Factors influencing the level of stigma in Parkinson’s disease in western Turkey

Background and purpose – Stigma is a widespread phenomenon in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and has been shown to affect the quality of life of individuals. This study aims to assess the level of stigma and identify the factors contributing to stigma in patients with PD in Turkey. Methods – A total of 142 patients diagno sed with PD between June 2022 and March 2023 were included in the study. Sociodemographic data including age, gender, marital status, education level, and duration of PD were collected using a sociodemographic information form. Mo tor symptom severity was assessed using the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS part III). The disease stage was determined using the Hoehn and Yahr scale. Participants were classified as PIGD (postural instability/gait difficulty) or TD (tremor dominant) based on the UPDRS score. Patients with a UPDRS ratio greater than or equal to 1.5 were classified as TD, while subjects with a ratio less than or equal to 1.0 were classified as PIGD. Ratios between 1.0 and 1.5 were classified as mixed type. Depression was assessed us ing the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D), while stigma was measured using the Chronic Illness Anticipated Stigma Scale (CIASS) and the stigma sub-scale of the 39 item Parkinson’s Disease Question naire (PDQ-39 stigma sub-scale). Results – The mean score on the stigma sub-scale of the PDQ-39 was 7.60±4.39, while the mean total stigma score on the CIASS was 1.37±0.39. Our results indicated that stigma was more prevalent among patients with PD with the TD motor subtype, younger age, shorter disease duration, higher level of disability, and presence of depression symptoms. Conclusion – Our study highlights the asso ciation between stigma and disease progres sion, duration, and depressive symptoms in patients with PD in western Turkey. | Háttér és cél – A Parkinson kórban (PD) szenvedők gyakran találkoznak előítélettel és szembesülnek stigmatizálással, ami bizonyí tottan rontja életminőségüket. E tanulmány célja a stigmatizáltság szintjének felmérése, és a stigmához hozzájáruló tényezők azono sítása törökországi PD-betegek körében. Módszerek – A vizsgálatba összesen 142, 2022 júniusa és 2023 márciusa között Par kinson-kórral diagnosztizált beteget vontunk be. A szociodemográfiai adatokat, köztük az életkort, a nemet, a családi állapotot, az iskolai végzettséget és a PD időtartamát egy szociodemográfiai adatlap segítségével gyűj töttük össze. A motoros tünetek súlyosságát a Mozgászavar Társaság-féle Egyesített Par kinson-kór Pontozó Skála (UPDRS III. rész) se gítségével értékeltük. A betegség stádiumát a Hoehn–Yahr-skála segítségével határoztuk meg. A résztvevőket az UPDRS-pontszám alapján PIGD (posturalis instabilitás/járási nehézség) vagy TD (tremordomináns) kate góriába soroltuk. Az 1,5-nél nagyobb vagy azzal egyenlő UPDRS-aránnyal rendelkező betegeket TD-nek, míg az 1,0-nél kisebb vagy azzal egyenlő arányúakat PIGD-nek minősí tettük. Az 1,0 és 1,5 közötti aránnyal bírókat vegyes típusba soroltuk. A depressziót a Hamilton Depresszió Pontozó Skála (HAM-D), míg a stigmát a Krónikus Betegségekben Anticipált Stigma Skála (CIASS) és a 39 tételes Parkinson-kór Kérdőív stigmaalskálája (PDQ- 39 stigmaalskála) segítségével mértük. Eredmények – A PDQ-39 stigmaalskála átlagos pontszáma 7,60 ± 4,39 volt, míg a CIASS teljes stigmapontszámának átlaga 1,37 ± 0,39 volt. Eredményeink azt mutat ják, hogy a stigma gyakoribb a TD motoros altípusú, fiatalabb, rövidebb betegségtar tamú, nagyobb fokú fogyatékossággal élő és a depressziós tünetekkel rendelkező PD betegekkel szemben. Következtetés – Tanulmányunk rávilágít a stigmatizáltság és a betegség progressziója, időtartama és a depressziós tünetek közötti összefüggésre a nyugat-törökországi PD- betegek körében

Analysis, design and implementation of a web database with Oracle 8i

This thesis represents a model of web-database analysis, design and implementation. An electronic bulletin board for the Naval Postgraduate School is implemented for demonstration. The model includes Oracle8i DBMS as the database, Java (Java Server Pages, Java Script Enterprise Java Beans, Java Servlets) as the programming language. Apache HTTP Server v.1.3 Tomcat v.1.2 is used as the Web server and JSP engine. Windows NT4.O served as the OS environment From the technical aspect, Database Management Systems, Web-Database Architectures, Server Extension Programs, Oracle8i as well as several other software and hardware components are reviewed, and some are recommended.http://archive.org/details/analysisdesignnd109451081

Entrepreneurial Universities in Times of Crisis: Case of Covid-19 Pandemic

Entrepreneurial universities are at the centre of innovation ecosystems, and play a critical role in improving them. The concept of the quintuple helix, which deals with the interrelations between universities, industries, governments, societies and environments is highly sensitive to the role of entrepreneurial universities which could pave the way for their success. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they faced several challenges, and the ecosystem needed their attention to a greater extent. This research highlights the main challenges faced by entrepreneurial universities and their responses to those challenges. Hence, qualitative research was conducted by interviewing twenty-five experts from different countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Turkey, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, and Lebanon. The respondents were engaged in five online focus group sessions, and the findings were coded. The findings revealed the main challenges faced by entrepreneurial universities as well as their relevant potential responses.   Research paper Keywords: The Middle East; Entrepreneurial universities; Quintuple helix; Covid-19; Crisis Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kawamorita, H., Salamzadeh, A., Demiryurek, K., & Ghajarzadeh, M. (2020). Entrepreneurial Universities in Times of Crisis: Case of Covid-19 Pandemic, Journal of Entrepreneurship, Business and Economics, 8(1), 77–88

Surface modification of stimuli responsive polymers by wrinkling method: surface morphology and bacterial adsorption studies

Stimuli responsive polymers are the great candidates to engineer the surfaces that can switch between different states of surface energy. Integration of those responsive polymers to the systems, where filtration or a controlled adsorption of the microscopic organisms are targeted, offers a very practical and functional pathway. Topographical modifications of these polymers may improve the wettability limits of the smart surfaces and the control over the adhesion of microscopic organisms. In this work, we present a useful method to form 2 distinct sets of surface modified thin films: Poly(Nisopropylacrylamide) [PNIPAAm] and poly(hydroxyethylmethacrylate-coperfluorodecylacrylate) [poly(HEMA-co-PFA)]. Surface modifications of the thin films are achieved by the initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) of the polymers on stretched poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) molds in order to provide simultaneous chemical and morphological treatment. The surface properties of the flat and wrinkled thin films are analyzed. Wrinkled PNIPAAm surfaces are also investigated for bacterial attachment activity

Maximizing the number of worker’s self-selected tasks in spatial crowdsourcing

ABSTRACT With the progress of mobile devices and wireless broadband, a new eMarket platform, termed spatial crowdsourcing is emerging, which enables workers (aka crowd) to perform a set of spatial tasks (i.e., tasks related to a geographical location and time) posted by a requester. In this paper, we study a version of the spatial crowdsourcing problem in which the workers autonomously select their tasks, called the worker selected tasks (WST) mode. Towards this end, given a worker, and a set of tasks each of which is associated with a location and an expiration time, we aim to find a schedule for the worker that maximizes the number of performed tasks. We first prove that this problem is NP-hard. Subsequently, for small number of tasks, we propose two exact algorithms based on dynamic programming and branch-and-bound strategies. Since the exact algorithms cannot scale for large number of tasks and/or limited amount of resources on mobile platforms, we also propose approximation and progressive algorithms. We conducted a thorough experimental evaluation on both real-world and synthetic data to compare the performance and accuracy of our proposed approaches

Symptomatic Giant Cavernous Haemangioma of the Liver: Is Enucleation a Safe Method?

Twenty-three patients with symptomatic giant hemangioma of the liver were treated by surgery between 1979 and 1996 at the department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Çukurova. Twenty-three enucleations were performed in 21 patients, left lateral segmentectomy in one patient and enucleation plus left lobectomy in one patient. The tumors were enucleated along the interface between the hemangioma and normal liver tissue. The diameters of the tumors ranged from 5×5 to 25×15 cm. The mean blood loss for enucleations was 525 ml (range 500–1000 ml). There was no mortality and no postoperative bleeding. Three patients had postoperative complications. Enucleation is the best surgical technique for symptomatic giant hemangioma of the liver. It may be performed with no mortality, low morbidity and the preservation of all normal liver parenchyma

Patients with primary restless legs syndrome have higher prevalence of autonomic dysfunction and irritable bowel syndrome

CONCLUSION The presence of autonomic nervous system impairment in patients with pRLS and the strong link between IBS and pRLS merit further, more extensive investigation

Nitric oxide synthases in infants and children with pulmonary hypertension and congenital heart disease

Nitric oxide is an important regulator of vascular tone in the pulmonary circulation. Surgical correction of congenital heart disease limits pulmonary hypertension to a brief period. The study has measured expression of endothelial (eNOS), inducible (iNOS), and neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) in the lungs from biopsies of infants with pulmonary hypertension secondary to cardiac abnormalities (n = 26), compared to a control group who did not have pulmonary or cardiac disease (n = 8). eNOS, iNOS and nNOS were identified by immunohistochemistry and quantified in specific cell types. Significant increases of eNOS and iNOS staining were found in pulmonary vascular endothelial cells of patients with congenital heart disease compared to control infants. These changes were confined to endothelial cells and not present in other cell types. Patients who strongly expressed eNOS also had strong expression of iNOS. Upregulation of eNOS and iNOS occurs at an early stage of pulmonary hypertension, and may be a compensatory mechanism limiting the rise in pulmonary artery pressure

Существует ли связь между средним уровнем mIDkIne и прогнозом заболевания COVID-19?

   The objective was aimed to measure plasma midkine (MK)* levels in patients with COVID-19 and assess its clinical significance.   Materials and Methods. 88 patients observed in our hospital with a diagnosis of COVID-19 were included in the study. The patients’ demographic characteristics, clinical, and laboratory data were studied, and the relationship between MK levels, prognosis, and other parameters was investigated.   Results. Of the 88 patients included in the study, 43 (48.9 %) were female and 45 (51.1%) were male. 24 (27%) patients died. The mean age of non-survivors was 70 ± 12.3 years and the survivors were 61.9 ± 18.2 years. Mortality predictors such as D-dimer, ferritin, troponin, LDH, CRP, and procalcitonin were significantly higher in non-survivors than in survivors (p < 0.05). The median MK level (IR) was 152.5 ± 125 pg/ml in all patients, 143 ± 149 pg/ml in survivors, and 165.5 ± 76 pg/ml in non-survivors (p = 0.546). The difference between these two groups was not statistically significant. The area under the ROC curve was found to be 0.542 (95% CI 0.423–0.661, p = 0.546).   Conclusion. MK is not a biomarker that can replace or reinforce known predictors of mortality in COVID-19 patients.   Цель. Исследование направлено на измерение уровня Midkine (MK)* в плазме крови у пациентов с COVID-19 и оценку его клинической значимости.   Материалы и методы. В исследование включены 88 пациентов, наблюдавшихся в клинике с диагнозом COVID-19. Изучены демографические характеристики пациентов, клинические и лабораторные данные, а также исследована взаимосвязь между уровнями MK, прогнозом и другими параметрами.   Результаты. Из 88 пациентов, включенных в исследование, 43 (48,9 %) были женщинами и 45 (51,1 %) – мужчинами. 24 (27 %) пациента умерли. Средний возраст невыживших составил 70 ± 12,3 года, а выживших – 61,9 ± 18,2 года. Предикторы смертности, такие как D-димер, ферритин, тропонин, ЛДГ, СРБ и прокальцитонин, были значительно выше у умерших, чем у выживших (р < 0,05). Медиана уровня МК (IR) составила 152,5 ± 125 пг/мл у всех пациентов, 143 ± 149 пг/мл у выживших и 165,5 ± 76 пг/мл у умерших (р = 0,546). Разница между этими 2 группами была незначима. Было обнаружено, что площадь под кривой ROC составляет 0,542 (95 % ДИ 0,423–0,661, р = 0,546).   Вывод. МК не является биомаркером, который может заменить или усилить известные предикторы смертности у пациентов с COVID-19