AvI-index is a usability measurement questionnaire to assess IT systems’ usability as a factor dependent on efficiency, effectiveness and work environment. It is focused on how personal skills and organizational processes contribute to successful user participation and through that to higher usability, to better work environment, and to higher effectiveness and efficiency. Reliability coefficie...

Rapid advances in mobile communication technology have spawned many new mobile applications. A key element in many of these systems is the need to distribute real-time information from a database server to mobile clients. While data broadcast has been shown to be an efficient data dissemination technique, many issues such as selection of broadcast data and caching strategies at mobile clients a...

We used an improved cryosectioning technique in combination with immunogold cytochemistry and morphometric analysis to study the convergence of the autophagic and endocytic pathways in isolated rat hepatocytes. The endocytic pathway was traced by continuous uptake of gold tracer for various time periods, up to 45 min, while the cells were incubated in serum-free medium to induce autophagy. Endo...

Marburg virus (MARV) is an Ebola-like virus in the family Filovirdae that causes sporadic outbreaks of severe hemorrhagic fever with a case fatality rate as high as 90%. AVI-7288, a positively charged antisense phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer (PMOplus) targeting the viral nucleoprotein gene, was evaluated as a potential therapeutic intervention for MARV infection following delayed treatm...

AIMS To evaluate the outcome of transapical aortic valve implantation (TA-AVI) in comparison to conventional surgery. METHODS AND RESULTS One hundred consecutive high-risk patients with symptomatic aortic valve stenosis received TA-AVI using the Edwards SAPIEN pericardial xenograft between February 2006 and January 2008. Patient age was 82.7 +/- 5 years, 77 were females, logistic EuroSCORE pr...

OBJECTIVES We investigated in vivo in aortic valve stenosis (AVS) whether there is: 1) thermal heterogeneity within the valve leaflets; 2) temperature difference between the leaflets and the ascending aortic wall; and 3) a possible correlation between heat production, inflammation, and neoangiogenesis. BACKGROUND Histological studies have demonstrated a potential role of inflammation and neoa...

OBJECTIVE Contrast agent is a potential risk factor for acute kidney injury (AKI). Little is known about the incidence of contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) after trans-apical aortic valve implantation (TA-AVI) and on the impact of contrast exposure during preoperative computed tomography (CT) scan and cardiac catheterization. METHODS A total of 270 consecutive high-risk patients received TA-...

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) exhibit unique drug delivery properties and are thus considered as promising candidates for next generation nano-medicines. In particular, inhalation into the lungs represents a direct, non-invasive delivery route for treating lung disease. To assess MSN biocompatibility in the lung, we investigated the bioresponse of avidin-coated MSNs (MSN-AVI), as well ...