Prevalence and Correlates of Low Back Pain in Primary Care: What Are the Contributing Factors in a Rapidly Developing Country

Abdulbari Bener,Elnour Elnaeim Dafeeah,Khalid Alnaqbi 대한척추외과학회 2014 Asian Spine Journal Vol.8 No.3

Study Design: Cross-sectional. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to determine the prevalence of low back pain (LBP) in the primary care setting with emphasis on the socio-demographic contributing factors and impact of LBP on lifestyle habits. Overview of Literature: LBP is one of the most common medical conditions seen in the Primary Health Care Clinic. Methods: A representative sample of 2,600 patients were approached and 1,829 subjects agreed to participate in this study (70.0%). Data on socio-demographic characteristics, life style habits and type of treatment were collected through a questionnaire. Results: The prevalence of LBP in the study sample was 56.5% (95% confidence interval, 54.2–58.8). LBP was more prevalent among women (53.9%) compared to men (46.1%). There was significant difference between male and female patients of LBP in terms of ethnicity (p <0.001), marital status (p =0.010), occupation (p <0.001), monthly household income (p =0.004), and cigarette/sheesha smokers (p <0.001). The percentages of different aspects of functional disabilities were statistically significantly higher among females compared to male patients with LBP. Almost a quarter of female patients with LBP (26%) and 18% male patients with LBP reported pain in the arms and legs (p =0.002). In addition, gastrointestinal complaints such as abdominal pain and food intolerance were significantly higher among female patients with LBP as compared to males (31% vs. 24.6%, p =0.018; and 25% vs. 18%, p =0.008, respectively). Complaints about headache and fainting were also significantly higher among female patients as compared to male LBP patients (43% vs. 36%, p =0.029; and 26% vs. 20%, p =0.016, respectively). The multivariate logistic regression revealed that being female, prolonged standing, prolonged sitting, heavy weight lifting, weakness in the legs, regular exercise, and cigarette/sheesh a smoking had a significant effect on the presence of LBP. Conclusions: LBP is highly prevalent among both genders and in older age. Also, weakness in the legs, smoking, prolonged standing and sitting had a significant effect on LBP. Furthermore, the current study findings support the fact that LBP continues to be an important clinical, social and economic, burden and a public health problem affecting the population of the entire world.

A Self-modeling Autonomous Airship

Halit Bener SUAY,Takehisa YAIRI,Kazuo MACHIDA 제어로봇시스템학회 2009 제어로봇시스템학회 국제학술대회 논문집 Vol.2009 No.8

A self modeling airship with a parametric autonomous controller is introduced in this paper. Modeling of airships for autonomous control is a detailed and often time-taking process if some of the parameters are unknown. Although it is possible to make reasonable assumptions in some restricted case, a model generally consists of parameters such as, weight, coordinates of the center of gravity, moments of inertia, aerodynamic force coefficients and state vector of the airship. In this paper we propose taking advantage of visual markers in order to observe and estimate the state of the airship. These observations are used as an input to a linear regression process to define the relationship between the velocity and the acceleration vector of the airship. Finally as a result of the regression process aerodynamic damping parameters and provided thrust are found.

Modeling and optimizing microwave-assisted extraction of antioxidants from Thymbra Spicata L. and characterization of their phenolic constituents

Mustafa Bener 한국식품과학회 2019 Food Science and Biotechnology Vol.28 No.6

Response surface methodology was used formodeling and optimizing microwave-assisted extraction ofantioxidants from Thymbra spicata L. as a factor of temperature,extraction time, solvent concentration, and solvent-to-solid ratio. The prepared extracts showedmaximum antioxidant properties, including total phenoliccontent (TPC), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and radicalscavenging activity (RSA) at the optimum operatingconditions. All models calculated for the three responsesthat are TPC, TAC, and RSA were noteworthy(p\0.0001) and showed a significant relationshipbetween the response and independent parameters. Therewas a close relationship between the experimental and thepredicted values obtained using the proposed method. Thephenolic antioxidant profile of Thymbra spicata L. extractwas characterized with the UPLC-PDA-ESI–MS/MS systemand rosmarinic acid was found as a major component(1089.2 ± 10.9 mg/100 g-DS). In the future, this optimizedand modeled MAE method can be applied in foodand pharmaceutical industries to effectively extractantioxidants from edible Thymbra spicata L. plant.

A Study on SLAM for Indoor Blimp with Visual Markers

Tatsuya Yamada,Takehisa Yairi,Suay Halit Bener,Kazuo Machida 제어로봇시스템학회 2009 제어로봇시스템학회 국제학술대회 논문집 Vol.2009 No.8

The simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is an essential capability for mobile robots traveling in unknown environments where globally accurate position data is not available. In this paper, we address the SLAM problem of indoor toy blimp that has no sensors such as accelerometers and gyro except a micro camera because of the weight limits. Since it is difficult to determine the exact motion models preliminarily, we assume the motion models of the blimp. The goal of this paper is to construct a 3D map of the landmarks in environment and estimate the path taken by the indoor blimp. In this paper, we use visual markers as the landmarks, since it is difficult to detect features of the landmarks. We propose the approach to SLAM using Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and verify the effectiveness of this approach by the experiments.

Unraveling materials Berry curvature and Chern numbers from real-time evolution of Bloch states

Shin, Dongbin,Sato, Shunsuke A.,Hü,bener, Hannes,De Giovannini, Umberto,Kim, Jeongwoo,Park, Noejung,Rubio, Angel National Academy of Sciences 2019 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF Vol.116 No.10

<▼1><P><B>Significance</B></P><P>It was established by Thouless, Kohmoto, Nightingale, and den Nijs in 1982 that the topology of the solid-state wavefunctions leads to quantization of transverse electrical conductivity of an insulator. This recognition has led to the development of the new field of topological materials characterized by symmetry-protected quantum numbers. Here, we propose a general and computationally efficient framework enabling one to unveil and predict materials-topological invariants in terms of physical observables, such as the bulk time-dependent current. We show how the quantized charge and spin Hall effect appears even for materials with a non-Abelian Berry phase. This dynamical approach is not necessarily restricted to density functional theory, but can be extended to other schemes and to other methods dealing with correlations explicitly.</P></▼1><▼2><P>Materials can be classified by the topological character of their electronic structure and, in this perspective, global attributes immune to local deformations have been discussed in terms of Berry curvature and Chern numbers. Except for instructional simple models, linear response theories have been ubiquitously used in calculations of topological properties of real materials. Here we propose a completely different and versatile approach to obtain the topological characteristics of materials by calculating physical observables from the real-time evolving Bloch states: The cell-averaged current density reveals the anomalous velocities that lead to the conductivity quantum. Results for prototypical cases are shown, including a spin-frozen valley Hall and a quantum anomalous Hall insulator. The advantage of this method is best illustrated by the example of a quantum spin Hall insulator: The quantized spin Hall conductivity is straightforwardly obtained irrespective of the non-Abelian nature in its Berry curvature. Moreover, the method can be extended to the description of real observables in nonequilibrium states of topological materials.</P></▼2>

Original Article : Evaluation of Hemifield Sector Analysis Protocol in Multifocal Visual Evoked Potential Objective Perimetry for the Diagnosis and Early Detection of Glaucomatous Field Defects

( Mohammad F Mousa ),( Robert P Cubbidge ),( Fatima Al Mansouri ),( Abdulbari Bener ) 대한안과학회 2014 Korean Journal of Ophthalmology Vol.28 No.1

Purpose: Multifocal visual evoked potential (mfVEP) is a newly introduced method used for objective visual field assessment. Several analysis protocols have been tested to identify early visual field losses in glaucoma patients using the mfVEP technique, some were successful in detection of field defects, which were comparable to the standard automated perimetry (SAP) visual field assessment, and others were not very informative and needed more adjustment and research work. In this study we implemented a novel analysis approach and evaluated its validity and whether it could be used effectively for early detection of visual field defects in glaucoma. Methods: Three groups were tested in this study; normal controls (38 eyes), glaucoma patients (36 eyes) and glauco-ma suspect patients (38 eyes). All subjects had a two standard Humphrey field analyzer (HFA) test 24-2 and a sin-gle mfVEP test undertaken in one session. Analysis of the mfVEP results was done using the new analysis protocol; the hemifield sector analysis (HSA) protocol. Analysis of the HFA was done using the standard grading system. Results: Analysis of mfVEP results showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the three groups in the mean signal to noise ratio (ANOVA test, p < 0.001 with a 95% confidence interval). The differ-ence between superior and inferior hemispheres in all subjects were statistically significant in the glaucoma patient group in all 11 sectors (t-test, p < 0.001), partially significant in 5 / 11 (t-test, p < 0.01), and no statistical difference in most sectors of the normal group (1 / 11 sectors was significant, t-test, p < 0.9). Sensitivity and specificity of the HSA protocol in detecting glaucoma was 97% and 86%, respectively, and for glaucoma sus-pect patients the values were 89% and 79%, respectively. Conclusions: The new HSA protocol used in the mfVEP testing can be applied to detect glaucomatous visual field defects in both glaucoma and glaucoma suspect patients. Using this protocol can provide information about focal visual field differences across the horizontal midline, which can be utilized to differentiate between glaucoma and normal subjects. Sensitivity and specificity of the mfVEP test showed very promising results and correlated with other anatomical changes in glaucoma field loss.