High-power short-duration versus standard-power standard-duration settings for repeat atrial fibrillation ablation

Introduction High-power short-duration (HPSD) ablation is a novel strategy using contact force-sensing catheters optimized for radiofrequency ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF). No study has directly compared HPSD versus standard-power standard-duration (SPSD) contact force-sensing settings in patients presenting for repeat ablation with AF recurrence after initial ablation. Methods We studied consecutive cases of patients with AF undergoing repeat ablation with SPSD or HPSD settings after their initial pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) with temperature controlled non-contact force, SPSD or HPSD settings between 6/23/14 and 3/4/20. Procedural data collected included radiofrequency ablation delivery time (RADT). Clinical data collected include sinus rhythm maintenance post-procedure. Results A total of 61 patients underwent repeat ablation (36 SPSD, 25 HPSD). A total of 51 patients (83.6%) were found to have pulmonary vein reconnections necessitating repeat isolation, 10 patients (16.4%) had durable PVI and ablation targeted non-PV sources. RADT was shorter when comparing repeat ablation using HPSD compared to SPSD (22 vs 35 min; p = 0.01). There was no difference in sinus rhythm maintenance by Kaplan–Meier survival analysis (log rank test p = 0.87), after 3 or 12-months between groups overall, and when stratified by AF type, left atrial volume index, CHA2DS2-VASc score, or left ventricular ejection fraction. Conclusion We demonstrated that repeat AF ablation with HPSD reduced procedure times with similar sinus rhythm maintenance compared to SPSD in those presenting for repeat ablation.

GDP Effect on B2C E-commerce Turnover and Number of Express Shipments in Selected European Post-Communist Countries

The impact of the e-economy has been observable in almost all the sectors of the national economies of the states in the last few years. The growing influence of this phenomenon is due to development of the Internet, which has already become a viable part of almost all the business activities including buying and selling. Therefore, it can be assumed that the area of e-commerce will have an increasing impact, not only on national economic development, but on the express mail market, as well. The content of the article is designed to provide a comprehensive view of the interdependence between the level of economic maturity (the GDP gross Domestic Product) per capita in the PPS (Purchase Power Standard) indicator), development of the e-commerce (indicator B2C (Business to Customer) e-commerce turnover) and the number of express deliveries. Identifying the influence between the aforementioned indicators, it will be possible to take certain measures to support the development of the e-commerce market.

Frequency to power conversion by an electron turnstile

Direct frequency to power conversion (FPC), to be presented here, links both quantities through a known energy, like single-electron transport relates an operation frequency f to the emitted current I through the electron charge e as I = ef [1–6]. FPC is a natural candidate for a power standard resorting to the most basic definition of the watt, comprising a simple and elegant way to realize it [7]. In this spirit, single-photon emission and detection at known rates have been proposed and experimented as radiometric standard [8–15]. However, nowadays power standards are only traceable to electrical units with no alternative proposals in sight [7, 16–18]. In this letter, we demonstrate the feasibility of solid-state direct FPC using a SINIS (S = superconductor, N = normal metal, I = insulator) single-electron transistor (SET) accurately injecting N (integer) quasiparticles (qps) per cycle to both leads with discrete energies close to their superconducting gap ∆, even at zero drain-source voltage. Furthermore, the bias voltage plays an important role in the distribution of the power among the two leads, allowing for an almost equal injection N∆f to the two. We estimate that under appropriate conditions errors can be well below 1%.

ESTIMATION OF FUNCTIONAL AND PHYSICAL TRAINING OF WRESTLERS WITH THE USE OF INTERVALOMETRY AND LOADS OF SUBMXIMAL AND MAXIMUM INTENSITY

The methodology for determining the indicators of special physical and functional readiness of wrestlers, proposed by the authors, is distinguished by its simplicity and, at the same time, originality. The presence of a large number of discrete values makes the proposed method for determining indicators more sensitive and allows more accurate assessment of the results of maximum tests using loads of a specific nature of maximum and submaximal power, standard dosed load of a specific nature of submaximal power. It makes it possible to more accurately determine the degree of influence on the body of wrestlers of various qualifications, weight category and gender, the body's response to a specific load: heart rate, respiratory rate after exercise and the speed of recovery processes, indicators of physical performance and maximum oxygen consumption, as well as to carry out a comparative analysis efforts of wrestlers when performing physical activity of a specific nature of maximum and submaximum power. The data given by the authors allow to more effectively carry out operational and staged control over the process of training wrestlers of various styles, to make timely adjustments to the training plans of athletes

Sampling Primary Power Standard from DC up to 9 kHz Using Commercial Off-The-Shelf Components

In the framework of the empir projects myrails and windefcy, metas developed a primary standard for electrical power using commercial off-the-shelf components. The only custom part is the software that controls the sampling system and determines the amplitude and phase of the different frequency components of voltage and current. The system operates from dc up to 9 kHz, even with distorted signals. The basic system is limited to 700 V and 21 A. Its power uncertainty is 15 μW/VA at power frequencies and increases to 1.8 mW/VA at 9 kHz. With the extension up to 1000 V and 360 A, the system reaches power uncertainties of 20 μW/VA at power frequencies, increasing to 510 μW/VA at 9 kHz. For higher voltages or higher currents, the same principle is used. However, the uncertainties are dominated by the stability of the sources. The voltage and current channels can also be used independently to calibrate and test power quality instruments. Thanks to a time-stamping system, the system can also be used to calibrate phasor measurement units, which are synchronised to utc.

Comparative Analysis of Transformer based Language Models

Natural language processing (NLP) has witnessed many substantial advancements in the past three years. With the introduction of the Transformer and self-attention mechanism, language models are now able to learn better representations of the natural language. These attentionbased models have achieved exceptional state-of-the-art results on various NLP benchmarks. One of the contributing factors is the growing use of transfer learning. Models are pre-trained on unsupervised objectives using rich datasets that develop fundamental natural language abilities that are fine-tuned further on supervised data for downstream tasks. Surprisingly, current researches have led to a novel era of powerful models that no longer require finetuning. The objective of this paper is to present a comparative analysis of some of the most influential language models. The benchmarks of the study are problem-solving methodologies, model architecture, compute power, standard NLP benchmark accuracies and shortcomings.

Abstract 15977: Comparison of Clinical and Procedural Outcomes Between High-power Short-duration, Standard-power Standard-duration, and Temperature-controlled Non-contact Force Guided Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation

Introduction: High-power short-duration (HPSD) ablation via the St. Jude EnSite™ Velocity™ system (St. Paul, MN) utilizes 50W delivered for up to 15s, guided by a Lesion Size Index of 5-6 specific to the Velocity™ system. HPSD is a novel way to use a contact force-sensing catheter optimized for power-controlled radiofrequency ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF). Procedural and clinical outcomes of HPSD compared to standard-power standard-duration (SPSD; 20-25W until 400-500 gram seconds, up to 60s) and temperature-controlled non-contact (TCNC; 20-40W up to 60s of ablation) settings would inform this strategy. Methods: We studied consecutive cases of patients with paroxysmal or persistent AF undergoing pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) with TCNC, SPSD, and HPSD between 7/1/13 to 11/1/19. Procedural data collected include total radiofrequency time (RFT), time to isolate the left pulmonary veins (LPVT), time to isolate the right pulmonary veins (RPVT), and safety outcomes. Clinical data collected include sinus rhythm maintenance 3 and 12-months post-procedure. Results: A total of 171 patients were studied (44 TCNC, 51 SPSD, 76 HPSD). There was no difference in age, sex, or AF type between groups. RFT was shorter when comparing HPSD to SPSD (71 vs 101 min; p<0.01), HPSD to TCNC (71 vs 146 min; p<0.01), and SPSD to TCNC groups (101 vs 146 min; p<0.01). This was driven by decreases in LPVT between the HPSD vs SPSD (34 vs 46 min; p=0.04), HPSD vs TCNC (34 vs 72 min; p<0.01), and SPSD vs TCNC groups (46 vs 72 min; p<0.01), as well as decreases in RPVT between the HPSD vs SPSD (42 vs 54 min; p=0.03), HPSD vs TCNC (42 vs 75 min; p<0.01), and SPSD vs TCNC groups (54 vs 75 min; p<0.01). There was no difference in sinus rhythm maintenance after 3 or 12-months between groups overall, and when stratified by AF type, left atrial volume, CHA 2 DS 2 -VASc score, or left ventricular EF. There was a numerical difference in safety with no adverse events in HPSD (0/76 in HPSD vs 1/51 in SPSD vs 3/44 in TCNC; p=0.06). Conclusion: AF ablation with contact force utilizing an HPSD ablation strategy reduced procedure times with similar sinus rhythm maintenance compared to SPSD and TCNC approaches. Further research is needed to determine whether clinical outcomes differ with a larger population and longer follow-up.