OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to evaluate left atrial mechanical function recovery and plasma atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) release following successful cardioversion of persistent atrial fibrillation (AF). BACKGROUND Atrial fibrillation is characterized by functional deterioration, loss of atrial contraction, and elevation of plasma ANP levels. The response of ANP release towar...

The analytic network process (ANP) is a relatively new multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method which can be used to solve supplier selection problem. Because there are different degrees of influence among the criteria, using ANP average method (equal cluster-weighted) to obtain the weighted supermatrix may be inexact. This paper uses an effective solution based on a combined ANP and the de...

The purpose of this study is to apply the method of hybrid multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) to select public relations personnel for tourism industry in Taiwan. Fuzzy Delphi method, which can lead to better criteria selection, is used to modify criteria. Considering the interdependence among the selection criteria, analytic network process (ANP) is then used to obtain the weights of the...

For ensuring the successful implementation of knowledge management, here raises a critical issue of how companies can better evaluate and select a favorable knowledge management strategy before that implementation. However, selecting a proper knowledge management strategy is a kind of multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem required to consider a large number of complex factors. Unlike...

The atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP)-C receptor is generally believed to clear ANP; however, the ANP-C receptor may serve to reduce cAMP by inhibiting adenylate cyclase. ANP decreases endothelial permeability in coronary endothelial cell monolayers. We tested the hypothesis that part of this effect might be mediated by the ANP-C receptor. We used an endothelial cell monolayer from rat coronary ...

Three atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) receptors, ANP(A), ANP(B), and ANP(C), have been identified in the heart, suggesting that natriuretic peptides may have direct effects on cardiac function. To characterize the possible role of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) in the regulation of its own secretion, we studied here the effects of ANP (greater affinity for ANP(A) than for ANP(B) receptors) a...

Acute coronary artery occlusion triggers the release of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) from the heart. ANP affects vasodilation, natriuresis, and inflammation, but the integrated biological effects of ANP on myocardial infarction are unknown. To elucidate these effects, the left anterior coronary artery was ligated in anesthetized, ANP-deficient (ANP(-/-)) and congenic wild-type (ANP(+/+)) mi...

Decision making concept can be defined as selection process choosing one of the options, if the outcomes are not certain. In practice it is not sufficient to evaluate the options according to the simplest form of decision making only based on a criterion. In such cases, we must consider all the variety of different information to decide to best option. It arise the requirement of multi-criteria...

This paper applies the Analytic Network Process (ANP) method to the selection of the best facility layout plan based on multiple dependent and independent criteria. This is the first time that this method is used in such a context. An ANP model is built taking into account the interdependencies between criteria that are found based on experts’ opinions and fundamental equations. A network struc...