The moderating role of higher education on entrepreneurship

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Purpose: Entrepreneurial activities have a great impact on the economy and entrepreneurs are even more important for developing countries. Accordingly, the need for entrepreneurial graduates is increasing. Thus, this study aims to investigate the role of higher education with regard to the entrepreneurial intentions and traits of university students in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was administered to freshmen and senior university students studying business and engineering at five established universities in Turkey, yielding a total sample of 767. Findings: This logistic regression analysis indicates that some personality traits play an important role in influencing the students' intention to become entrepreneurs. The study findings also suggest that students with higher education have a higher intention of becoming entrepreneurs. Research limitations/implications: The cross-sectional method of data collection was used. However, longitudinal data from a bigger sample would have provided more valid support for the study. Practical implications: The findings of this study have important implications for those who formulate, deliver and evaluate educational policy in Turkey. Based on the findings, policy makers may wish to review the current higher educational system and make changes to foster students' entrepreneurial mindset. Originality/value: The study fills the gap in the literature by particularly testing the moderating effect of education between entrepreneurial traits and intentions. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Tourism Students' Entrepreneurial Intentions

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This study aims to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial traits, socio-cultural background and entrepreneurial intention of university students in the UK and Turkey. 409 tourism students were surveyed to measure entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial traits including risk-taking propensity, innovativeness, tolerance of ambiguity and locus of control and socio-cultural factors. The findings indicate that there is a statistically significant relationship between innovation, propensity to take risks, entrepreneurial family and entrepreneurial intention. Education does not seem to play an important role in fostering entrepreneurial traits and intentions of university students. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd

Effect of number of burst assemblers on TCP performance in optical burst switching networks

Burst assembly mechanism is one of the fundamental factors that determine the performance of an optical burst switching (OBS) network. In this paper, we investigate the influence of number of burstifiers on TCP performance for an OBS network. An ns2-based OBS network simulator is developed for simulating the optical network. The goodput of TCP flows between an ingress and an egress nodes traveling through an optical network is studied for different values of the number of assembly buffers per destination. First, the losses resulting from the congestion in the core OBS network are modeled using a burst independent Bernoulli loss model. Then, a background burst traffic is generated to create contention at a core node in order to realize a burst dependent loss model. Simulation results show that for an OBS network employing timer-based assembly algorithm, TCP goodput increases as the number of burst assemblers is increased for both types of loss models. The improvement from one burstifier to moderate number of burst assemblers is significant (15-50% depending on the burst loss probability, processing delay and the TCP version), but the goodput difference between moderate number of buffers andperflow aggregation is relatively small, implying that a cost-effective OBS edge switch implementation should use moderate number of assembly buffers per destination for enhanced TCP performance. © 2006 IEEE

Using multiple per egress burstifiers for enhanced TCP performance in OBS networks

Burst assembly mechanism is one of the fundamental factors that determine the performance of an optical burst switching (OBS) network. In this paper, we investigate the influence of the number of burstifiers on TCP performance for an OBS network. The goodput of TCP flows between an ingress node and an egress node traveling through an optical network is studied as the number of assembly buffers per destination varies. First, the burst-length independent losses resulting from the contention in the core OBS network using a non-void-filling burst scheduling algorithm, e.g., Horizon, are studied. Then, burst-length dependent losses arising as a result of void-filling scheduling algorithms, e.g., LAUC-VF, are studied for two different TCP flow models: FTP-type long-lived flows and variable size short-lived flows. Simulation results show that for both types of scheduling algorithms, both types of TCP flow models, and different TCP versions (Reno, Newreno and Sack), TCP goodput increases as the number of burst assemblers per egress node is increased for an OBS network employing timer-based assembly algorithm. The improvement from one burstifier to moderate number of burst assemblers is significant (15-50% depending on the burst loss probability, per-hop processing delay, and the TCP version), but the goodput difference between moderate number of buffers and per-flow aggregation is relatively small, implying that an OBS edge switch should use moderate number of assembly buffers per destination for enhanced TCP performance without substantially increasing the hardware complexity. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

NOBS: An ns2 based simulation tool for performance evaluation of TCP traffic in OBS networks

Performance evaluation of TCP traffic in OBS networks has been under intensive study, since TCP constitutes the majority of Internet traffic. As a reliable and publicly available simulator, ns2 has been widely used for studying TCP/IP networks; however ns2 lacks many of the components for simulating optical burst switching networks. In this paper, an ns2 based OBS simulation tool (nOBS), which is built for studying burst assembly, scheduling and contention resolution algorithms in OBS networks is presented. The node and link objects in OBS are extended in nOBS for developing optical nodes and optical links. The ingress, core and egress node functionalities are combined into a common optical node architecture, which comprises agents responsible for burstification, routing and scheduling. The effects of burstification parameters, e.g., burstification timeout, burst size and number of burstification buffers per egress node, on TCP performance are investigated using nOBS for different TCP versions and different network topologies

An Immunofluorescence Assay to Detect Urediniospores of \u3ci\u3ePhakopsora pachyrhizi\u3c/i\u3e

An indirect immunofluorescence spore assay (IFSA) was developed to detect urediniospores of Phakopsora pachyrhizi, utilizing rabbit polyclonal antisera produced in response to intact nongerminated (SBR1A) or germinated (SBR2) urediniospores of P. pachyrhizi. Both antisera were specific to Phakopsora spp. and did not react with other common soybean pathogens or healthy soybean leaf tissue in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). SBR1A and SBR2 bound to P. pachyrhizi and P. meibomiae urediniospores were detected with goat anti-rabbit Alexa Fluor 488-tagged antiserum using a Leica DM IRB epifluorescent microscope with an I3 blue filter (excitation 450 to 490 nm, emission 515 nm). The assay was performed on standard glass microscope slides; double-sided tape was superior to a thin coating of petroleum jelly both in retaining spores and in immunofluorescence. The IFSA was used to confirm the identity of P. pachyrhizi urediniospores captured on glass slides from passive air samplers from Georgia, Kentucky, and Ohio during 2006

Phylogeny and S1 Gene Variation of Infectious Bronchitis Virus Detected in Broilers and Layers in Turkey

Citation: Yilmaz, H., Altan, E., Cizmecigil, U. Y., Gurel, A., Ozturk, G. Y., Bamac, O. E., . . . Turan, N. (2016). Phylogeny and S1 Gene Variation of Infectious Bronchitis Virus Detected in Broilers and Layers in Turkey. Avian Diseases, 60(3), 596-602. doi:10.1637/11346-120915-Reg.1The avian coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus (AvCoV-IBV) is recognized as an important global pathogen because new variants are a continuous threat to the poultry industry worldwide. This study investigates the genetic origin and diversity of AvCoV-IBV by analysis of the S1 sequence derived from 49 broiler flocks and 14 layer flocks in different regions of Turkey. AvCoV-IBV RNA was detected in 41 (83.6%) broiler flocks and nine (64.2%) of the layer flocks by TaqMan real-time RT-PCR. In addition, AvCoV-IBV RNA was detected in the tracheas 27/30 (90%), lungs 31/49 (62.2%), caecal tonsils 7/22 (31.8%), and kidneys 4/49 (8.1%) of broiler flocks examined. Pathologic lesions, hemorrhages, and mononuclear infiltrations were predominantly observed in tracheas and to a lesser extent in the lungs and a few in kidneys. A phylogenetic tree based on partial S1 sequences of the detected AvCoV-IBVs (including isolates) revealed that 1) viruses detected in five broiler flocks were similar to the IBV vaccines Ma5, H120, M41; 2) viruses detected in 24 broiler flocks were similar to those previously reported from Turkey and to Israel variant-2 strains; 3) viruses detected in seven layer flocks were different from those found in any of the broiler flocks but similar to viruses previously reported from Iran, India, and China (similar to Israel variant-1 and 4/91 serotypes); and 4) that the AVCoV-IBV, Israeli variant-2 strain, found to be circulating in Turkey appears to be undergoing molecular evolution. In conclusion, genetically different AvCoV-IBV strains, including vaccine-like strains, based on their partial S1 sequence, are circulating in broiler and layer chicken flocks in Turkey and the Israeli variant-2 strain is undergoing evolution. © 2016 American Association of Avian Pathologists

Phylogeny and evolution of infectious bursal disease virus circulating in Turkish broiler flocks

The emergence of new infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) variants can threaten poultry health and production all over the world causing significant economic losses. Therefore, this study was performed to determine IBDV molecular epidemilogy, VP2 gene variation, and corresponding pathological lesions in IBDV infected chickens in Turkey. For this, 1855 bursa of Fabricius samples were collected from 371 vaccinated broiler flocks. Atrophia and haemorrhages were seen in the bursa Fabricius of very virulent IBDV (vvIBDV) infected chickens. Partial VP2 gene was sequenced and phylogenetic, recombination, and evolutionary analyses were performed. 1548 (83.5%) out of 1855 of bursa of Fabricius samples were IBDV positive and 1525 of those could be sequenced. The recombination analysis did not detect occurrence of any recombination event among the Turkish strains. Among 1525 sequenced samples, 1380 of them were found to be classical strains. Among 1380 classical strains, 1317 were similar to IBDV 2512, 11 to Faragher 52/70, 40 to 228 E, and 12 to Lukert strain. Out of 1525 reverse transcriptase ploymerase chain reaction positive samples, 144 of them were found to be similar to vvIBDV-VP2 gene reported to GenBank previously. The phylogenetic tree performed on a broad sequence dataset demonstrated grouping of vvIBDV Turkish strains in three different clusters, including sequences collected also from Iraq and Kuwait (Cluster 1), Indian (Cluster 2), and a distinct Turkish-only cluster (Cluster 3). The evolutionary rate estimation on branches/clades including Turkish strain mirrored the expected one for RNA viruses and no significant differences were found among different considered branches. In conclusion, results of this study indicate that vvIBDV strains similar to those circulating in various countries in the Middle East are present and undergoing evolution in chickens from Turkish broiler flocks. This point needs to be taken into account in planning adequate control strategies

Divergent in situ expression of IL-31 and IL-31RA between bullous pemphigoid and pemphigus vulgaris

Bullous pemphigoid (BP) and pemphigus vulgaris (PV) are two major autoimmune blistering skin diseases. Unlike PV, BP is accompanied by intense pruritus, suggesting possible involvement of the pruritogenic cytokine IL-31. However, the underlying mechanisms of the clinical difference between BP and PV in terms of pruritus are not fully understood. To compare the expression levels of IL-31 and its receptor IL-31RA in the lesional skin, including peripheral nerves in BP and PV patients, immunohistochemical staining for IL-31 and IL-31RA was performed in skin samples of BP and PV patients and healthy controls (HC). The IL-31RA-expressing area in epidermis and peripheral nerves was analysed using ImageJ and the percentage of positive cells for IL-31/IL-31RA in dermal infiltrating cells was manually quantified. Quantitative analyses revealed that IL-31/IL-31RA expressions in the epidermis and dermal infiltrate were significantly increased in BP compared to PV and HC. The difference between BP and PV became more obvious when advanced bullous lesions were compared. Peripheral nerves in BP lesions presented significantly higher IL-31RA expression compared to PV lesions. In conclusion, we found significantly augmented expressions of IL-31/IL-31RA in BP lesions, including peripheral nerves, in comparison to PV. These results suggest a possible contribution of IL-31/IL-31RA signalling to the difference between BP and PV in the facilitation of pruritus and local skin inflammation, raising the possibility of therapeutic targeting of the IL-31/IL-31RA pathway in BP patients