151 research outputs found
Association Between Severe Vitamin D Deficiency, Lung Function and Asthma Control
No full textIntroduction: To examine the relationship between severe vitamin D deficiency, asthma control, and pulmonary function in Turkish adults with asthma. Methods: One hundred six asthmatic patients underwent pulmonary function tests skin prick test, peripheral blood eosinophil counts, IgE, body mass index and vitamin D levels were determined. Patients were divided into 2 subgroups according to vitamin D levels (vitamin D level < 10 ng/ml and vitamin D level >= 10 ng/ml). Asthma control tests were performed. Results: The mean age of subgroup I (vitamin D level < 10) was 37 +/- 10 and the mean age of subgroup II (vitamin D level >= 10 ng/ml) was 34 +/- 8. Sixty-six percent of patients had severe vitamin D deficiency (vitamin D level < 10 ng/m1). There was a significant trend towards lower absolute FEV1 (L) values in patients with lower vitamin D levels (P=.001). Asthma control test scores were significantly low in the severe deficiency group than the other group (P=.02). There were a greater number of patients with uncontrolled asthma (asthma control test scores < 20) in the severe vitamin D deficiency group (P=.040). Patients with severe vitamin D deficiency had a higher usage of inhaled corticosteroids than the group without severe vitamin D deficiency (P=.015). There was a significant trend towards lower absolute FEV1 (L) (P=.005, r =.272) values in patients with lower vitamin D levels. Vitamin D levels were inversely related with body mass index (P=.046). Conclusion: The incidence of severe vitamin D deficiency was high in adult Turkish asthmatics. In addition,lower vitamin D levels were associated with poor asthma control and decreased pulmonary function.(C) 2016 SEPAR. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. All rights reserved
Ukrainian "malancars" — the Eastern part of Carpathian-Balcan carnival tradition
No full textAuthor proves the fruitfulness of comparative Carpathian-Balcan Studies on the problem of reconstruction of Slavic and other Southeastern people's cultural heritage. From this very point of view the Ukrainian new-year custom "Malanka" is analyzed, as well as and its invariant structure and archaic scenario.Автор обстоює перспективність порівняльних карпато-балканських студій у розв'язанні проблем реконструкції духовної культури слов'ян та інших народів Південно-Східної Європи. Під цим кутом зору розглядається український новорічний обряд "Маланка ", аналізується його інваріантна структура й архаїчний сценарій
Increased D-dimer is associated with disease progression and increased mortality in Turkish COVID-19 patients
No full textObjective: Coagulopathy is thought to play an important role in the development of severe COVID-19. High D-dimer levels have been reported in Chinese cohort studies. However, ethnicity has significant implications for thrombotic risk. Our aim in this study is to determine the effect of D-dimer measurements on disease prognosis and mortality in Turkish patients with COVID-19. Patients and Methods: The study was designed retrospectively. Patients over the age of 18 who were admitted to our hospital were included in the study. Results: The study included 226 patients. According to the World Health Organization staging, 75(33.2%) patients, according to the staging of Siddiqi et al., 67 (29.7%) patients progressed. In the ROC analysis performed to predict mortality, AUC value for D-dimer was found to be 82.25% (95%CI 74.8%-89.71%). When the cut-off value for D-dimer was accepted as ≥3.25mg/L, specificity was 94.15%, correctly classified rate 88.5%, positive likelihood ratio as (LR):5.69, negative LR:0.71. Conclusion: As a result, similar to the Chinese cohorts, elevated D-dimer measurements increase disease progression and mortality in Turkish patients with COVID-19. D-dimer levels of 3.25 mg/L and above, strongly determine the risk of increased mortality in the Turkish Caucasian ethnic group
Efficient semi-supervised and active learning of disjunctions
No full textWe provide efficient algorithms for learning disjunctions in the semi-supervised setting under a natural regularity assumption introduced by (Balcan & Blum, 2005). We prove bounds on the sample complexity of our algorithms under a mild restriction on the data distribution. We also give an active learning algorithm with improved sample complexity and extend all our algorithms to the random classification noise setting. Copyright 2013 by the author(s).link_to_subscribed_fulltex
Analytical calculations on content-based networks
No full textBu makalede içerik-temelli ağlar üzerinde, ağın topolojik özelliklerini belirlemek için, ortalama-alan yaklaşımlarıyla yapılan analitik hesapların güvenilirliği tartışılacaktır. İçerik-temelli ağları, “tanıma ve bağlanma” mekanizmalarının belirleyici olduğu kontrol çizgelerinin topolojik özelliklerini tasvir etmek için önermiştik. Birçok karmaşık ağ yapısının bu tür enformasyon paylaşımına dayalı bir prensibe göre inşa edildiğini söyleyebiliriz. Örneğin gen ifadesinin düzenlemesinde, anahtar/kilit olarak niteleyebileceğimiz elemanların özelleşmiş etkileşimleri söz konusudur. Bu sebeple modelimizin biyolojik çizgeler de dahil olmak üzere, birçok gerçek ağ yapısının tasviri için uygun olduğunu düşünüyoruz. İçerik-temelli ağımızda, ağın düğümlerini bir ya da birden fazla rastgele dizi ile eşleştirip, düğümler arasındaki etkileşimleri onlara atanan dizilerin birbirleri içinde tekrarlanma koşulu altında inşa ediyoruz. Böylece, bu dizilerin uzunlukları ve içerikleri, ortaya çıkacak olan çizgenin tüm topolojik özelliklerini belirlemektedir. Düğüm çiftleri arasındaki bağlanma olasılıklarının hesabında yapılan ortalama-alan yaklaşımlarının ise, dizilerin uzunluk dağılımlarına bağlı olarak, varılan sonuçlarda ağın gerçek özelliklerinden önemli farklılaşmalara yol açabileceği görülüyor. Bu yaklaşımlarda, dizilerin farklı enformasyon içerikleri ihmal edilmekte ve olasılıklar sadece dizilerin uzunlukları cinsinden elde edilmektedir. Halbuki her sonlu dizi için, dizinin içerdiği farklı sembol sayısı ek bir enformasyon içermektedir. Burada sergilemeye çalışacağımız, kabalaştırılmış ortalama-alan türünden yaklaşımların, belli ekstrem durumlarda, tasvir etmeyi amaçladıkları ağın özelliklerinden uzak sonuçlar verebileceğidir. Ancak gerçek biyolojik ağ yapılarının modellenmesinde karşımıza çıkan uzunluk dağılımlarında ortaya çıkan hatalar hiçbir zaman burada sergileyeceğimiz örneklerde olduğu kadar büyük olmamış, bilakis ortalama-alan yaklaşımı simülasyon sonuçlarına oldukça yakın sonuçlar vermiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Karmaşık ağ yapıları, içerik-temelli ağlar, ortalama-alan yaklaşımı.Content-based networks have been proposed (Balcan and Erzan, 2004; Mungan et al., 2005) to model the topological properties of complex networks built on the principle of information sharing, where the interactions between system components assume the simultaneous fulfillment of a series of constraints (Mezard et al., 2002). In content-based networks, the constraint-satisfaction problem is realized by means of a sequence-matching rule between sequences associated with the nodes of a network. In the case of transcriptional gene regulation, the transcription factors recognize special subsequences of DNA and bind them. This is one instance of constraint-satisfaction, which can be realized with a sequence-matching rule between two different classes of sequences (Balcan et al., 2006). Another example is the so called the RNA interference (Balcan and Erzan, 2004), where sequence-specific gene silencing occurs at the level of post-transcriptional gene regulation. In our content-based networks, n linear codes are associated with each node of the network. For n=2, one of the sequences associated with the node represents the key-sequence through which the node recognizes other nodes, whereas the second sequence represents the lock-sequence through which the same node is recognized. An interaction between a pair of nodes is established if the key-sequence associated with the first node is repeated as an uninterrupted subsequence in the lock-sequence associated with the second node. Thus, the length distributions of these sequences are the most important parameters determining the topological properties of the content-based networks. In this article we will discuss the validity of analytical calculations performed on the topological properties of content-based networks in the mean-field approximation (Balcan and Erzan, 2007), by means of two examples. In this mean field approach (Mungan et al., 2005) the pair-wise connectivity probabilities are only functions of the respective lengths of the sequences which must satisfy an inclusion requirement, and of the size r of the alphabet from which the symbols are drawn. This approximation ignores the correlations between the overlapping subsequences within a sequence. Moreover the fluctuations in the information content of finite sequences are neglected. In Balcan and Erzan (2007), the correlations between the edges co-incident on the same node were also ignored. In the first example, the key- sequences of unit length (thus, they consist of single letters) are searched in lock-sequences of an arbitrary fixed length. Via this simple example it is possible to show that the probability that lock-sequences will be recognized by a key-sequence depends not only on the length of the lock-sequence but also on the number of distinct subsequences embedded in it. At this point the coarse grained approximation neglecting the fluctuations in the information content of the finite lock sequences about their mean information content, misses the behavior of the in-degree distribution. This error is in fact identical to neglecting the correlations between edges incident upon a given node. In the second example, the lengths of the key sequences are fixed at an arbitrary value l, and the lock-sequences are chosen to be of length k=l+1, one character longer than the key-sequences. In this example, it is clear that the correlations between the two subsequences of length l cannot be neglected. It has already been shown (Guibas and Odlyzko, 1981; Mungan et al., 2005; Mungan, 2007; Bilge et al., 2004) that the connection probability of a key-sequence depends on the ?shift-match number? which measures the auto-correlations within a sequence, in other words, the degree to which successive subsequences are correlated with each other. We show here by an explicit and rather transparent calculation that, neglecting this correlation yields out- and in-degree distributions that are totally in error. The mean-field approximations used in the calculation of the topological properties of the double-string model (Balcan and Erzan, 2007) yield results that are in good agreement with the simulations, since i) the lengths k of the lock sequences far exceed r, ii) the number of distinct substrings contained in any given lock string is large ( k-l >> rl ) and iii) the fine structure of the topological properties are determined by the fact that there is a disribution of lock- and key-string lengths. Keywords: Complex networks, content-based networks, mean-field approach
Association Between Severe Vitamin D Deficiency, Lung Function and Asthma Control [Asociación del déficit grave de vitamina D con la función pulmonar y el control del asma]
No full textIntroduction To examine the relationship between severe vitamin D deficiency, asthma control, and pulmonary function in Turkish adults with asthma. Methods One hundred six asthmatic patients underwent pulmonary function tests skin prick test, peripheral blood eosinophil counts, IgE, body mass index and vitamin D levels were determined. Patients were divided into 2 subgroups according to vitamin D levels (vitamin D level &lt; 10 ng/ml and vitamin D level ≥ 10 ng/ml). Asthma control tests were performed. Results The mean age of subgroup I (vitamin D level &lt; 10) was 37 ± 10 and the mean age of subgroup II (vitamin D level ≥ 10 ng/ml) was 34 ± 8. Sixty-six percent of patients had severe vitamin D deficiency (vitamin D level &lt; 10 ng/ml). There was a significant trend towards lower absolute FEV1 (L) values in patients with lower vitamin D levels (P = .001). Asthma control test scores were significantly low in the severe deficiency group than the other group (P = .02). There were a greater number of patients with uncontrolled asthma (asthma control test scores &lt; 20) in the severe vitamin D deficiency group (P = .040). Patients with severe vitamin D deficiency had a higher usage of inhaled corticosteroids than the group without severe vitamin D deficiency (P = .015). There was a significant trend towards lower absolute FEV1 (L) (P = .005, r = .272) values in patients with lower vitamin D levels. Vitamin D levels were inversely related with body mass index (P = .046). Conclusion The incidence of severe vitamin D deficiency was high in adult Turkish asthmatics. In addition, lower vitamin D levels were associated with poor asthma control and decreased pulmonary function. © 2016 SEPA
Comparing large-scale computational approaches to epidemic modeling: Agent-based versus structured metapopulation models
No full textAbstract Background In recent years large-scale computational models for the realistic simulation of epidemic outbreaks have been used with increased frequency. Methodologies adapt to the scale of interest and range from very detailed agent-based models to spatially-structured metapopulation models. One major issue thus concerns to what extent the geotemporal spreading pattern found by different modeling approaches may differ and depend on the different approximations and assumptions used. Methods We provide for the first time a side-by-side comparison of the results obtained with a stochastic agent-based model and a structured metapopulation stochastic model for the progression of a baseline pandemic event in Italy, a large and geographically heterogeneous European country. The agent-based model is based on the explicit representation of the Italian population through highly detailed data on the socio-demographic structure. The metapopulation simulations use the GLobal Epidemic and Mobility (GLEaM) model, based on high-resolution census data worldwide, and integrating airline travel flow data with short-range human mobility patterns at the global scale. The model also considers age structure data for Italy. GLEaM and the agent-based models are synchronized in their initial conditions by using the same disease parameterization, and by defining the same importation of infected cases from international travels. Results The results obtained show that both models provide epidemic patterns that are in very good agreement at the granularity levels accessible by both approaches, with differences in peak timing on the order of a few days. The relative difference of the epidemic size depends on the basic reproductive ratio, R0, and on the fact that the metapopulation model consistently yields a larger incidence than the agent-based model, as expected due to the differences in the structure in the intra-population contact pattern of the approaches. The age breakdown analysis shows that similar attack rates are obtained for the younger age classes. Conclusions The good agreement between the two modeling approaches is very important for defining the tradeoff between data availability and the information provided by the models. The results we present define the possibility of hybrid models combining the agent-based and the metapopulation approaches according to the available data and computational resources.</p
Dynamical real-space renormalization group calculations with a highly connected clustering scheme on disordered networks
No full textWe have defined a type of clustering scheme preserving the connectivity of the nodes in a network, ignored by the conventional Migdal-Kadanoff bond moving process. In high dimensions, our clustering scheme performs better for correlation length and dynamical critical exponents than the conventional Migdal-Kadanoff bond moving scheme. In two and three dimensions we find the dynamical critical exponents for the kinetic Ising model to be z=2.13 and z=2.09, respectively, at the pure Ising fixed point. These values are in very good agreement with recent Monte Carlo results. We investigate the phase diagram and the critical behavior of randomly bond diluted lattices in d=2 and 3 in the light of this transformation. We also provide exact correlation exponent and dynamical critical exponent values on hierarchical lattices with power-law and Poissonian degree distributions
Contribution to study of sociology of the settlements
No full textAuthor discusses in the paper the emergence and foundation of prehistoric settlements, their architecturic appearance and historical and sociological significance. At the same time, this paper presents the first time in the sociology of the settlements, the oldest settlements in the Balkans that the oldest in the world by the age. When we talk about Europe and of it's first settlements, for the first time in sociology of settlements they are explained in the Balcan peninsula: Lepenski Vir, Vincha
Random model for RNA interference yields scale free network
No full textWe introduce a random bit-string model of post-transcriptional genetic
regulation based on
sequence matching. The model spontaneously yields a scale free network with
power law scaling
with and also exhibits
log-periodic behaviour. The in-degree distribution is much narrower, and
exhibits a pronounced peak followed by a Gaussian distribution. The network is
of the smallest world type, with the average minimum path length independent of
the size of the network, as long as the network consists of one giant cluster. The percolation threshold depends on the system size
- …
