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Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death among people with HIV and a major global health challenge. Subclinical cardiovascular manifestations of TB are poorly documented in high TB and HIV burden countries. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to quantify the prevalence of cardiovascular involvement in TB patients and investigate changes after completion of anti-TB treatment. Methods: HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients diagnosed with pulmonary TB between October 2022 and November 2023 were enrolled from 2 tertiary care hospitals in Zambia and South Africa. Standardized transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) was conducted at TB diagnosis and after 6 months of anti-TB treatment. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses assessed pericardial effusion, thickening, or calcification, with and without signs of pericardial constriction. Results: A total of 286 TB patients (218 [76%] men, 109 [38%] people with HIV, median age 35 years) underwent TTE at TB diagnosis, of whom 105 participants had a second TTE after completion of treatment. At TB diagnosis, 134 (47%) had pericardial effusions, 86 (30%) thickening, 7 (2%) calcifications, 103 (42%) signs of constriction, and 13 (12%) had definite diagnosis of constriction. After TB treatment, pericardial effusions (47% vs 16%, P

Choosing the scale or shape parameter of radial basis functions (RBFs) is a well-documented but still an open problem in kernel-based methods. It is common to tune it according to the applications, and it plays a crucial role both for the accuracy and stability of the method. In this paper, we first devise a direct relation between the shape parameter of RBFs and their curvature at each point. This leads to characterizing RBFs to scalable and unscalable ones. We prove that all scalable RBFs lie in the -class which means that their curvature at the point xj is proportional to, where cj is the corresponding spatially variable shape parameter at xj. Some of the most commonly used RBFs are then characterized and classified accordingly to their curvature. Then, the fundamental theory of plane curves helps us recover univariate functions from scattered data, by enforcing the exact and approximate solutions have the same curvature at the point where they meet. This leads to introducing curvature-based scaled RBFs with shape parameters depending on the function values and approximate curvature values of the function to be approximated. Several numerical experiments are devoted to show that the method performs better than the standard fixed-scale basis and some other shape parameter selection methods.

AimDue to insufficient evidence on the safety and effectiveness of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) in patients early after ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), we aimed to compare short- and long-term effects of randomized HIIT or moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) on markers of left ventricular (LV) remodeling in STEMI patients receiving optimal guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT).Materials and MethodsPatients after STEMI (

We discuss a generalization of Berrut’s first and second rational interpolants to the case of equally spaced points on a triangle in R2.

To analyze multimodal three-dimensional medical images, interpolation is required for resampling which—unavoidably—introduces an interpolation error. In this work we describe the interpolation method used for imaging and neuroimaging and we characterize the Gibbs effect occurring when using such methods. In the experimental section we consider three segmented three-dimensional images resampled with three different neuroimaging software tools for comparing undersampling and oversampling strategies and to identify where the oversampling error lies. The experimental results indicate that undersampling to the lowest image size is advantageous in terms of mean value per segment errors and that the oversampling error is larger where the gradient is steeper, showing a Gibbs effect.

Long-term endurance sport practice leads to eccentric left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). We aimed to compare the new 4-tiered classification (4TC) for LVH with the established 2-tiered classification (2TC) in a cohort of normotensive non-elite endurance athletes.Male participants of a 10-mile race were recruited and included when blood pressure (BP) was normal (

ContentGerlind Plonka-HochPreface • page 2Martin D. BuhmannApproximation in Göttingen: some remarks on Robert Schaback's work on its theory and applications • pages 3−14Len Bos • Stefano De Marchi • Alvise Sommariva • Marco VianelloOn multivariate Newton interpolation at discrete Leja points • pages 15−20Gregory E. FasshauerPositive definite kernels: past, present and future • pages 21−63

Introduction. It is well known that resolution on a gamma camera varies as a function of distance, scatter and the camera’s characteristics (collimator type, crystal thickness, intrinsic resolution etc). Manufacturers frequently provide only a few pre-calculated resolution values (using a line source in air, 10–15 cm from the collimator surface and without scattering). However, these are typically not obtained in situations resembling a clinical setting. From a diagnostic point of view, it is useful to know the expected resolution of a gamma camera at a given distance from the collimator surface for a particular setting in order to decide whether it is worth scanning patients with “small lesion” or not. When dealing with absolute quantification it is also mandatory to know precisely the expected resolution and its uncertainty in order to make appropriate corrections.Aim. Our aims are: to test a novel mathematical approach, the cubic spline interpolation, for the extraction of the full width at half maximum (FWHM) from the acquisition of a line source (experimental resolution) also considering measurement uncertainty; to compare it with the usually adopted methods such as the gaussian approach; to compare it with the theoretical resolution (analytical resolution) of a gamma camera at different distances; to create a web-based educational program with which to test these theories.Methods. Three mathematical methods (direct calculation, global interpolation using gaussian and local interpolation using splines) for calculating FWHM from a line source (planar scintigraphy) were tested and compared. A NEMA Triple Line Source Phantom was used to obtain static images both in air and with different scattering levels. An advanced, open-source software (MATLAB/Octave and PHP based) was created “ad hoc” to obtain and compare FWHM values and relative uncertainty.Results and Conclusion. Local interpolation using splines proved faster and more reliable than the usually-adopted Gaussian interpolation. The proposed freely available software proved effective in assessing both FWHM and its uncertainty.