BUDGETARY TRANSPARENCY, E-GOVERNMENT AND CORRUPTION: NEW EVIDENCE FROM PANEL DATA APPROACH

The effect of transparency indicators on corruption such as budget transparency, e-government, and regulation quality has received considerable attention in recent years. This paper gives some new evidence on this issue using an indicator of open budget index, e-government index and, regulatory quality as transparency indicators. From this perspective, this paper estimates the impact of regulatory quality, e-government index and, open budget index on corruption using unbalanced panel data analysis for selected 48 countries over the period of 2004 to 2015. The results of the analysis reveal that regulatory quality, budget transparency, and e-government indexes have positive and statistically significant effect on corruption

A case of quadriparesis due to renal tubular acidosis accompanied by vitamin D deficiency in Sjögren’s syndrome

Renal tubular acidosis (RTA) is metabolic acidosis disorder with a normal anion gap that occurs resulting from bicarbonate reabsorption or disorder in the hydrogen excretion from the kidney. A variety of tests are required to be administered in a stepwise fashion for the diagnosis and characterization of RTA. Correct diagnosis involves careful evaluation, including exclusion of other entities causing acidosis. The patients were treated with potassium and bicarbonate supplementation. A fifty-one years old female patient presented to the emergency department with quadriparesis dependent on hypokalemia and vitamin D deficiency, was diagnosed with distal renal tubular acidosis (dRTA) combined with Sjögren's Syndrome (SS). We submitted this case in order to draw attention to the presentation of the RTA with SS

Hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes in gastric cancer: associations with demographic and clinicopathological characteristics

Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide. Despite the declining prevalence in Western countries, it is still a major health problem in Turkey and Asian countries. In the current study, we investigated the hypermethylation status of 25 TSGs in GC. Furthermore, the association between hypermethylation status of these TSGs and some demographic and clinicopathological characteristics were investigated.Methods: Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue samples obtained from 27 patients with GC and genomic DNA isolated from these tissues. To compare the methylation status of 25 TSGs, methylation-specific multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MS–MLPA) technique was used. Results were evaluated in terms of age, gender, positive lymph node status, lymphovascular invasion, perineural invasion, mortality and five-years of survival, retrospectively.Results: Tumor suppressor gene hypermethylation was detected 16 (59.3%) of 27 GC tissues. Patients with hypermethylation-detected and patients with no hypermethylation-detected in their TSGs were classified as group 1 and group 2, respectively. The mean age of group 1 was 66.38±7.43 and the mean age of group 2 was found as 58.18±11.12 (p= 0.03). Hypermethylation was detected in 12 of 25 TSGs in patients with GC. Hypermethylation was detected as 51.8% for WT1, 40.7% for ESR1, 18.5% for CDH13, 14.8% for MSH6 and CD44, 7.4% for TP73 and PAX5 genes in the tumor tissues of patients with GC. Mean positive lymph node number was 8.81±5.38 in group 1 and 4.81±3.21 in group 2 (p= 0.037). Lymphovascular invasion, perineural invasion, mortality and five-years of mean survival were not statistically different between group 1 and group 2 (p>0.05 for all comparisons).Conclusions: Hypermethylation frequency of certain tumor suppressor genes may increase with advancing age and with positive lymph nodes in gastric cancer patients.

Pulmonary toxicity of chronic exposure to tobacco and biomass smoke in rats

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to examine the separate and combined effects of tobacco and biomass smoke exposure on pulmonary histopathology in rats. INTRODUCTION: In addition to smoking, indoor pollution in developing countries contributes to the development of respiratory diseases. METHODS: Twenty-eight adult rats were divided into four groups as follows: control group (Group I, no exposure to tobacco or biomass smoke), exposed to tobacco smoke (Group II), exposed to biomass smoke (Group III), and combined exposure to tobacco and biomass smoke (Group IV). After six months the rats in all four groups were sacrificed. Lung tissue samples were examined under light microscopy. The severity of pathological changes was scored. RESULTS: Group II differed from Group I in all histopathological alterations except intraparenchymal vascular thrombosis. There was no statistically significant difference in histopathological changes between the subjects exposed exclusively to tobacco smoke (Group II) and those with combined exposure to tobacco and biomass smoke (Group IV). The histopathological changes observed in Group IV were found to be more severe than those in subjects exposed exclusively to biomass smoke (Group III). DISCUSSION: Chronic exposure to tobacco and biomass smoke caused an increase in severity and types of lung injury. CONCLUSION: Exposure to cigarette smoke caused serious damage to the respiratory system, particularly with concomitant exposure to biomass smoke

A research on the preferences of material and size in the Turkish kitchen furniture industry

This study intended to investigate the interaction developing rapidly through the impact of globalization experienced in every field on the material and size preferences of the kitchen furniture sector. The results of the survey conducted on the Turkish kitchen furniture manufacturers were evaluated within the framework of the international kitchen trends. As a result it was seen that the most preferred kitchen area was between 8 and 11 m2 regarding the distribution of the kitchen areas in Turkey. A tendency of using MDF in the production of the kitchen cabinets was observed with 61.8% in relation with the body material preferred to be used in the kitchen furniture sector. The preferred body sizes of the kitchen cabinet was determined by considering the width and height preferences of both the upper and lower cabinets, the size of 61-90 cm seemed to be the most preferred sizes both for the upper and lower cabinets. According to the height, 72 cm size was found to be the most preferred size. While the most preferred size among the cellar cabinets was determined to be smaller than 60 cm, its height was revealed to be bigger than 200 cm. The most preferred kitchen furniture base was detected to be 12 cm

A research on the effect of global trends in Turkish kitchen furniture sector

Through survey results, this study evaluated global trends' effects on Turkish kitchen furniture production. The level of knowledge and difficulties of catching up with and implementing developmental trends in the Turkish kitchen furniture sector has been seen as having a structure equivalent to world standards because the level of material and technological development has been determined by four criteria: consumer demand, housing plans, technology inadequacy, and material inadequacy. According to the results, findings in this framework, consumer demand was most influential (45.4%) in capturing and implementing enterprises' trends. Evaluation results on kitchen furniture projects implemented by Turkish enterprises within the last 5 years showed that they mostly worked with models with one-lid views in cabinet-door applications (41.6%). As a result, world trends reflect the direct influence of Turkish kitchen furniture manufacturers on cabinet-door models and color preferences for kitchen units

A research on the effect of global trends in Turkish kitchen furniture sector.

Through survey results, this study evaluated global trends’ effects on Turkish kitchen furniture production. The level of knowledge and difficulties of catching up with and implementing developmental trends in the Turkish kitchen furniture sector has been seen as having a structure equivalent to world standards because the level of material and technological development has been determined by four criteria: consumer demand, housing plans, technology inadequacy, and material inadequacy. According to the results, findings in this framework, consumer demand was most influential (45.4%) in capturing and implementing enterprises’ trends. Evaluation results on kitchen furniture projects implemented by Turkish enterprises within the last 5 years showed that they mostly worked with models with one-lid views in cabinet-door applications (41.6%). As a result, world trends reflect the direct influence of Turkish kitchen furniture manufacturers on cabinet-door models and color preferences for kitchen units