A 78-year-old man came for a scheduled check up one month after the implantation of a permanent dualchamber pacemaker for symptomatic transient atrioventricular conduction disturbances (intermittent Mobitz II atrioventricular block). The patient's ECG indicated a loss of atrial capture by the atrial electrode with 1:1 atrioventricular conduction. A subsequent X-ray examination showed that both ...

Genetically modified mice provide a number of models for studying cardiac channelopathies related to cardiac Na(+) channel (SCN5A) abnormalities. We review key pathophysiological features in these murine models that may underlie clinical features observed in sinus node dysfunction and progressive cardiac conduction disease, thereby providing insights into their pathophysiological mechanisms. We...

Myotonic muscular dystrophy (MMD) is a rare autosomal dominant disorder that can complicate anesthetic management of patients. MMD is characterized by progressively worsening muscle loss and weakness, cardiac conduction abnormalities, cardiomyopathy, restrictive lung disease, obstructive sleep apnea, and delayed gastric emptying. Patients presenting with MMD for any surgical procedure present a...

In this article, we study the energy decay for the thermoelastic Bresse system in the whole line with two dissipative mechanisms, given by heat conduction (Types I and III). We prove that the decay rate of the solutions are very slow. More precisely, we show that the solutions decay with the rate of (1+t)−1/8 in the L2-norm, whenever the initial data belongs to L1(R)∩Hs(R) for a suitable s. The...

Light-absorbing and electrically conductive binary CNx nanocone (CNNC) arrays have been fabricated using a glow discharge plasma-assisted reaction deposition method. The intact CNNCs with amorphous structure and central nickel-filled pipelines could be vertically and neatly grown on nickel-covered substrates according to the catalyst-leading mode. The morphologies and composition of the as-grow...

In this issue, we have an interesting review article by Dr. Mario Zernotti and his team in Cordoba on the Bonebridge bone conduction implant. Bone conduction implants are indicated for patients with conductive, mixed, or unilateral hearing loss. The transcutaneous technology employed avoids common complications such as cutaneous reactions, skin covering the abutment, local infection, or extrusi...

Physiological studies have been made of extensor digitorum brevis muscles in 28 healthy subjects aged between 60 and 96. Within this elderly population there was evidence of muscle wasting and weakness. These changes were shown to result from a loss of functioning motor units. The surviving motor units were often enlarged and tended to have relatively slow twitches. In some subjects the maximum...

Colloidal quantum dot solar cells (CQDSCs) are attracting growing attention owing to significant improvements in efficiency. However, even the best depleted-heterojunction CQDSCs currently display open-circuit voltages (VOCs) at least 0.5 V below the voltage corresponding to the bandgap. We find that the tail of states in the conduction band of the metal oxide layer can limit the achievable dev...

Bone Anchored Hearing Aids (BAHA). The bone anchored hearing aid or BAHA is a small vibrator that can be reversibly plugged onto a titanium screw that is implanted behind the ear. It transduces sound into vibration of the screw and stimulates the cochleae by means of the bone conduction pathway. The main indications are conductive hearing loss or mixed hearing loss with a moderate perceptive co...

Non-Fourier heat conduction model with dual phase lag wave-diffusion model was analyzed by using well-conditioned asymptotic wave evaluation (WCAWE) and finite element method (FEM). The non-Fourier heat conduction has been investigated where the maximum likelihood (ML) and Tikhonov regularization technique were used successfully to predict the accurate and stable temperature responses without t...