169,757 research outputs found
A three-dimensional electronic report of a venous echo color Doppler of the lower limbs: MEVeC®
Aldo Innocente Galeandro,1 Pietro Scicchitano,2 Annapaola Zito,2 Cristina Galeandro,2 Michele Gesualdo,2 Francesco Ciciarello,3 Annagrazia Cecere,2 Andrea Marzullo,4 Vincenzo Contursi,5 Annamaria Annicchiarico,1 Marco Matteo Ciccone2 1Department of Science and Technology, University of Bari, Bari, Italy; 2Cardiovascular Diseases Section, Department of Emergency and Organ Transplantation (DETO), University of Bari, Bari, Italy; 3Department of Cardiovascular, Respiratory, Geriatric and Morphologic Sciences of "Umberto I" Polyclinic of Rome, "Sapienza" University, Rome, Italy; 4Department of Emergency and Organ Transplantation (DETO), Pathology Division, Medical School, University of Bari, Bari, Italy; 5Italian Society for Interdisciplinary Primary Care, Bari, Italy Background: The reports of ultrasound evaluation of lower limb veins are difficult to understand by general practitioners (GPs) and physicians who are not specialized. We developed software for a three-dimensional (3D) electronic report of venous hemodynamic mapping (MEVeC®) in order to represent lower limb venous vasculature in a 3D way. The aim of the study is to compare the novel 3D report with the standard report. Methods: Thirty subjects (medical students and GPs) evaluated a standard report and a novel 3D report of the lower limb veins of a prespecified patient. The cases were randomly and blindly taken from an archive of 100 cases. GPs and students answered a questionnaire made up of 13 questions that were structured in order to investigate the readability and comprehension of the two reports. A score ranging from 0 to 10 (0= not understandable; 10= full comprehension) was attributed to each report for each question according to the readability of the venous scheme proposed. Results: The scores from each question of the questionnaire were compared. The 3D report (MEVeC®) obtained higher scores than those from the evaluation of the standard report (P<0.0001). Each question revealed the superiority of the 3D report (MEVeC®) as compared with the standard report of the ultrasound evaluation of lower limbs. When dividing the scores according to percentiles, the 3D report (MEVeC®) still continued to show more readability than the standard report in a statistically significant way (P<0.0001). Conclusion: The new 3D report (MEVeC®) concerning ultrasound evaluation of lower limb veins is more reproducible than the standard report when evaluated by medical physicians not specialized in the evaluation of the vein tree of lower limbs. Keywords: vein 3D report, ultrasound evaluation, lower limb veins, standard repor
Assessing ionospheric activity from GNSS measurements as a possible precursor of high magnitude earthquakes
Assessing ionospheric activity from GNSS measurements as a possible precursor of high magnitude earthquakes
The Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling model provides for the modification of atmospheric physical properties prior to a high magnitude
earthquake over an area near to the epicentre. Ionization of air, caused by possible radon leaking from earth crust, could be one of the causes.
In the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) sciences, disturbances of ionospheric activity can be investigated through the analysis of refraction
phenomena occurring on the signal along the path satellite-to-receiver and maps representing the ionospheric activity as Total Electron Content could be drawn. By a 6 month long series of GNSS data, we investigated ionospheric disturbances related to the M=6.3 earthquake occurred at L’Aquila (Italy) on 6th of April 2009. Resulting TEC maps exhibit meaningful anomalies 3 weeks before the main shock
A simple model for passive failure compression structure at the toe of landslide
The toe of landslides is subject to compression stresses induced by the upward sliding masses and often characterized by a compression structure. These structures can evolve in passive toe thrust, which bias the geomorphologic evolution of the toe zone, particularly for prevailing longitudinal dimension landslide. This work presents a simple analytic model of the passive thrust at the toe of landslide based on the infinite slope approach to stability analysis. It is based on the analysis of the state of stresses according to Mohr circle representation and can be implemented also into a spread-sheet and making it possible to evaluate the form of failure surface at the toe of the landslide and the shear strength contribution to the factor of safety of a landslide
Hypogastric Artery Salvage Using an Unibody Bifurcated Aorto-Iliac Graft Associated to Double-Barrel Technique in Spontaneous Isolated Abdominal Aortic Dissection
A 54-year-old male patient was admitted with acute left lower limb ischemia (ALI). Computed tomography (CT) angiogram showed an isolated abdominal aortic dissection (IAAD) with a single entry tear just proximal to the aortic bifurcation and an intramural hematoma (IMH) extending to the descending thoracic aorta. The IAAD involved the left iliac bifurcation, with a flow limiting dissection flap into the internal iliac artery (IIA) and external iliac artery (EIA) thrombosis with femoro-popliteal embolization. A surgical thrombectomy of the femoral arteries was performed. An unibody bifurcated endograft was deployed into the true lumen to cover the entry tear, and a double-barrel technique was employed to restore the flow into the EIA and to preserve the IIA patency. The postoperative period was complicated by a compartment syndrome of the calf, requiring a fasciotomy. Follow-up imaging after 12 months showed complete resolution of the IAAD and patency of the stented vessels
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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