INVESTIGATION OF OPINIONS OF TEACHERS OF THE HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN ABOUT SERVING AS A SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER

The aim of this study was to investigate the opinions of teachers of the hearing-impaired children about serving as a special education teacher. The research was designed as a descriptive case study within the framework of qualitative research methods. Two criteria that the participants to be included in the study should have were determined as follows: graduating from universities’ hearing-impaired teaching programs and serving as a special education classroom teacher in schools affiliated to the MNE. The participants consist of 51 teachers meeting the specified criteria. Semi-structured interviews were held with 5 of the participants, and data were collected from 46 of them through an open-ended questionnaire. Given the pandemic period conditions we currently experience, the e-interviews were conducted using Zoom, while open-ended questionnaires were collected via Google Forms. Descriptive analysis technique was used in the analysis of the research data. The descriptive analysis process consists of four stages: creating a thematic framework, processing of data according to the thematic framework, identification of findings, and interpretation of findings. Study findings revealed that the fact that teachers serve out-of-field they graduated from led them to feel insufficient in terms of professional knowledge and competency. Besides, it was observed that they failed to provide sufficient benefit to the students, they had difficulties communicating with families, they failed to cooperate with the school administrators or other colleagues and could not find the necessary support. Article visualizations

DETERMINATION OF THE EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY COMPETENCIES OF SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that started in December 2019 led to the closure of schools on a global level, and implementation of strict social distancing measures has led to rapid and prevalent changes in conventional forms of education and instruction. In this period where distance education is preferred in education processes, the education technology competencies of teachers have gained importance. In this context, this study aimed to determine the education technology competencies of special education teachers. The descriptive study included 114 special education teachers. The data were collected by using the “Education Technology Competencies Scale for Teachers” and analyzed by using the SPSS 25 package software. The maximum total score that could be obtained in the scale that was used in the study is 190. It was determined that, with the mean score of 155.27, the participants of this study had an education technology competency level of 81.72%. In this study which investigated the technological competencies of special education teachers, no significant difference was found based on the participants’ gender, professional experience or areas of teaching. Considering the items in the dimensions of the scale, it was found that the male teachers were more competent in terms of technical knowledge on technology, while the female teachers used the technological knowledge they had more effectively in classes, instruction and materials, as well as in communication with both students and parents. Article visualizations

Tribological transfer of polytetrafluoroethylene onto silicon oxide and polymer surfaces

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The main objective of this study is to understand the nature of tribological transfer of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) onto counter thermally-oxidized silicon, polystyrene (PS), polyvinylchloride (PVC) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) surfaces, as well as investigating the possible formation of chemical bonds arising at polymer-semiconductor and polymer-polymer interfaces, while or after tribological material transfer. Tuning the wettability characteristics of PTFE transferred surfaces is also aimed. Within these purposes, first part of the research focused on the preparation of silicon oxide and polymer substrates and the utilization of tribological transfer method in order to form desired PTFE patterns on these surfaces. The realization of this transfer was provided by the design of a simple rig to bring about a friction between the surfaces via sliding a piece of PTFE on silicon oxide and polymer specimens. In order to monitor the tribological interaction in a gradual manner as a function of increasing contact force, a very mild inclination (∼0.5◦) along the sliding motion was also employed in some specimens mounted on the inclined aluminum supports. In addition, procedures used to explore the stability of specimens against time and washing / cleaning practices using various organic solvents and boiling water are given within this part. In the second part of the work, characterization of PTFE-contacted silicon oxide and polymer surfaces was carried out using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). XPS results were obtained, which revealed that PTFE was faithfully transferred onto the silicon oxide and polymer surfaces upon even at the slightest contact; SEM and AFM images reinforced that stable morphological changes could be imparted onto the counter silicon oxide surfaces. In experiments where the inclined aluminum supports were used to create gradual tribological transfer of PTFE onto counter silicon oxide surfaces, use of relation between the increase in contact force with respect to transferred amount of PTFE helped us to estimate the minimum apparent contact pressure needed to realize the PTFE transfer, which was found to be about 5 kPa. Stability of the patterns imparted towards time and various chemical washing processes lead us to postulate that the interaction was most likely occurred with formation of chemical bonds. Contact angle measurements, which were carried out to monitor the wettability of the silicon oxide surface, showed that upon PTFE transfer the hydrophobicity of the SiO2 surface could be significantly enhanced, depending on the pattern sketched onto the surface. All of these findings show that tribological transfer of PTFE onto various counter surfaces is possible by a simple procedure, which has both academical and commercial importance.Uçar, AhmetM.S

Towards implanted biosensors: methods for miniaturising and protecting peptide-based electrochemical sensors

There is real interest in developing selective and sensitive tools to detect protease activity; these play pivotal roles in cancer progression with changes in their amounts and types linked to several pathological processes such as tumour formation, evolution and even suppression. Peptide-based electrochemical assays have been shown to offer several potential advantages over other tools and techniques for development into sensing systems. However, their implantation and use in vivo is complex as they face serious limitations when considering two vital requirements for implantation: sensor miniaturisation for ready implantation and localised measurement and controlled anti-biofouling protection. This study presents the investigation and analysis of these miniaturisation- and protection-related issues and the development of solutions as key steps towards the localised in vivo application and measurements. The first part of the presented work focuses on the potential for assay miniaturisation. This used commercial platinum microelectrodes which were modified with self-assembled monolayer (SAM)-based protease sensing probes. Building on previous macroelectrode studies, which have explored and optimised the use of different SAM structures, redox labelling, anchor type and various spacers of different lengths, further optimisation was carried out with the aim of developing and defining an optimum microelectrode protocol. Comparison of the quantitative analytical performance of macro- and microelectrode systems established the feasibility of developing miniaturised platforms for efficient and clinically-relevant protease detection. Interestingly, significant differences were observed such as an enhanced reproducibility and decreased cleavage rate for the microelectrodes, which were thought to be indicative of variation in the SAM probe film structure on these electrode surfaces caused by differences in film deposition kinetics. This decreased cleavage (response) rate was mitigated by measurement at normal body temperature which was shown to increase kinetics and suggested the possibility of more rapid in vivo sensing. These miniaturisation findings on commercial microelectrodes were translated to in-house microelectrodes fabricated as platinum thin film-on-silicon chips. Initial results showed reduced SAM probe stability. As the use of stronger SAM probe anchoring (through tripodanchored probes) did not solve this problem, the underlying reason was attributed to structural differences between the surfaces of commercial and in-house electrodes, resulting in enhanced Pt detachment in the latter. Increasing metal film thickness and post-fabrication annealing did not completely overcome this problem, and the remaining decrease in stability was attributed to increased Pt surface roughness and destabilisation through successive electrochemical oxidation and reduction during acidic cleaning. An alternative electrochemical reductive cleaning method was thus developed and tested on enhanced electrode sensing systems; arrays of microelectrodes (MEA) and microcavity nanoband edge electrodes (MNEE) were fabricated, cleaned using this reductive method, characterised using typical redox couples and then tested for protease sensing. Gratifyingly, these systems were found to be sufficiently reproducible and stable for sensing. Although functionalised MNEEs achieved significantly higher current densities, there was no great enhancement of response rate from decreasing electrode size from micro to nano, consistent with the fact that diffusional transport is not the rate determining step in this cleavage reaction. Given the variability of probe film deposition characteristics and the resulting cleavage rates, the applicability of potential-controlled SAM probe deposition for controlling probe film formation was investigated as a proof-of-concept study. The second part of this work concentrated on the development of a sensor protection and activation strategy against biofouling. A pH-triggered dissolvable polymeric coating was dropcast onto clean and probe-modified electrodes and then characterised in terms of the delayed activation time, enhancement in anti-biofouling properties and retention of sensing characteristics. These results demonstrated that reproducible delayed sensor activation was achieved and controlled by optimising parameters such as coating thickness, homogeneity and density through the coating method and temperature. Comparative evaluation of polymercoated and uncoated probe-modified electrodes in a biologically relevant medium also revealed significant improvement in their anti-biofouling characteristics

Determination of the Relationship Between Leadership Perceptions of Blue Collars and Organizational Outcomes by Using MLQ Analysis

AbstractThe relationship between leadership and organizational outcomes was investigated by some academicians. Since leadership is a phenomenon that keeps numerous characteristics together and that is the basis of shaping organizational structures, its relationship with organizational outcomes is of particular concern both to the academic world and the business world in practice. Within this scope, the relationship between several different leadership models and organizational outcomes was investigated; however, in the researches, leadership perception studies were carried out only for white collar personnel. When it is considered that particularly most of the employees (followers) working in the production sector are blue collar employees, it is thought that investigating the leadership perceptions of blue collars plays an important role in determining the contribution of leadership types to organizational outcomes.In this study, with the information obtained from 296 blue collar employees who work in food and manufacturing industry in Kocaeli and Istanbul, heavily industrialized provinces in our country, by means of multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ), the relationship of leadership behaviors with organizational outcomes (efficiency, satisfaction and extra effort) was investigated. When the multifactor leadership scale (MLQ) was applied to the participants, it was seen that the nine components that shows all leadership dimensions stated by Bass were not clearly decomposed from each other. As a result of reliability and internal consistency tests applied to these data, active and passive leadership dimensions were revised. As a result of the analysis conducted considering these data, the relationships of active and passive leadership dimensions with organizational outcomes were investigated and it was found out that organizational outcomes had a positive strong relationship with active leadership dimension

The Relationships Between Egg Production, Age and The Hatching Traits of Pheasants

Pheasant rearing is rated in three main categories: show and hobby, public interest, and stocking for game birds and edible purposes. The goal of this pheasant breeding station is to put stocking for game birds in their natural habitat, mainly in the Karadeniz region. Contribution to the issues related to incubation in this station and determination of effective reproduction age by setting production period. The aim of this study is to determine how significant performance criteria like egg production, fertility, hatchability and embryonic mortality are, depending on age and on seasonal changes. Our research has been carried out at the Gelemen Pheasant Breeding Station in Samsun. The pheasant breeds that are used on the farm are made up of 114 male and 800 female pheasants (1♂:7♀), of Hungarian and Caucasian genotypes. During the egg-laying period, which lasts for 16 weeks from the end of March (at the age of 45 weeks) to the middle of July (at the age of 60 weeks), egg production was recorded daily and evaluated once a week, and incubation yield was recorded nine times in total. Differences between weeks of age, in terms of egg production, egg and chick weights, fertility rate, incubation yield and embryonic mortality, have been found to be statistically significant. However, hatchability has been found to be statistically insignificant

State reduction of incompletely specified finite sequential machines

Bu çalışmada, kısmen belirli ardışıl makinelerde durum indirgeme konusu ele alınmıştır. Durum indirgeme için geliştirilen algoritmalar, Boole fonksiyonlarının birlikte indirgenmesi, durum kodlama ve tek koşullu örtü problemi çözme gibi lojik tasarımın diğer adımlarına da uygulanmıştır. Bu çalışmada kullanılan kapalı yollar kümesi kavramına ve bu kümeden minimal kapalı örtü elde etmeye dayanan bir yönteme literatürde rastlanmamıştır. Bu algoritmalara dayanan, SRC (State Reduction and Covering) programı geliştirilmiştir. SRC, MCNC ve diğer bençmarklarda Rho yöntemi (Rho vd., 1994) ve Puri yöntemi (Puri ve Gu, 1993) ile karşılaştırılmıştır. Test sonuçlarından da görüldüğü gibi SRC programı özellikle kritik bençmarklarda daha iyi sonuç vermiştir.Anahtar Kelimeler: lojik tasarım, algoritma, durum indirgeme, örtü problemi.This paper is concerned with the problem of synthesizing a class of digital circuits, sequential circuits, more specifically state reduction of of incompletely specified sequential circuits. State reduction is an important step in the design of the synchronous and asynchronous sequential circuits. The algorithms which are developed for state reduction, are also applied to other steps of the logic synthesis, such as multiple-output Boolean minimization, state encoding and unite/binate covering problems. In this paper three algorithms are presented to find a minimal equivalent of a given incompletely specified finite sequential machine. These algorithms use a new concept; closed paths constituted by compatibles or prime compatibles. This closed paths concept and an algorithm which uses this concept is not observed in the literature. These algorithms are implemented in an efficient computer program SRC (State Reduction and Covering). SRC is run and tested on several FSMs including the MCNC FSM benchmarks and the results are given in conclusion. From the test results, it can be seen that, despite of the limited computing resources, SRC is more efficient on all benchmarks, especially on the critical benchmarks. Using these algorithms, MORP (Multiple Output Reduction Program) developed to realize m Boolean functions with n variables. State reduction methods which are developed in this work, are also applied to state encoding problem and a computer program, OPASKOD (Race-free State Assignment Program) developed.Keywords: logic synthesis, algorithm, state reduction, covering problem

Standardization of Records in Orthodontics Part 2: Craniofacial Imaging Techniques

Today, because of the greater usage of the two dimensional and three dimensional imaging records in orthodontic clinics; properties, standardization, and indications of these imaging will be mentioned in the present review.Imaging in orthodontics have great importance in diagnosis, treatment planning and treatment outcomes. Orthodontic imagines were divided into two separate categories: conventional or two dimensional and three dimensional imagines. In the present study, both methods will be discussed