BACKGROUND During off-pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB), the heart is subjected to ischemic and reperfusion injury. Preconditioning is a mechanism that permits the heart to tolerate myocardial ischemia. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of Adenosine preconditioning with ischemic preconditioning on the global ejection fraction (EF) in patients undergoing OPCAB. METHODS In this...

Objective: To assess whether tissue Doppler myocardial imaging (TDI) indices can predict postoperative left ventricular function in patients with mitral regurgitation (MR) after surgical correction. Methods: 84 patients (mean (SD) age 54.3 (10.8) years) with asymptomatic severe MR, an end systolic diameter , 45 mm, and an ejection fraction (EF) . 60% were subdivided in two groups: 43 patients w...

This paper develops and implements a statistical methodology to account for the equilibrium effects (aka adverse selection) in design of risk adjustment formula in health insurance markets. Our setting is modeled on the situation in Medicare and the new state Exchanges where individuals sort themselves between a discrete set of plan types (here, two). Our “Silver” and “Gold” plans have fixed ch...

This research aims at presenting a consolidated model of data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique and value engineering to select the best manufacturing methods for gate valve covers and ranking the methods using TOPSIS.To do so, efficiency evaluation indices were selected based on the value engineering approach and different manufacturing methods were evaluated using DEA technique.Finally, ef...

Background: Car wash wastewater contains several contaminants such as organic matter, oil, grease, detergents and phosphates, all of which are harmful for the environment. In this study, the application of electrocoagulation (EC) to treat car wash wastewater has been studied, and the operating parameters optimized. The electro-Fenton (EF) for further contaminant removal was also investigated. ...

Ninety-three patients with aortic valve disease were evaluated to determine the effect of the preoperative left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) on the results of aortic valve replacement (AVR). Forty-six patients had aortic stenosis (AS), 16 had aortic insufficiency (Al), and 31 had mixed aortic stenosis and insufficiency (MX). Immediate and long-term survival curves in AS and MX, and in AS ...

With the emergence of big data computing and analysis, cloud computing services become more and more popular, which has recently drawn researchers’ great attentions to develop various new applications and mechanisms. In this paper, we consider the on-demand mechanism design in the infrastructure as a service (IaaS), including resource allocation and pricing issues under dynamic scenarios. Most ...

Objective: This study examined the hypothesis that individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, predominantly inattentive type (ADHD-I), show both executive function (EF) deficits and non-EF deficits. Method: A group with ADHD-I (n = 16) and a paired control group (n = 21) completed a battery of tasks covering the major domains of EF (planning, working memory, flexibility and inhi...