Spalax denizliensis sp. nov. (Spalacidae, Rodentia) from an early Pleistocene-aged locality in the Denizli Basin (southwestern Turkey)

It is thought that Spalacidae (Rodentia, Mammalia) originated in Anatolia. They are widespread among Neogene-aged faunas in Anatolia and they are used as zonal fossils because of their strong evolutionary dynamics. Only one fossil species (S. odessanus, Middle Pliocene) has been identified from the genus Spalax, which has more than 14 species presently. There are no fossil findings of this genus in Anatolia. Early Pleistocene-aged Spalax denizliensis sp. nov. from the Denizli Basin is the youngest fossil Spalax species and it will be helpful to understand the evolution of recent Spalax species. © TÜBİTAK

Alawi syncretism : beliefs and traditions in the shrine of Hüseyin Gazi

Religious Anthropology studies the origins, evolution and functions of religions. The discipline researching religious beliefs and rituals comparatively with cross-cultural perspectives tries to enlighten the belief world of the mankind. Religion, as a term, can be defined as "believing as well as worshipping to the supernatural powers and/or beings by the individual who are emotionally or consciously devoted to them" (Örnek 1988: 127). There have been a number of theories so far which try to bring an explanation to the origins and the evolution of religion. In these theories, Fetishism, cults of nature, animism, Totemism, dynamism, Manism, magic, polytheism, monotheism as well as certain physiological phenomena have been particularized as evolutionary stages and forms of belief (Evans-Pritchard 1998: 124). All of these theories have the perspective of so called "progressive" and / or "unilinear" that maintain a religion which has reached ongoing stages and that communities which have developed from primitiveness to civilization. They argue that there has only been one single line of progress, and all of the communities are bound to go through the same evolutionary stages

Simulation based estimation of threshold moving average models with contemporaneous shock asymmetry

Persistence of shocks to macroeconomic time series may differ depending on the sign or on whether a threshold value is crossed. For example, positive shocks to gross domestic product may be more persistent than negative shocks. Threshold (or asymmetric) moving average (TMA) models, by explicitly taking into account threshold behavior, can help discriminate whether there exists persistence asymmetry. Recently, building on the works of Wecker (1981, JASA, 76(373)) and De Gooijer (1998, JTSA, 19(1)) among others, Guay and Scaillet (2003, JBES, 21(1)) proposed TMA model in which both contemporaneous and lagged asymmetric effects are present and provided indirect inference framework for estimation and testing. This paper builds on their work and examines the properties of efficient method of moments (EMM) estimation of TMA class of models using Monte Carlo simulation experiments. The model is also applied to analyze the persistence properties of shocks in Turkish business cycles.Threshold moving average models, contemporaneous asymmetry, persistence of shocks, Efficient Method of Moments

Novel optical architectures for LED-based LCOS projectors

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