Dual Cross-Attention for Medical Image Segmentation

We propose Dual Cross-Attention (DCA), a simple yet effective attention module that is able to enhance skip-connections in U-Net-based architectures for medical image segmentation. DCA addresses the semantic gap between encoder and decoder features by sequentially capturing channel and spatial dependencies across multi-scale encoder features. First, the Channel Cross-Attention (CCA) extracts global channel-wise dependencies by utilizing cross-attention across channel tokens of multi-scale encoder features. Then, the Spatial Cross-Attention (SCA) module performs cross-attention to capture spatial dependencies across spatial tokens. Finally, these fine-grained encoder features are up-sampled and connected to their corresponding decoder parts to form the skip-connection scheme. Our proposed DCA module can be integrated into any encoder-decoder architecture with skip-connections such as U-Net and its variants. We test our DCA module by integrating it into six U-Net-based architectures such as U-Net, V-Net, R2Unet, ResUnet++, DoubleUnet and MultiResUnet. Our DCA module shows Dice Score improvements up to 2.05% on GlaS, 2.74% on MoNuSeg, 1.37% on CVC-ClinicDB, 1.12% on Kvasir-Seg and 1.44% on Synapse datasets. Our codes are available at: https://github.com/gorkemcanates/Dual-Cross-AttentionComment: Code: https://github.com/gorkemcanates/Dual-Cross-Attentio

Preferences of speech and language therapists for telepractice in the COVID-19 pandemic and factors affecting their acceptance of the delivery model

Objectives: With the COVID-19 pandemic, telepractice became a great option in speech-language therapy services, as in many healthcare utilities. However, the transition to this service model did not occur at a similar rate for every clinician. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the experiences, preferences and factors affecting the acceptance of speech-language therapists (SLT) regarding telepractice in Turkey.Methods: Sixty-seven SLTs were presented with a questionnaire that addressed the professional tendencies, experiences and views on telepractice of them. Descriptive statistics regarding the preferences and experiences of SLTs were calculated. Moreover, factors that might be related to the number of sessions they held at the pandemic were examined with the Chi-squared test.Results: The speech-language disorders that SLTs find the most suitable for telepractice were fluency disorders, voice disorders and speech sound disorders. Groups that SLTs deemed most suitable for receiving telepractice in terms of age were 12-21, 22-64 and 7-11, respectively. A significant relationship was found between the frequency of online meetings and telepractice sessions before the pandemic and the number of sessions during the pandemic. Furthermore, a significant relationship also was found between satisfaction with using clinician skills in telepractice and the number of telepractice sessions during the pandemic.Conclusions: The importance of the first experiences of SLTs in the acceptance of the delivery method emerged. The necessity of in-service trainings and exemplary models to improve attitudes emerged. With these trainings, ensuring security, standardizing practices and increasing qualified services will be provided as well

Spatial Distribution of Education and Regional Inequalities in Turkey

Education as a major human capital determinant of the modern growth models also enters the realm of spatial analysis. Yet, studies investigating the role of spatial distribution of education on income inequalities are rare. Originating from this central discussion, the study aims to understand the spatial dimensions of education in Turkey as a first step to link educational disparities with regional income inequalities. The regional disaggregated education data for Turkey is evaluated from two perspectives; inequality and spatial dependency. Results remark that education indicators witnessed diverse inequality paths for between and within regional inequalities. Moreover spatial dependency of education is detected for primary and secondary education. However the dependency is found to be strong in the educationally and economically lagging regions of Turkey

Spatial Distribution of Education and Regional Inequalities in Turkey

Education as a major human capital determinant of the modern growth models also enters the realm of spatial analysis. Yet, studies investigating the role of spatial distribution of education on income inequalities are rare. Originating from this central discussion, the study aims to understand the spatial dimensions of education in Turkey as a first step to link educational disparities with regional income inequalities. The regional disaggregated education data for Turkey is evaluated from two perspectives; inequality and spatial dependency. Results remark that education indicators witnessed diverse inequality paths for between and within regional inequalities. Moreover spatial dependency of education is detected for primary and secondary education. However the dependency is found to be strong in the educationally and economically lagging regions of Turkey

COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection in Neonates: A Single-center Case Series

More than five million people worldwide have been infected with Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), and it has been reported that children are less infected than adults and newborns are less infected than children. The symptoms of COVID-19 are mild in children compared to adults and can often be asymptomatic. However, after 1 year of the epidemic, serious cases began to be reported in children, especially with mutant strains. Pediatricians need to know the diagnosis and course of these infections in newborns in terms of case management. There is still a lack of definitive information on the infection and transmission of COVID-19 in newborns. In this case series, four cases of community-acquired neonatal COVID-19 infection followed in our clinic are presented

Yüksek hassasiyetli montaj işlemleri için minyatür delta robot tasarımı, en iyilemesi ve denetimi

Bu makalede yüksek hassasiyetli montaj uygulamaları için minyatür delta robot tasarımı, en iyilemesi ve denetimi sunulmaktadır. Bu delta robot modüler bir mikro fabrika kavramının bir parçası olup esas olarak hızlı ve hassas al-bırak işlemlerini gerçekleştirecek bir manipülatör olarak kullanılacaktır. Robotun önceden belirlenmiş 40 mm3 kübik şekilli bir çalışma uzayı için gerekli olan kinematik parametrelerin elde edilmesi için kinematik analiz gerçekleştirilmiştir. En iyileme sürecinden elde edilen parametreler kullanılarak tasarım süreci gerçekleştirilmiş ve robot üretilmiştir. Tasarlanan gerekli elektronik aksam ile ve denetim algoritmasıyla tasarım testleri gerçekleştirilmiş ve ümit verici sonuçlar elde edilmiştir. Tasarımın iyileştirilmesine yönelik yapılacak çalışmalar belirtilmiş ve yeni bir tasarım üzerinde çalışılmaya başlanmıştır

Enhanced Second Harmonic Generation from Coupled Asymmetric Plasmonic Metal Nanostructures

We show that second harmonic generation can be enhanced by Fano resonant coupling of asymmetric plasmonic metal nanostructures. We develop a theoretical model examining the effects of electromagnetic interaction between two metal nanostructures on the second harmonic generation. We compare the second harmonic generation efficiency of a single plasmonic metal nanostructure with that of two coupled ones. We show that second harmonic generation from a single metal nanostructure can be enhanced about 30 times by attaching a second metal nanostructure with a 10 times higher quality factor than that of the first one. The origin of this enhancement is Fano resonant coupling of the two metal nanostructures. We support our findings on Fano enhancement of second harmonic generation by an experimental study of a coupled plasmonic system composed of a silver nanoparticle and a silver nanowire on glass surface in which the ratio of the quality factors are also estimated to be around 10 times

Arthrotomy and Washing Procedure for Neonatal Bacterial Arthritis in a Series of Cases

Septic arthritis is a rare health issue during neonatal period. It should be remembered that the treatment of this disease can lead to serious problems in the long term when it is late. In this series of cases, we presented arthrotomy and washing procedures in three neonatal patients with septic arthritis. We evaluated the pros and cons of the procedure and we compared it to non-surgical treatment methods. We have concluded that the washing procedure can be more effective than non-surgical methods