HaeIII Polymorphism of Growth Hormone (GH-1) Gene in Some Goat Breeds Reared in Turkey by Using PCR-RFLP Method

The purpose of this study is to determine HaeIII polymorphism in the exon 2 and 3 regions of the growth hormone -1 (GH-1) gene that regulates tissue growth and muscle development in six different goat breeds reared in Turkey. The HaeIII polymorphism in GH-1 gene (422 bp) was investigated by Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) methodology in 303 goats including 52 Hair, 51 Angora, 50 Honamlı, 50 Halep, 50 Saanen and 50 heads of Kilis breeds. Two alleles (A and B) and 3 genotypes (AA, BB and AB) were identified in the study. A and B allele frequencies in Hair, Angora, Honamlı, Halep, Saanen and Kilis breeds were found to be 0.4038 and 0.5962, 0.4314 and 0.5686, 0.4600 and 0.5400, 0.4500 and 0.5500, 0.3800 and 0.6200, 0.5400 and 0.4600, respectively. AA, AB and BB genotype frequencies were found to be 00.019, 0.769 and 0.212 (P0.05), 0.080, 0.760 and 0.160 (P0.05), 0.160, 0.760 and 0.080 (P0.05). As a result, it was determined that goat population had high heterozygosity (0.494) in general and was not in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in terms of HaeIII polymorphism in the exon 2 and 3 regions of the GH-1 gene (P>0.05)

Information and Telecommunication Technologies and the Digital Economy: A Comparison Between European Union and Turkey

Sanayi devrimi ile birlikte gelişen ve hız kazanan bilgi iletişim teknolojileri, son elli yılda altın çağını yaşamıştır. Son zamanlarda özellikle bilgisayar, internet ve akıllı cihazların icadı, başta iletişim olmak üzere ulusal sınırların ortadan kalkmasına kadar birçok alanda devrim niteliği taşımaktadır. Teknolojide yaşanan bu gelişmeler, başta sanayi üretimi olmak üzere, tarımdan ticarete, eğitimden seyahate ve eğlenceden savunmaya kadar pek çok alanda olumlu yönde etkiler yaratmıştır. Pek çok Avrupa Birliği üyesi ülke dijitalleşmede oldukça ileri düzeyde olmasına rağmen Türkiye bu konuda yeterince ilerleyememiştir. Avrupa Birliği’nde bilgi iletişim kullanım oranlarına paralel gelişen ekonomik faaliyetler, Türkiye için pek çok alanda ortalamanın altındadır. Bu çalışmada Avrupa Birliği, Euro Bölgesi ve Türkiye’de bilgi iletişim teknolojilerinde yaşanan gelişmeler ele alınmıştır. Bilgi iletişim teknolojilerinin ekonominin dijitalleşmesi üzerinde etkileri incelenmiştir. Son yıllarda meydana gelen pozitif gelişmelere rağmen Türkiye’de ekonominin dijitalleşmesi yönünde büyük bir etki alanının ortaya çıkamadığı sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.Developing and accelerating with the industrial revolution, information and communication technologies have lived its golden age in the last fifty years. Recently, especially the invention of computers, internet and smart devices has revolutionized in many areas from the disappearance of national borders, especially communication. These developments in technology have had positive effects in many areas, particularly in industrial production, from agriculture to trade, from education to travel and from entertainment to defense. Although the members of the European Union have mostly been digitalized, Turkey has less progressed in this regard. Developing economic activities in the European Union with parallel to the usage of information is more common than most areas for Turkey. In this study, developments on information-telecommunication sectors in the European Union, Euro Area and Turkey has been discussed. The effects of ICT on the digitalization of the economy have been examined. Despite the positive developments that have occurred in recent years it has not emerged of the economy towards digitalization was achieved in Turkey effectively

Exploring 8th grade placement test achievement of elementary school children according to certain variables

Orta öğretime geçiş için sıralama yapmayı hedefleyen Seviye Belirleme Sınavı (SBS) sonuçlarına göre Van ili 2009 yılı başarı sıralamasında Türkiye sıralamasının gerisindedir. Gürpınar ilçesi ise Van ili ilçeler sıralamasında SBS başarısı düşük bir ilçedir. Bu nedenle Van İli Gürpınar ilçesinde, ilköğretim ikinci kademe düzeyinde öğrenim gören öğrencilerin SBS başarılarını etkileyen demografik değişkenlerin belirlenmesi hedeflenmiştir. Araştırmanın çalışma grubu 2009–2010 eğitim-öğretim yılında, Van ilinin Gürpınar ilçesindeki 8 yıllık ilköğretim uygulamasına giren normal, taşımalı ve yatılı ilköğretim okullarında öğrenim gören ve SBS’ye katılmış olan öğrenciler oluşturmaktadır. Üç ilköğretim uygulaması kapsamında 7. ve 8. sınıf düzeyinde öğrenim gören ve SBS’ye katılan toplam 393 öğrencinin tamamı araştırma kapsamına alınmıştır. Verilerin çözümlenmesinde non-parametrik testlerden Kruskal- Wallis H Testi ve Mann-Whitney U Testinden yararlanılmıştır. Dağılımların belirlenmesinde ise frekans (f) ve Yüzde (%) kullanılmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda normal öğretim uygulamasına katılan öğrencilerin taşımalı ve yatılı öğrenim gören öğrencilere göre daha başarılı oldukları sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Öğrencilerin ders dışı öğrenimlerini desteklemek amacıyla almış oldukları destek biçimleri de başarıda etkili olduğu belirlenmiştir. Okunan kitap sayısına bağlı olarak başarı puanında artış olduğu görülmüştür. Ailenin verdiği ceza türü arasında “Azarlama” akademik başarı üzerinde etkili olan bir diğer değişkendir. Okul öncesi eğitim alanların öğrencilerin akademik başarılarının daha yüksek olduğu belirlenmiştir. Diğer taraftan, anne eğitim düzeyi, kardeş sayısı ve okulda düzenlenen sosyal etkinlikler katılım düzeyi bağımsız değişkenlerinin akademik başarıda bir değişim oluşturmadığı sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.According to the scores of 8th Grade Placement Test (known as SBS in Turkey), which aims at the arrangement of students in secondary education, Van province fell behind the average achievement in ranking all around Turkey in 2009. Gürpınar district of Van province has a low ranking in SBS achievement. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to explore demographic variables that influence SBS achievement of elementary education second level students in Gürpınar, Van. The study group consisted of regular, mobile and boarding elementary education students included in the 8-year elementary education with SBS scores in Gürpınar, Van in the 2009–2010 academic year. All of the 393 7th and 8th graders in total with SBS scores within the framework of the three type elementary education were included in the study. For data analysis, Kruskal-Wallis H Test and Mann-Whitney U Test, two non-parametric tests, were employed. Frequency (f) and percentage (%) were used for determining distributions. As a result of the study, it was concluded that the students in regular education had higher achievement levels when compared to those who were in mobile and boarding education. It was also seen that different types of support to supplement out-of-class learning had an influence on achievement. Success rate increased based on the number of the books studied. “Scolding”, as a punishment by parents, was another influential factor on academic achievement. It was observed that those with preschool education had higher academic achievement levels. On the other hand, it was concluded that the following independent variables did not cause a difference in academic achievement: educational background of mothers, the number of siblings and participation in social activities held by schools

Incorporating Aggregate Diversity in Recommender Systems Using Scalable Optimization Approaches

The success of a recommender system is generally evaluated with respect to the accuracy of recommendations. However, recently diversity of recommendations has also become an important aspect in evaluating recommender systems. One dimension of diversity is called aggregate diversity, which refers to the diversity of items in the recommendation lists of all users and can be defined with different metrics. The maximization of both accuracy and the aggregate diversity simultaneously renders a multiobjective optimization problem that can be handled by different approaches. In this paper, after providing a thorough analysis of the multiobjective optimization approaches for this problem, we propose a new model that takes into account both accuracy and aggregate diversity. Different from previous works, our model is specifically designed to incorporate distributional diversity metrics, which measure how evenly the items are distributed in the recommendation lists of users. To solve the large-scale instances, we propose a column generation algorithm and a Lagrangian relaxation approach based on the decomposition of the model. We present the results of the mathematical models and the performance of the proposed methodology that are obtained by computational experiments on real-world data sets. These results reveal that our model successfully captures the trade-off between the objectives and reaches very high levels of distributional diversity. </jats:p

Comparison of the Postoperative Mucociliary Clearance Time Between Patients who Underwent Septoplasty with and Without Nasal Packing

Objective:To compare the postoperative mucociliary clearance time in septoplasty with and without nasal packing.Methods:Forty-six patients with nasal septal deviation (20 women, 26 men) were assessed in this study. The patients underwent septoplasty under local anaesthesia. Patients were divided in two groups. Merocell® nasal packing was performed in both of the nasal passages for septum stabilization in the first group (28 patients). On the second postoperative day nasal packing was removed and salin irrigation solution was started. Transseptal suturing was performed for nasal stabilization in the second group and at the sixth postoperative hour saline irrigation solution was started. Saccarine clearance test was performed preoperatively and postoperatively at the 7th day, and 3th month and the results were compared.Results:In the treatment of 46 patients with a mean age of 20-53, in the first group; preoperative mucociliary clearance time on the deviated side was 12.2 minutes and on the opposite side was 13.1 minutes. In the second group, preoperative mucociliary clearance time on the deviated side was 11.9 minutes, and on the opposite side 12.8 minutes. In the first group, the postoperative 1th week mucociliary clearance time on the deviated side was 12.5 minutes and on the opposite side was 13.2 minutes and in the second group on the deviated side was 10.1 minutes, and on the opposite side was 10.8 minutes. In the first group, at the postoperative 3th month mucociliary clearance time on the deviated side was 11.6 minutes and on the opposite side was 11.4 minutes while in the second group on the deviated side was 6.7 minutes, and on the opposite side was 7.8 minutes.Conclusion:The postoperative mucociliary clearance time in patients treated for septal deviation were evaluated. We have determined that the mucociliary clearance time was longer in the patients that underwent septoplasty with nasal packing

The effect of supersymmetric CP phases on Chargino-Pair Production via Drell-Yan Process at the LHC

We compute the rates for pp annihilation into chargino-pairs via Drell-Yan process taking into account the effects of supersymmetric soft phases, at proton-proton collider. In particular, the phase of the mu parameter gains direct accessibility via the production of dissimilar charginos. The phases of the trilinear soft masses do not have a significant effect on the cross sections.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figure

Levels of selected minerals, nitric oxide, and vitamins in aborted Sakis sheep raised under semitropical conditions

The serum levels of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, copper, zinc and iron and of nitric oxide, retinol, and β-carotene were determined in Sakiz ewes that had experienced an abortion and in healthy controls. Ten healthy and 25 aborted Sakiz sheep were selected from Afyon zone in western Turkey. Their ages ranged between 2 and 4 years weighing between 40 and 60 kg at the time of experiment. All of the abortions occurred in October. The concentrations of retinol, β-carotene, phosphorus, and zinc were significantly lower and those of calcium and nitric oxide were increased in aborted ewes relative to healthy controls. The serum levels of iron, copper, and magnesium were not significantly different among the two groups. In conclusion, abortion is an important problem in commercially important species of ruminants in many regions in the tropics including of western Turkey. Deficiencies of retinol, β-carotene, phosphorus and zinc, and the increase of calcium and nitric oxide concentration may play an important role in the etiology of abortion in ewes. Prophylactic measures such as vitamin and mineral supplementation may be of help to prevent or reduce the incidence of abortion in sheep

Prostate Volumes Derived From MRI and Volume-Adjusted Serum Prostate-Specific Antigen: Correlation With Gleason Score of Prostate Cancer

The purpose of this article is to study relationships between MRI-based prostate volume and volume-adjusted serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) concentration estimates and prostate cancer Gleason score

Epidemiology of pemphigus in Turkey: One-year prospective study of 220 cases

Pemphigus is a group of rare and life-threatening autoimmune blistering diseases of the skin and mucous membranes. Although they occur worldwide, their incidence shows wide geographical variation, and prospective data on the epidemiology of pemphigus are very limited. Objective of this work is to evaluate the incidence and epidemiological and clinical features of patients with pemphigus in Turkey. All patients newly diagnosed with pemphigus between June 2013 and June 2014 were prospectively enrolled in 33 dermatology departments in 20 different provinces from all seven regions of Turkey. Disease parameters including demography and clinical findings were recorded. A total of 220 patients were diagnosed with pemphigus during the 1-year period, with an annual incidence of 4.7 per million people in Turkey. Patients were predominantly women, with a male to female ratio of 1:1.41. The mean age at onset was 48.9 years. Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) was the commonest clinical subtype (n=192; 87.3%), followed by pemphigus foliaceus (n=21; 9.6%). The most common clinical subtype of PV was the mucocutaneous type (n=83; 43.2%). The mean Pemphigus Disease Area Index was 28.14±22.21 (mean ± Standard Deviation).  The incidence rate of pemphigus in Turkey is similar to the countries of South-East Europe, higher than those reported for the Central and Northern European countries and lower than the countries around the Mediterranean Sea and Iran. Pemphigus is more frequent in middle-aged people and is more common in women. The most frequent subtype was PV, with a 9-fold higher incidence than pemphigus foliaceus.   </p

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049