Assessment of the coronary venous system by using cardiac CT

PURPOSEWe aimed to investigate the coronary venous system and its variations by using dual source computed tomography (CT).MATERIALS AND METHODSRetrospective assessment was carried out on 339 patients who underwent coronary CT angiography using 128-slice dual source CT for suspected coronary artery disease. The examinations were performed according to routine imaging protocols used to evaluate coronary arteries. The coronary venous system was evaluated in each case using maximum intensity projection and volume rendering technique multiplanar reformation reconstructions. In each patient, the presence and calibration of normal anatomy, as well as the variations of the coronary sinus, middle cardiac vein, small cardiac vein, posterior cardiac vein, great cardiac vein, anterior interventricular vein, posterolateral vein, left marginal vein, and anterolateral vein were recorded.RESULTSThe coronary sinus, middle cardiac vein, great cardiac vein, and anterior interventricular vein were visualized in all of the patients. In all cases, one of the lateral or posterolateral veins of appropriate localization and diameter for cardiac resynchronization therapy was detected. The posterior cardiac vein was visualized in 87% of the cases, the left marginal vein in 87.9%, and the small cardiac vein in 20%. There was no significant difference in the diameters or visibilities of the coronary veins in terms of age.CONCLUSIONThe coronary venous system and its tributaries may be examined in detail using CT angiography examination performed according to the routine coronary CT angiography protocol used for dual source CT. Dual source CT may be a valuable tool for evaluation of the coronary veins prior to invasive procedures that are directed at the coronary venous system

A rare manifestation of achalasia: Huge esophagus causing tracheal compression and progressive dyspnea

Achalasia is a primary esophageal motility disorder characterized by the absence of primary peristalsis and a failure of the lower esophageal sphincter to relax, resulting in a dilated esophagus. Dysphagia is the classic and most common symptom. Respiratory obstruction due to tracheal compression caused by a massively dilated esophagus is a very rare but fatal complication. Herein, we report a case of a patient with long-stand- ing achalasia who had tracheal compression secondary to a markedly dilated, giant esophagus. These findings are documented with CT scans. His symptoms regressed after a Heller myotomy and fundoplication operation.Akalazya, özofagusta genişlemeye yol açan, alt özofageal sfinkterin gevşeme boukluğu ve özofagusta primer peristaltizm yokluğuyla karakterize özofageal motilite hastalığıdır.Disfaji en sık rastlanan yakınmadır. Massif olarak genişleyen özofagusun trakeaya basısı sonucu oluşan solunumsal obstrüksiyon, çok nadir ancak ölümcül bir komplikasyondur.Burada ileri derecede dilate, dev özofagusun yol açtığı trakeal kompresyonu olan uzun süredir akalazya tanısı alan olguyu sunuyoruz. Hastanın semptomları laparoskopik Heller myotomi operasyonu sonrasında gerilemiştir.Bulgular Bilgisayarlı Tomografi incelemesiyle dökümante edilmiştir

EFFECT OF TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY WITH AUGMENTED REALITY TECHNOLOGIES ON STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCES

Bu çalismanin amaci, egitim ve ögretim ortamlarini zenginlestirmek ve etkin hale getirmek için gelistirilen artirilmis gerçeklik teknolojisinin sinif ortaminda uygulanmasi ve ögrencilerin akademik basarilari ve motivasyonlarina etkisini arastirmaktir. Bu amaçla, üniversite düzeyinde yari deneysel bir çalisma yürütülmüstür. 60 üniversite ögrencisinin katildigi çalismada, deney grubuna Ingilizce kelimeleri artirilmis gerçeklik teknolojisi ile gelistirilmis ortamda sunulurken kontrol grubuna geleneksel yöntemlerle ders islenmistir. Çalisma sonucunda artirilmis gerçeklik teknolojisi ile dersi isleyen ögrencilerin kontrol grubu ile dersi isleyen ögrencilere göre basarilarinin istatistiki olarak anlamli bir sekilde yüksek oldugu gözlenmistir. Ayrica ögrencilerin artirilmis gerçeklik teknolojisi ile hazirlanmis Ingilizce kelimeleri ögretimi için gelistirilen materyaller hakkindaki motivasyonlarini ölçmek için “Materyal Motivasyon Anketi” kullanilmistir. Sonuçlar incelendiginde ögrencilerin motivasyonlarinin yüksek oldugu görülmektedir. Çalisma sonuçlari, yabanci dil kelime ögretiminde artirilmis gerçeklik teknolojisi kullaniminin ögrencilerin performanslarina olumlu yönde etki ettigini göstermektedir.The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of an augmented reality technology, which was developed to enrich instructional environments and make them efficient, on students’ academic achievement and motivation through its implementation in a classroom environment. For this purpose, a quasi-experimental study was conducted at undergraduate level. In this study conducted with the participation of 60 undergraduate students, the words in English was taught to the students of the experimental group in the environment enriched with the augmented reality technology while they were taught to the control group through the traditional methods. According to the results of the study, the achievement scores of the students taught with the augmented reality technology is significantly higher than the achievement scores of the ones in the control group. Additionally, “Instructional Materials Motivation Survey” was used to investigate the motivation of the students pertaining to the materials developed through the augmented reality technology for the teaching of the words in English. The results indicate that the students have high level of motivation. In conclusion, the results of the current study revealed that the use of augmented reality technology in the teaching of words in a foreign language has a positive effect on student performance. Key Words: Augmented reality,  Students’  achievement, Motivation, Instructional technologie

Effect of fetal gender on angiogenesis: Analysis of angiogenin and leptin levels in second trimester amniotic fluids

Objective: To investigate a possible effect of fetal gender on placental angiogenesis by analysing second trimester amniotic fluid angiogenin and leptin levels in pregnancies with normal karyotype. Material and Methods: Angiogenin and leptin have strong angiogenetic properties. Therefore we retrospectively and randomly identified 48 fetuses (24 male and 24 female) with normal karyotype from our perinatology database in order to analyse their amniotic fluid angiogenin and leptin levels. Angiogenin and leptin levels were measured by ELISA. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare the clinical characteristics and Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare angiogenin and leptin levels between male and female fetuses. A value of p<0.05 was considered to be significant. Results: There were no significant differences in median levels of maternal age, weight, gestational age at amniotic fluid sampling, gravidity, parity and body mass index of the two groups. There were no significant changes in amniotic fluid angiogenin and leptin levels between male and female fetuses. Median angiogenin levels were 15.91 ng/ml (range 9.24- 37.91) for male and 20.91 ng/ml (5.69-45.02) for female fetuses (p=0.09); median leptin levels were 15.94 ng/ml (range 2.3039.36) for male and 13.25 ng/ml (3.28-49.23) for female fetuses (p=0.3). Conclusion: Fetal gender does not affect the degree of placental angiogenesis. Copyright © 2014 by Türkiye Klinik leri

Automatic sleep stage classification for the obstructive sleep apnea patients with feature mining

Automatic sleep scoring systems have been much more attention in the last decades. Whereas a wide variety of studies have been used in this subject area, the accuracies are still under acceptable limits to apply these methods to real-life data. One can find many high-accuracy studies in literature using a standard database but when it comes to using real data reaching such high performance is not straightforward. In this study, five distinct datasets were prepared using 124 persons including 93 unhealthy and 31 healthy persons. These datasets consist of time-, nonlinear-, welch-, discrete wavelet transform- and Hilbert-Huang transform features. By applying k-NN, Decision Trees, ANN, SVM, and Bagged Tree classifiers to these feature sets in various manners by using feature-selection highest classification accuracy was searched. The maximum classification accuracy was detected in the case of the Bagged Tree classifier as 95.06% with the use of 14 features among a total of 136 features. This accuracy is relatively high compared with the literature for a real-data application

Postspinal baş ağrısı sonrası gelişen ve atipik prezentasyon gösteren posterior reversibl ensefalopati sendromu

Headache is common in the postpartum period. Post-dural puncture head- ache (PDPH) is the most common major complication after spinal anaes- thesia. the clinical features and history of spinal anaesthesia are sufficient for diagnosis. However, the differential diagnosis is extensive and the evaluation of persistent symptoms requires a multidisciplinary approach for diagno- sis and treatment. Here, we report an 31 year-old woman with a history of normal pregnancy, presenting with persistent headache that started on postpartum day 2, and was refractory to conservative therapy of PDPH; the patient developed hypertension, seizures, visual disturbances, and altered mental status on postpartum day 7. the clinical outcome and neuroimaging findings of the patient were compatible with an atypical presentation of pos- terior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) associated with late post- partum preeclampsia. She showed dramatic improvement with antihyper- tensive therapy. PRES is a frequently reversible acute neurologic entity with different aetiologies including preeclampsia/eclampsia. However, a delay in diagnosis and treatment can result in permanent brain damage and death. Therefore, it is important to recognise atypical clinical and radiological pre- sentations of PRES for early diagnosis and treatment.Doğum sonrası dönemde baş ağrısı sık görülür. Postspinal baş ağrısı (PSBA) spinal anestezi sonrası en çok görülen büyük komplikasyondur. Tanı için klinik tablo ve spinal anestezi öyküsü yeterlidir. Fakat ayırıcı tanı listesi çok geniştir ve devam eden semptomlar varlığında tanı ve tedavi için çok yönlü yaklaşım gerekmektedir. Burada, sorunsuz bir gebeliği takiben postpartum 2. günde başlayan ve PSBA tedavisine yanıt vermeyen inatçı baş ağrısı ve 1. haftada hipertansiyon, görme bozukluğu, konvülziyon ve şuur durumunda bozukluk gelişen 31 yaşında kadın hastayı sunuyoruz. Olgunun klinik gidişi ve nöroradyolojik bulgular ile geç başlangıçlı preek- lampsiye bağlı, atipik prezentasyon gösteren posterior reversibl ensefalopa- ti sendromu (PRES) tanısı konmuştur. Hasta antihipertansif tedavi ile dra- matik iyileşme göstermiştir. PRES preeklampsi/eklampsiyi de içeren farklı etiyolojik etkenlere bağlı ortaya çıkan, çoğu zaman geri dönüşü olan akut bir nörolojik tablodur. Ancak tanı ve tedavide gecikme, kalıcı beyin hasa- rı ve ölüme neden olabilir. Bu nedenle PRES erken evre tanı ve tedavisi açısından atipik klinik ve radyolojik prezentasyonun bilinmesi önemlidir