The Prevalence of Positive Donor Corneoscleral Rim Culture and its Association with Ocular Infection After Transplantation.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of positive corneoscleral donor rim cultures and to report keratitis and endophthalmitis after keratoplasty. Methods: Eye bank records and medical records of patients who underwent keratoplasty between September 1, 2015, and December 31, 2019, were retrospectively reviewed. Patients who had routine donor-rim culture taken during surgery and followed up for at least 1 year in the post-operative period were included in the study. Results: A total of 826 keratoplasty procedures were performed. A total of 120 (14.5%) cases had a positive donor corneoscleral rim culture. Positive bacterial cultures were obtained from 108 (13.7%) of the donors. Bacterial keratitis was observed in one patient (0.83% of recipients) who had a positive bacterial culture. Positive fungal cultures were obtained from 12 (1.45%) donors, of whom one (8.33% of recipients) developed fungal keratitis. Endophthalmitis was observed in one patient whose culture result was negative. Both bacterial and fungal culture results were similar in penetrating and lamellar surgical procedures. Conclusion: Although the donor corneoscleral rims have a high positive culture result, the rate of bacterial keratitis and endophthalmitis is low, the risk of infection is high in patients with a fungal positive donor rim. Closer follow-up of patients with fungal positive donor corneo-scleral rim result and initiation of aggressive antifungal treatment when infection occurs will be beneficial.

Chronic Oral Amiodarone as a Cause of Acute Liver Failure.

Acute liver failure (ALF) is a rare condition that can have a variable clinical course and potentially fatal outcomes. Medication toxicity is a known etiology, however liver failure induced by amiodarone is rare and has been reported mostly in the setting of intravenous (IV) infusion. We present an 84-year-old patient who developed ALF after chronic use of oral amiodarone. The patient received supportive care and her symptoms improved.

Psychometric properties of the quality nursing care scale-turkish version: a methodological study.

AIM: To analyze the psychometric properties of the Quality Nursing Care Scale in Turkish Language. BACKGROUND: The quality of health services and nursing care effectively improves safe patient outcomes and reduces costs in healthcare organizations. There is a need for valid and reliable tools in order to use for evaluating the quality of nursing care. METHODS: The methodological and cross-sectional study included 225 nurses working in a research and training hospital. Content validity, construct validity, item analysis, and internal consistency analysis were used. RESULTS: The content validity index of the scale was 0.96. The item-total score correlation values of the items were 0.72 and higher. The factor loads of the items ranged from 0.42 to 0.90. Different from the original scale, Turkish form consisted of three sub-dimensions. The fit indices were acceptable or very good. The Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient was 0.99. CONCLUSION: The Quality Nursing Care Scale was valid and reliable with its three-factor structure in Turkish Language. It may be used for measuring the quality of care in the aspects of nurses.

Context-Aware Phylogenetic Trees for Phylogeny-Based Taxonomy Visualization.

Sustained efforts in next-generation sequencing technologies are changing the field of taxonomy. The increase in the number of resolved genomes has made the traditional taxonomy of species antiquated. With phylogeny-based methods, taxonomies are being updated and refined. Although such methods bridge the gap between phylogeny and taxonomy, phylogeny-based taxonomy currently lacks interactive visualization approaches. Motivated by enriching and increasing the consistency of evolutionary and taxonomic studies alike, we propose Context-Aware Phylogenetic Trees (CAPT) as an interactive web tool to support users in exploration- and validation-based tasks. To complement phylogenetic information with phylogeny-based taxonomy, we offer linking two interactive visualizations which compose two simultaneous views: the phylogenetic tree view and the taxonomic icicle view. Thanks to its space-filling properties, the icicle visualization follows the intuition behind taxonomies where different hierarchical rankings with equal number of child elements can be represented with same-sized rectangular areas. In other words, it provides partitions of different sizes depending on the number of elements they contain. The icicle view integrates seven taxonomic rankings: domain, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. CAPT enriches the clades in the phylogenetic tree view with context from the genomic data and supports interactive techniques such as linking and brushing to highlight correspondence between the two views. Four different use cases, extracted from the Genome Taxonomy DataBase, were employed to create four scenarios using our approach. CAPT was successfully used to explore the phylogenetic trees as well as the taxonomic data by providing context and using the interaction techniques. This tool is essential to increase the accuracy of categorization of newly identified species and validate updated taxonomies. The source code and data are freely available at https://github.com/ghattab/CAPT.

The relationships between nurses' positive psychological capital, and their employee voice and organizational silence behaviors.

PURPOSE: This study aims to determine nurses' positive psychological capital (PsyCap) levels and to examine their relationships with employee voice (EV) and organizational silence (OS) behaviors. DESIGN AND METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional and correlational study collected data from 341 nurses working at a public university and a private university hospital. The data were collected with the positive PsyCap, EV, and OS scales. FINDINGS: Statistically significant positive relationships were found between positive PsyCap and EV, and between positive PsyCap and relational silence. However, there was a statistically significant negative relationship between positive PsyCap and individual silence. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Nurse managers should support nurses and allow them to participate in decisions that can contribute to nursing, healthcare institution, and the quality of healthcare services.

Development of monolithic matrix type transdermal patches containing cinnarizine: Physical characterization and permeation studies

To overcome the problems associated with bioavailability and systemic side effects of the drug by oral administration, monolithic matrix type transdermal patches containing cinnarizine (CNZ) were developed. For this purpose, films based on hydroxypropyl methylcellulose and polyvinylpyrrolidone as matrix-forming polymers were designed. Physical characteristics of transdermal films and drug-excipient compatibility were investigated. Factors affecting in vitro drug release and ex vivo skin penetration and permeation of the drug were studied. It was confirmed that films displayed sufficient flexibility and mechanical strength for application onto the skin for a long time period. Ex vivo penetration experiments gave satisfactory results for transdermal drug delivery through rat skin. The parameters determining good skin penetration were also evaluated. The highest drug permeation rate was obtained with incorporation of Transcutol® (0.102 mg/cm2/h) into the base CNZ formulation, followed by propylene glycol (0.063 mg/cm2/h), menthol (0.045 mg/cm2/h), and glycerin (0.021 mg/cm2/h) as penetration enhancers (p < 0.05). As a result, the developed transdermal patches of CNZ may introduce an alternative treatment for various conditions and diseases such as idiopathic urticarial vasculitis, Ménière's disease, motion sickness, nausea, and vertigo. Thus, the risk of systemic side effects caused by the drug can be reduced or eliminated

Cost-conscious robotic restorative proctectomy has similar economic and oncologic outcomes to open restorative proctectomy: Results of a long-term follow-up study.

BACKGROUND: In this study, we hypothesised that the direct hospital costs of robotic restorative proctectomy (RP) would be similar to those of open RP when a cost-conscious approach was employed in rectal cancer patients. METHODS: We included consecutive patients with rectal cancer who underwent RP between 12/2011 and 10/2014. A cost-conscious approach was employed in robotic surgery. We compared demographics, long-term oncologic outcomes, and direct hospital costs between the open and robotic groups. RESULTS: There were 32 robotic and 68 open RP procedures performed. Compared to open RP, the robotic RP group had a longer operative time but less estimated blood loss, intraoperative transfusions, overall short-term morbidity, decreased length of stay. After the initial five robotic cases, overall hospital costs were comparable between the groups (1 ± 0.5 vs. 1 ± 0.4, open and robotic RP, respectively, p = 0.90). CONCLUSION: Increasing surgeon experience and a cost-conscious approach may improve the value of care of robotic RP in patients with rectal cancer.

The relationship of learned resourcefulness with self-leadership skills: A study with nurse and midwife students.

BACKGROUND: It is important for the professionalism that students at the university use their coping skills to solve the problems that may arise before starting the profession, control their behaviours by directing themselves, and motivate themselves in case they face negative situations. OBJECTIVES: This study was carried out to determine the relationship between the selfleadership skills of students studying in nursing and midwifery departments and their learned resourcefulness skills. DESIGN: The study a descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional pattern. SETTINGS: The sample of the study consisted of 380 students studying at the Nursing and Midwifery Department of the Faculty of Health Sciences of a foundation university in Istanbul. METHODS: The research data were collected using the information form, the Revised Self-Leadership Questionnaire, and the Rosenbaum Learned Resourcefulness Scale. In the analysis of the data descriptive analysis, parametric or non-parametric comparative analyzes and correlational analyzes were used. RESULTS: In the study; 84.5% of the participants were female and whose mean age was 20.6-61.6% of the participants were studying in the nursing department. The total score the students got from the Revised Self-Leadership Questionnaire was 131.87 ± 23.49, and the total score that got from the Rosenbaum Learned Resourcefulness Scale was 120.81 ± 16.77. The students studying in the third-grade (124.16 ± 13.9) had higher self-control skills compared to the first (118.57 ± 18.8) and the second-grade (119.2 ± 16.7) students, that's, they frequently applied the coping strategies represented in the scale (p < 0.05). There was a positive linear relationship between two scale (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Within the framework of the research results, gender, grade and the department studied are related to the level of self­leadership. The level of learned resourcefulness was associated with classroom and stress training. Individuals' self­leadership levels showed a positive relationship with their learned resourcefulness level.

The association of PTPN22 R620W polymorphism is stronger with late-onset AChR-myasthenia gravis in Turkey.

A functional single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the PTPN22 gene encoding a protein tyrosine phosphatase has been associated with autoimmune disorders including myasthenia gravis (MG). As the PTPN22 R620W polymorphism has a wide variation of allele frequencies among different populations, this polymorphism was investigated in MG in Turkey. An emphasis is put on MG subgroups according to autoantibody (Abs) production and presence of thymoma. DNA samples from 416 patients with clinically diagnosed generalized MG (231 with Abs to acetylcholine receptor, AChR-MG), 53 with Abs to muscle-specific kinase (MuSK-MG), 55 patients with no detectable Abs (SN-MG), 77 patients with thymoma (TAMG) and 293 healthy controls (HC) were genotyped for the SNP (PTPN22 R620W, C1858T, rs2476601). The PTPN22 T allele was increased in AChR-MG patients (odds ratio [OR]: 2.5, 95%CI: 1.2-5.1). The association was stronger in late disease-onset AChR (LOMG, OR: 3.1, 95%CI: 1.2-8.2). MuSK-MG, SN-MG and TAMG groups did not carry the variant allele more frequently than the HC. In contrast to findings in other autoimmune diseases, the distribution of the PTPN22 polymorphism in this population provides a susceptibility marker for AChR-MG. The strongest association is detected in patients with LOMG.