Protection of Ten-Eyed Bridge in Diyarbakır

Mesopotamia, which is one of the strategical regions of the Middle East, has hosted numerous communities and civilizations since the ancient times of human history. This situation made the region considerably prosperous in terms of historical and cultural heritage. Ten-Eyed Bridge, that is one of the most important historical and cultural symbols of Diyarbakir, having lasted till today, became an example of this prosperous heritage. However, various interventions and deteriorations have occurred in the construction within long time due to the impact of human and nature. Because of the considerable temperature difference arising due to continental climate of the region as well as damages like the change of conditions of use, amortizations in bearing constructional components in contact with water have emerged. In this study, with the purpose of ensuring further future existence of Ten-Eyed Bridge, adopted methods for structural and physical deteriorations and protection works were examined.Mesopotamia, which is one of the strategical regions of the Middle East, has hosted numerous communities and civilizations since the ancient times of human history. This situation made the region considerably prosperous in terms of historical and cultural heritage. Ten-Eyed Bridge, that is one of the most important historical and cultural symbols of Diyarbakir, having lasted till today, became an example of this prosperous heritage. However, various interventions and deteriorations have occurred in the construction within long time due to the impact of human and nature. Because of the considerable temperature difference arising due to continental climate of the region as well as damages like the change of conditions of use, amortizations in bearing constructional components in contact with water have emerged. In this study, with the purpose of ensuring further future existence of Ten-Eyed Bridge, adopted methods for structural and physical deteriorations and protection works were examined

Confining Concrete Columns with FRP Materials

Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) as a kind of composite materials have became widespread in the strengthening of reinforced concrete structures as an alternative way of traditional strengthening methods. Usage of such polymers as an important application of composites for strengthening has rapidly increased in recent years. Confinement of concrete as a type of inelastic, non-homogenous, non-linear and brittle material has considerable advantages in strengthening with externally bonded by FRP. The lightweight and high strength capacity of FRP sheets and strips which may eliminate the low tension capacity and brittle behavior of concrete sections gain considerable increase in construction industry. In this study codes for strengthening concrete columns investigated to discuss the confinement effect of concrete by FRP material including the mechanical properties

Novel Swine Influenza Virus Subtype H3N1, United States

A new subtype H3N1 may have arisen from reassortment of a H3N2 turkey isolate, a human H1N1 isolate, and currently circulating swine viruses

H3N2 Influenza Virus Transmission from Swine to Turkeys, United States

Swinelike H3N2 influenza viruses were isolated from two geographically distinct turkey farms in the United States

A Pregnant Adolescence with an Intact Hymen

Child sexual abuse is a public health problem due to both the act itself and its consequences, one of the most serious of which is adolescent pregnancy. Unfortunately, it is difficult to provide evidence of such sexual crimes by forensic gynecologic examinations based on only the visual inspection of genitalia. Moreover, anatomic variations of genitalia can make it quite difficult for a physician to make a diagnosis of rape. A 14-year-old pregnant girl presented at our hospital with the allegation of sexual abuse. Although her pregnancy was obvious due to shape of her abdomen, her hymen was determined to be intact after examination. She was examined in the gynecology department to check on the pregnancy and investigate her health status. Ultrasound imagining revealed that she was 4 months and 3 days pregnant. The goal of this presentation is to draw physicians’ attention to the anatomic variations of the hymen. Our findings indicate that it is not always easy to make a diagnosis of sexual intercourse; the practitioner must take a multidisciplinary approach and develop his/her genital examination knowledge and skills

Maternal Influenza Infection During Pregnancy Impacts Postnatal Brain Development in the Rhesus Monkey

Background: Maternal infection with influenza and other pathogens during pregnancy has been associated with increased risk for schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental disorders. In rodent studies, maternal inflammatory responses to influenza affect fetal brain development. However, to verify the relevance of these findings to humans, research is needed in a primate species with more advanced prenatal corticogenesis. Methods: Twelve pregnant rhesus monkeys were infected with influenza, A/Sydney/5/97 (H3N2), 1 month before term (early third trimester) and compared with 7 control pregnancies. Nasal swabs and blood samples confirmed viral shedding and immune activation. Structural magnetic resonance imaging was conducted at 1 year; behavioral development and cortisol reactivity were also assessed. Results: Maternal infections were mild and self-limiting. At birth, maternally derived influenza-specific immunoglobulin G was present in the neonate, but there was no evidence of direct viral exposure. Birth weight and gestation length were not affected, nor were infant neuromotor, behavioral, and endocrine responses. However, magnetic resonance imaging analyses revealed significant reductions in cortical gray matter in flu-exposed animals. Regional analyses indicated the largest gray matter reductions occurred bilaterally in cingulate and parietal areas; white matter was also reduced significantly in the parietal lobe. Conclusions: Influenza infection during pregnancy affects neural development in the monkey, reducing gray matter throughout most of the cortex and decreasing white matter in parietal cortex. These brain alterations are likely to be permanent, given that they were still present at the monkey-equivalent of older childhood and thus might increase the likelihood of later behavioral pathology

Reassortment Patterns in Swine Influenza Viruses

Three human influenza pandemics occurred in the twentieth century, in 1918, 1957, and 1968. Influenza pandemic strains are the results of emerging viruses from non-human reservoirs to which humans have little or no immunity. At least two of these pandemic strains, in 1957 and in 1968, were the results of reassortments between human and avian viruses. Also, many cases of swine influenza viruses have reportedly infected humans, in particular, the recent H1N1 influenza virus of swine origin, isolated in Mexico and the United States. Pigs are documented to allow productive replication of human, avian, and swine influenza viruses. Thus it has been conjectured that pigs are the “mixing vessel” that create the avian-human reassortant strains, causing the human pandemics. Hence, studying the process and patterns of viral reassortment, especially in pigs, is a key to better understanding of human influenza pandemics. In the last few years, databases containing sequences of influenza A viruses, including swine viruses, collected since 1918 from diverse geographical locations, have been developed and made publicly available. In this paper, we study an ensemble of swine influenza viruses to analyze the reassortment phenomena through several statistical techniques. The reassortment patterns in swine viruses prove to be similar to the previous results found in human viruses, both in vitro and in vivo, that the surface glycoprotein coding segments reassort most often. Moreover, we find that one of the polymerase segments (PB1), reassorted in the strains responsible for the last two human pandemics, also reassorts frequently

Genetic Characterization of H3N2 Influenza Viruses Isolated from Pigs in North America, 1977–1999: Evidence for Wholly Human and Reassortant Virus Genotypes

Since 1998, H3N2 viruses have caused epizootics of respiratory disease in pigs throughout the major swine production regions of the U.S. These outbreaks are remarkable because swine influenza in North America had previously been caused almost exclusively by H1N1 viruses. We sequenced the full-length protein coding regions of all eight RNA segments from four H3N2 viruses that we isolated from pigs in the Midwestern U.S. between March 1998 and March 1999, as well as from H3N2 viruses recovered from a piglet in Canada in January 1997 and from a pig in Colorado in 1977. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrated that the 1977 Colorado and 1997 Ontario isolates are wholly human influenza viruses. However, the viruses isolated since 1998 from pigs in the Midwestern U.S. are reassortant viruses containing hemagglutinin, neuraminidase and PB1 polymerase genes from human influenza viruses, matrix, non-structural and nucleoprotein genes from classical swine viruses, and PA and PB2 polymerase genes from avian viruses. The HA proteins of the Midwestern reassortant swine viruses can be differentiated from those of the 1995 lineage of human H3 viruses by 12 amino acid mutations in HA1. In contrast, the Sw:ONT:97 virus, which did not spread from pig-to-pig, lacks 11 of these changes

Triple Reassortant H3N2 Influenza A Viruses, Canada, 2005

Since January 2005, H3N2 influenza viruses have been isolated from pigs and turkeys throughout Canada and from a swine farmer and pigs on the same farm in Ontario. These are human/classical swine/avian reassortants similar to viruses that emerged in US pigs in 1998 but with a distinct human-lineage neuraminidase gene

Substitutions near the hemagglutinin receptor-binding site determine the antigenic evolution of influenza A H3N2 viruses in U.S. swine

Swine influenza A virus is an endemic and economically important pathogen in pigs, with the potential to infect other host species. The hemagglutinin (HA) protein is the primary target of protective immune responses and the major component in swine influenza A vaccines. However, as a result of antigenic drift, vaccine strains must be regularly updated to reflect currently circulating strains. Characterizing the cross-reactivity between strains in pigs and seasonal influenza virus strains in humans is also important in assessing the relative risk of interspecies transmission of viruses from one host population to the other. Hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay data for swine and human H3N2 viruses were used with antigenic cartography to quantify the antigenic differences among H3N2 viruses isolated from pigs in the United States from 1998 to 2013 and the relative cross-reactivity between these viruses and current human seasonal influenza A virus strains. Two primary antigenic clusters were found circulating in the pig population, but with enough diversity within and between the clusters to suggest updates in vaccine strains are needed. We identified single amino acid substitutions that are likely responsible for antigenic differences between the two primary antigenic clusters and between each antigenic cluster and outliers. The antigenic distance between current seasonal influenza virus H3 strains in humans and those endemic in swine suggests that population immunity may not prevent the introduction of human viruses into pigs, and possibly vice versa, reinforcing the need to monitor and prepare for potential incursions