Difusion of Free/Opensource Software as Innovation: A Case Study of METU

In this research, the diffusion of free and open source software (FOSS) on desktop PCs at Middle East Technical University in Ankara (METU) is investigated within the framework of the diffusion of innovation theory. This work aims to propose some policies for the migration to FOSS on desktop PCs at METU. The research is conducted through two similar web-based surveys. The first survey was held during 27-28 September 2003 after the examination of exemption for the IS100 course. The second survey was held between 23 March and 24 May 2004 in the whole of the METU campus. This survey was open to all students and academic and non-academic staff with a METU network account. There were 402 participants in the first survey and 1224 in the second. As expected, Microsoft OS rules the desktop PCs within the METU campus. According to the surveys, there is a rather large PC user base which could potentially migrate to GNU/Linux system. In addition to a large amount of data, it has been found out that a migration to FOSS is welcomed greatly by the users if the process is explained on the basis of public economic gains. However personal migration is still difficult if the user is left alone to install any new OS. Activities which will eventually increase the awareness for FOSS at METU, change in the curriculum of the IS100 course, collaboration among METU FOSS users and creation of a software catalog with possible FOSS equivalent for METU courses are some of the propositions which will eventually help the migration process. Furthermore, different innovation-decision models are discussed based on the research findings.

Nanofibre encapsulation of limonene and modelling its release mechanisms

In this study, limonene was encapsulated by using gelatine, Na-alginate, polyvinyl alcohol, lactalbumin or xanthan gum with the uniaxial electrospinning process. The highest encapsulation efficiency was obtained for the sample containing polyvinyl alcohol. The release kinetic studies of nanofibre encapsulated limonene were carried out at 5.5, 20, and 38.5 °C. The Peppas equation expressed the release behavior of limonene for all systems very well, indicating quasi-Fickian diffusion. The modelling data suggested that maybe more than one mechanism was involved for the release at 20 °C. The activation energy for releasing limonene from the electrospun polyvinyl alcohol-alginate encapsulation system was found to be 6.2 kJ mol–1 from the Arrhenius equation

Adhesive Fragment Reattachment after Orthodontic Extrusion: A Case Report

In the treatment of crown fractures, adhesive fragment reattachment provides a good alternative to other restorative techniques, offering several advantages. The present paper reports a case in which the treatment of a cervical crown fracture was accomplished by reattaching the tooth fragment with a flowable resin composite. Orthodontic root extrusion was performed with a modified Hawley appliance prior to fragment reattachment. The clinical and radiographic results after 2.5 years were successful

Progression of color decision making in introductory design education

Color comprises both subjective and objective aspects within its contextual nature. Research on color design tends to explore this seemingly contradictory concerns from theoretical point of view, as well as architectural and design practice. The aim of this study was to observe subjective, intuitive or heuristic and objective, knowledge-based or analytical attitudes toward color in design education. In the study 84 introductory design students were surveyed progressively to understand their color decision criteria after completion of three 2-dimensional colored exercises, specific in terms of color education. Students' responses to open-ended questions were coded according to the 5 categories, under 2 decision making processes derived from the literature; heuristic approach: preferential and symbolic criteria, and analytic reasoning: formal, thematic, and systematic criteria. A distinction between associative and emotional aspects of symbolic criteria was also revealed by the data analysis. The findings showed a shift from heuristic responses to analytic reasoning, as expected. Additionally, it is also investigated that students not only used heuristic approaches but also analytical components (formal and systematic) of color decision making in varying degrees as well, even before any color subjects covered. Thematic color decisions became a major part of the students' design considerations upon completion of color subjects. The observed increase in the number of color criteria interrelated by the students' among almost all categories explicated a complex decision making process particularly in color design and education. These findings were expected to lead to some further understanding in color decision making in design. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Research note: Fighting misinformation or fighting for information?

Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). A wealth of interventions have been devised to reduce belief in fake news or the tendency to share such news. By contrast, interventions aimed at increasing trust in reliable news sources have received less attention. In this article we show that, given the very limited prevalence of misinformation (including fake news), interventions aimed at reducing acceptance or spread of such news are bound to have very small effects on the overall quality of the information environment, especially compared to interventions aimed at increasing trust in reliable news sources. To make this argument, we simulate the effect that such interventions have on a global information score, which increases when people accept reliable information and decreases when people accept misinformation.Agence nationale de la recherche, grants ANR-17-EURE-0017, FrontCog, ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL, and ANR-21-CE28-0016-01

Misinformation on Misinformation: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges

Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Alarmist narratives about online misinformation continue to gain traction despite evidence that its prevalence and impact are overstated. Drawing on research questioning the use of big data in social science and reception studies, we identify six misconceptions about misinformation and examine the conceptual and methodological challenges they raise. The first three misconceptions concern the prevalence and circulation of misinformation. First, the internet is not rife with misinformation or news, but with memes and entertaining content. Second, scientists focus on social media because it is methodologically convenient, but misinformation is not just a social media problem. Third, falsehoods do not spread faster than the truth; how we define (mis)information influences our results and their practical implications. The second three misconceptions concern the impact and the reception of misinformation. First, people do not believe everything they see on the internet: sheer volume of engagement should not be conflated with belief. Second, the influence of misinformation on people’s behavior is overblown since it often ‘preaches to the choir’. Third, people are more likely to be uninformed than misinformed; surveys overestimate misperceptions and say little about the causal influence of misinformation. To appropriately understand and fight misinformation, future research needs to address these challenges

How high is the inter-observer reproducibility in the LIRADS reporting system?

Purpose: To investigate the reproducibility of LIRADS v2014 and contribute to its widespread use in clinical practice. Material and methods: This retrospective, single-centre study was conducted between January 2010 and October 2015. A total of 132 patients who had dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)/computed tomography (CT) images in the Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) with liver nodule were included in the study, 37 of whom had histopathology results. Five radiologists who participated in the study, interpreted liver nodules independently on different PACS stations according to the LIRADS reporting system and its main parameters. Results: We determined that level of inter-observer agreement in the LR-1, LR-5, and LR-5V categories was higher than in the LR-2, LR-3, and LR-4 categories (κ = 0.522, 0.442, and 0.600 in the LR-1, LR-5, and LR-5V categories, respectively; κ = 0.082, 0.298, and 0.143 in the LR-2, LR-3, and LR-4 categories, respectively). The parameter that we observed to have the highest level of inter-observer agreement was venous thrombus (κ = 0.600). Conclusions: Our study showed that LIRADS achieves an acceptable inter-observer reproducibility in terms of clinical practice although it is insufficient at intermediate risk levels. We think that the prevalence of its use will be further increased with training related to the subject and the assignment of numerical values that express the probability of malignancy for each category and including the ancillary features in the algorithm according to clearer rules

Constrained nonlinear programming for volatility estimation with GARCH models

This paper proposes a constrained nonlinear programming view of generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) volatility estimation models in financial econometrics. These models are usually presented to the reader as unconstrained optimization models with recursive terms in the literature, whereas they actually fall into the domain of nonconvex nonlinear programming. Our results demonstrate that constrained nonlinear programming is a worthwhile exercise for GARCH models, especially for the bivariate and trivariate cases, as they offer a significant improvement in the quality of the solution of the optimization problem over the diagonal VECH and the BEKK representations of the multivariate GARCH model

Reverse Engineering Gene Networks with ANN: Variability in Network Inference Algorithms

Motivation :Reconstructing the topology of a gene regulatory network is one of the key tasks in systems biology. Despite of the wide variety of proposed methods, very little work has been dedicated to the assessment of their stability properties. Here we present a methodical comparison of the performance of a novel method (RegnANN) for gene network inference based on multilayer perceptrons with three reference algorithms (ARACNE, CLR, KELLER), focussing our analysis on the prediction variability induced by both the network intrinsic structure and the available data. Results: The extensive evaluation on both synthetic data and a selection of gene modules of "Escherichia coli" indicates that all the algorithms suffer of instability and variability issues with regards to the reconstruction of the topology of the network. This instability makes objectively very hard the task of establishing which method performs best. Nevertheless, RegnANN shows MCC scores that compare very favorably with all the other inference methods tested. Availability: The software for the RegnANN inference algorithm is distributed under GPL3 and it is available at the corresponding author home page (http://mpba.fbk.eu/grimaldi/regnann-supmat