Effect of bevacizumab, which remain after withdrawal of the first dose/s from a single-use vial on diabetic macular edema

Background: The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of bevacizumab remaining after withdrawal of the first dose/s from a single-use vial in diabetic macular edema (DME) secondary to diabetic retinopathy.Methods: Patients were divided into four groups according to duration of storage of the single-use vial of bevacizumab in the refrigerator: Group 1 received IVB when the vial was first opened, and Groups 2, 3, and 4 received IVB after 3, 7, and 15 days, respectively, after the first dose or doses had been withdrawn with an insulin (27-gauge) needle from the single-use vial. The Wilcoxon test was used to compare the results in four groups. p<0.05 was considered as statistically significant.Results: Mean age, mean glycosylated hemoglobin, severe of retinapathy and status of the lens were similar in all groups (p>0.05). Preinjection mean best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was 0.41±0.2; 0.39±0.2; 0.39±0.2 and 0.34±0.2 logMAR Group 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Preinjection mean central macular thickness (CMT) was 503±88; 502±99; 565±63 and 491±107 µm in Group 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. After injection mean BCVA was 0.30±0.16; 0.28±0.20; 0.29±0.19 and 0.25±0.20 logMAR and mean CMT was 321±75; 315±97; 360±83 and 279±82 in Group 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. The mean BCVA increased significantly, and CMT decreased significantly after injection in all groups. No observed serious ophthalmologic or systemic side effects.Conclusion: Bevacizumab which remain in the single use vial after first dose/s is safe and effective for treatment of DME. These results are useful for poor countries

Essays in optimal taxation

The mismatch between wealth level and entrepreneurial ability creates productive inefficiency in the market and under financial frictions, the credit market may not be able to solve this problem. In such a world, decreasing wealth inequality with capital taxation might be helpful in bringing the economy to its production possibilities frontier but capital taxation is costly as it distorts wealth creation. I derive optimal capital tax formulas that reflect this trade-off between productive efficiency benefit and wealth accumulation cost of capital taxes. With numerical analysis, I show that when the mismatch is high, government tends to intervene in the economy more and optimal capital taxes are higher. Also, having a lower elasticity of labor with respect to wage for agents leads to higher optimal taxation rate

PRESERVICE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS CONCERNING THE MULTIFUNCTIONALITY OF AGRICULTURE IN THEIR MIND MAPS

This study aimed at revealing the preservice teachers’ mental images about the concept of agriculture and the functions of agriculture contains through mind maps. The images of a total of 60 Mind Maps were obtained by drawing technique. Mind maps were examined by content analysis in MAXQDA© qualitative data analysis program. As a result of analyses performed by utilizing the agricultural literacy themes, it appeared that the images examined in mind maps were under eight main themes viz ecology, food safety and health, food processing, food production and energy, marketing and distribution, culture, geography and climate, economy and politics, science, technology and engineering. While it was seen that descriptions concerning the food areas and ecology theme were at a level that could be regarded as important, preservice teachers did not produce enough images on economy and marketing network issues.    Article visualizations

Turkish Education Through Poetry Reading

Poetic narrative demonstrates richness of a language more clearly, because poetry as a genre is more effective than other literary genres in terms of explaining emotions. The general purpose of this study is to apply this function of poetry in conveying emotions to the education of Turkish. In this context, at fırst, it deals with reading techniques in poetry and their relevancy in teaching Turkish. In connection with that, various learning strategies are explained. At this point, employing the techniques of poetry reading could be developed as a successful strategy for language teaching. Because this way of education could be more enjoyable it eases the way of teaching and learning. Using the conventions of poetry reading might be an important strategy in teaching Turkish

Evaluation of plasma eosinophil count and mean platelet volume in patients with coronary slow flow

OBJECTIVE: The pathophysiology of coronary slow flow has not been clearly defined, although multiple abnormalities including arteritis, endothelial dysfunction, and atherothrombosis, have been reported. It is known that eosinophils play an important role in inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, and thrombosis. We aimed to compare the eosinophil counts of coronary slow flow patients versus healthy controls. METHODS: This study included 50 coronary slow flow patients (19 males, mean age 65.6±13.7 years) and 30 healthy controls (10 males, mean age 57.86±11.6 years). These participants were evaluated using concurrent routine biochemical tests as well as neutrophil, lymphocyte, and eosinophil counts and mean platelet volume (MPV), which were obtained from the whole blood count. These parameters were compared between groups. RESULTS: The baseline characteristics of the study groups were comparable. The coronary slow flow patients had a higher mean platelet volume and eosinophil count than the control group (8.38±0.86 vs 6.28±1.6 fL and 0.31±0.42 vs 0.09±0.05;

THE EFFECT OF PLYOMETRIC TRAINING PROGRAM ON PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE IN BASKETBALL PLAYERS

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of a plyometric training program on the physical performance of basketball players. 24 male basketball players between the ages of 18-36, who regularly practice basketball, participated in the study voluntarily. Participants were divided into two different groups as the experimental group (n=12, age: 26.50±4.58) and the control group (n=12, age: 22.32±0.90). A plyometric training program was applied to the experimental group 3 days a week for 6 weeks. Both participating groups continued their regular basketball training during the season. In addition to basketball training in the experimental group; Plyometric exercises known as Lateral jump, Box jump, Squat jump, Nordic hamstring curl, Overhead slam, Plyometric push-ups, and Medicine ball bench press were applied. Flexibility, balance, vertical jump, shuttle run test, speed, and T-test were measured before and after the training. SPSS 22.0 package program was used for the statistical analysis of the data. The Shapiro-Wilk test was used for the normality test. Paired Samples T-test was used for comparisons within groups. The significance level was determined as p<0.05. Significance was found in the flexibility, balance, vertical jump, shuttle run, speed, and T-test values of the experimental group (p<0.05). The values of the control group were not significant (p>0.05). As a result, it can be said that the 6-week plyometric training program applied to basketball players has a positive effect on physical performance.  Article visualizations

Relationship between handedness and toothbrush-related cervical dental abrasion in left- and right-handed individuals

AbstractBackground/purposeCervical tooth abrasion is the loss of tooth material at the cementoenamel junction, and is usually related to faulty brushing habits. In this study, we attempted to evaluate the effects of handedness on tooth-brushing abrasion in terms of brushing habits in left- and right-handed adults.Materials and methodsIn total, 488 subjects participating in the study were divided into 2 groups according to hand preference (group I; left-handed and group II; right-handed), and were interviewed about their brushing habits, and their clinical oral conditions such as the plaque index (PI), gingival index (GI), and tooth wear index (TWI) were determined. Handedness was determined by a questionnaire that focused on handedness using the Turkish version of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory.ResultsThis study showed that there were no statistically significant differences between groups I and II according to daily tooth-brushing habits, PI, or GI. Statistically significant differences were found between men and women according to the clinical oral scores and brushing habits (P<0.01). However, there were no statistically significant differences between the mean TWI scores of left- and right-handed groups (P=0.12). It was found that an increased frequency and longer duration of tooth-brushing significantly increased the TWI scores in both groups (P<0.01). It was also found that TWI scores were statistically higher in subjects who brushed horizontally rather than vertically (P<0.01). Correlations between clinical oral scores (TWI, PI, and GI) and brushing habits were statistically significant (P<0.01).ConclusionThe oral-hygiene performance of females was better than males. Brushing habits of patients were related to the severity of cervical wear. But no statistically significant relationship was found between hand preference and tooth-brushing abrasion in this study

Authorship Authentication of Short Messages from Social Networks Machines

Dataset consists of 17000 tweets collected from Twitter, as 500 tweets for each of 34 authors that meet certain criteria. Raw data is collected by using the software Nvivo. The collected raw data is preprocessed to extract frequencies of 200 features. In the data analysis 128 of features are eliminated since they are rare in tweets. As a progressive presentation, five – fifteen – twenty – twenty five – thirty and thirty four of these authors are selected each time. Since recurrent artificial neural networks are more stable and in general ANNs are more successful distinguishing two classes, for N authors, N×N neural networks are trained for pair wise classification. These experts then organized in N competing teams (CANNT) to aggregate decisions of these NXN experts. Then this procedure is repeated seven times and committees with seven members voted for final decision. By a commonest type voting, the accuracy is boosted around ten percent. Number of authors is seen not so effective on the accuracy of the authentication, and around 80% accuracy is achieved for any number of authors