The aim of the present study was to assess the safety and effectiveness of non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs) versus vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) in atrial fibrillation (AF) ...patients undergoing electrical cardioversion (EC).
A propensity score-matched analysis was performed in order to identify two homogeneous groups including AF patients on NOACs and VKAs treatment scheduled for EC. The primary safety endpoint was major bleeding. The composite of stroke, transient ischemic attack (TIA) and systemic embolism (SE) was the primary effectiveness endpoint. The discontinuation rate of anticoagulant therapy was assessed.
A total of 495 AF patients on NOACs therapy and scheduled for EC were compared to 495 VKAs recipients. No statistically significant differences in the incidence of both major bleeding (1.01% versus 1.4%;
= 0.5) and thromboembolic events (0.6% versus 0.8%;
= 0.7) were observed during a mean follow-up of 15 ± 3 months. The discontinuation rate of NOACs was significantly lower compared to VKAs (1.6% versus 3.6%,
=0.04).
We showed a safe and effective clinical profile of NOACs among AF patients scheduled for electrical cardioversion in real-life setting. Patients on NOACs therapy showed a lower discontinuation rate compared to those on VKAs.
Empathetic perspective-taking is one of the main psychological mechanisms behind audiences’ engagement with narrative (Coplan 2004; Eder 2006). What happens, however, when a story confronts with a ...character whose emotions, motivations, and beliefs we fail to understand? This paper examines the phenomenon of “unreadable minds” (Abbott 2008) from a transmedial perspective: how do audiences relate to a character who defies all attempts at making sense of his or her identity despite being the main focus of a narrative? My case studies - the novel American Psycho (1991) by Bret Easton Ellis and the video game Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games 2012) - foreground two such characters: by calling attention to the opaqueness of their protagonists, they heighten the audiences’ interest in - and puzzlement at - their identity. In my comparative analysis I explore two dimensions that contribute to audiences’ sense of unknowability of the protagonists: the hallucinations and delusions experienced by both characters (an instance of what Bernaerts 2009 calls “narrative delirium”); and their extreme violence, which raises unanswered ethical questions. While bringing out the continuities between American Psycho and Hotline Miami, I also highlight how the interactivity of Hotline Miami makes the central paradox of relating to an unknowable character even more salient for the audience. In this way, I show that the video game medium has reached a level of interpretive complexity that can stand the comparison with literary fiction.
According to Anezka Kuzmicová (2012), a mechanism of embodied simulation is at the root of readers' feeling of presence or immersion: unconsciously enacting characters' goal-directed movements can ...create a sense of "being there," physically present in the storyworld beside the characters. According to Glucksberg, this kind of metaphor is processed through categorization by extending a preexisting mental category: we comprehend the meaning of the expression "linear plot" by extending the category "linear things" to include things that are simple without being, literally, line-like. ...interoceptive feelings may become bound up with our experience of reading Poes story, accompanying the rhythmic patterning of the narrators tale. ...this has been my main contention here-I argued that bodily feelings can participate in our engagement with narrative by becoming attuned to what we may characterize as the "rhythm" of dis- course.
Examining Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station, 10:04, and The Topeka School (2011-2019), this article reads Lerner's novels as centrally engaged in the (re)imagination of community. In the first ...two novels, this negotiation of collectivity involves essayistic reflection on poetry as an artistic mode that is strongly attuned to the collective, through the affect elicited by prosody. By contrast, in the third novel, Lerner translates the insights offered by the previous works into a narrative-level syntax that captures the intermental functioning of a community in the titular Topeka.
According to recent accounts, we experience the emotion of “being moved” when a situation brings into play our core values. What are the core values evoked by nonhuman landscapes, however, ...particularly as the distinction between man-made and natural environments becomes increasingly blurry in the so-called Anthropocene? That is the central question tackled by this article. I start by rethinking the sublime as an affect that, since Romanticism, has shaped Western attitudes toward nature. I argue that today's climate crisis calls for an expansion of our affective engagement with the nonhuman: the sublime can be part of our emotional repertoire, but only if it is complicated by feelings that point to constitutive human–nonhuman entanglement.
This book sets the grounds for Global Literary Studies as an emergent field. It innovatively looks at cross-border cultural phenomena through the concepts of space, scale, time, connectivity and ...agency, channeling the cross-fertilization of ideas across 4 lines: global translation flows, the global novel, global literary environments and global cinema. The book targets readers interested in a global critical approach in the humanities and beyond.
Percutaneous patent foramen ovale (PFO) closure by traditional, double disc occluder devices was shown to be safe for patients with PFO, and more effective than prolonged medical therapy in ...preventing recurrent thromboembolic events. The novel suture-mediated “deviceless” PFO closure system overcomes most of the risks and limitations associated with the traditional PFO occluders, appearing to be feasible in most interatrial septum anatomies, even if data about its long-term effectiveness and safety are still lacking. The aim of the present review was to provide to the reader the state of the art about the traditional and newer techniques of PFO closure, focusing both on the procedural aspects and on the pivotal role of transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) in patient’s selection, peri-procedural guidance, and post-interventional follow-up.
PDF
