry beta-functions which are homogeneous in X^0, to any order in alpha'. As a consequence, a string reparametrization can always be implemented, such that beta functions can be cancelled, to any order in alpha'. This non-perturbative conformal invariance is valid for any target space dimension, and leads to a power law expanding Universe, for which the power vanishes if a specific relation between the dimension and dilaton amplitude holds. Finally, D=4 is the minimum dimension (in the case of a spherical world sheet) for which this configuration is consistent with a Wick rotation in a Minkowski target space., Comment: Talk given at PASCOS-07

We present coincident observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from the Very Small Array (VSA) and Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) telescopes. The consistency of the full datasets is tested in the map plane and the Fourier plane, prior to the usual compression of CMB data into flat bandpowers. Of the three mosaics observed by each group, two are found to be in excellent agreement. In the third mosaic, there is a 2 sigma discrepancy between the correlation of the data and the level expected from Monte Carlo simulations. This is shown to be consistent with increased phase calibration errors on VSA data during summer observations. We also consider the parameter estimation method of each group. The key difference is the use of the variance window function in place of the bandpower window function, an approximation used by the VSA group. A re-evaluation of the VSA parameter estimates, using bandpower windows, shows that the two methods yield consistent results., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures. Final version. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present millimeter-wave observations of three extra-galactic and six Galactic sources in the Southern sky. Observations were made at 90, 150, 240 and 400 GHz with resolutions of 18, 10, 14 and 12 arcmin respectively during the 1998 Antarctic long duration balloon flight of BOOMERANG. Observations were also made with the SEST telescope, at 90 and 150 GHz with resolutions of 57 and 35 arcsec respectively. These observations can be used for calibrations of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiments as well as an understanding of the physical processes of the sources., 19 pages, submitted to ApJS

Full suite of the present day Cosmic Microwave background (CMB) data, when combined with weak prior information on the Hubble constant and the age of the Universe, or the Large-Scale structure, provides strong indication for a non-zero density of the vacuum-like dark energy in our universe. This result independently supports the conclusions from Supernovae Ia (SN1a) data. When the model parameter space is extended to allow for the range of the equation of state parameter w_Q for the dynamical field Q which gives rise to dark energy, the CMB data is found to give a weak upper bound w_Q < -0.4 at 95% CL, however combined with SN1a data it strongly favours w_Q < -0.8, consistent with Lambda-term like behaviour., 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the XVIII IAP Colloquium `On the nature of dark energy', Paris, 1-5 July 2002

We describe an algorithm for the extraction of the angular power spectrum of an intensity field, such as the cosmic microwave background (CMB), from interferometer data. This new method, based on the gridding of interferometer visibilities in the aperture plane followed by a maximum likelihood solution for bandpowers, is much faster than direct likelihood analysis of the visibilities, and deals with foreground radio sources, multiple pointings, and differencing. The gridded aperture-plane estimators are also used to construct Wiener-filtered images using the signal and noise covariance matrices used in the likelihood analysis. Results are shown for simulated data. The method has been used to determine the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background from observations with the Cosmic Background Imager, and the results are given in companion papers., Submitted to The Astrophysical Journal; 47 pages including 6 color figures. Additional information at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/CBI/

We report an investigation of cosmological parameters based on the measurements of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) made by ACBAR. We use the ACBAR data in concert with other recent CMB measurements to derive Bayesian estimates of parameters in inflation-motivated adiabatic cold dark matter models. We apply a series of additional cosmological constraints on the shape and amplitude of the density power spectrum, the Hubble parameter and from supernovae to further refine our parameter estimates. Previous estimates of parameters are confirmed, with sensitive measurements of the power spectrum now ranging from \ell \sim 3 to 2800. Comparing individual best model fits, we find that the addition of \Omega_\Lambda as a parameter dramatically improves the fits. We also use the high-\ell data of ACBAR, along with similar data from CBI and BIMA, to investigate potential secondary anisotropies from the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. We show that the results from the three experiments are consistent under this interpretation, and use the data, combined and individually, to estimate \sigma_8 from the Sunyaev-Zeldovich component., Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, minor grammatical corrections, as submitted to ApJ

We review the recently published results from the CBI's first season of observations. Angular power spectra of the CMB were obtained from deep integrations of 3 single fields covering a total of 3 deg^2 and 3 shallower surveys of overlapping (mosaiced) fields covering a total of 40 deg^2. The observations show a damping of the anisotropies at high-l as expected from the standard scenarios of recombination. We present parameter estimates obtained from the data and discuss the significance of an excess at l>2000 observed in the deep fields., 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the XVIII IAP Colloquium `On the nature of dark energy', Paris, 1-5 July 2002

We derive cosmological parameters from the CBI measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) angular power spectrum. Our results provide an independent confirmation of the standard $\Omega_{\rm tot}=1$ $\Lambda$CDM model within the adiabatic, inflationary paradigm. Above $\ell=2000$ the observations show evidence of power in excess of that expected in the standard models. We use hydrodynamical simulations to show how Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect (SZE) may account for the excess power for models with fluctuation amplitude $\sigma_8\sim 1$ which is in the high end of the range allowed by the primary CMB observations., Comment: 4 pages, To appear in the Proceedings of the XXXVIIth Moriond Astrophysics Meeting "The Cosmological Model"

We discuss the nature of the possible high-l excess in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy power spectrum observed by the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI). We probe the angular structure of the excess in the CBI deep fields and investigate whether it could be due to the scattering of CMB photons by hot electrons within clusters, the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect. We estimate the density fluctuation parameters for amplitude, sigma_8, and shape, Gamma, from CMB primary anisotropy data and other cosmological data. We use the results of two separate hydrodynamical codes for Lambda-CDM cosmologies, consistent with the allowed sigma_8 and Gamma values, to quantify the expected contribution from the SZ effect to the bandpowers of the CBI experiment and pass simulated SZ effect maps through our CBI analysis pipeline. The result is very sensitive to the value of sigma_8, and is roughly consistent with the observed power if sigma_8 ~ 1. We conclude that the CBI anomaly could be a result of the SZ effect for the class of Lambda-CDM concordance models if sigma_8 is in the upper range of values allowed by current CMB and Large Scale Structure (LSS) data., Accepted by The Astrophysical Journal; 17 pages including 12 color figures. v2 matches accepted version. Additional information at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/CBI/

We report the most complete analysis to date of observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) obtained during the 1998 flight of BOOMERANG. We use two quite different methods to determine the angular power spectrum of the CMB in 20 bands centered at l = 50 to 1000, applying them to 50% more data than has previously been analyzed. The power spectra produced by the two methods are in good agreement with each other, and constitute the most sensitive measurements to date over the range 300 < l < 1000. The increased precision of the power spectrum yields more precise determinations of several cosmological parameters than previous analyses of BOOMERANG data. The results continue to support an inflationary paradigm for the origin of the universe, being well fit by a 13.5 Gyr old, flat universe composed of approximately 5% baryonic matter, 30% cold dark matter, and 65% dark energy, with a scale invariant initial density perturbations., 26 pages, 15 figures. Higher resolution figures available at http://cmb.phys.cwru.edu/boomerang/ Correction to numbers posted for MADCAP C_l's in Table 2. Correct numbers were used in figures and parameter extraction

We show how two simple modifications to the standard cosmic string scenario for structure formation compare to the recently released Boomerang data set. Namely we consider pure string closed models and mixed models where both inflation and strings are responsible for the perturbations. In the closed models we find that pure string models would require a universe with roughly $\Omega_M=0.8$, $\Omega_{\Lambda}=1.6$ to agree with the peak position revealed by the data and in agreement with the SNIa data. In the hybrid scenario with local strings we find that we require even more tilt and baryon content ($n_s\sim 0.8$, $\Omega_b=0.08$, $H_0=70$) to match the data than with pure inflation models. The case with global strings fares better with a standard period of $\Lambda$CDM inflation and a $\sim30%$ contribution from strings being in good agreement with the data., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Revtex, submitted to PRL

The synthesis of some N,N-disubstituted 4-amino-5,6,7,8,9,10-hexahydro-3- phenyl-2H-cycloocta[b]pyran-2-ones by reaction of phenylchloroketene with a series of N,N-disubstituted 2-aminomethylenecyclooctanones, followed by dehydrochlorination in situ of the primary adducts with DBN, is described. The dimethylamino derivative showed a local anesthetic activity in mice superior to that of lidocaine, and some compounds exhibited a platelet antiaggregating activity in vitro superior or comparable to that of acetylsalicylic acid, as well as weak antiarrhythmic and antiinflammatory activities in rats.

The existence and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the large scale distribution of Galaxies, the expansion of the Universe and the abundance of light elements can be all be explained with a single cosmological model. In this paper we focus on the CMB anisotropy maps produced by the BOOMERanG experiment and on their impact on cosmology. The images are consistent with the result of acoustic oscillations of the photons-matter plasma in the pre-recombination Universe (z ≳ 1000). We show how the instrument and the observations have been optimized and how the basic parameters of the model are derived from the data. These observations of the CMB are gaussian and point to a low curvature Universe (ω ∼ 1), as expected in the inflation scenario. In order to fit these observations and other cosmological evidence, the composition of the Universe must have significant contributions from dark matter (ω m ∼ 0.3) and dark energy (ωΛ ∼ 0.7).

The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between echocardiographic indexes of left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy with LV mass (LVM) obtained at cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) in a population of patients with hypertrophic cardiomiopathy (HCM).Thirty-nine patients with HCM underwent echocardiography and CMR. By echocardiography maximal wall thickness (MWT), Spirito' and Maron's hypertrophy index and the Wigle's score were obtained. Absolute LVM was measured through CMR and indexed to body surface area (LVMi). Data were analysed using linear regression analysis.In 31% of patients there was an incomplete echocardiographic LV anatomic characterization. However, there was a good correlation between MWT measured at echocardiography and at CMR (P0.001; r=0.755). Overall echocardiographic indexes of LV hypertrophy correlate with either LVM and LVMi: MWT (P=0.008, r=0.420 and P=0.003, r=0.467, respectively); Spirito' and Maron's hypertrophy index (P=0.003, r=0.551 and P=0.001, r=0.606, respectively) and Wigle's score (P=0.004, r=0.522 and P=0.004, r=0.522, respectively).In our HCM population, although a complete anatomic LV anatomic characterization was not obtained by echocardiography in all patients, echocardiographic hypertrophic indexes showed a good correlation with LVM obtained by CMR.

PurposeThis study was a quality-control study of resting and exercise Doppler echocardiography (EDE) variables measured by 19 echocardiography laboratories with proven experience participating in the RIGHT Heart International NETwork.MethodsAll participating investigators reported the requested variables from ten randomly selected exercise stress tests. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated to evaluate the inter-observer agreement with the core laboratory. Inter-observer variability of resting and peak exercise tricuspid regurgitation velocity (TRV), right ventricular outflow tract acceleration time (RVOT Act), tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE), tissue Doppler tricuspid lateral annular systolic velocity (S’), right ventricular fractional area change (RV FAC), left ventricular outflow tract velocity time integral (LVOT VTI), mitral inflow pulsed wave Doppler velocity (E), diastolic mitral annular velocity by TDI (e’) and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) were measured.ResultsThe accuracy of 19 investigators for all variables ranged from 99.7 to 100%. ICC was > 0.90 for all observers. Inter-observer variability for resting and exercise variables was for TRV = 3.8 to 2.4%, E = 5.7 to 8.3%, e’ = 6 to 6.5%, RVOT Act = 9.7 to 12, LVOT VTI = 7.4 to 9.6%, S’ = 2.9 to 2.9% and TAPSE = 5.3 to 8%. Moderate inter-observer variability was found for resting and peak exercise RV FAC (15 to 16%). LVEF revealed lower resting and peak exercise variability of 7.6 and 9%.ConclusionsWhen performed in expert centers EDE is a reproducible tool for the assessment of the right heart and the pulmonary circulation.

This review describes the current role and potential future applications of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) for the management of heart failure (HF). CMR allows noninvasive morphologic and functional assessment, tissue characterization, blood flow, and perfusion evaluation. CMR overcomes echocardiography limitations (geometric assumptions, interobserver variability and poor acoustic window) and provides incremental information in relation to cause, prognosis, and treatment monitoring of patients with HF.

Right heart and pulmonary circulation disorders are generally caused by right ventricle (RV) pressure overload, volume overload, and cardiomyopathy, and they are associated with distinct clinical courses and therapeutic approaches, although they often may coexist. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) provides a noninvasive accurate and reproducible multiplanar anatomic and functional assessment, tissue characterization, and blood flow evaluation of the right heart and pulmonary circulation. This article reviews the current status of the CMR, the most recent techniques, the new parameters and their clinical utility in diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic management in the right heart and pulmonary circulation disorders.

Background: The normal limits of left ventricular (LV) hemodynamic forces (HDFs) are not exactly known. The aim of this study was to explore the full spectrum of HDF parameters in healthy subjects and determine their physiologic correlates. Methods: 269 healthy subjects were enrolled (mean age: 43 ± 14 years; 123 (45.7%) men). All participants underwent an echo-Doppler examination. Tri-plane tissue tracking from apical views was used to measure 2D global endocardial longitudinal strain (GLS), circumferential strain (GCS), and LV HDFs. HDFs were normalized with LV volume and divided by specific weight. Results: LV systolic longitudinal HDFs (%) were higher in men (20.8 ± 6.5 vs. 18.9 ± 5.6, p = 0.009; 22.0 ± 6.7 vs. 19.8 ± 5.6, p = 0.004, respectively). There was a significant correlation between GCS (increased) (r = −0.240, p < 0.001) and LV longitudinal HDFs (reduced) (r = −0.155, p = 0.01) with age. In a multivariable analysis age, BSA, pulse pressure, heart rate and GCS were the only independent variables associated with LV HDFs (β coefficient = −0.232, p < 0.001; 0.149, p = 0.003; 0.186, p < 0.001; 0.396, p < 0.001; −0.328, p < 0.001; respectively). Conclusion: We report on the physiologic range of LV HDFs. Knowledge of reference values of HDFs may prompt their implementation into clinical routine and allow a more comprehensive assessment of the LV function.

Platelet aggregation is inhibited by high concentrations of most antibiotics. For this reason it is important to evaluate the effects of new antimicrobial agents on platelet aggregation. Lomefloxacin and sparfloxacin are new difluorinated quinolone antimicrobial agents. The aim of this work was to evaluate in vitro the effects of lomefloxacin and sparfloxacin on adenosinediphosphate (ADP) and collagen-induced human platelet aggregation. Our data showed that both antibiotics (lomefloxacin and sparfloxacin) at therapeutic doses did not inhibit in vitro human platelet aggregation. Lomefloxacin, only at the highest tested concentration (1 mg/ml), which is far higher than the clinically achievable one, significantly (P < 0.05) inhibited collagen-induced platelet aggregation. Sparfloxacin also caused inhibition of collagen and ADP-induced human platelet aggregation only at the highest tested concentration (0.01 mg/ml), which is higher than that reached in vivo. These findings suggest that therapeutic doses of lomefloxacin and sparfloxacin do not affect human platelet aggregation.

The effects of pefloxacin on adenosine-diphosphate (ADP) and collagen-induced human platelet aggregation In Vitro and Ex Vivo in patients suffering from chronic bronchitis were investigated. In the In Vitro study carried out on platelets from 12 healthy volunteers, pefloxacin had no effect on platelet function even at a concentration of 10 mg/ml, which is 1,500 times higher than that reached in vivo. In the Ex Vivo study carried out in 10 patients, who received pefloxacin twice daily for 7-10 days as 400 mg oral dose, the drug did not influence platelet aggregation up to 24 hours after administration of the last oral dose.