The Case of Smart City Istanbul: How to Evaluate the City Region and its Benchmarks with Participatory and Negotiation Processes?

Since the 1990s, the Greater Municipality of Istanbul has been investing in intelligent, digital services and supporting infrastructures, while at the same time Istanbul has started to become an important centre for ICT technologies. Recently, the efforts of the municipality and the private stakeholders are significantly up-scaled as the city has become an important international business, transportation and digital hub. One of the most recent efforts to tackle the city’s management challenges is the “Smart City Istanbul Program” which covers a range of activities from developing a Smart City benchmark model to the assessment of the metropolitan city with a specific Maturity Model. The Greater Municipality has recently developed an assessment and monitoring model for Istanbul’s development as an international financial sector. The development of other models focusing on particular issues is also on the agenda. In a way, the municipality is trying to establish an information-rich intelligence base that focuses on strategic priority areas. These efforts may contribute to the adaptation of the global and national metropolitan agenda that pushes metropolitan governments to establish evidence-based policies and integrated management supported by indicator systems that allow benchmarking city-regions. The development of such intelligence capabilities poses significant challenges. Meticulous encouragement of participatory processes by the Greater Municipality of Istanbul itself within its own activities should facilitate the diffusion of its emerging knowledge assets to other stakeholders, thereby creating a dynamic and complex environment of urban intelligence building. Enhancing the quality of participatory processes is thus very important. The paper provides information on the participatory methodological approach used in the establishment of the Smart City Assessment and Monitoring Model, developed by the authors in collaboration with the Greater Municipality of Istanbul and its affiliate ISBAK. It also discusses the benefits and challenges associated with the Smart City Assessment Models based on a rich literature survey. The approach employed is particularly aimed at avoiding empty signifier problems, feeding participatory processes with rich information, establishing trust among stakeholders, avoiding fuzziness and indecisiveness, and enabling the production of a small set of mutually agreed and selected benchmark indicators which can later successfully inform maturity models. Lessons learned are: the involvement of specialised practitioners in the Smart City domain in disseminating local information into the process; the use of a layered participatory process to enable evaluation and agreement on a large set of indicators in a relatively short time; and the co-presence of these two processes to help avoid empty signifier problems. The paper suggests that it is possible to tackle the unique challenges associated with Smart City development activities. Enabling repetitive benchmarking processes makes itpossible to challenge rapid technological change and achieve convergence. Layered participatory processes work better when practitioner teams also see potentials in collaboration. Also third, feedback mechanisms should be provided at different layers of participatory processes as they enhance decision-making processes

Anaesthesia and the Acute Phase Protein Response in Children Undergoing Circumcision

Concentrations of acute phase proteins (CRP: C-reactive protein, albumin) change during surgery. We investigated the acute phase response to circumcision and the effects of anaesthesia on this response. The children were divided into four groups; group 1 (intratracheal general anaesthesia, n = 40), group 2 (general anaesthesia with mask, n = 20), group 3 (ketamine, n = 20), group 4 (local anaesthesia, n = 35). Blood samples were obtained, 24 hours before circumcision, after premedication, and 24 hours after circumcision. CRP and albumin before circumcision were comparable for all groups. There was no increase in CRP, and albumin remained steady throughout the study. No difference was observed among the groups, and related to anaesthesia. No responsiveness may be explained with the size of injured tissue or anatomical and histological type of preputium

Optical MIMO-OFDM with Generalized LED Index Modulation

Due to copyright restrictions, the access to the full text of this article is only available via subscription.Visible light communications (VLC) is a promising and uncharted new technology for the next generation of wireless communication systems. This paper proposes a novel generalized light emitting diode (LED) index modulation method for multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based VLC systems. The proposed scheme avoids the typical spectrum efficiency losses incurred by time- and frequency-domain shaping in OFDM signals. This is achieved by exploiting spatial multiplexing along with LED index modulation. Accordingly, real and imaginary components of the complex time-domain OFDM signals are separated first, then resulting bipolar signals are transmitted over a VLC channel by encoding sign information in LED indexes. As a benchmark, we demonstrate the performance analysis of our proposed system for both analytical and physical channel models. Furthermore, two novel receiver designs are proposed. Each one is suitable for frequency-flat or selective channel scenarios. It has been shown via extensive computer simulations that the proposed scheme achieves considerably better bit error ratio versus signal-to-noise-ratio performance than the existing VLC-MIMO-OFDM systems that use the same number of transmit and receive units [LEDs and photo diodes (PDs)]. Compared with the single-input single-output (SISO) DC biased optical (DCO)-OFDM system, both spectral efficiency and DC bias can be doubled and removed respectively simply by exploiting a MIMO configuration.European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST); The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Research; EPSRC under Established Career Fellowshi

How does mother's working status and number of siblings affect school age child trauma presenting to the emergency department

 Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of mother working status and siblings on school-age child trauma admitted to the emergency department and to investigate school-age traumas.Methods: This prospective study was conducted with the approval of the ethics committee in the emergency department of a training and research hospital. All demographic data of the school-aged children (66 months-18 years) who applied to the emergency department, the location of the trauma, the mechanism of occurrence, the mother's working status, the presence and number of siblings, the duration of stay in the emergency department, clinical outcome and hospital service cost were recorded.Results: A total of 794 children were included in the study. 263(33.1%) were girls and 531(66.9%) were boys. Soft tissue trauma was the most common (94.3%). The place of the trauma was 62.7% out of school and 37.3% in school. When mother working conditions were analyzed, it was seen that 34.2% did not work. 97.1% of the children had one or more siblings. The most common trauma mechanism (65.6%) was collision and the second (60.6%) was falls. 99.1% of the patients were discharged. The length of stay in the emergency department of the Grade-schooler age group was higher than the Teen age group (p: 0,000). The length of stay in emergency department was higher in patients without siblings (p: 0.017). It was observed that those whose mothers did not work remained in the emergency room longer (p: 0,000). It was found that the ones whose mothers did not work mostly came with trauma mechanism as a result of falling (65.4%) (p: 0.044).Conclusions: Providing education for protection from accidents in schools and out of school to all people, especially children, parents and teachers, and making safe playgrounds with solid floors will minimize accident and injury rates and severity levels

PTPA variants and impaired PP2A activity in early-onset parkinsonism with intellectual disability

The protein phosphatase 2A complex (PP2A), the major Ser/Thr phosphatase in the brain, is involved in a number of signalling pathways and functions, including the regulation of crucial proteins for neurodegeneration, such as alpha-synuclein, tau and LRRK2. Here, we report the identification of variants in the PTPA/PPP2R4 gene, encoding a major PP2A activator, in two families with early-onset parkinsonism and intellectual disability. We carried out clinical studies and genetic analyses, including genome-wide linkage analysis, whole-exome sequencing, and Sanger sequencing of candidate variants. We next performed functional studies on the disease-associated variants in cultured cells and knock-down of ptpa in Drosophila melanogaster. We first identified a homozygous PTPA variant, c.893T&gt;G (p.Met298Arg), in patients from a South African family with early-onset parkinsonism and intellectual disability. Screening of a large series of additional families yielded a second homozygous variant, c.512C&gt;A (p.Ala171Asp), in a Libyan family with a similar phenotype. Both variants co-segregate with disease in the respective families. The affected subjects display juvenile-onset parkinsonism and intellectual disability. The motor symptoms were responsive to treatment with levodopa and deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus. In overexpression studies, both the PTPA p.Ala171Asp and p.Met298Arg variants were associated with decreased PTPA RNA stability and decreased PTPA protein levels; the p.Ala171Asp variant additionally displayed decreased PTPA protein stability. Crucially, expression of both variants was associated with decreased PP2A complex levels and impaired PP2A phosphatase activation. PTPA orthologue knock-down in Drosophila neurons induced a significant impairment of locomotion in the climbing test. This defect was age-dependent and fully reversed by L-DOPA treatment. We conclude that bi-allelic missense PTPA variants associated with impaired activation of the PP2A phosphatase cause autosomal recessive early-onset parkinsonism with intellectual disability. Our findings might also provide new insights for understanding the role of the PP2A complex in the pathogenesis of more common forms of neurodegeneration.</p

Interventions to treat premature ejaculation: a systematic review short report

Background: Premature ejaculation (PE) is commonly defined as ejaculation with minimal sexual stimulation before, on or shortly after penetration and before the person wishes it. PE can be either lifelong and present since first sexual experiences (primary), or acquired (secondary), beginning later (Godpodinoff ML. Premature ejaculation: clinical subgroups and etiology. J Sex Marital Ther 1989;15:130–4). Treatments include behavioural and pharmacological interventions. Objective: To systematically review evidence for clinical effectiveness of behavioural, topical and systemic treatments for PE. Data sources: The following databases were searched from inception to 6 August 2013 for published and unpublished research evidence: MEDLINE; EMBASE; Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature; The Cochrane Library including the Cochrane Systematic Reviews Database, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects and the Health Technology Assessment database; ISI Web of Science, including Science Citation Index, and the Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Science. The US Food and Drug Administration website and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) website were also searched. Methods: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in adult men with PE were eligible (or non-RCTs in the absence of RCTs). RCT data were extrapolated from review articles when available. The primary outcome was intravaginal ejaculatory latency time (IELT). Data were meta-analysed when possible. Other outcomes included sexual satisfaction, control over ejaculation, relationship satisfaction, self-esteem, quality of life, treatment acceptability and adverse events (AEs). Results: A total of 103 studies (102 RCTs, 65 from reviews) were included. RCTs were available for all interventions except yoga. The following interventions demonstrated significant improvements (p < 0.05) in arithmetic mean difference in IELT compared with placebo: topical anaesthetics – eutectic mixture of local anaesthetics (EMLA®, AstraZeneca), topical eutectic mixture for PE (Plethora Solutions Ltd) spray; selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) – citalopram (Cipramil®, Lundbeck), escitalopram (Cipralex®, Lundbeck), fluoxetine, paroxetine, sertraline, dapoxetine (Priligy®, Menarini), 30 mg or 60 mg; serotonin–noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors – duloxetine (Cymbalta®, Eli Lilly & Co Ltd); tricyclic antidepressants – inhaled clomipramine 4 mg; phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitors – vardenafil (Levitra®, Bayer), tadalafil (Cialis®, Eli Lilly & Co Ltd); opioid analgesics – tramadol (Zydol SR®, Grünenthal). Improvements in sexual satisfaction and other outcomes compared with placebo were evident for SSRIs, PDE5 inhibitors and tramadol. Outcomes for interventions not compared with placebo were as follows: behavioural therapies – improvements over wait list control in IELT and other outcomes, behavioural therapy plus pharmacotherapy better than either therapy alone; alpha blockers – terazosin (Hytrin®, AMCO) not significantly different to antidepressants in ejaculation control; acupuncture – improvements over sham acupuncture in IELT, conflicting results for comparisons with SSRIs; Chinese medicine – improvements over treatment as usual; delay device – improvements in IELT when added to stop–start technique; yoga – improved IELT over baseline, fluoxetine better than yoga. Treatment-related AEs were evident with most pharmacological interventions. Limitations: Although data extraction from reviews was optimised when more than one review reported data for the same RCT, the reliability of the data extraction within these reviews cannot be guaranteed by this assessment report. Conclusions: Several interventions significantly improved IELT. Many interventions also improved sexual satisfaction and other outcomes. However, assessment of longer-term safety and effectiveness is required to evaluate whether or not initial treatment effects are maintained long term, whether or not dose escalation is required, how soon treatment effects end following treatment cessation and whether or not treatments can be stopped and resumed at a later time. In addition, assessment of the AEs associated with long-term treatment and whether or not different doses have differing AE profiles is required

INTERACTIVE GALLERY

Today, there are many high-level interactive applications and products around the world which are developed by using programming languages or software. Basically, games, virtual museums, educational applications, interactive architectural products are the simplest examples about these interactive solutions. In this thesis, interactive gallery means moving objects in a three-dimensional room. Objects can be re-placed by using keyboard keys in this three-dimensional room. Thus, user can move these interactive objects in accordance with intended purpose. Interactive gallery is similar with a room that has furniture, door and windows. Also, this room includes interactive objects in it. The main focal point is about how these objects can be displayed interactively and how different methods are used, when these processes are started to be made. This thesis helps to solve these questions. Interactive gallery bases on model loading structure and on the following thesis, this process is parted. It starts with 3D modelling, continuous with model loading and it ends with key implementation

Almost convergence and generalized difference matrix

Let f denotes the space of almost convergent sequences introduced by Lorentz [G.G. Lorentz, A contribution to the theory of divergent sequences, Acta Math. 80 (1948), 167-190] and (f) over cap also be the domain of the generalized difference matrix B(r, s) in the sequence space f. In this paper, the beta- and gamma-duals of the spaces f, fs and (f) over cap are determined. Furthermore, two basic results on the space f are proved and the classes ((f) over cap: mu) and (mu: (f) over cap) of infinite matrices are characterized, and the characterizations of some other classes are also given as an application of those main results, where mu is any given sequence space. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Some new sequence spaces derived by the domain of generalized difference matrix

Let lambda denote any one of the classical spaces l(infinity), c, c(0) and l(p) of bounded, convergent, null and absolutely p-summable sequences, respectively, and (lambda) over cap. also be the domain of the generalized difference matrix B(r, s) in the sequence space lambda, where 1 are determined, and the Schauder bases for the spaces (c) over cap, (C-0) over cap and (l(p)) over cap are given, and some topological properties of the spaces (c(0)) over cap, (l(1)) over cap and (l(p)) over cap are examined. Finally, the classes ((lambda(1)) over cap, : lambda(2)) and ((lambda(1)) over cap : (lambda(2)) over cap) of infinite matrices are characterized, where lambda(1) is an element of {l(infinity), c, c(0), l(p), l(1)) and lambda(2) is an element of {l(infinity), c, c(0), l(1)). Published by Elsevier Lt