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Abstract Introduction Myxomatous mitral valve degeneration (MMVD) is an acquired heart disease which sometimes result in pulmonary oedema and left atrial rupture. In previous reports, left atrial rupture has been non‐surgically controlled and its prognosis investigated. There is, however, no report concerning surgically treated left atrial rupture with mitral valvuloplasty and follow‐up results. Objectives This report aimed to develop a surgical strategy for a case of left atrial rupture caused by MMVD. Materials and methods Three dogs were presented at a private hospital for surgical treatment of MMVD. All three dogs had a previous history of left atrial rupture due to MMVD. The left atrium rapture was diagnosed from indicating that characteristics of the drained pericardial effusion consistent with blood. Mitral valvuloplasty was performed in all dogs using an extracorporeal circulation machine, and the surgical procedure was modified according to each case. In cases with severe adhesion between the pericardial and left atrial appendage, suturing of the left atrial appendage was performed strategically. Additionally, in cases with severe hypotension caused by left atrial rupture, cardiopulmonary bypass was started as soon as possible during the surgical procedure. Discussion and Conclusion Since the haemodynamics of all dogs had improved, and the owner reported no cardiac‐related clinical signs, all drugs were withdrawn 3 months after surgery. Since left atrial rupture due to MMVD can cause hypotension, cardiopulmonary bypass should be started as soon as possible during the surgical procedure to maintain the blood pressure and suturing of the left atrial appendage should be performed strategically.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) constitute a great promise for regenerative therapy, but these cells are difficultly recovered in large amounts. A potent alternative is the stromal vascular fraction (SVF), non-cultured MSCs, separated from adipose tissue (AT). We aim to evaluate AT harvesting site effect on the SVF cells’ quantity and quality in dogs. Subcutaneous abdominal fat, falciform ligament and peri-ovarian fat were sampled. After SVF isolation, the trypan blue exclusion test and a hemocytometer were used to assess the cell viability and cellular yield. SVF cells were labeled for four surface antigenic markers, clusters of differentiation CD90, CD44, CD29, and CD45, and then examined by flow cytometry. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR was used to evaluate the gene expression of the former markers in addition to OCT-4 and CD34. SVF cells in the peri-ovarian AT recorded the highest viability% (99.63 ± 0.2%), as well as a significantly higher cellular yield (36.87 ± 19.6 × 106 viable cells/gm fat, p < 0.001) and a higher expression of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells AD-MSCs surface markers than that of other sites. SVF cells from the peri-ovarian site revealed a higher expression of MSC markers (CD90, CD44, and CD29) and OCT-4 compared to the other sites, with weak CD45 and CD34 expressions. The positive OCT-4 expression demonstrated the pluripotency of SVF cells isolated from different sites. To conclude, the harvesting site is a strong determinant of SVF cells’ quantity and quality, and the peri-ovarian site could be the best AT sampling site in dogs.

The higher education system in Taiwan has increasingly adopted business simulation games (BSGs) in recent years. Previous BSG benefit research has shifted focus from learning performance to motivation due to mixed results. One recent study empirically investigated student perceptions on the continued use of BSGs; however, the counterpart of higher education teachers' perspective was absent. This study confirms the student perception model from the teachers' viewpoint via a comparable research design. Empirical evidence shows a significant perceptual gap between teachers and students, implying that adopting BSGs on the part of teachers may be challenged or impaired. Detailed suggestions on gap alignment are discussed, including how teachers may take advantage of students' positive perceptions. Among the theories used in the student perception model, agency theory may deserve further research, since incentives are typically considered a useful means of facilitating general teacher-student dynamics. However, all related hypotheses were unsustained in this study. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

Previous studies have pointed out that computer games could improve students' motivation to learn, but these studies have mostly targeted teachers or students in elementary and secondary education and are without user adoption models. Because business and management institutions in higher education have been increasingly using educational simulation games in recent years, factors influencing the continuing use of business simulation games by higher-education students are worth probing into. This research adopted the technology acceptance model, expectation confirmation theory, and agency theory as its theoretical base. Moreover, learning motivation and classroom climate from the perspective of learning, as well as perceived attractiveness and perceived playfulness from the perspective of playfulness and attractiveness were also added to the final research model. A total of 185 valid student respondents in Taiwan's higher education who have used business simulation games in their classes participated in the survey. The results show that perceived playfulness and learning performance positively influence students' satisfaction, which further influence the intention to use computer simulation games. Furthermore, perceived ease of use and perceived attraction play a critical role in determining perceived playfulness. Perceived ease of use was also positively influenced by perceived attraction. The research results on the students' perspective provide a strong support for the teachers to adopt or continue using computer simulation games in classrooms. However, the agency theory failed to be sustained as a useful tool in motivating students' learning activities, which is worthy of further research. (Contains 3 tables and 4 figures.)

Contemporary network security applications generally require the ability to perform powerful pattern matching to protect against attacks such as viruses and spam. Traditional hardware solutions are intended for firewall routers. However, the solutions in the literature for firewalls are not scalable, and they do not address the difficulty of an antivirus with an ever-larger pattern set. The goal of this work is to provide a systematic virus detection hardware solution for network security for embedded systems. Instead of placing entire matching patterns on a chip, our solution is a two-phase dictionary-based antivirus processor that works by condensing as much of the important filtering information as possible onto a chip and infrequently accessing off-chip data to make the matching mechanism scalable to large pattern sets. In the first stage, the filtering engine can filter out more than 93.1% of data as safe, using a merged shift table. Only 6.9% or less of potentially unsafe data must be precisely checked in the second stage by the exact-matching engine from off-chip memory. To reduce the impact of the memory gap, we also propose three enhancement algorithms to improve performance: 1) a skipping algorithm; 2) a cache method; and 3) a prefetching mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Mitral valve regurgitation in dogs is a common cardiac disease. The standard treatment for this disease is medical therapy, but as the condition progresses, it leads to congestive heart failure. In recent years, surgical treatment of mitral valve regurgitation in dogs has emerged, but the recommended procedure is invasive and time-consuming. Therefore, a less invasive and time-consuming surgical procedure is necessary for future utilization in the treatment of mitral valve regurgitation. Recently, a novel transcatheter edge-to-edge mitral valve repair device became available and is anticipated to be a minimally invasive and less time-consuming device, but there are no data available on the hemodynamic changes after its cardiac implantation. Mitral valve regurgitation is a common canine heart disease. Transcatheter Edge-to-Edge Repair (TEER) is a transcatheter, edge-to-edge mitral repair device that uses a hybrid approach. No detailed information has been published on the hemodynamic effect of TEER on cardiac function. The aim of this report is to provide a longitudinal observation of the cardiac functional changes observed after TEER implantation in normal dogs using traditional, two-dimensional speckle tracking, and color M-mode echocardiographic methods. In the current report, TEER was implanted into two healthy dogs under general anesthesia. An echocardiographic examination was performed at baseline and weekly postoperative follow-ups were conducted until the fourth week. Successful TEER implantation was achieved with a short operation time (98 and 63 min) in the two dogs. Functional mitral valve regurgitation, elevated E/e' ratio, elevated radial strain, and stable intraventricular pressure gradients (IVPG) were observed after the operation in the dogs. Mild non progressive mitral valve stenosis was observed in both dogs. TEER is a minimally invasive method for mitral valve surgery that necessitates more clinical trials. With longitudinal observation of heart function using novel approaches, better outcomes will be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]