Most of the progress in cardiac energetics in recent years has been spurred by the pressure-volume area concept, the natural extension into energetics of earlier pioneering work delineating the time-varying elastance framework for ventricular contraction. The book draws together a broad spectrum of researchers - basic, applied and clinical - having a shared interest in the energetics of cardiac muscle and ventricle, providing an overview of the current state of the art.

Cardiovascular dynamics is a field in which modelling and systems analysis have formed an extremely important discipline. For example, understanding of even such a fundamental function of the circulation as the relationship between central venous pressure apd cardiac output has required evolution of a pertinent model based on years of exhaustive ex perimental investigations by Starling, Starr, and Guyton. Hemodynamic analyses of pulsatile pressures and flows in the arteries and veins have been a continuing challenge taken up by champions of fluid dynamics such as Frank, Wetterer, Taylor, and...