فهرست مطالب ccedil

Simulation in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) studies is considered as an effective approach to test new mathematical methods for image processing and lesion detection. It’s an alternative way to overcome the drawback of obtaining a sufficient set of clinical images with known truth about the presence or absence of lesions. This work aimed to simulate, in a new and fast way, realistic dynamic 18F-FDG PET images for lesion detectability investigation and scan time reduction.
The 4D-XCAT phantom was utilized in this work. The three-compartment model was used to simulate the Time Activity Curves (TAC’s) of 18F-FDG. The arterial input function of 18F-FDG was modeled using a parametric function. The TAC’s of 11 tissues defined in the 4D-XCAT phantom were simulated. The activity values were calculated from the TAC’s considering a real 18F-FDG dynamic PET acquisition protocol. These activity values were assigned to each voxel of 4D-XCAT to produce 28 activity maps. The GE Discovery PET/CT 710 scanner, modeled in the STIR platform, was used to generate the sinograms. OSMAPOSL Algorithm was considered to reconstruct dynamic 18F-FDG PET images.
Realistic dynamic 18F-FDG PET images were generated. The qualitative and quantitative comparison showed a good agreement between the 4D-XCAT phantom images before and after the reconstruction procedure. The computation time of the reconstruction procedure was 8.76 min/frame.
The present study was found to be a promising and realistic approach to dynamic PET dPET imaging optimization in terms of scanning time reduction and lesion detectability amelioration.

Nutrition literacy is a modifiable lifestyle risk factor, and addressing literacy-related barriers may help improve health outcomes, including quality of life. This cross-sectional and descriptive study examines the relationship between Turkish adults nutrition literacy and quality of life.  We conducted online surveys with volunteers aged 18-65 with a minimum primary school education who provided consent. We used the evaluation Instrument of Nutrition Literacy (EINLA) scale to evaluate the nutritional literacy level of the participants and the 36-item short-form health survey questionnaire (SF-36) to evaluate the quality of life. SPSS v25.0 (IBM Corp., NY, USA) was used for the statistical analysis of the data. Participants (n=1379) had a mean age of 33.89 (sd:13.11) years; 1001 (73%) were female, 776 (55%)were single, 822 (59.6%) were college graduates, 366 (26.5%)were overweight, 164 (11.9%) obese, and 177(12.8%)lived alone. There was a statistically significant correlation between the total nutrition literacy scores of the participants and their general health (r=0.220), physical function (r=0.351), physical role difficulty (r=0.088), function (r=0.253), pain (r=0.154) and mental health (r=0.213) (p<0.001). Except for the emotional role difficulty (p=0.128) and vitality (p=0.191) sub-dimensions of SF-36, there was a statistically significant correlation between the nutrition literacy level of the participants and their quality-of-life p<0.05 and p<0.001.  Based on these results, as participants' nutritional literacy level increases, their quality of life improves. Therefore, this study confirms that improving nutrition literacy may positively affect the quality of life. Further research, however, needs to be undertaken to substantiate this conclusion with heterogeneous samples.

There is currently a growing tendency to a meaning-based approach to the analysis of syntactic complexity in academic writing. While previous studies have offered illuminating insights into linguistic realizations of rhetorical structures in relation to syntactic complexity, they have typically analyzed lexicogrammatical features in a decontextualized manner. Drawing on a corpus-based cross-sectional design, this study takes a function-first approach to investigating the rhetorical functions of syntactically complex structures in research article (RA) abstracts in applied linguistics. To that end, a corpus of 270 texts from leading applied linguistics journals was constructed. Based on the model proposed by Pho (2008), we manually annotated the texts for the moves, and measured their syntactic complexity using phrasal, clausal, and global metrics. SPSS (version 25) was run for the analysis of data. Results of one-way MANOVA (multivariate analysis of variance) and Chi-square tests revealed significant variations among rhetorical moves in terms of clausal and phrasal complexity measures. The findings also showed that academic writers varied the complexity of their written structures according to their rhetorical goals. The results establish form-meaning mappings between syntactically complex structures and rhetorical functions. The findings carry pedagogical implications for student writers to adjust their prose using functionally appropriate complex structures following expert writers through comparing their own writing with that of expert writers to notice the gaps.

The aim of this study was to determine the effects of different sound stimulant applied to embryos during the incubation on performance characteristics, fear responses, and developmental stability of Japanese quails. For this purpose, a quiet environment, species-specific relaxing sounds, and species-specific disturbing sounds were applied to quail eggs placed in three homologous incubators in different rooms. A constant sound pressure (65 decibels) was used throughout the incubation, with stimulation for two minutes out of every twenty minutes. There were no differences between the experimental groups in terms of hatch weight and weekly body weights. Similarly, sound stimulation had no positive or negative effects on parameters of the Gompertz growth curve and slaughter-carcass traits. The mean values of tonic immobility duration of quails in both the disturbance and comfort group (72.15 and 71.35 sec, respectively) were higher than that of the control group (51.14 sec, P < 0.05). Moreover, when the developmental stability of the bilateral features was examined, fewer fluctuating asymmetry cases were detected in the disturbance and comfort groups. As a result, it is possible to say that the sound models applied to the embryos during incubation did not affect the performance characteristics, but had negative effects on developmental stability and fear responses.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between mother-infant attachment and fear of childbirth in the postpartum period.

The data of this cross-sectional study were collected from 142 puerperal women who attended Kağızman Şahindere Family Health Center No. 1 and 2, Kars/Turkey and had a normal spontaneous birth between 2017 and 2019. The questionnaire developed by the researcher, WIJMA Birth Expectation/Experience Scale Version B and Mother-Infant Attachment Scale were used to collect data. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normal distribution eligibility tests, Shapiro-Wilk test, Independent Samples T test after eligibility, One-Way Anova Tukey test, Kruskal Wallis H test, Pearson Correlation, and Bonferroni post-hoc test in dependent and independent variables were used to analyze data.

While the total average score of puerperal women from the WIJMA Birth Expectation/Experience Scale was 86.83+28.23, the total average score they received from the Mother-infant Attachment Scale was 9.40+2.21. There was a moderately positive significant relationship between the scores puerperal women received from the WIJMA Birth Expectation/Experience Scale and the Mother-infant Attachment Scale (p<0.05). It was found that the higher the score on the WIJMA Birth Expectation/Experience Scale, the higher the score on the Mother-Infant Attachment Scale.

It was found that as the fear of childbirth increased, the mother-infant attachment decreased. So it could be suggested that the pregnant women should be directed to the childbirth preparation classes to prevent negative effects on the postnatal attachment level of women due to their fear of childbirth.

Phase Change Materials (PCMs) for heat storage and energy saving has been extensively used in many fields for heating and cooling processes, including building, solar energy, textiles, agriculture, and electronics. PCMs have been getting incredible attention for being low-cost materials and have potential materials for thermal energy storage (TES) with long cycle life. Though, the disadvantages such as flow, result in encapsulation in three scales of Macro, Micro and Nano capsules. Encapsulating PCM reduces the disadvantages and improves the efficiency of PCMs. Different methods for producing PCMs in the scale of nano and core-shell materials, have been developed and the capsules size in relation to parameters such as pH, stirring rate, material selection and preparation method have been investigated. In recent years, this subject has been extensively studied, seeking to find more efficient and safer PCMs. In this context, nanoscale PCMs have been produced and applied to the most diverse products and their performance evaluated. They simply modified and optimized production processes. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that merely a few articles have reviewed nano-encapsulating of PCMs, focusing on new developments on PCM nano-capsules. Moreover, few articles have compared nano and microcapsules of PCMs so far. The analyzed papers suggest that the production methods influence the size of the obtained capsules. The purpose of this article is to make an updated review of the synthesis and application of nano-encapsulated PCMs.

Recently, sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has grown considerably at agro-food supply chain (AFSC). Due to their complex nature, these supply chains are exposed to a variety of interrelated risks from natural disasters and man-made. Hence, one of the fundamental concerns in the AFSC is identifying and prioritizing risks to achieve sustainability. However, in analyzing sustainability concerns, most previous studies have paid less attention to interrelationship between sustainability and risk assessment. The objective of this work is to propose a methodology to supply chain sustainability risk assessment by evaluating environmental, economic, social and operational risks. The proposed approach is an integrated rough decision- making and trial evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method for solving this problem, which takes into account the interrelationship between different risks and the group preference variety. The proposed methodology integrates the strength of DEMATEL approach in exploring both internal strength and external influence of risks as well as the advantage of rough number in manipulating the vagueness of information. A real-world case study of a Tunisian dairy company is presented to test the applicability of the proposed framework. It can be observed from results that the most important risks are “Large number of intermediaries”, “Lack of proper storage facilities” and “Transport disruption”. The results and findings can help the dairy sector decision-makers in a variety of ways to successfully identify and prioritize supply chain risks in order to attain sustainability.

Since late 19th century social sciences have been stuck within the deterministic views of natural sciences. Getting further away from the real nature of human being, social sciences have been explaining the imaginary world of the scientists. In economics, homo economicus plays the leading role in the imaginary world of economists. However, recently this dream world of economists has been greatly distressed with the development of behavioral economics. Behavioral economics has opened the door for real world investigations not only for economics but also for other social science disciplines. So today is the right time to talk about the reality of religion and economics. In fact, for defending an idea, generally the righteousness of the time is more important than the righteousness of the idea itself. This study is prepared in order to make emphasis on the complementary relationship between religion and science in broad terms but specifically between Islam and economics. With a historical point of view, this study bases the main idea on three hypotheses from three books. First book is Frank M. Turner’s European Intellectual History. Second hypothesis is depended on the Tomas Sedlacek’s Economics of Good and Evil. Last but not least book is the Fukuyama’s End of History and the Last Man. At the final part of the study, based on these three hypotheses, there will be suggested Islamic solutions for behavioral problems in economics.

The aim of this work is the study of the inhibition corrosion of copper in hydrochloric acid solution 2M using essential oil of ammodaucus leucotrichus Coss. & Dur. noted (AEO). Its protective ability is evaluated by weight loss measurements, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and polarization curves, at different concentrations of the oil (0-3000 ppm) and by varying the temperature of the solution (298-328K). The polarization curves highlight the cathodic character of this eco-friendly inhibitor. However, the corrosion rate was reduced when the concentration of AEO is increased and achieves about 70% after 6h immersion in corrosive media containing 3000 ppm of AEO. This important protection ability is relied to the formation of a protective film over the metal, which its adsorption is governed by the Langmuir isotherm model. The negative values of the free standard adsorption energy ΔGads confirm the spontaneity of the reaction. Interestingly, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis underlines a remarkable enhancement on the surface of copper exposed to the corrosive media, in presence of AEO and hence, its efficiency as an ecofriendly inhibitor for copper surface.

Heavy metals stress (cadmium stress) is one of the most important factors which lead to reduction of plant growth and productivity of agricultural products. One of the plant responses to heavy metal stresses is changes in polyamines contents in plants. Regarding the economic importance of maize, the effects of cadmium stress on seed germination, plant growth parameters and polyamines contents (putrescin, spermidine and spermine) were investigated in 3 days-old seedlings and the roots after 6, 12, 15 and 20 days. Polyamines analysis was performed by HPTLC. The results indicated that cadmium stress in maize is the cause of delay in seed germination and decreased plant growth parameters. Cadmium stress increased the total polyamine content as a result of 35% increase of the putrescine in 3 days-old seedlings. In general, a significant increase of putrescine was observed in the roots of the 6 days-old- and 15 days-old plants under cadmium stress. While the highest amount of spermine and spermidine was in the root of the 12 days-old plants under cadmium stress. Roots of the 15-days-old plant showed the highest content and translocation factor of cadmium. These results suggest that the changes in the amount of polyamines in maize plant under cadmium stress depend on the cadmium absorption by the plant root and the type of polyamines.

According to previous studies, salicylic acid decreases the hyperhydricity in Thymus daenesis and this event might be due to the effect on polyamines metabolism. Polyamine oxidase enzyme catabolizes the polyamines in the cell and one of its byproducts is hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Purpose of this study is analyses of salicylic acid effect on polyamine oxidase activity in thymus daenensis callus. In this study, the activity of polyamine oxidase, content of H2O2, and responses of enzymatic antioxidant including catalase and peroxidase was measured. Results showed that salicylic acid (concentrations of 10 and 20 µM) caused an increase in polyamine oxidase activity in a dose dependent manner. In callus under salicylic acid treatment (20 µM) a decrease in soluble peroxidase activity and an elevated H2O2 content was observed. Increase of H2O2 might be due to the influence of salicylic acid on polyamine oxidase and peroxidase activities. While variations in H2O2 levels resulted in no changes of catalase activity. Regulation of H2O2 level by salicylic acid through its effect on polyamine oxidase activity might contribute to ROS homeostasis, which is necessary for in vitro developmental processes in plant cells.

In the architectural design, designers are focused on the early stages of the design process or conceptual design. The ultimate goal of this stage is to find a solution for an existing problem, investigate design space, or explore an idea. This stage conventionally begins with sketches and diagrams to explore ideas and solutions; the ambiguity and vagueness of conventional freehand sketching can be a source of creativity.
Nowadays, with the advances in digital technology, there are attempts to integrate digital tools into the conceptual design in order to construct a digital design medium in the architectural education. Recent developments in CAAD software shows a shift in focus toward conceptual design interface; but these tools have not developed and still fail to offer an appropriate design environment for sketching; So application of digital tools in the early stages of design, has created problems and challenges especially regarding creativity. The problem is that why digital sketching could not yet replace the conventional freehand sketching. Therefore, this research focuses on the early stages of the design process and aims to investigate the current situation of digital sketching and its related discussions and challenges in architectural design education, also, study the current sketching tools in the architectural schools and tendency of instructors and their students to use digital sketching in real world. This research has a qualitative approach and a survey has conducted via an online questionnaire. Findings show that, there are attempts to study and propose interfaces and programs to enhance digital systems or new ways of working with them in order to support creativity and sketching. Also, findings indicate that the professors yet doubt over digital tools, but there is a tendency to use these tools among educators and their students if these tools can meet educational demands

Despite the dynamic nature of real life scheduling problems, few studies focus on stochastic resource constrained project scheduling problem and its variants. In this study, we consider stochastic resource possibilities and propose a new chance constraint, piecewise-linear and mixed integer programming model. Model is tested and verified with known project instances. One of the main strengths of the proposed model is it can be used to construct baseline schedules with a predetermined confidence interval. This gives scheduler an opportunity to construct proactive actions in order to minimize disruptions.

In today's world, the usage area of intelligent systems is increasing day by day. With the development of technology, applications on intelligent systems that will facilitate human life have also gained momentum. Intelligent systems have evolved from the automotive to the defense industry, from white goods to construction. In large areas with high circulation such as large shopping malls, airports, train stations and stadiums, whose numbers are rapidly increasing, there is a problem of parking space and finding parking space in these areas. Due to the large number of car parks and the large number of vehicles, it is time consuming for customers to search for parking lots for a minute. It is also indisputable that the loss of time is the cause of money loss. In this study, it is aimed to provide a dynamic and quick solution to the operation of intelligent systems in the parking lot. By combining software, control, and sensor technologies, an intelligent system that continually updates itself and at the same time minimizes the loss of life and property in an emergency is designed and integrated into the parking lot infrastructure. Thanks to the designed system, it is aimed to get rid of the problem of searching for places, to reduce fuel and time loss the most, to protect from accidents, and to provide healthy guidance in possible emergency situations. Unlike similar projects in this study, the parking lot plan was created in software environment with all lines. Since the system is constantly updating itself, it has achieved an autonomous structure. In this way, the system does not need to enter any human being in the right direction at the shortest time.

Beveled edge rounded bowtie antenna is proposed for UWB applications in this paper. Beveling technique is employed to increase the bandwidth of classical bowtie antenna. The simulated bandwidth is from 3 GHz to 11 GHz in order to observe the bandwidth enhancement in the frequency range of interest for UWB applications. Effective parameters of the antenna, including Return Loss (S11), Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) and radiation pattern are examined for the proposed structure. Then behavior of the designed antenna is compared with the classical bowtie antenna and rounded bowtie antenna characteristics to verify the enhancement due to the beveled edge structure. Besides, it is demonstrated that the proposed antenna satisfies UWB requirements by providing return loss less than -10 dB and VSWR less than 2, respectively during the enhancement process. Beveled edge rounded bowtie antenna model is designed by using CST Microwave Studio Program which is an electromagnetic simulation auxiliary tool.

Applying methods like seed coating which results in germination improvement, reduction of environmental stresses and increase of range species establishment is greatly important. This study was carried to evaluate the effect of different concentrations of alginate polymer on growth physiological characteristics (germination percentage, shoot and root length and fresh weight) of maize (Zea mays L.) under oil contamination (gasoline). A factorial experiment in a completely randomized design with five replications was conducted. The first factor is the difference of alginate calcium concentration with 4 levels (0, 1, 2, 3%) and the second factor is 4 levels of oil pollution (0, 2 , 4 , 6 % gasoline). The results showed significant changes in physiological characteristics in coated seedlings compared to control (p

Poisoning with calcium channel blockers and beta blockers are associated with high mortality and morbidity rates, especially in children. Treatment of poisoning with these drugs includes administration of atropine, glucagon, calcium and inotropic agents as clinically needed; and newer approaches like hyperinsulinemic euglycemia and intravenous lipid emulsion therapies. We herein present two refractory cases of calcium channel blocker and beta blocker poisoning that underwent hyperinsulinemic euglycemia and intravenous lipid emulsion interventions.
CASE 1
A 17-year-old female patient has been brought to our setting unconscious and recalcitrantly hypotensive and bradycardic after taking 8 tablets of 90 mg diltiazem hydrochloride. The patient was given saline, atropine, repeating doses of calcium gluconate, dopamine, noradrenaline, hyperinsulinemic euglycemia treatment, hemodiafiltration, and lipid administration. She achieved a full recovery during follow-up, and was discharged with cure.
CASE 2
A 17-year-old girl, who developed an unresponsive hypotension after ingesting 12 tablets of 12.5 mg carvedilol, 6 – 7 tablets of 450 mg diosmin 50 mg hesperidin, and 6–7 tablets of 10 mg metoclopramide hydrochloride, was treated with saline, glucagon, calcium gluconate, dopamine, noradrenaline, and administration of hyperinsulinemic euglycemia and lipid. The patient responded well to the treatment, and was discharged with cure.
The newer treatment modality of lipid emulsion has been reported to achieve promising results by several reports in the literature; however, there are a limited number of published cases regarding its use in children. Further studies to assess the pediatric utilization of these treatment approaches are needed.

In the current study, the solid waste characterisation that belongs to Artvin city centre, which is located in East Black Sea Region of Turkey, were searched. The study has the feature of being the first study for the country of Artvin in terms of study. The field of study is composed of 7 neighborhoods and those can be separated into 3 groups as low, middle and high level of income. In this study, 11 kind of waste were examined, which are organic, paper, plastic, glass, metal, ash, electronic, textile, garden waste, hazardous and others. The effect of seasons on the amount of waste was examined; also, the relationship between the amount of waste and the level of income was also examined by using the two-way ANOVA analysis. Furthermore, all ratios of wastes that are located in Artvin city centre were searched. According to that, the waste ratios, occurs in one year, of all neighborhoods in the Artvin city centre are found as 61.06% organic, 10.28% paper, 9% plastic, 3.20% glass, 2.29% metal, 3.87% ash, 0.037% electronic, 1.58% textile, 1.35% garden waste, 0.51 % hazardous and 7.23% others. Those obtained values were compared with other similar studies in the literature. Moreover, for collecting recyclable wastes for the city centre 3 different methods are proposed named as methods collection from households, collection from buildings and collection from neighborhoods. These methods have been studied economically and the collection from buildings method is the most appropriate among these three methods.

Renal cell carcinoma accounts 85% of all renal tumors. In this study, we aimed to investigate the clinical and pathological results of female patients with RCCs and compare with male patients. The patients who underwent radical or partial nephrectomy were reviewed retrospectively. The clinical characteristics of male and female patients were analyzed and compared with age, tumor size, histological subtype, Fuhrman nuclear grade, and pathological T stage. There were 266 patients in the study. Of these patients; 181 patients (68.05%) were male and 85 patients (31.95%) were female. The female patients’ and male patients’ mean ages were 57.09±13.36 and 60.24±10.44 years (P=0.007), respectively. Tumor size was smaller in female patients than male patients with statistically significant association (5.69±3.20 and 6.97±3.67, P=0.046). According to the histological subtypes, female patients had a greater proportion of chromophobe RCC with 18.82% of the patients. Interestingly, papillary (12.56%) and sarcomatoid differentiation (6.01%) subtypes were predominantly seen in male patients. The proportion of localized disease (pT1-2) was 80% and 74.3% in female and male patients, grade 1 and 2 consist 61.16% and 48.63% of the female and male patients. The female patients with RCC had smaller tumors and presented at younger age than male patients. Further research and epidemiologic studies are needed to define the effect of gender in renal cell carcinomas.

To investigate the effect of Ozurdex (dexamethasone intravitreal implant) on multifocal electroretinography (mfERG) findings during the treatment of macular edema secondary to the central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO).
Fifteen eyes of 15 patients who were treated with Ozurdex implant due to CRVO‑related macular edema were included in this study. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), central macular thickness (CMT), and mfERG evaluations were performed for all patients before injection of Ozurdex. After the injection, BCVA and CMT were measured at months 3 and 6 and mfERG test was performed at month 6 for all patients.
Pre‑implantation mfERG P wave amplitude values of r1, r2, r3, r4 and r5 were 57.8 ± 14.8, 25.1 ± 10.6, 17.2 ± 7.3, 12.0 ± 5.0 and 7.1 ± 3.6 nV/deg², respectively. They increased to 72.9 ± 33.2, 31.2 ± 9.3, 22.6 ± 7.6, 15.6 ± 7.1 and 10.9 ± 5.7 nV/deg², respectively, at month 6. However, these increases were not statistically significant (all P > 0.05). Pre‑implantation mfERG r1, r2, r3, r4 and r5 P wave implicit times were 40.1 ± 10.9, 39.4 ± 3, 38.4 ± 3.4, 38.2 ± 3.1 and 39.3 ± 2.2 ms, respectively and these values were measured as 38.9 ± 8.2, 38.4 ± 4.7, 37 ± 3.8, 37.5 ± 4.6 and 37.7 ± 4.7 ms at 6 months. Although there were reductions in P wave implicit times in all rings, they were not statistically significant (all P > 0.05).
In this prospective study, we found that the Ozurdex implant had no effect on mfERG findings 6 months after insertion for treatment of CRVO‑related macular edema.

The aim of this study was to detect the regional and mucosal distribution of endocrine cells that secrete gulcagon, somatostatin, Chyholecystokinin-8 (CCK-8), serotonin, secretin, substance P (SP) and histamine in the small and large intestine of New Zealand white rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus L.) using immunohistochemical peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) method. It was found that most of the immunoreactive (IR) endocrine cells, which are oval- or spindle-shaped, are spotted in the basal parts of the relevant glands. It was noticed that cells in the lamina epithelialis of small and large intestine is linked to the lumen and that the cells in their glands cannot reach the lumen. Immunoreactive cells for glucagon, somatostatin, serotonin, secretin and SP were identified in lamina epithelialis of the small and large intestine. It was seen that secretin, SP and histamine-IR cells are rarely deployed throughout the intestinal tract. It was determined that somatostatin-IR cells were identified throughout the intestinal tract. In conclusion, the immunohistochemical study shows that gastrointestinal tract of this species contained different types of endocrine cells similar to those found in other vertebrate species. However, some species-dependent unique distributions and frequencies of endocrine cells were also observed in the present study.

Necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis (NUG) is a microbial disease of the gingiva in the context of an impaired host response. This form of gingivitis is relatively rare. NUG is an infection characterized by gingival necrosis presenting as “punched-out” papillae, spontaneous bleeding, pain, oral malodor, and pseudomembrane formation. The primary predisposing factors are bacterial plaque and an inadequate diet, but smoking and psychological stress may also affect the disease severity. NUG is associated with a characteristic bacterial flora, which includes fusiform bacteria, spirochetes, and Prevotella intermedia. Conventional treatment includes control of both the bacterial plaque and the secondary factors, as well as topical or systemic treatment biostimulative effect on wound healing, pain control, and inflammatory processes. Patients with NUG were treated using adjunct use of a diode laser (980 nm) for the control of pain and to accelerate the wound healing at day 2. 3. 5. 9, energy density was 9 J/cm2. After treatment, the patients’ quality of life improved faster than with conventional treatment. These results suggest that low-level laser therapy (LLLT) is an effective treatment for the reduction of pain levels and healing times. As a result, our case report shows that LLTT has a positive effect in relieving the symptoms of NUG.

Knowing the configuration of a meniscus tear is important for planning the treatment protocol.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in determining meniscus tear configurations through a retrospective assessment of MR images from patients who underwent arthroscopy for an initial diagnosis of meniscus tear.
Patients and

A retrospective comparison was made between MRI findings and arthroscopic results of patients to whom arthroscopy was applied by a single experienced surgeon for an initial diagnosis of meniscus tear. The MR images were taken with a 1.5 Tesla unit. The meniscus tears were classified in subgroups as horizontal, longitudinal, radial, flap, bucket handle, and complex.

In 60 knees of 57 patients, 32 lateral meniscus and 48 medial meniscus lesions were identified by MRI. Of these tears, 33 were complex, 15 longitudinal, 13 radial, 11 bucket handle, 5 flap, and 3 horizontal. For the total 80 meniscus tears, MRI gave the same diagnosis as arthroscopy in 60 (75%). Longitudinal and flap tears had low sensitivity (79% in medial and 50% in lateral meniscus for longitudinal tears; 33% to 57%, respectively, for flap tears) but high specificity.

MRI is an important tool in the imaging of meniscus tears, but for longitudinal and flap tear configurations that require arthroscopy, MRI diagnostics are especially insensitive. Nonetheless, MRI evaluation paired with good clinical evaluation can be considered useful when planning a surgical protocol and when defining the postoperative prognosis.