Damages of Masonry School Buildings on 2010 Karakocan - Elazig Earthquake

Masonary school buildings were damaged very heavly or coolapsed in Karakocan-Elazig-Turkey earthquake with M=6.0 occurred on 08 March 2010 at 04:32 a.m. (local time) at eastern Turkey and caused the loss of life and heavy damages, as well. The majority of the damaged structures were seismically deficient unreinforced masonry structures.. In this paper, results of the site survey of Earthquake region -the damaged masonary school buildings are presented and the reasons behind the damages are discussed.One of the most common reasons was the use of wrong material. Red bricks, Rubble stone, shaped soft stone blocks and very low guality mortar as binding material were the wall materials commonly used in the damaged buildings. Red brick, Soft stone blocks have low strength values. Another common reason is lack of interlocking element to connect the inner and outer leaves of the masonary walls to each other. Because of this deficiency, the unsupported length of the outer leaf of the wall was doubled, but its effective thickness was decreased to the half of the wall thickness.Insufficient connection of the walls to each other was also a common reason of the damages . As a result of this deficiency the free span of the external wall was too much to resist aganist out of plane failure.Wrong placement of the openings in the walls was among the most common damage reasons.Insuffucient bond beams along the walls and a heavy - inclined roof were also important reasons.Topography of the region was also effective in the damages. Many of the damaged buildings were located on the hills with a high slope

BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in Turkish breast/ovarian families and young breast cancer patients

To date, BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in breast and/or ovarian patients have not been characterized in the Turkish population. We investigated the presence of BRCA mutations in 53 individuals with a personal and family history of breast and/or ovarian cancer, and 52 individuals with a personal history of breast cancer diagnosed below age 50 without additional family history. We have identified 11 mutations (nine BRCA1 and two BRCA2) using combined techniques involving protein truncation test, direct sequencing and heteroduplex analysis. We found eight out of 53 patients (15.1%) with a family history to carry BRCA gene mutations (seven BRCA1 and one BRCA2). Of these, four were found in 43 families presenting only breast cancer histories, and four were found in families presenting ovarian cancer with or without breast cancer. We also demonstrated two BRCA1 and one BRCA2 mutations in three out of 52 (5.8%) early-onset breast cancer cases without additional family history. Three of nine BRCA1 and both BRCA2 mutations detected in this study were not reported previously. These mutations may be specific to the Turkish population. The BRCA1 5382insC mutation, specific to Ashkenazi and Russian populations, was found twice in our study group, representing a possible founder mutation in the Turkish population. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig

Integration of Hi-C with short and long-read genome sequencing reveals the structure of germline rearranged genomes

Here the authors characterize structural variations (SVs) in a cohort of individuals with complex genomic rearrangements, identifying breakpoints by employing short- and long-read genome sequencing and investigate their impact on gene expression and the three-dimensional chromatin architecture. They find breakpoints are enriched in inactive regions and can result in chromatin domain fusions.Structural variants are a common cause of disease and contribute to a large extent to inter-individual variability, but their detection and interpretation remain a challenge. Here, we investigate 11 individuals with complex genomic rearrangements including germline chromothripsis by combining short- and long-read genome sequencing (GS) with Hi-C. Large-scale genomic rearrangements are identified in Hi-C interaction maps, allowing for an independent assessment of breakpoint calls derived from the GS methods, resulting in >300 genomic junctions. Based on a comprehensive breakpoint detection and Hi-C, we achieve a reconstruction of whole rearranged chromosomes. Integrating information on the three-dimensional organization of chromatin, we observe that breakpoints occur more frequently than expected in lamina-associated domains (LADs) and that a majority reshuffle topologically associating domains (TADs). By applying phased RNA-seq, we observe an enrichment of genes showing allelic imbalanced expression (AIG) within 100 kb around the breakpoints. Interestingly, the AIGs hit by a breakpoint (19/22) display both up- and downregulation, thereby suggesting different mechanisms at play, such as gene disruption and rearrangements of regulatory information. However, the majority of interpretable genes located 200 kb around a breakpoint do not show significant expression changes. Thus, there is an overall robustness in the genome towards large-scale chromosome rearrangements

Detail-preserving switching algorithm for the removal of random-valued impulse noise

© 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. This paper presents a new algorithm for the denoising of images corrupted with random-valued impulse noise (RVIN). It employs a switching approach that identifies the noisy pixels in the first stage and then estimates their intensity values to restore them. Local statistics of the textons in distinct orientations of the sliding window are exploited to identify the corrupted pixels in an iterative manner; using an adaptive threshold range. Textons are formed by using an isometric grid of minimum local distance that preserves the texture and edge pixels of an image, effectively. At the noise filtering stage, fuzzy rules are used to obtain the noise-free pixels from the proposed tri-directional pixels to estimate the intensity values of identified corrupted pixels. The performance of the proposed denoising algorithm is evaluated on a variety of standard gray-scale images under various intensities of RVIN by comparing it with state-of-the-art denoising methods. The proposed denoising algorithm also has robust denoising and restoration power on biomedical images such as, MRI, X-Ray and CT-Scan. The extensive simulation results based on both quantitative measures and visual representations depict the superior performance of the proposed denoising algorithm for various noise intensities

A novel procedure to measure the antioxidant capacity of Yerba maté extracts

Yerba maté extracts have in vitro antioxidant capacity attributed to the presence of polyphenolic compounds, mainly chlorogenic acids and dicaffeoylquinic acid derivatives. DPPH is one of the most used assays to measure the antioxidant capacity of pure compounds and plant extracts. It is difficult to compare the results between studies because this assay is applied in too many different conditions by the different research groups. Thus, in order to assess the antioxidant capacity of yerba maté extracts, the following procedure is proposed: 100 µL of an aqueous dilution of the extracts is mixed in duplicate with 3.0 mL of a DPPH 'work solution in absolute methanol (100 µM.L-1), with an incubation time of 120 minutes in darkness at 37 ± 1 °C, and then absorbance is read at 517 nm against absolute methanol. The results should be expressed as ascorbic acid equivalents or Trolox equivalents in mass percentage (g% dm, dry matter) in order to facilitate comparisons. The AOC of the ethanolic extracts ranged between 12.8 and 23.1 g TE % dm and from 9.1 to 16.4 g AAE % dm. The AOC determined by the DPPH assay proposed in the present study can be related to the total polyphenolic content determined by the Folin-Ciocalteu assay

Recovery of dialysis patients with COVID-19 : health outcomes 3 months after diagnosis in ERACODA

Background. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related short-term mortality is high in dialysis patients, but longer-term outcomes are largely unknown. We therefore assessed patient recovery in a large cohort of dialysis patients 3 months after their COVID-19 diagnosis. Methods. We analyzed data on dialysis patients diagnosed with COVID-19 from 1 February 2020 to 31 March 2021 from the European Renal Association COVID-19 Database (ERACODA). The outcomes studied were patient survival, residence and functional and mental health status (estimated by their treating physician) 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis. Complete follow-up data were available for 854 surviving patients. Patient characteristics associated with recovery were analyzed using logistic regression. Results. In 2449 hemodialysis patients (mean ± SD age 67.5 ± 14.4 years, 62% male), survival probabilities at 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis were 90% for nonhospitalized patients (n = 1087), 73% for patients admitted to the hospital but not to an intensive care unit (ICU) (n = 1165) and 40% for those admitted to an ICU (n = 197). Patient survival hardly decreased between 28 days and 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis. At 3 months, 87% functioned at their pre-existent functional and 94% at their pre-existent mental level. Only few of the surviving patients were still admitted to the hospital (0.8-6.3%) or a nursing home (∼5%). A higher age and frailty score at presentation and ICU admission were associated with worse functional outcome. Conclusions. Mortality between 28 days and 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis was low and the majority of patients who survived COVID-19 recovered to their pre-existent functional and mental health level at 3 months after diagnosis