Astronomical Site Selection for Turkey Using GIS Techniques

A site selection of potential observatory locations in Turkey have been carried out by using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) coupled with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and satellite imagery which in turn reduced cost and time and increased the accuracy of the final outcome. The layers of cloud cover, digital elevation model, artificial lights, precipitable water vapor, aerosol optical thickness and wind speed were studied in the GIS system. In conclusion of MCDA, the most suitable regions were found to be located in a strip crossing from southwest to northeast including also a diverted region in southeast of Turkey. These regions are thus our prime candidate locations for future on-site testing. In addition to this major outcome, this study has also been applied to locations of major observatories sites. Since no goal is set for \textit{the best}, the results of this study is limited with a list of positions. Therefore, the list has to be further confirmed with on-site tests. A national funding has been awarded to produce a prototype of an on-site test unit (to measure both astronomical and meteorological parameters) which might be used in this list of locations.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, accepted by Experimental Astronom

A compact frequency reconfigurable hybrid DRA for LTE/Wimax applications

Copyright © 2017 Sajid Aqeel et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.A compact hybrid antenna structure with frequency reconfiguration capabilities is presented in this article. The proposed design employs a combination of a rectangular DR element and a coupling slot on the structure’s ground plane (GP). The slot shifts the fundamental DRA mode by introducing a slow wave effect and its resonant behavior helps to achieve an omni-directional pattern at low frequencies. The slot is loaded with a series of PIN diode switches whose ON/OFF combinations alter the effective slot length. Slot loading with PIN diodes results in frequency reconfiguration of the proposed structure with a large tuning range of 76.2 % (between 1.73 to 3.86 GHz). A parametric analysis was performed to investigate the effects of slot length, width and position on the reflection coefficients of the proposed structure. A prototype of the proposed design was fabricated and results were measured. The measured results show a close agreement with the simulated ones. The proposed design is suitable for DCS 1800 MHz, PCS 1900 MHZ, UMTS, LTE 2500-2700 MHz, and Wimax 3.5 GHz

Comparison of Gene-Transfer Efficiency in Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Technologies designed to allow manipulation and modification of human embryonic stem (hES) cells are numerous and vary in the complexity of their methods, efficiency, reliability, and safety. The most commonly studied and practiced of these methods include electroporation, lipofection, nucleofection, and lentiviral transduction. However, at present, it is unclear which protocol offers the most efficient and reliable method of gene transfer to hES cells. In this study, a bi-fusion construct with ubiquitin promoter driving enhanced green fluorescent protein reporter and the firefly luciferase (pUb-eGFP-Fluc) along with neomycin selection marker was used for in vitro and in vivo studies. In vitro studies examined the transfection efficiency and viability of each technique using two hES cell lines (male H1 and female H9 cells). Lentiviral transduction demonstrated the highest efficiency (H1: 25.3 ± 4.8%; H9: 22.4 ± 6.5%) with >95% cell viability. Nucleofection demonstrated transfection efficiency of 16.1 ± 3.6% (H1) and 5.8 ± 3.2% (H9). However, minimal transfection efficiency was observed with electroporation (2.1 ± 0.4% (H1) and 1.9 ± 0.3% (H9)) and lipofection (1.5 ± 0.5% (H1) and 1.3 ± 0.2% (H9); P < 0.05 vs. lentiviral transduction). Electroporation also demonstrated the highest cell death (62 ± 11% (H1) and 42 ± 10% (H9)) followed by nucleofection (25 ± 9% (H1) and 30 ± 15 (H9)). Importantly, lentiviral transduction generated a greater number of hES cell lines stably expressing the double-fusion reporter gene (hES-DF) compared to other transfection techniques. Finally, following subcutaneous transplantation into immunodeficient nude mice, the hES-eGFP-Fluc cells showed robust proliferation as determined by longitudinal bioluminescence imaging. In summary, this study demonstrates that lentiviral transduction and nucleofection are efficient, simple, and safe techniques for reliable gene transfer in hES cells. The double-fusion construct provides an attractive approach for generating stable hES cell lines and monitoring engraftment and proliferation in vitro and in vivo

Strategic consciousness and business performance relationship of open innovation strategies in food and beverage businesses

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of open innovation strategy on the performance of businesses within the framework of the strategic consciousness instrument of the relationship. Innovation has been researched in many ways with its performance enhancing effect for all businesses and the relationships between innovation and business performance have been proved. The open innovation paradigm focuses on the scope of collaboration with different stakeholders. There is less research on the relationship between open innovation and business performance in hotel businesses. For this purpose, the top managers of food and beverage businesses operating in Istanbul have been chosen as the universe. Data were collected from 405 administrators who responded to the surveys. The data collected through open innovation, strategic consciousness and business performance scales were analysed by SPSS, AMOS and Process macro programs and the results were reported. According to the results of the research, the relationship between open innovation and business performance, between open innovation and strategic consciousness, and between strategic consciousness and business performance was determined. As a result of the test conducted with the SPSS process plugin regarding the mediating effect of strategic consciousness, the mediation effect was determined. Research results are limited by the use of cross-sectional data and dependence of the participants on their perceptions and experiences. Therefore, future research should be based on more comprehensive quantitative measurement techniques and more longitudinal design. To date, the relationship of open innovation performance has not been thoroughly investigated in many studies. In this study, the mediating effect of strategic consciousness in the relationship between open innovation and business performance in food and beverage businesses was examined and contributed to the literature gap in this field