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WOS: 000226083000010, PubMed: 15557722, The identification of risk factors for the initiation of left ventricle hypertrophy (LVH), which is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in hypertensive patients, is very important. The objective of the present Study was to identify the relationship of aldosterone with LVH and different geometrical patterns of left ventricle that develop in patients with essential hypertension. A total of 83 patients with essential hypertension (44 females, mean age, 5 1 8 years, 39 males, mean age, 57 10 years) were included ill this study. Thirty-two had LVH. When evaluated according to the geometrical patterns of LVH, 18 patients had concentric LVH, 14 had eccentric LVH, and 17 had concentric remodeling. Thirty-four patients had normal left ventricle geometry. Two weeks after the cessation of antihypertensive medications, Sodium, potassium, and proteinuria in 24-hour urine samples and plasma aldosterone levels and plasma renin activity were measured. Plasma aldosterone levels of the patients with LVH were found to be significantly higher (9.92 +/- 6.34 ng/dL versus 5.83 +/- 3.5 ng/dL, P < 0.01). The difference between plasma renin activities was not statistically significant. Linear regression analysis revealed that plasma aldosterone level and age were independent parameters increasing left ventricle mass index. The plasma aldosterone levels of patients with concentric hypertrophy of the left ventricle were significantly higher than those of patients with normal geometry and concentric remodeling. There was no significant difference between plasma renin activities. Twenty-four hour Urine protein concentrations of the patients with LVH were found to be significantly higher and sodium to be significantly lower. Plasma aldosterone levels seem to be correlated with LVH especially with concentric hypertrophy of the left ventricle in patients with essential hypertension.

Objective: Although Partin tables were developed in United States to predict the stage of prostate cancer preoperatively, they are used by many clinics throughout the world assuming that these figures apply to their population as well. However the predictive value of current Partin tables, which was updated in 2001, has not been validated in most of the countries as well as in Turkey. Therefore, we evaluated the validity of 2001 Partin tables, for the ability to predict the pathological stage in Turkish patients. Patients and Methods: The clinical and pathological findings of 1043 patients who have had radical prostatectomy were assessed. Serum PSA values, clinical stage, biopsy Gleason score and the pathological features of the radical prostatectomy specimens were collected from each clinic and evaluated. The predictive value of Partin nomogram and pathological findings of prostatectomy specimens were compared and analyzed according to Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis. Results: Median age of the patients was 60 (45–74). In the presented study, percentage of patients with clinical stage T1c was 43%. Patients with Gleason score of 2–4 in biopsy constituted 23.4% of the study group. In the present study, the ratio of the patients with serum PSA higher than 10ng/ml was 39.6%. Organ confined disease, seminal vesicle involvement, lymph node metastases ratios were 64.7%, 10.3%, 1.8% respectively. Area Under Curve (AUC) values for organ confined disease, seminal vesicle involvement and lymph node involvement were calculated as 0.665, 0.733 and 0.759 respectively. Conclusion: It appears that Partin tables have a reasonable predictive value for the final pathological features like organ confined disease, seminal vesicle and lymph node involvement in Turkish patients. This multicenter study showed that current Partin tables could also be used in Turkish patients with comparable accuracy.

Electrodiagnostic tests measuring the activities of cavernous smooth muscle and sudomotor structures of penile skin are used in order to evaluate autonomic innervation of the penis. Owing to closeness of these tissues, the interference of sympathetic activity during recording is a possibility. In this study, we investigated this possibility in 10 patients whose cavernosal tissues were destroyed during penile prosthesis implantation by comparing the pre- and postoperative penile skin electrodermal activities. Penile electrodermal activities were recorded with surface electrodes before and after the operation. All of the patients had spontaneous and evoked penile electrodermal activity (EDA). The mean amplitude of evoked EDA decreased from 2159+/-700 to 1413+/-515 microV following penile prosthesis surgery (P=0.017). The decrease in the amplitude of penile-evoked EDA following penile prosthesis implantation suggests the contribution of cavernous smooth muscle activity to the sudomotor responses prior to operation. Although corpus cavernosum sympathetic activity contributes to the penile skin recordings, these recordings are mostly the result of penile skin sudomotor sympathetic activity. Therefore, surface potentials recorded from penile skin should not be used for the evaluation of autonomic innervation of corpus cavernosum.

Aims A functional maturational delay in the central nervous system is dwelled upon in the pathogenesis of monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis (MNE). In this study we studied whether according to controls N200 and P300, components of the event-related potential (ERP), which is related to aspects of cognitive processing, showed any difference in its topographic distribution in children within the age group 10–13 with monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis and discussed its relation to the pathogenesis of MNE. Methods We performed P300 in 18 patients with MNE and in 16 age-matched healthy subjects. P300 were evoked by an auditory oddball paradigm consisting of 150 tone bursts (80% 1 kHz; 20% 2 kHz). The latencies of the N200 and the P300 waves and the amplitude of the P300 wave were measured. Results There was no statistical difference between the enuretic group and the controls in N200 and P300 latency and amplitude in the midline frontal (Fz), central (Cz), and parietal (Pz) recording site of the 10–20 International System. In the enuretic group while P300 amplitude in the Fz site was significantly less than the P300 amplitude in the Cz site, there was no statistical difference between the Fz and Pz P300 amplitude values. Conclusions When different levels of maturational delay are considered in MNE, it may be claimed that maturational delay in children whose enuresis lasts until older ages will be different from those whose enuresis ends at an early age. The determination of P300 amplitude in parietal records being less in enuretics when compared to the controls may show that there are regional differences in stimuli processing rate/quality. Neurourol. Urodynam. 23:237–240, 2004. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Electrolyte disorders can alter cardiac ionic currents and depending on the changes can promote proarrhythmic effects. Potassium (K(+)) is the most common intracellular cation related to arrhythmic disorders. Hyperkalemia is mainly seen in the setting of impaired renal function. Severe hyperkalemia may lead to rhythm disorders. Herein, we report a patient with accelerated idioventricular rhythm (AIVR) due to hyperkalemia, which was successfully treated with glucose-insulin (GI) infusion.

To investigate in a descriptive manner the P300 component of the event-related potential (ERP), which is related to aspects of cognitive processing, in patients with premature ejaculation (PE) to determine whether there is a cognitive alteration in this condition. Recent studies with short latency evoked potentials such as cortical somatosensory evoked potentials have indicated that afferent sensory inputs from the genital area to the nervous system are increased in PE. However, the cortical neural process of ejaculation has remained poorly understood.We performed ERPs in 20 patients with PE and in 20 age-matched healthy subjects. ERPs were evoked by an auditory oddball paradigm consisting of 150 tone bursts (80% 1 kHz; 20% 2 kHz). The latencies of the N200 and the P300 waves and the amplitude of the P300 wave were measured.The mean latencies of the N200 and P300 waves were significantly longer in the patients with PE than in the controls (P0.04 and0.03, respectively). No significant difference was found in the P300 amplitude between the controls and patients (P0.05).These data indicate that the greater cortical representation of sensory stimuli from the genital areas that has been shown with somatosensory evoked potential studies might be related to a cognitive/neurobehavioral dysfunction. The dysfunction involves an increased time to evaluate and categorize the stimuli in the central nervous system, with no change in the quality of cognition and neural disinhibition by the prefrontal cortex to early sensory processing in subcortical or primary cortical regions, which are cognitive neural processes underlying ERP generation.

Penile fracture is a relatively rare condition. We report an unusual case of the bilateral disruption of the corpus cavernosum with complete urethral rupture resulting from blunt trauma during sexual intercourse. The subject underwent emergency surgery with preservation of erectile and voiding functions in the follow-up.

Background In this study a new instrument and technique is described for the endoscopic treatment of complete posterior urethral strictures, which may result in serious complications and sometimes require troublesome treatments. Methods Three patients with complete posterior urethral obstruction were treated endoscopically with the guidance of a new instrument: Evrim Bougie. Evrim Bougie looks like a Guyon Bougie, has a curved end, which facilitates getting into the bladder through the cystostomy tract and with a built in channel of 1.5 mm in diameter for a sliding needle exiting at its tip. Having confirmed fluoroscopically and endoscopically that the sliding needle had passed across the strictured segment, the strictured segment was incised with internal urethrotomy, distal to the strictured segment, and urethral continuity was accomplished. At the end of the operation a Foley urethral catheter was easily placed into the bladder per urethra. Patients were instructed in self-catheterization after removal of the urethral catheter. All patients achieved normal voiding at postoperative 7th month follow-up evaluation. Conclusion Internal urethrotomy could be performed under the guidance of the sliding needle of Evrim Bougie advanced from above the posterior urethral strictures, which to our knowledge was described for the first time in the English literature. We also believe that there may be other possible indications of Evrim Bougie for different procedures in urethral surgery.

PurposeCitizen Science – public participation in scientific projects – is becoming a global practice engaging volunteer participants, often non-scientists, with scientific research. Citizen Science is facing major challenges, such as quality and consistency, to reap open the full potential of its outputs and outcomes, including data, software and results. In this context, the principles put forth by Data Science and Open Science domains are essential for alleviating these challenges, which have been addressed at length in these domains. The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which Citizen Science initiatives capitalise on Data Science and Open Science principles.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analysed 48 Citizen Science projects related to pollution and its effects. They compared each project against a set of Data Science and Open Science indicators, exploring how each project defines, collects, analyses and exploits data to present results and contribute to knowledge.FindingsThe results indicate several shortcomings with respect to commonly accepted Data Science principles, including lack of a clear definition of research problems and limited description of data management and analysis processes, and Open Science principles, including lack of the necessary contextual information for reusing project outcomes.Originality/valueIn the light of this analysis, the authors provide a set of guidelines and recommendations for better adoption of Data Science and Open Science principles in Citizen Science projects, and introduce a software tool to support this adoption, with a focus on preparation of data management plans in Citizen Science projects.

There is a great amount of data on the Web, but to a large extent it is not published as linked data that computers can consume. Visual annotation tools have a considerable potential to empower end users to contribute their data to the Semantic Web, and could prove to be a solution to get more data on the Web linked. To this end, numerous tools have been developed; however, there still remains challenges to be addressed. In this paper, we present and discuss a set of prominent requirements toward the realisation of a visual annotation tool for end-user semantic content authoring. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Visualizations and User Interfaces for Knowledge Engineering and Linked Data Analytics co-located with 19th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (EKAW 2014), CEUR Workshop Proceedings 2014, 1299, 57-62. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0074-1299-7

A growing amount of public procurement data is being made available in the EU for the purpose of improving the effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, and accountability of government spending. However, there is a large heterogeneity, due to the lack of common data formats and models. To this end, we developed an ontology network for representing and linking tender and company data and ingested relevant data from two prominent data providers into a knowledge graph, called TBFY. In this poster paper, we present an overview of our knowledge graph.

Purpose: A lot of studies conducted before have shown that there is a corelation between nondipper pattern with the left ventricular hypertrophy and diastolic dysfunction based on circadian rhythm of the blood preasure (BP). The main aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between the amount of the 24-hour urinary aldosterone and the nondipper pattern of the BP. Method: The study included both an office and ambulatory BP which were monitored in normotensive people (office BP