Investigating How Unhealthy Snacking Habits Affect Self-Licensing With an Online Daily Diary Study

Master's Thesi

Recollection & Traumatic Growth: Unique Mediational Pathways Through Traumatic Stress Components

Although the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak varies from time to time, pandemic has affected larger audiences all around the world. Given the increasingly severe measures taken by the authorities, healthcare professionals have experienced positive and negative effects of the events, both personally and vicariously. The main aim is to examine how remembering influences vicarious traumatization and post-traumatic growth in a sample of healthcare workers. We proposed a multiple mediation model testing of distinct roles of stress components (hypervigilance, avoidance, intrusion) on the link between recollective features of remembering and post-traumatic growth, which allows to characterize memory-linked mechanisms underlying the effects of traumatic stress on growth. We demonstrated unique pathways by which remembering influenced traumatic growth. For the links of emotional intensity and imagery with growth, we found full mediation through avoidance and intrusion Individuals recalling events with high emotional intensity and imagery tend to experience more intrusions of trauma, which then resulted in traumatic growth. On the other hand, the opposite pattern was found for avoidance. Emotionally intense and vivid recall of events increased avoidance responses, but high avoidance reduced traumatic growth. With respect to reliving, while the pattern was similar, we found a partial mediation, showing significant role reliving has in supporting traumatic growth

Contrast Sensitivity in Microtropic and Anisometropic Eyes of Successfully Treated Amblyopes

Objectives: To assess and compare contrast sensitivity function in the previously amblyopic and non-amblyopic "normal" eyes of patients with microtropia and anisometropia who achieved 20/20 visual acuity after occlusion therapy. Materials and Methods: Contrast sensitivity was tested monocularly on both eyes of 34 successfully treated microtropic and 15 anisometropic subjects (visual acuity 20/20 in both eyes). Contrast sensitivity function was evaluated by CSV-1000E and age-matched nomograms were used (spatial frequencies of 3, 6, 12, and 18 cycles per degree [cpd]) for comparison. Results: The mean age of subjects was 11.2 +/- 1.3 years in the microtropic group, 9.8 +/- 1.7 years in the anisometropic group (7-12 years); the mean follow-up time was 16.4 +/- 3.2 months (12 to 92) in the microtropic group and 27.7 +/- 1.8 months (12-84) in the anisometropic group. Statistical comparison of the microtropic amblyopic eyes versus non-microtropic eyes showed significant differences at spatial frequencies of 3, 12 and 18 cpd (3 cpd, t= 2.8, p= 0.007; 6 cpd, t= 1.1 p= 0.261; 12 cpd, t= 2.2, p= 0.033; 18 cpd, t= 2.2, p= 0.030). When anisometropic eyes were compared with non-anisometropic eyes, there was a significant difference only at 12 cpd (t= 2.1 p= 0.049). The comparison of non-amblyopic eyes versus age-matched nomograms revealed no differences at any of the spatial frequencies (p> 0.05 for all). Conclusion: Contrast sensitivity was decreased in patients with amblyopia, especially in the microtropic group. The assessment of contrast sensitivity function may serve as a new parameter for termination of occlusion therapy

Stereotactic radiotherapy for adrenal metastases: a multi-institutional review of patient characteristics and outcomes. Turkish Society for Radiation Oncology SBRT Group Study (TROD SBRT 10-004)

Introduction: This study aims to report the outcomes of SBRT for adrenal metastasis in a retrospective multi-institutional cohort. Methods: The outcomes of 124 patients with 146 adrenal metastases who underwent SBRT within 11 years (2008-2019) were retrospectively evaluated. Survival outcomes were analyzed by the Kaplan-Meier method. Patient, tumor, and treatment characteristics and their effects on survival, local control (LC), and toxicity outcomes were analyzed by log-rank and multivariate Cox regression methods.Results: The median age was 60 years. The most frequent primary tumor site was the lung, followed by the gastrointestinal system and breast. The adrenal gland was the only metastatic site in 49 (40%) patients. Median BED10 was 61 Gy. The overall LC rate was 83% and it was positively correlated with the BED10 and fraction dose. The 1- and 2-year local recurrence-free survival (LRFS), overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rate was 79% and 69%, 83% and 60%, and 31% and 12%, respectively. OS significantly improved with non-lung cancer and = 8 Gy, BED10 >65 Gy, and an isolated adrenal metastasis. Fourteen patients reported an acute toxicity and late toxicity was observed in three patients, including one grade 5.Conclusion: A satisfactory LC rate was achieved for adrenal metastasis via SBRT. A higher BED10 and fraction dose were positive prognostic factors for tumor control. However, the main problem is DM in these patients and systemic treatment options are needed to be improved

Analysis of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 coding variants as a risk factor for SARS-CoV-2 from 946 whole-exome sequencing data in the Turkish population

Heterogeneity in symptoms associated with COVID-19 in infected patients remains unclear. ACE2 and TMPRSS2 gene variants are considered possible risk factors for COVID-19. In this study, a retrospective comparative genome analysis of the ACE2 and TMPRSS2 variants from 946 whole-exome sequencing data was conducted. Allele frequencies of all variants were calculated and filtered to remove variants with allele frequencies lower than 0.003 and to prioritize functional coding variants. The majority of detected variants were intronic, only two ACE2 and three TMPRSS2 nonsynonymous variants were detected in the analyzed cohort. The main ACE2 variants that putatively have a protective or susceptibility effect on SARS-CoV-2 have not yet been determined in the Turkish population. The Turkish genetic makeup likely lacks any ACE2 variant that increases susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection. TMPRSS2 rs75603675 and rs12329760 variants that were previously defined as common variants that have different allele frequencies among populations and may have a role in SARS-CoV-2 attachment to host cells were determined in the population. Overall, these data will contribute to the formation of a national variation database and may also contribute to further studies of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 in the Turkish population and differences in SARS-CoV-2 infection among other populations

Food-induced anaphylaxis in early childhood and factors associated with its severity.

Background: Several factors that increase the risk of severe food-induced anaphylaxis have been identified

Measuring the Semantic Priming Effect Across Many Languages

Semantic priming has been studied for nearly 50 years across various experimental manipulations and theoretical frameworks. These studies provide insight into the cognitive underpinnings of semantic representations in both healthy and clinical populations; however, they have suffered from several issues including generally low sample sizes and a lack of diversity in linguistic implementations. Here, we will test the size and the variability of the semantic priming effect across ten languages by creating a large database of semantic priming values, based on an adaptive sampling procedure. Differences in response latencies between related word-pair conditions and unrelated word-pair conditions (i.e., difference score confidence interval is greater than zero) will allow quantifying evidence for semantic priming, whereas improvements in model fit with the addition of a random intercept for language will provide support for variability in semantic priming across languages