Minimally Invasive Mitral Valve Surgery I: Patient Selection, Evaluation, and Planning.

Widespread adoption of minimally invasive mitral valve repair and replacement may be fostered by practice consensus and standardization. This expert opinion, first of a 3-part series, outlines current best practices in patient evaluation and selection for minimally invasive mitral valve procedures, and discusses preoperative planning for cannulation and myocardial protection

Minimally Invasive Mitral Valve Surgery II: Surgical Technique and Postoperative Management.

Techniques for minimally invasive mitral valve repair and replacement continue to evolve. This expert opinion, the second of a 3-part series, outlines current best practices for nonrobotic, minimally invasive mitral valve procedures, and for postoperative care after minimally invasive mitral valve surgery

Minimally Invasive Mitral Valve Surgery III: Training and Robotic-Assisted Approaches.

Minimally invasive mitral valve operations are increasingly common in the United States, but robotic-assisted approaches have not been widely adopted for a variety of reasons. This expert opinion reviews the state of the art and defines best practices, training, and techniques for developing a successful robotics program

Comparative study of the relationship between structure and rheology properties of UV-curable reactive diluent monomers

The rheological properties of several diluent monomer acrylates such as viscosity and thixotropy have been measured and related to their chemical structure and functionality. These are, in turn, related to their misting characteristics in a reference offset lithographic ink. Thixotropic measurements showed that higher tetrafunctional acrylates DITMPTA and PPTTA have lower thixotropy than the other acrylates examined. On the other hand, low functionality acrylates such as DPGDA, TPGDA and Actilane 421 showed higher thixotropy than the higher functionality acrylates such as GPTA and OTA 480. These results indicate that there is a direct relationship between thixotropy and molecular weight, functionality and branching of the molecules. Highly branched molecules may interact physically by intermolecular interpenetration. These interpenetrating structures may maintain their interaction even at high shear conditions. The difunctional acrylates exhibit higher thixotropy due to their lower intermolecular interaction resulting from their linear structure. These processes have important implications when preparing and formulating UV-curable lithographic inks

Photoyellowing and discolouration of UV cured acrylated clear coatings systems: influence of photoinitiator type

The discolouration and yellowing of acrylated coating films after photocuring with a broad range of photoinitiators have been measured by colorimetry with the CMC (CIELab) system. The yellowing of the photoinitiators was evaluated and related to the chemical structure of the photoinitiator fragments and to the unreacted photoinitiator itself. The total colour difference was related to the type of chromophoric substitutent in the basic structure of the photoinitiator. The implications of these results are discussed in relation to clear coats