As the co-chairs of the joint American Thoracic Society/European Thoracic Society (ATS/ERS) task force on field exercise testing we noted with interest the work by Beekman et al, who describe reference values for a 6-min walk test (6MWT) performed around a 10 m course. These authors have previously shown that walk distances on this track provoke a significantly shorter distance than on the cour...

AIMS The SEISMIC study was an open-label, prospective, randomised study to assess the safety and feasibility of percutaneous myoblast implantation in heart failure patients with implanted cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD). METHODS AND RESULTS Patients were randomised 2:1 to autologous skeletal myoblast therapy vs. optimal medical treatment. The primary safety end-point was defined as the inci...

This talk describes a fully integrated neural recording IC with on-the-fly spike sorting and wireless telemetry. The chip consists of eight 16channel front-end blocks each consisting of amplifiers, multiplexer and ADC, data serializing circuits, DSP for on-the-fly spike sorting, digital MUX, encoder, UWB transmitter, and on-chip bias generators. The analog front end is programmable for gain, lo...

Low cost high precision MEMS accelerometers with near μg resolution and stability are needed in a number of applications ranging from GPS-augmented inertial navigation systems to guidance and stabilization of satellites and spacecrafts [1]. This paper presents a truly 14b Σ∆ modulator interface IC for a highresolution SOI capacitive accelerometer fabricated in a simple stictionless process that...

Methods Twenty one people with, and twelve age-matched without PN, were recruited. Active (AAP) and passive (PAP) ankle proprioception were assessed using Biodex 3 dynamometer (Biodex Medical System, Inc, Shirley, NY, USA). Participants sat in the Biodex chair with the back of the chair positioned at 70° with lower leg parallel with the ground. The protocol of the active and passive reposition ...

OBJECTIVES This study examined the effects of a cardiac rehabilitation (CR) program on functional capacity and health status (HS) in patients with newly implanted left ventricular assist devices (LVADs). BACKGROUND Reduced functional capacity and HS are independent predictors of mortality in patients with heart failure. CR improves both, and is related to improved outcomes in patients with he...

OBJECTIVE To determine the feasibility and efficacy of a six-month, cell phone-based exercise persistence intervention for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) following pulmonary rehabilitation. METHODS Participants who completed a two-week run-in were randomly assigned to either MOBILE-Coached (n = 9) or MOBILE-Self-Monitored (n = 8). All participants met with a nurse ...

baluchi sheep is considered as the most common breed in iran, constituting about 30% of total sheep population, approximately 15 million heads. this research was designed to study the incidence of mutation in two loci of igf-i (exon 3) and adrb3 (intron) along with their association with body weight traits in baluchi sheep population. following dna extraction from 190 baluchi sheep, two pairs o...

genetic parameters for birth weight (bw), weaning weight (ww), 6 months weight (6mw), 9 months weight (9mw) and yearling weight (yw) in baluchi sheep were estimated using data collected during a 26-year period (1984-2010). estimates of (co)variance components were obtained by reml procedures by fitting a linear mixed animal model. significant random effects for each trait were explored by fitti...

Genetic parameters for birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), 6 months weight (6MW), 9 months weight (9MW) and yearling weight (YW) in Baluchi sheep were estimated using data collected during a 26-year period (1984-2010). Estimates of (co)variance components were obtained by REML procedures by fitting a linear mixed animal model. Significant random effects for each trait were explored by fitti...