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This study aimed to examine the relationships between the screen time of children with special needs and of their parents with their home participation, occupational performance, and parent-child relationships according to sex and diagnosis. Parents of 150 children with special needs (age range, 4 to 6 years) such as autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well as undiagnosed and developmentally risky children, were included. The Demographic Information Form, Screen Time Usage Form, Parent-Child Relationship Scale, Participation and Environment Measure for Children and Youth, and Short Child Occupational Profile were used for the data collection. There was a significant relationship between the screen time of girls and their parent-child relationships, home participation, and occupational performance. Moreover, we detected a relationship between the screen time of children with autism spectrum disorder and positive parent-child relationships, home participation, and occupational performance. Therapists should account for screen time in their interventions associated with parent-child relationships, home participation, and occupational performance.

Kahramanmaraş earthquakes occurred on 6 February 2023, and many people died and were trapped under the rubble. The objective of this research was to investigate child victims of the quake, who were most dramatically affected, required intensive care and were trapped under debris/rubble/wreckage in terms of psychiatric status and the disaster-related or personal determinants of psychopathologies. Pediatric patients (n=77) who were hospitalized in intensive care units and inpatient wards within the first month after the earthquake and were consulted to the Child Psychiatry, were examined in terms of psychiatric symptoms, use of psychotropics, duration under debris, loss of relatives, loss of limbs, and intensive care requirement. Anhedonia, loss of appetite, psychosomatic and dissociative symptoms, as well as psychotropic need/use were significantly higher in patients who required intensive care. Dissociative and psychosomatic symptoms were linked with longer durations under debris. The current findings highlight prominent and predominated psychiatric symptoms in child victims of quakes, hospitalized in intensive care units and being prolonged trapped under debris. Prolonged entrapment correlated with increased dissociative and psychosomatic symptoms, emphasizing the need for targeted psychiatric support for vulnerable earthquake survivors. [Med-Science 2024; 13(3.000): 590-7]

Due to its strong biological, pharmacological, and medical activities and rich chemical content, Liquidambar orientalis, known for its resinous exudate storax, has a widespread and well-established ethnopharmacological use. Although it is known that storax has anticancer, antimicrobial, antioxidant, wound-healing and other ethnomedicinal properties, the number of existing scientific studies is very limited. In this context, the aims of this study were to determine the antibiofilm activity of storax and its cytotoxic and apoptotic effects in A549 lung cancer cells. In addition, with this study, it is also possible to make a very comprehensive biological evaluation by determining the effect of storax on certain microRNA expressions. According to our results, L. orientalis storax decreases cell proliferation in A549 lung cancer cells and the IC50 value was determined at 31.5 μg/mL at 24h. Storax also induces apoptosis via upregulating CASP3, 8, 9, and Bax gene expression and downregulating Bcl-2 expressions in A549 cells. Furthermore, storax decreases the expression of miR-146a, miR-21, and miR-223, while increasing the expression of miR-155. Storax inhibits biofilm formation and reduces the preformed biofilm of microbial strains including Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 33862), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853) and Candida albicans (ATCC 64548). The results suggest that storax has strong cytotoxic, apoptotic and antibiofilm properties and thus promising potential in medicine.

Introduction. The increased risk of malnutrition in older people may have significant impacts on chronic disease management and quality of life. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between chronic diseases, activities of daily living (ADLs), and malnutrition risk. Methods. This cross-sectional, correlational study was conducted on 352 patients over 65 years old, who had a chronic disease for at least one year and were admitted to Dr. Suat Seren Chest Diseases and Chest Surgery Training and Research Hospital, Izmir, Turkey. The data were collected using the Descriptive Information Form, Adaptation to Chronic Illness Scale (ACIS), Nutrition Risk Screening-2002 (NRS-2002), and Katz Activities of Daily Living (Katz ADL) scale. Results. The mean age of the participants was 70.65±4.18 years. All participants were at risk of malnutrition according to the NRS-2002 assessment, 29% were independent, and 35.8% were partially dependent based on the Katz ADL scale assessment. The ACIS score was 82.83±13.88. Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that age, disease duration, perceived disease knowledge, and interference from the disease with planned activities were significant positive predictors of ACIS, while hospitalization in the last 6 months, the number of meals per day, difficulty in meeting personal care needs, and NRS-2002 were significant negative predictors of ACIS (p

Diatoms are a type of algae with many species. Accurate and quick classification of diatom species is important in many fields, such as water quality analysis and weather change forecasting. Traditional methods for diatom classification, specifically morphological taxonomy and molecular detection, are time-consuming and may not provide satisfactory performance. However, in recent years, deep learning has demonstrated impressive performance in this task, just like other image classification problems. On the other hand, networks with more layers do not guarantee increased accuracy. While increasing depth can be useful in capturing complex features and patterns, it also introduces challenges such as vanishing gradients, overfitting, and optimization challenges. Therefore, in our work, we propose DiatomNet, a lightweight convolutional neural network (CNN) model that can classify diatom species accurately while requiring low computing resources. A recently introduced dataset consisting of 3,027 diatom images and 68 diatom species is used to train and evaluate the model. The model is compared with well-known and successful CNN models (i.e., AlexNet, GoogleNet, Inceptionv3, ResNet18, VGG16, and Xception) and their customized versions obtained with transfer learning. The comparison is based on several success metrics: accuracy, precision, recall, F-measure, number of learnable parameters, training, and prediction time. Eventually, the experimental results reveal that DiatomNet outperforms the other models regarding all metrics with just a few exceptions. Therefore, it is a lightweight but strong candidate for diatom classification tasks.

Kahramanmaraş earthquakes occurred on 6 February 2023, and many people died and were trapped under the rubble. The objective of this research was to investigate child victims of the quake, who were most dramatically affected, required intensive care and were trapped under debris/rubble/wreckage in terms of psychiatric status and the disaster-related or personal determinants of psychopathologies. Pediatric patients (n=77) who were hospitalized in intensive care units and inpatient wards within the first month after the earthquake and were consulted to the Child Psychiatry, were examined in terms of psychiatric symptoms, use of psychotropics, duration under debris, loss of relatives, loss of limbs, and intensive care requirement. Anhedonia, loss of appetite, psychosomatic and dissociative symptoms, as well as psychotropic need/use were significantly higher in patients who required intensive care. Dissociative and psychosomatic symptoms were linked with longer durations under debris. The current findings highlight prominent and predominated psychiatric symptoms in child victims of quakes, hospitalized in intensive care units and being prolonged trapped under debris. Prolonged entrapment correlated with increased dissociative and psychosomatic symptoms, emphasizing the need for targeted psychiatric support for vulnerable earthquake survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Patients and Methods Results Conclusion To evaluate the effects of inserting a Foley catheter after ureteroscopy (URS) and JJ stent placement on pain scores, voiding patterns, biochemical parameters and postoperative complications.A randomised clinical trial (1:1) with adult patients following unilateral URS + JJ stent placement was planned. In Group A, no Foley catheter was placed, in Group B, a Foley catheter was placed following URS + JJ stent placement. The primary objective was to evaluate effect of placing a Foley catheter on International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), Ureteric Stent Symptom Questionnaire (USSQ) score and postoperative biochemical parameters. The secondary objective was to evaluate postoperative complications.A total of 112 patients were included (56/group). A ureteric access sheath was used in each patient. Patients had similar demographic and surgical parameters. The pre‐ and postoperative biochemical analyses including white blood cell count, C‐reactive protein, procalcitonin and creatinine levels were similar between the two groups. The IPSS were similar between the two groups. All the subdomains of the USSQ were similar between two groups except Total Body Pain score, which was lower in Group B. The visual analogue scale scores were similar. Complications were all Clavien–Dindo Grade I and II, and the complication rate was 5.4% and 8.9% in Group A and B, respectively.Placing a Foley catheter following URS + JJ stent placement did not show significant effects on postoperative biochemical parameters and voiding symptoms. However, a Foley catheter lowered the Total Body Pain score on the USSQ without having significant effects on VAS scores. The practice of placing a Foley catheter following URS and JJ stent placement should be based on surgeon's preference keeping in mind the potential positive effect on pain scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased usage of navigation technologies has caused conflicts in local traffic management, resulting in congested residential areas among other challenges for residents. This paper uses content analysis to investigate such negative social externalities within local communities and neighbourhoods. Through a corpus of 90 news articles about traffic incidents caused by navigation technologies, we identified negative traffic and safety-related externalities, including congestion, damage, pollution, and accidents. We also report on countermeasures by local communities and governments, including street closures, speed limit reduction, and turn bans. Based on our results, we discuss the implications for designing mobile navigation technologies that reduce negative social externalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine the relationships between the screen time of children with special needs and of their parents with their home participation, occupational performance, and parent-child relationships according to sex and diagnosis. Parents of 150 children with special needs (age range, 4 to 6 years) such as autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well as undiagnosed and developmentally risky children, were included. The Demographic Information Form, Screen Time Usage Form, Parent-Child Relationship Scale, Participation and Environment Measure for Children and Youth, and Short Child Occupational Profile were used for the data collection. There was a significant relationship between the screen time of girls and their parent-child relationships, home participation, and occupational performance. Moreover, we detected a relationship between the screen time of children with autism spectrum disorder and positive parent-child relationships, home participation, and occupational performance. Therapists should account for screen time in their interventions associated with parent-child relationships, home participation, and occupational performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Proteinuria reduction has been extensively studied in patients with chronic kidney disease. However, the effects of diuretic treatment on proteinuria are less welldocumented. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of strict volume control, achieved through diuretic therapy, on proteinuria among patients with proteinuric kidney disease and concurrent hypervolemia, as measured by bioimpedance analysis (BIA). Materials and Methods: This prospective study included patients with proteinuria as indicated by spot urine analysis, an overhydration (OH) value of >0 in BIA, and a treatment plan that included diuretics. The follow-up period extended from the initiation of diuretic therapy, prompted by hypervolemic status, to the achievement of normovolemia in each patient. Results: We evaluated 46 hypervolemic patients, of which 25 (54.3%) were men and 39 (64%) were women, with a mean age of 56.85±14.43 years (range 20 to 86 years). The median follow-up period was 12 days (range 5-90 days). After diuretic treatment, there was a statistically significant decrease in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure (p<0.001 for both). Initially, protein excretion in spot urine averaged 6.3 g (range 2.6-10.4 g); following volume control, proteinuria level decreased significantly to 1.5 g (range 0.6-2.9 g) (p<0.001). Additionally, regression analysis indicated a statistically significant association between the decrease in extracellular water and the decline in proteinuria levels (p=0.035). Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that volume control, achieved through diuretic treatment, is associated with reductions in both proteinuria and blood pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In obesity surgery, laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) is a frequently applied method. However, there are certain complications. Leakage is one of the most serious complications after surgery, causing postoperative morbidity and sometimes mortality. There is no consensus about management of leaks after LSG. In our study, we aimed to present our experience on the management of LSG leaks. Patients and Methods: Patients who underwent LSG between 2010-2017 in a tertiary university hospital were analyzed retrospectively. Demographic characteristics, endoscopic and surgical interventions, morbidity, and mortality rates of patients diagnosed with LSG leak were analyzed from prospectively recorded data. Results: Leak was observed in 11 (2.15%) of a total of 510 LSG patients. Six (54%) patients were diagnosed as acute and 5 were early leaks. Stent was applied to most of the patients (72%) with or without surgical exploration. The average length of stay in hospital was 21 days. Mortality was observed in 2 patients. Conclusions: Consequently, leakage after LSG is a complication that requires multimodal therapy. Surgical treatment combined with endoscopic intervention may increase success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This project aims to develop a wearable device to suppress both the essential and resting tremor and investigate its effectiveness. Materials and Methods: This study details the development and assessment of a wearable device for upper extremity tremors. The wearable device underwent a comprehensive design and a prototype was produced with a 3D-printer. To refine the functionality of the prototype, a motor that mimics tremor was attached to a 3D-printed prototype. Then, the printed prototype was applied to the hand model, and tested its effectiveness for tremor suppressing. The wearable device was further investigated on patients with essential tremor and Parkinson's disease seeking treatment at Neurology Clinics. We recorded the tremor data and processed and visualized the recorded data by using the MatLab (version R2021a, MathWorks Inc., USA) software. Results: The wearable device effectively decreased the tremors both during the simulation phase and the patient testing phase. The data from the wearable device revealed a notable decrease in the amplitude of the tremor. This decrease signifies an achievement of tremor suppression. Conclusion: The prototype of the wearable device signifies a remarkable efficacy in tremor supression. It holds promise for being a potential solution to alleviate the tremor symptoms of essential tremor and Parkinson's disease patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a multisystem disease of global significance. Interleukin (IL)-6 is a soluble cytokine with a pleiotropic effect on inflammation and the immune response. Investigate the relationship between the interleukin 6 (IL6) rs1800795 variant and IL6 level in Turkish patients with COVID-19 disease. Prospective cohort study. Tertiary care hospital. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-positive and/or chest computerized tomography (CT) scan-compatible COVID-19 patients were enrolled in the study. The clinical data and whole blood samples were collected from April 1, 2020, to August 1, 2020. IL6 rs1800795 genotyping was performed by the PCR-restriction fragment-length polymorphism (RFLP) method in 148 patients. Serum IL-6 concentrations were measured using the ELISA method in 89 patients. We evaluated the patients in three groups: asymptomatic, symptomatic, and intensive care unit patients. IL6 rs1800795 genotype frequencies and serum IL-6 levels in COVID-19 patients with different clinical presentations. 148 cases. IL6 rs1800795 GG genotype and G allele frequency increased in PCR positive patients compared to PCR-negative patients (p ˂ 0.000). IL6 rs1800795 GC genotype and C allele frequency were lower in PCR-positive patients than in PCR-negative patients. IL6 rs1800795 GG genotype and G allele frequency were higher in asymptomatic patients than in the symptomatic and intensive care unit groups. The IL6 rs1800795 C allele frequency was lower in asymptomatic patients than in the symptomatic and intensive care unit groups. IL6 rs1800795 GG genotype and G allele frequency were higher in CT negative patients than CT positive patients, while IL6 GC genotype and C allele frequency were higher in CT positive patients than negative patients. IL6 level elevation was seen in the asymptomatic patients compared to the symptomatic and intensive care unit groups. These findings suggest that IL6 rs1800795 may contribute to the susceptibility of COVID-19 in people to Turkish origin. Further large-scale studies in different genetic populations are needed as this is a single-center, prospective study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diatoms are a type of algae with many species. Accurate and quick classification of diatom species is important in many fields, such as water quality analysis and weather change forecasting. Traditional methods for diatom classification, specifically morphological taxonomy and molecular detection, are time-consuming and may not provide satisfactory performance. However, in recent years, deep learning has demonstrated impressive performance in this task, just like other image classification problems. On the other hand, networks with more layers do not guarantee increased accuracy. While increasing depth can be useful in capturing complex features and patterns, it also introduces challenges such as vanishing gradients, overfitting, and optimization challenges. Therefore, in our work, we propose DiatomNet, a lightweight convolutional neural network (CNN) model that can classify diatom species accurately while requiring low computing resources. A recently introduced dataset consisting of 3027 diatom images and 68 diatom species is used to train and evaluate the model. The model is compared with well-known and successful CNN models (i.e., AlexNet, GoogleNet, Inceptionv3, ResNet18, VGG16, and Xception) and their customized versions obtained with transfer learning. The comparison is based on several success metrics: accuracy, precision, recall, F-measure, number of learnable parameters, training, and prediction time. Eventually, the experimental results reveal that DiatomNet outperforms the other models regarding all metrics with just a few exceptions. Therefore, it is a lightweight but strong candidate for diatom classification tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Vitamin D deficiency is a significant global health concern. Experimental models are essential to elucidate the biochemical, histopathological, and immunological consequences of this deficiency. This study established a vitamin D deficiency rat model to mimic insufficient vitamin D intake and examine the resulting health impacts, particularly on liver, kidney, and immune functions., Materials and Methods: Sprague-Dawley male rats were randomly assigned to two groups. The control group received a standard rodent diet, while the experimental group was fed a modified diet with reduced vitamin D for three months. Analyses included serum vitamin D levels, clinical chemistry, renal and liver histopathology, and blood immunophenotyping and cytokine analysis for both the control (n=7) and experimental (n=7) groups., Results: Serum vitamin D 25-OH levels were threefold lower in the experimental group (p < 0.001), indicating the induction of vitamin D deficiency. No significant differences in weight gain were observed between the groups. All clinical chemistry parameters remained within reference ranges. However, the experimental group showed significant declines in triglycerides (TG, p=0.0441), alkaline phosphatase (ALP, p=0.0021), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT, p=0.0002). Histopathology revealed normal liver and kidney architecture in the control group, while the experimental group exhibited hepatic cord deterioration, severe vacuolization in the liver, and edema and dilatation in the renal cortex tubular epithelium. Immunophenotyping analysis of lymphocyte subsets and assessment of serum cytokines did not reveal any differences between the two groups., Conclusion: A vitamin D deficiency model without complications such as obesity, parathyroid issues, or mortality was established in rats. This method could be applied in specific disease experimental models., Competing Interests: Human subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve human participants or tissue. Animal subjects: The experimental protocol was approved by Maltepe University Local Ethics Committee on Animal Experiments. Issued protocol number 2019.09.02. Conflicts of interest: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: All authors have declared that no financial support was received from any organization for the submitted work. Financial relationships: All authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work. Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work., (Copyright © 2024, Sitar et al.)