212 research outputs found

    An evaluation of YouTube video content regarding erectile dysfunction

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    Purpose: YouTubeTM is one of the most popular social media platforms on the internet, and patients with chronic disease frequently use it to seek treatment options. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the quality of YouTube videos about erectile dysfunction. Materials & methods: The terms “erectile dysfunction treatment”, “erectile dysfunction surgery”, and “cure erectile dysfunction” were entered into the YouTube search bar. A total of 56 videos were included in the study. Videos’ view counts; upload dates; like, dislike, and comment counts; uploader qualifications; length; and content were recorded. Video power index (VPI), Quality Criteria for Consumer Health Information (DISCERN), and Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) scores were determined. Results: Thirty-two (57.1%) videos consisted of real images, and 24 (42.9%) contained animated images. Twenty-four (42.9%) videos were uploaded by physicians, and 32 (57.1%) were uploaded by non-physicians. The mean like count of the videos was 5,307 ± 17.618, the mean dislike count was 560.07 ± 1548.07, and the mean comment count was 235 ± 373. The mean VPI value of the videos was calculated as 81.19 ± 21.19, the DISCERN score was 30.5 ± 8.1, and the JAMA score was 1.23 ± 0.55. Overall quality was very poor in 24 (42.9%) of the examined videos, poor in 21 (37.5%), average in 10 (17.9%), and good in one (1.8%). Conclusion: The overall quality of YouTube content on erectile dysfunction was not sufficient to provide reliable information for patients. Physicians should warn patients about the limitations of YouTube and direct them toward more appropriate sources of information

    Safety and efficacy of using advanced electrosurgical bipolar vessel sealing during vaginal hysterectomy in morbidly obese patients: a retrospective cohort analysis

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    Objectives: To assess the safety and efficacy of electrosurgical bipolar vessel sealing during vaginal hysterectomy in morbidly obese patients Material and methods: A total of 105 morbidly obese patients who underwent vaginal hysterectomy due to benign gynecologic pathologies between January 2010 and April 2017 were included in the study. Patients were divided into two groups according to whether conventional suture ligation technique (n = 64) or electrosurgical bipolar vessel sealing (n = 41) were used during vaginal hysterectomy. The surgical procedure was performed with the same technique in both study groups. The primary outcomes were duration of surgery and estimated blood loss. The secondary outcomes were intra-operative complications and post-operative complications. Results: The duration of surgery and estimated blood loss in the vessel sealing group was significantly less than in the conventional suture group (p < 0.05). No significant difference was present between the two groups in the rate of intra-operative and post-operative complications. Conclusions: The primary outcome of our study is that the EBVS system can be used equally and even more effectively in some aspects; and as safe an alternative approach to conventional suture ligation technique during vaginal hysterectomies performed specifically on morbidly obese patients with reduced operation times and blood loss, and without increasing the complication rates

    Adaptive Diffusion Priors for Accelerated MRI Reconstruction

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    Deep MRI reconstruction is commonly performed with conditional models that de-alias undersampled acquisitions to recover images consistent with fully-sampled data. Since conditional models are trained with knowledge of the imaging operator, they can show poor generalization across variable operators. Unconditional models instead learn generative image priors decoupled from the imaging operator to improve reliability against domain shifts. Recent diffusion models are particularly promising given their high sample fidelity. Nevertheless, inference with a static image prior can perform suboptimally. Here we propose the first adaptive diffusion prior for MRI reconstruction, AdaDiff, to improve performance and reliability against domain shifts. AdaDiff leverages an efficient diffusion prior trained via adversarial mapping over large reverse diffusion steps. A two-phase reconstruction is executed following training: a rapid-diffusion phase that produces an initial reconstruction with the trained prior, and an adaptation phase that further refines the result by updating the prior to minimize reconstruction loss on acquired data. Demonstrations on multi-contrast brain MRI clearly indicate that AdaDiff outperforms competing conditional and unconditional methods under domain shifts, and achieves superior or on par within-domain performance

    Learning Fourier-Constrained Diffusion Bridges for MRI Reconstruction

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    Recent years have witnessed a surge in deep generative models for accelerated MRI reconstruction. Diffusion priors in particular have gained traction with their superior representational fidelity and diversity. Instead of the target transformation from undersampled to fully-sampled data, common diffusion priors are trained to learn a multi-step transformation from Gaussian noise onto fully-sampled data. During inference, data-fidelity projections are injected in between reverse diffusion steps to reach a compromise solution within the span of both the diffusion prior and the imaging operator. Unfortunately, suboptimal solutions can arise as the normality assumption of the diffusion prior causes divergence between learned and target transformations. To address this limitation, here we introduce the first diffusion bridge for accelerated MRI reconstruction. The proposed Fourier-constrained diffusion bridge (FDB) leverages a generalized process to transform between undersampled and fully-sampled data via random noise addition and random frequency removal as degradation operators. Unlike common diffusion priors that use an asymptotic endpoint based on Gaussian noise, FDB captures a transformation between finite endpoints where the initial endpoint is based on moderate degradation of fully-sampled data. Demonstrations on brain MRI indicate that FDB outperforms state-of-the-art reconstruction methods including conventional diffusion priors

    The cytologic investigation of brow adipose tissue of D.laniger Felten Storch, 1968 Mammalia: Rodentia in hibernation

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    T his study was conducted on the D.laniger samples maintained in the laboratory condition after collecting from the natural environment. Investigations were performed in the experimental groups in the active period at the time of hibernation and at the period of intermediate awakening during hibernation. The brown adipose tissue BAT of these animals investigated was removed by dissection. The tissue samples dissected were prepared for the analysis at Transmission Electron Microscopy TEM and photographed. It was observed for the D. laniger BAT cells in the active period that there are high amount mitochondria and whereas the scarce amount of the lipid droplets. However, it was drawn attention to BAT cell of animals in hibernation that there plenty of capillary vessels and lipid droplets between them. The contact between lipid droplets with each other in the cytoplasm of animal at intermediate awakening in the winter during hibernation and cytoplasmic material loss and melting of mitochondria cristae partly were observed. These results of this study suggest that it may be useful to understand the importance of the brown adipose tissue of some hibernating mammal

    The Relationship between Romantic Attachment and Coping Styles for Graduation Stress for College Seniors

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    The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between graduation stress and attachment domains for college seniors. Two hundred and fifteen university students expecting to graduate in one or two academic semester participated to the study. Out of the participants 123 (57.2%) were female, 78 (36.3%) were male, the mean age of participants was 22.06. Participants answered the questions of Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire-Revised (ECR-R; Fraley, Waller and Brennan 350) and Coping Style Scale (Şahin and Durak 56) via web-based database application. The results showed that students having high level of attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were less likely to have problem focused/effective coping styles, and more likely to have emotion focused/ineffective coping styles when they feel stress related to graduation. This study has provided a helpful resource not only to the researchers but also to the practitioners and experts providing psychological support to university students

    Dizajn maske za lice s UVC-LED zračenjem i njezina djelotvornost protiv uobičajenih klica

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    During the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the best means of personal protection was using face masks. In this context, the World Health Organization has declared the attempts to produce masks inactivating airborne virus species a welcome initiative. This preliminary study aimed to prove that airborne germs passing through a mask filter cartridge can be destroyed by the rays emitted from UVC LEDs placed in such cartridge. We therefore designed such a face mask and tested the efficiency of UVC LEDs placed in its cartridge against common contaminants, gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus, gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and the influenza A/Puerto Rico/8/1934 virus because of its similarity with SARS CoV-2. Eight UVC LEDs with a total power of 75 mW provided sufficient germicidal effect for all three germs. In terms of safety, ozone production released during UVC LED emission was negligible. Our findings are promising, as they show that well-designed UVC-based face masks can be effective against airborne germs, but further research on a greater sample may help us learn more and optimise such face masks.Tijekom pandemije Covida-19 jedan od najboljih oblika osobne zaštite bilo je nošenje maski za lice. U tom je smislu Svjetska zdravstvena organizacija pozdravila pokušaje izrade maski koje ubijaju virusne vrste koje se prenose zrakom. Cilj je ovoga preliminarnog istraživanja bio dokazati da se zrakom nošene klice koje prolaze kroz filtarske uloške mogu uništiti zračenjem UVC ledica smještenih u takve uloške. Stoga smo osmislili masku za lice s tom namjenom i iskušali djelotvornost UVC ledica protiv uobičajenih izvora zaraza: gram-pozitivnoga Staphylococcus aureus, gram-negativnoga Pseudomonas aeruginosa i virusa influence A/Puerto Rico/8/1934 zbog njegove sličnosti s virusom SARS CoV-2. Osam UVC ledica ukupne snage 75 mW iskazale su dovoljan germicidni učinak protiv svih triju klica. U smislu sigurnosti primjene, ozon proizveden tijekom UVC-LED zračenja pokazao se zanemarivim. Naši su rezultati obećavajući jer pokazuju da dobro osmišljene maske za lice s UVC zračenjem mogu biti djelotvorne protiv zrakom nošenih klica, ali će tek daljnja istraživanja na većem uzorku pomoći da doznamo više i usavršimo takve maske za lice

    Ego defense mechanisms in Pakistani medical students: a cross sectional analysis

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    Background: Ego defense mechanisms (or factors), defined by Freud as unconscious resources used by the ego to reduce conflict between the id and superego, are a reflection of how an individual deals with conflict and stress. This study assesses the prevalence of various ego defense mechanisms employed by medical students of Karachi, which is a group with higher stress levels than the general population. Methods: A questionnaire based cross-sectional study was conducted on 682 students from five major medical colleges of Karachi over 4 weeks in November 2006. Ego defense mechanisms were assessed using the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40) individually and as grouped under Mature, Immature, and Neurotic factors. Results: Lower mean scores of Immature defense mechanisms (4.78) were identified than those for Neurotic (5.62) and Mature (5.60) mechanisms among medical students of Karachi. Immature mechanisms were more commonly employed by males whereas females employed more Neurotic mechanisms than males. Neurotic and Immature defenses were significantly more prevalent in first and second year students. Mature mechanisms were significantly higher in students enrolled in Government colleges than Private institutions (p \u3c 0.05). Conclusions: Immature defense mechanisms were less commonly employed than Neurotic and Mature mechanisms among medical students of Karachi. The greater employment of Neurotic defenses may reflect greater stress levels than the general population. Employment of these mechanisms was associated with female gender, enrollment in a private medical college, and students enrolled in the first 2 years of medical school

    Cotton in the new millennium: advances, economics, perceptions and problems

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    Cotton is the most significant natural fibre and has been a preferred choice of the textile industry and consumers since the industrial revolution began. The share of man-made fibres, both regenerated and synthetic fibres, has grown considerably in recent times but cotton production has also been on the rise and accounts for about half of the fibres used for apparel and textile goods. To cotton’s advantage, the premium attached to the presence of cotton fibre and the general positive consumer perception is well established, however, compared to commodity man-made fibres and high performance fibres, cotton has limitations in terms of its mechanical properties but can help to overcome moisture management issues that arise with performance apparel during active wear. This issue of Textile Progress aims to: i. Report on advances in cotton cultivation and processing as well as improvements to conventional cotton cultivation and ginning. The processing of cotton in the textile industry from fibre to finished fabric, cotton and its blends, and their applications in technical textiles are also covered. ii. Explore the economic impact of cotton in different parts of the world including an overview of global cotton trade. iii. Examine the environmental perception of cotton fibre and efforts in organic and genetically-modified (GM) cotton production. The topic of naturally-coloured cotton, post-consumer waste is covered and the environmental impacts of cotton cultivation and processing are discussed. Hazardous effects of cultivation, such as the extensive use of pesticides, insecticides and irrigation with fresh water, and consequences of the use of GM cotton and cotton fibres in general on the climate are summarised and the effects of cotton processing on workers are addressed. The potential hazards during cotton cultivation, processing and use are also included. iv. Examine how the properties of cotton textiles can be enhanced, for example, by improving wrinkle recovery and reducing the flammability of cotton fibre

    EPIdemiology of Surgery-Associated Acute Kidney Injury (EPIS-AKI) : Study protocol for a multicentre, observational trial

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    More than 300 million surgical procedures are performed each year. Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication after major surgery and is associated with adverse short-term and long-term outcomes. However, there is a large variation in the incidence of reported AKI rates. The establishment of an accurate epidemiology of surgery-associated AKI is important for healthcare policy, quality initiatives, clinical trials, as well as for improving guidelines. The objective of the Epidemiology of Surgery-associated Acute Kidney Injury (EPIS-AKI) trial is to prospectively evaluate the epidemiology of AKI after major surgery using the latest Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) consensus definition of AKI. EPIS-AKI is an international prospective, observational, multicentre cohort study including 10 000 patients undergoing major surgery who are subsequently admitted to the ICU or a similar high dependency unit. The primary endpoint is the incidence of AKI within 72 hours after surgery according to the KDIGO criteria. Secondary endpoints include use of renal replacement therapy (RRT), mortality during ICU and hospital stay, length of ICU and hospital stay and major adverse kidney events (combined endpoint consisting of persistent renal dysfunction, RRT and mortality) at day 90. Further, we will evaluate preoperative and intraoperative risk factors affecting the incidence of postoperative AKI. In an add-on analysis, we will assess urinary biomarkers for early detection of AKI. EPIS-AKI has been approved by the leading Ethics Committee of the Medical Council North Rhine-Westphalia, of the Westphalian Wilhelms-University Münster and the corresponding Ethics Committee at each participating site. Results will be disseminated widely and published in peer-reviewed journals, presented at conferences and used to design further AKI-related trials. Trial registration number NCT04165369
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