Prognostic factors in children with purulent meningitis in Turkey.

In this study the clinical and laboratory findings of 48 children with purulent meningitis were examined, prospectively, to determine the prognostic factors in childhood meningitis in a developing country. Patients were examined for the following variables: history of antibiotic use; period between onset of symptoms and hospital admission; age at presentation; sex; fever; convulsion; level of consciousness; malnutrition; anemia; leukocyte and thrombocyte counts; erythrocyte sedimentation rate; serum C-reactive protein (CRP) level; and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) including white blood cell count; glucose, protein, and CRP concentrations; antibiotic treatment; neurological sequelae; and fatality rate during the hospital stay. Most of these parameters were re-evaluated in all patients 36-48 h after admission. Patients were divided into 3 groups: surviving without sequelae, surviving with sequelae, and not surviving (deceased). A total of 48 children, 19 girls (39.5%) and 29 boys (60.5%), aged 2 months to 13 years, were included in the study. Of the 48 patients, 29 (60.5 %) survived without sequelae, 13 (27%) survived with sequelae and 6 (12.5%) died. In a comparison among groups, we found that absence of anemia, low (&#60; 1,000) CSF white blood cell (WBC) count, and high CRP level at admission were the indicative of poor prognosis. Thirty-six to 48 h after admission, the presence of fever, depressed level of consciousness, high (&#62; 1,000) CSF WBC count, and low CRP level were also poor prognostic factors. In addition, we observed that mortality rate was lower in the penicillin G + chloramphenicol group than in the ampicillin-sulbactam + cefotaxime group (P &#60; 0.05). The mean period between onset of symptoms and hospital admission was longer in the surviving with sequelae and in the not surviving groups than in the surviving without sequelae group (P &#60; 0.05).</p

CROssBAR: comprehensive resource of biomedical relations with knowledge graph representations

Systemic analysis of available large-scale biological/biomedical data is critical for studying biological mechanisms, and developing novel and effective treatment approaches against diseases. However, different layers of the available data are produced using different technologies and scattered across individual computational resources without any explicit connections to each other, which hinders extensive and integrative multi-omics-based analysis. We aimed to address this issue by developing a new data integration/representation methodology and its application by constructing a biological data resource. CROssBAR is a comprehensive system that integrates large-scale biological/biomedical data from various resources and stores them in a NoSQL database. CROssBAR is enriched with the deep-learning-based prediction of relationships between numerous data entries, which is followed by the rigorous analysis of the enriched data to obtain biologically meaningful modules. These complex sets of entities and relationships are displayed to users via easy-tointerpret, interactive knowledge graphs within an open-access service. CROssBAR knowledge graphs incorporate relevant genes-proteins, molecular interactions, pathways, phenotypes, diseases, as well as known/predicted drugs and bioactive compounds, and they are constructed on-the-fly based on simple non-programmatic user queries. These intensely processed heterogeneous networks are expected to aid systems-level research, especially to infer biological mechanisms in relation to genes, proteins, their ligands, and diseases

Volume CXIV, Number 4, November 7, 1996

Objective: Turner syndrome (TS) is a chromosomal disorder caused by complete or partial X chromosome monosomy that manifests various clinical features depending on the karyotype and on the genetic background of affected girls. This study aimed to systematically investigate the key clinical features of TS in relationship to karyotype in a large pediatric Turkish patient population.Methods: Our retrospective study included 842 karyotype-proven TS patients aged 0-18 years who were evaluated in 35 different centers in Turkey in the years 2013-2014.Results: The most common karyotype was 45,X (50.7%), followed by 45,X/46,XX (10.8%), 46,X,i(Xq) (10.1%) and 45,X/46,X,i(Xq) (9.5%). Mean age at diagnosis was 10.2±4.4 years. The most common presenting complaints were short stature and delayed puberty. Among patients diagnosed before age one year, the ratio of karyotype 45,X was significantly higher than that of other karyotype groups. Cardiac defects (bicuspid aortic valve, coarctation of the aorta and aortic stenosis) were the most common congenital anomalies, occurring in 25% of the TS cases. This was followed by urinary system anomalies (horseshoe kidney, double collector duct system and renal rotation) detected in 16.3%. Hashimoto's thyroiditis was found in 11.1% of patients, gastrointestinal abnormalities in 8.9%, ear nose and throat problems in 22.6%, dermatologic problems in 21.8% and osteoporosis in 15.3%. Learning difficulties and/or psychosocial problems were encountered in 39.1%. Insulin resistance and impaired fasting glucose were detected in 3.4% and 2.2%, respectively. Dyslipidemia prevalence was 11.4%.Conclusion: This comprehensive study systematically evaluated the largest group of karyotype-proven TS girls to date. The karyotype distribution, congenital anomaly and comorbidity profile closely parallel that from other countries and support the need for close medical surveillance of these complex patients throughout their lifespa

Crowdsourced mapping of unexplored target space of kinase inhibitors

Despite decades of intensive search for compounds that modulate the activity of particular protein targets, a large proportion of the human kinome remains as yet undrugged. Effective approaches are therefore required to map the massive space of unexplored compound-kinase interactions for novel and potent activities. Here, we carry out a crowdsourced benchmarking of predictive algorithms for kinase inhibitor potencies across multiple kinase families tested on unpublished bioactivity data. We find the top-performing predictions are based on various models, including kernel learning, gradient boosting and deep learning, and their ensemble leads to a predictive accuracy exceeding that of single-dose kinase activity assays. We design experiments based on the model predictions and identify unexpected activities even for under-studied kinases, thereby accelerating experimental mapping efforts. The open-source prediction algorithms together with the bioactivities between 95 compounds and 295 kinases provide a resource for benchmarking prediction algorithms and for extending the druggable kinome. The IDG-DREAM Challenge carried out crowdsourced benchmarking of predictive algorithms for kinase inhibitor activities on unpublished data. This study provides a resource to compare emerging algorithms and prioritize new kinase activities to accelerate drug discovery and repurposing efforts

Resistance, Loss and Grief: The Implications of Melancholy in Modern Kurdish Novels

This study aims to highlight the specific uses motifs of loss, grief and melancholy are put to by modern Kurdish novelists of Turkey writing in Kurdish. It draws upon perspectives on mourning and melancholy for a nuanced understanding of the Kurdish novel to contribute to the emerging field of Kurdish literary studies. Subject to specific focus is how melancholic subjectivity is represented and its intersections with the political, social and cultural reality. To this end, it examines four novels: Mehmed Uzun’s Siya Evînê, İbrahim Seydo Aydoğan’s Reş û Spî and Firat Cewerî’s Ez ê Yekî Bikujim and Lehî. Alternating between the individual’s psychology and the encompassing socio-political reality, these novels offer insights essential to understanding the authentic locale of the Kurdish melancholic subjectivity and its iterations in different novel types, including, respectively, historical, contemporary, crime and metafiction. The study evidences a variegated use by Kurdish novelists: melancholy as an expression of devotion to the ideal of a free homeland and a stubborn attachment to a lost love, as grief for a loved one lost in political struggle, as the source of a criminal act as well as an endless grief for a lost female “honour” in a community beset by patriarchal cultural norms and values. Following an introductory assessment of readings of melancholy in the Kurdish novel, the study presents an overview of the development of the modern Kurdish novel; it identifies a parallel between the engagement of Kurdish novelists with genuinely realist and modern narrative forms from the mid-1980s and the strategy to process the motif of loss in the framework of melancholic subjectivity, despite its political mediations. The second chapter provides an account of how the motif of melancholy is utilized to represent insistence upon the ideal of a free homeland as well as a love-melancholy in Siya Evînê. The following chapter elicits the representation of grief for the loss of a loved one killed in the resistance struggle as the melancholic suffering of the bereaved in Reş û Spî. The final chapter presents the violent, self-destructive as well as constructive forms of melancholy in Ez ê Yekî Bikujim and Lehî, demonstrating how melancholy is appropriated as a multi-functional literary device by modern Kurdish novelists to articulate a broad spectrum of subjectivities often mediated by contexts of Kurdish political reality

Evaluation Of Balance In Fallers And Non-Fallers Elderly

Falls present a substantial health problem among the elderly population. Approximately one-third of community-dwelling people over 65 years of age will experience one or more each year. Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate balance between fallers and non-fallers elderly. Study Design: Clinical study. Methods: We studied 30 subjects older than 65 years of age. 15 subjects had a history of falls within a year (Group I) and 15 subjects had no history of falls (Group II). The scores of Computerized Dynamic Posturography (CDP); Sensory Organization Test (SOT), Limits of Stability (LOS), Rhytmic Weight Shift (RWS) and Berg Balance Scale (BBS) findings gathered from the individuals from Group I and Group II, were compared. Results: The SOT 3, 6, composite, BBS scores and left-right on-axis velocity score of RWS test of the Group I were found to be significantly lower the Group II (p < 0.05). A positive correlation between the SOT 3, 5, composite and BBS scores of Group I and the SOT 4, 5, 6, composite and BBS scores of Group II is determined (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The CDP and BBS scores in fallers were found to be significiantly lower as compared to the non-fallers elderly.WoSScopu

Effects of Multi-Channel Compression on Speech Intelligibility at the Patients with Loudness-Recruitment

Objective: In this study, the effects of different limiting methods on speech discrimination at the patients with recruitment had been investigated. For this purpose, audiologic, impedansmetric and speech discrimination tests were carried out on 43 ears with cochlear pathology

Effects Of Multi-Channel Compression On Speech Intelligibility At The Patients With Loudness-Recruitment

Objective: In this study, the effects of different limiting methods on speech discrimination at the patients with recruitment had been investigated. For this purpose, audiologic, impedansmetric and speech discrimination tests were carried out on 43 ears with cochlear pathology. Materials and Methods: The patients aged between 30 and 70 years (average 53.43 +/- 13.41). The sound pressure level at which the maximum speech discrimination score obtained was determined for each patient. A digital behind-the-ear four-channel hearing aid in which compression settings can be programmed independently in each channel was used for all listeners. The hearing aid was fitted to the test ear of the subjects and programmed according to WDRC, PC, CL, BILL and TILL limiting methods. Then speech discrimination scores with hearing aid were examined. This examination was done for the situations the speech noise is absent and S/N ratios of OdB and +5dB. NN Results: Although for noiseless situations there was no significant difference between CL and TILL, it has been found that with TILL method statistically better speech discrimination scores were obtained for both OdB and +5dB S/N ratios. No any significant differences have been marked among the scores obtained with WDRC, PC and BILL methods both in noise and noiseless situations. Any statistically significant correlation was not found between the determined speech discrimination scores and the sound pressure level that rollover occurred. Conclusion: Examination of the results statistically shows that, the highest speech recognition performance obtained with TILL limiting method. The results obtained with CL method were worse than TILL but better than WDRC, BILL and PC. It can be stated that, it is better to adjust the hearing aids used for the patients with recruitment phenomenon for TILL type operation. The CL limiting method could be second choice for limiting but PC, WDRC and BILL methods may not be good candidates for these patients.Wo

Comparison of the Effects of Different Organ Preservation Surgeries on Voice Quality by Perceptual and Acoustic Methods

Objective: As a result of partial or total surgical removal of the larynx due to larynx cancer, there are several aspects of patient's life that are altered, such as the anatomical, physiological, psychological, and social aspects. One of the key elements that affect the quality of life of postoperative patients in organ-preserving surgeries is the vocal function