Web Advertising Value and Students’ Attitude Towards Web Advertising

Internet has changed the type of relationship between advertisers, advertising agencies, the media and consumers. Rapid growth in Web Ad (WA) revenues indicates the viability of WA as an alternative to that of traditional media. This rapid expansion of advertising to web sites requires a better understanding about users' perceptions of Web Ads since attributes of the media can affect consumer attitudes towards advertising. Therefore, it has also become increasingly important for today's advertisers to create favorable attitudes towards their Websites. The aim of this research is to identify attitudes of Internet users towards web advertising. In other words, this study investigates the interrelationships between Web Advertising Value (WAV) and Attitude Towards Web Advertising (AWA). The antecedents of advertising value namely, irritation, informativeness, credibility, entertainment will also be incorporated. Data is collected from 413 students of Marmara University Faculty of Business Administration. Responses are evaluated via structural equation modelling which enables researchers to offer a model that explain consumer behavior in online environments. Keywords: Web advertising, web advertising value, consumer behavior, attitude towards web advertising, structural equation modelling.

Photocatalytic efficiency of titania nonylphenol ethoxylate composite thin films under solar irradiation

Photocatalytic efficiency of titania thin-films on ITO synthesized in the presence of nonylphenol-surfactants containing different numbers of ethoxylate-units was investigated under solar-irradiation. A colorless transparent titania-gel formed in the non-aqueous medium in the presence of nonylphenol-10-ethoxylates while milky white opaque gel was observed with nonylphenol-35-ethoxylates. They were coated on ITO plate by dipping method and calcined at 350, 500 and 700 degrees C. The XRD, IRRAS, EDS, SEM and AFM analyses revealed that different composite nanostructures are formed by calcinations of Ti-nonylphenol-35-ethoxylates at 350 and 500 degrees C. The photocatalytic-efficiencies of the composite films are better than the other titania nanostructures. Transparency and band-gap energy evaluated from transmittance measurements demonstrated that visible-light responsive Ti-nonylphenol-35-ethoxylates composites are more efficient catalysts than UV-absorbable Ti-nonylphenol-b0-ethoxylates films. The photocatalytic degradation rate of the methylene-blue on the catalysts was calculated using the Langmuir-Hinshelwood equation and its modified form derived in this study by considering intensity changes in solar light. The dye degradation efficiency of the Ti-nonylphenol-ethoxylate films changes in the 58-74% range after 2 h of irradiation in 0.02 mM MB solution. The solution completely decolorized after 8 h of irradiation on the TiNP-35 catalysts calcined at 350 degrees C

The Identification of Acinetobacter baumannii Blood Isolates by MALDI-TOF MS, ARDRA and bla(OXA-51-like) Gene-Specific Real-Time PCR

The Acinetobacter cakoaceticus-Acinetobacter baumannii (Acb) complex consists of phenotypically very similar nosocomial species; A.baumannii, Acinetobacter nosocomialis, Acinetobacter pittii, Acinetobacter seifertii and Acinetobacter djikshoorniae and one environmental species Acakoaceticus. The rapid and accurate identification of the members of Acb complex is critical as these nosocomial pathogens can show differences in antimicrobial susceptibility and clinical outcomes. The conventional phenotypic methods are slow, unreliable and less efficient for the differentiation of Acb complex species, including the A.baumannii species within the Acb complex. Although various molecular methods are available, such as amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA) and bla(OXA-51-like), gene specific PCR, they are usually inconvenient for the routine diagnostic laboratories. Recently, matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) offers an opportunity for rapid, cost-effective and convenient bacterial identification in routine diagnostic procedures conducted in clinical laboratory. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the diagnosis performance of MALDI-TOF MS system to identify blood isolates of A.baumannii. A total of 180 nonduplicate carbapenem resistant Acb complex (strain numbers; TR1-TR60) and A.baumannii (TR61-TR180) blood isolates were collected from the intensive care units of the three university hospitals in Turkey from January 2016 to December 2016. All isolates were evaluated by using bla(OXA-51-like) gene specific real time (Rt-PCR) analysis, ARDRA (restriction enzymes-AIM, Cfol, Mbol, Mspl, Rsal) method and MALDI-TOF MS (VITEK (R) MS, bioMerieux, France) system. All the strains except TRIO, TR31, TR35 and TR52 were identified as A.baumannii by ARDRA method. Out of 177 of all the isolates, presence of bla(OXA-51-like) gene was found except for TR10, TR31 and TR52 isolates. However, TR31 without the presence of bla(OXA-51-like) gene was identified as A.pittii using the ARDRA. Totally 176 isolates which were identified as A. baumannii by both of the methods, ARDRA and Rt-PCR-bla(OXA-51-like) ,were accepted as a reference for the evaluation of the diagnosis performance capacity of the MALDI-TOF MS. Overall, for all 176 isolates tested, the sensitivity obtained with the MALDI-TOF MS were 99.4% with 75% specificity. The accuracy value of the method was determined as 98.9% for the identification of A.baumannii to the species level. MALDI-TOF MS is increasingly used in diagnostic microbiology for the routine identification of bacteria to the genus, species or subspecies level with high rates of sensitivity and specificity. In future, by expanding the database, MALDI-TOF MS system would possibly become the ideal method for routine diagnostic laboratories that could potentially identify more species and even determine some characteristics of antimicrobial resistance and virulence determinants

Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 in vaginal secretions of women with coronavirus disease 2019

The present study investigates the presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the vaginal swabs of female patients diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) based on a positive real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test on a combined throat and nasopharyngeal swab

Effects of SR-BI rs5888 and rs4238001 variations on hypertension

Background: Scavenger receptor class B, type I (SR-BI), involved in reverse cholesterol pathway, is a multilipoprotein receptor and capable of binding HDL, LDL and VLDL. SR-BI may contribute to the development of hypertension due to accumulation of cholesterol in the vessel wall via transporting lipoproteins. Therefore, it was aimed to investigate the relationship between SR-BI rs5888 and rs4238001 variants in the patient with hypertension

Investigating Hemolytic Activity of Candida Isolates with Two Different Methods

The hemolytic activity of Candida isolates with agar and microplate methods were investigated and compared efficiency of these methods to assess relationship between hyphal formation and hemolysis

Molecular Characterization of Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Blood Culture Isolates from Three Hospitals in Turkey

We aimed to investigate the clonal relationships, common sequence types, and carbapenemase genes in 177 non-repetitive blood culture isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii collected from patients at three university hospitals in Turkey in 2016. Molecular epidemiological characteristics of the isolates were examined using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) (Pasteur scheme-cpn60, fusA, gltA, pyrG, recA, rplB, and rpoB). Multiplex PCR was used to investigate the carbapenemase genes, including bla(OXA-23-like),bla(OXA-24-like), bla(OXA-48-like), bla(OXA-58-like), bla(IMP), bla(VIM) and bla(NDm). PFGE genotyping yielded 92 pulsotypes with a clustering ratio of 69.7%. As per a >= 85% similarity coefficient, 159 (90.9%) isolates were found to be clonally related. The bla(OXA-)(23-like) and bla(OXA-)(58)-like genes were identified in 100% and 28.2% of the isolates, respectively. The bla(NDM) gene was identified in two isolates. The MLST analysis included 54 isolates with different pulsotypes, and 29 sequence types (STs). Most of the isolates (n = 36) belonged to the clonal complex (CC)2, one isolate belonged to CC1, and one isolate belonged to CC164. Sixteen new STs (ST1235-ST1250) were identified. Identifying both global ST2 and a large number of new STs, revealed high genetic diversity in A. baumannii isolates in the study population