Background: “Type A” acute aortic dissection (AAAD) is the most challenging among the emergency operations in cardiac surgery. The aim of this study was the evaluation of the role of acute renal failure (ARF) in postoperative survival of patients operated for AAAD. Methods: From February 2010 to April 2012, 37 consecutive patients were operated at our department for AAAD. We studied our population by subdividing the patients within groups according to the presence of ARF requiring continuous veno-venous hemofiltration (CVVH) and according to hypothermic circulatory arrest (HCA) times and degrees. Results: The overall 30-day mortality was 27% (50% group A with ARF, 13% group B no ARF). Acute renal failure requiring CVVH was 37.8%. Multivariate analysis revealed a significant association with 30-day mortality (odds ratio 6.6 and p = 0.020). Preoperative oliguria [urine output less than 30 ml/h (odds ratio 4.7 p = 0.039)], CPB greater than 180 minutes (odds ratio 6.5 p = 0.023) and postoperative bleeding requiring a surgical reopening (odds ratio 12.2 and p = 0.021) were the variables significantly associated with acute kidney injury. Conclusions: The data obtained from our analysis bring out the high incidence of renal injuries after surgery for AAAD, and indicate a negative impact on renal injuries of a preoperative oliguria, longer Cardiopulmonary bypass (CBP)/HCA times, and postoperative bleeding requiring a surgical revision. Our data also suggest a better 30-day survival and better renal outcomes in case of shorter HCA and lesser degree of hypothermia. The option of lesser and shorter hypothermia may be very useful, especially for the elderly patients and octogenarians.

A 33-year-old woman underwent successful vaginal delivery despite previously unsuspected 8-cm ascending and 6-cm descending aortic aneurysms. These were repaired immediately after delivery.

Silent or subclinical asymptomatic atrial fibrillation has currently gained wide interest in the epidemiologic, neurologic and cardiovascular communities. The association of brief episodes of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation or surrogate atrial arrhythmias which predict future clinical adverse events have been established. Nevertheless there exists a confounding array of definitions to indicate its presence without discrete indication of which populations should be examined. Moreover the term “atrial fibrillation burden” (AFB) has emerged from such studies with a plethora of descriptions to prognosticate both arrhythmic and clinical adverse events. This presentation suggests clarification of diagnostic definitions associated with silent atrial fibrillation, and a more precise description of AFB. It examines the populations across the current disease and cardiovascular invasive therapeutic spectrum that lead to both silent atrial fibrillation and AFB. It describes the diagnostic methods of arrhythmia detection utilizing the surface ECG, subcutaneous ECG or intra-cardiac devices and their relationship in seeking meaningful arrhythmic markers of silent atrial fibrillation. Whereas a wide range of clinical risk factors of silent atrial fibrillation have been validated in the literature, there is an ongoing search for those arrhythmic risk factors that precisely identify and prognosticate outcome events in diverse populations at risk of atrial fibrillation and its complications. This presentation identifies this chaos, and focuses attention on the issues to be addressed to facilitate descriptive and comparative scientific studies in the future. It is a call to action specifically to the medical arrhythmic community and its specialty societies (i.e., ISHNE, HRS, EHRA) to begin a quest to unravel the arrhythmic quagmire associated with “silent atrial fibrillation.”.

We present the results of our new study of known RR Lyrae variable stars. All observations available for these stars in the Catalina Surveys were analyzed, and double-mode variations were identified. We studied the Petersen diagram and the period distribution for the double-mode RR Lyrae variables in the Galactic field, pulsating in the first-overtone and fundamental modes. The double-peaked character of the period distribution was detected for Galactic RR(B) stars, corresponding to Oosterhoff’s classes of globular clusters, which indicates that the age and evolution stage of RR(B) stars in the field and RR Lyrae variables in globular clusters are probably the same. Besides, we discovered five RRC stars with two simultaneously excited non-radial pulsations (equidistant triplets).

Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) near-infrared high-resolution imaging from the 3D-HST survey, we analyze the morphology and structure of 502 ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs; L IR > 10 12 L ⊙ ) at 1 −1.7) and small Sérsic index ( n 2.5). The morphological diversities of ULIRGs suggest that there are different formation processes for these galaxies. Merger processes between galaxies and disk instabilities play an important role in the formation and evolution of ULIRGs at high redshift. In the meantime, we also find that the evolution of the size ( r e ) with redshift of ULIRGs at redshift z ∼ 1 ∼ 3 follows the relation r e ∝ (1 + z ) −(0.96±0.23) .

Visual binary stars make up the largest set among observed types of binaries (currently more than 110 000 systems are known containing more than 230 000 components). However, statistical analysis of this sample is a complicated task because a number of catalogues of visual binaries contain various data for evidently overlapping sets of objects. To use the complete dataset, one needs to cross-match these catalogues, i.e. to gather all the available information on visual binary stars into a single list. We have compiled a comprehensive set of visual binaries using data from the current versions of the Catalog of Components of Double & Multiple stars (CCDM); Tycho Double Star Catalogue (TDSC), and The Washington Visual Double Star Catalog (WDS). The resulting list 1 contains 130 873 pairs, and we also provide trigonometric parallaxes for 14 319 of them drawn mostly from the Hipparcos catalogue.