Developing the Cyberostracism Scale and Examining its Psychometric Characteristics

International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction - This study aims to develop the Cyberostracism Scale (CS) to assess university students’ perceptions of virtual social exclusion....     

Ultrasonographic evaluation of the femoral cartilage thickness in patients with chronic renal failure

Objective To investigate the effects of chronic renal failure (CRF) on the distal femoral cartilage thickness by using ultrasonography and to determine the relationship between cartilage thickness and certain disease-related parameters. Design Fifty-seven CRF patients (41 male and 16 female) (mean [SD] age, 44.7 [12.1] years) and 60 healthy controls (41 male and 19 female) (mean [SD] age, 43.5 [13.3] years) were enrolled in this study. Demographic and clinical characteristics were recorded. Cartilage thickness measurements were taken from the medial and lateral condyles, and intercondylar areas of both knees. Results Groups were similar in terms of age, weight, height, body mass index and gender (all p>0.05). The mean cartilage thickness was found to be less in CRF patients than in controls (statistically significant for medial condyles and intercondylar areas both in right and the left knees [all p<0.05]). Cartilage thickness showed no correlation with eGFR, and with the levels of serum urea, creatinine, calcium, magnesium, phosphor, hemoglobin, uric acid and as well as steroid use (all p>0.05) in CRF patients. Conclusion In the light of our findings, we imply that patients with CRF have thinner femoral cartilage than healthy controls. This result may support the view that patients with CRF are at increased risk for developing early knee osteoarthritis. Last but not least, clinicians should be aware of the importance of rehabilitation strategies aimed at decreasing onset and progression of knee osteoarthritis in patients with CRF.     

Comparison of extracorporeal shock wave therapy and high-intensity laser therapy on pain,grip strength,and function in patients with lateral epicondylalgia: a randomized controlled study

Lasers in Medical Science - This study aimed to compare the effects of extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT) and high-intensity laser therapy (HILT) on pain, grip strength, and function in...     

Rectum mucinous adenocarcinoma metastasis to bilateral breast in a male patient: A case report

A 47‐year‐old male presented to our clinic with complaints of mass in both breasts. In the patient's history, he had undergone low anterior resection for rectum mucinous adenocarcinoma 2 years ago. The masses in both breasts of the patient were excised. Mucinous adenocarcinoma metastases were reported in the pathologic evaluation of the masses. Metastasis should be considered in patients with bilateral breast mass and previously diagnosed cancer even if the patient is male.     

Delay‐dependent feedforward control of time‐delay systems with parametric uncertainties via dynamic IQCs

This paper studies the design problem of a robust delay‐dependent H _∞ feedforward controller design for a class of linear uncertain time‐delay system having state and control delays when the system is subject to ‐type disturbances. The proposed controller scheme involves two main controllers, which are static state‐feedback and dynamic feedforward controllers. The state‐feedback controller is used for stabilizing the delay and uncertainty‐free system, whereas the feedforward controller performs disturbance attenuation. Dynamic type integral quadratic constraints (IQCs), which consist of frequency‐dependent multipliers, have been introduced to represent the delays and parametric uncertainties in the system where the degree of the multiplier used in IQC representation is in an adjustable nature. This scheme allows the designer to obtain less conservative controllers with increasing precision. Sufficient delay‐dependent criteria in terms of linear matrix inequalities are obtained such that the uncertain linear time‐delay system is guaranteed to be globally, uniformly, asymptotically stable with a minimum disturbance attenuation level. Several numerical examples together with the simulation studies provided at the end illustrate the usefulness of the proposed design. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.