Temperature elevations due to NIR exposure in the brain tissue

Near infrared (NIR) lasers have been used in medical applications both for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Temperature elevation profile inside the tissue is a critical factor that needs to be better understood in these applications. The purpose of this study is to determine the temperature distribution due to a low power N I R laser irradiation in living neural tissue. Temperature measurements were made directly using a thermocouple probe inside the rat brain cortex within the sagittal plane. The spatial map indicates that N I R light penetrates more readily in the vertical directions than the spreading in the horizontal axis. The decrease in the vertical direction can be approximated with a single order exponentially decaying function. The results also suggest that the temperature elevation can be kept below 0.5 °C anywhere in the tissue if the incident laser beam power density is less than 27 mW/cm2. These experiments should be repeated in other types of neural tissue such as the white matter of the brain and the spinal cord to obtain more complete results

Data Mining as a Method for Comparison of Traffic Accidents in Şişli District of Istanbul

Studies to reduce traffic accidents are of great importance, especially for metropolitan cities. One of these metropolitan cities is undoubtedly Istanbul. In this study, a perspective on reducing traffic accidents was trying to be revealed by analyzing 3833 fatal and injury traffic accidents that occurred in the Şişli district of Istanbul between 2010-2017, with Data Mining (DM), Machine Learning (ML) and Geographic Information Systems methods (GIS), as well as traditional methods. It is aimed to visually determine the streets where traffic accidents are concentrated, to examine whether the accidents show anomalies according to the effect of the days of the week, to examine the differences according to the accidents that occur in the regions and to develop a model. For this purpose Kernel Density, decision trees, artificial neural networks, logistic regression and Naive Bayes methods were used. From the results obtained, it has been seen that some days are different from other days in terms of traffic accidents, according to the accident intensities and the performances of the modelling techniques used vary according to the regions. This study revealed that the ‘day of the week effect’ can also be applied to traffic accident

Active power loss minimization in electric power systems through chaotic artificial bee colony algorithm

Optimizacija reaktivne snage - Reactive power optimization (RPO) - osnovno je područje istraživanja u svrhu sigurnog i ekonomičnog rada energetskih sustava. RPO se može primijeniti za smanjenje gubitaka aktivne snage, reguliranje napona te za optimizaciju energetskih koeficijenata u energetskim sustavima. Funkcija ne-linearnog gubitka snage koristi se kao funkcija cilja koju treba smanjiti. U ovom se radu algoritam Kaotične umjetne kolonije pčela - Chaotic Artificial Bee Colony (CABC) - primjenjuje za smanjenje gubitka aktivne snage u energetskim sustavima. Rabe se kaotične mape kao što su logistička mapa i Henon mapa. CABS se primjenjuje na provjeravanim sustavima IEEE 6-sabirnice i IEEE 30-sabirnice i daju se rezultati. Provjerom rezultata ustanovilo se da primjena kritičnih vrijednosti stabilnosti dobivenih pomoću CABS može rezultirati dobrim potencijalnim rješenjima. Rezultati simulacije su obećavajući i pokazuju učinkovitost primijenjenog pristupa.Reactive power optimization (RPO) is a major field of study to ensure power systems for operating in a secure and economical manner. RPO can be used for decreasing of active power losses, voltage control, and for the optimization of the power coefficients in power systems. The non-linear power loss function is used as an object function that will be minimized. In this study Chaotic Artificial Bee Colony (CABC) algorithm is used to minimize the active power loss of power systems. Chaotic maps such as logistic map and Henon map are used against the random number generator. CABC is applied on the IEEE6-bus and IEEE 30-bus test systems and the results are shown. Accordingly, the results have been evaluated and observed that the stability critical values found by CABC can be used to produce good potential solutions. Simulation results are promising and show the effectiveness of the applied approach

Low-cost Kerfless Wafers with Gradient Dopant Concentration Exceeding 19% Cell Efficiency in PERC Production Line

AbstractIndustry-leading multi-crystalline PERC processing has been applied to kerfless wafers made directly from molten silicon using Direct Wafer™ technology, avoiding the need for ingot production and sawing of bricks into wafers, thus providing significant cost saving potential. Efficiency averaged 18,7% and a champion efficiency of 19,1% was achieved on wafers with uniform doping using only mass production tools and processes. An additional efficiency gain was obtained using non-uniform doping, with a higher dopant concentration on the backside of the wafers that we call “drift field wafers”. Simulations predict an efficiency increase of up to 0,9% in efficiency. In the first test, we demonstrated increased efficiency by 0,3% compared to uniformly doped wafers, leading to an average of 19,0%, with single cells > 19,3%. Further refinement of the wafer doping properties and co-optimization with mainstream cell process technologies will help accelerate the silicon PV learning curve and drive down costs for the prevailing multi-crystalline market

Patterns of active and passive smoking, and associated factors, in the South-east Anatolian Project (SEAP) region in Turkey

BACKGROUND: Smoking is an important health threat in Turkey. This study aimed to determine the frequency of and main factors associated with smoking in persons of 15 years and over, and the frequency of passive smoking in homes in the South-east Anatolian Project (SEAP) Region in Turkey. METHODS: A cross sectional design was employed. The sample waschosen by the State Institute of Statistics using a stratified cluster probability sampling method. 1126 houses representing the SEAP Region were visited. Questionnaires about tobacco smoking and related factors were applied to 2166 women and 1906 men (of 15 years old and above) in their homes. Face-to-face interview methods were employed. Participants were classified as current, ex, and non-smokers. The presence of a regular daily smoker in a house was used as an indication of passive smoking. The chi-square andlogistic regressionanalysis methods were used for the statistical analysis. RESULTS: The prevalence of smoking, in those of 15 years and over, was 11.8% in women and 49.7% in men. The prevalence of current smokers was higher in urban (34.5 %) than in rural (22.8 %) regions. The mean of total cigarette consumption was 6.5 packs/year in women and 17.9 packs/year in men. There was at least one current smoker in 70.1% of the houses. CONCLUSION: Smoking is a serious problem in the South-eastern Anatolian Region. Male gender, middle age, a high level of education and urban residency were most strongly associated with smoking

Distal triceps ruptures.

Distal triceps ruptures are rare injuries due to the special anatomical features of the muscle and tendon-bone junction

Older age and higher body mass index are independent risk factors for tendon healing in small- to medium-sized rotator cuff tears

Purpose Many previous research efforts have been made to identify prognostic factors for rotator cuff healing. However, majority of these studies were conducted with heterogeneous cohorts consisted of different tear characteristics. Healing properties of a rotator cuff tear may differ depending on tear characteristics such as tear size or fatty infiltration. Therefore, studies with subgroups confined by these variables may reflect more accurate results. This study aims to investigate predictive factors for rotator cuff healing in a subgroup with small- to medium-sized tears without significant fatty infiltration. Methods This retrospective case-control study was conducted with 94 patients with small- to medium-sized rotator cuff tears. Mean age of patients was 56.0 +/- 9.0 years and mean follow-up duration was 38.3 +/- 8.1 months. Post-operative magnetic resonance imaging assessment showed that there were 75 (79.8%) successfully healed repairs and 19 (20.2%) healing failures. Age, gender, hand dominancy, body mass index (BMI), smoking habit, diabetes, corticosteroid injection, baseline clinical status, duration of surgery and biceps procedure were variables evaluated as predictive factors. Results Both study groups showed significant improvement from baseline regarding clinical outcome measures (p < 0.05). However, successfully healed patients had significantly higher post-operative functional scores and lower pain scores (p < 0.05). The univariate analysis revealed that healing was significantly affected by age (p = 0.004), BMI (p = 0.01) and diabetes (p = 0.03). In the multivariate analysis, age (p = 0.02) and BMI (p = 0.02) were found to be significant independent factors for healing. Cutoff values for oldest age and highest BMI were 63 years and 28.1 kg/m(2), respectively, for a successful healing according to receiver-operating characteristic curve analysis. Conclusion Healing failure after rotator cuff repair in small- to medium-sized tears is associated with poorer outcomes. Age and BMI are independent predictive factors for healing. A successful repair is more likely in patients younger than 63 years and with BMI less than 28.1 kg/m(2). Surgeons should consider this information during risk assessment, decision making and patient counselling