Perspective of turkish medicine students on cancer, cancer treatments, palliative care, and oncologists (ares study): A study of the palliative care working committee of the turkish oncology group (TOG)

Cancer is one of the most common causes of death all over the World (Rahib et al. in Cancer Res 74(11):2913–2921, 2014; Silbermann et al. in Ann Oncol 23(Suppl 3):iii15–iii28, 2012). It is crucial to diagnose this disease early by effective screening methods and also it is very important to acknowledge the community on various aspects of this disease such as the treatment methods and palliative care. Not only the oncologists but every medical doctor should be educated well in dealing with cancer patients. Previous studies suggested various opinions on the level of oncology education in medical schools (Pavlidis et al. in Ann Oncol 16(5):840–841, 2005). In this study, the perspectives of medical students on cancer, its treatment, palliative care, and the oncologists were analyzed in relation to their educational status. A multicenter survey analysis was performed on a total of 4224 medical school students that accepted to enter this study in Turkey. After the questions about the demographical characteristics of the students, their perspectives on the definition, diagnosis, screening, and treatment methods of cancer and their way of understanding metastatic disease as well as palliative care were analyzed. The questionnaire includes questions with answers and a scoring system of Likert type 5 (absolutely disagree = 1, completely agree = 5). In the last part of the questionnaire, there were some words to detect what the words “cancer” and “oncologist” meant for the students. The participant students were analyzed in two study groups; “group 1” (n = 1.255) were phases I and II students that had never attended an oncology lesson, and “group 2” (n = 2.969) were phases III to VI students that had attended oncology lessons in the medical school. SPSS v17 was used for the database and statistical analyses. A value of p < 0.05 was noted as statistically significant. Group 1 defined cancer as a contagious disease (p = 0.00025), they believed that early diagnosis was never possible (p = 0.042), all people with a diagnosis of cancer would certainly die (p = 0.044), and chemotherapy was not successful in a metastatic disease (p = 0.003) as compared to group 2. The rate of the students that believed gastric cancer screening was a part of the national screening policy was significantly more in group 1 than in group 2 (p = 0.00014). Group 2 had a higher anxiety level for themselves or their family members to become a cancer patient. Most of the students in both groups defined medical oncologists as warriors (57% in group 1 and 40% in group 2; p = 0.097), and cancer was reminding them of “death” (54% in group 1 and 48% in group 2; p = 0.102). This study suggested that oncology education was useful for the students’ understanding of cancer and related issues; however, the level of oncology education should be improved in medical schools in Turkey. This would be helpful for medical doctors to cope with many aspects of cancer as a major health care problem in this country. © 2018, American Association for Cancer Education

Hybrid EEFIT mission to february 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake sequence

The southwestern part of Türkiye was hit on 6 February 2023 by an Mw 7.8 (epicentre:Pazarcık) and then an Mw 7.5 earthquake (epicentre: Elbistan). The event was followed by tensof thousands of aftershocks including the Mw 6.3 event on 20 February (epicentre: Uzunbağ).This paper reports on the preliminary findings of the mission organised by the UK’s EarthquakeEngineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) to the Kahramanmaraş Earthquake sequence ofFebruary 2023. This mission followed a hybrid model, combining field and remote investigationtechniques, to investigate the characteristics of the earthquake sequence, its impact on buildingsand infrastructure, as well as the efficacy of relief, response and recovery operations. The keymessages include that the building stock is hard to categorise which brings along difficulties withdamage assessment, that the recovery and reconstruction require multi-sectoral engagement ofkey stakeholders, and that the auditing and quality control mechanisms within the constructionindustry need revisiting in the way forward for better disaster resilience in Türkiye

Ab initio study of the structural, electronic and optical properties of NaTaO3

WOS: 000278314100007Ab initio calculations were performed of the structural, electronic and optical properties of the cubic ([image omitted], tetragonal ([image omitted], and orthorhombic ([image omitted]) phases of NaTaO3 using a plane-wave pseudopotential method within the density-functional theory. Results are presented for the structural properties, electronic band structure, density of states and imaginary and real parts of the frequency-dependent linear optical response. Cubic and tetragonal NaTaO3 both have an indirect band gap, at the R- and Z- points, respectively, whereas, orthorhombic NaTaO3 has a direct band gap at the - point. The optical properties of NaTaO3 were investigated by ab initio calculation under the scissor approximation. The real and imaginary parts of the dielectric function and, hence, the optical constants (such as absorption coefficient and the electron energy-loss spectrum) were calculated. This is the first quantitative theoretical prediction of optical properties, except for absorption of the orthorhombic phase, of the NaTaO3 compound

First-principles study of structural, elastic, electronic and vibrational properties of BiCoO3

We used density functional theory (DFT) to study the structural, elastic, electronic, and lattice dynamical properties of tetragonal BiCoO3 applying the "norm-conserving" pseudopotentials within the local spin density approximation (LSDA). The calculated equilibrium lattice parameters and atomic displacements are in agreement with the available experimental and theoretical results. Moreover, the structural stability of tetragonal BiCoO 3 were confirmed by the calculated elastic constants. In addition, the elastic properties of polycrystalline aggregates including bulk, shear and Young's moduli, and Poisson's ratio are also determined. The electronic band structure, total and partial density of states (DOS and PDOS) with ferromagnetic spin configuration are obtained. The results show that tetragonal BiCoO 3 has an indirect band gap with both up- and down-spin configurations and its bonding behavior is of covalent nature. We compute Born effective charge (BEC) which is found to be quite anisotropic of Bi, Co and O atoms. The infrared and Raman active phonon mode frequencies at the Cyrillic capital letter GHE point are found. The phonon dispersion curves exhibit imaginary frequencies which lead from the high-symmetry tetragonal phase to low-symmetry rhombohedral phase in BiCoO3. The six independent elastic constants, including bulk, shear and Young's moduli, and Poisson's ratio, complete BEC tensor and phonon dispersion relations in tetragonal BiCoO3 are predicted for the first time. Results of the calculations are compared with the existing experimental and theoretical data. © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.FEF2011D13, FEF2010BAP8This work supported by Cukurova University under project number FEF2011D13 and FEF2010BAP8

Structural, electronic, elastic and vibrational properties of BiAlO 3: A first principles study

We present a study of the structural, electronic, elastic and vibrational properties of the rhombohedral BiAlO3 structure within the local density approximation of density functional theory using norm-conserving pseudopotentials. The calculated equilibrium lattice constant, angle and atomic position are in reasonable agreement with the available experimental and theoretical dates. Based on the elastic constants and their related parameters, the crystal mechanical stability have been discussed. The elastic constants for BiAlO3 are also needed to completely determine its elastic properties including polycrystalline bulk, shear and Young's moduli, Poisson's ratio and the elastic anisotropy. Energy band structure shows that the rhombohedral BiAlO3 has an indirect band gap between D and ?-D symmetry points. We compute Born effective charge tensor, which is found to be quite anisotropic of Bi and O atoms. BiAlO3 have been studied by applying the direct method and deriving the phonon dispersion relations which include the longitudinal/transverse optical phonon mode splitting. In the rhombohedral phase the phonon dispersion curves show a soft mode between X and ?-point. This soft mode leads to the observed rhombohedral-cubic phase transition. The results are compared with the previous calculations and available experimental data. Crown Copyright © 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.FEF2011D13, FEF2010BAP8This work supported by Cukurova University under Project Number FEF2011D13 and FEF2010BAP8. The authors are grateful to SIESTA group that we used in our computations