A three-field,bi-domain based approach to the strongly coupled electromechanics of the heart

We propose a novel, unconditionally stable and fully coupled finite element method for the bidomain based approach to cardiac electromechanics. To this end, the transmembrane potential, the extracellular potential, and the displacement field are treated as independent variables such that the already coupled electrophysiology problem in the bidomain setting is further extended to the electromechanical coupling. In this multifield problem, the intrinsic coupling arises from both excitation-induced contraction of cardiac cells and the deformation-induced generation of intra-cellular currents. The respective bidomain reaction-diffusion and the momentum balance equations are recast into the corresponding weak forms through a conventional isoparametric Galerkin approach. The resultant set of non-linear residual equations is consistently linearized. The monolithic scheme is employed to avoid stability issues that may arise due to the strong coupling between excitation and deformation. The performance of the put forward framework is further assessed through three-dimensional representative electromechanical initial-boundary value problems. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Three-dimensional in vivo scanning microscopy with inertia-free focus control

The acquisition of high-resolution images in three dimensions is of utmost importance for the morphological and functional investigation of biological tissues. Here, we present a laser scanning two-photon microscope with remote and motionless control of the focus position. The movement of the excitation spot along the propagation direction is achieved by shaping the laser wavefront with a spatial light modulator. Depending on the optical properties of the objective in use, this approach allows z movements in a range of tens to hundreds of micrometers with small changes of the point spread function. We applied this technique for the three-dimensional (3D) imaging of fluorescent cells in the mouse neocortex in vivo. The presented system bypasses the limitations of microscopes based on moving objectives, enabling high-resolution inertia-free 3D imaging.     

Erratum to “Lower bounds for the eigenvalues of the basic Dirac operator on a Riemannian foliation” [J. Geom. Phys. 51 (2004) 166–182]

We correct some statements in the paper mentioned in the title.     

A novel approach to cutting decision trees

In data mining, binary classification has a wide range of applications. Cutting Decision Tree (CDT) induction is an efficient mathematical programming based method that tries to discretize the data set on hand by using multiple separating hyperplanes. A new improvement to CDT model is proposed in this study by incorporating the second goal of maximizing the distance of the correctly classified instances to the misclassification region. Computational results show that developed model achieves better classification accuracy for Wisconsin Breast Cancer database and Japanese Banks data set when compared to existing piecewise-linear models in literature. Furthermore, remarkable results are obtained for the well-known benchmarking data sets (Buba Liver Disorders, Blood Tranfusion and Pima Indian Diabetes) when compared to the original CDT model.     

New 2-substituted 4-hydroxy-2H-1,2-benzothiazine-3-carboxamide 1,1-dioxides: Spectral and pharmacological properties

A series of 4-hydroxy-2H-1,2-benzothiazme-3-carboxamide 1,1-dioxides substituted on the sulfonamide nitrogen with ethoxycarbonylalkyl, cyanoalkyl and dialkylaminoalkyl groups was synthesized. Spectroscopic properties of the obtained products were analyzed. Findings from the pharmacological study of some of the compounds as antiinflammatory and analgesic agents are reported.