SYNTHESIS OF ALLENIC NAPHTHALENE DERIVATIVES

Propargylic alcohol of naphthalene derivatives were synthesized and converted to the corresponding propargylic acetate using acetic anhydride. Reduction of the propargylic acetates by SmI2 afforded allenes and acetylenes. Base-promoted isomerisation of acetylene formed allene in high yield. KEY WORDS: Isomerisation, Allenic derivatives of naphthalene Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2007, 21(2), 241-247

Fatty acid constituents and anticancer activity of Cladophora fracta (OF Müller ex Vahl) Kützing

Purpose: To determine the fatty acid constituents and anticancer effect of Cladohora fractaMethods: Cladophora fracta (O.F. Müller ex Vahl) Kützing was collected from natural ponds in Tokat, Turkey. Antiproliferative and cytotoxic effects of methanol and hexane extracts of C. fracta were investigated on human colon carcinoma (HT29) and non-tumorigenic African green monkey kidney (Vero) cell lines using BrdU cell proliferation enzyme-linked Immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) test, respectively. The fatty acid composition of hexane extract was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).Results: Oleic acid, palmitic acid, gamma-linoleic acid and linoleic acid were the main constituents of C. fracta. The methanol extract exhibited strong antiproliferative activity on HT29 and Vero cell lines (p < 0.05). The hexane extract revealed its good antiproliferative activity at high concentrations on both cell lines. Cytotoxicity results showed that both methanol and hexane extract had low effect on HT29 cell at low concentrations.Conclusion: Due to the strong antiproliferative effect of C. fracta methanol extract on HT29 and Vero cell lines, it has potential anticancer properties and recommended for further development as such.Keywords: Cladophora fracta, Antiproliferative activity, Anti-cancer, Cytotoxic effect, Fatty aci

PERCEPTION OF ‘EDUCATION’ AS A POSITIVE SUPPORTIVE FACTOR IN TERMS OF BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS

Education is a systematic approach carried throughout a defined period of time. Throughout this process, it is aimed to teach, learn and exchange knowledge and abilities in certain places supplied with required equipment. In this general definition of education, it can be said that there has been a lot of changes and evolution in education as in every concept of the process. The main elements in these changes seems technological developments and it effects not only school conception but also education itself. This study aims to investigate and define the perceptions of the students towards education. The participants have been selected randomly from different levels and along with the demographic factors the related analysis has been carried in SPSS program. Along with a questionnaire, the participants are also asked to make their own definition of ‘education’. Education is handled as not a learning teaching process only, but as a social place where some behaviors are acquired along with the knowledge. At this point the relation between big five personality factors and positive support factors are evaluated in the concept of the study. The findings are evaluated according to the related literature and the gathered data is analyzed in SPSS program. The reliability analysis show that the questionnaire is highly reliable (Cronbach-alpha=.879). The collected data are applied to MANOVA and correlation tests along with the descriptive analysis. Article visualizations

SELF COMPASSION LEVELS OF ERASMUS AND NON-ERASMUS STUDENTS

Erasmus is a program actively applied in many universities in many focus areas since 1987 (Erasmus Program, 2017) It has been defined as ‘the opportunity of students to study or gain work experience in a different European country.’ It has thirty years of background in Turkey and one of the main purposes of the program is to help participants to develop their personal, educational, and cultural conceptions. It is a varied exchange process that takes place both in educational and cultural levels. In this varied exchange environment process, participants experience many problematic or tough situations such as being away from home and familiar environment, not knowing the target language, etc. The study aims to compare the self-compassion levels of the Erasmus participants and Non-Erasmus ones. It is because self-compassion is considered as an emotional balancing strategy that transforms the negative emotions and ideas into self-acceptation and life satisfaction (Neff, 2003). Having a life-changing experience Erasmus can be said a key element in developing self-compassion levels and defining the participants `levels, Self-Compassion Scale (Deniz, Kesici & Sumer, 2008) was applied. Non-Erasmus ones, meaning the same level students but not the part of any Erasmus project, were also applied the same questionnaire to make comparisons. It seems both of the participant groups have similar problems and the difference in self-compassion levels of the participants is tried to be defined. The gathered data is analyzed in the SPSS program.  Article visualizations

The diversity of flower-visiting insects in the gardens of English country houses

Flower-visiting insects provide essential pollination services, ensuring both global food security and the continuity of wild plants. Recently documented declines in pollinators give cause for concern. Identifying previously unappreciated habitats that support diverse assemblages of these insects is an essential first step in mitigating further losses. This study evaluates, for the first time, the role that large English country-house gardens play in supporting flower visitors within expanses of intensively farmed agricultural land. Focussing on 17 properties in lowland Central England, the results show that these novel ecosystems are important sites for hoverflies, bees and butterflies. In 2010 almost 10,000 flower-visitors from 174 species were recorded Hoverflies were the only group to show a significant difference in species richness across the sites. An important characteristic of these rural gardens is the high diversity of flowering plants available. More than a fifth of the world's plant families were represented, of which approximately 68% were non-native. The results showed that flower visitors did not prefer native plants over aliens, and that the dominance by aliens was no barrier for extensive use by the insects present. Both the species richness and abundance of flower visitors increased as plant richness increased. The study revealed that half of all insect-plant interaction networks examined exhibited a nested structure, a common feature of natural environments that has not previously been assessed in rural gardens. In addition to flower resources influencing insect species richness, landscape-scale effects were also significant. Insect groups responded differently to components in the landscape according to the time of year and the spatial scale considered. Bumblebees exhibited the greatest response to landscape factors and did so at larger scales than other groups. The deployment of commercial trap-nests for solitary cavity-nesting red mason bees in walled gardens revealed new insights into the differential mortality suffered by male and female progeny. Female offspring were found to be disproportionately affected by a combination of development and parasitism losses. This finding suggests that effective mitigation strategies are needed before this species can be considered for use as a managed-pollinator. Further research assessing the benefits crops such as oilseed rape derive from the presence of insects in nearby rural gardens would be a useful addition to this work. Overall, the gardens of English country-houses emerge as sites of important natural as well as cultural heritage

Extinctions of aculeate pollinators in Britain and the role of large-scale agricultural changes

Pollinators are fundamental to maintaining both biodiversity and agricultural productivity, but habitat destruction, loss of flower resources, and increased use of pesticides are causing declines in their abundance and diversity. Using historical records we assessed the rate of extinction of bee and flower-visiting wasp species in Britain, from the mid 19th century to the present. The most rapid phase of extinction appears to be related to changes in agricultural policy and practice beginning in the 1920s, before the agricultural intensification prompted by the Second World War, often cited as the most important driver of biodiversity loss in Britain. Slowing of the extinction rate from the 1960s onwards may be due to prior loss of the most sensitive species and/or effective conservation programs

Use of Simulated Data for the Estimation of Prior Models in Kalman Filter-Based ECGI

Kalman filtering has been successfully applied to electrocardiographic imaging (ECGI) to improve the estimation accuracy, especially when a 'good' training set of epicardial potentials is available to estimate the prior statistics. Most methods in the literature use previously measured experimental data to obtain these training sets, which would not be feasible in a clinical application. In this study we explored the effectiveness of using simulated epicardial potentials and the corresponding BSPs for obtaining the prior models based on two approaches: maximum likelihood (MLIF) and maximum a posteriori (MAPIF) estimation. Our results showed that even using a simple simulation method, and large margin in the initial pacing location range (80mm here), simulated data can be used for defining the prior models in the Kalman filter-based-ECGI

Galanthus woronowii (amaryllidaceae)'nin antioksidan aktivitesi ve toplam fenolik içeriği

Plants have been used for medicinal purpose since ancient times. Due to the including bioactive secondary metabolites, plants have gained the great interest for drug discovery and development process. In this work, Galanthus woronowii was extracted with hexane, dichloromethane and ethyl acetate sequentially. After removing of the solvent by rotary evaporator, crude extracts were yielded. Antioxidant activity including 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2'-azino-bis(3- ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS) and reducing power assays were executed on corresponding extracts. In addition, total phenolic content was presented. Ethyl acetate extract included the most phenolic compounds and also it revealed the most antioxidant activity. Hence, this plant could be considered as a promising antioxidant agent.Bitkiler eski çağlardan beri tıbbi amaçlarla kullanılmaktadır. İçerdikleri biyoaktif sekonder metabolitlerden dolayı, bitkiler ilaç keşfi ve gelişimi için oldukça fazla ilgi görmektedir. Bu çalışmada, Galanthus woronowii türüne ait bitki materyalleri sırasıyla hekzan, diklorometan ve etil asetat ile ekstrakte edilmiştir. Çözücü dönerli buharlaştırıcı ile uzaklaştırıldıktan sonra ham ekstraktlar elde edilmiştir. Ekstraktların DPPH serbest radikal giderme, ABTS radikal katyon giderme ve indirgeme gücü aktiviteleri değerlendirilmiştir. Ayrıca toplan fenolik içerik belirlenmiştir. Etil asetat ekstraktının en çok fenolik içerdiği ve en yüksek antioksidan aktivite gösterdiği belirlenmiştir. Bu nedenlerle, bu bitki ümit verici antioksidan ajan olarak kabul edilebilir

Galanthus krasnovii (amaryllidaceae)'nin toplam fenolik içeriği ile antioksidan kapasitenin değerlendirilmesi

Natural products have gained the great interest due to their broad spectrum of biological activities. Galanthus krasnovii was dried at shade then extracted with hexane, dichloromethane, and ethyl acetate successively. After removing of solvent by reduced pressure, crude extracts of each solvent were yielded. Antioxidant activity including 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical, 2,2'-azinobis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS) radical cation and reducing power assays were carried out for each extract. Moreover, total phenolic content was determined. Total phenolic content of hexane-, dichloromethane-, and ethyl acetate extracts were found as 60.95 mg GAE/g extract, 71.90 GAE/g extract and 58.90 GAE/g extract respectively. Dichloromethane and ethyl acetate extract revealed the moderate antioxidant activity.Doğal ürünler geniş spektrumlu biyolojik aktivite göstermelerinden dolayı yoğun ilgi görmektedirler. Galanthus krasnovii gölgede kurutulduktan sonra sırasıyla hekzan, diklorometan ve etil asetat ile ekstrakte edildi. Düşük basınçta çözücü uzaklaştırıldıktan sonra her bir çözücünün ekstraktı elde edildi. Her bir ekstraktın, 1,1-difenil-2- pikralhidrazil(DPPH) radikal, 2,2'-azino-bis(3- etilbenzotiazolin-6- sülfirik asit) (ABTS) radikal katyon ve indirgeme gücü antioksidan çalışmaları gerçekleştirildi. Ayrıca, ekstraktların toplam fenolik içerikleri belirlendi. Hekzan-, diklorometan- ve etil asetat ekstraktlarının toplam fenolik içerikleri sırasıyla 60.95 mg GAE/g ekstrakt, 71.90 GAE/g ekstrakt ve 58.90 GAE/g ekstrakt olarak belirlendi. Diklorometan ve etil asetat ekstraktları orta derece aktivite gösterdi

The galactic cycle of extinction

Global extinction and geological events have previously been linked with galactic events such as spiral arm crossings and galactic plane oscillation. The expectation that these are repeating predictable events has led to studies of periodicity in a wide set of biological, geological and climatic phenomena. Using data on carbon isotope excursions, large igneous provinces and impact craters, we identify three time zones of high geological activity which relate to the timings of the passage of the Solar System through the spiral arms. These zones are shown to include a significantly large proportion of high extinction periods. The mass extinction events at the ends of the Ordovician, Permian and Cretaceous occur in the first zone, which contains the predicted midpoints of the spiral arms. The start of the Cambrian, end of the Devonian and end of the Triassic occur in the second zone. The pattern of extinction timing in relation to spiral arm structure is supported by the positions of the superchrons and the predicted speed of the spiral arms. The passage times through an arm are simple multiples of published results on impact and fossil record periodicity and galactic plane half-periods. The total estimated passage time through four arms is 703.8 Myr. The repetition of extinction events at the same points in different spiral arm crossings suggests a common underlying galactic cause of mass extinctions, mediated through galactic effects on geological, solar and extra-solar processes. The two largest impact craters (Sudbury and Vredefort), predicted to have occurred during the early part of the first zone, extend the possible pattern to more than 2000 million years ago