Background: The heart and great vessels were once thought to be relatively resistant to the damaging effect of radiation therapy. There is now clear evidence that thoracic irradiation may cause acute inflammation and progressive fibrosis of different structures, including the heart valves, the myocardium and the pericardium, the coronary arteries and the conduction system. As new therapies have...

An enzymatic recycling method has been applied to the measurement of total and oxidized glutathione with a centrifugal analyzer. When the reduced form of glutathione (GSH) was masked with 2-vinylpyridine to measure the oxidized glutathione (GSSG), the time to ensure full derivatization was three times longer than has been reported. The method is quick, simple, accurate, and precise (1.27% for G...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this paper is to evaluate a new comprehensive scoring system for longitudinal studies using the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS). METHODS A sample of 638 children were examined in 2002-2003 and again in 2007. Caries was assessed using the ICDAS criteria which assess six clinical stages of dental caries. Based on a transition matrix matching th...

OBJECTIVES To analyze the predictive value of new cardiovascular (CV) risk factors for CV risk assessment in the adult Romanian hypertensive (HT) population. METHODS Hypertensive adults aged between 40-65 years of age, identified in national representative SEPHAR II survey were evaluated by anthropometric, BP and arterial stiffness measurements: aortic pulse wave velocity (PWVao), aortic augm...

This paper proposes a new speech synthesis method for high-quality Japanese TTS(Text-to-speech) based on the waveform synthesis. The method uses V-CV as a basic synthesis unit to preserve the intelligibility of consonant. An efficient unit reconstruction method is newly adopted both to minimize pitch conversion and concatenation distortion when selecting waveforms. The minimization can provide ...

A method is presented for the calculation of perfusion parameters in dynamic contrast enhanced MRI. This method requires identification of enhancement curves for both tumor tissue and plasma. Inter-operator variability in the derived rate constant between plasma and extra-cellular extra-vascular space is assessed in both canine and human subjects using semi-automated tumor margin identification...

In this paper, the concept of Conjectural Variation (CV) is used to specify optimal generation decision for generation companies (Gencos). The conjecture of Genco is defined as its belief or expectation about the reaction of rivals to change of its output. Using CV method, each Genco has to learn and estimate strategic behaviors of other competitors from available historical market operation da...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Excretion of urinary compounds in spot urine is often estimated relative to creatinine. For the growing number of liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assays of urine-excreted molecules, a fast and accurate method for determination of creatinine is needed. METHODS A high-throughput flow injection tandem mass spectrometry method for exact quantitation of cr...

The anaerobic threshold (AT) has been defined as the theoretical highest exercise level that can be maintained for prolonged periods. It is of practical importance to the competitive endurance athlete to measure progress and plan training programs. The primary objective of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of breakpoint in the respiratory rate (RR) during incremental exercis...

in this paper, the concept of conjectural variation (cv) is used to specify optimal generation decision for generation companies (gencos). the conjecture of genco is defined as its belief or expectation about the reaction of rivals to change of its output. using cv method, each genco has to learn and estimate strategic behaviors of other competitors from available historical market operation da...