Remission and Relapse in Alcohol and Substance Addiction

Alcohol and substance addiction is a chronic disease and continues throughout individual's life once after addiction develops. Therefore its natural course is characterized by remissions and relapses. In addiction, relapse periods can be followed by remission periods and individuals encounter with negative effects of alcohol and substances in these relapse periods. Many factors have been defined to determine the risk of relapse up to the date. These factors can be situational or personal and they also have physiological bases. Interaction of these factors with each other is critical in terms of relapse. Relapse is a quite well studied area in the literature, in order to prevent the individuals from restarting alcohol and substance use again. Defining the challenges of addicted patients in remission periods and recurrent periods of relapse in detail will guide clinicians to determine treatment strategies in addiction and to prevent subsequent relapse periods. [Psikiyatride Guncel Yaklasimlar - Current Approaches in Psychiatry 2014; 6(3.000): 243-256

Assessment of Socialization and Sports-Socialization Processes of University Students Studying in Different Sports Branches

The purpose of this research is to assess the sports and socialization of the students studying in different sports branches in Gumushane University. “Socialization- Sports and Socialization Scale” developed by Sahan was used in this research. A total of 742 students composed of 316 females and 426 males studying in Gumushane University participated in this survey modelled research. Data obtained were evaluated in SPSS package program. Reliability coefficient of the scale was found to be 0.896. T-Test, Kruskall Wallis and Anova were used in statistical assessment of data. Pearson Product-Moment Correlation analysis was used to determine whether there was a significant relation between socialization and sports-socialization scores and the causal relations between two variables were tested with simple linear regression analysis. The study was analyzed in terms of certain variables and it was concluded that the variables of gender, age, place of residence and type of sports done by the participants didn’t make a difference on sports-socialization and socialization scores. It is also observed that there is a positive and significant relation between the variables of socialization and sports-socialization (r= .624, p<.01). In other words, it can be stated that the higher the socialization scores of the participants are, the higher their sports-socialization scores become, accordingly. &nbsp

Impact of ICT on the productivity of the firm: evidence from Turkish manufacturing

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media New York. This paper aims to explore the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on labor productivity growth in Turkish manufacturing. This is the first attempt at exploring the impact of ICT on productivity in Turkish manufacturing at the firm level. The analysis is based on firm level data obtained from Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) and covers the period from 2003 to 2012. The data used in the analysis includes all firms employing 19+ workers in Turkish manufacturing industry. Growth accounting results show that the contributions of conventional and ICT capital to value added growth are not significantly different from each other. On the other hand, results based both on static (fixed-effects) and dynamic panel data analysis highlight the positive influence on firms’ productivity exerted by ICT capital. The findings show that the impact of ICT capital on productivity is larger by about 25 to 50% than that of conventional capital. This contribution of ICT capital is higher than that of non-ICT capital for small sized and low-tech firms. Our findings imply that investing in ICT capital increases firm productivity by increasing the productivity of labor and also that convention growth accounting approaches may not be adequate to identify such linkages

Investigation of Vitamin D Levels in Patients with Vitiligo Vulgaris

The aim of the study was to investigate serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH) D3) levels in patients with vitiligo vulgaris in terms of causal relation and extension of the disorder.This study is a clinical cross-sectional study carried out in order to determine 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels among 25 patients with vitiligo vulgaris and in 41 controls. Fitzpatrick skin phototypes, history of autoimmune disease, family history of vitiligo, and duration of the disease were also evaluated.The mean levels of vitamin D in patient and the control group were 15.2±5.2 ng/dL and 14.4±6.2 ng/dL respectively (P&gt;0.05). In our study, 48% of the patients had insufficient (&lt;30 ng/mL) and 52% had very low (&lt;15 ng/mL) levels of vitamin D. There was no correlation between age, duration of the disease, and body surface area affected with vitamin D levels. There was no significant difference in vitamin D levels between patients who had family history of vitiligo (5 patients, 20%) and those that did not.Vitamin D levels were found to be insufficient (&lt;30 ng/mL) or very low (&lt;15 ng/mL) in most of the patients with vitiligo vulgaris, but not statistically significantly different as a group when compared to the controls. More studies are needed to differentiate between the effects of low vitamin D levels on pathogenesis of vitiligo vulgaris and lower vitamin D levels as a result of the disease. </p

Oxidative Stress Investigation in Anemia

Introduction: Increased membrane rigidity, decreased deformability and hemolysis in erythrocytes are the result of oxidative damage. Our study included patients diagnosed with anemia and a control group of healthy individuals and in these groups, it was aimed to measure the level of Nitric Oxide (NO), which is an indicator of oxidative damage, and to determine the superoxide dismutase enzyme (SOD) activity, which are the most important components of the antioxidant system. Material and Method: Ethics Committee approval was obtained for the study and patients who were diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia, B12 deficiency anemia, Talassemia minor at the hematology polyclinic of the Manisa Celal Bayar University Medical Faculty Hafsa Sultan Hospital were included in the study. Nitrite / nitrate levels were measured spectrophotometrically, SOD enzyme activity was measured by ELISA method. Results: The difference between the study groups in terms of SOD values was not statistically significant. When nitric oxide results are compared; Thalassemia minor group values were significantly higher than control group (p &lt;0.05). Conclusions: Increased levels of NO, especially in the thalassemia patient group, it is thought to be the cause of hemolytic anemia as a result of oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation in this patient group. Supporting Institutions: Manisa Celal Bayar University Scientific Researches Unit (2015-092).Keywords: Anemia, Antioxidant System, Nitric Oxide, Superoxide Dismutase.DOI: 10.7176/JHMN/75-0

Magnetic resonance imaging study; does the olfactory bulb volume change in major depression?

Goal: The olfactory region function disorders and olfactory bulb volume changes in neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders are defined. In this study, the olfactory bulb values of patients diagnosed with major depression in accordance with DMS-IV criteria, are measured with MRI, and these values are compared with the values of healthy volunteers to see if there are any statistically significant changes.Method: The study was carried out with 20 healthy volunteers and 20 patients who had been diagnosed with acute major depression in accordance with ‘diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders’ (DMS) IV criteria and have been getting treatment for more than 2 years in Istanbul Education and Research Hospital. 1,5 Tesla MRI were used in 40 cases, and the olfactory bulb volume on two hemispheres were measured separately.Results: Contrary to the former studies, we found no statistically significant difference between the olfactory bulb volume measurements of the control group and the group diagnosed with major depression

Assessment of the requisites of microbiology based infectious disease training under the pressure of consultation needs

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Training of infectious disease (ID) specialists is structured on classical clinical microbiology training in Turkey and ID specialists work as clinical microbiologists at the same time. Hence, this study aimed to determine the clinical skills and knowledge required by clinical microbiologists.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional study was carried out between June 1, 2010 and September 15, 2010 in 32 ID departments in Turkey. Only patients hospitalized and followed up in the ID departments between January-June 2010 who required consultation with other disciplines were included.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 605 patients undergoing 1343 consultations were included, with pulmonology, neurology, cardiology, gastroenterology, nephrology, dermatology, haematology, and endocrinology being the most frequent consultation specialties. The consultation patterns were quite similar and were not affected by either the nature of infections or the critical clinical status of ID patients.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results of our study show that certain internal medicine subdisciplines such as pulmonology, neurology and dermatology appear to be the principal clinical requisites in the training of ID specialists, rather than internal medicine as a whole.</p