Introduction
After the first case of Covid-19 was emerged in Turkey on March 11, 2020, schools were closed distance education began. On March 21, curfew was declared for people who under the age of ...20. Subsequently, the date of the nationwide university exam was changed twice.
Objectives
This study has two aims. The first goal was to investigate the factors that affect the test anxiety of individuals who will enter the university exam during the Covid-19 outbreak. The second aim was to investigate whether the test anxiety levels of the participants vary according to the level of cognitive flexibility and self-regulation.
Methods
The study consists of 420 (284 women, 131 men and 5 others). The age range of the participants was between 18 and 21, with the mean of 18.33. Exam Anxiety Scale, Adolescent Self-Regulation Skills Scale and Cognitive Flexibility Scale were used to collect data.
Results
The findings indicated that women’s level of test anxiety was higher than men. Those who do have concentration issues in distance education have high level of test anxiety. Test anxiety was higher for students whose household income decreased because of the pandemic. MANOVA results revealed that individuals with low test anxiety have higher ‘self-regulation successful’ scores and lower ‘self-regulation unsuccessful’ scores. Moreover, it was yielded that people with low test anxiety have higher level of cognitive flexibility.
Conclusions
Protective factors such as cognitive flexibility and self-regulation play an important role in individuals’ management of test anxiety.
Disclosure
No significant relationships.
Community mental health centers (CMHCs) are important institutions for individuals with chronic mental illness. During the COVID-19 period, patients with mental health could not optimally access care ...in CMHCs.
To explore the experiences of patients using a CMHC after its closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This was a descriptive qualitative study that included 16 patients with mental disorders who regularly used CMHCs during the pre-pandemic period. Their data were collected between March 2022 and August 2022 using face-to-face, in-depth semi-structured interviews. All interviews were recorded and the content analysis method was used to analyze the data.
The age range of the 16 study participants was 29-53 years with a mean age of 40.8 ± 6.5 years. Nine (56.3%) participants were men, and 7 (43.7%) were women. Ten (62.5%) participants had schizophrenia, whereas 6 (37.5%) had bipolar disorder. According to content analysis, the five main themes that emerged based on the statements of participants were the effects of change, difficulties experienced, support needs, coping experiences, and suggestions. The results showed that although patients using CMHCs are struggling with the adverse consequences of the pandemic process, they also have difficulty managing their diseases and daily life due to their inability to access psychosocial services in the CMHCs.
The patients reported their negative experiences and need for support during the pandemic. The study highlights the need to adequately accommodate mental health services delivery during future pandemics that may impose movement restrictions.
Abstract Ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic agent, appears to have rapid antidepressant effects at sub-anesthetic doses in clinically depressed patients. Although promising, these results need to be ...replicated in double-blind placebo-controlled studies, a strategy thwarted by the psychoactive effects of ketamine, which are obvious to both patients and clinicians. Alternatively, demonstrations of the psychotherapeutic effects of ketamine in animal models are also complicated by ketamine's side-effects on general activity, which have not been routinely measured or taken into account in experimental studies. In this study we found that ketamine decreased “behavioral despair” in the forced swim test, a widely used rats model of antidepressant drug action. This effect was not confounded by side-effects on general activity, and was comparable to that of a standard antidepressant drug, fluoxetine. Interestingly, ketamine also produced anxiolytic-like effects in the elevated-plus-maze. Importantly, the effective dose of ketamine in the plus-maze did not affect general locomotion measures, in either the plus-maze or in the open field test. While the selective N-methyl- d -aspartic acid (NMDA) receptor antagonist MK-801 also produced antidepressant-like and anxiolytic-like effects, these were mostly confounded by changes in general activity. Finally, in a neurophysiological model of anxiolytic drug action, ketamine reduced the frequency of reticularly-activated theta oscillations in the hippocampus, similar to the proven anxiolytic drug diazepam. This particular neurophysiological signature is common to all known classes of anxiolytic drugs (i.e. benzodiazepines, 5-HT1A agonists, antidepressants) and provides strong converging evidence for the anxiolytic-like effects of ketamine. Further studies are needed to understand the underlying pharmacological mechanisms of ketamine's effects in these experiments, since it is not clear they were mimicked by the selective NMDA antagonist MK-801.
Integrated quantum photonic waveguide circuits are a promising approach to realizing future photonic quantum technologies. Here, we present an integrated photonic quantum technology platform ...utilizing the silicon-on-insulator material system, where quantum interference and the manipulation of quantum states of light are demonstrated in components orders of magnitude smaller than previous implementations. Two-photon quantum interference is presented in a multi-mode interference coupler, and the manipulation of entanglement is demonstrated in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, opening the way to an all-silicon photonic quantum technology platform.
Abstract Somatostatin (SST) is a cyclic polypeptide that inhibits the release of a variety of regulatory hormones (e.g. growth hormone, insulin, glucagon, thyrotropin). Moreover, SST is widely ...distributed within the CNS, acting both as a neurotransmitter and as a neuromodulator of other neurotransmitter systems. However, despite its extensive expression in limbic areas, and its co-localization with GABA, a neurotransmitter previously implicated in emotion, the effects of SST on anxiety and depression have not been investigated. By performing intraventricular infusions in rats we demonstrate, for the first time, that SST has anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects in the elevated plus-maze and forced swim test, respectively. In addition, by performing local field potential recordings of hippocampal theta activity evoked by reticular stimulation in urethane-anesthetized rats we also show that SST application suppresses the frequency of theta in a similar fashion to diazepam. This neurophysiological signature, common to all classes of anxiolytic drugs (i.e. benzodiazepines, selective 5-HT reuptake inhibitors, 5-HT1A agonists) provides strong converging evidence for the anxiolytic-like characteristics of SST. Our pharmacological antagonism experiments with bicuculline further suggest that the anxiolytic effect of SST may be attributable to the interaction of SST with GABA, whereas the antidepressant-like effect of SST may be GABA-independent. In addition to contributing to the current understanding of the role of neuropeptides in mood and emotion, these findings support a clinical role for SST (or its analogues) in the treatment of anxiety and depression.
There is currently no gold standard treatment for unstable intertrochanteric fractures of the elderly. Internal fixation and hemiarthroplasty are two common treatment methods but studies comparing ...the functional outcomes of these procedures in the elderly are limited. This study evaluates the functional outcomes of hip fracture patients treated either with internal fixation or hemiarthroplasty.
Eighty-six elderly (>60 years) patients who presented with isolated, unstable intertrochanteric fractures between 2009 and 2013 were included in the study. According to the classification of Association for Osteosynthesis/Orthopaedic Trauma Association; 12 of the patients had a 31A1.3 fracture type, 36 of the patients had 31A2.2 and 19 had 31A2.3 fracture type, 12 had 31A3.1 and seven had 31A3.3 fracture. Forty-two of 86 hip patients (Group 1) were treated with intramedullary nailing and antirotator proximal femoral nail implant (TST, Turkey), and 44 (Group 2) were treated with cementless bipolar hemiarthroplasty. Preoperative social function (Jensen) score, EQ-5D index score and mobility (Palmer/Parker) scores were obtained. Five dimensions of EQ-5D were obtained at every follow-up visit until 24 months postoperative.
There was no statistically significant difference between two groups according to preoperative demographic variables, including mean age and sex and Jensen, Palmer/Parker,EQ-5D index, five dimensions of EQ-5D and American Society of Anesthesiologists scores. At end of 24 months follow-up, health-related quality of life had increased more in Group 1 and they reported better social functioning and mobility scores (p<0.01).
Internal fixation resulted in better social functioning and mobility scores compared with cementless bipolar hemiarthroplasty at the end of 24 months in treatment of unstable pertrochanteric hip fracture in the elderly.
A study using a validated viscoelastic finite-element model of a L2-L3 motion segment to identify the load sharing among the passive elements at different loading rates.
To enhance understanding ...concerning the role of the loading rate (i.e., speed of lifting and lowering during manual material handling tasks) on the load sharing and safety margin of spinal structures.
Industrial epidemiologic studies have shown that jobs requiring a higher speed of trunk motion contribute to a higher risk of industrial low back disorders. Consideration of the dynamic loading characteristics, such as lifting at different speeds, requires modeling of the viscoelastic behavior of passive tissues. Detailed systematic analysis of loading rate effects has been lacking in the literature.
Complex flexion movement was simulated by applying compression and shear loads at the top of the upper vertebra while its sagittal flexion angle was prescribed without constraining any translations. The lower vertebra was fixed at the bottom. The load reached its maximum values of 2000 N compression and 200 N anterior shear while L2 was flexed to 10 degrees of flexion in the three different durations of 0.3, 1, and 3 seconds to represent fast, medium, and slow movements, respectively. The resisted bending moment, gross load-displacement response of the motion segment, forces in facet joints and ligaments, stresses and strains in anulus fibrosus, and intradiscal pressure were compared across different rates.
The distribution of stress and strain was markedly affected by the loading rate. The higher loading rate increased the peak intradiscal pressure (12.4%), bending moment (20.7%), total ligament forces (11.4%), posterior longitudinal ligament stress (15.7%), and anulus fiber stress at the posterolateral innermost region (17.9%), despite the 15.4% reduction in their strain.
Consideration of the time-dependent material properties of passive elements is essential to improving understanding of motion segment responses to dynamic loading conditions. Higher loading rate markedly reduces the safety margin of passive spinal elements. When the dynamic tolerance limits of tissues are available, the results provide bases for the guidelines of safe dynamic activities in clinics or industry.
Summary
The loss of the best communication port after total laryngectomy surgery makes speech rehabilitation an important goal. Our aim was to improve the quality of esophageal speech (ES) using ...online esophageal multichannel intra‐luminal impedance (MII) as a new biofeedback method. Twenty‐six total laryngectomized patients were included. Before ES therapy, an esophageal motility test was carried out. MII catheters were placed in all subjects who were then randomized into two groups. Group 1 included 13 cases, who were retrained according to the classical method. Group 2 included 13 cases, who were retrained according to the simplified animation of air movements within the esophagus and upper stomach resulting from the modifications of intra‐esophageal air kinetics gained by MII. The level of speech proficiency was evaluated relative to pretraining levels using perceptual scales in the third and sixth months. Acoustic voice was analyzed. The number of syllables read per minute and the intelligibility of monosyllabic and dissyllabic words were calculated. In this study, MII was used for the first time in alaryngeal speech rehabilitation as a biofeedback method; an overall sufficient speech level was achieved by 68.4% at the end of therapy, whereas attendance was 90%. A statistically significant improvement was found in both groups in terms of ES level compared with the pretraining period although there was no significant difference between groups. Although we did not observe the expected difference between groups suggested by our hypothesis, MII may be used as an objective tool to show patients how to swallow and regurgitate air during training, and may thus expedite ES theraphy both for the speech therapist and the patient in the future.
An overdose of an anticancer agent in the human body not only leads the high cytotoxicity on the neoplastic cells but also causes serious side effects. The regular detection of an anticancer agent ...level in biological fluids using an alternative technique is crucial in terms of assessment of therapeutic efficiency in chemotherapy process. In this work, we developed a micelle-enhanced spectrofluorimetric approach for the determination of topotecan (TPC), which is an effective anticancer agent used in the treatment of certain types of cancer, in human serum and binding mechanism of TPC-DNA. The proposed method exhibited a strong pH-dependent emission signal at 535 nm after excitation of 380 nm towards the TPC in the presence of surfactants. The relative fluorescence signal for TPC was found to be linear in the wide concentration range of 0.01 – 1.8 μM (R2 = 0.9981) with a challenging detection limit of 3.3 nM. The developed spectrofluorimetric method was successfully applied to the analysis of TPC in spiked human serum samples with the good recovery results. Moreover, for the first time, the interaction mechanism between TPC and double-stranded DNA (ds-DNA) was studied by developed spectrofluorimetric method. The binding constant value of 8.5 x 10-3 M-1 calculated by Stern-Volmer method indicated the strong intercalation-based binding of TPC into the base pair of ds-DNA. The developed spectrofluorimetric method can provide new insight for the design of DNA-targeted drugs, and lead an alternative approach for the detection of anticancer drugs such as TPC in biological samples.
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