OBJECTIVES This study sought to identify how many patients suitable for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) would have a contraindication for the transaortic (TAo) approach due to ascending aortic calcification. BACKGROUND TAo is an emerging approach for implantation of the Sapien valve through the ascending aorta. A "porcelain aorta" is often considered a contraindication for the ...

The Tao brush is a small flexible brush used in TruTest Endometrial Biopsy. Endometrial tissue to a depth of 1.5–2 mm can be collected. It gently brushes the entire inside of the uterus so as to gather a more complete sampling of the endometrium and is less painful than the traditional method [1]. It covers a wide area of the endometrial surface. Therefore, small lesions are less likely to be m...

Traffic measurement provides critical real-world data for service providers and network administrators to perform capacity planning, accounting and billing, anomaly detection, and service provision. In many measurement functions, statistical methods play important roles in system designing, model building, formula deriving, and error analyzing. One of the greatest challenges in designing an onl...

The approach to speed up a Lisp interpreter by implementing it in firmware seems promising. A microcoded Lisp interpreter shows good performance for very simple benchmarks, while it often fails to provide good performance for larger benchmarks and applications unless speedup techniques are devised for it. This was the case for the TAO/EL6 system. This paper describes various techniques devised ...

BACKGROUND The establishment of a suitable and stable animal model is critical for research on thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO). In clinical practice, we found that patients treated with I-131 often exhibit TAO; therefore, we aimed to establish a novel thyroid function fluctuated animal model of TAO by simulating the clinical treatment process. METHODS We treated SD rats with I-131 to ...

Thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO) is a segmental inflammatory occlusive disorder that affects the arm and leg arteries of young smokers. The immune system seems to play a critical role in the aetiology of TAO; however, knowledge of the aspects involved in the progression of vascular tissue inflammation and, consequently, the evolution of this disease is still limited. This study was carried out ...

Thromboangitis obliterans (TAO; Buerger's disease) and atherosclerosis obliterans (ASO) are associated with endothelial dysfunction. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of circulating progenitor cells (CPCs) in endothelial function in patients with TAO and ASO. We measured flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD), nitroglycerine-induced vasodilation, and circulating CPCs in 30 patients w...

PURPOSE In patients with thyroid-associated orbitopathy (TAO), the dry eye syndrome occurs frequently, and symptoms and signs of both disorders overlap making early and accurate differential diagnosis difficult. A differentiation via specific markers is warranted. METHODS Tear fluid samples of 120 subjects with TAO, TAO + dry eye, dry eye, and controls were collected. The samples were measure...