Implementation of matrix rhythm therapy and conventional massage in young females and comparison of their acute effects on circulation

Objectives: To examine and compare the effects of massage and matrix rhythm therapy in young women on the peripheral blood circulation. Design: Randomized, double-blind, controlled trial. Setting: Pamukkale University in Denizli, Turkey. Patients: Fifteen healthy women age 19-23 years. Intervention: Matrix rhythm therapy was applied to the left lower extremity for a single 30-minute session. At least 1 week later, massage was applied to the left lower extremity for 30 minutes in a single session. The same physiotherapist applied both sessions. Outcome measures: The blood velocity (cm/s), artery diameter (mm), and blood flow (ml/min) of the popliteal and the posterior tibial arteries were measured with color Doppler ultrasonography. All images were evaluated by the same radiologist. Results: After matrix rhythm therapy and massage application, blood velocity, artery diameter, and blood flow in arteries increased. However, matrix rhythm therapy caused a more prominent increase in the amount of blood flow in the popliteal and in the posterior tibial artery than did massage. After matrix rhythm therapy application, the average increases in the blood flow rates in the popliteal and the posterior tibial arteries were 25.29%±16.55% and 34.33%±15.66%, respectively; after the massage, the increases were 17.84%±17.23% and 16.07%±10.28%, respectively. Conclusion: Matrix rhythm therapy and massage increased peripheral blood flow in young women. Matrix rhythm therapy method resulted in more prominent increases. © Mary Ann Liebert, Inc

Detection and localization of emitters in the presence of multipath

Yön bulma işlemi kısaca DF (Direction Finding, Yön Bulma) veya AOA (Angle of Arrival, Geliş Açısı) olarak ifade edilmektedir. Antenler, alıcı, sayısal kart ve bilgisayardan oluşan sisteme de DF (Direction Finding, Yön Bulma) sistemi denmektedir. DF sistemi tek olarak sadece vericilerin yönünü tespit edebilmektedir. Eğer amaç vericilerinin konumunun belirlenmesi ise ortamda en az iki DF sistemi bulunması gerekmektedir. Bu çalışmada telsiz vericilerinin sayılarının ve yerlerinin tespiti için yeni bir yöntem önerilmiştir. Telsiz vericilerinin sayısının ve yerinin tespitinde MDL (Minimum Description Length, Minimum Tanımlama Uzunluğu) tabanlı ITC (Information Theoretic Criteria) algoritması ile önce ortamdaki yol sayısının daha sonra MUSIC (Multiple Signal Classification, Çoklu İşaret Sınıflandırma) algoritması ile vericilerin yönlerinin belirlenmesi önemli bir aşamadır. MUSIC spektrumundaki her bir tepe her bir yolun geliş açısına karşılık gelecektir. Fakat çoklu yansımalı ortamlarda bir vericiden birden fazla yoldan işaret yayılacağından DF için ek çalışmalar gerekecektir. MVBF (Minimum Variance Beamforming, Minimum Varyans Huzme Şekillendirme) huzme şekillendirme algoritması kullanılarak her yoldan gelen işaretlerin zaman ekseni verileri elde edilir ve aralarındaki korelasyon katsayıları hesaplanır. Bu korelasyon katsayıları kullanılarak işaretlerin aynı kaynaktan yayılıp yayılmadıklarına karar verilir. Böylece verici sayısı ve onların yönleri tespit edilmektedir. Performans analizleri gerçek zamanlı deneylerle elde edilerek sunulmaktadır. Önerilen tekniğin etkinlik testi, tam yansımasız oda içerisinde iki kaynaklı denemelerle gerçekleştirilmiştir. Dış ortamda da başarılı denemeler yapılmıştır.  Anahtar Kelimeler: DF, dizilim anten, huzme şekillendirme, yön tespit.Direction Finding (DF), or in other words, estimation of Angle of Arrival (AOA), has been an active research area since the beginning of the 20th century. DF has several application areas such as, military applications, GSM with improved channel capacity, localization of illegal transmitters such as TV and radio stations, or, of a mountaineer losing his/her path, in addition to spectrum monitoring.When multiple sources are incident on an antenna array simultaneously, classical DF methods, such as interferometry and Doppler cannot resolve these sources. An effective solution to the problem is to use high-resolution subspace-based algorithms. Multiple Signal Identification and Classification (MUSIC) is the most powerful and widely used subspace-based method. MUSIC is known to successfully resolve two or more sources if they are incoherent. However, in practice, signals often propagate in multipath environments. Thus, a source signal is incident on the array from many paths, which implies that coherent signals at different angles will be received by an array.For source localization with MUSIC in a multipath environment, it is critical to initially detect the number of incident paths. The simplest such algorithms are based on counting the smallest eigenvalues of the array covariance matrix. Information Theoretic Criteria (ITC) is advanced algorithm for path enumeration widely used, such as the Akaike Informatin Criteria (AIC) and Minimum Description Length (MDL). Just as in MUSIC, these ITC algorithms are also affected in a multipath environment. This is due to the fact that signal coherence in a multipath environment alters the eigenstructure of the sensor array's correlation matrix, which in turn affects the performance of both MUSIC and ITC. MDL was proposed for source enumeration in the presence of multipath and signal coherence. A recent solution proposed for the problem of signal coherence is the Spatial Smoothing (SS) preprocessing algorithm. SS essentially removes the effect of coherency between incoming signals in the eigen-structure of the correlation matrix. Therefore, source localization process involves the following steps: First, the array antenna output is processed to form a sample covariance matrix, then SS is applied to this matrix, after which the number of signals are estimated and finally, based on these, MUSIC is used to generate an angle spectrum.It is important to note that in a multipath environ-ment, ITC with spatial smoothing merely detects the number of paths, i.e., the signals originating from sources directly or incident from the reflectors, and then the MUSIC algorithm localizes all these signals in the angle/AOA pseudospectrum. In other words, ITC and/or the MUSIC-AOA pseudospectrum, indicate the number of paths and not the number of independent sources present in a multipath environment. This is a significant problem if the objective is to localize actual independent sources in a multipath environment.In this study, the minimum description length information-theoretic algorithm is used for the joint detection and localization of multiple RF transmitters in a multipath environment is to enumerate the number of paths and then to measure the angle of arrival of each path using an antenna array with a high resolution direction finding algorithm such as MUSIC. Those possible propagation paths are the angles corresponding to the peaks of the MUSIC pseudospectrum. Since more than one path may correspond to a single emitter source, further processing is required. The time domain signals of these paths are then extracted with minimum variance beamforming in order to estimate their corre-lation coefficients with each other. These correlation coefficients are used to decide whether or not these paths correspond to the same emitter. Hence, the number of emitters and their angle of arrivals are jointly estimated. Performance analysis of the method is presented via real-time laboratory experimentation and discussed in this paper. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique, experiments with two sources are conducted in an anechoic test chamber.  Keywords: DF, direction finding, array antenna, beamforming, MVBF

Cytotoxic activities of certain medicinal plants on different cancer cell lines

Objectives: In recent years, the use of plants for the prevention and treatment of cancer is gaining more attention due to their diverse range of phytochemical constituents and fewer adverse effects. In this study, four medicinal plant species from the Kars province of Turkey were investigated for their cytotoxic potential against six different cancer cell lines and one normal cell line. Materials and Methods: MTT [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-dipenyltetrazolium bromide] assay was performed to assess cytotoxic activity and apoptotic effect was determined using flow cytometry and caspase-3 analyses. Results: Significant cytotoxicity (≥70%) was observed with the leaf extract of Artemisia absinthium on A-549, CCC-221, K-562, MCF-7, PC-3 cells, whereas seed extracts caused significant cytotoxicity (≥70%) on CCC-221, K-562, MCF-7, PC-3 cells. Selective cytotoxicity was obtained with leaf extract on A-549 and K-562 cells; and with seed extract on K-562, MCF-7 and PC-3 cells compared with normal Beas-2B cells. The levels of cytotoxicity for both extracts were time- and dose-dependent at lower concentrations. Moreover, selective cytotoxicity (78%) was detected on A-549 cells with the seed extract of Plantago major. Cytotoxicity of extracts from Hyoscyamus niger and Amaranthus retrosa ranged between 10% and 30%. Conclusion: A. absinthium extracts and P. major seed extract have potential for development as therapeutic agents for cytotoxicity on certain cancer cells following further investigation. © Turk J Pharm Sci, Published by Galenos Publishing House

Promising Outcome of Radiation Therapy for Chondroblastoma of Temporal Bone in Childhood: A Case Report

Chondroblastoma is a rare cartilaginous benign bone tumor. Chondroblastoma in the temporal bone is also quite rare. Total excision is the main treatment. Data regarding tumor response to radiation therapy (RT) is insufficient. We describe a case of chondroblastoma that was treated with RT following subtotal tumor resection. In this case, the patient was a 14-year-old male who presented with a three-month history of ear fullness and hearing loss in his right ear. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed a mass partly filling the right external auditory canal and the inferior part of the middle ear. Histopathological findings indicated chondroblastoma. Subtotal tumor resection was performed due to risk of complications. RT was planned upon the growth of the tumor during follow-up. Treatment with subtotal resection and postoperative RT has been successful and the patient had no recurrence in the course of the 12-year follow-up. In chondroblastoma, complete surgical resection is still the gold standard. But the success of subtotal resection followed by adjuvant RT should also be kept in mind for cases where the total excision would pose high morbidity

The professionals speak: Practitioners’ perspectives on professional election campaigning

Faced with some fundamental changes in the socio-cultural, political and media environment, political parties in post-industrialized democracies have started to initiate substantial transformations of both their organizational structures and communicative practices. Those innovations, described as professionalization, become most obvious during election campaigns. In recent times, the number of empirical studies measuring the degree of political parties’ campaign professionalism has grown. They have relied on a broad spectrum of indicators derived from theory which have not been tested for their validity. For the first time, we put these indicators to a ‘reality check’ by asking top-ranked party secretaries and campaign managers in 12 European countries to offer their perceptions of professional election campaigning. Furthermore, we investigate whether any differences in understanding professionalism among party campaign practitioners can be explained by macro (country) and meso (party) factors. By and large, our results confirm the validity of most indicators applied in empirical studies on campaign professionalism so far. There are some party- and country-related differences in assessing campaign professionalism too, but the influence of most factors on practitioners’ evaluations is weak. Therefore, we conclude that largely there is a far-reaching European Union-wide common understanding of professional election campaigning

EnzyMiner: automatic identification of protein level mutations and their impact on target enzymes from PubMed abstracts

BACKGROUND: A better understanding of the mechanisms of an enzyme's functionality and stability, as well as knowledge and impact of mutations is crucial for researchers working with enzymes. Though, several of the enzymes' databases are currently available, scientific literature still remains at large for up-to-date source of learning the effects of a mutation on an enzyme. However, going through vast amounts of scientific documents to extract the information on desired mutation has always been a time consuming process. In this paper, therefore, we describe an unique method, termed as EnzyMiner, which automatically identifies the PubMed abstracts that contain information on the impact of a protein level mutation on the stability and/or the activity of a given enzyme. RESULTS: We present an automated system which identifies the abstracts that contain an amino-acid-level mutation and then classifies them according to the mutation's effect on the enzyme. In the case of mutation identification, MuGeX, an automated mutation-gene extraction system has an accuracy of 93.1% with a 91.5 F-measure. For impact analysis, document classification is performed to identify the abstracts that contain a change in enzyme's stability or activity resulting from the mutation. The system was trained on lipases and tested on amylases with an accuracy of 85%. CONCLUSION: EnzyMiner identifies the abstracts that contain a protein mutation for a given enzyme and checks whether the abstract is related to a disease with the help of information extraction and machine learning techniques. For disease related abstracts, the mutation list and direct links to the abstracts are retrieved from the system and displayed on the Web. For those abstracts that are related to non-diseases, in addition to having the mutation list, the abstracts are also categorized into two groups. These two groups determine whether the mutation has an effect on the enzyme's stability or functionality followed by displaying these on the web

A computational model of perception and action for cognitive robotics

Robots are increasingly expected to perform tasks in complex environments. To this end, engineers provide them with processing architectures that are based on models of human information processing. In contrast to traditional models, where information processing is typically set up in stages (i.e., from perception to cognition to action), it is increasingly acknowledged by psychologists and robot engineers that perception and action are parts of an interactive and integrated process. In this paper, we present HiTEC, a novel computational (cognitive) model that allows for direct interaction between perception and action as well as for cognitive control, demonstrated by task-related attentional influences. Simulation results show that key behavioral studies can be readily replicated. Three processing aspects of HiTEC are stressed for their importance for cognitive robotics: (1) ideomotor learning of action control, (2) the influence of task context and attention on perception, action planning, and learning, and (3) the interaction between perception and action planning. Implications for the design of cognitive robotics are discussed

Ultra-Rare Genetic Variation in the Epilepsies : A Whole-Exome Sequencing Study of 17,606 Individuals

Sequencing-based studies have identified novel risk genes associated with severe epilepsies and revealed an excess of rare deleterious variation in less-severe forms of epilepsy. To identify the shared and distinct ultra-rare genetic risk factors for different types of epilepsies, we performed a whole-exome sequencing (WES) analysis of 9,170 epilepsy-affected individuals and 8,436 controls of European ancestry. We focused on three phenotypic groups: severe developmental and epileptic encephalopathies (DEEs), genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE), and non-acquired focal epilepsy (NAFE). We observed that compared to controls, individuals with any type of epilepsy carried an excess of ultra-rare, deleterious variants in constrained genes and in genes previously associated with epilepsy; we saw the strongest enrichment in individuals with DEEs and the least strong in individuals with NAFE. Moreover, we found that inhibitory GABA(A) receptor genes were enriched for missense variants across all three classes of epilepsy, whereas no enrichment was seen in excitatory receptor genes. The larger gene groups for the GABAergic pathway or cation channels also showed a significant mutational burden in DEEs and GGE. Although no single gene surpassed exome-wide significance among individuals with GGE or NAFE, highly constrained genes and genes encoding ion channels were among the lead associations; such genes included CACNAIG, EEF1A2, and GABRG2 for GGE and LGI1, TRIM3, and GABRG2 for NAFE. Our study, the largest epilepsy WES study to date, confirms a convergence in the genetics of severe and less-severe epilepsies associated with ultra-rare coding variation, and it highlights a ubiquitous role for GABAergic inhibition in epilepsy etiology.Peer reviewe