Historical narratives as strategic resources: an analysis of the Turkish international contracting sector

The Turkish contracting sector has an enviable reputation for operating in high-risk international markets. The sector’s ability to respond to market instability could meaningfully be construed as sectoral-level capability. We aim to demonstrate how history can be mobilised in a formalised ‘strategy text’ to create a strategic narrative on the sectoral level. The Geography of Contractors as published by the Turkish Contractors Association (TCA) ostensively portrays the strategic development of Turkish international contractors over four decades. Such quasi-historical narratives are routinely mobilised for the purposes of creating a shared memory on the sectoral level. The chosen strategy text draws from multiple narrative fragments derived from past experience to generate a strategic agenda for the future. The representation given to multiple voices reflects the pluralistic nature of strategy making praxis. The overarching strategy narrative reflects a performative intent in legitimising some practices whilst discrediting others. Narrative analysis demonstrates the way in which actors, actions and events are positioned within a plot structure, with direct implications for the enactment of future strategic practices. The findings suggest that strategic actions can only ever be identified in retrospect, and that such arguments are always made with an eye on the future

Hierarchical Over-the-Air Federated Edge Learning

Federated learning (FL) over wireless communication channels, specifically, over-the-air (OTA) model aggregation framework is considered. In OTA wireless setups, the adverse channel effects can be alleviated by increasing the number of receive antennas at the parameter server (PS), which performs model aggregation. However, the performance of OTA FL is severely limited by the presence of mobile users (MUs) located far away from the PS. In this paper, to mitigate this limitation, we propose hierarchical over-the-air federated learning (HOTAFL), which utilizes intermediary servers (IS) to form clusters near MUs. We provide a convergence analysis for the proposed setup, and demonstrate through experimental results that local aggregation in each cluster before global aggregation leads to a better performance and faster convergence than OTA FL

Effects of Saccharomyces boulardii on antibiotic induced orocecal transit in rats

Clarithromycin is an antibiotic widely used for Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) eradication and together with amoxicillin and proton pump inhibitors they constitute the first line triple treatment regimen against H. pylori. Diarrhoea is one of the major drawbacks during H. pylori eradication and is majorly attributed to clarithromycin, while Saccharomyces boulardii is a probiotic and is shown to be effective in the treatment of antibiotic associated diarrhoea. We aimed to evaluate the effect of clarithromycin on orocecal transit in rats and to identify whether the supplementation with S. boulardii has a role on orocecal transit index. Adult rats of both sexes were divided into two groups to determine immediate or chronic effects of S. boulardii and clarithromycin on orocecal transit. The first group was given single dose of the test drug, while the second group received the test drugs for one week through orogastric intubation. Both groups were randomly distributed into four subgroups; the placebo group (group A), the S. boulardii group (group B), the clarithromycin group (group C), and the co-administration that is clarithromycin plus S. boulardii group (group D). Rats were given 20 mg kg−1 clarithromycin and 500 mg kg−1S. boulardii. We did not find any difference among the subgroups in group 1, where only single dose of the test drugs was administered. In chronic administration group, that is group 2, significant differences among the subgroups were observed (P=0.004). Post-hoc comparisons of orocecal transit index between group “2A and 2C” and “2C and 2D” were significantly different (P=0.013 and P=0.005, respectively). Our results show that long term clarithromycin administration leads to rapid orocecal transit index and S. boulardii supplementation to clarithromycin can abolish this adverse effect in rats. Those findings suggest the beneficial use of S. boulardii in H. pylori eradication regimens

Characterization of a broad-based mosquito yeast interfering RNA larvicide with a conserved target site in mosquito semaphorin-1a genes

BACKGROUND: RNA interference (RNAi), which has facilitated functional characterization of mosquito neural development genes such as the axon guidance regulator semaphorin-1a (sema1a), could one day be applied as a new means of vector control. Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker's yeast) may represent an effective interfering RNA expression system that could be used directly for delivery of RNA pesticides to mosquito larvae. Here we describe characterization of a yeast larvicide developed through bioengineering of S. cerevisiae to express a short hairpin RNA (shRNA) targeting a conserved site in mosquito sema1a genes. RESULTS: Experiments conducted on Aedes aegypti larvae demonstrated that the yeast larvicide effectively silences sema1a expression, generates severe neural defects, and induces high levels of larval mortality in laboratory, simulated-field, and semi-field experiments. The larvicide was also found to induce high levels of Aedes albopictus, Anopheles gambiae and Culex quinquefasciatus mortality. CONCLUSIONS: The results of these studies indicate that use of yeast interfering RNA larvicides targeting mosquito sema1a genes may represent a new biorational tool for mosquito control

Rancang Bangun Aplikasi Augmented Reality sebagai Media Promosi Model Tatanan Rambut pada Barbershop Berbasis Android

The development of barbershop makes business competition becomes increasingly tight. Currently, information and communication technology is very important in the field of barbershop marketing. But this technology only shows details of the existence of barbershop. In addition, the catalog of hairstyles that are provided only in the form of 2-dimensional images. Therefore, more advanced technology is needed to promote the model of hairstyle available in barbershop. One of the technology applied in smartphone applications is Augmented Reality on the Android operating system. In this research will be developed an Augmented Reality based promotion media to promote hair model model with 3 dimensional object visualization using marker based tracking method. Development of this application starts from the stage of concept creation, application design, 3-dimensional object creation, application assembly, application testing, until the application distribution stage. This application was created using C # programming language, Vuforia Qualcomm, virtual and Unity Autodeks Maya software. The application that has been produced is tested by 2 methods that is by black-box testing and by USAbility scale system test, on the test of black -box AugmentedReality application of functional barbershop that exist in the application has been successfully executed according to their respective function. Based on survey results on Usabilty ScaleSystem(SUS) test on Augmented Reality Barbershop application, 20 respondents gave average score of 73.35 with Grade Scale C

"Civilianization" in Greece versus "demilitarization" in Turkey: A comparative study of civil-military relations and the impact of the European Union

The civil-military-relations literature has long concentrated on domestic factors in explaining the relationship between civilians and the military. This article concentrates on the effect of an external actor, the European Union (EU), on civil-military relations in Greece and Turkey. The main findings reveal that the two countries shared similar characteristics until the mid-1970s. However, their path of civil-military relations diverged considerably as soon as Greece's EU membership prospect became tangible. While in the Greek case, "civilianization" took place, Turkey had witnessed a mere "demilitarization" of its regime. However, the article also shows how EU membership paves the way for the improvement of civil-military relations in the Turkish case. © 2006, Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. All rights reserved

Indium selenide: An insight into electronic band structure and surface excitations

We have investigated the electronic response of single crystals of indium selenide by means of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, electron energy loss spectroscopy and density functional theory. The loss spectrum of indium selenide shows the direct free exciton at similar to 1.3 eV and several other peaks, which do not exhibit dispersion with the momentum. The joint analysis of the experimental band structure and the density of states indicates that spectral features in the loss function are strictly related to single-particle transitions. These excitations cannot be considered as fully coherent plasmons and they are damped even in the optical limit, i.e. for small momenta. The comparison of the calculated symmetry-projected density of states with electron energy loss spectra enables the assignment of the spectral features to transitions between specific electronic states. Furthermore, the effects of ambient gases on the band structure and on the loss function have been probed

Assessment of geodetic velocities using GPS campaign measurements over long baseline lengths

GPS campaign measurements are frequently used in order to determine geophysical phenomena such as tectonic motion, fault zones, landslides, and volcanoes. When observation duration is shorter, the accuracy of coordinates are degraded and the accuracy of point velocities are affected. The accuracies of the geodetic site velocities from a global network of International GNSS Service (IGS) stations were previously investigated using only PPP. In this study, we extend which site velocities will also be assessed, including fundamental relative positioning. PPP-derived results will also be evaluated to see the effect of reprocessed JPL products, single-receiver ambiguity resolution, repeating survey campaigns minimum 3 days at the site, and eliminating noisier solutions prior to the year 2000. To create synthetic GPS campaigns, 18 globally distributed, continuously operating IGS stations were chosen. GPS data were processed comparatively using GAMIT/GLOBK v10.6 and GIPSY-OASIS II v6.3. The data of synthetic campaign GPS time series were processed using a regression model accounting for the linear and seasonal variation of the ground motion. Once the velocities derived from 24&thinsp;h sessions were accepted as the truth, the results from sub-sessions were compared with the results of 24&thinsp;h and hypothesis testing was applied for the significance of the differences. The major outcome of this study is that on global scales (i.e. over long distances) with short observation sessions, the fundamental relative positioning produces results similar to PPP. The reliability of the velocity estimation for GPS horizontal baseline components has now been improved to about 85&thinsp;% of the average for observation durations of 12&thinsp;h.</p