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Words are fickle, easily misunderstood, and often put us at a loss... but we all have so much we feel we need to express. This begs the question: Is there any safe way of communication? Can anything ever really be communicated how you mean it? Will you ever see the reflection of what you feel, think, and dream outside of yourself? In response to this existential dilemma, I imagine an alternative language of images, sounds, color, feelings, and non-identification. My thesis is a meditation on the issues with standard language and the idea of alternative language. In my argument I understand language as a medium, and communication as an art for which we choose the medium that best conveys what we need to express. Through an experimental audiovisual collage film, I grapple with the phenomenon of the inexpressible and play with alternative ways that we can communicate more effectively and truthfully– with an emphasis on image-language

Surgical Antimicrobial Prophylaxis Compliance in Turkey: Data from the Prospective, Observational, Multicenter Survey Including 7,978 Surgical Patients

Background: Surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis (SAP) is the peri-operative administration of antimicrobial agents. Compliance rates vary worldwide from 15% to 84.3%, with studies in Turkey not exceeding 35%. The aim of this multicenter study was to determine the rate of appropriate antibiotic class, timing, and duration as well as discharge prescriptions in Turkey. Thus, we aimed to determine the rate of full compliance with SAP procedures in our country Patients and Methods: This multicenter, prospective, observational, descriptive study was conducted in 47 hospitals from 28 provinces in seven different regions of Turkey. Patients over 18 years of age in all surgical units between June 6, 2022, and June 10, 2022, were included in the study. Results: Of the 7,978 patients included in the study, 332 were excluded from further analyses because of pre-existing infection, and SAP compliance analyses were performed on the remaining 7,646 cases. The antibiotic most commonly used for SAP was cefazolin (n = 4,701; 61.5%), followed by third-generation cephalosporins (n = 596; 7.8%). The most common time to start SAP was within 30 minutes before surgery (n = 2,252; 32.5%), followed by 30 to 60 minutes before surgery (n = 1,638; 23.6%). Surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis duration was <24 hours in 3,516 (50.7%) patients and prolonged until discharge in 1,505 (21.7%) patients. Finally, the actual proportion of patients compliant with SAP was 19% (n = 1,452) after omitting 4,458 (58.3%) patients who were prescribed oral antibiotic agents at discharge as part of a prolonged SAP. Conclusions: Surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis compliance rates are still very low in Turkey. Prolonged duration of SAP and especially high rate of antibiotic prescription at discharge are the main reasons for non-compliance with SAP. Copyright 2024, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

IXPE observation of PKS 2155-304 reveals the most highly polarized blazar

We report the X-ray polarization properties of the southern, high-synchrotron-peaked (HSP) blazar PKS 2155−304 based on observations with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). We observed the source between October 27 and November 7, 2023. We additionally conducted an extensive contemporaneous multiwavelength campaign to place the X-ray polarization results into a broader context. We find that during the first half (T1) of the IXPE pointing, the source exhibited the highest X-ray polarization degree (ΠX) detected for an HSP blazar thus far, (30.7±2.0)%, which dropped to (15.3±2.1)% during the second half (T2). The X-ray polarization angle (ΨX) remained stable during the IXPE pointing at 129.4◦±1.8◦ and 125.4◦±3.9◦ during T1 and T2, respectively. Meanwhile, the optical polarization degree (ΠO) remained stable within the uncertainties during the IXPE pointing, with average host-galaxy-corrected values of (4.3±0.7)% and (3.8±0.9)% during T1 and T2, respectively. The optical polarization angle (ΨO) changed achromatically from ∼140◦ to ∼90◦ during the IXPE pointing, and subsequently rotated back to ∼130◦ . Despite several attempts to observe the source in the radio band, the faintness and the weakly polarized nature of the source in the radio band resulted in only one detection (99.7% confidence) of the polarization at 225.5 GHz during T2, with degree ΠR=(1.7±0.4)% and angle ΨR=112.5◦±5.5◦ . The direction of the broad parsec-scale jet is rather ambiguous and has been found to point to the east and to the south at different epochs; however, on somewhat larger scales (> 1.5 pc) the jet points toward the southeast (∼135◦ ), similar to all of the multiwavelength polarization angles. Moreover, the X-ray to optical polarization degree ratios (ΠX/ΠO) of ∼7 and ∼4 during T1 and T2, respectively, are similar to previous IXPE results for several HSP blazars. These findings, combined with the lack of correlation of temporal variability between the polarization properties at different wavelengths, agree with an energy-stratified shock-acceleration scenario in HSP blazars

Can Subclinical İnflammatory Markers Predict Birth Time and Birth Weight in Hyperemesis Gravidarum?: A Comparative Study and Comprehensive Current Literature Review

Aim: To evaluate subclinical inflammatory markers in hyperemesis gravidarum (HEG) cases and to determine the relationship of these markers with the gestational age at delivery and birth weight in pregnant women with HEG. Methods: Fifty-two patients who presented to our hospital between 1 May 2017 and 1 September 2019 with HEG and 60 pregnant women as the control group were included in this retrospectively designed study. The relationship of subclinical inflammatory markers such as the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), the lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) with HEG, and their relationship with birth week and birth weight in HEG cases were examined. Results: In HEG cases, NLR and PLR values were higher (p=0.006 and p=0.004, respectively), whereas LMR values were lower (p<0.001). In HEG cases, gestational age at delivery had a negative correlation with NLR and PLR and positive correlation with LMR (r=-0.567, p<0.001; r=-0.322, p=0.02, and r=0.279 p=0.045, respectively). In addition, NLR and PLR had negative correlations with birth weight (r=-0.582, p<0.001; r=-0.302, p=0.029, respectively). Conclusion: While NLR and PLR values increase in HEG cases, LMR value decreases. It has been determined that varying rates of subclinical inflammatory markers in HEG are associated with preterm birth week and low birth weight. © 2021 by The Medical Bulletin of İstanbul Haseki Training and Research Hospital The Medical Bulletin of Haseki published by Galenos Yayınevi

Stratification strength and light climate explain variation in chlorophyll a at the continental scale in a European multilake survey in a heatwave summer.

To determine the drivers of phytoplankton biomass, we collected standardized morphometric, physical, and biological data in 230 lakes across the Mediterranean, Continental, and Boreal climatic zones of the European continent. Multilinear regression models tested on this snapshot of mostly eutrophic lakes (median total phosphorus [TP] = 0.06 and total nitrogen [TN] = 0.7 mg L 1), and its subsets (2 depth types and 3 climatic zones), show that light climate and stratification strength were the most significant explanatory variables for chlorophyll a (Chl a) variance. TN was a significant predictor for phytoplankton biomass for shallow and continental lakes, while TP never appeared as an explanatory variable, suggesting that under high TP, light, which partially controls stratification strength, becomes limiting for phytoplankton development. Mediterranean lakes were the warmest yet most weakly stratified and had significantly less Chl a than Boreal lakes, where the temperature anomaly from the long-term average, during a summer heatwave was the highest (+4 C) and showed a significant, exponential relationship with stratification strength. This European survey represents a summer snapshot of phytoplankton biomass and its drivers, and lends support that light and stratification metrics, which are both affected by climate change, are better predictors for phytoplankton biomass in nutrient-rich lakes than nutrient concentrations and surface temperature

Disentangling responses to natural stress and human impact gradients in river ecosystems across Europe

1. Rivers are dynamic ecosystems in which both human impacts and climate-driven drying events are increasingly common. These anthropogenic and natural stress ors interact to influence the biodiversity and functioning of river ecosystems. Disentangling ecological responses to these interacting stressors is necessary to guide management actions that support ecosystems adapting to global change. 2. We analysed the independent and interactive effects of human impacts and natu ral drying on aquatic invertebrate communities—a key biotic group used to assess the health of European freshwaters. We calculated biological response metrics representing communities from 406 rivers in eight European countries: taxonomic richness, functional richness and redundancy, and biomonitoring indices that in dicate ecological status. We analysed metrics based on the whole community and on a group of taxa with traits promoting resistance and/or resilience (‘high RR’) to drying. We also examined how responses vary across Europe in relation to climatic aridity. 3. Most community metrics decreased independently in response to impacts and drying. A richness-independent biomonitoring index (the average score per taxon; ASPT) showed particular potential for use in biomonitoring, and should be consid ered alongside new metrics representing high RR diversity, to promote accurate assessment of ecological status. 4. High RR taxonomic richness responded only to impacts, not drying. However, these predictors explained little variance in richness and other high RR metrics, potentially due to low taxonomic richness. Metric responsiveness could thus be enhanced by developing region-specific high RR groups comprising sufficient taxa with sufficiently variable impact sensitivities to indicate ecological status. 5. Synthesis and applications. Metrics are needed to assess the ecological status of dy namic river ecosystems—including those that sometimes dry—and thus to identify priority sites requiring action to tackle the causes of environmental degradation. Our results inform recommendations guiding the development of such metrics. We propose concurrent use of richness-independent ‘average score per taxon’ in dices and metrics that characterize the richness of resistant and resilient taxa. We observed interactions between aridity, impacts and drying, highlighting that these new metrics should be region specific, river type specific and adaptable, promot ing their ability to inform management actions that protect biodiversity in river ecosystems responding to climate change

Single-cell atlas of human liver development reveals pathways directing hepatic cell fates

The liver has been studied extensively due to the broad number of diseases affecting its vital functions. However, therapeutic advances have been hampered by the lack of knowledge concerning human hepatic development. Here, we addressed this limitation by describing the developmental trajectories of different cell types that make up the human liver at single-cell resolution. These transcriptomic analyses revealed that sequential cell-to-cell interactions direct functional maturation of hepatocytes, with non-parenchymal cells playing essential roles during organogenesis. We utilized this information to derive bipotential hepatoblast organoids and then exploited this model system to validate the importance of signalling pathways in hepatocyte and cholangiocyte specification. Further insights into hepatic maturation also enabled the identification of stage-specific transcription factors to improve the functionality of hepatocyte-like cells generated from human pluripotent stem cells. Thus, our study establishes a platform to investigate the basic mechanisms directing human liver development and to produce cell types for clinical applications