AN ORGANIC AGRICULTURE MODEL FOR TURKEY

Organic farming presents a solution to socio-economic, environmental and health problems caused by conventional food production methods. In this paper, we propose a linear programming model to plan Turkey’s organic food production. Specifically, we want to find how many hectares of each food type should be planted in each municipality of Turkey so that the whole population consumes organic foods only. The model incorporates transportation between regions while identifying any missing or excess foods. We also describe the data requirements of the model and discuss data availability. Results on an aggregate (small) model are promising

The role of a civil society organization in the development of the domestic organic market in Turkey

In this paper, we report of a case from Turkey where a civil society organization took an active role in influencing laws, regulations and their implementations regarding organic agriculture and the marketing of organic products. Although the country’s climate and biodiversity is suitable for organic agriculture, the domestic market remained underdeveloped; the organic sector was directed mainly towards exports. By establishing the first marketplace solely for certified organic products in 2006, a non-governmental organization became the locomotive of the domestic sector. The process that leads to the 100% organic bazaar exhibits a contingent characteristic where particularly social and symbolic capital were mobilized by the NGO together with a framing of positive ‘ecological living’ discourse and therefore contributing to the 'organic' movement

Evaluation of postural balance in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome

Introduction. Patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) can be more prone to accidents due to excessive daytime sleepiness which can lead to attention deficits and thereby cause balance problems. One of the tests evaluating postural balance is static posturography (SPG). In this study, we aimed to evaluate postural balance with SPG in OSAS patients.Methods. Patients who were referred to a sleep disorders outpatient clinic of a tertiary health care centre with snoring, daytime sleepiness or witnessed apnoea were enrolled consecutively in this cross-sectional study. They were grouped as the OSAS group and the control group according to the apnoea-hypopnoea index. Posturographic analyses were carried out in all subjects on a SPG platform under five different conditions: eyes open (EO), eyes closed (EC), head rotated to left (HL), head rotated to right (HR), and tandem Romberg.Results. A total of 95 patients and 23 controls were included in the study. In EO conditions, there was no difference between the OSAS group and the control group in any of the posturographic parameters. In EC conditions, change in lateral sway was significantly higher in the OSAS group which also correlated negatively with SaO2(min). HR conditions caused an i ncrease in anterior-posterior (A-P) sway velocity, and HL conditions led to an increase in change in lateral and A-P sways, sway area, and sway area velocity in the OSAS group.Conclusions. Our findings suggest that postural balance in OSAS patients is impaired even in the very first hours of the day, and that the severity of the disease has an impact on postural balance

Non-Gravitating Scalars and Spacetime Compactification

We discuss role of partially gravitating scalar fields, scalar fields whose energy-momentum tensors vanish for a subset of dimensions, in dynamical compactification of a given set of dimensions. We show that the resulting spacetime exhibits a factorizable geometry consisting of usual four-dimensional spacetime with full Poincare invariance times a manifold of extra dimensions whose size and shape are determined by the scalar field dynamics. Depending on the strength of its coupling to the curvature scalar, the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the scalar field may or may not vanish. When its VEV is zero the higher dimensional spacetime is completely flat and there is no compactification effect at all. On the other hand, when its VEV is nonzero the extra dimensions get spontaneously compactified. The compactification process is such that a bulk cosmological constant is utilized for curving the extra dimensions.Comment: 18 pp, 1 fi

Conformal Transformations in Metric-Affine Gravity and Ghosts

Conformal transformations play a widespread role in gravity theories in regard to their cosmological and other implications. In the pure metric theory of gravity, conformal transformations change the frame to a new one wherein one obtains a conformal-invariant scalar-tensor theory such that the scalar field, deriving from the conformal factor, is a ghost. In this work, conformal transformations and ghosts will be analyzed in the framework of the metric-affine theory of gravity. Within this framework, metric and connection are independent variables, and hence, transform independently under conformal transformations. It will be shown that, if affine connection is invariant under conformal transformations then the scalar field under concern is a non-ghost, non-dynamical field. It is an auxiliary field at the classical level, and might develop a kinetic term at the quantum level. Alternatively, if connection transforms additively with a structure similar to yet more general than that of the Levi-Civita connection, the resulting action describes the gravitational dynamics correctly, and more importantly, the scalar field becomes a dynamical non-ghost field. The equations of motion, for generic geometrical and matter-sector variables, do not reduce connection to the Levi-Civita connection, and hence, independence of connection from metric is maintained. Therefore, metric-affine gravity provides an arena in which ghosts arising from conformal factor are avoided thanks to the independence of connection from the metric.Comment: 12 p

Planimetry investigation of the corpus callosum in temporal lobe epilepsy patients

Objective: To evaluate the effects of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) on corpus callosum (CC) morphometry in patients with TLE. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted at the Faculty of Medicine, Tekirdag Namik Kemal University, Tekirdag, Turkey between November 2010 and December 2013. The epileptic syndrome diagnosis was based on International League Against Epilepsy criteria, and this study was conducted on the MRIs of 25 epilepsy patients and 25 control subjects. We classified the patients according to their duration of epilepsy: = 10 years. The projection area length (PAL) of the CC was also estimated. Total brain volumes (TBV) were measured on CT images. Results: The mean values of TBV for patients with TLE and the control group were not statistically different, but the CC PAL values were statistically different. The mean CC PAL values of under and over 25 years of age in patients with TLE were statistically different. The mean values of TBV of under and over 10 years duration of TLE were small statistically, but the CC PAL values were statistically different. Conclusion: The results indicate a clear influence of TLE on the structure of the CC rather than TBV

Effects of rosmarinic acid on cognitive and biochemical alterations in ovariectomized rats treated with D-galactose

Introduction. Animal models designed to mimic certain features of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can help us to in­crease our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of disease. Previous studies have revealed that long-term D-galactose injection combined with ovariectomy results in pathophysiologic alterations associated with AD. Thus, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of rosmarinic acid (RA) administration on pathological changes associated with ovariectomy and D-galactose injection, which serve as a two-insult model for AD. Material and methods. One hundred female Wistar rats were divided into five equal groups: control (C), Sham (Sh), rosmarinic acid treated (R), ovariectomized rats treated with D-galactose (OD), ovariectomized rats treated with D-galactose and rosmarinic acid (ODR) groups. D-galactose (80 mg/kg/day) was administered by i.p. injection and RA (50 mg/kg/day) was given via gavage for 60 days. Open field and Y-maze tests were used to assess locomotor activity and short-term spatial memory, respectively. Biochemical and histopathological analyses of the brain tissue were performed. Results. Open field testing showed that the locomotor activity and exploratory behavior of rats were prominent­ly impaired in the OD group as compared to the other studied groups. Similarly, Y-maze test results revealed a decrease of short-term spatial memory in the OD rats. A concomitant treatment with RA significantly restored altered locomotor activity and cognitive functions in the ODR group. Lipid peroxidation levels, cyclooxygen­ase-2 expression and prostaglandin E2 levels in the brain tissue were higher in the OD group and RA treatment inhibited these changes. AD-like histopathological alterations and amyloid b peptide (Ab) depositions were observed in the OD group. Normal cell structure and lower Ab depositions were observed in the ODR group compared with the OD group. Conclusions. RA could have the potential to prevent some psychological and biochemical alterations of brain tissue found in a rat model of AD probably by attenuating lipid peroxidation and inflammatory response