Search

Abstract This multicentre (22 centres in Turkey) retrospective cohort study aimed to assess the clinical outcomes of patients with neutropenic fever and SARS-CoV-2 positivity. Study period was 15 March 2020–15 August 2021. A total of 170 cases (58 female, aged 59 ± 15.5 years) that fulfilled the inclusion criteria were included in the study. One-month mortality rate (OMM) was 44.8%. The logistic regression analysis showed the following significant variables for the mentioned dependent variables: (i) achieving PCR negativity: receiving a maximum of 5 days of favipiravir (p = 0.005, OR 5.166, 95% CI 1.639–16.280); (ii) need for ICU: receiving glycopeptide therapy at any time during the COVID-19/FEN episode (p = 0.001, OR 6.566, 95% CI 2.137–20.172), the need for mechanical ventilation (p

Background: In this study it was aimed to evaluate the efficacy and timing with technique of the source control for the subgroup of septic shock (SS) patients with intraabdominal infections (IAI) in a tertiary-care educational hospital. Methods: Patients who had SS with IAI and consulted by Infectious Diseases consultants between December 2013 and October 2022 in our centre were analyzed retrospectively. Results: A total number of 390 patients were included. Overall day-30 mortality (OMM) was 42.5% on day 3 while day 14 and 30 mortality rates were 63.3% and 71.3%, respectively. Source control by surgical or percutaneous operation was performed in 123 of 390 cases (31.5%) and mortality rate was significantly lower in cases that were performed source control at anytime during SS (65/123-52.8% vs 213/267-79.8%, p3 mg/dl (p

Neurobrucellosis is a rare and challenging complication of brucellosis. Its non-specific clinical presentation makes it challenging to diagnose. The coexistence of neurobrucellosis with subdural empyema is extremely rare, with only a few cases reported in the literature. Herein, we present the case of a 27-year-old male with a ventriculoperitoneal shunt in-situ and a history of exposure to Brucella via animal care and consumption of raw milk. The patient presented with a left frontal headache and vertigo following a head trauma. The initial cranial imaging demonstrated a left-sided subdural hematoma and slit ventricles. The patient underwent drainage by craniotomy. Brucella spp. was detected in the drained sample, and the patient was treated with a multi-modal approach, which included antibiotics and surgical drainage. The follow-up plan involved a repeat cranial computed tomography and shunt adjustment for recurrent subdural effusions. This case adds to the few reports of neurobrucellosis associated with subdural empyema. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of considering neurobrucellosis in patients with neurological symptoms and a subdural collection in brucellosis-endemic areas.

Abstract Background Herein, we analyzed the efficacy of main antibiotic therapy regimens in the treatment of healthcare-associated meningitis (HCAM). Materials/methods This retrospective cohort study was conducted in 18 tertiary-care academic hospitals Turkey, India, Egypt and Romania. We extracted data and outcomes of all patients with post-neurosurgical meningitis cases fulfilling the study inclusion criteria and treated with empirical therapy between December 2006-September 2018. Results Twenty patients in the cefepime + vancomycin-(CV) group, 31 patients in the ceftazidime + vancomycin-(CFV) group, and 119 patients in the meropenem + vancomycin-(MV) group met the inclusion criteria. The MV subgroup had a significantly higher mean Glasgow Coma Score, a higher rate of admission to the intensive care unit within the previous month, and a higher rate of antibiot herapy within the previous month before the meningitis episode (p 0.05) among the three cohorts. No regimen was effective against carbapenem-resistant bacteria, and vancomycin resulted in an EOT clinical success rate of 60.6% in the methicillin-resistant staphylococci or ampicillin-resistant enterococci subgroup (n = 34). Conclusions Our study showed no significant difference in terms of clinical success and mortality among the three treatment options. All regimens were ineffective against carbapenem-resistant bacteria. Vancomycin was unsuccessful in approximately 40% of cases involving methicillin-resistant staphylococci or ampicillin-resistant enterococci.

Isabel Morales-Muñoz,1,2 Buse Beril Durdurak,1 Ayten Bilgin,3 Steven Marwaha,1,4 Catherine Winsper5 1Institute for Mental Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; 2Department of Public Health Solutions, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland; 3School of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK; 4The Barberry National Centre for Mental Health, Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust, Birmingham, UK; 5Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust, Research and Innovation, Coventry, UKCorrespondence: Isabel Morales-MuñozInstitute for Mental Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, 52 Pritchatts Road, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UKEmail I.Morales-Munoz@bham.ac.ukObjective: Recent research indicates that sleep problems in childhood precede the development of borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms, but the mechanisms by which sleep problems associate with BPD are still unknown. This narrative review aims to provide some potential explanations for how early sleep problems might associate with BPD.Methods: We used the biosocial developmental model of BPD as a framework to discuss how sleep problems may associate with BPD. Articles were identified via PubMed and Embase, and papers published between January 1991 and April 2021 were extracted. Authors made a series of literature searches using the following keywords: Sleep problems, Insomnia, Nightmares, Hypothalamic–Pituitary–Adrenal Axis (HPA), Prefrontal Cortex, Family Psychopathology, Disrupted Attachment, Child Maltreatment, Impulsivity, Emotion Regulation, Internalizing, Externalizing, Rumination, Childhood, Adolescence, Young people. The inclusion criteria were published in peer-reviewed journals; human studies or reviews; published in English. The exclusion criteria were commentaries; abstracts from conferences; studies with animal samples. A total of 96 articles were included for the purpose of this review.Results: The evidence from this review suggests that some biological factors and core features of BPD act as potential mechanisms mediating the associations between early sleep and subsequent BPD, while some family-related factors might constitute common risk factors for sleep problems and BPD.Conclusion: The biosocial developmental model of BPD provides a plausible characterization of how sleep disruption might lead to subsequent BPD. Further research on new developmental and early intervention approaches to understand how sleep in early stages associates with BPD could have significant clinical impact on these patients and could inform targeted therapeutic interventions.Keywords: sleep, borderline personality disorder, biosocial developmental model, childhood, adolescence, mechanisms

Point of care (PoC) devices are highly demanding to control current pandemic, originated from severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Though nucleic acid-based methods such as RT-PCR are widely available, they require sample preparation and long processing time. PoC diagnostic devices provide relatively faster and stable results. However they require further investigation to provide high accuracy and be adaptable for the new variants. In this study, laser-scribed graphene (LSG) sensors are coupled with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as stable promising biosensing platforms. Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2), an enzymatic receptor, is chosen to be the biorecognition unit due to its high binding affinity towards spike proteins as a key-lock model. The sensor was integrated to a homemade and portable potentistat device, wirelessly connected to a smartphone having a customized application for easy operation. LODs of 5.14 and 2.09 ng/mL was achieved for S1 and S2 protein in the linear range of 1.0–200 ng/mL, respectively. Clinical study has been conducted with nasopharyngeal swabs from 63 patients having alpha (B.1.1.7), beta (B.1.351), delta (B.1.617.2) variants, patients without mutation and negative patients. A machine learning model was developed with accuracy of 99.37% for the identification of the SARS-Cov-2 variants under 1 min. With the increasing need for rapid and improved disease diagnosis and monitoring, the PoC platform proved its potential for real time monitoring by providing accurate and fast variant identification without any expertise and pre sample preparation, which is exactly what societies need in this time of pandemic.

Introduction: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is one of the major hospital-acquired infections in the intensive care unit (ICU). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made changes in the definitions of VAP. In this study, we aimed to prospectively evaluate patients in the tertiary-level chest diseases ICU between December 2016 and May 2017 in terms of ventilator-related events using the new surveillance criteria for patients requiring invasive mechanical ventilation. Materials and Methods: Patients in the chest diseases ICU were prospectively evaluated in terms of VAP development, and the incidence was calculated according to the old and new CDC criteria. Results: A total of 82 patients (31 women, 51 men) were followed up in the chest diseases ICU. Twenty-four patients who met the new surveillance criteria (survived >4 days) with 1632 patient-days and 601 ventilator days were included in the study. The incidences of VAP according to the old and new criteria were 31.6 and 1.6 per 1000 ventilator days, respectively. Conclusion: Our data suggest that new CDC definitions underdiagnose pneumonia in the daily practice. We may conclude that it does not seem rational to switch to the newer VAP definitions in the daily practice from the elder CDC definitions.

We investigated the factors associated with subjective temporal distance of pandemic-related events in a sample of healthcare workers. A total of 257 healthcare workers were asked to recall two COVID-19 pandemic-related events that impacted them the most at the beginning of the pandemic (April--May 2020), and rated event centrality, phenomenological characteristics, subjective temporal distance, and visual perspective (field vs. observer) for each reported event. Results showed a negative relationship between subjective temporal distance and event centrality only for memories remembered from the field perspective (field memories), but not those remembered from the observer perspective (observer memories). Furthermore, event centrality enhanced recollection of sensory and perceptual details, which, in turn, resulted in memories being felt temporally closer to people. However, only field memories, not observer memories, revealed this pattern, showing that recollective experience shaped by visual perspective mediates the relationship between event centrality and subjective temporal distance.

This study examines the commitments of an alternative teacher education program in linking theory and practice, one of the most prominent problems of the field. This qualitative phenomenological study drew from semi-structured interviews with seven faculty members and associate instructors, electronic surveys with seven program students, participant observation and field notes in seminar sessions, one program faculty meeting, and one community meeting, and curriculum materials. The findings suggest that the design of the program and the roles and (inter)actions of the stakeholders within the program created a dialectical interplay. Linked with this interplay, Teachers' Society provided a setting for collaborative learning during which theory is extracted from experience.

Infographics are visual storytelling techniques used to communicate complex information. However, infographics can be misleading if they are not created ethically. When universities teach how to create infographics, they often do so without emphasizing the ethical issues underlying infographics. To address this gap, we designed a study to educate statistics and data science students about the ethics of infographics by using Rest model's three stages: awareness, orientation, and intention. Students' awareness of the ethical issues underlying infographics was captured before and after sensitizing them to five ethical principles derived from the AI4People's framework applied to a data science context. The students were then exposed to scenarios with ethical dilemmas. Their identification of the ethical principles in these scenarios was measured. The results showed a significant increase in students' awareness of the ethical issues underpinning the interpretation of infographics, suggesting that ethical training of current users and future designers would be beneficial.

The present study aims to examine the effect of the life skills training guide on the development of pre-service science teachers' professional knowledge of entrepreneurial skills. The study included 82 pre-service science teachers studying in the third year of a public university in Turkey during the 2019-2020 academic year. The data of the study, which was conducted with a one-group pre-test-post-test experimental design, were collected using the entrepreneurship skills professional knowledge test. The data were analyzed using the professional knowledge assessment rubric and entrepreneurship skill indicators. The results of the study revealed that there was a significant difference between the pre-and post-test scores of the pre-service teachers in favor of the post-test scores. Following the experimental process, their professional knowledge about entrepreneurship increased. However, the number of pre-service teachers who were able to improve their professional knowledge scores to a high level was limited. Furthermore, following the experimental process, there was an increase in the number of pre-service teachers who were able to develop appropriate activities for students to gain entrepreneurial skills and to prepare tools for measuring and evaluating students' entrepreneurial skills in a way to include stressed indicators. Consequently, the present study provides science teacher educators with educational activities that they can model within the scope of teaching professional knowledge of entrepreneurship skills to pre-service science teachers.

This study aims to evaluate mathematics curriculum used in social sciences high schools' preparatory classes based on Stufflebeam (CIPP) evaluation model in terms of context, input, process and product dimensions. With this aim, this study seeks to answer "How is preparatory class mathematics curriculum (PCMC) evaluated in terms of its context, input, process and products?" from the viewpoint of teachers and students. Case study method which is one of qualitative research methods is used in this study. The study is carried out in the first term of 2021-2022 academic year in a social sciences high school which uses National Ministry of Education's curriculum. Participants of the study are 65 students and four mathematics teachers. Mathematics achievement test and interview forms are used as data gathering tools. The results of the study revealed that both teachers and students have critical views of context, input, process and product dimensions of the curriculum; however, the criticisms intensify in process and product dimensions of the curriculum. Another finding of the study is that specific conditions of schools and characteristics of students and teachers have a major impact on commitment to curriculum, teaching-learning processes and learning outcomes. Some recommendations are made for implementers and researchers based on the findings of the study. [This article includes an extended summary in Turkish.]

This study was carried out to determine the effect of Scratch-based coding applications integrated into the 5E learning model used in science teaching on students' computational thinking skills and self-efficacy towards block-based programming. In addition, students' perceptions of the activity were measured after each Scratch activity, which was applied at different stages of the course and with different difficulty. The study employed the pretest-posttest control group less design, one of the quasi-experimental methods. The study sample consist of 22 6th grade students attending a public school in Turkey located in a district center in the Eastern Black Sea region. The study was carried out in a five-week period in the 2022-2023 academic years. Computational thinking scale and robotics attitude scale, self-efficacy perception scale related to block-based programming and activity perception scale were used as data collection tools. The data were analyzed using the dependent samples t-test. The findings suggest that computational thinking skills level of students and their self-efficacy perception related to block-based programming increased significantly with the Scratch-based activities integrated into 5E learning model applied in science subjects. In addition, students have positive attitudes towards these activities. Thus, it is recommended to apply Scratch-based coding applications in teaching science subjects.

Relevant literature has an unexplored question on how prediction-observation-explanation (POE) worksheets affect science process skills of students with mild intellectual disabilities (SMID). Therefore, this research aimed to examine the effect of POE worksheets developed for the "matter and its nature" subject on SMID's science process skills. Through pre-experimental research design, 12 fifth grade SMID participated in the research. To collect data, the researchers used science process skills development forms and rubrics to score their observations. During the teaching intervention, SMID implemented three POE worksheets, which included buzz 22 technique in the 'prediction' stage, hands-on experiments and QR codes in the 'observation' stage and snowball, learning gallery or card showing techniques in the 'evaluation' stage. The results indicated that the POE worksheets are effective at developing SMID's science process skills of the "matter and its nature" subject. This research recommends that future comparative research should unveil how the POE worksheets with/without active learning techniques impact the SMID's SPS.

The purpose of this research is to examine how working individually and as a team in solving pedagogical scenarios for teaching science subjects is reflected in the teaching preferences of preservice science teachers. This interpretive case study was conducted with 69 preservice science teachers studying at a university in eastern Turkey. The data of the study were collected using the teaching pedagogy preference form. The data analysis included descriptive analysis based on four instructional pedagogies: direct instruction, direct active, guided inquiry, and open inquiry. The research results revealed that preservice teachers did not sufficiently turn to inquiry-based teaching pedagogy for solving problem scenarios in both individual and teamwork. In addition, the results indicated that preservice science teachers' professional knowledge of teaching various science subjects is largely based on traditional teaching pedagogy. Based on these results, it is recommended that science educators use problem scenarios to reveal preservice teachers' inquiry-based teaching preferences.