Using Visual Aids to Improve Communication of Risks about Health: A Review

Recent research has shown that patients frequently experience difficulties understanding health-relevant numerical concepts. A prominent example is denominator neglect, or the tendency to pay too much attention to numerators in ratios (e.g., number of treated patients who died) with insufficient attention to denominators (e.g., overall number of treated patients). Denominator neglect can lead to inaccurate assessments of treatment risk reduction and thus can have important consequences for decisions about health. Here, we reviewed a series of studies investigating (1) different factors that can influence patients' susceptibility to denominator neglect in medical decision making—including numerical or language-related abilities; (2) the extent to which denominator neglect can be attenuated by using visual aids; and (3) a factor that moderates the effectiveness of such aids (i.e., graph literacy). The review spans probabilistic national U.S. and German samples, as well as immigrant (i.e., Polish people living in the United Kingdom) and undergraduate samples in Spain. Theoretical and prescriptive implications are discussed

Spin Transport in a Mott Insulator of Ultracold Fermions

Strongly correlated materials are expected to feature unconventional transport properties, such that charge, spin, and heat conduction are potentially independent probes of the dynamics. In contrast to charge transport, the measurement of spin transport in such materials is highly challenging. We observed spin conduction and diffusion in a system of ultracold fermionic atoms that realizes the half-filled Fermi-Hubbard model. For strong interactions, spin diffusion is driven by super-exchange and doublon-hole-assisted tunneling, and strongly violates the quantum limit of charge diffusion. The technique developed in this work can be extended to finite doping, which can shed light on the complex interplay between spin and charge in the Hubbard model.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Metal complexes of saccharin and thiosaccharin as potential anticancer and antimicrobial agents

Acknowledgements The support provided by our universities (KTU, EOGU and UA) in accessing scientific databases (WOS, Scopus, SciFinder and CCDC) was greatly appreciated.Peer reviewe

Thalassemia mutations in Gaziantep, Turkey

Ninety-eight postnatal and six prenatal cases of thalassemia were studied by the reverse dot-blot hybridization technique in the city of Gaziantep, Turkey. We found the following mutations: IVS 1.110 (G>A) in 29.1%, IVS 2.1 (G>A) in 12.3%, IVS 1.1 (G>A) in 7.7%, Codon 8 (-AA) in 5.6%, -30 (T>A) in 4.6%, IVS 1.6 (T>C) in 4.6%, Codon 39 (C>T) in 3.6%, Codon 44 (-C) in 3.1%, IVS 2.745 (C>G) in 1.5%, Codon 8/9 (+G) in 2.1%, Codon 36/37 (-T) in 2.1%, IVS 1.5 (G>C) in 2.1%, Codon 22 (7pb del) in 0.5%, Codon 5 (-CT) in 0.5% while 20.9% were undetermined. 54 of the thalassemia patients were homozygotes, 12 were compound heterozygous and 31 were heterozygotes. In one allele of 5 thalassemia patients, - thalassemia mutation (3.7 single gene deletions in 1 patient, anti-3.7 gene triplication in 4 patients) wasdetermined at the same time. Finally, this is the first comprehensive study in this region and percentage of and - globin genes mutation is 2.6 and 79.4%, respectively

Sludge reduction with pulse ozonation

Biyolojik atıksu arıtma tesislerinde atıksuyun arıtılmasının yanı sıra fazla çamurun da uzaklaştırılması önemlidir. Tesis işletme maliyetlerinin yaklaşık yarıdan fazlası çamur bertarafına harcanmaktadır. Bu nedenle uygulanabilir, ekonomik ve yenilikçi yöntemler araştırılmaktadır. Araştırılan süreçler arasında ozon güçlü bir oksidan olarak ön plana çıkmaktadır. Bu çalışmada 15-30 gün gibi uzun süren aerobik çürütmeyi kısaltmak için havalandırmaya ilave olarak ozon kullanılması araştırılmıştır. Benzer çalışmalardan farklı olarak araştırmada ozon sürekli olarak kullanılmamış olup bakterilerin ikileme zamanı dikkate alınarak 24 saatte bir kez pals şeklinde kısa sürelerle tatbik edilmiştir. Böylece ozonun biyolojik parçalanmaya olan etkisi de incelenmiştir. Ankara Tatlar Atıksu Arıtma Tesisi Havalandırma Tankı’ndan alınan numuneler ile yapılan deneyler sırasında günde bir kez erlenlerdeki çamurlara 2, 3, 4 ve 6 dakikalık sürelerle ozonlama yapılmış, daha sonra çamur 24 saat süreyle çalkalayıcıda bekletilmiştir. Dört gün süreyle devam eden deneylerde rutin olarak TKM, UKM, KOİ ve OTH  ölçümleri yapılmıştır. Sonuç olarak bu süre bitiminde UKM indirgenmesi 2, 3, 4 ve 6 dakika ozonlamalar için sırasıyla %22.6, %40, %75 ve %84 olarak tespit edilmiştir. Standart havasal çamur çürütme ile elde edilen çamur azaltımı %40-50 iken kesikli ozonlama ile elde edilen çamur azaltımı % 80 üzerine çıkmıştır. Yine reaksiyon süresi 20-30 günden 4 günlere inmiştir. Ozon destekli çürütülmüş çamurda yapılan koli basili analizleri de çamurdaki koli basillerinin bu süre içersinde tamamen öldürüldüğünü göstermiştir. Yine ozon destekli havasal çürütmede önemli mitarda ortama fosfor salınmadığı görülmüştür. Anahtar Kelimeler: Ozon, çamur degredasyonu, bakteri, ikileme zamanı, pals.Biological treatment is one of the most widely used treatment techniques. Although its high efficiency and easy design make it a preferable option, excess sludge production is a massive burden for the facilities. Approximately, half of the operation cost for domestic wastewater treatment plants is spent for sludge treatment and disposal. Even after treatment it may act as a secondary pollution source at the disposal site due to its heavy metal, pathogen and persistent organic pollutant contents. Therefore, several strategies are considered for excess sludge treatment. Incineration, dewatering, landfilling and use for agricultural purposes are some of them. However, since regulations on the use and disposal of excess sludge are much more stringent than past years, people tend to use methods which reduce the volume of sludge such as thermal, mechanical, chemical and oxidation pretreatment. Ozonation which is a chemical treatment method establishes disintegration by two mechanisms: first one is the destruction of the cell wall of the microorganism and the second one is the mineralization of the intracellular components. According to high degree of disintegration and cost effectiveness of ozonation make it a feasible technique among the other disintegration techniques. Consequently, ozone treatment of sludge gaining popularity and this leads to a new area of study in environmental engineering. The common point of previous studies is the continuous ozonation of the samples. However, ozone is a very expensive chemical to be wasted. Therefore it should be used properly. That led us to consider about pulse ozonation of sludge which would be economically more feasible if it can be as efficient as continuous ozonation. In this study it was planned to use ozone as a substitute to shorten the 15-30 day-long aerobic digestion process. Waste activated sludge samples from Ankara Tatlar Wastewater Treatment Plant were ozonated for 2, 3, 4 and 6 minutes respectively in Erlenmeyer flasks once a day on each of four consecutive days and left for incubation in between on a shaker. In the experiments, ozone was supplied by OSC-Modular 4HC, WEDECO ITT INDUSTRIES (2007) ozone generator. Operating pressure of the generator is 5 bar and the gas flow rate is 10-140 L/hr with a rated capacity of 4 g/hr. Ozone amount that is released to water in time interval was measured by using Standard Methods 8021 (DPD chlorine reagent) and calibration curve was obtained by spectrophoto-metric measurement (for 25 mL sample). The MLVSS, MLSS, COD and OUR parameters were measured routinely during the four days. MLSS measurements were done according to Standard Methods (2540B) (APHA, 1998). Chemical oxygen demand (COD) was measured by Hach Lange kits according to HACH 8000(US EPA approved) method. Volatile Suspended Solids (MLVSS) was measured according to 2540 solids method. Total-P was analyzed by 365.4 EPA Method and ortho-phosphate was analysed with 365.3 EPA Method. Obviously, one of the most important reasons of sludge treatment is sludge disinfection. In order to have an opinion about this concept, it was decided to count E.coli in the sludge. Also considering the possibility of phosphorus release, total phosphorus and ortho-phosphate were checked in the 6' ozonated sample. At the first day, total phosphorus of the sludge was 0.006 g per g biomass and after the first ozonation this amount increased to 0.0082. By these results, it can be concluded that ozonation does not release significant amounts of phosphorus to the medium. At the end of the experiments, MLVSS reductions for 2, 3, 4, and 6 minutes were observed as 22.6%, 40%, 75% and 84% respectively. As a result of the experiments, by the pulse ozonation of the non-digested activated sludge, both stabilization and reduction of the sludge were achieved in such short period as 4 days. Moreover, it can be ascertained that the obtained sludge was both disinfected from E.coli and phosphorus rich. Furthermore, since the COD left in the medium after the experiments was biodegradable, it was concluded that it would be feasible to return to the beginning of the system.  Hence, it became possible to save on both time of contact and the amount of ozone used in comparison with other studies where samples were ozonated on continuous bases. The obtained results show similar values for MLVSS, MLSS and COD for both 4' and 6' ozonation for first 3 days. Nevertheless, since the 6' ozonation is more effective in sludge stabilization, after the 4' ozonation for the first 3 days, 6' ozonation for the 4th day is suggested. Keywords: Ozone, sludge degradation, bacteria, doubling time, pulse

Papers please: Predictive factors of national and international attitudes toward immunity and vaccination passports. Online representative surveys

BACKGROUND: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries are introducing digital passports that allow citizens to return to normal activities if they were previously infected with (immunity passport) or vaccinated against (vaccination passport) SARS-CoV-2. To be effective, policy decision-makers must know whether these passports will be widely accepted by the public and under what conditions. This study focuses attention on immunity passports, as these may prove useful in countries both with and without an existing COVID-19 vaccination program; however, our general findings also extend to vaccination passports. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess attitudes toward the introduction of immunity passports in six countries, and determine what social, personal, and contextual factors predicted their support. METHODS: We collected 13,678 participants through online representative sampling across six countries—Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom—during April to May of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and assessed attitudes and support for the introduction of immunity passports. RESULTS: Immunity passport support was moderate to low, being the highest in Germany (775/1507 participants, 51.43%) and the United Kingdom (759/1484, 51.15%); followed by Taiwan (2841/5989, 47.44%), Australia (963/2086, 46.16%), and Spain (693/1491, 46.48%); and was the lowest in Japan (241/1081, 22.94%). Bayesian generalized linear mixed effects modeling was used to assess predictive factors for immunity passport support across countries. International results showed neoliberal worldviews (odds ratio [OR] 1.17, 95% CI 1.13-1.22), personal concern (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.00-1.16), perceived virus severity (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.01-1.14), the fairness of immunity passports (OR 2.51, 95% CI 2.36-2.66), liking immunity passports (OR 2.77, 95% CI 2.61-2.94), and a willingness to become infected to gain an immunity passport (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.51-1.68) were all predictive factors of immunity passport support. By contrast, gender (woman; OR 0.9, 95% CI 0.82-0.98), immunity passport concern (OR 0.61, 95% CI 0.57-0.65), and risk of harm to society (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.67-0.76) predicted a decrease in support for immunity passports. Minor differences in predictive factors were found between countries and results were modeled separately to provide national accounts of these data. CONCLUSIONS: Our research suggests that support for immunity passports is predicted by the personal benefits and societal risks they confer. These findings generalized across six countries and may also prove informative for the introduction of vaccination passports, helping policymakers to introduce effective COVID-19 passport policies in these six countries and around the world

The role of traditional livelihood practices and local ethnobotanical knowledge in mitigating chestnut disease and pest severity in Turkey

The European chestnut population is enduring multiple compounding exotic pest and disease outbreaks across Turkey. The deeply held value of the chestnut species for the Turkish public is reflected in substantial government conservation programming. Chestnut is predominantly found on state land managed by Turkey’s General Directorate of Forestry (GDF), which generally upholds restrictive policies for chestnut-related livelihood practices other than nut collection and beehive placement. Such policies are justified by a government position that human activities and presence is likely to worsen disease dynamics. Conversely, a growing body of research findings testify that small-scale livelihood practices maintain biological diversity and, furthermore, that this traditional maintenance of diversity has been correlated with decreased pathogen pressure within agroecosystems. However, few studies have investigated this phenomenon in the context of agroforestry systems. At a global ecological moment of increasingly pervasive and severe exotic forest pathogen impact, this paper investigates the influence of diverse small-scale livelihood practices and knowledge on chestnut tree health across the highly heterogenous geography of Turkey. We conducted ethnobotanical questionnaires with 96 chestnut-utilizing households, and chestnut tree health evaluations in georeferenced forest areas they identified, throughout Turkey’s Black Sea, Marmara, and Aegean regions. Using data from 1500 trees, we characterized the effects of subsequently recorded environmental, physiological, and anthropogenic factors on tree health using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), multiple factor analysis (MFA), and mixed models. Our results show that the traditional human management of tree physiology and ecology has a significant positive effect on tree health, especially through the acts of grafting and culling as well as the maintenance of diversity. We argue that conceptualizing such livelihood systems as human niche construction and maintenance can help forest management agencies to better understand and conserve valuable landscapes, even in increasingly common periods of severe pathogenic pressure

Adsorption of emerging contaminants by graphene related materials and their alginate composite hydrogels

Graphene nanosheets and nanoplatelets -alginate composite hydrogels were prepared by ionic gelation and the resulting gel beads were exploited for the removal of a mixture of eight selected emerging contaminants (ECs) in tap water, including bisphenol A, ofloxacin and diclofenac. The role of graphene related materials (GRM) on the gel bead structure, adsorption selectivity, kinetic, mechanism, and efficiency was investigated. Combined Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and confocal Raman microscopy mapping showed a porous structure with pore size in the range of 100–200 µm and a homogeneous distribution of graphene nanosheets or nanoplatelets at the pores surface. The adsorption kinetic of GRM was much faster than that of granular activated carbon (GAC), the industrial sorbent benchmark, with removal capacity of ofloxacin from 2.9 to 4.3 times higher. A maximum adsorption capacity of 178 mg/g for rhodamine B was estimated by adsorption isotherm studies for reduced graphene oxide-based beads (a value comparable to that of powered activated carbon). Regeneration test performed on saturated beads by washing with EtOH, and subsequent reiterated reuses, showed no loss of adsorption performance up to the fourth reuse cycle

A real-time, scalable, fast and highly resource efficient decoder for a quantum computer

Quantum computers promise to solve computing problems that are currently intractable using traditional approaches. This can only be achieved if the noise inevitably present in quantum computers can be efficiently managed at scale. A key component in this process is a classical decoder, which diagnoses the errors occurring in the system. If the decoder does not operate fast enough, an exponential slowdown in the logical clock rate of the quantum computer occurs. Additionally, the decoder must be resource efficient to enable scaling to larger systems and potentially operate in cryogenic environments. Here we introduce the Collision Clustering decoder, which overcomes both challenges. We implement our decoder on both an FPGA and ASIC, the latter ultimately being necessary for any cost-effective scalable solution. We simulate a logical memory experiment on large instances of the leading quantum error correction scheme, the surface code, assuming a circuit-level noise model. The FPGA decoding frequency is above a megahertz, a stringent requirement on decoders needed for e.g. superconducting quantum computers. To decode an 881 qubit surface code it uses only $4.5\%$ of the available logical computation elements. The ASIC decoding frequency is also above a megahertz on a 1057 qubit surface code, and occupies 0.06 mm$^2$ area and consumes 8 mW of power. Our decoder is optimised to be both highly performant and resource efficient, while its implementation on hardware constitutes a viable path to practically realising fault-tolerant quantum computers.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Effects of TNFalpha, NOS3, MDR1 gene polymorphisms on clinical parameters, prognosis and survival of multiple myeloma cases

It is not clear how gene polymorphisms affecting drugs can contributes totheir efficacy in multiple myeloma (MM). We here aimed to explore associations among gene polymorphisms of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha), nitric oxide synthesis 3 (NOS3) and multi-drug resistance 1 (MDR1), clinical parameters, prognosis and survival in MM patients treated with VAD (vincristine-adriamycine-dexamethasone), MP (mephalane-prednisolone), autolougus stem cell transplantation (ASCT), BODEC (bortezomib-dexamethasonecyclophosphamide) and TD (thalidomide-dexamethasone). We analyzed TNFalpha, NOS 3 and MDR1 in 77 patients with MM and 77 healthy controls. The genotyping was performed with PCR and/or PCR-RFLP. There was no clinically significant difference between MM and control groups when TNFalpha (-238) and (-857) and MDR1 gene polymorphisms were studied. However, the TNFalpha gene polymorphism (-308) GG genotype (p=0.012) and NOS3 (+894) TT genotype (p=0.008) were more common in the MM group compared to healthy controls. NOS3 (VNTR) AA (p=0.007) and NOS3 (+894) GG genotypes (p=0.004) were decreased in the MM group in contrast. In conclusion, the NOS3 (+894) TT and TNFalpha (-308) GG genotypes may have roles in myeloma pathogenesis