German-Speaking Academic Émigrés in Turkey of the 1940s

The article explores the academic working conditions for about 144 German émigré professors in Turkey in the 1930s and 1940s. Many of them migrated from Nazi Germany to Turkey. It is asked how the exiled professors have been seen by post graduate students. This sheds light on the mentality of a new generation of academics, the first in the newly-established Republican Turkey. Some of these students have been interviewed (oral history). Memory, however, is not a mirror that represents historical facts, but a field where the past is reconstructed. Most of the interviewees are graduates of Ankara University and some were post-doctoral assistants at Ankara University. The focus is mainly on the faculties situated in the Turkish capital, specifically, DTCF (the Language, History and Geography Faculty) and the Faculty of Law. The former students concur with the interpretation that the exiled professors gave them new intellectual perspectives and took eminent influence on their careers. As it turns out, the German professors were well integrated into Turkish society in terms of governmental contacts, although they did not become part of the Turkish cultural scene. With rising Turkish nationalism and Pan-Turkism in the later 1940s they were facing an increasingly hostile political atmosphere. This led most of them to dismissal from their faculties; they left for America or other countries in Europe. The highly positive commemoration of the émigré professors by their former postgraduate students can also be read as the commemoration of the period of Atatürk and his reforms.The article explores the academic working conditions for about 144 German émigré professors in Turkey in the 1930s and 1940s. Many of them migrated from Nazi Germany to Turkey. It is asked how the exiled professors have been seen by post graduate students. This sheds light on the mentality of a new generation of academics, the first in the newly-established Republican Turkey. Some of these students have been interviewed (oral history). Memory, however, is not a mirror that represents historical facts, but a field where the past is reconstructed. Most of the interviewees are graduates of Ankara University and some were post-doctoral assistants at Ankara University. The focus is mainly on the faculties situated in the Turkish capital, specifically, DTCF (the Language, History and Geography Faculty) and the Faculty of Law. The former students concur with the interpretation that the exiled professors gave them new intellectual perspectives and took eminent influence on their careers. As it turns out, the German professors were well integrated into Turkish society in terms of governmental contacts, although they did not become part of the Turkish cultural scene. With rising Turkish nationalism and Pan-Turkism in the later 1940s they were facing an increasingly hostile political atmosphere. This led most of them to dismissal from their faculties; they left for America or other countries in Europe. The highly positive commemoration of the émigré professors by their former postgraduate students can also be read as the commemoration of the period of Atatürk and his reforms

"In muliere exhibeas virum" : women, power and authority in early twelfth-century Anglo-Norman chronicles

Ankara : The Department of History, Bilkent University, 2007.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2007.Includes bibliographical references leaves 114-120.This thesis analyses the relationship of women with power and authority within the context of the evidence provided by early twelfth-century Anglo-Norman chronicles between 1095 and 1154. It discusses the basic factors that affected the chroniclers’ approaches to royal and noble women and examines the perception of female power and authority in Anglo-Norman society together with a close assessment of certain developments in society. In the framework of these, it also evaluates the case of Empress Matilda, the first woman to deserve the right to gain the throne in English history. This study presents us with the conclusion that, contrary to the contemporary assumptions that emphasize a change for the worse for the position of high-ranking women, the chroniclers of early twelfth-century did not mention about such a weakening or decrease in female power and authority. The evidence offered by the chronicle sources reveals that the chroniclers recognized the power and authority exercised by the high-ranking women in politics and government of Anglo-Norman realm. They also encouraged those women who took active roles in society by praising them in masculine terms.Mercan, F ÖzdenM.S

Natural Language Watermarking and Tamperproofing

Two main results in the area of information hiding in natural language text are presented. A semantically-based scheme dramatically improves the information-hiding capacity of any text through two techniques: (i) modifying the granularity of meaning of individual sentences, whereas our own previous scheme kept the granularity fixed, and (ii) halving the number of sentences affected by the watermark. No longer a "long text, short watermark" approach, it now makes it possible to watermark short texts like wire agency reports. Using both the above-mentioned semantic marking scheme and our previous syntactically-based method hides information in a way that reveals any non-trivial tampering with the text (while re-formatting is not considered to be tampering---the problem would be solved trivially otherwise by hiding a hash of the text) with a probability 1--2 , n being its number of sentences and a small positive integer based on the extent of co-referencing

The catalytic subunit of the system L1 amino acid transporter (S<i>lc7a5</i>) facilitates nutrient signalling in mouse skeletal muscle

The System L1-type amino acid transporter mediates transport of large neutral amino acids (LNAA) in many mammalian cell-types. LNAA such as leucine are required for full activation of the mTOR-S6K signalling pathway promoting protein synthesis and cell growth. The SLC7A5 (LAT1) catalytic subunit of high-affinity System L1 functions as a glycoprotein-associated heterodimer with the multifunctional protein SLC3A2 (CD98). We generated a floxed Slc7a5 mouse strain which, when crossed with mice expressing Cre driven by a global promoter, produced Slc7a5 heterozygous knockout (Slc7a5+/-) animals with no overt phenotype, although homozygous global knockout of Slc7a5 was embryonically lethal. Muscle-specific (MCK Cre-mediated) Slc7a5 knockout (MS-Slc7a5-KO) mice were used to study the role of intracellular LNAA delivery by the SLC7A5 transporter for mTOR-S6K pathway activation in skeletal muscle. Activation of muscle mTOR-S6K (Thr389 phosphorylation) in vivo by intraperitoneal leucine injection was blunted in homozygous MS-Slc7a5-KO mice relative to wild-type animals. Dietary intake and growth rate were similar for MS-Slc7a5-KO mice and wild-type littermates fed for 10 weeks (to age 120 days) with diets containing 10%, 20% or 30% of protein. In MS-Slc7a5-KO mice, Leu and Ile concentrations in gastrocnemius muscle were reduced by ∼40% as dietary protein content was reduced from 30 to 10%. These changes were associated with >50% decrease in S6K Thr389 phosphorylation in muscles from MS-Slc7a5-KO mice, indicating reduced mTOR-S6K pathway activation, despite no significant differences in lean tissue mass between groups on the same diet. MS-Slc7a5-KO mice on 30% protein diet exhibited mild insulin resistance (e.g. reduced glucose clearance, larger gonadal adipose depots) relative to control animals. Thus, SLC7A5 modulates LNAA-dependent muscle mTOR-S6K signalling in mice, although it appears non-essential (or is sufficiently compensated by e.g. SLC7A8 (LAT2)) for maintenance of normal muscle mass

Differentiation and neuro-protective properties of immortalized human tooth germ stem cells

Stem cells are considered to be promising therapeutic options in many neuro-degenerative diseases and injuries to the central nervous system, including brain ischemia and spinal cord trauma. Apart from the gold standard embryonic and mesenchymal origin, human tooth germ stem cells (hTGSCs) have also been shown to enjoy the characteristics of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and the ability to differentiate into adipo-, chondro-, osteo- and neuro-genic cells, suggesting that they might serve as potential alternatives in the cellular therapy of various maladies. Immortalization of stem cells may be useful to avoid senescence of stem cells and to increase their proliferation potential without altering their natural characteristics. This study evaluated the expression of stem cell markers, surface antigens, differentiation capacity, and karyotype of hTGSCs that have been immortalized by human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) or simian vacuolating virus 40 (SV40) large T antigen. These undying cells were also evaluated for their neuro-protective potential using an in vitro SH-SY5Y neuro-blastoma model treated with hydrogen-peroxide or doxo-rubicin. Although hTGSC-SV40 showed abnormal karyotypes, our results suggest that hTGSC-hTERT preserve their MSC characteristics, differentiation capacity and normal karyotype, and they also possess high proliferation rate and neuro-protective effects even at great passage numbers. These peculiars indicate that hTGSC-hTERT could be used as a viable model for studying adipo-, osteo-, odonto- and neuro-genesis, as well as neuro-protection of MSCs, which may serve as a springboard for potentially utilizing dental waste material in cellular therapy. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Deletions in VANGL1 are a risk factor for antibody-mediated kidney disease

We identify an intronic deletion in VANGL1 that predisposes to renal injury in high risk populations through a kidney-intrinsic process. Half of all SLE patients develop nephritis, yet the predisposing mechanisms to kidney damage remain poorly understood. There is limited evidence of genetic contribution to specific organ involvement in SLE.(1,2) We identify a large deletion in intron 7 of Van Gogh Like 1 (VANGL1), which associates with nephritis in SLE patients. The same deletion occurs at increased frequency in an indigenous population (Tiwi Islanders) with 10-fold higher rates of kidney disease compared with non-indigenous populations. Vangl1 hemizygosity in mice results in spontaneous IgA and IgG deposition within the glomerular mesangium in the absence of autoimmune nephritis. Serum transfer into B cell-deficient Vangl1(+/-) mice results in mesangial IgG deposition indicating that Ig deposits occur in a kidney-intrinsic fashion in the absence of Vangl1. These results suggest that Vangl1 acts in the kidney to prevent Ig deposits and its deficiency may trigger nephritis in individuals with SLE

Distribution pattern of psoriasis, anxiety and depression as possible causes of sexual dysfunction in patients with moderate to severe psoriasis

BACKGROUND: Psoriasis may significantly impair sexual function. Depression and organic factors appear to play a key role in this relation. However, beyond genital psoriasis, the importance of the disease's distribution patterns has not been considered. OBJECTIVES: To research sexual function in psoriasis patients and investigate the roles of anxiety, depression and psoriasis' distribution patterns in sexual dysfunction. METHODS: A comparative study matched for sex and age was performed. Eighty patients with moderate to severe psoriasis and 80 healthy controls were included. The participants completed the Massachusetts General Hospital-Sexual Functioning Questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Self-Administered Psoriasis Area and Severity Index. RESULTS: Psoriasis was associated with sexual dysfunction, odds ratio=5.5 (CI 95% 2.6-11.3; p<0.001). Certain distribution patterns of psoriasis, involving specific body regions, were associated with an increase in sexual dysfunction in the group presenting the disease, odds ratio 7.9 (CI 95% 2.3-33.4; p<0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified anxiety and depression, and the involvement of these specific areas, as possible independent risk factors for sexual dysfunction in patients with moderate to severe psoriasis. CONCLUSION: This study identifies body areas potentially related to sexual dysfunction, independently of anxiety and depression, in psoriasis patients. The results suggest that the assessment of sexual dysfunction and the involvement of these body areas should be considered as disease severity criteria when choosing the treatment for psoriasis patients

GM-CSF drives dysregulated hematopoietic stem cell activity and pathogenic extramedullary myelopoiesis in experimental spondyloarthritis

Dysregulated hematopoiesis occurs in several chronic inflammatory diseases, but it remains unclear how hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in the bone marrow (BM) sense peripheral inflammation and contribute to tissue damage in arthritis. Here, we show the HSC gene expression program is biased toward myelopoiesis and differentiation skewed toward granulocyte-monocyte progenitors (GMP) during joint and intestinal inflammation in experimental spondyloarthritis (SpA). GM-CSF-receptor is increased on HSCs and multipotent progenitors, favoring a striking increase in myelopoiesis at the earliest hematopoietic stages. GMP accumulate in the BM in SpA and, unexpectedly, at extramedullary sites: in the inflamed joints and spleen. Furthermore, we show that GM-CSF promotes extramedullary myelopoiesis, tissue-toxic neutrophil accumulation in target organs, and GM-CSF prophylactic or therapeutic blockade substantially decreases SpA severity. Surprisingly, besides CD4+ T cells and innate lymphoid cells, mast cells are a source of GM-CSF in this model, and its pathogenic production is promoted by the alarmin IL-33