Investigation of earthquake resistance at primary school buildings in Turkey

The most important natural disaster is earthquake in Turkey. A very large part of our country has 1st and 2nd degree in earthquake zones. Experienced in the past earthquakes and earthquake damages showed the importance of architectural design of buildings on the earthquake. Various types of projects have been created for educational buildings by public organizations after the 1999 Marmara earthquake. there is some irregularity on these types of projects according DBYBHY-2007. According to all these datas, three different types of projects were designed and modeled by Probina-orion program. Square, rectangular and L-shaped form were investigated in terms of 2007 Earthquake Guide irregularities. According to the results of these analyzes, behavior of forms during the earthqauke were compared. Results obtained from the study show that the geometry and symmetrical static systems of the different forms of education buildings have affected their behaviors during the earthquakes

Prognostic factors in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma

Background: Papillary thyroid carcinomas are associated with metastases and decreased survival in a small group of patients. Aim: The aim of this study is to determine the factors associated with recurrences/metastases in papillary thyroid carcinoma patients. Subjects and methods: One hundred and thirty-one patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma were evaluated retrospectively. The diagnosis was papillary microcarcinoma (PMC) in 48 patients. All patients had undergone near-total/total thyroidectomy. Radioactive iodine was given to 103 patients. Age at diagnosis, gender, previous history of thyroid disease, tumor stage, histopathological characteristics of tumor and initial treatment strategies were evaluated. Results: Recurrences/metastases developed in 17 patients during follow-up. Recurrences developed at a significantly higher percentage in patients with a tumor stage >T1 and patients with lymph node metastasis at presentation. No significant difference was observed in recurrence ratio between patients with PMC and patients with a tumor diameter 21 cm. In the Cox-regression analysis only the advanced tumor stage (>T1) and presence of lymph node metastases were found to be significant predictors for recurrence (univariate analysis, odds ratio =4.02 and 3.15, respectively). However, multivariate analysis did not reveal any significant independent predictors. According to the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, lymph node metastases at presentation were associated with a decrease in recurrence-free survival at statistical significance (p=0.05). No mortality was observed during follow-up. Conclusion: Papillary thyroid carcinoma leads to recurrences/metastases in a small group of patients. Initial characteristics of the patients - i.e. presence of lymph node metastases - may predict recurrences/metastases in these patients. (J. Endocrinol. Invest. 31: 1032-1037, 2008) (C) 2008, Editrice Kurti

STATIONARY AND TRANSIENT RESPONSES OF SUSPENSION BRIDGES TO SPATIALLY VARYING GROUND MOTIONS INCLUDING SITE RESPONSE EFFECT

This paper presents an investigation about the stationary and transient analyses of suspension bridges subjected to spatially varying ground motions including the site response effect. The Bosphorus Suspension Bridge, which connects Europe to Asia in Istanbul, Turkey is selected as a numerical example. The spatial variability of ground motions between the support points is taken into consideration with the coherency function, which arises from three sources: incoherence, wave-passage and site-response effects. The Heaviside Modulating Function has been used throughout the study for computing the transient responses. At the end of the study, the results are compared with each other in two groups as homogeneous-heterogeneous and stationary-transient responses. It is observed that the response values obtained for the heterogeneous soil condition cause larger response values than those of the homogeneous soil condition. Also the greater the differences between the soil conditions, the greater the response values. It is also noticed that the stationary response values are larger than those of the transient responses. Based on the obtained results, the stationary assumption can be accepted as satisfactory for the considered ground motion duration

A rare post-transplant malignancy, cerebellar hemangioblastoma: A case report

Introduction: Post-transplant malignancies are among the most important complications in organ transplantation. Hemangioblastoma (HB) is especially prevalent in the cerebellum

Fracture Mechanics Based Unilateral and Bilateral Earthquake Simulations: Application to Cable-Stayed Bridge Response

The phenomena of forward-directivity effects cause pulse-type earthquake ground motions that result in significant damage to structures. Forward directivity ground motions can be facilitated by typically simulating unilateral ruptures and occasionally by bilateral ruptures. Traditional analysis methods do not employ the dynamics of fault rupture hence are inadequate to capture the full effects of these pulse-type ground motions. Computational seismology overcomes this limitation and plays an important role to simulate dynamic earthquake ruptures. The objective of this paper is to use an open-source code SPECFEM3D to generate synthetic field vector data to improve the understanding of pulse-type ground motions generated using dynamic simulations. The software was used to generate synthetic earthquakes of moment magnitude, Mw = 7 with a strike-slip mechanism. Two cases were considered with nucleation at the end and in the center of the fault to generate unilateral and bilateral ruptures. The generated ground motions are then interpreted to comprehend the concept of directivity. Later, the seismic response of the bridge is evaluated for selected stations around the fault. The behavior of the bridge in terms of displacement field is evaluated which showed a similar response for stations located at a distance of 2 and 10 km in front of the fault. Further inference of bridge response is drawn by comparing the Fourier amplitude spectrum of velocities at these particular stations. The peak amplitude frequencies of the velocity fields at these stations lie in the regime of natural frequencies of the bridge which caused it to resonate in turn exhibiting high displacements at stations in front of the fault

A rare cause of hypoglycemia in elderly: Insulinoma

Insulinoma is rare pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor that is usually described as benign and sporadic. It is seen mostly in women at the ages between 40 and 60 years. Insulinoma can cause hypoglycemic attacks which may lead to serious consequences. Here we report a case of an 82 years old woman with the diagnosis of insulinoma presented by cerebrovascular disease due to severe hypoglycemia. Early diagnosis of the disease is essential to prevent lethal hypoglycemia. The first choice of treatment is surgery. However in the elderly, medical treatments may be preferred as primary treatment due to the existing comorbidities. For this case, it was possible to control the hypoglycemic attacks by using diazoxide and octreotide treatment. So that continous dextrose infusion is not necessary