144 research outputs found

    Mucocutaneous Involvement in Behçet’s Syndrome

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    Treatment Options in Behcet’s Disease

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    Behçet's disease (BD) is a chronic, relapsing, systemic vasculitis of unknown etiology with the clinical features of mucocutaneous lesions, ocular, vascular, articular, gastrointestinal, urogenital, pulmonary, and neurologic involvement. Mucocutaneous lesions figure prominently in the presentation and diagnosis, and may be considered the hallmarks of BD. Therefore, their recognition may permit earlier diagnosis and treatment. Although, the treatment has become much more effective in recent years, BD is still associated with severe morbidity and considerable mortality. The main aim of the treatment should be the prevention of irreversible organ damage. Therefore, close monitoring, early and appropriate treatment is mandatory to reduce morbidity and mortality. Traditional and current treatments with topical, paraocular and systemic corticosteroids, colchicine, dapsone, cyclosporine, azathioprine, methotrexate, cyclophosphamide and chlorambucil are summarized and recent insights into the pharmacology and effects of thalidomide, tacrolimus (FK-506), interferon-α, anti-TNF-α blocking monoclonal autoantibody (infliximab) and soluble TNF receptor (etanercept) are reviewed. We reviewed the current state of knowledge regarding the therapeutic approaches for BD and designed a stepwise, symptom-based, algorithmic approach, mainly based on controlled studies and our clinical experience in this field to provide a rational framework for selecting the appropriate therapy along the various treatment choices. Key clinical investigations with the status of ongoing clinical trials aimed at addressing the drug’s efficacy, surgical care, and studies that have raised the possibility of new therapeutic uses are also presented. The challenges posed by the drug’s teratogenicity and adverse effects are also considered, if present

    On Unfair Permutations

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    Islak, Umit/0000-0003-4281-5171In this paper we study the inverse of so-called unfair permutations. Our investigation begins with comparing this class of permutations with uniformly random permutations, and showing that they behave very much alike in case of locally dependent random variables. As an example of a globally dependent statistic we use the number of inversions, and show that this statistic satisfies a central limit theorem after proper centering and scaling. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.TUBITAK [113F059]; Scientific and Research Council of Turkey [TUBITAK-117C047]The author C. P. has been supported by TUBITAK within the project 113F059 entitled "The conjecture of Mazur-Tate-Teitelbaum, CM elliptic curves and applications" as a postdoctoral researcher at Koc University. The author U.I. is supported by the Scientific and Research Council of Turkey [TUBITAK-117C047]. Parts of this paper were completed at the Nesin Mathematics Village, the authors would like to thank Nesin Mathematics Village for their kind hospitality. Also, the authors would like to thank an anonymous referee who detected some errors in original manuscript, and whose comments improved the paper significantly

    Low-cost, highly efficient, and tunable ultrafast laser technology based on directly diode-pumped Cr:Colquiriites

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    Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 335-352).This doctoral project aims to develop robust, ultra low-cost (5,00020,000),highlyefficient,andtunablefemtosecondlasertechnologybasedondiodepumpedCr:Colquiriitegainmedia(Cr:LiCAF,Cr3+:LiSAFandCr:LiSGaF).Byusinginexpensivesinglemodediodes(5,000-20,000), highly-efficient, and tunable femtosecond laser technology based on diode-pumped Cr:Colquiriite gain media (Cr:LiCAF, Cr3+:LiSAF and Cr:LiSGaF). By using inexpensive single-mode diodes (150) as the pump source, we have obtained continuous-wave (cw) output powers >250-mW with slope efficiencies >50%. Record cw tuning ranges were demonstrated for Cr:LiSAF (775-1042 nm), Cr:LiSGaF (777-977 nm), and Cr:LiCAF (754-871 nm). For femtosecond pulse generation, semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs/SBRs) were developed, which were used to initiate and sustain mode-locking. Typical performance was ~25-100 fs pulses, with an optical spectrum in the 770-920 nm range, with ~1-2 nJ of pulse energies from ~100-MHz repetition rate cavities. Record electrical-to-optical conversion efficiencies of ~10% were demonstrated in the cw mode-locked regime. A mode-locked tuning range of 767-817 nm, with ~130-fs long pulses was obtained by using Cr:LiCAF as gain medium. With the Cr:LiSAF gain medium, using regular SESAMs/SBRs centered around 800 nm, 850 nm, and 910 nm, mode-locked tuning ranges of 803-831 nm, 828-873 nm, and 890-923 nm were demonstrated, respectively. By using a broadband oxidized SESAM/SBR, a record tuning range of 800-905 nm was demonstrated with ~150-fs long pulses. Using an extended cavity Cr:LiCAF laser, pulse energies >15-nJ with peak powers exceeding 100-kW were obtained. We performed the first cavity-dumping experiments with a Cr:Colquiriite laser and demonstrated pulse energies >100-nJ, and peak powers approaching MW level, at repetition rates up to 50-kHz. Cr:LiCAF gain media were also pumped by single-emitter multimode diodes, where we obtained >2-W output power in cw operation, and ~100-fs pulses with 390-mW of average power at a repetition rate of 140 MHz in cw mode-locked operation. As an example application area for this low cost technology, we performed multiphoton microcopy experiments with a single-mode diode-pumped Cr:LiCAF laser. We also performed attosecond-resolution timing jitter characterization experiments of the femtosecond Cr:LiSAF laser, and measured a record-low upper limit for the integrated timing jitter of the Cr:LiSAF laser (137-attoseconds in 10 kHz-10 MHz range).by Umit Demirbas.Ph.D
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