The perception of COVID-19 and avoidance behavior in Turkey: the role of income level, gender and education

Purpose This study aims to reveal both the effect of the perception of COVID-19 on avoidance behaviors and the mediating role of the perception of personal control in this relationship. COVID-19 emerged in December 2019 and since then, it has spread globally in a short period and has affected people socially, economically and culturally. Design/methodology/approach The data for the research was collected from 418 participants during COVID-19, through online questionnaires. The obtained data were analyzed through AMOS and SPSS software using structural equation modeling. Findings The research results show that some perceptions of COVID-19 affect avoidance behavior and that personal control has a mediating role. It has also been found that gender plays a moderating role in the relationship between COVID-19 and avoidance behavior. It has been found that women are especially more sensitive compared to men in perceiving COVID-19. This study also found that perception of COVID-19 changes depending on income. Practical implications After the pandemic is over, people will get in contact with each other less than before, and trade will change accordingly. People will avoid shopping in crowded places, and consumer behaviors will undergo different changes. All of these results considered, it is expected that avoidance behavior will cause some permanent behavioral changes in consumers. Originality/value The study answers the critical question about the effect of the perception of COVID-19 on avoidance behavior. Furthermore, the role of income level, gender and education in this relationship will be highlighted

Forgotten and fragmented ureteral j stent with stone formation: combined endoscopic management

ABSTRACTObjective : Ureteral stents are widely used in endo-urological procedures. However, ureteral stents can be forgotten and cause serious complications, including fragmentation, migration and urosepsis.There are few reports about forgotten and fragmented ureteral stents with stone formation. We aimed to present this rare case with successful combined endo-urological management.</p

Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 and susceptibility to lung cancer: a population genetics perspective

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the polymorphism frequency of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) (rs1799889) 4G/5G in patients with lung cancer. Methods: In this study, 286 genomic DNAs (154 lung cancer patients + 132 subjects without lung cancer) were analyzed. Polymorphisms were determined by using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method, with 4G and 5G allele-specific primers. PCR products were assessed by a charge-coupled device camera and exposed to 2% agarose gel electrophoresis. Results: The frequencies of the PAI-1 gene 4G/5G genotypes were found to be 21% 4G/4G, 16% 4G/5G, and 62% 5G/5G in the control group and 31.4% 4G/4G, 30.8% 4G/5G, and 37.8% 5G/5G in the patient group. It was determined that the 5G/5G genotype frequency was high in patients in comparison with other genotypes. Conclusions: This study found a statistically significant difference between the groups with respect to genotype distribution. Consequently, we can say that the PAI-1 gene 4G/5G polymorphism is associated with lung cancer in Turkey.Artvin Coruh University: 2011.M80.02.0

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Skin thickness on bony prominences measured by ultrasonography in patients with spinal cord injury

Objective: The detailed assessment of soft tissues over bony prominences and identification of methods of predicting pressure sores would improve the quality of care for patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). Comparing skin thicknesses on bony prominences in patients with SCI to those in healthy individuals will represent, to our knowledge, the first study aimed at determining whether differences in skin thicknesses between these groups can be detected by ultrasound

Pararectal Migration of a Malleable Rod: An Unusual Late Complication

A 75-year-old male had failed to respond conservative therapy for erectile dysfunction and had undergone insertion of a malleable penile prosthesis in 1995. Twenty years after the initial implant he presented with right-sided prosthesis localized in the buttock. There was no infection. The prosthesis was extracted through an incision in the right hip. As in the recent case, mechanical failures in malleable penile prosthesis models, can occur. Penile implant migration back to the buttock without a\ud curve deformity is an extremely rare complication. Clinicians should be alert about possible late complications of penile prosthesis

Can Doppler ultrasonography twinkling artifact be used as an alternative imaging modality to non-contrast-enhanced computed tomography in patients with ureteral stones? A prospective clinical study

We aimed to evaluate the use of twinkling artifact (TA) on color Doppler ultrasonography (USG) as an alternative imaging modality to non-contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) in patients with ureteral stones in this prospective study. Totally, 106 consecutive patients who had been diagnosed with ureterolithiasis by CT were enrolled in this prospective study. A urinary system color Doppler ultrasonography was performed on the same day with CT by an experienced radiologist who was blinded to the CT scan. TA was graded as 0, 1 and 2. The overall specificity of TA was calculated according to the NCCT as a gold standard method. The size, side and localization of stone and the demographic characteristics of patients were compared with twinkling positivity. TA on color Doppler USG was detected in 92 (86.8 %) patients. Statistically significant difference was found between the TA and localization of ureteral stones (p = 0.044). When we sub-grouped the patients according to the TA grades as 0, 1 and 2, 14 patients were with TA grade 0, 55 with TA grade 1 and 37 with TA grade 2. The mean stone size of groups was significantly different (p = 0.012). Bigger and proximal ureteral stones tended to have more TA on color Doppler USG. TA on color Doppler USG could be a good and safe alternative imaging modality with comparable results between NCCT. It could be useful for the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with ureterolithiasis

Phytocontact Dermatitis: A Case Study

Introduction: Herbal medicines are used for different purposes by applying them directly to the skin