The aim of this paper is to apply the well-known ordinary differential operator to certain multivalent functions which are analytic in the certain domains of the complex plane and then to determine ...some criteria concerning analytic and geometric properties of the related complex functions.
Objectives:
This study aims to investigate the levels of bone morphogenic proteins (BMPs), one of the pathways affecting bone turnover in these diseases, and to investigate their relationship with ...disease activity.
Patients and methods:
Between September 2013 and July 2015, a total of 100 ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients (53 males, 48 females; median age: 40 years; range, 18 to 62 years), 58 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients (25 males, 33 females; median age: 40.5 years; range, 26 to 59 years), and 102 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (55 males, 47 females; median age: 38 years; range, 18 to 55 years) were included in the study. In all groups, serum BMP-2 and BMP-4 levels were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Demographic data (age, sex, duration of disease) and acute phase reactants of the patients at the final visit were recorded. Disease activity was assessed through the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) and Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score C-Reactive Protein (ASDAS-CRP) for AS patients and through the Disease Activity Score-28-CRP (DAS-28-CRP) for RA patients.
Results:
The median BMP-2 values were found to be significantly higher in the RA group compared to the other groups and in the control group compared to the AS group (p<0.001 for both). There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of median BMP-4 values (p>0.05). No significant relationship was found between serum BMP-2 and BMP-4 levels and disease activity in both AS and RA patients, while there was a weak positive correlation between erythrocyte sedimentation rate and CRP levels with BMP-2 level in RA patients (p=0.014, r=0.320 and p=0.029, r=0.287, respectively).
Conclusion:
Our study results suggest that the BMP pathway may have different dual effects in AS and RA patients depending on the underlying pathogenesis, and that local effects are more prominent than serum levels.
Pollen quality is very important for apple production because of its gametophytic self-incompatibility. This study was conducted to determine the effects of different nitrogen fertilization doses on ...pollen production and quality in apple cultivars “Jerseymac” and “Golden Delicious” in Egirdir province of Turkey. Apple trees were fertilized with 0, 30, 60, and 90 g nitrogen per tree in each year during five consecutive years between 2001 and 2005. Nitrogen fertilization significantly affected pollen production and quality in both apple cultivars. The highest pollen number (55,087) as well as the highest percentage of viable (45.6%) and germinated pollens (62.1%) were determined from 60 g nitrogen fertilization dose in apple cultivar “Jerseymac.” However, differences between 30, 60, and 90 g per tree nitrogen doses were not significant. Likewise, 60 g nitrogen fertilization per tree also resulted in the highest number of pollens (84,395) and the percentage of viable pollens (52.1%) in apple cultivar “Golden Delicious.” The highest percentages of germinated pollens were obtained from the 30 (54.8%) and 60 g nitrogen fertilization (59.6%) doses in apple cultivar “Golden Delicious.” The number of anthers per flower and morphological homogeneity were not affected by nitrogen fertilization treatments in both apple cultivars.
Objective
To evaluate the course and effect of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) on pregnant women followed up in a Turkish institution.
Methods
A prospective, single tertiary pandemic center ...cohort study was conducted on pregnant women with confirmed or suspected severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) infection. Positive diagnosis was made on a real‐time polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) assay of a nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal specimen. Demographic features, clinical characteristics, and maternal and perinatal outcomes were evaluated.
Results
SARS‐CoV‐2 was suspected in 100 pregnant women. Of them, 29 had the diagnosis confirmed by RT‐PCR. Eight of the remaining 71 cases had clinical findings highly suspicious for COVID‐19. Ten (34.5%) of the confirmed cases had co‐morbidities. Cough (58.6%) and myalgia (51.7%) were the leading symptoms. COVID‐19 therapy was given to 10 (34.5%) patients. There were no admissions to the intensive care unit. Pregnancy complications were present in 7 (24.1%) patients. Half of the births (5/10) were cesarean deliveries. None of the neonates were positive for SARS‐CoV‐2. Samples of breastmilk were also negative for the virus. Three neonates were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit.
Conclusion
The clinical course of COVID 19 during pregnancy appears to be mild in the present study.
RT‐PCR positivity and clinical findings should be considered when managing COVID‐19 during pregnancy. Cases managed by a multidisciplinary team are associated with favorable outcomes.
This study proposes an accurate asthma detection model using an attention network and machine learning technique. The objective of this study is the automated detection of asthma using an attention ...network.
The lung sounds from 203 subjects involving 767 segments from asthma and 722 segments from healthy subjects were collected using a stethoscope. A novel Attention ResNet18-based deep feature engineering model has been developed in five phases: preprocessing, training the Attention ResNet18 network, extracting deep features, iterative feature selection, and classification using k-nearest neighbor (kNN) or support vector machine (SVM). Gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM) was used to generate heat maps, effectively distinguishing asthma lung sounds from those of normal individuals. By using Grad-CAM, explainable results have been presented.
Our proposed model obtained an accuracy of 99.73% using SVM with 10-fold cross-validation, surpassing the performance obtained by previous models. Hence, the developed model has the potential to detect asthma in the real-world scenario. scenario to detect.
•A new attention deep learning network was proposed.•We presented a XAI model in this paper.•New respiratory sound dataset was collected to detect Asthma.•Our model attained over 99% classification accuracy.•Our attention-based XAI model outperformed.
Among other significant obstacles, inherent nonlinearity in experimental physical response data poses severe difficulty in empirical physical formula (EPF) construction. In this paper, we applied a ...novel method (namely layered feedforward neural network (LFNN) approach) to produce explicit nonlinear EPFs for experimental nonlinear electro-optical responses of doped nematic liquid crystals (NLCs). Our motivation was that, as we showed in a previous theoretical work, an appropriate LFNN, due to its exceptional nonlinear function approximation capabilities, is highly relevant to EPF construction. Therefore, in this paper, we obtained excellently produced LFNN approximation functions as our desired EPFs for above-mentioned highly nonlinear response data of NLCs. In other words, by using suitable LFNNs, we successfully fitted the experimentally measured response and predicted the new (yet-to-be measured) response data. The experimental data (response versus input) were diffraction and dielectric properties versus bias voltage; and they were all taken from our previous experimental work. We conclude that in general, LFNN can be applied to construct various types of EPFs for the corresponding various nonlinear physical perturbation (thermal, electronic, molecular, electric, optical, etc.) data of doped NLCs.
Objectives: To investigate the frequency and distribution of ophthalmic articles with Turkish origin on Pubmed search engine and to compare these data with those of the world’s leading countries in ...that field. Materials and Methods: Using the words “ophthalmology” and “Turkey”, an online retrospective search was conducted on Pubmed for the period from 1990 to 2013. Additionally, same search was performed for each ophthalmic journal indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) (n=56) and not indexed in SCI-E (n=8), separately. The articles were divided into two groups (research articles and the other articles as case reports, letters, correspondence, editorials and reviews). Results: A total of 5044 articles in the area of ophthalmology were from Turkey in that period. The United States of America, Japan, and Germany had the maximum number of published articles (25%, 6.8%, and 4.9% of all, respectively). There were 3334 articles on ophthalmic journals. 2822 articles were published in SCI-E journals and of those, 2321 were research articles and 501 were other types of articles. Three SCI-E indexed ophthalmic journals which mostly published Turkish articles are the European Journal of Ophthalmology, Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, and the Ophthalmologica (361, 183, and 152, respectively). Conclusion: In this period, the rate of the published ophthalmic articles originated from Turkey was 1.5%. We observed that the number of Turkish ophthalmic articles has been increasing gradually. (Turk J Ophthalmol 2014; 44: 465-70)
A growing body of data illustrates the importance of microalbuminuria (MAU) as a strong predictor of cardiovascular risk in the hypertensive population. The present study was designed to define the ...prevalence of MAU and associated cardiovascular risk factors among Turkish hypertensive outpatients.
Representing the Turkish arm of the multinational i-SEARCH study involving 1,750 sites in 26 countries around the world, a total of 1,926 hypertensive patients from different centers were included in this observational and cross-sectional survey study. Patients with reasons for a false-positive MAU test were excluded. The prevalence of MAU was assessed using a dipstick test, and patients were inquired about comorbidities, comedication, and known cardiovascular risk factors.
The overall prevalence of MAU was 64.7% and there was no difference between genders. Most of the patients (82.5%) had uncontrolled hypertension, 35.6% had dyslipidemia, and 35.5% had diabetes, predominantly type 2. Almost one-third of the patients (26.4%) had at least one cardiovascular-related comorbidity, with 20.3% having documented coronary artery disease (CAD). Almost all patients (96.8%) had one or more risk factors for cardiovascular disease in addition to hypertension, including family history of myocardial infarction or CAD, diabetes, dyslipidemia, lack of physical exercise, and smoking. A trend towards higher MAU values in the presence of CAD was determined.
Microalbuminuria tests should be routinely used as a screening and monitoring tool for the assessment of subsequent cardiovascular morbidity and mortality among hypertensive patients.
Objective: Endometriosis is a common gynecological condition that affects many women of reproductive age worldwide and is a major cause of pain and infertility. Treatment of endometriosis can be ...either surgical, aiming to restore normal anatomy by removing endometriotic lesions, or hormonal. Various medical treatments with different doses, formulations, delivery systems, and regimens have been tested. The main objective of this study was to compare the efficacy and tolerability of dienogest and dienogest plus ethinylestradiol on endometriosis-related pain. Additionally, the effects on endometrioma size were examined.Study Design: A total of 81 patients with clinically diagnosed endometrioma, who had chronic pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, or deep dyspareunia between January 2015 and December 2018 were studied retrospectively. The patients were divided into two main groups: continuous oral dienogest (n=43) (Visanne®, 2 mg/day) and continuous oral dienogest plus ethinylestradiol (n=38) (Dienille®, 2 mg/0.03 mg/day). The intensity of pain symptoms was evaluated before therapy, then after 3 and 6 months of treatment using a 10-point numerical rating scale (0 = no pain and 10 = worst possible pain) (NRS) provided to the patients in advance.Results: The pain scores related to chronic pelvic pain decreased 36% for dienogest and 49% for dienogest plus ethinylestradiol (p<0.05) and scores for dysmenorrhea decreased 38% and 44% respectively (p<0.05) at 6 months, significantly lower than before treatment. At the 6-month follow-up, a 28% decrease in the pain scores related to deep dyspareunia in the dienogest group was statistically significant. Although the dienogest plus ethinylestradiol group also decreased by 20%, the difference was not significant. There was no significant difference in endometrioma size between the two groups at the 6-month follow-up (dienogest and dienogest plus ethinylestradiol; 24.2±17.5 mm vs. 27.5±19.1 mm, respectively; p=0.42).Conclusion: Upon analysis of our 6 months of clinical data, estrogen-progestin and a progestin alone seem to be of similar efficacy for the temporary treatment of endometriosis-related pain. The dienogest plus ethinylestradiol combination was slightly less effective on deep dyspareunia but was still well tolerated. Similarly, the two hormonal regimens posed no superiority over one another with regard to endometrioma size reduction.
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