We have studied beating mouse cardiac syncytia in vitro in order to assess the inotropic, ergotropic, and chronotropic effects of both increasing and decreasing hydrostatic pressures. In particular, we have performed an image processing analysis to evaluate the kinematics and the dynamics of those pressure-loaded beating syncytia starting from the video registration of their contraction movemen...

OBJECTIVE Mitral valve surgery can be performed through the trans-atrial or the trans-septal approach. Although the trans-atrial is the preferred method, the trans-septal approach has also been used recently and has a particular value in beating-heart mitral valve surgery. Herein we report our experience with beating-heart mitral valve surgery via trans-septal approach, and discuss its advantag...

Melachronous beating of cilia of epithelial surfaces of most respiratory airways moves the overlying mucous layer in a caudal direction. The molecular mechanisms controlling ciliary beat remain largely unknown. Calcium, an element in its cationic form, is ubiquitous in biological functions and its concentration is critical for ciliary beating. Calmodulin, a calcium-binding protein which regulat...

W ife beating, the most widespread form of domestic violence, has adverse consequences on the health and wellbeing of women and is a major cause of disability and death in many countries. In the past few years, it has been widely reported in developing countries’ contexts, where patriarchal family norms are common. In the Middle East, patriarchal gender relations reinforced by traditional cultu...

Beating heart surgeries offer significant health benefits to patients by removing the need for the heart-lung machine and its attendant side effects. These surgeries are challenging to perform and only feasible in certain types of procedures because of the rapid movement of the heart. Equipping the surgeon with fast, actuated, and intelligent surgical instruments that automatically compensate f...

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is commonly associated with coronary artery disease (CAD). Simultaneous coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) under cardiac arrest and AAA repair may be considerably invasive. Recently CABG under the beating heart without CPB has been reported as a less invasive method. We report the combined operation of CABG on a beating heart...

The rate of renal transplantation has plateaued and is now limited by the number of donor organs available. In the past all donor kidneys came from living donors or controlled non-heart beating donors. It was not until the introduction of brainstem death criteria that cadaveric heart beating donors became the main source. Recently, there has been renewed interest in non-heart beating donors, wh...

Recently, nuclear vibrational contribution signatures in two-dimensional (2D) electronic spectroscopy have attracted considerable interest, in particular as regards interpretation of the oscillatory transients observed in light-harvesting complexes. These transients have dephasing times that persist for much longer than theoretically predicted electronic coherence lifetime. As a plausible expla...

BACKGROUND Several groups have demonstrated that non-heart beating donation is a viable source of organs for transplantation. However, the theoretically worse graft function and survival of the kidneys obtained from non-heart beating donors (NHBDs) is still a matter of debate that has led to consider them as marginal donors for kidney transplantation. METHODS In this report, we compare the ou...

BACKGROUND : To expand minimally invasive beating-heart surgery, we have developed a miniature 2-footed crawling robot (HeartLander) that navigates on the epicardium. This paradigm obviates mechanical stabilization and lung deflation, and avoids the access limitations of current approaches. We tested the locomotion of the device on a beating porcine heart accessed through a closed-chest subxiph...