Abay-lnspired Refractive Amphoras Against Echo Chambers

The social media environments, where ideas and beliefs aredirected by a single ideology thorough amplified or reinforced information, are commonly defined as echo chambers. Due to its mind-narrowing impact, echo chamber has emerged as a significant problem in communication and knowledge sharing at social media with its nature to censor competitive views. To provide a possible intellectual solution to these relevant problems and issues, the paper aims to reveal what cultural words of wisdom, conceptualization of reflection and refraction, world’s order of nature,and metaphorical interlink among these could do to help us. The initial inspiration of this work is Abay Kunanbayev as a prominent historical figure, philosopher, and the author of The Book of Words. The resulting work mainly benefits from Irtysh and UlbaRivers, as they do not mix, when they meet with each other as a metaphor. Then it links this metaphor with reflective and refractive interactions, and the conceptualization of inter-cultural knowledge amphora in contrast to intra-cultural echo chambers. Following this link, Abay’s Words on knowing and importance of heart in doing so are presented to identify possible solutions to the challenges emerge with echo chambers. In conclusion, a proposition is made for the use of refractive knowledge amphora to address the problems that echo chambers cause, benefiting from the arbitration of heart, suggested by Abay. Through refractive amphoras that facilitates arbitration of heart, cross-cultural interactions can be achieved, resulting in an open mind and new knowledge generation

A hybrid hair model using three dimensional fuzzy textures

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Human hair modeling and rendering have always been a challenging topic in computer graphics. The techniques for human hair modeling consist of explicit geometric models as well as volume density models. Recently, hybrid cluster models have also been successful in this subject. In this study, we present a novel three dimensional texture model called 3D Fuzzy Textures and algorithms to generate them. Then, we use the developed model along with a cluster model to give human hair complex hairstyles such as curly and wavy styles. Our model requires little user effort to model curly and wavy hair styles. With this study, we aim at eliminating the drawbacks of the volume density model and the cluster hair model with 3D fuzzy textures. A three dimensional cylindrical texture mapping function is introduced for mapping purposes. Current generation graphics hardware is utilized in the design of rendering system enabling high performance rendering.Aran, Medeni ErolM.S

Laboratuarda numune reddedilme nedenleri ve red oranlarının azaltılması

Objective: Sample rejection is an important step in the laboratory related with the patient safety. Periodical analysis of rejected samples is necessary to define the causes of rejection and follow-up the requirements for staff training. In this study, we aimed to put forth the efficiency of trainings by analyzing the amount of rejected samples in Yozgat State Hospital. Materials and methods: Taken from laboratory information system (LIS), rejected sample statistics related to 8 month-data before training was compared with 8-month data after training between 07.2015 and 10.2016 are examined. These datas were compared in itself and to each other. All statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS (V15). Results: Before training, the average number of patients for the analysis included months was 34,733 [standard deviation (SD) ± 4031], the number of rejected samples was 397.7 (SD ± 85.3) and the average rejection percentage was 1.13 (min-max: 1–1.29). The average number of patients for the after training months was 39,426 (SD ± 4779), the number of rejected samples was 343.2 (SD ± 57.7) and the average rejection percentage was 0.87 (min-max: 0.62–0.98), Rejected sample rates were significantly lower interms of statistics in the after-training group (p = 0.0001). Conclusion: Staff training takes a very important place preventing these mistakes. As it can be seen in our study, training helps decreasing rejection rates. It is suggested to schedule more trainings in order to decrease the rates to lower degrees.Amaç: Numune reddi, laboratuarda hasta güvenliği ile ilgili önemli bir önlemdir. Reddedilen örneklerin periyodik olarak analizi, personelin eğitimin ihtiyaçlarını belirlenmesi ve personele gerekli eğitimlerin verilerek numune güvenliğinin sağlanmasına hizmet eder. Bu çalışmada, Yozgat Devlet Hastanesinde reddedilen numunelerin analiz ederek eğitimlerin etkinliğini ortaya koymayı amaçladık. Materyal-Metod: Numune reddi ile ilgili bilgiler 07,2015 ve 10,2016 tarihleri arasını kapsayacak şekilde Laboratuvar bilgi sisteminden (LIS) alındı. Eğitimden önceki 8 aylık verilerle ile eğitimden sonraki 8 aylık veriler kendi içlerinde ve birbirleriyle karşılaştırıldı. Tüm istatistiksel analizler SPSS (V15) kullanılarak yapıldı. Sonuçlar: Eğitimden önceki sekiz aylık dönem de ortalama hasta sayısı 34.733 (SD ± 4031), reddedilen numune sayısı 397,7 (SD ± 85,3) ve ortalama reddedilme yüzdesi 1,13 (min-max: 1–1,29) olarak bulunmuştur. Egzersiz sonrası aylardaki ortalama hasta sayısı 39.426 (SD ± 4779), reddedilen numune sayısı 343,2 (SD ± 57,7) ve ortalama reddedilme yüzdesi 0,87 (min-max: 0,62–0,98) bulunmuştur. Reddedilen numune oranları, eğitim sonrası grupta istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ölçüde düşük bulundu (p = 0,0001). Tartışma: Personel eğitimi, laboratuvar hataları önlemede çok önemli bir yer tutmaktadır. Çalışmamızda görülebileceği gibi, eğitim numune reddedilme oranlarının düşürülmesine yardımcı olmaktadır. Numune red oranları düşürmek için daha fazla ve iyi planlanmış eğitimlerin yapılması önerilmektedir

Evaluating e-Government services from a citizens' prespective: A reference process model

Evaluating and optimizing e-government services is imperative for governments especially due to the capacity of e-services to transform public administrations and assist the interactions of governments with citizens, businesses and other government agencies. Existing widely applied evaluation approaches neglect to incorporate citizens’ satisfaction measures. Several citizen satisfaction models and indicators have been suggested in academia; however a reference process model that can assist practitioners to apply these performance measures is missing. In this paper we draw upon the evaluation approach proposed by the EU funded project CEES and propose a reference process model that captures re-usable practices for e-government evaluation from a citizens’ perspective. The novelty of the proposed approach is that using DEA for evaluating the e-services the assessment results in suggestions for strategic improvement of the e-services.EU FP7 Marie Curie People Project “CEES - Citizen oriented Evaluation of E-Government Systems” (reference IAPP-2008-230658

The effect of high serum lipid level on benign gallbladder diseases

There is a positive correlation between serum lipid levels and benign gallbladder diseases. We wanted to evaluate whether there is a relationship between the preoperative lipid profiles results with the presence of cholesterolosis, cholesterol polyps and cholelithiasis in the pathological examination. Patients who presented with various symptoms and underwent cholecystectomy surgery in a tertiary university hospital were retrospectively analyzed. Pathological examination records of 331 patients who had undergone cholecystectomy between 2016 and 2020 were obtained retrospectively. The latest lipid profiles results before the cholecystectomy were recorded. Patients were divided into groups according to their lipid profiles periods before cholecystectomy. The cholecystectomy reports of the patients were examined in terms of cholesterolosis, cholesterol polyp, and cholelithiasis. There was no difference between lipid profiles and the pathological subtypes in the patients whose lipid profiles were measured between 0-30 days and 0-90 days preoperatively. There was a significant difference in triglyceride levels between patients with cholesterol polyps and those without polyps, whose lipid profiles were measured within 90-180 days before surgery (p=0.031). There were significant differences in total cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL, and non-HDL levels between patients with and without cholesterolosis (p=0.017, p=0.037, p=0.048, p=0.019, respectively). There was a significant difference in triglyceride levels between patients with cholesterol polyps and those without polyps, whose lipid profiles were was measured within 0-180 days before surgery (p=0.023). There was a significant difference in total cholesterol, LDL, and non-HDL levels between patients with and without cholesterolosis (p=0.017, p=0.021, p=0.03, respectively). There is a positive correlation between preoperative serum lipi

Increased serum concentration of netrin-1 after intravitreal bevacizumab injection: is it a compensatory mechanism to counteract drug side effects?

Background To evaluate alterations in the serum concentrations of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and netrin-1 after intravitreal bevacizumab (BCZ) injection for the treatment of diabetic macular edema (DME). Methods This prospective case-control study included a total of 50 participants assigned to one of three groups, including 10 individuals with DME and non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR), 13 with DME, and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), and 27 healthy individuals as a control group. Serum VEGF and netrin-1 concentrations were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) immediately before, as well as 1 week and 1 month after, intravitreal BCZ injection. Results The mean VEGF serum concentrations in the PDR and NPDR groups were 388.4 and 196.9 pg/mL at baseline, respectively. After 1 week, these concentrations changed to 193.41 and 150.23 pg/mL, respectively (P = 0.001 and P = 0.005, respectively); after 1 month, the concentrations were 97.89 and 76.46 pg/mL, respectively (P = 0.001 and P = 0.009, respectively). The mean netrin-1 serum concentrations in the PDR patients and NPDR groups were 318.2 and 252.7 pg/mL at baseline, respectively. After 1 week, these concentrations increased to 476.6 and 416.3 pg/mL, respectively (P = 0.033 and P = 0.005, respectively), and after 1 month, they were 676.6 and 747.5 pg/mL, respectively (P = 0.001 and P = 0.005, respectively). The correlation analysis revealed a significant inverse relationship between changes in serum VEGF and netrin-1 concentrations in both the PDR and NPDR groups (r = - 0.685, P = 0.029). Conclusions Intravitreal BCZ injections work systemically to significantly decrease serum VEGF levels, leading to a significant upregulation in the concentration of another angiogenic mediator, netrin-1

Voice Identification Using Classification Algorithms

This article discusses the classification algorithms for the problem of personality identification by voice using machine learning methods. We used the MFCC algorithm in the speech preprocessing process. To solve the problem, a comparative analysis of five classification algorithms was carried out. In the first experiment, the support vector method was determined—0.90 and multilayer perceptron—0.83, that showed the best results. In the second experiment, a multilayer perceptron with an accuracy of 0.93 was proposed using the Robust scaler method for personal identification. Therefore, to solve this problem, it is possible to use a multi-layer perceptron, taking into account the specifics of the speech signal