Genetic diversity and population structure of Turkish native cattle breeds

Cattle are an important livestock species for human life, but certain breeds are at risk of extinction. Maintaining genetic diversity plays an important role in sustainable breeding and conservation programmes in farm animals. The aim of this study was to determine genetic diversity among five Turkish native cattle breeds. A total of 199 Turkish native cattle of the Native Southern Yellow (n = 40), South Anatolian Red (n = 40), Anatolian Grey Cattle (n = 40), Native Black Cattle (n = 39) and East Anatolian Red (n = 40) breeds were investigated using 22 autosomal microsatellite markers. The analysis revealed considerable genetic variation among these breeds. All loci were polymorphic, and a total of 545 alleles were found. Among these loci, only INRA032 was at Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Thirty-four private alleles with frequencies greater than 5% were found. Expected heterozygosity and polymorphic information content indexes were 0.87 and 0.88, respectively. Native Southern Yellow, South Anatolian Red and Native Black Cattle breeds were closely related.Keywords: animal genetic resources, microsatellite, genetic relationship, genetic conservatio

Risk-based analytical modelling of managerial processes in shipping business

Gemi işletmeciliği faaliyetleri uluslararası platformda, yüksek rekabet koşulları altında ve her geçen gün yükselen öz-denetim olgusu gibi kısıtlar altında yürütülmektedir. Bu tür kısıtlar, gemi işletmeciliğinde profesyonel anlayışa geçişe ve yenilikçi yürütme faaliyetlerine sürekli gelişim hedefi ile yönelimi tetikler. Son yıllarda, sertifikalandırma kuruluşları ve denizcilik danışmanlık grupları gemi işletmeciliği idarecilerine Entegre Yönetim Sistemini (EYS) ileri bir çözüm aracı olarak önermektedir. Gemi işletmeciliğinde EYS uygulamalarının kapsamı uluslararası tanınmış standartların gemi güvenliği ve gemilerden kaynaklanan kirliliğin önlenmesi ile ilgili zorunlu denizcilik kurallarıyla birleştirilmesi esası üzerinedir. Bu noktada, standart gereksinimlerinin uyumluluğu ve ilgili kuralların gemi işletmeciliği yönetim organizasyonuna entegrasyonu iki temel sorun olarak ortaya çıkmaktadır. Bu araştırma ile Bulanık Bilgi Aksiyomu (BBA), Hata Ağacı Analizi (HAA), Analitik Ağ Süreci (AAS) ve diğer başlıca Çok Ölçütlü Karar Verme (ÇÖKV) yöntemlerini de içeren bir Risk Bütünleşik Karar Destek Sistemi (RBKDS) geliştirildi. RBKDS, Veri Tabanlı Yönetim Sistemi (VTYS), Model Esaslı Yönetim Sistemi (MEYS), BBA esaslı Model Seçim Arayüzü (BBA-MSA), Entegre Süreç Yönetim Modülü (ESYM), İdari Karar Verme Modülü (IKVM) ve Risk Kontrol Ve Yönetim Modülü (RKYM) gibi unsurların bütünleştirilmesi ile oluşmuştur. Tamamlanan prototip uygulama ile RBKDS’ın EYS’nin süreç temelli entegrasyonu ve gemi işletmeciliğinde yönetimsel süreçlerin risk temelli analitik çözümü konusunda gemi işletmeciliği idarecilerini destekleyen nitel çıktılar ortaya koyduğu görülmüştür. Süreç idaresi prosedürlerinin yeniden tasarımına karar desteğinin yanı sıra, RBKDS, ayrıca farklı standartlar arası uyumsuzluk risklerini de göz önünde bulundurarak yönetimsel süreçler üzerine etkin karar vermeyi sağlamaktadır.   Anahtar Kelimeler: Gemi işletmeciliği, karar destek sistemi, entegre yönetim sistemi.Relevance to legislation in shipping business cycle, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) principally governs the safety and environmental protection via Flag State Implementation (FSI) and regional Port State Control (PSC) authorities in accordance with the designated Memorandum Of Understandings (MOUs). Although the IMO has adopted various conventions, mainly concerning marine safety, security, pollution prevention, and other relevant issues, enforcement of the international commitments and standards in trading activities of ships necessitate the involvement of maritime stakeholders. The IMO declared that there are now enough regulations in place and the problem is one of implementation and enforcement. In accordance with the recent trends in international maritime legislation, the implementation process of regulatory regime has become a competitive factor for the market players to achieve the sustainable development target in maritime transportation industry. Industrial response to this trend recalls the self-regulation. It is appeared as relatively a new regime for shipping business initiatives in maritime transportation industry. Extensively, the self-regulation dominates the industry and it mainly enforces the maritime stakeholders involvement in enhancement of the safety/environmental aspects for shipping business. Beside safety and environmental contributions, the self-regulation spontaneously ensures legislative performance of the relevant organizations such as classification societies, insurers, cargo owners, shippers, shipbrokers, ship managers, terminal operators and, ship financiers in trading activities satisfactorily. Implementation of an Integrated Management System (IMS) is one of the most effective and concrete instruments of managing the self-regulation phenomenon in order to respond to increasing demands from maritime society. In principle, the concept of IMS practices in shipping business is based on combining internationally recognized voluntary standards with the mandatory maritime 8regulations that are mainly concern with ship safety and the prevention of pollution from ships. In the early design phase of an IMS, cooperative efforts of maritime consultancies and relevant shipping executives targets to enable maximum improvement in managerial processes while reducing the costs and excessive bureaucracy in implementation of redesigned procedures. As potential clients, the third party groups such as cargo owners and contracted charterers have closely monitored the performance effects of IMS integration into professional shipping companies. Therefore, the managerial efforts are extremely valuable for the purpose of benefit from IMS implementations, which increase the reputation of ship management companies and provide an enormous trading advantage in maritime transportation industry. This research develops a Risk Integrated Decision Support System (RIDSS) based on a multi-methodological background includes Fuzzy Axiomatic Design (FAD) and Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), as well as Analytic Network Process (ANP) and other principal MCDM methods. The initial focus of the RIDSS is to reveal quantitative outcomes in order to encourage relevant shipping executives towards process-based integration of an IMS also to enhance risk-based analytical modelling of managerial processes in shipping business. The RIDSS consists of various modules such as Database Management System (DBMS), Model Base Management System (MBMS), FAD-based Model Selection Interface (FAD-MSI), Integrated Process Management Module (IPMM), Executive Decision-Making Module (EDMM), and Risk Control And Management Module (RCMM) with a high level of integrity. To demonstrate the proposed RIDSS, the mostly encountered managerial processes in commercial, technical, and operational levels of shipping business are then addressed and modelled. Specifically, the prototype application of the RIDSS incorporates the following process:(i) shipboard personnel recruitment, (ii) familiarization and training, (iii) performance appraisals of marine suppliers, (iv) marine equipment/spare purchasing, (v) fleet maintenance planning, (vi) accident analysis and prevention, (vii) Ship docking operations management, (viii) performance measurement for emergency drills. Besides decision aid to redesigning of process execution procedures through IMS requirements, the RIDSS also enables an effective decision-making on managerial processes even considering the potential risks of regulatory incompliance.  Keywords: Shipping business, decision support system, integrated management system.

Fast approximation of centrality and distances in hyperbolic graphs

We show that the eccentricities (and thus the centrality indices) of all vertices of a $\delta$-hyperbolic graph $G=(V,E)$ can be computed in linear time with an additive one-sided error of at most $c\delta$, i.e., after a linear time preprocessing, for every vertex $v$ of $G$ one can compute in $O(1)$ time an estimate $\hat{e}(v)$ of its eccentricity $ecc_G(v)$ such that $ecc_G(v)\leq \hat{e}(v)\leq ecc_G(v)+ c\delta$ for a small constant $c$. We prove that every $\delta$-hyperbolic graph $G$ has a shortest path tree, constructible in linear time, such that for every vertex $v$ of $G$, $ecc_G(v)\leq ecc_T(v)\leq ecc_G(v)+ c\delta$. These results are based on an interesting monotonicity property of the eccentricity function of hyperbolic graphs: the closer a vertex is to the center of $G$, the smaller its eccentricity is. We also show that the distance matrix of $G$ with an additive one-sided error of at most $c'\delta$ can be computed in $O(|V|^2\log^2|V|)$ time, where $c'< c$ is a small constant. Recent empirical studies show that many real-world graphs (including Internet application networks, web networks, collaboration networks, social networks, biological networks, and others) have small hyperbolicity. So, we analyze the performance of our algorithms for approximating centrality and distance matrix on a number of real-world networks. Our experimental results show that the obtained estimates are even better than the theoretical bounds.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1506.01799 by other author

Climate changes impacts towards sedimentation rate at Terengganu River, Terengganu, Malaysia

The climate changes caused by rainfall and stream flow are not the major contribution the changing of water level. This study was carried out at Terengganu River Basin in wet and dry season to assess the sedimentation problem and  its relationship with   hydrological characteristic. Three parameters analyzed based on in-situ and ex-situ analysis according to the correlation matrix and linear regression methods. The TSS (mg/L), Turbidity (NTU) and SSC  (mg/L)  were higher  during  dry  season  compared  wet  season  caused  by  El  Nino  phenomenon (January 2016). There are higher positive correlation between SSC and TSS, R²= 0.924 (wet season) and R² = 0.841 (dry season), the correlation between the observation (Q) and the TSS is no significant R² = 0.057 (wet season) and R² = 0.001 (dry season). The main contributors of sedimentation problems in Terengganu River caused by the climate changes phenomenon.Keywords: sedimentation; Terengganu River basin; hydrological characteristic; El Nino; communitie

Comparing the performance of FA, DFA and DMA using different synthetic long-range correlated time series

Notwithstanding the significant efforts to develop estimators of long-range correlations (LRC) and to compare their performance, no clear consensus exists on what is the best method and under which conditions. In addition, synthetic tests suggest that the performance of LRC estimators varies when using different generators of LRC time series. Here, we compare the performances of four estimators [Fluctuation Analysis (FA), Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA), Backward Detrending Moving Average (BDMA), and centred Detrending Moving Average (CDMA)]. We use three different generators [Fractional Gaussian Noises, and two ways of generating Fractional Brownian Motions]. We find that CDMA has the best performance and DFA is only slightly worse in some situations, while FA performs the worst. In addition, CDMA and DFA are less sensitive to the scaling range than FA. Hence, CDMA and DFA remain "The Methods of Choice" in determining the Hurst index of time series.Comment: 6 pages (including 3 figures) + 3 supplementary figure

Displaced Voices: A Journal of Archives, Migration and Cultural Heritage Volume 2, Issue 1 (Summer 2021)

Twentieth Century Histories of Civic Society’s Responses to Crises of Displacement: A Special Issue to mark the 70th Anniversary of Refugee Council Displaced Voices is a biannual digital magazine produced twice a year by the Living Refugee Archive team at the University of East London. Displaced Voices aims to provide a digital platform for activists, archivists, researchers, practitioners and academics to contribute to issues pertaining to refugee and migration history; refugee and migrant rights; social justice; cultural heritage and archives. We welcome a range of contributions to the magazine including articles of between 1000-2000 words; reports on fieldwork in archival collections; book recommendations and reviews; and more creative pieces including (but not limited too) cartoons; photography; and poetry. We would also welcome news on activities; publication of reports, projects; letters and news from your own networks. We welcome submissions from all writers whether you are a student, practitioner, activist or established academic. The Displaced Voices online magazine is born out of the collaborative and intersectional work that we have been undertaking through our work with the refugee and migration archives housed at the University of East London. Our work to date has explored the intersections of refugee and migration studies with narrative and life history research linked to oral history methods and archival approaches to the preservation, documentation and accessibility of archival resources recording the refugee experience. This magazine is a collaborative project between the Living Refugee Archive at the University of East London; the Oral History Society Migration Special Interest Group and the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration Working Group on the History of Forced Migration and Refugees. Thematically we are looking to engage with articles that explore the intersection of refugee and forced migration studies; history and cultural heritage studies; narrative research; oral history and archival science

Suicide mortality trends by sex, age and method in Taiwan, 1971–2005

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Method-specific suicide trends varied across countries, and studies of the trends in different countries can contribute to the understanding of the epidemiology of suicide. The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in suicide trends by sex, age and method in the years 1971 to 2005 in Taiwan.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Mortality data files of suicide and undetermined deaths for the years 1971–2005 were obtained for analyses. Age-, sex- and method-specific suicide rates were calculated by four age groups (15–24, 25–44, 45–64 and 65 and above) and five suicide methods (solids/liquids poisoning, other gases poisoning, hanging, jumping, and others).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both sexes experienced downward trends from 1971 to 1993, and then an upward trend since 1993. People aged 65 years and above had the highest suicide rates throughout the study periods. However, males aged 25–64 years experienced the steepest increasing trends. As to suicide methods, an annual increase, since 1991, of people jumping from heights to commit suicide, and a marked increase, since 1998, of people completing suicide by poisoning with other gases (mainly charcoal-burning) were observed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Suicide by means of charcoal-burning and jumping from heights has become a serious public health problem in Taiwan. Preventive measures to curb these increasing trends are urgently needed.</p

Daily antibiotic cost of nosocomial infections in a Turkish university hospital

BACKGROUND: Many studies associated nosocomial infections with increased hospital costs due to extra days in hospital, staff time, extra investigations and drug treatment. The cost of antibiotic treatment for these infections represents a significant part of hospital expenditure. This prospective observational study was designed to determine the daily antibiotic cost of nosocomial infections per infected adult patient in Akdeniz University Hospital. METHODS: All adult patients admitted to the ICUs between January 1, 2000, and June 30, 2003 who had only one nosocomial infection during their stay were included in the study. Infection sites and pathogens, antimicrobial treatment of patient and it's cost were recorded. Daily antibiotic costs were calculated per infected patient. RESULTS: Among the 8460 study patients, 817 (16.6%) developed 1407 episodes of nosocomial infection. Two hundred thirty three (2.7%) presented with only one nosocomial infection. Mean daily antibiotic cost was $89.64. Daily antibiotic cost was$99.02 for pneumonia, $94.32 for bloodstream infection,$94.31 for surgical site infection, $52.37 for urinary tract infection, and$162.35 for the other infections per patient. The treatment of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections was the most expensive infection treated. Piperacillin-tazobactam and amikacin were the most prescribed antibiotics, and meropenem was the most expensive drug for treatment of the nosocomial infections in the ICU. CONCLUSIONS: Daily antibiotic cost of nosocomial infections is an important part of extra costs that should be reduced providing rational antibiotic usage in hospitals