Production of Dirac Particles in External Electromagnetic Fields

Pair creation of spin- 1/2 particles in Minkowski spacetime is investigated by obtaining exact solu- tions of the Dirac equation in the presence of electromagnetic fields and using them for determining the Bogoliubov coefficients. The resulting particle creation number density depends on the strength of the electric and magnetic fields.Comment: Accepted for publication in Acta Physica Polonica

Ocular pulse amplitude after trabeculectomy

Background: The ocular pulse amplitude (OPA) is the difference between the minimum and maximum values of the pulsatile intraocular pressure (IOP) wave contour. The OPA depends on ocular perfusion and IOP, which are both affected by a trabeculectomy (TE). The aim of this study was to investigate how the OPA changes after TE and whether an early change in OPA can be used as a prognostic marker for a successful long-term outcome. Methods: Fourteen consecutive patients (26-84 years old) with medically uncontrolled primary open-angle or pseudoexfoliation glaucoma were included in the study. IOP and OPA were measured with a dynamic contour tonometer before and after TE on days -1, +1, +7, +14, +21, +28, +42, +56, +70, and +84. The OPA of the contralateral eye was used to control for variations in systemic haemodynamics. TE was regarded as successful if a persistent drop in IOP of at least 20% without the use of IOP-lowering treatment was achieved. Data were analysed using receiver operating characteristic curves, Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Mann-Whitney two-sample analysis. Results: Five out of 14 TEs had an entirely successful outcome. The other 9 patients required additional interventions such as suturolysis, needling of subconjunctival scar tissue and antimetabolite injections during the 3-month period after the TE. On the first day after surgery, OPA decreased in 12 patients and increased in 2 patients compared with the preoperative measurements. In the 5 patients with a successful long-term outcome, OPA dropped by 3.38±1.79mmHg (mean±SE), whereas the initial OPA drop in those cases that required additional interventions was 0.62+/−1.81mmHg only (p<0.01). IOP dropped by 13.10±2.14mmHg in the successful group and by 5.84±2.51mmHg in the unsuccessful group (p=0.19). Kaplan-Meier estimates of survival showed that patients with an initial OPA drop of more than 2.0mmHg had a significantly better chance of an entirely uncomplicated 3-month outcome after TE than patients with an initial OPA drop of less than 2.0mmHg (log rank p<0.01). Conclusion: This pilot study indicates that an early drop in OPA of more than 2.0mmHg after TE may be a good prognostic parameter for successful long-term control of IO

Inertia and identity confusion in Ernest Hemingway's the sun also rises

During the first postwar period (WWI), people have been left aside in disillusionment, uncertainty, and disbelief since the disastrous war has made people think that the world they live in can no longer correspond to their continual notions and values. This created a sort of ‘lost generation’ who has picked up the idea that the postwar world is topsy-turvy and lacks stability to settle down and to work things out. Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises narrates the postwar world with such characters as Jake Barnes, Robert Gohn, Mike Campbell, Bill Gorton, Brett Ashley, and Pedro Romero. With this in mind, this paper, considering the pre- and postwar world phenomena will focus on the process of inertia and identity confusion of these characters in the course of their lives

Fake news in the age of post-truth [Hakikat-sonrası dönemde yalan haberler]

The definition of ‘post-truth’, according to Oxford Dictionaries, is those objective facts are today less effective and powerful in structuring public or masses' opinions than personal emotions and beliefs. The prefix post- does not come to mean ‘after’ but ‘the end’ or ‘the death.’ In other words, the word ‘post-truth’ comes to indicate ‘the end, or the death of truth.’ To put it differently, feelings and emotions matter more than facts.’ Mass media and social media are the main promoters of post-truth or of the death of truth. This study investigates how much the public is exposed to and manipulated by these promoters and by fake news that comes out of these promoters. The study also aims to figure out how much literate the public is on reading fake news in the age of ‘post-truth.’ For this small-scale study, data was gathered from surveys both in Turkish and English. Data analysis and evaluation provided a small-scaled outcome to suggest further study

Don DeLillo's Great Jones Street: commodification and pandemonium

The future modern condition of humanity is at stake; the market economy rationalizes and mechanizes people; reduces them to objects that consume objects. Material value predominates human value. Meaning is lost; it is equal to the accumulation of tangible objects. The complexity of human condition in the 21st century has become one of the most widely explored topics among scholars, writers, and critics in American literature. Given that DeLillo's character Bucky Wunderlick exemplifies this complexity, this paper proposes to explore Wunderlick’s treatment to commodification imposed upon him by the crowds (audience/masses) and market economy. In this paper, these crowds and the economic system are reduced to the notion of Pandemonium. It denotes chaos, a state of extreme confusion and disorder. My reading of Wunderlick’s commodification in contemporary America grounds on Marx and Engels' definition of the concept. I strengthen my argument with Jean Baudrillard, Guy DeBord, Lucas, and Adorno. On the whole, this study aspires to further expand the understanding of the future plight of human beings in the post-contemporary (my italics) America

A Comparative Analysis of the Society and State Theories of “Ahlâk-I Alâî” and “Leviathan” Based on the State and Governance-Oriented Paradigms

Although Ottoman political thought has been studied in its own structure in many ways, the studies which demostrate its position against different political structures, at least, those in Europe are very limited. Acccordingly, in order to figure out whether this political thought differed in certain respects from one polity to the other, this study has attempted to analyse the society and state theories of “Ahlak-ı Alâî”, which was written in the second half of the 16th century by Kınâlızade Ali Çelebi, who was an Ottoman thinker, and “Leviathan”, which was written by Thomas Hobbes, who was a British philosopher and political theorist in England in the mid- 17th century, in relation to the state and governance-oriented paradigms in a comparative framework. Inspired by the American political theorist Sheldon Wolin, the study has been divided into three sections. The first section presents the socio-economic, political and institutional environment in which the works were written; the second section presents the methods applied in the works. And the last section describes the main message and common ground of the theories. This study has determined that differences and similarities of the methods applied as well as the views argued about the matters such as the legitimacy of the state, the base of the sovereignty, the rights, duties and governance principles of the sovereign based on the temporal and geographical differences in the two works. These findings have significant implications to see the differences and similarities of the Ottoman political thought against political structures in Europe

The hunger games: reality or phantasmagoria

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins is a dystopian novel that addresses a story of a sixteen-year-old Katniss driven to fight to the death against other teens in the games while the rest of the country glued to their TV to watch these. The government aims to strengthen its power through these games and suppress any revolting attempts of the citizens. Suzanne Collins's novel is implicitly or explicitly the description and critique of the war news and reality shows, and competitions in these shows. Collins appears to suggest rescuing the future by focusing on the current predicament of human. This paper discusses how people read the false reality and continuing violence screening from reality television shows and argues how media contents fascinate and dehumanize them

Don DeLillo's Americana: technology, suffering and salvation

Don DeLillo's Americana portrays a subject inhabiting in a media-saturated America. The subject is suffering from fundamental alienation, fragmentation, and corruption triggered and developed by media and consumer society. It is the archetypal American condition of the mind or self, and it provides no escape or no salvation. Media and consumer society discussed in this papertransforms the first-person “I” into a third-person singular “We” and creates „one-dimensional man‟ “They”. This paper will argue the responsibility of literature in today's technological environment and demonstrate how literature produces awareness through its subject matter. Likewise, it will examine the suffering subject and a quest for authenticity and meaning in the heartland of America. Do authenticity and meaning still exist across America? Does mediasaturated America provide salvation for its suffering masses? Jean Baudrillard and Marshall McLuhan will constitute the backbone of this paper to bring these substantial cases into the open

Aligning With The Center: How We Elicit Tutee Perspectives in Writing Center Scholarship

This meta-analysis of writing center scholarship surveys the last twenty years of empirical work from The Writing Center Journal, WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, and Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. Writing centers are traditionally predicated on treating writers as both beneficiaries of tutoring and active collaborators in its success. Our pedagogy is tutee-centered in its practice and the benefits it produces, and although we pride ourselves in acting as team players in tutoring sessions, does the same quality emerge in existing research? This paper finds writing center scholarship is rife with studies where the writer-as-beneficiary takes precedence over the often-absent writer-as-collaborator. Put another way, we often attend to writers as recipients of tutoring, but we rarely address their perspectives as active participants in testing our pedagogical assumptions. This paper demonstrates historical trends in scholarship and recent moves to center writers in rigorous, participatory roles in evidence-based inquiry. By engaging with tendencies in data collection in writing center research, this project addresses an unconsidered gap between existing principles and the role of tutees in our evolving research practices. This project offers a custom taxonomy for tutee-based studies, and a thematically organized table of findings.University Writing Cente