Editorial: Immersive media in connected health-volume II.

Immersive media, particularly Extended Reality (XR), is at the forefront of revolutionizing the healthcare industry. Healthcare provides XR with "silver bullet" use cases that add value and societal effect to the technology. Healthcare interventions frequently require imaging or visualization to be applied correctly, and the sensation of presence that XR can provide is crucial as a training aid for healthcare learners. From anatomy to surgical training, multimodal immersion in the reality of a medical situation increases the impact of an XR resource compared to the usual approach. Thus, healthcare has become a specialized focus for the immersive media sector, with a multitude of development and research underway. This research subject, which followed on from the previous one, yielded an eclectic group of works spanning the gamut of immersive media applications in healthcare. The underlying theme in these works remains a consistent focus on calibrating, validating, verifying, and standardizing procedures, instruments, and technologies in order to constantly rigorously streamline the means and materials that will integrate immersive technologies in healthcare. In that spirit, we share the findings from this research topic as a motivator for rigorous and evidence-based use of immersive media in digital and connected health.

Accessory internal thoracic artery and its clinical significance.

The accessory internal thoracic artery is a relatively large branch of the initial part of the internal thoracic artery, which was found in 4.54% of 22 cadavers studied in the Institute of Anatomy of the Medical School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The course of this artery lies usually in the inner surface of the anterolateral thoracic wall and its diameter is sometimes almost equivalent to that of the main trunk of the internal thoracic artery. We think, that the knowledge of this arterial branch is essential for the thoracic surgeon during the preparation of the internal thoracic artery for coronary revascularization as well as for the surgeon during the placement of thoracic drainage for pneumothorax. Furthermore, it has to be kept in mind for the interpretation of angiographies of the subclavian artery.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of charged species in the afterglow of plasmas containing negative ions.

The spatiotemporal evolution of charged species densities and wall fluxes during the afterglow of an electronegative discharge has been investigated. The decay of a plasma with negative ions consists of two stages. During the first stage of the afterglow, electrons dominate plasma diffusion and negative ions are trapped inside the vessel by the static electric field; the flux of negative ions to the walls is nearly zero. During this stage, the electron escape frequency increases considerably in the presence of negative ions, and can eventually approach free electron diffusion. During the second stage of the afterglow, electrons have disappeared, and positive and negative ions diffuse to the walls with the ion-ion ambipolar diffusion coefficient. Theories for plasma decay have been developed for equal and strongly different ion (T(i)) and electron (T(e)) temperatures. In the case T(i)=T(e), the species spatial profiles are similar and an analytic solution exists. When detachment is important in the afterglow (weakly electronegative gases, e.g., oxygen) the plasma decay crucially depends on the product of negative ion detachment frequency (gamma(d)) and diffusion time (tau(d)). If gamma(d)tau(d)>2, negative ions convert to electrons during their diffusion towards the walls. The presence of detached electrons results in "self-trapping" of the negative ions, due to emerging electric fields, and the negative ion flux to the walls is extremely small. In the case T(i)<

Chemical, physiological, and toxicological aspects of the essential oil of some species of the genus Bystropogon.

The composition of the essential oils of Bystropogon plumosus, B. origanifolius var. palmensis, B. wildpretii, B. maderensis, and B. canariensis var. smithianus were studied by GLC and GLC/MS. The first four species provide relatively similar oils characterized by monoterpene ketones as the main constituents while the last species is quite different with main constituents consisting of mono- and sesquiterpene hydrocarbons. In B. plumosus the ontogenetic variation of the monoterpene ketones was studied for a period of four years. During this time the behaviour of pulegone was inversely correlated with that of menthone and isomenthone. Pulegone was the most active compound of the monoterpene ketones in antimicrobial tests using three species of bacteria and fungi, respectively.

Effect of site and intensity of pacing on left ventricular performance.

The effect of pacing site and intensity on left ventricular performance is examined. The maximal value of left ventricular developed pressure (PD) and the peak (dp/dt) /P (Vpm) were followed in 11 anesthetized dogs. The following sites were paced: atrial (A), simultaneous atrial and right ventricular (RV), simultaneous atrial, right and left ventricular (RLV) and simultaneous atrial and left ventricular (LV)(, while varying the rate from sinus rate up to 350/min and the intensity from threshold up to 20-120 mA. When all 4 sites were paced in the same experiment, the A pacing resulted in the highest values of Vpm and PD while RV pacing resulted in the lowest values. The higher the pacing intensity the higher the Vpm and PD values tended to be. The strongest correlation coefficient was observed between Vpm and intensity on RV pacing while the same correlation on LV or Rv pacing and between PD and intensity on LV pacing were not significant at the 5% level. On RV pacing a low (les than 0.85) Vpm ratio (Vpm on RV pacing expressed over Vpm on A pacing at the same frequency and intensity) was associated with 65% of 129 pacing runs at a relatively low (less than 35 mA) intensity but with only 35% of 91 runs at a higher intensity (X2 = 19,20, p less than 0.001). The effect of pacing site and intensity on Vpm tended to be more pronounced at faster than at slower pacing frequencies.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)