3D structural complexity analysis of cerebellum in Chiari malformation type I.

Chiari malformation type I (CM-I), described by a descent of the cerebellar tonsils, is assumed to be a neurological developmental disorder. The aim of the present study was to investigate morphological variance in cerebellar sub-structures, including gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), using magnetic resonance (MR) images with three-dimensional (3D) fractal dimension (FD) analysis in patients with CM-I. MRI data of 16 patients and 15 control subjects were obtained, and structural complexity analyses were performed using a box-counting FD algorithm.

Vibration-related extrusion of capillary blood from the calf musculature depends upon directions of vibration of the leg and of the gravity vector.

Purpose: In this study, we investigated the effects of vibration of the whole lower leg on the content and the oxygenation of hemoglobin in the unloaded relaxed lateral gastrocnemius muscle. Vibration was applied orthogonal to and in parallel with leg axis to examine whether the extrusion of blood depends on an alignment of main vessel direction, axis of vibration and gravity.

Method: The blood volume in the muscles was altered by horizontal and 30° upright body posture.

Electromyographic analysis of an ergonomic risk factor: overhead work.

[Purpose] Repetitive upper extremity exercises result in overuse injuries. However, it is challenging to identify the specific causative movements. This study evaluated the effects of different shoulder positions on grip and electrophysiological activity of upper extremity muscles.

Evaluation of Spontaneous Spinal Cerebrospinal Fluid Leaks Disease by Computerized Image Processing.

Background: Spontaneous Spinal Cerebrospinal Fluid Leaks (SSCFL) is a disease based on tears on the dura mater. Due to widespread symptoms and low frequency of the disease, diagnosis is problematic. Diagnostic lumbar puncture is commonly used for diagnosing SSCFL, though it is invasive and may cause pain, inflammation or new leakages.

Investigation of heart rate variability in major depression patients using wavelet packet transform.

Studies conducted in major depression (MD) patients have reported a high risk of cardiac morbidity as a result of the relationship between changed cardiovascular activity (CA) and autonomic dysfunctions. The investigation of heart rate variability (HRV) gives valuable idea about variances in autonomic CA of MD patients. To get this knowledge, frequency-domain HRV analysis is frequently performed using Fourier transformation (FT) or discrete-wavelet transformation (DWT) to decompose the data into high-frequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) bands.

Comparison of Pulse Rate Variability and Heart Rate Variability for Hypoglycemia Syndrome.

Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) is a signal obtained from RR intervals of electrocardiography (ECG) signals to evaluate the balance between the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system; not only HRV but also pulse rate variability (PRV) extracted from finger pulse plethysmography (PPG) can reflect irregularities that may occur in heart rate and control procedures.

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to compare the HRV and PRV during hypoglycemia in order to evaluate the features that computed from PRV that can be used in detection of hypoglycemia.

Methods: To this end, PRV and HRV of 10 patients who required testing with insulin-induced hypoglycemia (IIHT) in Clinics of Endocrinology and Metabolism Diseases of Bezm-i Alem University (Istanbul, Turkey), were obtained.

An experimental evaluation of electrical skin conductivity changes in postmortem interval and its assessment for time of death estimation.

In forensic medicine, estimation of the time of death (ToD) is one of the most important and challenging medico-legal problems. Despite the partial accomplishments in ToD estimations to date, the error margin of ToD estimation is still too large. In this study, electrical conductivity changes were experimentally investigated in the postmortem interval in human cases.

Nonlinear analysis of EEG in major depression with fractal dimensions.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a psychiatric mood disorder characterized by cognitive and functional impairments in attention, concentration, learning and memory. In order to investigate and understand its underlying neural activities and pathophysiology, EEG methodologies can be used. In this study, we estimated the nonlinearity features of EEG in MDD patients to assess the dynamical properties underlying the frontal and parietal brain activity.

Analysis of sympathovagal balance in patients with major depressive disorder using wavelet packet transform.

Elevated rates of cardiac morbidity have been frequently reported in major depressive disorder (MDD) patients as a result of the relationship between autonomic dysfunctions and varied cardiovascular activity. Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis is an important and non-invasive way for assessing the variances in autonomic nervous system activity of MDD patients. In spectral domain, HRV analysis is usually done by either Fourier transformation (FT) or discrete wavelet transformation (DWT) to divide the data into lowfrequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) bands.

Nonlinear analysis of EEGs of patients with major depression during different emotional states.

Background: Although patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) have dysfunctions in cognitive behaviors and the regulation of emotions, the underlying brain dynamics of the pathophysiology are unclear. Therefore, nonlinear techniques can be used to understand the dynamic behavior of the EEG signals of MDD patients.

Methods: To investigate and clarify the dynamics of MDD patients׳ brains during different emotional states, EEG recordings were analyzed using nonlinear techniques.

The effect of single extremity-vibration on the serum sclerostin level.

[Purpose] Sclerostin is mechanosensitive protein that is produced exclusively by osteocytes. It was reported that the plasma sclerostin level increases in the 10th minute after the application of Whole-Body Vibration. The aim of this study was to determine whether single extremity-vibration induces any change in the serum sclerostin level.

Fractal dimension analysis of cerebellum in Chiari Malformation type I.

Chiari Malformation type I (CM-I) is a serious neurological disorder that is characterized by hindbrain herniation. Our aim was to evaluate the usefulness of fractal analysis in CM-I patients. To examine the morphological complexity features of this disorder, fractal dimension (FD) of cerebellar regions were estimated from magnetic resonance images (MRI) of 17 patients with CM-I and 16 healthy control subjects in this study.

A new method to determine reflex latency induced by high rate stimulation of the nervous system.

High rate stimulations of the neuromuscular system, such as continuous whole body vibration, tonic vibration reflex and high frequency electrical stimulation, are used in the physiological research with an increasing interest. In these studies, the neuronal circuitries underlying the reflex responses remain unclear due to the problem of determining the exact reflex latencies. We present a novel "cumulated average method" to determine the reflex latency during high rate stimulation of the nervous system which was proven to be significantly more accurate than the classical method.

Analysis of heart rate variability during auditory stimulation periods in patients with schizophrenia.

The vulnerability-stress model is a hypothesis for symptom development in schizophrenia patients who are generally characterized by cardiac autonomic dysfunction. Therefore, measures of heart rate variability (HRV) have been widely used in schizophrenics for assessing altered cardiac autonomic regulations. The goal of this study was to analyze HRV of schizophrenia patients and healthy control subjects with exposure to auditory stimuli.

Comparison of first and second heart sounds after mechanical heart valve replacement.

In this article, the spectral features of first heart sounds (S1) and second heart sounds (S2), which comprise the mechanical heart valve sounds obtained after aortic valve replacement (AVR) and mitral valve replacement (MVR), are compared to find out the effect of mechanical heart valve replacement and recording area on S1 and S2. For this aim, the Welch method and the autoregressive (AR) method are applied on the S1 and S2 taken from 66 recordings of 8 patients with AVR and 98 recordings from 11 patients with MVR, thereby yielding power spectrum of the heart sounds. Three features relating to frequency of heart sounds and three features relating to energy of heart sounds are obtained.

Analysis of coronary angiography related psychophysiological responses.

Background: Coronary angiography is an important tool in diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. However, it is the administration is relatively stressful and emotionally traumatic for the subjects. The aim of this study is to evaluate psychophysiological responses induced by the coronary angiography instead of subjective methods such as a questionnaire.

Non-invasive diagnosis of stress urinary incontinence sub types using wavelet analysis, shannon entropy and principal component analysis.

Urinary incontinence is a common female disorder. Although generally not a serious condition, it negatively affects the lifestyle and daily activity of subjects. Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is the most versatile of several incontinence types and is distinguished by physical degeneration of the continence-providing mechanism.

Influence of pre-orthodontic trainer treatment on the perioral and masticatory muscles in patients with Class II division 1 malocclusion.

The aim of this follow-up study was to evaluate the effects of Pre-Orthodontic Trainer (POT) appliance on the anterior temporal, mental, orbicularis oris, and masseter muscles through electromyography (EMG) evaluations in subjects with Class II division 1 malocclusion and incompetent lips. Twenty patients (mean age: 9.8 ± 2.

Classification of root canal microorganisms using electronic-nose and discriminant analysis.

Background: Root canal treatment is a debridement process which disrupts and removes entire microorganisms from the root canal system. Identification of microorganisms may help clinicians decide on treatment alternatives such as using different irrigants, intracanal medicaments and antibiotics. However, the difficulty in cultivation and the complexity in isolation of predominant anaerobic microorganisms make clinicians resort to empirical medical treatments.

Singular spectrum analysis of sleep EEG in insomnia.

In the present study, the Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) is applied to sleep EEG segments collected from healthy volunteers and patients diagnosed by either psycho physiological insomnia or paradoxical insomnia. Then, the resulting singular spectra computed for both C3 and C4 recordings are assigned as the features to the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) architectures for EEG classification in diagnose. In tests, singular spectrum of particular sleep stages such as awake, REM, stage1 and stage2, are considered.

The effects of myofunctional appliance treatment on the perioral and masticatory muscles in Class II, Division 1 patients.

Aim: To evaluate the effect of a myofunctional appliance--the preorthodontic trainer (POT)--on the perioral and masticatory muscles by electromyography (EMG) in individuals with an Angle Class II, Division 1 malocclusion.

Methods: Twenty children were treated with a POT appliance, which had to be worn every day for 1 hour and overnight. The EMG recordings were made at the beginning and end of POT therapy during maximal clenching, swallowing, and sucking.

Log energy entropy-based EEG classification with multilayer neural networks in seizure.

In this study, normal EEG series recorded from healthy volunteers and epileptic EEG series recorded from patients within and without seizure are classified by using Multilayer Neural Network (MLNN) architectures with respect to several time domain entropy measures such as Shannon Entropy (ShanEn), Log Energy Entropy (LogEn), and Sample Entropy (Sampen). In tests, the MLNN is performed with several numbers of neurons for both one hidden layer and two hidden layers. The results show that segments in seizure have significantly lower entropy values than normal EEG series.

Comparison of short-time Fourier transform and Eigenvector MUSIC methods using discrete wavelet transform for diagnosis of atherosclerosis.

In this paper, a more effective use of Doppler techniques is presented for the purpose of diagnosing atherosclerosis in its early stages using the carotid artery Doppler signals. The power spectral density (PSD) graphics are obtained by applying the short-time Fourier transform (STFT)-Welch and the Eigenvector MUSIC methods to the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) of Doppler signals. The PSDs for the fourth approximation component (A4) of both methods estimated that the patients with atherosclerosis in its early phase had lower maximum frequency components.

Use of kernel functions in artificial immune systems for the nonlinear classification problems.

Due to the fact that there exist only a small number of complex systems in artificial immune systems (AISs) that solve nonlinear problems, there is a need to develop nonlinear AIS approaches that would be among the well-known solution methods. In this study, we developed a kernel-based AIS to compensate for this deficiency by providing a nonlinear structure via transformation of distance calculations in the clonal selection models of classical AIS to kernel space. Applications of the developed system were conducted on Statlog heart disease dataset, which was taken from the University of California, Irvine Machine-Learning Repository, and on Doppler sonograms to diagnose atherosclerosis disease.