Evaluation of the Flash-Free Adhesive System for a 6-month Period: A Split-Mouth Trial

Objective:To compare the adhesive pre-coated (APC) flash-free (FF) appliance system (3M Unitek) with an operator-coated (OC) system (Transbond XT Light Cure Adhesive Paste; 3M Unitek) in terms of bond failure, bracket survival, and chair time.Methods:This single-center study was planned with 30 non-extraction patients, 22 females and 8 males with an average age of 17 years and 5 months. A split-mouth design was used, and bonding time, failed brackets, reasons for failure, and adhesive remnant index (ARI) scores were noted. The data were analyzed with the chi-square, Kaplan-Meier, log-rank, and Mann-Whitney U tests.Results:OC and FF adhesive-coated brackets demonstrated bond failure rates of 0.7% and 3.0%, respectively. Failure rates and survival rates presented a statistically significant difference (p=0.033). Although higher bond failure for the lower arch along with higher bond failure for the incisor teeth compared with the premolar teeth were found, these findings were not statistically significant (p=0.128; p=0.261, respectively). The effect of gender on the bond failure rate (p=0.463) and survival rate (p=0.473) was not statistically significant. A significant difference was obtained for the ARI scores (p=0.011). The bonding time for each bracket type (64.43 seconds for FF versus 98.97 seconds for OC) demonstrated a significant difference (p=0.174).Conclusion:The bond failure rate was higher for the FF APC brackets, but the chair time reduction during bonding was recorded. Therefore, it seems that FF APC brackets are promising. Trial registration: ISRCTNand ISRCTN26731749. Registered October 7, 2020-Retrospectively registered, https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN26731749

Tract-based spatial statistics of diffusion tensor imaging in hereditary spastic paraplegia with thin corpus callosum reveals widespread white matter changes

PURPOSEWe aimed to investigate white matter diffusivity abnormalities in hereditary spastic paraplegia with thin corpus callosum (HSP-TCC) patients in relation with electrophysiological findings.MATERIALS AND METHODSBrain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging were performed on four HSP-TCC patients and 15 age-matched healthy subjects. Voxel-wise statistical analysis of fractional anisotropy, axial diffusivity, radial diffusivity, and mean diffusivity maps were carried out using tract-based spatial statistics, and significantly affected voxels were labeled using a human white matter atlas. Conventional nerve conduction studies, cortical and spinal-root motor evoked potentials, and somatosensory evoked potentials were examined in three patients.RESULTSOn MRI, all patients had a thin corpus callosum with mild T2 hyperintensity in the periventricular white matter. Compared to control subjects, we detected widespread significant decreases in fractional anisotropy, and increases in axial diffusivity, radial diffusivity, and mean diffusivity in structures including in the corpus callosum, motor, and non-motor white matter tracts in HSP-TCC patients. Several different regions showed significant reduction in axial diffusivity. Electrophysiological studies revealed prolonged central motor conduction times and reduced cortical motor evoked potentials and somatosensory evoked potentials amplitudes in all patients. One patient had low sural sensory nerve action potential suggestive of axonal neuropathy. CONCLUSIONTract-based spatial statistics of diffusion tensor imaging revealed a more widespread involvement of white matter in HSP-TCC patients than has previously been detected by conventional MRI. This may explain the broad spectrum of electrophysiological and neurological abnormalities that complicate hereditary spastic paraplegia in these patients

Evaluation of the placenta with relative apparent diffusion coefficient and T2 signal intensity analysis

PURPOSEWe aimed to test the null hypothesis that relative apparent diffusion coefficient (rADC) and relative signal intensity values (rSIHASTE) do not change in the evaluation of placental maturation with advancing gestational age.MATERIALS AND METHODSFifty-six fetuses with diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) data were enrolled in this retrospective study. Fetuses were analyzed in three different gestational age groups: group 1, 18–23 weeks; group 2, 24–28 weeks; and group 3, 29–38 weeks. The rADC (mean ADC/ADCglobe) and rSIHASTE values (mean SIHASTE/SIglobe) were obtained. Two radiologists experienced in fetal MRI who were blinded to the patient information reviewed MRI images independently. Kruskal-Wallis Test was used to compare the rADC and rSIHASTE with gestational age groups. The agreement between the two blinded readers was tested using Krippendorff’s alpha ratio.RESULTSBoth placental rADC values and placental rSIHASTE values were not significantly different between the gestational age groups (P = 0.688 and P = 0.280, respectively). rADC and rSIHASTE measurements were reproducible with a good agreement between the two readers (Krippendorff’s alpha ratio was 0.613 and 0.778, respectively).CONCLUSIONThe rADC and rSIHASTE values do not change with advancing gestational age

College of Home Economics announcement, 1977-78

Thesis(Doctoral)--Izmir Institute of Technology, City and Regional Planning, Izmir, 2009Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 98-103)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishix, 103 leavesSpatial decision making is a very complex process that basic strategy of decision analysis is to divide the decision problem into small, understandable parts; analyze each part; and integrate the parts in a logical manner to produce a rational solution. Recently,Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) integrated with geographical information system (GIS) has been promising in producing analytical tools for analyzing many realworld spatial planning and decision making problems.In Turkey, natural, archaeological and cultural assets are conserved according to the decisions of the conservation regional councils. The conservation regional councils decide boundary, type and degree of conservation areas but these areas and their features is changed frequently according to economical, environmental and political atmosphere.The conservation decision is one of the most important input criteria in preparing urban land-use plan since the type and degree of conservation area directly determines which kind of land-uses can and cannot be allocated in a conservation area. The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the effects of changing conservation decisions on optimum land use allocation when all other criteria are constant. This analysis was made with five different perspectives. The thesis uses the land assignment model provided by Hanink and Cromley (1998) that integrates the geographical information systems (GIS) with a generalized assignment model by using MCDM techniques to determine optimum level of conservation scheme. The case study is the master plan area of Çeme in zmir province in Turkey. The results show that the theoretically proposed method is indeed very useful and promising to answer complex issues on a more rational basis

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Finite Element Formulations for Maxwell’s Eigenvalue Problem Using Continuous Lagrangian Interpolations

We consider nodal-based Lagrangian interpolations for the finite element approximation of the Maxwell eigenvalue problem. The first approach introduced is a standard Galerkin method on Powell-Sabin meshes, which has recently been shown to yield convergent approximations in two dimensions, whereas the other two are stabilized formulations that can be motivated by a variational multiscale approach. For the latter, a mixed formulation equivalent to the original problem is used, in which the operator has a saddle point structure. The Lagrange multiplier introduced to enforce the divergence constraint vanishes in an appropriate functional setting. The first stabilized method consists of an augmented formulation including a mesh dependent term that can be regarded as the Laplacian of the divergence constraint multiplier. The second formulation is based on orthogonal projections, which can be recast as a residual based stabilization technique. We rely on the classical spectral theory to analyze the approximating methods for the eigenproblem. The stability and convergence aspects are inherited from the associated source problems together with an assumption which is discussed numerically. We investigate the performance of the proposed formulations and provide some convergence results validating the theoretical ones for several benchmark tests, including ones with smooth and singular solutions