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To evaluate the feasibility of kinetic modeling-based approaches from [18F]-Flobetaben dynamic PET images as a non-invasive diagnostic method for cardiac amyloidosis (CA) and to identify the two AL- and ATTR-subtypes. Twenty-one patients with diagnoses of CA (11 patients with AL-subtype and 10 patients with ATTR-subtype of CA) and 15 Control patients with no-CA conditions underwent PET/CT imaging after [18F]Florbetaben bolus injection. A two-tissue-compartment (2TC) kinetic model was fitted to time-activity curves (TAC) obtained from left ventricle wall and left atrium cavity ROIs to estimate kinetic micro- and macro-parameters. Combinations of kinetic parameters were evaluated with the purpose of distinguishing Control subjects and CA patients, and to correctly label the last ones as AL- or ATTR-subtype. Resulting sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for Control subjects were: 0.87, 0.9, 0.89; as far as CA patients, the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were respectively 0.9, 1, and 0.97 for AL-CA patients and 0.9, 0.92, 0.97 for ATTR-CA patients. Pharmacokinetic analysis based on a 2TC model allows cardiac amyloidosis characterization from dynamic [18F]Florbetaben PET images. Estimated model parameters allows to not only distinguish between Control subjects and patients, but also between AL- and ATTR-amyloid patients.

Computational models of cardiovascular structures rely on their accurate mechanical characterization. A validated method able to infer the material properties of patient-specific large vessels is currently lacking. The aim of the present study is to present a technique starting from the flow-area (QA) method to retrieve basic material properties from magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. The proposed method was developed and tested, first, in silico and then in vitro. In silico, fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulations of flow within a deformable pipe were run with varying elastic modules (E) between 0.5 and 32 MPa. The proposed QA-based formulation was assessed and modified based on the FSI results to retrieve E values. In vitro, a compliant phantom connected to a mock circulatory system was tested within MR scanning. Images of the phantom were acquired and post-processed according to the modified formulation to infer E of the phantom. Results of in vitro imaging assessment were verified against standard tensile test. In silico results from FSI simulations were used to derive the correction factor to the original formulation based on the geometrical and material characteristics. In vitro, the modified QA-based equation estimated an average E = 0.51 MPa, 2% different from the E derived from tensile tests (i.e. E = 0.50 MPa). This study presented promising results of an indirect and non-invasive method to establish elastic properties from solely MR images data, suggesting a potential image-based mechanical characterization of large blood vessels.

To determine one or more indexes able to detect the presence of cardiac amyloidosis (CA) from planar scintigraphy images after injection of 99mTc-HMDP tracer and to identify the earliest acquisition time able to ensure an accurate diagnosis of amyloid transthyretin CA. A total of 38 patients were included: 18 subjects with a final diagnosis of ATTR-CA and 20 controls. Dynamic planar images of the anterior thorax were acquired, starting at intravenous injection of ≈ 700 MBq of 99mTc-HMDP. From time/activity curves (TAC) of regions of interest such as heart, vascular region, right ribcage, and soft tissues, several indices were considered. From the analysis, it resulted that both TACHeart/Bone(t) and RIheart–bone(t), for t > 6 minutes, well distinguish ATTR-CA patients from controls subjects. This is confirmed by the area under curves (AUC) analysis giving AUC values =.9 at t ≅ 6 minutes and AUC ≅ 1 for t > 10 minutes. The method proposed allows determining the presence of ATTR-CA, in an inexpensive manner both in terms of examination costs and time spent.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death worldwide. Evidence from observational and randomized controlled studies showing the potential benefits of green tea on lowering CVD risk has been emerging rapidly during the past few decades. These benefits include reduced risk for major cardiovascular events, lowering of blood pressure, decreased LDL cholesterol levels and weight loss. At the same time, the understanding of the physiological mechanisms behind these alterations is advancing. Consumption of green tea originated from China thousands of years ago, but since then, it expanded all over the world. Recent advances in understanding the role of tea polyphenols, mainly catechins, as mediators of tea’s health benefits, have caused the emergence of various types of green tea extracts (GTE) on the market. While taking green tea is generally considered safe, there are concerns about the safety of using tea extracts. The present article reviews the current evidence of green tea consumption leading to reduced CVD risk, its potential biological mechanisms and the safety of using GTE.

The idea that performing a proper succession of imaging tests and techniques allows an accurate and early diagnosis of cardiac amyloidosis, avoiding the need to perform the myocardial biopsy, is becoming increasingly popular. Furthermore, being imaging techniques non-invasive, it is possible to perform the follow-up of the pathology through repeated image acquisitions. : In the present review, the various innovative imaging methodologies are presented, and it is discussed how they have been applied for early diagnosis of cardiac amyloidosis (CA), also to distinguish the two most frequent subtypes in CA: immunoglobulin light chain amyloidosis (AL) and transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR); this allows to perform the therapy in a targeted and rapid manner.

Small-scale distributed power generation offers environmental benefits through the improvement of global energy efficiency, in addition to increasing the reliability of the power supply. In this study, the technical and economic viability of the implementation of micro-cogeneration technology in the manufacturing sector was studied in light of the Brazilian regulatory situation. The thermal efficiency potential for the manufacturing sector is introduced for further exploration by decision-makers. This study also investigated the behavior of micro-cogeneration in distributed generation through the Brazilian Energy Compensation System. The technical viability was studied by simulating a Brayton cycle with the operation parameters of a 100 kW micro-turbine. This simulation allowed an estimation of the avoided cost of natural gas compared to an industrial process without cogeneration. Rate projections were performed by linear regression during the system’s depreciation period. The economic evaluation was performed using the following indicators: net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), and discounted payback. Finally, a sensitivity study was performed to project how the micro-cogeneration efficiency and the Brazilian regulations can address future variations of natural gas and electricity rates. Given the conditions of this study, the increase in energy prices favors micro-cogeneration; however, the economic viability is affected if the system operates below 70% of heat use in industrial processes, which reduces the effect of public policies toward the incentive to cogenerate.

Research suggests that 90% of youth in the juvenile justice system have experienced at least one traumatic event (Arroyo, ). One such traumatic event is the commercialized sexual exploitation of children and youth (CSEC). Over the past decade, governmental organizations and community agencies have recognized that the sexual exploitation of children is a significant problem in the United States. In California alone, human trafficking task forces have identified 1200 youth as victims of sexual exploitation from 2010 to 2012 (Walker, ). Youth who have experienced sexual exploitation often become involved in the juvenile justice system and present with unique challenges and needs. This article reviews recent public policy and community responses related to the needs of CSEC youth involved in the juvenile justice system. A case example from Sacramento, CA, is used to illustrate the key components, innovations, multidisciplinary collaborations, and challenges of creating a specialized court. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Third molar extraction is one of the most frequent interventions in dentistry. Nevertheless, there is scarce evidence on the host response of individuals with impacted or semi-impacted third molars and the possible effects of surgical removal. A case-control study of 40 patients was designed to evaluate 1) the differences in biomarkers of systemic inflammation, vascular function, and metabolism (high-sensitive C-reactive protein, lipids, fibrinogen, oxidative stress, and endothelial function analysis) and 2) the acute and short-term effects of surgical removal in patients with bilateral impacted or semi-impacted third molars compared to controls with no third molars. Patients undergoing third molar extraction exhibited greater levels of systemic inflammation, oxidative stress, and triglycerides than controls. Raised white blood cell counts as well as peaks of serum levels of C-reactive protein and fibrinogen were noticed in the first postoperative week. Three months after the extraction, all markers returned to baseline values. Malondialdehyde, an indicator of oxidative stress indicator, was significantly reduced after third molar removal. Semi-impacted or impacted third molars are associated with higher systemic inflammation, and their removal may represent a useful human model to study acute inflammation and determine beneficial systemic effects ( ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03048175).

In this paper the authors deal with the main imaging techniques available to clinical cardiologists, with a brief overview of biophysical and biological aspects which are of relevance for the assessment of health effects related to the exposure of patients to both ionizing and non ionizing radiation. A main contribute is the reviewing published evidence on biological effects of radiation, trying to compose a balanced issue in order to increase awareness and knowledge about radiation exposure from cardiac imaging and implications for health risk.

We prospectively investigated in adults the decompression of dentigerous cysts associated with impacted third molars at high risk of iatrogenic damage during extraction. The computerised calculated volumetric postoperative reductions measured by cone-beam computed tomography at four and eight months were correlated with the duration of treatment, initial volume, and patient's age. We prospectively monitored 14 adult patients with 14 dentigerous cysts that were associated with impacted third molars, for eight months after decompression. The mean (SD) reduction in volume during the first eight months was 71 (14) % (51% after the first four months and 20% after the second four months), with a monthly reduction rate of 9%. Both the total decrease in volume (a) and the monthly rate of reduction (b) were significantly associated (p

Research suggests that 90% of youth in the juvenile justice system have experienced at least one traumatic event (Arroyo, ). One such traumatic event is the commercialized sexual exploitation of children and youth (CSEC). Over the past decade, governmental organizations and community agencies have recognized that the sexual exploitation of children is a significant problem in the United States. In California alone, human trafficking task forces have identified 1200 youth as victims of sexual exploitation from 2010 to 2012 (Walker, ). Youth who have experienced sexual exploitation often become involved in the juvenile justice system and present with unique challenges and needs. This article reviews recent public policy and community responses related to the needs of CSEC youth involved in the juvenile justice system. A case example from Sacramento, CA, is used to illustrate the key components, innovations, multidisciplinary collaborations, and challenges of creating a specialized court. Copyright © 2016 John WileySons, Ltd.

Changes in clinical, biochemical and pathological variables characterize cardiovascular damage from smoking and hypertension when it acts independently. However, combined action of these major risk factors increases the rate of cardiovascular events. Ischaemic heart disease with stable effort angina, myocardial infarction and post-infarction arrhythmias may affect cardiovascular system because of smoking exposure. Among cerebrovascular disease, there is evidence that stroke would be related primarily to active smoking. Isolated hypertension plays significantly major action to cause cerebrovascular disease including stroke, recurrent stoke and transient ischaemic attack. Among cardiac events, heart failure is, often, the end-point of hypertensive disease, even if manifestations of ischaemic heart disease similar to those caused by smoking may be increased in rate. Combined action of smoking and hypertension usually increases the rate of cardiovascular complications and leads to a progression of atherosclerosis with narrowing and plaque primarily at the the level of coronary, carotid and cerebrovascular arteries. A pattern specific of both active and passive smoking exposure, but not hypertension, is the thromboangiitis obliterans that dramatically worsens in continuing smokers while it can be improved by stopping smoking.

Epidemiological surveys demonstrate undoubtedly that cardiovascular disorders caused or associated with hypertension are at a high risk of non-fatal or fatal events and occurring with a great rate. Ischaemic heart disease with effort angina and myocardial infarction, often unrecognized myocardial infarction, stroke and transient ischaemic attack may be observed more frequently than other cardiovascular disorders in hypertensive patients. Large-scale trials do not support the hypothesis that effective benefits are reached by current non-pharmacological or pharmacological prevention which need enormous costs to public health. Lowering blood pressure is the main target to reach in an attempt to reduce cardiovascular complications in hypertensive patients. Therefore, the costs-benefit ratio, which estimates public health costs, needs yet marked improvement since the public health expenses are heaviest with results that do not support the economic effort. Statistically, quantitative measures to modify the current regimen need to better evaluate both public health costs and reached benefits.

The definition of smoking as the inhalation of the smoke of burned tobacco that may occur occasionally or habitually as a consequence of a physical addiction to some chemicals, primarily nicotine, cannot be fully accepted today since several clinical, biological, metabolic, epidemiologic, statistic and socio-economic factors which play a basic role in determining individual damage due to smoking are missing in this assessment. The analysis of findings shows undoubtedly that several constituents of cigarette smoking play a strong role in the development and progression of cardiovascular damage, primarily atherosclerotic lesions. Nicotine and its metabolites, carbon monoxide and thiocyanate seem to be the most specific markers of damage that, in the time, becomes irreversible. Cigarette smoking is addictive because of nicotine and nicotine withdrawal causes many side effects of quitting smoking as well as nicotine itself usually increases cardiovascular risk. Therefore, what is smoking? Smoking must be defined as a chemical toxicosis which is able to cause detrimental effects either of acute or chronic type on different structures of the body being some of these like cardiovascular system, respiratory system and epithelial glands target organs. Smoking also causes physical addiction, primarily due to nicotine, that adversely influences smoking cessation. From these observations there is evidence that a large number of socio-economic and epidemiologic implications arise in smokers and that requires the necessity of specific structures which may help to face up the problem.

Tobacco smoking remains the second largest preventable cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Exposure to tobacco smoke causes coronary disease, atherosclerosis and ischaemic vessel disease. The degree of this risk is proportional to the amount of smoking and it varies from individual to individual because of between-individual differences in genetic background. While the chemical properties of tobacco smoke are relatively well characterized, the mechanisms by which smoking leads to disease and the genetic factors that determine susceptibility to these diseases are not well understood. The purpose of the present review is to describe the interacti0on between DNA variants in some important genes and cardiovascular diseases; and how the exposure to cigarette smoke significantly modifies the association between genetic variants and cardiovascular risk. A great number of gene-enzymes that usually protect against cardiovascular events may be adversely influenced by tobacco smoke and, through this way, exert less effective action.

The development of innovative ultrasonic devices can open up new perspectives for navigation in unstructured environments. Recent literature reports much investigation carried out with the aim of improving the performance of the navigational capabilities of robots and the development of medical aids for people with disabilities. The aim of the present work is focused on the development of a sonar-based aid for multiple obstacle detection. The device is a low-cost piezopolymer-based transducer that allows the reception/transmission of broadband signals. Three time-of-flight estimation approaches are herein compared using both real and simulated data. Specifically, the performance of the system in the case of two reflecting surfaces is evaluated in terms of both relative and absolute target distance measurement. The proposed approaches are based on signal envelope, cross-correlation and the least mean square adaptive filtering algorithm, respectively. Preliminary results show that although the envelope-based approach offers better performance in the case of a single target, the adaptive filter-based approach shows interesting properties in more complex scenarios.

Objective: To compare transthoracic impedance (TTI/ECG) and pulse oximetry alarm traces detected during home monitoring in infants at risk of apnoea, bradycardia and hypoxaemia. Study design: A retrospective evaluation of the monitor downloads of 67 infants who had undergone either TTI/ECG or pulse oximetry home monitoring using a device which can detect both parameters. Methods: The patients were categorised as: apparent life-threatening events (n = 39), preterm infants (n = 21) and miscellaneous (n = 7). TTI/ECG and pulse oximetry alarm traces were scored as either true or false alarms. Classification criteria were based on visual analysis of the impedance and plethysmographic waveforms captured by the memory monitor every time alarm thresholds were violated. Results: 5242 alarms occurred over 3452 days of monitoring: 4562 (87%) were false and 680 (13%) true. The mean duration of monitoring was 51 days (range 5–220 days). There were 2982 TTI/ECG false alarms (65% of the total) and 1580 pulse oximetry false alarms (35%) (p = 0.0042). Of the 680 true alarms, 507 (74%) were desaturations not attributable to central apnoea and 173 (26%) were true TTI/ECG alarms (p = 0.0013). Conclusions: Comparison of pulse oximetry and TTI/ECG alarm traces shows that true events were mostly attributable to desaturations, while false alarms were mainly provoked by TTI/ECG. The total number of false alarms is lower than reported in other studies using TTI/ECG only, thus indicating that monitoring using both pulse oximetry and TTI/ECG is suitable for home use. When the combination of both techniques is not feasible or not required, we recommend the use of motion resistant pulse oximetry alone.

Ultrasound assessment of vascular biomarkers has been implemented for screening, prevention and improvement of cardiovascular risk stratification beyond classical risk factors including smoking, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia and hypertension. Thus, the presence of vascular damage at the sub-clinical, asymptomatic stages can identify a "vulnerable" patient, and aid in implementing cardiovascular prevention strategies. Increased intima-media thickness of the common carotid artery is a well-known marker of early atherosclerosis, which significantly correlates with the development of coronary or cerebro-vascular disease. More recently, guidelines for cardiovascular prevention in hypertension also introduced other vascular parameters evaluating both mechanical and functional arterial properties of peripheral arteries. Increased arterial stiffness, which can be detected by ultrasound at the common carotid, has been shown to predict future cardiovascular events and it is already considered a subclinical target organ of hypertensive patients. Even earlier vascular abnormalities such as endothelial dysfunction in the peripheral arteries, detected as reduced flow-mediated dilation of the brachial artery by ultrasound, have also been mentioned for their possible clinical use in the future. This manuscript reviews clinical evidence supporting the use of these different vascular markers for cardiovascular risk stratification, focusing on the need for an accurate, robust and reliable methodology for the assessment of vascular markers, which could improve their predictive value and increase their use in routine clinical practice.

Significant technical advances in small animal molecular imaging techniques and in imaging probes with high specificity for various molecular targets have been produced in the last ten years. Notwithstanding, the clinical applicability of molecular imaging proceeds slowly. In animal experiments, multimodality molecular imaging techniques based on hybrid scanners are increasing, providing more insight into path physiologic phenomena associated with cardiovascular disease. In parallel, we assisted in the development of a new generation of multi-imaging probes, such as PET/MRI probes, particularly effective in hybrid scanners. More recently, in order to gain in inherently low sensitivity of MRI, hyperpolarized magnetic resonance spectroscopy using hyperpolarized (13)C was proposed. Preliminary results obtained in experimental animal studies seem to confirm the potentialities of hyperpolarized (13)C magnetic resonance to monitor myocardial energetics. In this review the preclinical cardiovascular applications and the potential for clinical translation are discussed.

Hyperpolarized 13C chemical shift imaging (CSI) is a spectroscopy technique for magnetic resonance imaging. Due to the fast decay of the hyperpolarized tracer, acquisition speed represents a key issue. Spiral trajectories are usually exploited to fast fill the K-space. Several strategies have been proposed for CSI image reconstruction form spiral trajectories, but the performances in hyperpolarized 13C CSI of these strategies have not been investigated. In hyperpolarized 13C 3D CSI, some of the imaged metabolites may appear with very low signal, so reconstruction methods should keep SNR high to allow better viewing of metabolites' locations. In this study we compared the performances of Direct Summation (DS) and Gridding (GR) reconstruction methods. Methods were compared evaluating SNR on reconstructed images and reconstruction time. In vivo experimental data were obtained from medium-sized animals injected with hyperpolarized 13C. DS obtained higher SNR for all metabolites of interest. On the other hand, GR was much faster. The study results may provide a useful indication on how to choose the appropriate reconstruction method for hyperpolarized 13C in vivo data acquisition.

Objective To evaluate local carotid stiffness (CS) and intima-medial thickness (C-IMT) in hypertensive patients with different cardiovascular risk profile, using a new user-friendly ultrasound-based system, previously validated vs. RF-based echotracking device. Methods We investigated a population with different cardiovascular risk: 45 healthy normotensives (NT), 90 non-diabetic hypertensives (HT), and 48 patients with hypertension and type-2 diabetes (DM). Framingham risk factor score (FRS) was calculated. PWV was assessed by applanation tonometry. The relative stroke change in diameter (Δ D ) and C-IMT were measured on carotid scans. Distensibility coefficient (DC) was calculated as Δ A /( A *Δ P ), where A = diastolic lumen area, Δ A = stroke change in lumen area, and Δ P = carotid pulse pressure. CS (m/s) was calculated as ( ρ *DC) − 1/2 ( ρ = blood density). Results CS, C-IMT, PWV were significantly increased in HT and DM vs. NT. C-IMT and PWV were significantly higher in DM than HT. Δ D and DC were significantly lower in HT and DM vs. NT. FRS ≥10% group showed increased carotid diameter, C-IMT and CS than the FRS p r = 0.35); Δ D ( r = −0.36), DC ( r = 0.35), C-IMT ( r = 0.48), PWV ( r = 0.38). CS correlated ( p r = 0.37), in the NT ( r = 0.35), in the HT and DM ( r = 0.20). PWV ( r = 0.50) and CS ( r = 0.33) were correlated with age. Determinants of aortic and carotid stiffness were identified by multivariate stepwise analysis. Conclusions The proposed B-mode ultrasound-based system is a reliable and user-friendly method that could serve to investigate the predictive value of CS for cardiovascular events in future large clinical studies.

Both conduit and resistance arterial vessels may show vascular morphological and functional alterations due to cigarette smoking. Pathological lesions involve the arterial wall or intravascular lumen with, primarily, narrowing and thrombo-embolic events as an effect of endothelial and blood cell changes related to smoking. Functional disorders are the result of a wide spectrum of biochemical, physiological and metabolic factors. While conduit vessel alterations have been widely investigated, little is known about the changes induced by smoking on the microcirculation. It would seem that the endothelium, platelet aggregation and adhesiveness, nervous system and metabolic changes play a role in damaging resistance arteries and, then, the microcirculation. The result of these effects changes the blood flow and perfusion particularly to the heart, brain and kidney. Alterations of the microcirculation can cause severe and widespread damage because, in addition to the complications of the atherosclerotic lesion which characterizes large arteries, there is a failure of body organs linked to the degree of microvascular damage. Moreover, it seems that 2 major compounds of cigarette smoke are capable of determining vascular damage; initially, nicotine acts preferably on large arteries and carbon monoxide on small arteries, although both compounds damage the vascular system.

Aim/hypothesis Renal resistive index is a useful measure for quantifying alterations in renal blood flow. In the present study we evaluated resistive index at baseline and after vasodilation induced by nitroglycerine in normoalbuminuric patients with type 2 diabetes or essential hypertension, relating the values to indices of systemic vascular dysfunction.

This article reviews the current techniques employed to assess endothelial dysfunction in different categories of smokers. Simple but effective methods to assess regional and local properties of large arteries for epidemiologic studies are firstly discussed. After, more complex but accurate image-based methods are described. In particular, the role of high resolution magnetic resonance to quantify, in a single examination, vascular function at different sites of peripheral and central arteries is summarized. Finally, the role of positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance flow mapping are described to assess myocardial microcirculation at rest and under external stressors.

Radio frequency receiver phased-array coils in magnetic resonance imaging systems are used to pick up the signals emitted by the nuclei with high signal-to-noise ratio and a large region of sensitivity. Since the quality of obtained images strongly depends upon the correct choice of the coils geometry and position, array coils have to be designed minimizing the mutual interaction among nearby coil elements and this is generally achieved by overlapping such adjacent elements. In this paper we describe the use of a numerical solver based on Finite-Difference Time-Domain algorithm for determining the overlap distance, which guarantees the maximum decoupling level between the coil elements, for array coils constituted by various geometry loops. Using the simulator, we designed a novel array coil for the spine imaging of small animals and composed by two elements with elliptical geometry in “folding” version around the animals spine curvature.

Bayesian Networks represent one of the most successful tools for medical diagnosis and therapies follow-up. We present an algorithm for Bayesian network structure learning, that is a variation of the standard search-and-score approach. The proposed algorithm overcomes the creation of redundant network structures that may include non significant connections between variables. In particular, the algorithm finds what relationships between the variables must be prevented, by exploiting the binarization of a square matrix containing the mutual information (MI) among all pairs of variables. Two different binarization methods are implemented. The first one is based on the MRMR (maximum relevance minimum redundancy) selection strategy. The second one uses a threshold. The MI binary matrix is exploited as a pre-conditioning step for the subsequent greedy search procedure that optimizes the network score, reducing the number of possible search paths in the greedy search. Ouralgorithm has been tested on two different medical datasets and compared against the standard search-and-score algorithm as implemented in the DEAL package.

Harmonic phase (HARP) is an image processing technique of MR-tagged images in frequency domain developed to evaluate the regional tissue strain. The filtering stage is a key point in this method because all information about the deformation have to be included in the analysis. In this paper we develop an automatic method to define the filter parameters in order to minimize errors in the strain evaluation and to avoid operator related variability. A software model is built to investigate the error in strain estimation caused by filter parameters variability and to evaluate the developed method. The automatic technique models each spectral peak with a bidimensional Gaussian function and uses these information to create an optimal elliptic filter. We validated the automatic method on simulated data set. In real tagged MR images analysis, the method achieved the same performance as the manual analysis, considered the gold standard, eliminating the inter-operator variability.

For pathological voices, hoarseness is mainly due to airflow turbulence in the vocal tract and is often referred to as noise. This paper focuses on enhancement of speech signals, assumed to be degraded by additive white noise. Speech enhancement is performed in the time-domain, by means of a low-order singular value decomposition that allows removal of the noise contribution while preserving the harmonic structure of the original speech signal. The approach was tested on synthetic data and applied to real data, concerning hoarse voices of cordectomised patients. Its simple structure allows a real-time implementation, based on C and assembler code, properly optimised on a DSP board. Hence, the method is suitable for portable device realisation, as an aid to disphonic speakers. It could be of help for diminishing the effort in speaking, which is closely related to social problems due to the awkwardness of voice.

In the present research a parallel algorithm for medical image processing has been proposed, which allows 3D quantitative analysis of left ventricular cardiac wall motion in real time. It is a fundamental task in evaluating a lot of indexes useful to perform diagnosis of important diseases. However, such analysis involves expensive tasks in terms of computational time: tridimensional segmentation and an accurate cavity contour detection during the entire cardiac cycle. In this paper an implementation of a dynamic quantitative analysis algorithm on low-cost Shared Memory Processor machine is described. In order to test the developed system in actual environment, a dynamic sequence of 3D data volume, derived from Magnetic Resonance (MR) cardiac images, has been processed.