Investigating How Students Transfer a Source Text into Speech through Lesson Study

This study was designed to explore how students enrolled at the English Academic Presentation Skills and English for Logistics Courses transfer a piece of written text into speech. Designed as a Lesson Study Project, this study was carried out during the 2016-17 Fall Semester by five teachers with the participation of 68 students from three different departments and four different classes. Data in this qualitative case study was gathered through four research lessons, classroom observations, student interviews and analysis of student work. Findings of the study revealed that students tend to make changes in a written text in five different ways to be able to present it orally. These changes fall under the headings of organizational changes, sentence level changes, summarizing the text, using key details and use of transitions

Screening of Tomatoes for Their Resistance to Salinity and Drought Stress

In the study, 55 tomato genotypes have been investigated for their responses against salinity stresses in 48 day old early plant growth stage. For these purposes, several morphological and physiological measurements and analysis have been done in stressed plants. Shoot and root dry weights, plant height, leaf number, leaf area, relative water content, stomatal conductance, leaf osmotic potential, leaf water potential, shoot K, Ca and Cl concentrations were measured and analyzed. Salt and drought tolerant and sensitive (intolerant) genotypes have been found out according to the responses of the tomato genotypes to the above mentioned morphological and physiological parameters. At the end of the study, the fifty-five tomato genotypes were classified as tolerant, mildly tolerant or susceptible. Shoot dry weight, plant total leaf area, leaf water potential, leaf osmotic potential, stomatal conductance, K, Ca, Na and Cl concentrations in shoot and root, K/Na, Ca/Na, membrane injury index and visual appearance of damages were more relevant parameter for screening studies. Keywords: Stress, saline, water, tolerance, selection, breedin

Hub Network Design Problem with Capacity, Congestion and Stochastic Demand Considerations

Our study introduces the hub network design problem with congestion, capacity, and stochastic demand considerations (HNDC), which generalizes the classical hub location problem in several directions. In particular, we extend state-of-the-art by integrating capacity acquisition decisions and congestion cost effect into the problem and allowing dynamic routing for origin-destination pairs. Connecting strategic and operational level decisions, HNDC jointly decides hub locations and capacity acquisitions by considering the expected routing and congestion costs. A path-based mixed-integer second-order cone programming (SOCP) formulation of the HNDC is proposed. We exploit SOCP duality results and propose an exact algorithm based on Benders decomposition and column generation to solve this challenging problem. We use a specific characterization of the capacity-feasible solutions to speed up the solution procedure and develop an efficient branch-and-cut algorithm to solve the master problem. We conduct extensive computational experiments to test the proposed approach’s performance and derive managerial insights based on realistic problem instances adapted from the literature. In particular, we found that including hub congestion costs, accounting for the uncertainty in demand, and whether the underlying network is complete or incomplete have a significant impact on hub network design and the resulting performance of the system

The influence of plant addition to some physicochemical, textural, microstructural, melting ability and sensory properties of Mozzarella cheese

Mozzarella je sir koji se proizvodi gnječenjem sirnog tijesta u vrućoj vodi. Samo tijesto je karakteristične filamentozne strukture te ima dobru sposobnost topljenja i rastezanja. Cilj ovog rada bio je istražiti utjecaj dodatka odabranog začinskog bilja na određena svojstva Mozzarella sira. Ružmarin (Rosmarinus officinalis L.), bosiljak (Ocimum basilicum L.), paprena metvica (Mentha piperita L.) i turski origano (Origanum onites L.) dodani su Mozzarella siru u fazi gnječenja, dok su fizikalno-kemijska, teksturalna, mikrostrukturna i senzorska svojstva te sposobnost topljenja određivani tijekom perioda skladištenja. Kontrolni uzorak sira proizveden je bez dodatka začinskog bilja. Prethodno spomenuti dodaci utjecali su na neka svojstva Mozzarella sira kao što su pH, kiselost, slobodne masne kiseline, tekstura i mikrostrukturna svojstva. Nadalje, uočena je i promjena senzorskih svojstava, pri čemu je pogotovo dodatak turskog origana i paprene metvice uzrokovao bolju prihvatljivost te bolji okus i aromu. Dok su niža pH vrijednost i titracijska kiselost utvrđeni kod sireva s dodatkom ružmarina, najniži udio slobodnih masnih kiselina (ADV) utvrđen je kod sireva s dodatkom paprene metvice. Sirevi s dodatkom ružmarina bili su tvrđi i jednoličnije mikrostrukture, dok su najbolja senzorska svojstva imali sirevi s dodatkom turskog origana i paprene metvice. Zaključno, rezultati ovog istraživanja pokazali su kako se trajnost Mozzarella sira može produljiti dodatkom različitog začinskog bilja zbog povoljnog utjecaja na pH, kiselost i slobodne masne kiseline.Mozzarella cheese is produced by kneading the curd, which has a fibrous structure with melting and elongation properties, in hot water. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of the addition of some plants on certain properties of Mozzarella cheese. Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.), basil (Ocimum basilicum L.), mint (Mentha piperita L.) and Turkish Oregano (Origanum onites L.) were added to Mozzarella cheese at the curd kneading stage, and physicochemical, textural, microstructural, meltability and sensory properties were investigated during the storage period. No plants were added to the control group cheese. Plant addition to Mozzarella cheese affected some physicochemical properties such as pH, acidity, free fatty acids, as well as textural and microstructural properties. Furthermore, it affected sensory properties, especially Turkish Oregano and mint addition provided high general acceptability and taste-aroma scores. While higher pH and lower titration acidity were determined in rosemary-added cheese samples, the lowest free fatty acid (ADV) levels were determined in the mint-added cheese sample. Rosemary-added cheeses had higher hardness and a more even microstructure, while the highest sensory scores were obstained for cheeses that included Turkish Oregano and mint. In conclusion, the present study findings demonstrated that the short shelf life of Mozzarella cheese could be extended with the addition of various plants due to their effects on pH, acidity and free fatty acids

Beslenme ve sporun adolesan sporcularda büyüme durumuna etkisi

Bu araştırma adolesan dönemde büyüme kriterlerinden boy ve kilo persentil değerleriyle spor aktivitesi ve beslenme durumunun bağlantısını incelemek amacıyla yapılmıştır. Araştırmaya 43 kadın, 50 erkek olmak üzere 93 adölesan sporcu katılmıştır. Araştırma verileri kişisel bilgi formu ve boy kilo ölçümü yapılarak elde edilmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda elde edilen verilerin istatistiksel analizlerinde frekans, yüzde ve Ki-kare Fisher Kesinlik Testi kullanılmıştır. İstatistiksel analizlerde anlamlılık düzeyi olarak (p<0,05) değeri kabul edilmiştir. Elde edilen bulgulardan katılımcıların kendi belirledikleri bir beslenme programını uygulama durumları ile boy persetil ve kilo percentil durumları arasında istatistiksel olarak bağlantılı olduğu tespit edilmiştir (p<0,05). Haftalık antrenman sıklığı, günlük öğün sayısı ve günlük öğün atlama durumlarının ise boy ve kilo persentil durumlarıyla istatistiksel olarak bağlantılı bulunmamıştır (p<0,05). Sonuç olarak herhangi bir uzman tavsiyesine dayanmayan, bilinçsiz uygulanan diyetlerin adolesan dönemde, çocukların boy ve kilo percentil durumunu dolayısıyla büyüme ve gelişim düzeylerini olumsuz etkileyebileceği şeklinde yorumlanabilir

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P &lt; 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely