Development and application of the Commitment to Profession of Medicine Scale using classical test theory and item response theory

Aim To determine the level of professional commitment of medical students by developing and applying a new scale. Methods The study enrolled 999 students of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, School of Medicine. Factor analysis, reliability analysis, and item analysis were performed based on the classical test theory and item response theory. The data obtained through scale application were analyzed using factorial ANOVA. Results The Commitment to Profession of Medicine Scale was identified as a unidimensional scale consisting of nine items. The scale in its present form explained 51% of the variance in commitment to profession of medicine. The reliability was 0.88. The scale application revealed that female students had higher commitment than male students. The highest level of commitment was observed in third- and first-year students, students with the lowest level of family income, and students whose ideal profession was medicine. Conclusion There are many factors affecting professional commitment levels of university students. Therefore, it is of great importance to examine students’ commitment at an early stage. In addition, the experiences of students during university years are important since they directly affect the commitment level. Considering these factors, teachers should support their students and strive to increase their commitment levels

Sub-national Units in Transition: IR Theory and Emerging Actors in a Multi-level Environment

AbstractWhile European integration has gained momentum following the Treaty of Maastricht, a discourse on “Europe of the regions” has come to the fore, with the presumption that the sub-national units become, or are supposed to become, active dynamics of the integration process. However, this dominant discourse seems to take the “actorness” of sub-national units for granted, without questioning their rather passive position in the face of both national and supranational actors. In turn, this passive position gives rise to a reaction – albeit in some cases reluctantly – from the part of sub-national units. As a matter of fact, the research on which the present paper is based suggests that while their involvement in interaction at both national and supra-national levels varies from country to country, and even from one region to another within any given member state, these units tend to “individualise” for certain reasons. Among others, the main factors of individualisation are ever-growing competition and devolution of not only competences, but also public finance burdens which forces the sub-national units to act increasingly in individual terms. The paper aims to share some observations on the transformation of these units, focusing on the case of Italy.&nbsp

Does the Reserve Options Mechanism really decrease exchange rate volatility? The Synthetic Control Method Approach

After the invention of the Reserve Option Mechanism (ROM) by the Central Bank of Turkey, it has been debated whether it can help decrease the volatility of foreign exchange rate. In this study, I apply a new micro-econometric technique, the synthetic control method, in order to construct a counterfactual foreign exchange rate volatility in the absence of the ROM. I find that, USD/TRY rate is less volatile under the ROM. However, the ROM has not worked efficiently after the announcement of FED's tapering in May 2013. Furthermore, the ROM could have decreased the volatility of foreign exchange rate if FED had not started tapering

Does the Reserve Options Mechanism really decrease exchange rate volatility? The Synthetic Control Method Approach

After the invention of the Reserve Option Mechanism (ROM) by the Central Bank of Turkey, it has been debated whether it can help decrease the volatility of foreign exchange rate. In this study, I apply a new micro-econometric technique, the synthetic control method, in order to construct a counterfactual foreign exchange rate volatility in the absence of the ROM. I find that, USD/TRY rate is less volatile under the ROM. However, the ROM has not worked efficiently after the announcement of FED's tapering in May 2013. Furthermore, the ROM could have decreased the volatility of foreign exchange rate if FED had not started tapering

Growth and reproduction studies on gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) in Beymelek Lagoon, Turkey

In the present study, age, growth, length-weight relationship and reproduction were investigated in gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata L., 1758) collected from Beymelek Lagoon (Antalya, Turkey) between February 2006 and July 2007. The age, total length and weight of samples ranged from 0+ to 4 years, 10.6 to 35.5cm, and 18 to 928g, respectively. Growth was described by the standard form of the von Bertalanffy growth equation and the estimated parameters were L∞ = 44.6cm, k = 0.394yr^-1 and t0 = -1.331yr. Length-weight relationship was determined as W=0.0174TL^2.9769 (R^2=0.965), and weight increased with size isometrically (b = 2.9769) for all fish. Sex inversion occurred mainly at 26 cm in total length and females reached sexual maturity at 28.5 cm. The spawning period was from December to February, while the gamete emission peaked in December

A Roadmap of Emerging Trends Discovery in Hydrology: A Topic Modeling Approach

In the new global era, determining trends can play an important role in guiding researchers, scientists, and agencies. The main faced challenge is to track the emerging topics among the stacked publications. Therefore, any study done to propose the trend topics in a field to foresee upcoming subjects is crucial. In the current study, the trend topics in the field of "Hydrology" have been attempted to evaluate. To do so, the model is composed of three key components: a gathering of data, preprocessing of the article's significant features, and determining trend topics. Various topic models including Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF), and Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) have been implemented. Comparing the obtained results with respect to the $C_V$ coherence score, in 2022, the topics of "Climate change", "River basin", "Water management", "Natural hazards/erosion", and "Hydrologic cycle" have been obtained. According to a further analysis, it is shown that these topics keep their impact on the field in 2023, as well.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, 3 Tables. This work was supported by the Center of Scientific Research Projects of the Izmir Katip Celebi University [Grant Number: 2022-GAP-MUMF-0029

Conductive Buffer Layers and Overlayers for the Thermal Stability of Coated Conductors

We analyze fundamental issues related to the thermal and electrical stability of a coated conductor during its operation. We address the role of conductive buffer layers in the stability of Ni-based coated conductors, and the effect of a metallic cap layer on the electrical properties of Ni alloy-based superconducting tapes. For the first case we report on the fabrication of a fully conductive RABiTS architecture formed of bilayers of conductive oxides SrRuO3 and LaNiO3 on textured Ni tapes. For the second case we discuss measurements of current-voltage relations on Ag/YBa2Cu3O7-d and Cu/Ag/ YBa2Cu3O7-d prototype multilayers on insulating substrates. Limitations on the overall tape structure and properties that are posed by the stability requirement are presented.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Single Enteral Loading Dose of Phenobarbital for Achieving Its Therapeutic Serum Levels in Neonates

Aim To investigate whether therapeutic serum drug levels may be achieved with a single enteral loading dose of phenobarbital. Methods The study was performed at the Mersin University Hospital in Turkey between April 2004 and August 2006, and included 29 newborn babies with seizure. After the acute treatment of the seizure with midazolam at a dose of 0.1 mg/kg, phenobarbital was administered by orogastric route at a loading dose of 20 mg/kg. Serum phenobarbital concentrations were measured at 0.5, 3, 6, and 12 hours after the loading. Serum phenobarbital levels between 10- 30 μg/mL were considered as the therapeutic range. Results The serum phenobarbital levels reached therapeutic values in 9 (31%), 19 (66%), 21 (72%), and 23 (79%) patients at 0.5, 3, 6, and 12 hours after loading, respectively, while they did not reach therapeutic values in 6 patients (21%) after 12 hours. Four of the patients in whom there was no increase in serum phenobarbital levels had hypoxic- ischemic encephalopathy. Conclusion Enteral loading of phenobarbital can achieve therapeutic serum levels in the large majority of newborn babies with seizure and may be safely used in babies with the intact gastrointestinal tract

Hydrophobic ion pair for the oral delivery of leucine-enkephalin

1.Purpose The global therapeutic peptides market was valued at US$26.98 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach US$51.24 billion by 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.7% from 2020 to 2027 (Research 2021). The peptide market is bound to grow by the increase in metabolic diseases andcancers but their translation remains challenging due to pre-systemic degradation, short plasma half-lives, and poor permeability across physiological barriers. Ion-pairing has been proposed as a method for the oraldelivery of peptides (Griesser, Hetenyi et al. 2017) as it enables increase stability to gastrointestinal enzymedegradation and enhanced permeability across physiological barriers. In this study, we explore the formationof an ion-pair of leucine-enkephalin (LENK), an endogenous opioid pentapeptide with applications as an oraltherapeutic for the treatment of pain (Lalatsa, Lee et al. 2012), Chron’s disease, and other gastrointestinalinflammatory conditions, as a strategy to enhance its oral bioavailability (Owczarek, Cibor et al. 2011). 2.Method Standard orthogenic solid phase peptide synthesis was utilized to synthesize LENK (0.5 mmole scale) (Lalatsa, Lee et al. 2012) and the peptide was obtained in high yield ( >85%) and highpurity ( >95%) as determined by HPLC and LC-MS. LENK (2.73 mmole, 1.52 mg/mL, 3mL) andsodium docusate (3mL) in deionized water (pH: 2.9) were mixed at different molar ratio (1:1,1:3, 1:5 respectively) to understand optimal ratio for pair formation and vortexed over 1 minute prior centrifugation or ultracentrifugation for 90 minutes at 4oC at 40,000 rpm (Hitachi Ultracentrifuge CP1000 NX). The supernatant was separated and the pellet was frozen withliquid nitrogen and lyophilized for 24 hours (Teslar, -50oC, 0.2mbar pressure). The LENK content was characterized by a previously validated HPLC method (Lalatsa, Lee et al. 2012). Intestinal fluid (50mM phosphate buffer, pH 6.6) was prepared from excised mouse intestine(C57BL/6, 8 weeks old, male) as previously described and characterized for protein contentusing the Bradford assay and diluted (1mg mL) (Lalatsa, Lee et al. 2012). Stability studies (37oC, 50 rpm) were undertaken and the remaining LENK was analyzed using HPLC after dilution in ice-cold acetonitrile (1:1) and centrifugation. Permeability studies across a Caco-2 cell monolayer were undertaken for LENK, the ion-paired LENK, and antipyrine with FITC dextran (3-5 kDa) as an internal control as previously described (Hubatsch, Ragnarsson et al. 2007). Caco-2 seed density was 10,000 cells/cm in this experiment. 3.Results The 1:1 and the 1:5 ratios resulted in low ion-pairing yields of 37% and 19%. The optimal ratio for pairing was identified to be 1:3 which resulted in an ion-pairing yield of 56% and this ratio was further tested in stability and permeability studies. Intestinal wash was selected as it more closely describes in vivo data scenarios (McConnell, Basit et al. 2008). LENK degraded rapidly in the intestinal wash (< 60 minutes) while the ion pair showed a 3.5-fold increase in half-life and showed levels that were significantly different after the first initial 10 minutes (Student t-test, p< 0.05) (Figure 1). Permeability across the Caco-2 cells indicate a trend for higher uptake for ion-pair LENK, but due to low TEER values obtained in our experiments due to low cell seed density (Figure 2). 4.Conclusion Ion-paired LENK has shown a significant enhancement in oral gastrointestinal stability and further studies are underway to assess its oral bioavailability across Caco-2 monolayers. Combining ion-pair technology with solid state or additively manufactured formulations can enable the production of an oral LENK formulation for the treatment of pain and inflammatory diseases such as Chron’s disease

Hepatitis C Virus Infection: Molecular Pathways to Steatosis, Insulin Resistance and Oxidative Stress

The persistent infection with hepatitis C virus is a major cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. However, the morbidity associated with hepatitis C virus widely varies and depends on several host-related cofactors, such as age, gender, alcohol consumption, body weight, and co-infections. The objective of this review is to discuss three of these cofactors: steatosis, insulin resistance and oxidative stress. Although all may occur independently of HCV, a direct role of HCV infection in their pathogenesis has been reported. This review summarizes the current understanding and potential molecular pathways by which HCV contributes to their development