Patents from the Academe: A Methodology Research for the Analysis of University Patents and Preliminary Findings for Turkey

University patenting has been drawing attention of researchers studying university-industry relations, technology transfer mechanisms, changing research motives of the academe and consequences on their scientific performance. This study aims to develop a methodology for comprehensive analysis of university patents as the milestone of commercialization process of scientific knowledge produced by the academe, and evaluates preliminary findings for Turkey. For this purpose, patent applications at the Turkish Patent Institute are analyzed and a relational database is designed for storing university and researcher (academic inventor) characteristics, as well as industrial classification information of patents. In addition, interviews are conducted with academics in inventors list of patent applications to gather qualitative information about research activities and commercialization of patents. Results indicate that university patenting in Turkey is extremely low in number and commercialization is at its early stages. However, the results are based on very limited information, and with the aim developing a methodology, this study is open for further improvement in information gathering, as well as consistency in analyses.University patents, academic patenting, academic inventors, commercialization of patents

On topological structures of fuzzy parametrized soft sets

In this paper, we introduce the topological structure of fuzzy parametrized soft sets and fuzzy parametrized soft mappings. We define the notion of quasi-coincidence for fuzzy parametrized soft sets and investigated basic properties of it. We study the closure, interior, base, continuity and compactness and properties of these concepts in fuzzy parametrized soft topological space

Emerging privacy challenges and approaches in CAV systems

The growth of Internet-connected devices, Internet-enabled services and Internet of Things systems continues at a rapid pace, and their application to transport systems is heralded as game-changing. Numerous developing CAV (Connected and Autonomous Vehicle) functions, such as traffic planning, optimisation, management, safety-critical and cooperative autonomous driving applications, rely on data from various sources. The efficacy of these functions is highly dependent on the dimensionality, amount and accuracy of the data being shared. It holds, in general, that the greater the amount of data available, the greater the efficacy of the function. However, much of this data is privacy-sensitive, including personal, commercial and research data. Location data and its correlation with identity and temporal data can help infer other personal information, such as home/work locations, age, job, behavioural features, habits, social relationships. This work categorises the emerging privacy challenges and solutions for CAV systems and identifies the knowledge gap for future research, which will minimise and mitigate privacy concerns without hampering the efficacy of the functions

Physical and Mechanical Properties of an Artificial Aggregate Made up of Ground Granulated Blast-Furnace Slag

Manufacturing artificial aggregate by utilizing waste materials has gained great importance as the aggregate occupies a high volume in concrete (60–70%). In this paper, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) is utilized in aggregate manufacturing. Cold bonding and sintering methods were used as production processes. The pellets were put through a series of tests like dry density, specific gravity, water absorption, and crushing strength. The results indicated that the density of pellets increased by increasing the GGBFS dosage while the water absorption capacity was reduced. Furthermore, the highest crushed strength was recorded at 50% addition of GGBFS

STOP AT THE RED LIGHT! DETERMINANTS OF RESEARCH IN TEACHER EDUCATION: P.I.S. THEORY

Growing body of studies has stressed the role of research in teacher education since conducting research informs both teachers and students, and contributes to professional skills. Therefore, this study aimed to find out and compare the perspectives of pre-service and in-service English teachers in an EFL context with regard to finding sufficient resources to conduct research, whether they are involved in research-related activities and find research findings applicable. Qualitative research method was used to get detailed responses from the participants and form a theory upon emerging themes and categories. The qualitative findings were further supported with numbers in the form of frequency and percentage tables to include both qualitative and quantitative means, utilize complementary purposes of words and numbers, and get the outmost profit from numerical and non-numerical data. There were 340 participants and it took more than about one year to collect the data. 290 pre-service English teachers from four different state universities and 50 in-service English teachers from 15 different cities participated in the study. The participants reflected their perspectives upon the importance of research in teacher education by answering questions in a written interview protocol (WIP). Statistical procedures were applied to form the frequency and percentage tables whereas constant comparison of grounded theory was used to code and categorize interview items, and form a theory summarizing the macro-level and micro-level factors affecting participant responses. The findings showed that there exist similarities and differences between pre-service and in-service English teachers. More than half of the pre-service participants (N: 147) and high majority of the in-service participants (N: 43) reflected unfavorable perspectives upon finding sufficient opportunities, following publications and feasibility of research findings. Additionally, the emerging categories of pre-service answers are more varied compared to in-service teachers. In general, the in-service participants were found to be more pessimistic about educational research more than the pre-service participants. At the end of the analysis P.I.S. Theory emerged to cover the determinants of research in teacher education. According to P.I.S. Theory, there exist three macro-level determinants namely Personal, Institutional and Stakeholder-related issues which shape the route of research in teacher education and include micro-level determinants. The findings point out the gap between university classrooms and school classrooms in terms of promoting research among teachers. Participant quotations also draw attention on their changing flow of teacher identity relating research in the course of trainings they go through in years. In light of the findings, it can be said that promoting research skills among students should go beyond integrating a compulsory course at graduate level, be handled with an across-the-curriculum understanding and further expand to bridge pre-service and in-service teacher education with a systematic approach through university-school collaboration and teacher-researcher collaboration.  Article visualizations

ELT SOPHOMORES’ EVALUATIONS ON THE APPROACHES AND METHODS COURSE

Student teachers’ reflections on their course activities play an important role in both teacher educators’ reflective teaching practices and bettering pre-service teacher education programmes. Since teacher cognition is also shaped during pre-service education years, teacher educators should collaborate with student teachers to serve their needs better and refresh their academic identity. Thus, this study aimed to find out ELT sophomores’ evaluations on the Approaches and Methods Course. The study was conducted at a state university in ELT Department during 2018-2019 Fall term and there were 31 participants (8 males, 23 females, aged between 19-22) taking the course. The participants filled out a 10-item survey regarding their experiences and their opinions about the course activities, and content analysis was applied to code and categorize their written answers. All the participants indicated that this course is a professional requirement, basis of ELT and they have learnt various classroom activities or techniques. 11 think the approaches and methods learnt in the course are applicable in their future teaching contexts while 4 think they are inapplicable and finally 16 think some of them are applicable stressing the contextual differences, time constraints, crowded classrooms, different learner characteristics and effect of technology. 27 stated that they were taught English via GTM in their previous learning experiences. 27 indicated that the course contributed to their professional knowledge and skills in terms of gaining valuable teaching skills, having different standpoints, developing teaching experience, improving reading, comprehension and vocabulary, serving changing student needs. All reported that the preliminary discussions held at the very beginning of the class about the last week’s topic were a useful reminder of the previous topic, made easier adaptation to the lesson, were a good means for checking student understanding, reinforcement, better and easier understanding and getting ready for the new topic. 14 held negative perspectives about making theoretical presentations with their classmates. They focused on public speaking anxiety, presenter' incompetence, irresponsible members, complicated content. However, 13 held positive perspectives and focused on learner autonomy, cooperative skills, sharing responsibility, fun, feeling like a teacher. 29 stated that watching related videos about the approaches/methods at the end of the class was beneficial in terms of remembering the details, seeing real applications, fun, clear and better understanding, practical awareness, real life applications. 20 stated that they encountered some difficulties while making presentations such as public speaking anxiety, pronunciation mistakes, abstract language of the book, irresponsible members, intense content, lack of content knowledge. 14 stated that all course activities were useful, 10 found micro teaching as the most important activity whereas 10 found theoretical presentations as the least important activity. Finally, 14 recommended teacher lecturing instead of student lecturing for theoretical presentations. The findings offer significant clues for teacher educators for their delivery of instruction and give opportunities for a better understanding of student teachers’ learning preferences.  Article visualizations

Improvement of the Original Isolation Procedure for Hormone Studies in Short-Time Culture

Earlier studies indicated that hormone responsiveness of cells and metabolic activity was lost during various of experimental procedure. In the light of this observation, I aimed to investigate to obtain optimal conditions for short time cultured hepatocytes and also to determine the type of test can be used to evaluate suitablity of hepatocytes for hormones studies. During the isolation period 50 IU/ml and 100 IU/ml collagenase were used. Adrenaline (10-6M) was used to measure sensitivity of hepatocytes to hormones and glycogenolsis was measured at the end of 2hr incubation period. Adrenaline significantly increased gylcogenolysis (Control: 0.16±0.01 mg/2hr; Adrenaline: 0.30±0.01 mg/2hr) only when the 50 IU/ml collagenase was used and the viability of the cells were over 95%. Viability tests were applied to hepatocytes that obtained by using 50 IU collagenase. Cellular glutathione, methylthiazoltetrazolium reduction, lactatedehdrogenase leakage, ATP level measured to determine viability following the attachment and incubation period. No differences were observed at the end of each period.Altogether, the present study indicated that membrane integrity and metabolic function of the hepatocytes can be improved by modifying slightly the original procedure of Reese and Byard