Book review: Nationalism, secessionism, and autonomy by André Lecours

In Nationalism, Secessionism, and Autonomy, André Lecours explores how autonomy is crucial to understanding why some nationalist movements become secessionist. By examining the institutional interactions behind secessionism, the book opens a new window of thought on the emergence of separatist movements, writes Onur Isci. Nationalism, Secessionism, and Autonomy. André Lecours. Oxford University Press. 2021

Book review: Nationalism, secessionism, and autonomy by André Lecours

In Nationalism, Secessionism, and Autonomy, André Lecours explores how autonomy is crucial to understanding why some nationalist movements become secessionist. By examining the institutional interactions behind secessionism, the book opens a new window of thought on the emergence of separatist movements, writes Onur Isci. Nationalism, Secessionism, and Autonomy. André Lecours. Oxford University Press. 2021

Book review: Nationalism, secessionism, and autonomy by André Lecours

In Nationalism, Secessionism, and Autonomy, André Lecours explores how autonomy is crucial to understanding why some nationalist movements become secessionist. By examining the institutional interactions behind secessionism, the book opens a new window of thought on the emergence of separatist movements, writes Onur Isci. Nationalism, Secessionism, and Autonomy. André Lecours. Oxford University Press. 2021

Cellulosic ethanol production via aqueous ammonia soaking pretreatment and simultaneous saccharification and fermentation

The most important energy challenges of the century are energy growth, energy security and climate protection. Cellulosic based fuels such as ethanol are poised to offer energy security, and economic and environmental benefits if the associated commercialization challenges are overcome. The main objective of this thesis is to evaluate a promising approach for cellulosic ethanol production and to present information to guide. This dissertation, completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Ph.D. degree, is prepared in the journal paper format, and includes four papers that have been published in or are prepared for submission to a journal. The objective of the first research chapter was to evaluate the effectiveness of an aqueous-ammonia soaking pretreatment method on ethanol production from switchgrass at bench scale. We have determined that ammonia soaking pretreatment method can be an effective method for the pretreatment of switchgrass. It was observed that after ammonia soaking, lignin and hemicellulose were partially removed, while the cellulose content of the lignocellulosic feedstock was preserved. The results also show that there is a tradeoff between pretreatment intensity and enzyme loading. The objective of the second paper was to scale up the bench scale simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) procedure and to identify the key issues of cellulosic ethanol production at larger scales. Pilot scale experiments (50 and 350-L fermentations) showed promising results that were similar to bench scale experiments. Material handling of the feedstock and bacterial contamination were the biggest challenges of the pilot scale fermentations. The third paper presents the techno-economic feasibility analysis of a full scale aqueous-ammonia soaked switchgrass fermentation process. It was determined that even though the aqueous-ammonia soaking pretreatment method provides advantages such as operating at ambient conditions, it is a capital-intensive process when implemented at commercial scale. Soaking time was the most important parameter that affected the total equipment cost. Feedstock and enzyme costs were identified to be the primary drivers of ethanol selling price. The objective of the last paper was to develop a rapid and easily adaptable SSF technique that offers the advantage of running a large number of samples at the same time using ammonia soaking as a pretreatment method. This research showed that ammonia soaking combined with SSF can be used as an easy and effective assay to determine ethanol yields of different feedstock. It was also observed that lignin concentration or near infrared reflectance spectroscopy can be used in directly to predict ethanol yields and can be used to guide biofuel feedstock selection in plant breeding research or in choosing feedstock for biofuel production

Investigation of martensitic transformations by ultrasonic and acoustic emission techniques

Acoustic emission (AE) daring martensitic transformation in nltinol, indium-cadmium, and indium-thallium alloys has been investigated and. the results have been compared with ultrasonic data of the same alloys. In indium-thallium and indium-cadmium alloys, acoustic emission is generated by a face-centred cubic ↔ face-centred tetragonal phase transition. On cooling, 'nitinol undergoes the diffusionless transition (like the indium-thallium alloys) from a body-centred cubic to a monoclinic structure. Elastic behaviour of TiNi and In-Tl alloys in the vicinity of the martensitic transformation is briefly discussed in the light of previous work (Pace, 1970 and Gunton,1973). A qualitative interpretation of acoustic emission from martensitic transformations has been outlined

Bilingual and monolingual students’ out-of-school learning environment in Turkey: A comparative study based on PISA 2018 data

Students’ out-of-school learning environment is one of the most prominent factors affecting their school success, which is mostly a source of inequity unfavoring disadvantaged groups. In some countries including Turkey, bilingual students are among disadvantaged groups because most of them are from immigrant families with low socioeconomic status. PISA provides extensive data about students’ out-of-school learning environment to be analyzed. In this context, the purpose of this study is to compare monolingual and bilingual students’ out-of-school learning environment based on PISA 2018 data. The participants of this study are the PISA 2018 sample of Turkey including 6890 15-year-old students selected from 186 schools through stratified random sampling. PISA 2018 data were collected by PISA Student Questionnaire, which is an online data collection instrument. Results showed that there are meaningful differences between monolingual and bilingual students with respect to all variables representing their out-of-school learning environment with medium effect sizes. These findings indicate a possible inequity problem in the Turkish Education System with respect to out-of-school learning environments unfavoring bilingual students. To achieve a permanent solution, socio-economic inequities need system-wide reforms that are often difficult to execute. However, it is possible to reduce the negative effects of this problem by means of some precautions. In this regard, providing training for parents and increasing the accessibility of schools’ educational sources and technologies for disadvantaged students were suggested in this study

Influence of brassinosteroids on fruit yield and quality of table grape 'Alphonse Lavallée'

This research was carried out to determine the effects of a brassinosteroid compound (22S-, 23S-homobrassinolide) on yield and quality attributes of a field-grown table grape cultivar 'Alphonse Lavallée'. The vines were sprayed at anthesis (first week of May) with the compound over two growing seasons. The solutions were prepared at the concentrations of control, 10-3 and 10-4 mg∙L-1. Clusters were harvested when those of the control vines reached 16 °Brix. Yield and quality parameters were analyzed. There were no clear effects of the compound on yield and quality, except for the cluster length. The low concentration resulted in longer clusters. High concentration increased the tensile strength of the pedicel to some degree. Seasonal differences were observed in most of the parameters studied

Effects of Cultural Practices on Total Phenolics and Vitamin C Content of Organic Table Grapes

The total phenolic and vitamin C contents of organic table grapes were determined by spectrophotometry and HPLC, respectively, after several quality-increasing treatments were applied at véraison for two growing seasons. Cane girdling and cluster-berry thinning resulted in different responses in the cultivars. ‘Red Globe’ generally was found to produce the lowest quantity of total phenolics in the berries, while ‘Trakya Ilkeren’ was the cultivar that accumulated the highest phenolics. Vitamin C accumulation in the berries was also affected by the treatments. The effect of the treatments was inconclusive in ‘Buca Razakısı’. The application of both girdling and thinning caused more accumulation of vitamin C in the ‘Alphonse L.’ and ‘Trakya Ilkeren’ berries

Turkish Validity and Reliability of DREEM Questionnaire used in Assessment of Learning Environment in Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Undergraduate Education

Purpose: To create a version of the DREEM (The Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure) questionnaire used in the evaluation of the educational environment in health sciences in Turkish and investigate its validity and reliability. Methods: The Turkish form of the questionnaire was created as a first step of our study. It was answered by 401 undergraduate students studying at Marmara University Faculty of Health Sciences (in Turkey) at the department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation. The SPSS 11.5 software package program was used in the analysis of the obtained data. Results: 55% (n=221) of the students who participated in the study were female and 45% (n= 180) were male with an average age of 21.34 ± 2.04 years. Reliability analysis was performed with internal consistency analysis (Cronbach Alpha analysis). In the internal consistency analysis, the Cronbach Alpha coefficient was calculated as 0.92 and the internal consistency of the questionnaire was determined. The validity of the questionnaire was assessed by Explanatory Factor Analysis. According to the analysis, 6 factors were revealed. Since the data explained 53.38% of the total variance, the DREEM survey was accepted to have construct validity. Conclusion: Our study proved that the Turkish version of the DREEM questionnaire is valid and reliable to use in physiotherapy and rehabilitation learning environment. It was concluded that DREEM is an effective tool for the evaluation and regulation of education in the institutions providing undergraduate education.Key Words: DREEM, Physiotherapy Education, Validity, Reliability, Learning EnvironmentDOI: 10.7176/JHMN/78-0

Bayesian network prior: network analysis of biological data using external knowledge

Motivation: Reverse engineering GI networks from experimental data is a challenging task due to the complex nature of the networks and the noise inherent in the data. One way to overcome these hurdles would be incorporating the vast amounts of external biological knowledge when building interaction networks. We propose a framework where GI networks are learned from experimental data using Bayesian networks (BNs) and the incorporation of external knowledge is also done via a BN that we call Bayesian Network Prior (BNP). BNP depicts the relation between various evidence types that contribute to the event ‘gene interaction’ and is used to calculate the probability of a candidate graph (G) in the structure learning process. Results: Our simulation results on synthetic, simulated and real biological data show that the proposed approach can identify the underlying interaction network with high accuracy even when the prior information is distorted and outperforms existing methods