Evaluation of Reforms in Turkish Public Administration After 1980s

Administration is the most tangible part of government and since 1980s, mostly because of the fiscal and economic crises, experiencing a revolution. Traditional Model of Public Administration is criticized because of its being awkward, inefficient, ineffective, and full of procedures and bureaucracy. It is the common estimation that traditional model is unable to answer day‟s needs and demands of citizens. Thus it is accepted that public sector mechanisms need to change. New Public Management is the new paradigm, which replaced traditional model and seen as a global phenomenon and claimed to be solution to the problems caused by traditional model. This new approach‟s techniques and practices drawn from the private sector and its‟ most important key elements are; decentralization, market type mechanism and competition in public sector together with increasing emphasis on performance, outputs and customer orientation. This study concentrates on this respective transformation and intended to draw attention to the main lines of it. The NPM approach spread all over the world and one of the most important assumptions of this new model is that it is universally applicable. Most of the countries are experiencing reforms since the emerging of NPM approach in order to improve their public sectors. The main goal of this thesis, by combining theoretical and empirical analysis coordinately, is studying two models in detail and questions NPM‟s applicability to Turkey. It is argued that management change in public services and introduction of imported methods may be more to do with cultural factors, administrative habits and characteristics that are embedded in the form of public administration of that country. Thus after explaining Turkish public sector as an example to traditional model, and examining the administrative reforms and effects of NPM approach on Turkey, the paper concludes that changes in public sector management have to consider the characteristics of the country in question. The thesis will use historical experiences and highly disputed draft law on re-organizing Turkish public sector as an example for this outcome.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Strong Coulomb effects in hole-doped Heisenberg chains

Substances such as the ``telephone number compound'' Sr14Cu24O41 are intrinsically hole-doped. The involved interplay of spin and charge dynamics is a challenge for theory. In this article we propose to describe hole-doped Heisenberg spin rings by means of complete numerical diagonalization of a Heisenberg Hamiltonian that depends parametrically on hole positions and includes the screened Coulomb interaction among the holes. It is demonstrated that key observables like magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, and inelastic neutron scattering cross section depend sensitively on the dielectric constant of the screened Coulomb potential.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, to be published in Eur. Phys. J.

Access to Income Supports for Working Families in Chicago

A large number of eligible working families in Chicago do not participate in income support programs such as Food Stamps, the Child Care Subsidy, Medicaid, and KidCare. Participation rates in Medicaid and Food Stamps have declined since TANF reauthorization in 1996 as many former TANF recipients no longer receive the benefits they had before and to which they are still entitled. Low take-up rates for income supports mean that many low-income working families in Chicago are unable to provide the basic necessities for their families. These low rates also mean that local communities and businesses are not benefiting from the expenditures made possible by participation in income support programs. The Income Support Access Project was developed in conjunction with an initiative undertaken in 2001 by the Center for Law and Human Services (CLHS) to distribute information about income support programs to low-income participants at its Tax Counseling Project sites. Building on this initiative, the Center for Impact Research (CIR) undertook research in order to identify barriers to accessing income supports and ways to improve outreach and application support. The research involved surveying over 600 low income adults at tax service sites and job training agencies about their knowledge and experience of benefits programs. CIR also interviewed caseworkers at job training agencies as well as outreach workers and project directors. The findings and recommendations have been developed in consultation with the project working group whose members represent a range of Chicago-area community agencies and advocacy organizations

Substratos de crescimento e produção de mudas de figo

Pest attack, disease and soil fatigue have always been a great problem in fig (Ficus carica L.) nursery tree production, especially when traditional methods that use soil culture are applied. Therefore, as an alternative method, substrate culture could be a sustainable and favorable propagation method for growing healthy nursery fig trees of high quality. No information is available on substrate use and its effect on nursery fig tree production. The present study was aimed to define a favorable substrate to cultivate nursery fig trees in substrate culture, and to examine the effects of substrates on morphological and biochemical characteristics of the fig trees by growing plants in a high-tunnel. Fig cv. "Sarilop" (Calimyrna) cuttings were used in this trial as plant material. Three growth media based on perlite (100%), peat (50%) + perlite (50%), and fine sawdust (100%) were tested using soil as a control. Plants were grown in trough culture from the day of planting cuttings up to the uproot point of fig nursery trees, during eight months, and they were not transplanted into another medium during the growing period. To observe the effect of substrates on the nursery fig trees, some morphological and biochemical characteristics were determined. The use of peat + perlite and perlite led to increased plant growth and quality of fig nursery trees grown in high-tunnel.O ataque de pragas e de doenças e o esgotamento do solo sempre foram grandes problemas na produçào de mudas de figo (Ficus carica L) em estufa, especialmente quando são empregados métodos tradicionais que usam solo como substrato. Por isso o uso de substratos sem solo poderia ser alternativa favorável para obtenção de mudas saudáveis de alta qualidade. Não há informação sobre o uso de substratos e seu efeito sobre a produção de mudas em estufa. No presente estudo procurou-se definir um substrato adequado para obtenção de mudas de figo e examinar os efeitos de substratos sobre características morfológicas e bioquímicas de mudas desenvolvidas em estufa tipo túnel alto. Ramas dos cultivares de figo cv. "Sarilop" (Calimyrna) foram utilizadas em três meios de cultura: perlite (100%), turfa (50%) + perlite (50%), e pó de serra fino (100%) tendo o solo como testemunha. O experimento foi desenvolvido em calhas e se estendeu desde o plantio das ramas até o ponto "uproot", por oito meses, não tendo as mudas sido transplantadas para outro meio durante a fase experimental. Para observar o efeito dos substratos sobre as plantas, algumas características morfológicas e bioquímicas foram avaliadas. O uso de turfa + perlite e de perlite como substrato em estufa tipo túnel alto aumentou o crescimento das plantas e melhorou sua qualidade

Effects of etching and adhesive applications on the bond strength between composite resin and glass-ionomer cements

OBJECTIVE: This study determined the effects of various surface treatment modalities on the bond strength of composite resins to glass-ionomer cements. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Conventional (KetacTM Molar Quick ApplicapTM) or resin-modified (PhotacTM Fil Quick AplicapTM) glass-ionomer cements were prepared. Two-step etch-rinse & bond adhesive (AdperTM Single Bond 2) or single-step self-etching adhesive (AdperTM PromptTM L-PopTM) was applied to the set cements. In the etch-rinse & bond group, the sample surfaces were pre-treated as follows: (1) no etching, (2) 15 s of etching with 35% phosphoric acid, (3) 30 s of etching, and (4) 60 s of etching. Following the placement of the composite resin (FiltekTM Z250), the bond strength was measured in a universal testing machine and the data obtained were analyzed with the two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by the Tukey's HSD post hoc analysis (p=0.05). Then, the fractured surfaces were examined by scanning electron microscopy. RESULTS: The bond strength of the composite resin to the conventional glass-ionomer cement was significantly lower than that to the resin-modified glass-ionomer cement (

Físchlár-DiamondTouch: collaborative video searching on a table

In this paper we present the system we have developed for our participation in the annual TRECVid benchmarking activity, specically the system we have developed, Físchlár-DT, for participation in the interactive search task of TRECVid 2005. Our back-end search engine uses a combination of a text search which operates over the automatic speech recognised text, and an image search which uses low-level image features matched against video keyframes. The two novel aspects of our work are the fact that we are evaluating collaborative, team-based search among groups of users working together, and that we are using a novel touch-sensitive tabletop interface and interaction device known as the DiamondTouch to support this collaborative search. The paper summarises the backend search systems as well as presenting the interface we have developed, in detail

Neural network-based colonoscopic diagnosis using on-line learning and differential evolution

In this paper, on-line training of neural networks is investigated in the context of computer-assisted colonoscopic diagnosis. A memory-based adaptation of the learning rate for the on-line back-propagation (BP) is proposed and used to seed an on-line evolution process that applies a differential evolution (DE) strategy to (re-) adapt the neural network to modified environmental conditions. Our approach looks at on-line training from the perspective of tracking the changing location of an approximate solution of a pattern-based, and thus, dynamically changing, error function. The proposed hybrid strategy is compared with other standard training methods that have traditionally been used for training neural networks off-line. Results in interpreting colonoscopy images and frames of video sequences are promising and suggest that networks trained with this strategy detect malignant regions of interest with accuracy