RETHINKING ADULT EDUCATION IN TURKEY: THE PROPOSAL OF AEP MODEL

In this study, it is aimed to examine adult education policies in Turkey based on the views of managers, teachers, qualified instructors and trainees and to present a conceptual model for a future-based adult education system. The study is a case study and has the single nested case study design. Adult education policies in Turkey, which is the single case of the study; is considered in the dimensions of policy and strategy, organizational structure and implementation. By using semi-structured interview technique in the study, data on the features of a future-based adult education system were collected from a total of 32 managers, teachers, qualified instructors and trainees who played a role in the adult education system in Turkey and were selected through stratified purposeful sampling. Content analysis, one of the qualitative data analysis methods, was used for the analysis of the data. In consequence of the study, certain findings related to the basic features of a future-based adult education system have been reached particularly in the dimensions of policy and strategy, organizational structure and implementation, educational qualifications, human capital education and sustainable development, organizational autonomy, access and participation, teaching methods and techniques and content. As a result of the study, it is suggested for the implementers that a restructuring process should be initiated towards a productive, employable, self-sufficient and sustainable economic structure in adult education. As for the researchers, quantitative and qualitative studies are also recommended in the dimensions of human capital education, sustainable development, global change and developments, and 21st century skills. Article visualizations

An Empirical Model for the Turkish Trade Balance: New Evidence from ARDL Bounds Testing Analyses

In this paper, the determinants of the Turkish trade balance are tried to be analyzed in an empirical modelling approach. For this purpose, the contemporaneous ARDL-based bounds testing has been used to examine the existence of a long run co-integration relationship between the variables of our interest. The estimation results indicate that real exchange rate depreciations improves the trade balance in a strong and significant way, that domestic real income affects the trade balance negatively, and that trade balance is strongly improved due to an increase in foreign real income. No significant effect of crude oil prices can be observed on trade balance. The error correction modeling gives results in line with the long run findings of the co-integration analysis.Trade Balance, ARDL Bounds Testing Approach, Turkish Economy

Estimating the chance of success in IVF treatment using a ranking algorithm

In medicine, estimating the chance of success for treatment is important in deciding whether to begin the treatment or not. This paper focuses on the domain of in vitro fertilization (IVF), where estimating the outcome of a treatment is very crucial in the decision to proceed with treatment for both the clinicians and the infertile couples. IVF treatment is a stressful and costly process. It is very stressful for couples who want to have a baby. If an initial evaluation indicates a low pregnancy rate, decision of the couple may change not to start the IVF treatment. The aim of this study is twofold, firstly, to develop a technique that can be used to estimate the chance of success for a couple who wants to have a baby and secondly, to determine the attributes and their particular values affecting the outcome in IVF treatment. We propose a new technique, called success estimation using a ranking algorithm (SERA), for estimating the success of a treatment using a ranking-based algorithm. The particular ranking algorithm used here is RIMARC. The performance of the new algorithm is compared with two well-known algorithms that assign class probabilities to query instances. The algorithms used in the comparison are Naïve Bayes Classifier and Random Forest. The comparison is done in terms of area under the ROC curve, accuracy and execution time, using tenfold stratified cross-validation. The results indicate that the proposed SERA algorithm has a potential to be used successfully to estimate the probability of success in medical treatment. © 2015, The Author(s)

Concomitant Imperforate Hymen and Transverse Vaginal Septum Complicated with Pyocolpos and Abdominovaginal Fistula

A 13-year-old patient with a complaint of worsening lower abdominal pain during the past 4 months was admitted to the emergency department. An abdominopelvic ultrasound scan revealed a distended uterocervical cavity suggestive of hematometrocolpos. Imperforate hymen was observed on examination of the external genitalia. MRI scan revealed an air-fluid level representing pyometrocolpos within a distended vagina. Posterior vaginal extraperitoneal leakage as the sign of a fistula between the vagina and the rectovaginal space was detected. Although laparoscopic approach was planned, malodorous pus expelled after the insertion of the Veress needle, it was decided to proceed to laparotomy. Pus with peritoneal microabscess formations was observed at laparotomy. The imperforate hymen and TVS were excised vaginally. A more complex anomaly should be suspected in cases with hematometra and concomitant imperforated hymen without any bulging and thorough evaluation using radiological imaging techniques should be performed before surgical approach

Complex Comorbidity of Substance Use Disorders with Anxiety Disorders: Diagnosis and Treatment

Substance use disorders is a worldwide public health problem that commonly ocur together with our psychiatric and medical disorders. Along with etiologic origins, prognosis of anxiety disorders intercepts with substance use disorders. Due to overlapping symptoms and complaints, it is always difficult for clinicians to recognise these disorders separately. In addition, selecting the best treatment approach is challenging because of the relative risk for developing anxiety disorders in substance use patients or vice versa. In this chapter, authors are focused on adding new aspects to the clinicians for evaluating, treating and following patients with comorbid substance use disorder and anxiety disorder

STEC: See-Through Transformer-based Encoder for CTR Prediction

Click-Through Rate (CTR) prediction holds a pivotal place in online advertising and recommender systems since CTR prediction performance directly influences the overall satisfaction of the users and the revenue generated by companies. Even so, CTR prediction is still an active area of research since it involves accurately modelling the preferences of users based on sparse and high-dimensional features where the higher-order interactions of multiple features can lead to different outcomes. Most CTR prediction models have relied on a single fusion and interaction learning strategy. The few CTR prediction models that have utilized multiple interaction modelling strategies have treated each interaction to be self-contained. In this paper, we propose a novel model named STEC that reaps the benefits of multiple interaction learning approaches in a single unified architecture. Additionally, our model introduces residual connections from different orders of interactions which boosts the performance by allowing lower level interactions to directly affect the predictions. Through extensive experiments on four real-world datasets, we demonstrate that STEC outperforms existing state-of-the-art approaches for CTR prediction thanks to its greater expressive capabilities

Determining the Criteria Identifying Teacher Performance Through Multiple Indicators

This study focused on determining the criteria for the assessment of teachers’ performance. It aimed to determine ‘Teachers’ Performance Assessment Scale’ through the opinions of teachers, administrators, and students. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather the opinions of the participants. Four education-specialists took part in the interviews and analysis of the data. The data were analyzed by means of factor analysis and varimax method was used to reduce the items and group the related ones. According to the results, ‘Teacher Performance Assessment Scale’ included 39-item and 6 sub-dimensions. Besides, self-evaluation and long term observation of multiple indicators were found to be the most appropriate ways to evaluate teachers’ performance

Jaunų besimokančiųjų kalbų mokymosi požiūris: skirtumas tarp besimokančių Sirijos prieglobsčio prašytojų ir besimokančių turkų

Welcoming more than 1.7 million refugee and asylum-seeker children, Turkey has put a considerable effort in turning this tragedy into an advantage for these children in terms of their education. Language teaching has played a remarkable role in this effort. Turkey has offered both Turkish and English language courses to these people. Considering the significance of English as a global language for social integration and future studies, this study attempted to investigate young Syrian refugee students’ attitudes toward English language and their reasons to learn English. Moreover, their perspectives were compared with Turkish young learners. Thirty-eight Turkish and 26 Syrian 5th graders (aged 10–11) voluntarily participated in this study. The findings indicated that learning English makes Syrian students happy, whereas Turkish students enjoy the fun activities in English classes. Learning English is considered both relatively easy and important by both groups. Turkish and Syrian young learners’ reasons to learn English differed slightly. Suggestions were provided for refugee young learners to overcome the potential problems regarding language learning.Turkija priėmė daugiau nei 1,7 milijono pabėgėlių ir prieglobsčio prašytojų vaikų ir dėjo daug pastangų, kad ši tragedija vaikams virstų jų išsilavinimo privalumu. Svarbus vaidmuo šioje iniciatyvoje tenka kalbų mokymui – Turkija šiems žmonėms siūlo tiek turkų, tiek anglų kalbos kursus. Atsižvelgiant į anglų, kaip globalizacijos kalbos, reikšmę socialinei integracijai ir studijoms ateityje, šiame tyrime analizuojamas Sirijos pabėgėlių moksleivių požiūris į anglų kalbą ir anglų kalbos mokymosi priežastys. Be to, jų nuostatos lyginamos su turkų moksleivių nuostatomis. Tyrime savanoriškai dalyvavo trisdešimt aštuoni penktų klasių (10–11 metų) moksleiviai iš Turkijos ir dvidešimt šeši moksleiviai iš Sirijos. Rezultatai atskleidė, kad pats anglų kalbos mokymasis sirų vaikams teikia daug džiaugsmo, o turkų moksleiviams anglų kalbos pamokose labiausiai patinka smagūs užsiėmimai. Abiem grupėms mokytis anglų kalbos atrodo gana lengva ir kartu svarbu. Šiek tiek skiriasi turkų ir sirų moksleivių pateikiamos priežastys mokytis anglų kalbos. Tyrime taip pat pateikiama siūlymų, kaip pabėgėliams moksleiviams įveikti galimus kalbų mokymosi sunkumus

The incidence of metabolic syndrome in adolescents with different phenotypes of PCOS

Objectives: To evaluate the incidence of metabolic syndrome in Turkish adolescents with different phenotypes of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Material and methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on the Youth Center clinic of a tertiary referral hospital in Turkey. Adolescents with PCOS (n = 144) were classified into four phenotype groups according to the presence of oligo/anovulation (O), hyperandrogenism (H), and polycystic ovarian morphology (P) as follows: Phenotype A (O + H + P), Phenotype B (H + O), Phenotype C (H + P), Phenotype D (O + P). The adolescents gave early follicular phase blood samples for endocrine and metabolic tests. The incidence and the presence of parameters of metabolic syndrome were assessed among the four groups. Results: In total, 54.9% of the adolescents with PCOS were overweight and 25.7% had metabolic syndrome. The incidence of metabolic syndrome in Phenotypes A-D were as follows: 39.5%, 20.5%, 26.5%, and 15.2%, respectively. Although body mass index was higher in the Phenotype A group, insulin resistance was similar in all of the phenotype groups. The most common dyslipidemia was low HDL-C levels and this was present in more than half of the adolescents with PCOS. Both body mass index and total testosterone levels were significantly higher in adolescents with metabolic syndrome in comparison to those without metabolic syndrome. Conclusions: Although low HDL-C levels and insulin resistance are common PCOS findings in adolescents, the metabolic profile seems to be worse in Phenotype A than the other phenotypes. Therefore, screening programs should evaluate patients based on the known risk factors and phenotypes for adolescents with PCOS