Extranoematic artifacts: neural systems in space and topology

During the past several decades, the evolution in architecture and engineering went through several stages of exploration of form. While the procedures of generating the form have varied from using physical analogous form-finding computation to engaging the form with simulated dynamic forces in digital environment, the self-generation and organization of form has always been the goal. this thesis further intend to contribute to self-organizational capacity in Architecture. The subject of investigation is the rationalizing of geometry from an unorganized point cloud by using learning neural networks. Furthermore, the focus is oriented upon aspects of efficient construction of generated topology. Neural network is connected with constraining properties, which adjust the members of the topology into predefined number of sizes while minimizing the error of deviation from the original form. The resulted algorithm is applied in several different scenarios of construction, highlighting the possibilities and versatility of this method

QT intervals and heart rate variability in hypertensive patients

Low heart rate variability and increased QT dispersion are risk factors for cardiac mortality in various patient populations. We studied dispersion of QT interval, i.e. an index of inhomogeneity of repolarization, and heart rate variability (HRV) i.e., a measure of cardiac autonomie modulation in 76 essential hypertension cases (45 women, 53.0 ± 11.1 years, body mass index: 25.1 ±1.4 kg/m2) and 70 healthy cases (42 women, 54.0 ±10.2 years, body mass index: 25.5 ±1.6 kg/m2,/? > 0.05). QT-corrected QT intervals and their dispersions were significantly higher in the hypertensive group (p 50 msec (p = 0.005), HRV triangular index (p - 0.007), the square root of the mean squared differences of successive RR intervals (p = 0.011), and the high frequency (HF, 0.16-0.40 Hz, p< 0.0001) part of the frequency domain measure of HRV were all decreased, whereas the low frequency (LF, 0.04-0.15 Hz, p = 0.013) part of the frequency domain measures and LF/HF ratio (p < 0.0001) were increased in hypertensive cases. Time domain and the HF part of frequency domain measures of heart rate variability showed an inverse relation with the increased levels of both systolic and diastolic blood pressures and Lown grading system of ventricular rhythm problems, whereas LF and LF / HF showed direct relations with high levels of systolic and diastolic blood pressures and high Lown grade ventricular rhythm problems. The measures of heart rate variability apart from LF and LF / HF were inversely related with the QT intervals and dispersions, whereas LF / HF was directly related with them. Therefore, we conclude that the levels of both systolic and diastolic blood pressures are related to the generation of ventricular rhythm problems either via increasing left ventricular mass which results in an increase in QT parameter measurements, or by altering heart rate variability measures indicating a disturbance in cardiac autonomie balance in essential hypertension

Coronary artery disease and infection with chlamydia pneumonia

The association between chlamydia pneumonia and coronary artery disease is well documented, however less is known about the correlation between chlamydia pneumonia infection and blood inflammatory markers or lipid levels. In 100 patients with proven coronary artery disease (25 females, 61.0 + 4.0 years old), and 60 healthy volunteer control cases (15 females, 60.6 ±3.4 years old), anti chlamydia pneumonia IgG, blood lipid, C-reactive protein and fibrinogen levels were detected. In cases with coronary artery disease seropositivity for IgG antibodies to chlamydia pneumonia (74% versus 34%, p < 0.0001 ), C-reactive protein (mg / /) (2.8 ±0.6 versus 1.4 ±0.6, p < 0.0001 ), fibrinogen (mg / d/) (317.4 ±38.2 versus 256.2 ±34.5, p < 0.0001 ), triglycéride (mg/dl) (217.5 ±39.0 versus 191.0 + 25.9, p <0.0001), LDL-cholesterol (mg /dl) (126.9+ 19.2 versus 110.6± 19.5, p< 0.0001) levels and total cholesterol / HDL-cholesterol ratio (7.7 ±1.8 versus 4.4 + 1.2, p < 0.0001) were higher but the level of HDL-cholesterol (mg/dl) (26.4±6.7 versus 47.0 ±11.2, p< 0.0001) was lower. The levels of total cholesterol did not differ between the two groups (/? = 0.9). Levels of triglycéride (r = 0.60, p< 0.00001), LDL-cholesterol (r = 0.27, p = 0.0004), C-reactive protein (r = 0.69, p < 0.00001), fibrinogen (r = 0.60, p<0.00001) and total cholesterol /HDLcholesterol ratio (r = 0.74, p< 0.00001) had a direct relation, but the level of HDL-cholesterol had a negative (r = -0.80, p< 0.00001) relation with the seropositivity for chlamydia pneumonia. As a result, seropositivity for IgG antibodies to chlamydia pneumonia is considered as a risk factor for coronary artery disease by its association with the atherogenic lipid profile and procoagulant activity

Who Cares about Democracy? And Why? European Citizens’ and Parties’ Attitudes towards Democracy

This cumulative dissertation addresses the question when and why citizens and political elites politicise, defend or undermine democratic institutions. It is the first to show that citizens have different preferences for political institutions, that these preferences affect in how far citizens are willing to defend the institutions in place and that democracy, in fact, is an issue of electoral competition at least in Germany. The first chapter of this dissertation uses a survey experiment (list experiment) and quantitative text analysis of open-ended survey responses to elicit citizens’ support for and understandings of democracy in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. It shows that authoritarian attitudes correlate strongly with citizens’ lack of support for democracy, while populist attitudes correlate strongly with their understanding of democracy. These are novel findings that contribute to the discussion on the explanatory factors for the lack of support for liberal democracy among some citizens, strongly pointing to the relevance of authoritarianism. The second chapter of this dissertation uses survey data from Germany and Poland that includes another type of survey experiments called vignette experiments. Together with Theresa Gessler, we show that citizens’ understandings of democracy significantly affect their willingness to tolerate different types of democratic backsliding. In contrast to the previous literature, it shows that citizens do not necessarily not care about democracy and thus trade it for their preferred policy, but that citizens have different preferences for political institutions that explain whether they support or punish governments who infringe on democratic institutions in place. The third chapter of this dissertation combines pre-existing survey data and manifesto data for German citizens and parties. By combining these different data sources, it shows that democracy per se as well as liberal democracy, social democracy and direct democracy are issues of party competition in Germany. Challenger parties refer to democracy more often than established parties and parties of different party families emphasise different conceptions of democracy in their election campaigns. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first article that conceptualises democracy as electoral issue and thus leads to a significant number of further questions regarding the role of elections in stabilizing or destabilizing democracy

A novel sorbent (MCM-41 immobilized with N-methylglucamine) for removal/preconcentration of boron from waters. Synthesis, characterization and applications to water samples

Thesis (Master)--İzmir Institute of Technology, Chemistry, İzmir, 2004Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 74)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxii, 83 leavesDetermination of boron has become an important task in a variety of analytical applications because of the increasing use of boron compounds in various industrial fields. Its concentration is generally low in many samples and this necessitates either the use of very sensitive analytical techniques or the application of suitable preconcentration methods prior to instrumental determination.In the present study, a novel sorbent was prepared by the functionalization of an inorganic support material, MCM-41, with N-methylglucamine for the uptake of boron from aqueous solutions prior to its determination by ICP-OES. Characterization of the newly synthesized material was performed using elemental analysis, XRD, DRIFTS, and BET analysis. Sorption behavior of the novel sorbent for boron was also investigated and found to obey Freundlich and Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) isotherm models. The maximum amount of B (as H3BO3) that can be sorbed by the sorbent was calculated from the D-R isotherm and was found to be 0.8 mmol of B per gram of sorbent. The applicability of the new sorbent for the removal/preconcentration of boron from aqueous samples was examined by batch method. It was found that the sorbent can take up 85 % of boron in 5 minutes whereas quantitative sorption is obtained in 30 minutes. Any pH greater than 6 can be used for sorption. The desorption from the sorbent was carried out with 1.0 M HNO3. For method validation, spike recovery tests were performed at various concentration levels in different water types and were found to be between 85-95 and 75-90 percent for ultra pure water and geothermal water, respectively

The Turkish Women’s Movement in Abeyance

The Turkish women’s movement started during the Ottoman era, and it is still in process in the newly established Turkish Republic. This paper examined the Turkish women’s movement, which began after 1923 and found that the Turkish women’s movement had two abeyance cycles. The first abeyance period in the Turkish women’s movement took place between 1935 and the 1960s. In the first abeyance period, the reasons for the abeyance were economic problems, World War II, and the changing political arena in Turkey. In 1945, Turkey became a multi-party democracy, and this changed political opportunity structures. After 1960, the Turkish women’s movement picked up, but it was not very active until the 1980s. During this time, leftist organizations were very active, and they mobilized women in their organizations. The second abeyance period started after the 2010s when the religious Justice and Development Party in Turkey started to consolidate its power. From 2010 onwards, the political opportunity structures are closed for women, and women have a hard time to find elite allies for their causes. In the current political climate, even though there are many active women’s organizations, they are not effective

Algebraic and Functional Bethe Ansatz for the Integrable XXX Spin Chain

Properties of the XXX spin chain will be obtained through quantum inverse scattering methods. Starting with the one dimensional homogeneous model, the algebraic Bethe ansatz will be applied to obtain the Hamiltonian and corresponding spectrum of the system. The model will be expanded into the inhomogeneous spin chain for the application of the functional Bethe ansatz. Comparing the results of both methods we obtain the full set of mathematical properties of the spin chain