BACKGROUND Compressed sensing (CS) cine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the advantage of being inherently insensitive to respiratory motion. This study compared the accuracy of free-breathing (FB) CS and breath-hold (BH) standard cine MRI for left ventricular (LV) volume assessment.Methods and Results:Sixty-three patients underwent cine MRI with both techniques. Both types of images were a...

The coalescence of massive black hole (BH) binaries due to galaxy mergers provides a primary source of low-frequency gravitational radiation detectable by pulsar timing measurements and by the proposed LISA (Laser Interferometry Space Antenna) observatory. We compute the expected gravitational radiation signal from sources at all redshifts by combining the predicted merger rate of galactic halo...

OBJECTIVE Off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery (OPCAB) and beating-heart coronary artery bypass grafting (BH-CAB) performed with cardiopulmonary bypass support are used with increasing frequency in the treatment of coronary artery occlusive disease. The utility of OPCAB and BH-CAB in treating high-risk patients has been studied, but the effects of these procedures on ventricular function hav...

Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH(4)) is an essential cofactor of nitric oxide synthase that improves endothelial function in diabetics, smokers, and patients with hypercholesterolemia. Insulin resistance has been suggested as a contributing factor in the development of endothelial dysfunction via an abnormal pteridine metabolism. We hypothesized that BH(4) would restore flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD, ...

We study the interaction of feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) and a multiphase interstellar medium (ISM), in simulations including explicit stellar feedback, multiphase cooling, accretion-disc winds, and Compton heating. We examine radii ∼0.1–100 pc around a black hole (BH), where the accretion rate on to the BH is determined and where AGN-powered winds and radiation couple to the ISM....

Background—Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction is 1 consequence of hypertension and is caused by impaired cardiac diastolic relaxation. Nitric oxide (NO) is a known modulator of cardiac relaxation. Hypertension can lead to a reduction in vascular NO, in part because NO synthase (NOS) becomes uncoupled when oxidative depletion of its cofactor tetrahydrobiopterin (BH 4) occurs. Similar...

Ascorbic acid enhances NO bioactivity in patients with vascular disease through unclear mechanism(s). We investigated the role of intracellular ascorbic acid in endothelium-derived NO bioactivity. Incubation of porcine aortic endothelial cells (PAECs) with ascorbic acid produced time- and dose-dependent intracellular ascorbic acid accumulation that enhanced NO bioactivity by 70% measured as A23...

Reduced nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability and increased oxidative stress are major factors mediating ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH(4)) is an essential cofactor of endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) to produce NO, whereas dihydrobiopterin (BH(2)) can shift the eNOS product profile from NO to superoxide, which is further converted to hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) and cause...

Dopaminergic neurons in culture are preferentially resistant to the toxicity of glutathione (GSH) depletion. This effect may be due to high intrinsic levels of tetrahydrobiopterin (BH(4)). Here we studied the effects of manipulating GSH and/or BH(4) levels on selective neurotoxicity in organotypic nigrostriatal slice cultures. Following treatments with L-buthionine sulfoximine (BSO, 10-100 micr...

In this work we aim at addressing the still open question about the nature of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxies: are they really active nuclei with lower mass Black-Holes (BHs) than Seyfert 1 (S1) and quasars? Our approach is based on the recently discovered physical connections between nuclear supermassive BHs and their hosting spheroids (spiral bulges or ellipticals). In particular we com...