Emotional eating in relation to gastrointestinal symptoms and burnout among young women during the pandemic

Background The emergence of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), created unique constraints in everyday life. Emotional eating is a known phenomenon in disasters and is markedly associated with gastrointestinal symptoms. In this study, the aim was to assess the relationship of gastrointestinal symptom severity and COVID-19 burnout with emotional eating among young women during the pandemic disaster. Methods A cross-sectional study approach was used to allow 462 young women participants in this study. The design of the questionnaires was based on demographics, health behaviors, Gastrointestinal Symptom Severity Scale, Emotional Eating Scale and COVID-19 Burnout Scale. Data were analyzed using percentages, mean values, independent t-test, chi-squared test. The hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed for predicting risk factors of emotional eating. Significance levels were set at the 5% level. Results Of the women, 73.8% were emotional eaters. The level of COVID-19 burnout was moderate with mean score of 29.4±11.1 and emotional eating total score was 21.0±8.1. Increased number of meals, increased weight gain and shorter sleep time were significantly associated with emotional eating (p<0.05). Participants with more than three meals per day were more likely to be emotional eaters (Beta=4.26). The regression model showed that indigestion and COVID-19 burnout were strong risk factors of emotinal eating (p<0.05). Conclusions This study demonstrated that indigestion and COVID-19 burnout were strong risk factors of emotinal eating. Emotional eating could pose an additional health burden to young women in the form of poor food choices

Data-Driven Optimization to Learn Structural Models

The rapid accumulation of high-dimensional data has opened new opportunities to make informed decisions. In this thesis, we focus on estimation of structural models from observational data using optimization and statistics to understand the effects of strategic decisions. We develop efficient procedures that blend techniques from economic modeling and machine learning to uncover underlying models efficiently and accurately.In Chapter 2, we focus on understanding the effect of performance-based incentives on worker performance using historical contract data. The design of performance-based incentives can be naturally posed as a moral hazard principal-agent problem. In this setting, a key input to the principal’s optimal contracting problem is the agent’s production function – the dependence of agent output on effort. While agent production is classically assumed to be known to the principal, this is unlikely to be the case in practice. Motivated by the design of performance-based incentives, we present a method for estimating a principal-agent model from data on incentive contracts and associated outcomes, with a focus on estimating agent production. The proposed estimator is statistically consistent and can be expressed as a mathematical program. To circumvent computational challenges with solving the estimation problem exactly, we approximate it as an integer program, which we solve through a column generation algorithm that uses hypothesis tests to select variables. We show that our approximation scheme and solution technique both preserve the estimator’s consistency and combine to dramatically reduce the computational time required to obtain sound estimates. To demonstrate our method, we conducted an experiment on a crowdwork platform (Amazon Mechanical Turk) by randomly assigning incentive contracts with varying pay rates among a pool of workers completing the same task. We present numerical results illustrating how our estimator combined with experimentation can shed light on the efficacy of performance-based incentives.In Chapter 3, we focus on learning causal structures from observational data, a process known as causal discovery. We propose a new optimization-based method for causal discovery. Our method takes as input observational data over a set of variables and returns a graph in which causal relations are specified by directed edges. We consider a highly general search space that accommodates latent confounders and feedback cycles, which few extant methods do. We formulate the discovery problem as an integer program, and propose a solution technique that leverages the conditional independence structure in the data to identify promising edges for inclusion in the output graph. Our method is among the very first to bring integer programming to general causal discovery, which we believe is one of our main contributions. In the large-sample limit, our method recovers a graph that is equivalent to the true data-generating graph. Computationally, our method is competitive with the state-of-the-art, and can solve in minutes instances that are intractable for alternative causal discovery methods. We then extend our framework to a priori identify a subset of variables that collectively carry all useful information about the variable of interest. This way, we can sidestep the computational burden of learning causal relations among variables of secondary importance.In Chapter 4, we focus on investigating the validity of instrumental variables, which are widely used to estimate causal effects in the presence of unmeasured confounding. In particular, we apply our method developed in Chapter 3 to US Census data from the seminal paper on the returns to education by (Angrist and Krueger, 1991), which contains a pioneering application of an instrumental variable, but one whose validity has been contested. We find that the causal structures uncovered by our method are consistent with the literature on the instrument from (Angrist and Krueger, 1991), and that our method pinpoints some of the sources of debate. Our results suggest that our graphical approach can be a useful complement to well-established empirical methods

Association between some hematological parameters and in vitro fertilization outcomes

The aim of this study was to determine the effects of some hematological parameters on fertilization success, embryo quality and pregnancy rates in the in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. 50 infertile couples aged 22-46 years who were admitted to Ataturk University Research Hospital for IVF treatment were included in the study. The number of fertilized oocytes, embryo quality, clinic pregnancy rate were determineted and compared with hematological parameters. In the male petients, the platelet distribution width (PDW) value was negatively correlated with the fertilization rate (rp = -0.341*; p=0.015). An negative relationship between the transplantable embryo rate and the mean corpuscular volume (MCV) value was observed (rp = -0.320*; p = 0.024) in the male. While the hemoglobin (HGB) value was negatively correlated with the fertilization rate (rp=-0.332*; p=0.019), the red cell distribution width (RDW) value was positively correlated with the fertilization rate (rp = 0.359*; p=0.010) in female petients. In addition, significant correlations were found between PDW value both good quality embryo rate (regression coefficient : -19.808, p = 0.007) ( corrected as -19.808) and transplantable embryo rate (regression coefficient : -16.855, p = 0.033) (corrected as -16.855) in female petients. In conclusion, changes in PDW values of female patients significantly affect embryo quality, may result pregnancy failure and abnormal embryo and fetus development during pregnancy. [Med-Science 2020; 9(3.000): 619-24

Dental volumetric tomographical evaluation of location and prevalence of maxillary sinus septa

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and location of maxillary sinus septa with the help of dental volumetric tomography. Methods: 760 patients&#146; 1520 maxillary sinus were evaluated by dental volumetric tomography for detecting maxillary sinus septa. Maxillary sinus was divided into 3 zones (anterior, middle and posterior zones) while location of the maxillary sinus septa. Results: 47 of maxillary sinus septa existed in the anterior zone (24.7%), 35 of them in the middle zone (18.4%) and 108 of them in the posterior region (56.8%). Conclusion: The formation of the maxillary sinus septa was affected by the existence or lack of the teeth. Correct detection of the presence of maxillary sinus septa was important prior to sinus lifting and dental implant surgery. Dental volumetric tomographical evaluation of maxillary sinus septa was more useful for a correct diagnosis and treatment planning. [Cukurova Med J 2013; 38(3.000): 467-474

Hypoxic regulation of ADAMTS-2 and-3 (a disintegrin and matrix metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs 2 and 3) procollagen N proteinases by HIF-1 alpha in endothelial cells

ADAMTS-2 and ADAMTS-3, known as procollagen amino proteases (PNP), are primarily responsible for processing the amino ends of the fibrillar collagen precursors. ADAMTS-2 is a highly expressed gene in type I collagen-rich tissues, such as skin, bones, tendons, and aorta. ADAMTS-3 is mainly expressed in cartilage, where it colocalizes with type II procollagen and in the nervous system. Studies about ADAMTS-2 and ADAMTS-3 enzymes primarily focused on their collagen processing activity. Knowledge about the transcriptional regulations of these genes is rather limited. Here we analyzed the transcriptional regulations of ADAMTS-2 and ADAMTS-3 genes under chemically induced hypoxic conditions in endothelial cell model, HUVECs. We elucidated that hypoxia is the potent positive regulator of ADAMTS-2 and ADAMTS-3 genes. qRT-PCR and western blotting studies revealed that ADAMTS-2 and ADAMTS-3 expressions were increased at mRNA and protein levels under chemically induced hypoxic conditions in HUVECs. In addition, Transient transfection experiments of ADAMTS-2 and ADAMTS-3 promoter-reporter constructs indicated that low oxygen conditions increased ADAMTS-2 and ADAMTS-3 promoter activities. Furthermore, the DNA-protein interaction assay provided evidence of the functional binding of HIF-1 alpha on bioinformatically determined HRE regions on the ADAMTS-2 and ADAMTS-3 promoters

Frequency of microalbuminuria and its relationship with other atherosclerotic risk factors in nondiabetic hypertensive patients

WOS: 000254243500037PubMed: 17513234

A new definition about the relationship of intercellular fluid in the brain with the mandibular and parotid lymph nodes

This study was carried out to reveal the relationship of the brain with both the mandibular lymph node (MLN) and parotid lymph node (PLN) by the hyperspectral fluorescence imaging techniques of Qdot 800 (QD) nanoparticles using in vivo. This relationship of the brain with both lymph nodes offers the preliminary morphological definition of lymphatic drainage. QD was injected into the left parietal brain lobe of each rat at a depth of 2.50 mm. In 65% of the rats that were imaged in vivo, signals were received first from the right MLN and PLN, and then from the left MLN and PLN. In contrast, in two female rats, the first signal was received from the right PLN. There was no difference between the female and male rats overall. The most noteworthy finding of this study was that the tracer injected into the left parietal lobe reached the right mandibular and parotid lymph nodules earlier. This result indicates a different and unknown pathway in the brain that communicates with the lymph nodes. Moreover, this study shows that these lymph nodes pathways can be used in the treatment of diseases such as brain trauma, cerebral edema, and Alzheimer's disease (AD)

The Investigation of the Mutagenic Activity of Kars River Sediments on Orthrias angorae (Steindachner, 1897)

Sediments collected in Kars River were tested for mutagenicity by means of peripheral erythrocyte micronucleus frequency in Orthrias angorae. Micronuclei frequencies (MN) of all the groups exposed to the sediments were higher than those of the control group. Statistical analysis showed significant differences between the control and the treatment groups (P<0.001). The MN frequencies of the blood samples in three regions (Selim, Pasacayir, Bogazkoy) on the day 6 have a trend to increase against to control. MN frequencies of samples collected from 36th hours sediment exposure increased in the three districts (Selim, Pasacayir, Bogazkoy) when compared to control groups. On the other hand there is a decrease in only one region (Kars) at 6 days. This study evaluates for the first time the mutagenic load of sediments collected along the Kars River and provides evidence that the presence of genotoxic agents in river sediments correlates with the genotoxic damage (micronucleated erythrocytes) in fish collected from Kars River