The effect of desire to be liked and social appearance anxiety on aesthetic surgery acceptance in female nurses.

BACKGROUND: A rapid increase has been observed in aesthetic surgery procedures in recent years and it has been determined that females have more aesthetic procedures. While different groups of female groups were taken as a sample in the studies, no study on female nurses was found. In this study, it is thought that psychological reasons such as stress, anxiety, desire to be liked and lack of self-confidence that lead women to plastic surgery will reduce the professional performance of nurses and this situation will create additional workload for other colleagues. Therefore, the aim of the study is to reveal the effect of desire to be liked and social appearance anxiety on the acceptance of female nurses to plastic surgery. METHODS: The population of the cross-sectional study consisted of 243.565 nurses working in public, private and university hospitals in Turkey. A questionnaire form was used as a data collection tool in the study. In the first part of the form, there are statements aiming to reveal the socio-demographic characteristics, social media usage levels and aesthetic surgery experiences of nurses, and in the second part, there is a desire to be liked scale, social appearance anxiety scale and aesthetic surgery acceptance scale. The 1004 questionnaire forms collected as a result of the study were subjected to percentage, frequency, correlation and regression analysis. RESULTS: 41.2% of the nurses have had aesthetic procedures before and 68.4% of them want to have aesthetic procedures when there is an area they do not like in their body. A strong positive relationship was found between the desire to be liked, social appearance anxiety, and aesthetic surgery acceptance (r > 0.500, p < 0.01). Aesthetic surgery acceptance is affected by the desire to be liked and by social appearance anxiety. CONCLUSION: In the study, it was determined that social appearance anxiety and the desire to be liked led female nurses to plastic surgery. According to the results of similar studies conducted in different groups, it may be recommended that awareness training be organized both in schools and through digital media about the consequences of unnecessary plastic surgery.

Boron-doped diamond electrooxidation of ethyl paraben: The effect of electrolyte on by-products distribution and mechanisms.

Ethyl paraben (EP), a representative emerging pollutant of the parabens family, was subject to electrochemical oxidation over a boron-doped diamond (BDD) anode. Experiments were carried out in a single-compartment cell at 10-70 mA cm-2 current density, 200-600 µg L-1 EP concentration, initial solution pH 3-9 and 0.1 M electrolyte concentration. The degradation rate is favored at increased current densities and in the presence of NaCl as the supporting electrolyte, while the pH effect is inconsiderable. For instance, the first order rate constant for the degradation of 200 µg L-1 EP at 30 mA cm-2 was 0.25, 0.1 and 0.07 min-1 with NaCl, Na2SO4 and HClO4, respectively. Degradation in secondary treated wastewater was faster than in pure water presumably due to the action of chloride ions present in the effluent. Liquid chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-TOF-MS) was employed to determine major transformation by-products (TBPs). The route of EP degradation with Na2SO4 involves hydroxylation and demethylation reactions, signifying the role of electrogenerated hydroxyl radicals in the process. Twenty one TBPs were identified with NaCl as the electrolyte, including several chlorinated and non-chlorinated dimers and trimers; these findings suggest that indirect oxidation mediated by chlorine radicals and other chlorine active species also takes place. In this view, the role of the supporting electrolyte is crucial since it can influence both reaction kinetics and pathways.

Gene regulatory and gene editing tools and their applications for retinal diseases and neuroprotection: From proof-of-concept to clinical trial.

Gene editing and gene regulatory fields are continuously developing new and safer tools that move beyond the initial CRISPR/Cas9 technology. As more advanced applications are emerging, it becomes crucial to understand and establish more complex gene regulatory and editing tools for efficient gene therapy applications. Ophthalmology is one of the leading fields in gene therapy applications with more than 90 clinical trials and numerous proof-of-concept studies. The majority of clinical trials are gene replacement therapies that are ideal for monogenic diseases. Despite Luxturna's clinical success, there are still several limitations to gene replacement therapies including the size of the target gene, the choice of the promoter as well as the pathogenic alleles. Therefore, further attempts to employ novel gene regulatory and gene editing applications are crucial to targeting retinal diseases that have not been possible with the existing approaches. CRISPR-Cas9 technology opened up the door for corrective gene therapies with its gene editing properties. Advancements in CRISPR-Cas9-associated tools including base modifiers and prime editing already improved the efficiency and safety profile of base editing approaches. While base editing is a highly promising effort, gene regulatory approaches that do not interfere with genomic changes are also becoming available as safer alternatives. Antisense oligonucleotides are one of the most commonly used approaches for correcting splicing defects or eliminating mutant mRNA. More complex gene regulatory methodologies like artificial transcription factors are also another developing field that allows targeting haploinsufficiency conditions, functionally equivalent genes, and multiplex gene regulation. In this review, we summarized the novel gene editing and gene regulatory technologies and highlighted recent translational progress, potential applications, and limitations with a focus on retinal diseases.

The Mutation Profile of SARS-CoV-2 Is Primarily Shaped by the Host Antiviral Defense.

Understanding SARS-CoV-2 evolution is a fundamental effort in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus genomes have been broadly evolving due to the high number of infected hosts world-wide. Mutagenesis and selection are two inter-dependent mechanisms of virus diversification. However, which mechanisms contribute to the mutation profiles of SARS-CoV-2 remain under-explored. Here, we delineate the contribution of mutagenesis and selection to the genome diversity of SARS-CoV-2 isolates. We generated a comprehensive phylogenetic tree with representative genomes. Instead of counting mutations relative to the reference genome, we identified each mutation event at the nodes of the phylogenetic tree. With this approach, we obtained the mutation events that are independent of each other and generated the mutation profile of SARS-CoV-2 genomes. The results suggest that the heterogeneous mutation patterns are mainly reflections of host (i) antiviral mechanisms that are achieved through APOBEC, ADAR, and ZAP proteins, and (ii) probable adaptation against reactive oxygen species.

Phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genomes in Turkey.

COVID-19 has effectively spread worldwide. As of May 2020, Turkey is among the top ten countries with the most cases. A comprehensive genomic characterization of the virus isolates in Turkey is yet to be carried out. Here, we built a phylogenetic tree with globally obtained 15,277 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) genomes. We identified the subtypes based on the phylogenetic clustering in comparison with the previously annotated classifications. We performed a phylogenetic analysis of the first 30 SARS-CoV-2 genomes isolated and sequenced in Turkey. We suggest that the first introduction of the virus to the country is earlier than the first reported case of infection. Virus genomes isolated from Turkey are dispersed among most types in the phylogenetic tree. We find 2 of the seventeen subclusters enriched with the isolates of Turkey, which likely have spread expansively in the country. Finally, we traced virus genomes based on their phylogenetic placements. This analysis suggested multiple independent international introductions of the virus and revealed a hub for the inland transmission. We released a web application to track the global and interprovincial virus spread of the isolates from Turkey in comparison to thousands of genomes worldwide.