1,720,965 research outputs found
Far field pacing supersedes anti-tachycardia pacing in a generic model of excitable media
No full textRemoving anchored spirals from obstacles is an important step in terminating cardiac arrhythmia. Conventional anti-tachycardia pacing (ATP) has this ability, but only under very restrictive conditions. In a generic model of excitable media, we demonstrate that for unpinning spiral waves from obstacles this profound limitation of ATP can be overcome by far field pacing (FFP). More specifically, an argument is presented for why FFP includes and thus can only extend the capabilities of ATP in the configurations considered. By numerical simulations, we show that in the model there exists a parameter region in which unpinning is possible by FFP but not by ATP. The relevance of this result regarding clinical applications is discussed
Termination of scroll waves by surface impacts
No full textThree-dimensional scroll waves direct cell movement and gene expression, and induce chaos in the brain and heart. We found an approach to terminate multiple three-dimensional scrolls. A pulse of a properly configured electric field detaches scroll filaments from the surface. They shrink due to filament tension and disappear. Since wave emission from small heterogeneities is not used, this approach requires a much lower electric field. It is not sensitive to the details of the excitable medium. It may affect future studies of low-energy chaos termination in the heart
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Phase-resolved analysis of the susceptibility of pinned spiral waves to far-field pacing in a two-dimensional model of excitable media
No full textLife-threatening cardiac arrhythmias are associated with the existence of stable and unstable spiral waves. Termination of such complex spatio-temporal patterns by local control is substantially limited by anchoring of spiral waves at natural heterogeneities. Far-field pacing (FFP) is a new local control strategy that has been shown to be capable of unpinning waves from obstacles. In this article, we investigate in detail the FFP unpinning mechanism for a single rotating wave pinned to a heterogeneity. We identify qualitatively different phase regimes of the rotating wave showing that the concept of vulnerability is important but not sufficient to explain the failure of unpinning in all cases. Specifically, we find that a reduced excitation threshold can lead to the failure of unpinning, even inside the vulnerable window. The critical value of the excitation threshold (below which no unpinning is possible) decreases for higher electric field strengths and larger obstacles. In contrast, for a high excitation threshold, the success of unpinning is determined solely by vulnerability, allowing for a convenient estimation of the unpinning success rate. In some cases, we also observe phase resetting in discontinuous phase intervals of the spiral wave. This effect is important for the application of multiple stimuli in experiments
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Vortices Termination in the Cardiac Muscle
No full textMethods for termination of three-dimensional electrical vortices in the heart are needed for development of patient-friendly cardiac defibrillation techniques (Nature 475, 235, 2011). The defibrillation technique used today is the delivery of a high-energy electric shock (360 J, 1 kV, 30 A, 12 ms, when applied externally) often associated with severe side effects. Developing low-energy defibrillation methods are hampered by two problems: the unknown locations of the cores of the vortices, and the unpredictable phases of the vortex waves rotating around these cores. The first problem has been resolved through the use of electric field pulses to excite the cores of all pinned vortices simultaneously. Approaches to solve the second problem are being developed. One of them is based on the phase scanning of all pinned vortices in parallel to hit the critical time window (“Vulnerable Window”, VW) of every pinned vortex. We investigate the related physical mechanisms and describe problems created by scanning. We describe also a mechanism by which a 3-dim scroll vortex may be terminated with a VW of the full 2π radians. It makes knowledge of the wave phase no longer required. We describe a mechanism terminating also a free (not pinned) vortex, when the vortex’s core passes not very far from a defect. About 500 experiments with termination of vortices during ventricular fibrillation in pig isolated hearts confirm that pinned vortices, hidden from direct observation, are significant in fibrillation. These results form a physical basis needed for creation of new effective methods for termination vortices underlying fibrillation
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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