Investigation of cytokine levels in calves with sepsis

This study aimed to detect changes in clinical parameters, biochemical and serum cytokine levels in calves with sepsis. In the study, 34 calves diagnosed with sepsis according to clinical and laboratory results and 7 calves deemed to be healthy according to clinical and laboratory results were used. The blood sample was taken from vena jugularis for determination of hematological, biochemical, and cytokine levels. Significant changes were observed in the clinical parameters of calves with sepsis. Serum concentrations of IL-1β, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, and INF-γ were significantly increased (p < 0.05) in calves with sepsis compared to the control group. Also, a significant increase (p < 0.05) in serum BUN, creatinine, CK, and CK-MB levels and a significant decrease in TP level (p < 0.05) were determined in calves with sepsis compared to the control group.In conclusion, it was concluded that varying degrees of tissue/organ damage developed in calves with sepsis and cytokines played an important role in the development of inflammatory damage during sepsis

Economic Impacts of Expected Istanbul Earthquake: Scenario Generation

3rd International Conference on Basic Sciences, Engineering and Technology, ICBASET 2023 -- 27 April 2023 through 30 April 2023 -- -- 303059It is difficult to make precise estimations about the time, location, and magnitude of earthquakes which can cause significant consequences such as massive casualties and economic losses. Although the earthquakes cannot be prevented, minimization of losses can be achieved with effective disaster management. In this study, four most likely scenarios that are put forward by the geological engineers and scientists are evaluated to illustrate the potential impacts of a possible earthquake. Therefore, effects of an earthquake on physical damage, sectoral growth and post-earthquake government expenditures, tax revenues, investments, imports, and exports are numerically estimated. Additionally, since Istanbul has an intense economic relations and workforce flow beyond its borders, it is evaluated as a whole with Kocaeli and Tekirdağ provinces. The impact of the earthquake is privatized on the basis of Istanbul, Kocaeli and Tekirdağ districts. Considering the location of the fault lines and length of breaks, it is thought that different districts would be affected by the earthquake in different degrees, and impacts of scenarios are created in this direction. Damage rates in different districts due to different magnitudes are predicted by taking 17 August 1999 Izmit Bay Earthquake as a basis. As a result of this study, the damage rates of the building stock and industrial facilities, number of casualties, sectoral and expenditure change rates in the districts of Istanbul, Tekirdağ and Kocaeli are determined. In addition, the change rates in physical, sectoral, and expenditure areas are also reflected on the rest of Türkiye. Thus, the results obtained from the scenarios will help to generate certain policy strategies after the earthquake and contribute to reducing economic, social, and physical damage. © 2023 Published by ISRES.121k925? This study has been funded by TÜBİTAK-1001 “Special Call for Earthquake Research”, Project Number: 121k925, Project Title: Analysing the Dynamic Impacts of the Expected Istanbul Earthquake on the Economy of Istanbul: An Input-Output Economic Model Integrated to a System Dynamics Model

Imaging Biomarkers of Glioblastoma Treatment Response: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Recent Machine Learning Studies.

OBJECTIVE: Monitoring biomarkers using machine learning (ML) may determine glioblastoma treatment response. We systematically reviewed quality and performance accuracy of recently published studies. METHODS: Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis: Diagnostic Test Accuracy, we extracted articles from MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane Register between 09/2018-01/2021. Included study participants were adults with glioblastoma having undergone standard treatment (maximal resection, radiotherapy with concomitant and adjuvant temozolomide), and follow-up imaging to determine treatment response status (specifically, distinguishing progression/recurrence from progression/recurrence mimics, the target condition). Using Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies Two/Checklist for Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging, we assessed bias risk and applicability concerns. We determined test set performance accuracy (sensitivity, specificity, precision, F1-score, balanced accuracy). We used a bivariate random-effect model to determine pooled sensitivity, specificity, area-under the receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC-AUC). Pooled measures of balanced accuracy, positive/negative likelihood ratios (PLR/NLR) and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were calculated. PROSPERO registered (CRD42021261965). RESULTS: Eighteen studies were included (1335/384 patients for training/testing respectively). Small patient numbers, high bias risk, applicability concerns (particularly confounding in reference standard and patient selection) and low level of evidence, allow limited conclusions from studies. Ten studies (10/18, 56%) included in meta-analysis gave 0.769 (0.649-0.858) sensitivity [pooled (95% CI)]; 0.648 (0.749-0.532) specificity; 0.706 (0.623-0.779) balanced accuracy; 2.220 (1.560-3.140) PLR; 0.366 (0.213-0.572) NLR; 6.670 (2.800-13.500) DOR; 0.765 ROC-AUC. CONCLUSION: ML models using MRI features to distinguish between progression and mimics appear to demonstrate good diagnostic performance. However, study quality and design require improvement

MR imaging of osteochondral grafts and autologous chondrocyte implantation

Surgical articular cartilage repair therapies for cartilage defects such as osteochondral autograft transfer, autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) or matrix associated autologous chondrocyte transplantation (MACT) are becoming more common. MRI has become the method of choice for non-invasive follow-up of patients after cartilage repair surgery. It should be performed with cartilage sensitive sequences, including fat-suppressed proton density-weighted T2 fast spin-echo (PD/T2-FSE) and three-dimensional gradient-echo (3D GRE) sequences, which provide good signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios. A thorough magnetic resonance (MR)-based assessment of cartilage repair tissue includes evaluations of defect filling, the surface and structure of repair tissue, the signal intensity of repair tissue and the subchondral bone status. Furthermore, in osteochondral autografts surface congruity, osseous incorporation and the donor site should be assessed. High spatial resolution is mandatory and can be achieved either by using a surface coil with a 1.5-T scanner or with a knee coil at 3 T; it is particularly important for assessing graft morphology and integration. Moreover, MR imaging facilitates assessment of complications including periosteal hypertrophy, delamination, adhesions, surface incongruence and reactive changes such as effusions and synovitis. Ongoing developments include isotropic 3D sequences, for improved morphological analysis, and in vivo biochemical imaging such as dGEMRIC, T2 mapping and diffusion-weighted imaging, which make functional analysis of cartilage possible

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

A factorial trial of six interventions for the prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting.

BACKGROUND: Untreated, one third of patients who undergo surgery will have postoperative nausea and vomiting. Although many trials have been conducted, the relative benefits of prophylactic antiemetic interventions given alone or in combination remain unknown. METHODS: We enrolled 5199 patients at high risk for postoperative nausea and vomiting in a randomized, controlled trial of factorial design that was powered to evaluate interactions among as many as three antiemetic interventions. Of these patients, 4123 were randomly assigned to 1 of 64 possible combinations of six prophylactic interventions: 4 mg of ondansetron or no ondansetron; 4 mg of dexamethasone or no dexamethasone; 1.25 mg of droperidol or no droperidol; propofol or a volatile anesthetic; nitrogen or nitrous oxide; and remifentanil or fentanyl. The remaining patients were randomly assigned with respect to the first four interventions. The primary outcome was nausea and vomiting within 24 hours after surgery, which was evaluated blindly. RESULTS: Ondansetron, dexamethasone, and droperidol each reduced the risk of postoperative nausea and vomiting by about 26 percent. Propofol reduced the risk by 19 percent, and nitrogen by 12 percent; the risk reduction with both of these agents (i.e., total intravenous anesthesia) was thus similar to that observed with each of the antiemetics. All the interventions acted independently of one another and independently of the patients' baseline risk. Consequently, the relative risks associated with the combined interventions could be estimated by multiplying the relative risks associated with each intervention. Absolute risk reduction, though, was a critical function of patients' baseline risk. CONCLUSIONS: Because antiemetic interventions are similarly effective and act independently, the safest or least expensive should be used first. Prophylaxis is rarely warranted in low-risk patients, moderate-risk patients may benefit from a single intervention, and multiple interventions should be reserved for high-risk patients

AN ESSAY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

Binary search tree (BST) is a fundamental data structure widely used for accesses to ordered data. Despite its wide usage, no online algorithm has yet been proven to be O(1) competitive to the optimal offline dynamic BST algorithm. The first part of this essay surveys different optimality measures with a greater emphasis on dynamic and static optimality. Lower bounds on the performance of an optimal dynamic BST are discussed. Online splay tree algorithm which is conjectured to be dynamically optimal and two different O(lg lg(n)) competitive online algorithms (Tango tree and Multi-Splay tree) are studied. Secondly variable-to-fixed length scheme of lossless compression is discussed and the entropy lower bound is tied to the static optimality of search trees. Different techniques (based on renewal theory and Markov processes) for analyzing plurally parsable dictionaries with memoryless sources and sources with memory are discussed. i

Using the conceptual change instruction to improve learning

This study investigated the effect of conceptual change instruction on Grade 11 students' (aged 16 - 17 years) understanding of respiration. To first determine students' misconceptions, ten Grade 11 students were interviewed and data obtained from these interviews and related literature was used to develop the Respiration Concept Test used in the next stage of the research. The test was administered to a total of 68 Grade 11 students in two classes of an urban high school. The experimental group consisted of 34 students, 18 boys and 16 girls, who received conceptual change instruction; the control group was made up of 34 students, 19 boys and 15 girls. The control group received traditional instruction in which the teacher provided instruction through lecture and discussion methods. Prior to instruction, students in both groups were pre-tested in order to determine their previous understanding of respiration. The results revealed that students in both groups had an equal understanding of respiration. After instruction, data were analysed with two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) using science process skill scores as a covariate. Results indicated that students' science process skills accounted for a significant portion of variation in respiration concepts achievement. The conceptual change instruction, which explicitly dealt with students' misconceptions, produced significantly greater achievement in the understanding of respiration concepts. This analysis also revealed a significant difference between the performance of females and that of males in the favour of females, but there was no significant interaction between treatment and gender difference