The Association between Plasma D-dimer Levels and Community-Acquired Pneumonia

BACKGROUND: Plasma D-dimer levels are directly related to the intra- and extra-vascular coagulation that occurs in acute and chronic lung damage in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). OBJECTIVES: This study examines the relationship between the severity of community-acquired pneumonia and D-dimer levels. In addition, the study examines the correlations among community-acquired pneumonia, the radiological extent of the disease and mortality. METHODS: The Pneumonia Severity Index was used to classify patients into five groups. Patients were treated at home or in the hospital according to the guidelines for community-acquired pneumonia. Blood samples were taken from the antecubital vein with an injector and placed into citrated tubes. After they were centrifuged, the samples were evaluated with the quantitative latex method. RESULTS: The study included 60 patients who had been diagnosed with community-acquired pneumonia (mean age 62.5 ± 11.7) and 24 healthy controls (mean age 59.63 ± 6.63). The average plasma D-dimer levels were 337.3 ± 195.1ng/mL in the outpatient treatment group, 691.0 ± 180.5 in the inpatient treatment group, 1363.2 ± 331.5 ng/mLin the intensive care treatment group and 161.3 ± 38.1ng/mL in the control group (p<0.001). The mean D-dimer plasma level was 776.1 ± 473.5ng/mL in patients with an accompanying disease and 494.2 ± 280.1 ng/mL in patients without an accompanying disease (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Plasma D-dimer levels were increased even in community-acquired pneumonia patients who did not have an accompanying disease that would normally cause such an increase

Relationship Between Malnutrition Risk, Activities of Daily Living, and Adaptation to Chronic Diseases in Older People with Chest Diseases

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&lt;0.05). Conclusions. Despite the unexpected homogeneity in malnutrition risk, the NRS-2002 score emerged as a negative predictor of chronic disease adaptation. Furthermore, recent hospital admissions, daily meal consumption, and impairment in self-care were also found to have a negative influence, while age, disease duration (in years), appropriate disease knowledge, and the absence of interference from the disease with planned activities demonstrated a positive impact on chronic disease adaptation

Academic Engagement Experiences of METU FLE Students during the COVID-19 Online Education Process

This study aims to explore the academic engagement experiences of the Middle East Technical University (METU) Foreign Language Education (FLE) students during the COVID-19 online education process. For this purpose, a phenomenological study was carried out as a qualitative research design. The study sample consists of ten undergraduate METU FLE students. These participants were selected through a purposive sampling technique. To collect data, semi-structured interviews were held with the participants and audio-recorded with the participants' permission. Content analysis was utilized to analyze and interpret the collected data by developing themes, subthemes, and codes. The outstanding results include that the pre-service FLE teachers had both positive and negative experiences during the online education process. To begin with, the pre-service FLE teachers had positive experiences during online education in terms of effective learning, time efficiency, and flexibility opportunities of the process. On the contrary, most of the participants highlighted their negative experiences during online education related to concentration problems, stressfulness, need for self-regulation, the inexperience of instructors, and lack of class interaction, motivation, and socialization. Besides, the pre-service FLE teachers highlighted the factors that affected their academic engagement during the online education process. The factors that increased the participants’ academic engagement include keeping camera on during lessons, facilitative instructors, autonomous learning, and technological facilities. On the other hand, the factors that decreased students’ academic engagement involve keeping the camera off, having technical obstacles, instructors’ attitude and teaching style, home environment, and the lack of interaction and interest. Lastly, the suggestions taken from the participant pre-service FLE teachers include using varying methods during lessons to appeal to all and avoid getting bored, arranging course hours appropriately to provide time for learners’ needs, having a common course policy among instructors, and increasing student involvement in the whole process. These results are believed to be beneficial for future actions in terms of effectively designing and carrying out online education processes. As a result of this study, two of the four major subthemes that have been reached are negative experiences and positive experiences about online education, and some of the participants had opinions about both, which goes hand in hand with the findings by Erarslan and Arslan (2019). Additionally, it was found that participants talked about their experiences, such as lacking classroom interactivity, socialization, motivation, and they also highlighted how those experiences negatively affected their academic engagement levels. This result contradicts another research by Pittaway and Moss (2014), which found that pre-service teachers’ academic engagement has risen. Nonetheless, findings of this research coincide with those conducted by Özüdoğru (2021). In her study, Özüdoğru (2021) finds that the participants face psychological and physical problems caused by online education, which negatively affects their academic engagement levels, and supports the results of this study

The Limbic Degradation of Aging Brain: A Quantitative Analysis with Diffusion Tensor Imaging

WOS: 000335020000001PubMed ID: 24977184Introduction. The limbic system primarily responsible for our emotional life and memories is known to undergo degradation with aging and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is capable of revealing thewhite matter integrity. Theaimof this study is to investigate agerelated changes of quantitative diffusivity parameters and fiber characteristics on limbic system in healthy volunteers. Methods. 31 healthy subjects aged 25-70 years were examined at 1,5 TMR. Quantitative fiber tracking was performed of fornix, cingulum, and the parahippocampal gyrus. The fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurements of bilateral hippocampus, amygdala, fornix, cingulum, and parahippocampal gyrus were obtained as related components. Results. The FA values of left hippocampus, bilateral parahippocampal gyrus, and fornix showed negative correlations with aging. The ADC values of right amygdala and left cingulum interestingly showed negative relation and the left hippocampus represented positive relation with age. The cingulum showed no correlation. The significant relative changes per decade of age were found in the cingulum and parahippocampal gyrus FA measurements. Conclusion. Our approach shows that aging affects hippocampus, parahippocampus, and fornix significantly but not cingulum. These findings reveal age-related changes of limbic system in normal population that may contribute to future DTI studies

A Bimodal Extension of the Generalized Gamma Distribution

A bimodal extension of the generalized gamma distribution is proposed by using a mixing approach. Some distributional properties of the new distribution are investigated. The maximum likelihood (ML) estimators for the parameters of the new distribution are obtained. Real data examples are given to show the strength of the new distribution for modeling data.Una extensión bimodal de la distribución gamma generalizada es propuesta a través de un enfoque de mixturas. Algunas propiedades de la nueva distribución son investigadas. Los estimadores máximo verosímiles (ML por sus siglas en inglés) de los parámetros de la nueva distribución son obtenidos. Algunos ejemplos con datos reales son utilizados con el fin de mostrar las fortalezas de la nueva distribución en la modelación de datos

Chondrogenic Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells on Glycosaminoglycan-Mimetic Peptide Nanofibers

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are important extracellular matrix components of cartilage tissue and provide biological signals to stem cells and chondrocytes for development and functional regeneration of cartilage. Among their many functions, particularly sulfated glycosaminoglycans bind to growth factors and enhance their functionality through enabling growth factor-receptor interactions. Growth factor binding ability of the native sulfated glycosaminoglycans can be incorporated into the synthetic scaffold matrix through functionalization with specific chemical moieties. In this study, we used peptide amphiphile nanofibers functionalized with the chemical groups of native glycosaminoglycan molecules such as sulfonate, carboxylate and hydroxyl to induce the chondrogenic differentiation of rat mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). The MSCs cultured on GAG-mimetic peptide nanofibers formed cartilage-like nodules and deposited cartilage-specific matrix components by day 7, suggesting that the GAG-mimetic peptide nanofibers effectively facilitated their commitment into the chondrogenic lineage. Interestingly, the chondrogenic differentiation degree was manipulated with the sulfonation degree of the nanofiber system. The GAG-mimetic peptide nanofibers network presented here serve as a tailorable bioactive and bioinductive platform for stem-cell-based cartilage regeneration studies. © 2016 American Chemical Society

Root Canal Anatomy of Maxillary and Mandibular Teeth

It is a common knowledge that a comprehensive understanding of the complexity of the internal anatomy of teeth is imperative to ensure successful root canal treatment. The significance of canal anatomy has been emphasized by studies demonstrating that variations in canal geometry before cleaning, shaping, and obturation procedures had a greater effect on the outcome than the techniques themselves. In recent years, significant technological advances for imaging teeth, such as CBCT and micro-CT, respectively, have been introduced. Their noninvasive nature allows to perform in vivo anatomical studies using large populations to address the influence of several variables such as ethnicity, aging, gender, and others, on the root canal anatomy, as well as to evaluate, quantitatively and/or qualitatively, specific and fine anatomical features of a tooth group. The purpose of this chapter is to summarize the morphological aspects of the root canal anatomy published in the literature of all groups of teeth and illustrate with three-dimensional images acquired from micro-CT technology.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Plasma treatment in textile industry

Plasma technology applied to textiles is a dry, environmentally- and worker-friendly method to achieve surface alteration without modifying the bulk properties of different materials. In particular, atmospheric non-thermal plasmas are suited because most textile materials are heat sensitive polymers and applicable in a continuous processes. In the last years plasma technology has become a very active, high growth research field, assuming a great importance among all available material surface modifications in textile industry. The main objective of this review is to provide a critical update on the current state of art relating plasma technologies applied to textile industryFernando Oliveira (SFRH/BD/65254/2009) acknowledges Fundacao para a Cioncia e Tecnologia, Portugal, for its doctoral grant financial support. Andrea Zille (C2011-UMINHO-2C2T-01) acknowledges funding from Programa Compromisso para a Cioncia 2008, Portugal

Ion flotation and its applications on concentration, recovery, and removal of metal ions from solutions

Many industries, especially mining and metallurgy, deal with solutions containing ions. In some cases, these metal ions need to be concentrated and recovered from solutions and sometimes removed from wastewater. The ion flotation method has been applied for wastewater and water treatment, recovery of precious and platinum group metals, preconcentrating of rare earth elements, selective separation of multicomponent ions from dilute solutions, and analytical chemistry. It has been employed to separate heavy metals from a liquid phase using bubble attachment, originated in mineral processing. In these cases, ion flotation has an important place among other methods because it is a cheap and practical method. In this study, many ion flotation studies, especially applied at laboratory scale, were reviewed. This method gives very successful and promising results in removing heavy metals with toxic effects from wastewater and selective separation of metal ions from very low concentrated solutions. Ion flotation may take place in industrial scale operations with the new developments in flotation machines and collectors with better selectivity, high efficiency, lower cost, and environmental friendliness