Occupation and Obesity: Effect of Working Hours on Obesity by Occupation Groups

Despite leveling off, United States is faced with high prevalence of obesity. Obesity epidemic is an important public health concern imposing pressures on social support schemes, leading to productivity losses and threatening quality of life of the people living with it. As occupations take up good portion of adult's daily life and have close relations with socio-economic factors and behavioral traits, understanding the relationships between occupations and obesity aids efforts fighting with the epidemic. In this respect, taking working hours into consideration, present study investigates the probability of being obese in 40 occupational groupings and identifies six occupation groups reducing the risk of obesity. This study is a first attempt to examine the effect of working hours on obesity by occupation groups in the United States

Do immigrants work longer hours than natives in Europe?

The difference between the working hours of natives and immigrants has begun to attract a great deal of attention in U.S. migration research, but this phenomenon has yet to be studied in a European context. In this article, we examine this difference in working hours for 13 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the U.K.) for the period 1995–2013. Contrary to popular belief, we find that immigrants usually work fewer hours than natives in most of the countries studied. In addition, we observe that native workers in Western and Southern Europe have, over time, tended to increase their number of hours worked compared to immigrants. However, the opposite is true is for Northern Europe, where natives’ working hours have generally decreased compared to immigrants, even following the global economic crisis in 200

Evaluation of Clinical and Radiological Indicators of Childhood Head Trauma

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the clinical signs of traumatic brain injury and its long-term effects on prognosis by evaluating the clinical and radiological findings of the patients admitted to the pediatric emergency department due to blunt head trauma. Method: The cases who applied to the pediatric emergency department due to head trauma were examined prospectively. Glaskow Coma (GCS) and Pediatric Trauma Scores (PTS) were calculated. The patients were evaluated neurologically 6 months after they were discharged. Results: A total of 707 pediatric patients [mean age: 59.8 +- 42.6 months; range: 1 month to 13 years; 263 (37.2%) girls] were evaluated prospectively. Pathology was detected in 101 cases (45.9%) [(epidural hematoma, 14; subdural hematoma, 11; brain edema, 36; intracerebral hematoma, 6; subarachnoid hemorrhage, 8; cerebral contusion, 22. Seventy-two (10.1%) patients had skull fractures.] Seventeen cases (2.4%) were operated, and 7 (1.4%) cases were lost. In children aged < 2 years vomiting, tachypnea, focal neurological findings, multitrauma, GCS <15 and low PTS were more common with traumatic brain injury (p <0.05). Vomiting, GCS <15 and low PTS were more common in children >2 years old and with traumatic brain injury (p <0.05). Neurological sequelae were not detected in patients aged <2 years with mild trauma. Loss of consciousness, pulse rate, respiratory and blood pressure abnormalities, focal neurological findings, low GCS and PTS were more common in children aged >2 years and with neurological sequelae (p <0.05). Conclusion: Physical examination findings, GCS, and PTS levels are useful tools in predicting the short- and long-term consequences of the injury

Is there a relationship between thyroid hormone levels and suicide attempt in adolescents?

Background: Thoughts about suicide are quite common in adolescent. While such thoughts can be caused by many reasons, the most wellknown of these are mood disorders. There are studies related to coexistence of thyroid pathologies and mood disorders in adult. Objectives: In this study, we aimed to investigate the difference of thyroid hormone levels in between adolescents with suicide attempt history and normal population. Methods: The study was prospective and was designed as a case-control study. Demographic characteristics of the patients were obtained and Serum fT3, fT4 and TSH levels were examined. Results: 222 cases were included in the study, including 101 cases and 121 controls. As for TSH levels, the mean serum levels of the whole group was 1.96 ± 1.08 mU/L, while the mean serum levels of the control group was 2.33 ± 1.5 mU/L and the mean serum levels of the case group was 0.50 ± 0.3 mU/L which revealed that the mean serum levels of the case group was significantly lower (p<0.01). Conclusion: It was found that serum TSH levels were significantly lower in case group than control group and the individuals with subclinical hyperthyroidism had more suicide attempts than the ones in control group

Optical MIMO-OFDM with Generalized LED Index Modulation

Due to copyright restrictions, the access to the full text of this article is only available via subscription.Visible light communications (VLC) is a promising and uncharted new technology for the next generation of wireless communication systems. This paper proposes a novel generalized light emitting diode (LED) index modulation method for multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based VLC systems. The proposed scheme avoids the typical spectrum efficiency losses incurred by time- and frequency-domain shaping in OFDM signals. This is achieved by exploiting spatial multiplexing along with LED index modulation. Accordingly, real and imaginary components of the complex time-domain OFDM signals are separated first, then resulting bipolar signals are transmitted over a VLC channel by encoding sign information in LED indexes. As a benchmark, we demonstrate the performance analysis of our proposed system for both analytical and physical channel models. Furthermore, two novel receiver designs are proposed. Each one is suitable for frequency-flat or selective channel scenarios. It has been shown via extensive computer simulations that the proposed scheme achieves considerably better bit error ratio versus signal-to-noise-ratio performance than the existing VLC-MIMO-OFDM systems that use the same number of transmit and receive units [LEDs and photo diodes (PDs)]. Compared with the single-input single-output (SISO) DC biased optical (DCO)-OFDM system, both spectral efficiency and DC bias can be doubled and removed respectively simply by exploiting a MIMO configuration.European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST); The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Research; EPSRC under Established Career Fellowshi

Analysis of Offshore Wind Turbine Towers with Different Designs by Finite Elements Method

It is known that the use of renewable energy has an increasing trend in whole world. Wind energy is one of the renewable energy types, as well is among the cleanest and most economical energy sources. Nowadays, in order to provide much more energy from wind, turbine towers are being built higher and the turbine blades have begun to be manufactured longer. Due to these applications, tower and turbine weights are continuously increasing. For this reason, it is necessary to optimize the materials used as well as the dimensions of the turbine towers. In the present study, behavior of TLP floating wind turbine towers with three different designs under wave, hydrostatic and static loads were investigated. In order to clarify the effect of these loads, turbine designs were analyzed in the ratio of 1/5 using finite elements method. Steel, reinforced concrete and hybrid (reinforced concrete and steel) wind turbine towers tied to sea floor at a depth of 10 meters rigidly by TLP floating method. In this context, 10-meter-high turbine towers having three different designs which static analyzed previously were used for investigate effects of wave and hydrostatic loads. Turbine structures analyzed with ABAQUS finite elements model. The deformations and stress values of underwater turbine structures were obtained and compared with each other. As it can be seen from analysis results, compared to the reinforced concrete design, the displacement of steel tower design decreased 77.84%. It is seen that the torsion effect was dominant in the steel tower design. However, the decreasing displacement value for steel design was recorded as 44.43% compared to the hybrid tower design

Is the presence of deep infiltrative endometriosis underestimated in the surgical management of endometriosis?

Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine the presence of deep infiltrative endometriosis (DIE) in the surgical management of endometriosis. Material and methods: Operation notes and histopathological reports of women with endometriosis were retrospectively analyzed in the Ege University Hospital between 2008 and 2018. A total of 191 women with suspicious of endometriosis but without clinical signs of DIE were enrolled in the study. Laparoscopic diagnosis of DIE was compared with histopathological reports. There was no histopathology before surgery. Endometriosis was suspected only based on symptoms. Results: A total of 213 lesions that were thought to be DIE were removed from 191 women with endometriosis. Among these 213 lesions, 179 specimens were reported as endometriosis and 34 lesions as fibro-adipose tissue. Forty-nine right uterosacral ligaments were excised, and endometriosis was detected in 44 out of 49 specimens. Histopathological examination of 45 left uterosacral ligaments revealed endometriosis in 35 specimens. Finally, 25 endometriotic nodules were removed from the recto-vaginal space, and 22 of these were verified as endometriosis by a pathologist. The positive predictive value of laparoscopic visualization for DIE in the group suspected of endometriosis but without any clinical findings of DIE was 84%. Conclusions: Women with the suspicious of endometriosis, qualified to surgery, because of infertility or pain, should be prudently investigated to confirm or to exclude coexistence of DIE even if no preoperative sign of DIE was observed to provide complete resection. Otherwise, DIE continues to grow, causes pain postoperatively, and complicates subsequent surgery

dynamic thiol disulphide homeostasis before and after radical prostatectomy in patients with prostate cancer

AbstractThiol groups are important anti-oxidants and essential molecules protecting organism against the harmful effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The aim of our study is to evaluate thiol–disulphide homeostasis with a novel recent automated method in patients with localized prostate cancer (PC) before and six months after radical prostatectomy (RP). 18 patients with PC and 17 healthy control subjects were enrolled into the study. Blood samples were collected from the controls subjects and patients before and six months after RP. Thiol–disulphide homeostasis was determined using a recently developed novel method. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA), albumin, total protein, total thiol, native thiol, disulphide and total antioxidant status (TAS) were measured and compared between the groups. Native thiol, total thiol and TAS levels were significantly higher in the control group than the patients before RP (p < .001). There was a non-significant increase in the native thiol, total thiol and TAS levels i..

The status of bovine viral diarrhea virus (bvdv) in western türkiye: detection of three subtypes

Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) is a viral pathogen that causes significant economic losses in cattle, especially by causing abortions. Globally, BVDVs are classified into three genetically distinct types: BVDV-1, BVDV-2 and BVDV-3. Despite the presence of all three groups in Türkiye, BVDV-1 is by far the most prevalent. The aim of the study was to determine the genetic diversity of BVDV detected in materials from aborted fetus between 2017 and 2020 in western Türkiye. Sequence and phylogenetic analyzes were performed based on the 5"-UTR and Npro gene regions of BVDVs from samples, which tested positive using real time RT-PCR. According to pairwise similarity and cluster analysis the samples clustered into three different sub-types, with one dominant subtype 1d (n=4). The remaining samples clustered within subtype 1l (n=3) and 1f (n=2). In this study, different subtypes were found in abortion materials submitted from the same region. Since different subtypes of BVDV were identified even in a small geographical area of Türkiye, it is essential to prepare control and eradication programs through specific vaccination, diagnostic and mitigation programs coordinated by national government, to prevent the spread of these viruses