In digital image processing and steganography, images are often described using edges local binary pattern (LBP) codes. By combining these two properties, a novel hybrid steganography method of secret embedding is proposed in this paper. This only employs edge pixels that influence how well the approach embeds data. To increase quantity computed pixels, several detectors applied hybridized logi...

BACKGROUND Controversy remains regarding the role of pyloric drainage procedures after esophagectomy with gastric conduit reconstruction. We aimed to compare the effect of pyloric drainage strategies upon subsequent risk of complications suggestive of conduit distention, including aspiration and anastomotic leak. METHODS A retrospective study was conducted reviewing patients undergoing esopha...

Achalasia is a primary motility disorder with an annual incidence of 0.11 cases/ 100000 children [1]. In the field of natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES), the peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) [2–3] is the only treatment to be performed routinely in humans. We report the case of a 3-year old female patient with Down syndrome who presented with severe growth retardation and w...

A classical result in metric geometry asserts that any n-point metric admits a linear-size spanner of dilation O(log n) [PS89]. More generally, for any c > 1, any metric space admits a spanner of size O(n), and dilation at most c. This bound is tight assuming the well-known girth conjecture of Erdős [Erd63]. We show that for a metric induced by a set of n points in high-dimensional Euclidean sp...

An 11-week human fetus with megacystis, prostatic dysgenesis, and lateral displacement of the abdominal muscles is described. We suggest that a subtle outflow obstruction of the very early bladder may give rise to both bladder dilation and bladder wall dysgenesis. The bladder dilation may produce abdominal muscle dysplasia or atrophy and almost certainly produces dilation of the prostatic ureth...

BACKGROUND Patients with bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) have been frequently complicated with ascending aortic dilation possibly because of hemodynamic burdens by aortic stenosis (AS) or regurgitation (AR) or congenital fragility of the aortic wall. METHODS AND RESULTS To clarify if the aortic dilation could be prevented by aortic valve replacement (AVR) in BAV patients, we studied 13 BAV (8 AR ...

The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of topically applied triiodothyronine (T(3)) and thyroxine (T(4)) on the arterioles of hamster cheek pouch microcirculation in vivo. Microvessels were visualized using a fluorescent microscopy technique. Topical application of T(3) (3.08, 30.8, 61.5, 307, 615, and 6,150 nM/l) consistently induced dose-dependent dilation of arterioles within...

Acetylcholine-induced dilation was studied in cannulated resistance arteries of rat cremaster muscle. Pressurized arteriolar segments (internal diameter: 175 ± 2 μm) developed spontaneous tone (90 ± 2 μm). Application of acetylcholine (0.1 and 0.3 μM) resulted in a transient dilation followed by a steady-state dilatory response. In the presence of N G-nitro-l-arginine (l-NNA) ∼70% of the transi...

BACKGROUND Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a potent vascular regulator in the cerebral circulation, initiates conducted vasomotor responses which may be impaired after pathological insults. We analyzed the mechanism of ATP-induced local vasomotor responses and their effect on conducted vasomotor responses in rat cerebral penetrating arterioles. METHODS Arterioles were cannulated and their inter...