In Vitro Activity of Ceftolozane/tazobactam and Ceftazidime/avibactam Against Carbapenemase-producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that CZA and C/T may be an alternative treatment for some of the carbapenem-resistant P. aeruginosa infections. Further in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of these new treatment options against the increasing threat of MDR P. aeruginosa

Diagnostic Role of Intravesical Prostatic Protrusion and Visual Prostate Symptom Score in Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms in Male

INTRODUCTION: In this study, it was aimed to evaluate non-invasive, effective and low-cost diagnostic methods of bladder filling and voiding abnormalities in male patients. METHODS: Visual Prostate Symptom Score (VPSS) and the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) were completed by the patients. Patients' intravesical prostatic protrusion (IPP), prostate volume, and post voiding residual urine (PVR) were measured by suprapubic ultrasound. Bladder Outlet Obstruction Number (BOON) was used to calculate urethral resistance. Patients with a BOON value above -20 were considered obstructive. RESULTS: This study included 219 male patients aged 50 years and over.The number of patients with a BOON value over -20 were 34 (obstructed) and below -20 were 61 (non-obstructed). There was a significant difference between these two groups in terms of PSA, prostate volume, IPP, Qmax, PVR, IPSS, and VPSS. It was observed that IPSS and VPSS were correlated (r=0.786, p=0.001). Obstructive (r=0.779, p=0.000) and irritative symptoms (r=0.813, p=0.000) of IPSS and VPSS were also observed to be correlated. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: VPSS was found to be equivalent to IPSS in the diagnosis of lower urinary tract symptoms (p=0.001). IPP is an important, practical, and non-invasive method that correlates with IPSS, VPSS, and BOON

Perkütan Nefrolitotomi De İki Farklı Renal Dilatasyon Tekniği: One-Shot Dilatasyon ve Ardışık Dilatasyon

Objective: In this study, we aimed to compare the results in patients undergoing the oneshot dilatation (OD) technique and the conventional serial dilatation (SD) technique with amplatz dilators in percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PNL) operations. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated the data of 213 patients who had undergone PNL between January 2016 and June 2018. The patients who had undergone SD were classified as Group 1 and the patients undergoing OD as Group 2. All of the patients had undergone contrast-free computed tomography (CT) before the operation. The PNL procedure was performed by experienced endo-urologists. Follow-up CT was performed in the 3rd postoperative month. The PNL procedure was considered unsuccessful in patients who had a stone larger than 4 mm on the CT scan. The patients were accepted as 'stone free' when there was no residual stone or there was a stone less than 4 mm in diameter on the CT scan. The groups were compared concerning demographic characteristics, operation duration, fluoroscopy duration, amount of hemoglobin change, complication rate (according to the modified Clavien classification), length of hospital stay and the operation success rate. Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the groups concerning operation data, rate of stone-free patients and complication rates. The mean length of hospital stay was shorter in the OD group (p<0.001). Conclusion: The conventional SD procedure is similar to the OD procedure with amplatz dilators concerning the total fluoroscopy time, complication rates and the surgical success rate.Amaç: Perkütan nefrolitotomi operasyonlarında, amplatz dilatatörlerle yapılan one shot dilatasyon tekniği ile konvansiyonel ardışık dilatasyon tekniği uygulanan hastaların sonuçlarını karşılaştırmayı amaçladık. Gereç ve Yöntem: Ocak 2016 ile Haziran 2018 tarihleri arasında perkütan nefrolitotomi operasyonu yapılan 213 hastanın verileri retrospektif olarak değerlendirildi. Ardışık dilatasyon yapılan olgular Grup 1, one shot dilatasyon yapılan olgular ise Grup 2 olarak ayrıldı. Tüm hastalar operasyondan önce kontrastsız bilgisayarlı tomografi ile değerlendirildi. Perkütan nefrolitotomi işlemi deneyimli endourologlar tarafından gerçekleştirildi. Hastalara postoperatif 3. ayda bilgisayarlı tomografi ile kontrol yapıldı. Bilgisayarlı tomografide 4 mm’den büyük taş kalan hastaların perkütan nefrolitotomi işlemi başarısız kabul edildi. Bilgisayarlı tomografi de hiç rezidü olmaması veya 4 mm’den küçük taş varlığı taşsızlık olarak kabul edildi. Gruplar demografik özellikleri, operasyon süresi, skopi süresi hemoglobin değişim miktarı, komplikasyonları (modifiye clavien sınıflaması ile), hastanede kalma süresi ve operasyon başarısı yönünden karşılaştırıldı. Bulgular: Gruplar arasında operasyon verileri, taşsızlık oranları ve komplikasyonlar açısından istatistiksel olarak anlamlı farklılık yoktu. One shot dilatasyon grubunda ortalama hastanede kalış süresi daha kısa olarak tespit edildi (p<0.001). Sonuç: Konvansiyonel ardışık dilatasyon tekniği, toplam floroskopi zamanı, komplikasyon oranları ve cerrahi başarı oranı açısından amplatz dilatörlü one shot dilatasyon tekniğiyle benzerdir

Number Relationships on Students with Mild Mental Retardation

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to investigate the number relationships of students about “The More-The Same- The Less” concepts. The students with mild mental retardation are handicapped children who need special education and their ability in number relationships have been recognized according to concrete-representational abstract (CRA) instructional approach.Qualitative research approach have been used in the study Case study design have been carried out. The study is planned by studying with one participant and it has been multiple case study by including a few similar students with mild mental retardation in the study. Three students with mild mental retardation from a special education school were attended to the research. The participants of the study were selected among the students with mild mental retardation according to predetermined prerequisite skills. In the research to determine the ability of students with mild mental retardation, “The More”, The Same” and “The Less” concepts were used in concrete-representational-abstract instructional abstract. For collection data assessment sets containing number relationships were prepared for each level of CRA and Interview, content analysis and think aloud methods were used to collect data. In the analysis of data, techniques of phenomenography were used in order to reach the concepts and relationships that can explain data related to sub-problems. According to the research's findings, students were recognized as inadequate in number relationships and also suggestions to teachers at the end

Design and implementation of a passive micro flow sensor based on diamagnetic levitation

This study presents a prototype of a micro-flow sensor based on magnetic levitation for the use in microfluidic systems. Accurate assessment of flow rates is crucial in the microfluidic system design. Micro-sensors utilizing levitation constitute an important topic in this regard. Diamagnetic levitation is an efficient technique, which is useful in applications with low power consumption and eliminates friction. With the proposed approach, zero mechanical contact in a microfluidic channel can be achieved. A sensor capable of accurately measuring flow rates was designed in this study. The corresponding flow rate range was between 1000 μL/min and 7000 μL/min. Levitation was accomplished with pyrolytic graphite and a ring magnet (NdFeB) acting as a lifter. The displacement of the micro-magnet in the micro channel in longitudinal direction was monitored via a microscope-camera system and was measured via a laser sensor above the lifter-magnet. A commercial analysis software (COMSOL Multiphysics Version 5.3 CPU License No: 17076072) was used for dynamic analysis and validation of experimental results. The flow rates were obtained using the data from the laser sensor via an exclusively coded C# program. The developed sensor prototype, which has the advantages of simple structure, small size and low cost, is a substantial candidate for the use in microfluidic devices requiring high accuracy

Weathering performance of wood treated with copper azole and water repellents

Water borne wood preservatives have been widely used for a long time in the protection of wood either in ground contact or above ground. Copper is still major biocide component used today in treatment plant for wood protection despite the environmental concerns over copper-rich preservative systems. On the other hand, water repellents are considered to be potential additives for biocides, resulting in the decreased moisture content, reduced biocide leaching and increased dimensional stabilization. In the present study, copper azole (CA) was used as wood preservatives to the natural weathering for 6, 12 and 24 months respectively. In addition, semitransparent wood stain was used as post treatment with CA, and paraffin and silicon additives were incorporated in to biocide to be water repellent. Paraffin additives reduced the retention values as compared to other formulations. The highest color change and gloss loss were obtained with Scots pine control samples within the six months. CA pretreatment before wood stain was promising by indicating the lowest color change. Color change was reduced by the increasing ratio in paraffin and silicone additives. Combination of CA with wood stain and silicon additive could reduce the copper leaching to some extent

Decoupled Monte Carlo Tree Search for Cooperative Multi-Agent Planning

The number of agents exponentially increases the complexity of a cooperative multi-agent planning problem. Decoupled planning is one of the viable approaches to reduce this complexity. By integrating decoupled planning with Monte Carlo Tree Search, we present a new scalable planning approach. The search tree maintains the updates of the individual actions of each agent separately. However, this separation brings coordination and action synchronization problems. When the agent does not know the action of the other agent, it uses the returned reward to deduce the desirability of its action. When a deterministic action selection policy is used in the Monte Carlo Tree Search algorithm, the actions of agents are synchronized. Of all possible action combinations, only some of them are evaluated. We show the effect of action synchronization on different problems and propose stochastic action selection policies. We also propose a combined method as a pruning step in centralized planning to address the coordination problem in decoupled planning. We create a centralized search tree with a subset of joint actions selected by the evaluation of decoupled planning. We empirically show that decoupled planning has a similar performance compared to a central planning algorithm when stochastic action selection is used in repeated matrix games and multi-agent planning problems. We also show that the combined method improves the performance of the decoupled method in different problems. We compare the proposed method to a decoupled method in regard to a warehouse commissioning problem. Our method achieved more than 10% improvement in performance