The knowledge and considerations of the physicians regarding the inhaler devices in asthma and COPD: The INTEDA-1 study [Asti{dotless}m ve koah tedavisinde kullani{dotless}lan inhaler cihazlar hakki{dotless}nda hekimlerin bilgi düzeyleri ve görüşleri: INTEDA-1 Çali{dotless}şmasi{dotless}]

PubMed ID: 24298959The knowledge and considerations of the physicians regarding the inhaler devices in asthma and COPD: the INTEDA-1 study Introduction: The present paper was aimed at indicating and discussing the possible problems related to inhaler devices by considering the knowledge and practices of the physicians regarding the inhalation therapies. Materials and Methods: The present study is a prospective, cross-sectional survey carried out by Turkish Respiratory Society Inhalation Therapy Group between February 2010 and February 2011 with a participation of ten individual centres. Seven inhaler devices that were available on the market in the country were assessed. The data on the problems that 684 clinicians actively attending patients with respiratory disorders experienced in daily clinical practice or their evaluations of their patients were obtained through the questionnaire. Results: The respondents, most of whom were pulmonologist (37.5%), and pediatrist (38.1%), had been,on average, 11.6 years in profession. The source of information on inhalers and administration techniques were reported to be mainly the internet and patient leaflets. Of the participants only 18.5% reported to have had adequate knowledge of inhaler devices and proper administration techniques. Most of the participants stated that they themselves provided the instructions of administration and that the method was often verbal explanation. The physicians believed that although approximately 60% of the patients used the drug correctly, 40.7% made critical mistakes to have adverse effects on the therapeutic outcome. The most important criteria on which the physians lay greater emphasis in choosing the inhaler devices were the physical capability, skills and age of the patients. Conclusion: The awareness of proper use of inhaler devices is a fundamental prerequisite for effective inhalation therapy has been improved in physicians. The results of the present study have shown that more effort is required for professional training. Assisting the physicans with medical personnel for training of the patients and educational motivation are required

Survey of 55 Turkish Salvia taxa for their acetylcholinesterase inhibitory and antioxidant activities

In the current work, our target was to screen inhibitory potentials of 55 Turkish Salvia taxa, 28 of which are endemic, against acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which is a chief enzyme in pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, and methanol extracts prepared from 55 Salvia taxa were tested for their AChE inhibitory activity at 25, 50, and 100 mu g/ml using an ELISA microplate reader. The extracts were also screened for their scavenging effect against DPPH radical and iron-chelating capacity. Total phenol and total flavonoid contents of Salvia fruticosa were determined. Among the 165 Salvia extracts screened, only the dichloromethane extract of S. fruticosa showed inhibition towards AChE at 100 mu g/ml having 51.07% of inhibition, while only the dichloromethane and ethyl acetate extracts of Salvia cilicica had a notable iron-chelating capacity at 100 mu g/ml having 54.71% of chelating capacity. Most of the extracts showed remarkable scavenging effect against DPPH radical

Characterizing the Mobile Phone Use Patterns of Refugee-Hosting Provinces in Turkey

We use coarse-grained mobile phone data from a large Turkish mobile phone provider and cross-reference this data with social media data and a qualitatively composed violent events list to explore the integration of refugees in Turkey. The data provides grounds for fruitful future research. It suggests that border communities with the refugee sending country have much different communications patterns than non-border communities. Additionally, proximity to refugee camps may increase negative sentiment on social media towards refugees, which we suggest may be a proxy for understanding ‘compassion fatigue.’ These findings provide directions for future research on integration. Keywords: Integration, Twitter Sentiment, Syrian Refugees