Background: Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders associated with disruption of brain activity. In the classification and detection of epileptic seizures, electroencephalography (EEG) measurements, which record the electrical activities of the brain, are frequently used. Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and its derivative, ensemble EMD (EEMD) are recently developed methods used to decompose nonstationary and nonlinear signals such as EEG into a finite number of oscillations called intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). Our main objective in this study is to present a hybrid IMF selection method combining four different approaches (energy, correlation, power spectral distance, and statistical significance measures), and investigate the effect of selected IMFs extracted by EMD and EEMD on the classification. We have applied the proposed IMF selection approach on the classification of EEG signals recorded from epilepsy patients who are under treatment at our collaborator hospital. Multichannel EEG signals collected from epilepsy patients are decomposed into IMFs, and then IMF selection was performed. Finally, time-and spectral-domain, and nonlinear features are extracted and feature sets are created for the classification. Results: The maximum classification accuracies obtained using various combinations of IMFs were 94.56%, 95.63%, 96.8%, and 96.25% for SVM, KNN, naive Bayes, and logistic regression classifiers, respectively, by using EMD analysis; whereas, the EEMD approach has provided maximum classification accuracies of 96.06%, 97%, 97%, and 96.25% for SVM, KNN, naive Bayes, and logistic regression, respectively. Classification performance with the same features obtained using direct EEG signals instead of the decomposed IMFs was worse than the aforementioned 2 approaches for every combination. Conclusion: Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed IMF selection approach affects the classification results. Also, EEMD provides a robust method for feature extraction from EEG signals in order to classify pre-seizure and seizure segments.

Öz: Bu çalışmanın amacı 4-6 yaş aralığında çocuğu olan anne babaların ebeveynlik tutumlarını incelemektir. Çalışmada açıklayıcı karma yöntem kullanılmış; bu nedenle de ilk olarak nicel veriler toplanmış, ardından nicel verilerin açıklanması için nitel veriler toplanmıştır. Veri toplama sürecinde öncelikle 258 anne-babaya Ebeveyn Tutum Ölçeği (ETÖ) uygulanmış, sonrasında ise bu annebabalardan 20'si ile görüşmeler yapılmıştır. Nicel verilerin analizinde bağımsız örneklemler için t testi ve tek faktörlü ANOVA kullanılmıştır. Nitel veriler ise kelime listeleme tekniği kullanılarak kodlanmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda, anne-babaların cinsiyetlerine, yaşadıkları bölgeye, öğrenim durumlarına, yaşlarına, evlendikleri yaşa ve sahip oldukları çocuk sayısına göre ebeveynlik tutumları arasında anlamlı farklar bulunmuştur. Çalışmanın sonuçlarına göre, anne-babaların çoğunun, kendi anne-babalık tutumu hakkında bir farkındalık sahibi olduğu ve sahip oldukları tutumları açıklarken alan yazına paralel ifadeler kullandıkları belirlenmiştir. Ayrıca, anne-babalar sahip oldukları anne-babalık tutumlarını etkileyen faktörler olarak en çok yetiştirilme tarzlarını ve psikolojik durumlarını ifade etmişlerdir.

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Background The aim of this study was to examine the cognitive functions of children with subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) and healthy children with the use of auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) and neuropsychological tests. Methods Twenty children aged between 8 and 17 years, diagnosed with SH, and 20 age-matched healthy controls were included in this study. A classical auditory oddball paradigm was applied during the electroencephalography (EEG) recordings, and event-related potentials (ERPs) were evaluated between the 0.5- and 20-Hz frequency intervals. P1, N1, P2, N2 and P3 amplitudes and latencies were measured in Fz, FCz, Cz, CPz, Pz and Oz electrodes. Additionally, a number of neuropsychological tests evaluating the reaction time and various cognitive functions were carried out. Results In children with SH, P3 amplitudes in FCz, Cz and CPz electrodes were significantly lower than those in controls (p < 0.05). In addition to this, the P1N1 and N1P2 peak-to-peak amplitude values were also found to be smaller for children with SH than controls (p < 0.05). With regard to the neuropsychological tests, no significant difference was observed between the SH and control groups on any of the cognitive test parameters, reaction time or correct response rates. Conclusions In the present study, while children with SH did not differ from controls with respect to their cognitive functions evaluated via neuropsychological tests, cognitive differences were detected via electrophysiological investigations. This result implies that implicit changes in cognition which are not yet overtly reflected on neuropsychological tests may be detected at an early stage in children with SH.

Impact of parents' technology use on 18to 24-month-old infants' adaptive behaviors. Adaptive Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059712319845340Post-publication refereed version. AbstractThe aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between adaptive behaviours of 18-24 month-old infants and their parents' use of technology. For this purpose, a survey research method was used. The sample consisted of 116 people who are 58 volunteering married couples with 18 -24 month-old infants and were registered in family health centers in Turkey's Eastern Anatolia Region. Comparison analyses were conducted between parents' demographic variables (i.e., education background) and their use of technology (i.e., internet, smartphone) and adaptive behaviours of their 18-24 month-old infants. Adaptive behaviours of infants were measured with ABAS-III and the profiles of parents using technology were measured with a survey developed by the researchers. The results showed that parents' use of technology had an impact on adaptive behaviours of 18-24 month-old infants.Infants of mothers who did not engage in any Internet activity have higher adaptive behaviour scores. The infants of mothers who engaged in activities such as games, videos and music on theInternet together with their 18-24 month-old infants had low scores on adaptive behaviours in terms of concept, self-management, leisure and communication. According to the findings, various suggestions are presented for parents, researchers and practitioners. examine parents' behaviours and attitudes which regard technology and assess the effects of parents' technology use on the development of their infants are valuable and important for the fields of child development and developmental psychology. Research is needed to fill the gap in the literature and to raise awareness in parents.