Ecological footprint, energy usage, and economic progress relationship: the MINT countries

This study explores the relationship between energy usage, per capita income, and ecological footprint as an assessment for ecological deterioration in the MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey) countries for the 1976–2016 period. This work estimates the long-term correlation between variables using a vector error correction model through panel vector autoregression analysis. By incorporating endogenous interactions between the variables in the system, the VAR approach addresses the endogeneity problem. Also, the impulse response functions and the effects of variables on certain lags are evaluated. Then, the cointegration between variables has been estimated with dynamic and fully modified ordinary least squares panel analysis to assess the longterm relationship further. After the examinations, a satisfactory Granger causality result of the short-term variables could not be achieved. However, the same cannot be said for long-run causality. In the impulse-response functions, the interactions of the variables on each other are evaluated. Only the increase in energy consumption, whose coefficient is statistically significant and coherent, increases the flexibility of the ecological footprint

Predicting Financial Crises and Signal Indicators in G7 Countries

This study aims to detect financial crises and their signal indicators in G7 countries from 1990 to 2016. For this purpose, fourteen leading economic indicators supported by the economic literature were examined for signaling and the 24-month crisis window before the beginning of a crisis. Among them, successful crisis estimators were determined by the noise signal ratio. The identified crisis estimators provide essential information about the dynamics of economies and the channels of the crisis affecting them. Our findings may help policymakers determine adverse policies against crisis, avoid significant losses, and stabilize the world economy and national economies

Abandoning Microfinance in Turkey: An Explanatory Study

Microfinance has brought a change in the economic life of the participants of the society by providing an opportunity to the financially disadvantaged individuals to be employed and be financially independent. Microfinance is a financial instrument that can be utilized to combat poverty and other challenges hindering the progress of countries. It has managed to impact the lives of thousands of families within Turkey and on a global level too. Recently, it has been observed that the number of clients of microfinance has decreased. Therefore, the objective of the research is to identify the reasons of dissatisfaction among microfinance borrowers which leads to their separation from the microfinance institution. A total of 150 drop-out clients from Turkish Grameen Microfinance Program have been considered through the random sampling method for the research via the survey method of face-to-face interviews. Change in income level of the drop-out clients was an important reference in the method of microfinance as an instrument against poverty. The recommendations of this research like repayment period and microcredit limit can be considered and these suggestions may contribute to better managerial strategies and organizational plans for the development of microfinance institutions

Automated bird counting with deep learning for regional bird distribution mapping

A challenging problem in the field of avian ecology is deriving information on bird population movement trends. This necessitates the regular counting of birds which is usually not an easily-achievable task. A promising attempt towards solving the bird counting problem in a more consistent and fast way is to predict the number of birds in different regions from their photos. For this purpose, we exploit the ability of computers to learn from past data through deep learning which has been a leading sub-field of AI for image understanding. Our data source is a collection of on-ground photos taken during our long run of birding activity. We employ several state-of-the-art generic object-detection algorithms to learn to detect birds, each being a member of one of the 38 identified species, in natural scenes. The experiments revealed that computer-aided counting outperformed the manual counting with respect to both accuracy and time. As a real-world application of image-based bird counting, we prepared the spatial bird order distribution and species diversity maps of Turkey by utilizing the geographic information system (GIS) technology. Our results suggested that deep learning can assist humans in bird monitoring activities and increase citizen scientists’ participation in large-scale bird surveys.No sponso

Flavonoids in Kidney Health and Disease

This review summarizes the latest advances in knowledge on the effects of flavonoids on renal function in health and disease. Flavonoids have antihypertensive, antidiabetic, and antiinflammatory effects, among other therapeutic activities. Many of them also exert renoprotective actions that may be of interest in diseases such as glomerulonephritis, diabetic nephropathy, and chemically-induced kidney insufficiency. They affect several renal factors that promote diuresis and natriuresis, which may contribute to their well-known antihypertensive effect. Flavonoids prevent or attenuate the renal injury associated with arterial hypertension, both by decreasing blood pressure and by acting directly on the renal parenchyma. These outcomes derive from their interference with multiple signaling pathways known to produce renal injury and are independent of their blood pressure-lowering effects. Oral administration of flavonoids prevents or ameliorates adverse effects on the kidney of elevated fructose consumption, high fat diet, and types I and 2 diabetes. These compounds attenuate the hyperglycemia-disrupted renal endothelial barrier function, urinarymicroalbumin excretion, and glomerular hyperfiltration that results from a reduction of podocyte injury, a determinant factor for albuminuria in diabetic nephropathy. Several flavonoids have shown renal protective effects against many nephrotoxic agents that frequently cause acute kidney injury (AKI) or chronic kidney disease (CKD), such as LPS, gentamycin, alcohol, nicotine, lead or cadmium. Flavonoids also improve cisplatin- or methotrexate-induced renal damage, demonstrating important actions in chemotherapy, anticancer and renoprotective effects. A beneficial prophylactic effect of flavonoids has been also observed against AKI induced by surgical procedures such as ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) or cardiopulmonary bypass. In several murine models of CKD, impaired kidney function was significantly improved by the administration of flavonoids from different sources, alone or in combination with stem cells. In humans, cocoa flavanols were found to have vasculoprotective effects in patients on hemodialysis. Moreover, flavonoids develop antitumor activity against renal carcinoma cells with no toxic effects on normal cells, suggesting a potential therapeutic role in patients with renal carcinoma.This study was supported by grants from the Carlos III Health Institute of Spain, and the Red de Investigación Renal REDinREN number 5 012/0021. FEDER una manera de hacer Europa

The state of HRM in the Middle East:Challenges and future research agenda

Based on a robust structured literature analysis, this paper highlights the key developments in the field of human resource management (HRM) in the Middle East. Utilizing the institutional perspective, the analysis contributes to the literature on HRM in the Middle East by focusing on four key themes. First, it highlights the topical need to analyze the context-specific nature of HRM in the region. Second, via the adoption of a systematic review, it highlights state of development in HRM in the research analysis set-up. Third, the analysis also helps to reveal the challenges facing the HRM function in the Middle East. Fourth, it presents an agenda for future research in the form of research directions. While doing the above, it revisits the notions of “universalistic” and “best practice” HRM (convergence) versus “best-fit” or context distinctive (divergence) and also alternate models/diffusion of HRM (crossvergence) in the Middle Eastern context. The analysis, based on the framework of cross-national HRM comparisons, helps to make both theoretical and practical implications

Talent management motives and practices in an emerging market: A comparison between MNEs and local firms

This paper compares the differences in talent management motivations and practices between MNEs and local firms in the emerging market of Turkey. It uses institutional theory and the resource based view of the firm to explain these differences. Examining data from 201 firms the findings show significant differences between the talent management motives of MNEs and local firms, with MNEs having more tactical motivations for their talent management systems. The study also shows significant differences in the talent management practices between MNEs and local firms, with MNEs implementing more robust systems of talent management overall. The findings indicate that the motives for TM and the practices that are pursued by organizations are society-bound. The study of TM motives and practices has to be framed within the context of the institution as this shapes the way in which actors perceive and respond to environmental and organizational stimuli and the extent to which they seek to protect the rules that shape and structure their environments

Determination of the efficiency of the world railway companies by method of DEA and comparison of their efficiency by Tobit analysis

This paper attempts to measure the performance of railway companies that produce passenger and freight services around the world. The data covering 10 years from 2000 to 2009 is analyzed first via the data envelopment analysis method in order to obtain technical efficiency and allocative efficiency scores of 31 railway companies for the purpose of the study. In the analysis conducted by use of the CCR model, while total 17 firms were efficient in the first year, this figure reaches to 18 companies for the last year with one more addition. While only two companies seem efficient in the first year, this figure goes down to one for the last year. With input oriented and variable return analysis conducted by use of the BCC model, the firms having technical efficiency at the beginning of the period were 20 in number. At the end of the period, the figure reaches to 24. Next, the outputs of DEA are correlated by Tobit regression and tried to determine decisiveness of the outputs on the efficiency. It has been seen that the same output composition used with Tobit analysis gives more compliant results with the allocative efficiency scores rather than with the technical efficiency scores