Proceedings of the Conference on Emerging Economic Issues in a Globalizing World

Competitiveness of manufacturing industry is regarded as one of the basic determinants of long run sustainable growth of a country. Therefore it is important to have an understanding of relative positions of countries in terms of competitiveness and determinants of competitive ability. This study aims to reveal the standing of Turkey in a group of countries and analyze determinants of competitive ability. The competitive industrial performance (CIP) index, taken to be an indicator of relative competitive ability, has been calculated for a sample of 33 countries for years 1985, 1990, 1998 and 2002. Panel data methods then have been employed to reveal sources of competitive ability. Conducted analysis reveals Turkish manufacturing industry to be lagging behind many of the sample countries and presents a grim picture for sustainable development in medium and long run.CIP index, Turkey, manufacturing industry, Competitiveness

A Trial for Curriculum Development: The Effect of Educational Philosophy Curriculum on the Attitudes towards Course and Educational Views

In Turkey, Educational Philosophy is a compulsory course for the students of education faculties, which serve the purpose of training the teachers of future generations. Furthermore, in some other programs, students are able to take the course as an elective course. The continuous changes in culture, science, and technology force the curriculum of all courses to be renovated, as in the situation of Educational Philosophy. The current study aims (1) to design a new curriculum for the course of Educational Philosophy, and determine the effect of this design on (2) student attitudes towards the course and (3) the perceptions about educational viewpoints and practices. In the current study, the Taba Model, one of the curriculum development models, was used during the preparation process of the draft. For the evaluation process of the curriculum design, single group pre- and post-test design as one of the quantitative methods was conducted. The Educational Philosophy course was developed through adopting a student-centred design and using the Taba Model. As the result of the curriculum implementation, it was concluded that: (1) The curriculum designed for the study changed the attitudes of learners significantly and positively (2) The curriculum designed for the study decreased the anxiety of the learners towards the course significantly and positively, (3) The curriculum designed for the study changed the beliefs of the learners significantly and positively that they would use these common course standards in their teaching, (4) The curriculum designed for the study made the participant learners get out of traditional [Positivist-Modern] subject- or teacher-centred educational philosophy, (5) The curriculum designed for the study made the participants be familiar with the learner-centred popular-modern [Constructivist] educational philosophy

Speciation of chromium in waters via sol-gel preconcentration prior to atomic spectrometric determination

Thesis (Master)--İzmir Institute of Technology, Chemistry, İzmir, 2007Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 58-63)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxii, 63 leavesChromium occurs in natural samples in two relatively stable valence states, i.e. in the form of Cr(III) and Cr(VI) species. Their concentration in natural waters is usually very low, in the order of a few .g/L. This low concentration 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 resin having immobilized mercapto or amino functional groups was prepared by reacting silica gel with 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane, 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane, L-glutamic acid dimethyl ester, aminophenol, aminothiophenol and aminobenzothiazol for the preconcentration of Cr(III) and Cr(VI) species in waters prior to their determination by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). Characterization of the novel sorbents were performed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM/EDS), thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) and elemental analysis. Among the sorbents synthesized, amino sol-gel and silica amino have been shown to be efficient in terms of sorption capacity. The applicability of the new sorbents for the preconcentration of Cr(III) and Cr(VI) species in waters was examined by batch method. After pH 4, silica amino could quantitatively sorb both Cr(III) and Cr(VI) whereas amino sol-gel sorbed only Cr(III). Effect of the amount of silica amino and amino sol-gel was examined at the optimum pH. The optimum amount of silica amino for quantitative sorption was found to be 0.1 g for 20.0 mL of 1.0 mg/L Cr(III) and Cr(VI) solutions whereas that of amino sol-gel was 0.05 g for 20.0 mL of 1.0 mg/L for both species. The effect of Cr(III) and Cr(VI) concentrations on amino sol-gel and silica amino were investigated at the initial concentrations of 1.0, 10.0, 25.0 and 50.0 mg/L. Elution was realized with 2.0 M HCl, and the percent recovery values changed between 60 and 80%

Faculty of education elementary school teacher's programme evaluation with educational criticism: A case study

Mesleğini severek yapan, davranışlarında ve sözlerinde ölçülü ve model olan, güncelden ve eğitsel gelişmelerden haberdar olup bunları gerek bilgi gerekse yöntem olarak sınıfına taşıyabilen, demokratik, çağdaş sınıf öğretmenlerinin yetiştirilmesi, toplumun geleceği açısından oldukça önemlidir. Bunu sağlamak görevi, öncelikle sınıf öğretmeni yetiştiren kurumlara; onların programlarına ve eğiticilerinin uygulamalarına düşmektedir. Bu tezin amacı, meslek bilgisi dersleri boyutunda, Sınıf Öğretmenliği Bölümü öğretim programının bu hedefe ne kadar hizmet ettiğini, Eğitsel Eleştiri Modeli rehberliğinde öğrenci, öğretim elemanı ve araştırmacının deneyimlerinden yararlanarak ortaya çıkarmaktır. Eldeki araştırma, durum çalışması ile desenlenmiş nitel bir çalışmadır. Durum çalışmasında, 'tek durum deseni' ve bu desen içinde yer alan 'iç içe geçmiş tek durum deseni' kullanılmıştır. Araştırmada elde edilen verilerle program değerlendirilirken, bir program değerlendirme modeli olan Eisner'ın 'Eğitsel Eleştiri Modeli' esas alınmıştır ve bulgular, modelde yer alan 'Betimleme', 'Yorumlama', 'Değerlendirme' ve 'Temalaştırma' boyutları temele alınarak sunulmuştur. Araştırmanın çalışma alanını, Batı Anadolu'da bulunan bir üniversitenin, Eğitim Fakültesi Sınıf Öğretmenliği Bölümü, bu bölümde öğrenim gören öğrenciler ile bu bölümün öğretim programın meslek bilgisi boyutunda ders veren öğretim elemanları oluşturmuştur. Çalışmada, 'amaçlı örnekleme' yöntemlerinden 'tipik durum örneklemesi' kullanılmıştır. Bu araştırmada veriler, öğrencilerle yapılan odak grup görüşmelerinden, öğretim elemanları ile yapılan bireysel görüşmelerden ve araştırmacının deneyimlerinden elde edilmiştir. Elde edilen veriler, betimsel ve içerik analizi ile çözümlenmiştir. Araştırmanın geçerliğini sağlamak ve arttırmak için Modus Operandi yaklaşımı, Kanıt ve Olumsuz Durumların Aranması yaklaşımı ve Katılımcı Kontrolü yaklaşımı kullanılmıştır. Bu araştırmada güvenirliği sağlamak için ise, araştırmada kullanılan yöntem ve izlenen aşamalar ayrıntılı şekilde açıklanmıştır. Katılımcılar gönüllülük esasına göre araştırma kapsamına alınmış, onların uygun olduklarını belirttikleri zamanlarda rahat bir ortamda ve sohbet havasında deneyim paylaşımı gerçekleştirilmiştir. Ayrıca Eisner'ın 'referanssal yeterlik' olarak adlandırdığı diğer bir güvenirlik yolu daha kullanılmıştır. Araştırma kapsamına alınan sınıf öğretmenliği bölümünden elde edilen veriler sonucunda ulaşılan üst yapılar şunlardır: Meslek bilgisi derslerinin programı, yapısal sorunlar içermektedir. Araştırma kapsamına alınan Sınıf Öğretmenliği Bölümü'nde, meslek bilgisi derslerinin programının uygulanması sürecinde sorunlar yaşanmaktadır. Meslek bilgisi derslerinin öğretimi sürecinde, 'öğrenci direnci' ile karşılaşılmaktadır. Meslek bilgisi derslerinin öğretimi sürecinde, 'öğretim elemanı direnci' ile karşılaşılmaktadır.It is highly critical for the future of the society to train contemporary and promising primary school teachers who are regarded as a model with their mentalities, treatments and words and who appreciate actual developments in education to apply in the classroom in the form of knowledge and practical methods. The duty of training such broad-minded primary school teachers is primarily supposed to be realised by institutions that deal with the matter, as well as by their programmes and teaching staff. In that way, the aim of this doctoral dissertation is to clarify, on the basis of vocational courses, how much primary school teaching program serves this aim by taking the experience of students, teaching staff and the rearcher into consideration in a compatible way with the 'Education Criticism Model'. This is a qualitative study patterned with the 'case study' in which the 'one case pattern' is utilised including 'embedded-multiple units of analysis'. In evaluation of the program considering the data obtained by the study, Eisner's 'Educational Criticism Model' was taken into account and the findings are presented on the basis of 'Description', 'Interpretation', 'Evaluation' and 'Thematics'. The population of the study was comprised of prospective elementary (1-5) school teachers, the students, and the instructors at the primary school teaching department of the education faculty of a university located in Western Anatolia, Turkey. In the study, among 'Intentional Sampling Methods', the 'Typical Sampling Method' was used. The data were gathered through group interviews as well as individual negotiations with the teaching staff and vocational experience of the researcher himself. Then, the data were exposed to 'descriptive' and 'content analysis' techniques for analysis. To establish the validity of the study, the approaches known as 'Modus Operandi', 'The Search For Evidence and Undesired Cases', along with 'Member Checks' were activated. As for the enhancement of the validity in the study, the methods and steps used were defined in a detailed way. Meanwhile, all the participants were voluntarily included the study notably in the moments and places they feel comfortable. Moreover, the study were also equipped with another respected credibility reference labelled as ' Reference Proficiency' by Eisner. The themes appearing as the result of the data obtained from the primary school teaching department included the study: The program (curricula) of pedagogical domain courses contain structural problems while there is considerable reluctance of the students and the teaching staff

Variability in heart and brain activity across the adult lifespan

The world population is rapidly aging. In Germany for example, the percentage of individuals 60 years and older is projected to be 38% in 20501. Longer lifetimes entail more progressive impairment of brain and body. It is therefore a crucial question how to assess and quantify these frequently occurring alterations associated with aging. In order to address this question, the overarching goal of this dissertation is to explore and characterize bodily and neural signals which reflect effects of aging across the adult lifespan. To this end, I performed two studies as lead investigator and contributed to three more large-scale collaborative studies. In Study 1 (Kumral et al., 2019), I investigated the relationship of heart rate variability (HRV) to brain structure (gray matter) and resting state (rs) brain activity (functional connectivity) in a well-characterized sample of healthy subjects across the adult lifespan (N=388). For Study 2 (Koenig et al., 2020), I contributed to a mega analysis testing the association between cortical thickness and heart-rate variability (HRV) at rest, also across the lifespan (N=1218). In Study 3 (Kumral et al., 2020), I examined whether different measures of brain signal variability – identified with hemodynamic (functional magnetic resonance imaging; fMRI) or electrophysiological (EEG) methods – reflect the same underlying physiology in healthy younger and older adults (N=189). Lastly, during my dissertation work, I was part of the Mind-Body-Emotion group in Leipzig, which established two publicly available – and now widely used – datasets (Datasets 1 and 2; Babayan et al., 2019, Mendes et al., 2019), which include structural and functional MRI, EEG data as well as a range of physiological and behavioral measures. In Study 1, I showed that age-related decreases in resting HRV are accompanied by age-dependent and age-invariant alterations in brain function, particularly located along cortical midline structures. In Study 2, we found that the age-related decrease of resting HRV was associated with cortical thinning in prefrontal brain structures. In Study 3, I demonstrated age differences in brain signal variability obtained with rs-fMRI and rs-EEG, respectively. Surprisingly, the two measures of neural variability showed no significant correlation, but rather seemed to provide complementary information on the state of the aging brain. The present dissertation provides evidence that measures of cardiovascular and neural signal variability may be useful biomarkers for neurocognitive health (and disease) in aging. With these measures, we can further specify the dynamic interplay of the human body and the brain in relation to individual health-related factors

DEMOCRACY AND VIOLENCE: SOCIAL ORIGINS OF ANTI-KURDISH RIOTS IN TURKEY

This dissertation analyzes the eruption of anti-Kurdish communal violence in Turkey in the 21st century. It aims to answer the following research questions: Why violent attacks against Kurdish civilians escalated in a period when democratization has increasingly become the norm for resolving the Kurdish armed conflict? And why ordinary people played a major role in these violent attacks? To study this puzzling relationship between democratization and ethnic violence, the dissertation analyzes a wide range of data including (1) a new database on right-wing nationalist and communal violence in Turkey compiled by the author from newspaper archives (The Ethnic and Nationalist Violence in Turkey (ENViT) database), (2) interviews conducted by the author in regions with high levels of communal violence, and (3) statistical and archival data from secondary sources and databases. Through a mixture of quantitative/statistical, qualitative, and comparative-historical analysis, the dissertation argues that contrary to what is widely assumed in the literature, the emergence of ethnic violence in post-conflict democratization processes is not necessarily due to deep divisions emanating from a history of ethnic warfare. Likewise, the rise of anti-Kurdish communal violence in the early 21st century is not related to socio-economic competition or deprivation, state incapacity or revenge and retribution due to secessionist conflicts. Instead, the dissertation argues that democratization-from-below led by the Kurdish population in Western cities of Turkey through social movement and electoral mobilization led to a deepening of ethnic “us-them” divisions between civilian populations in Western Turkey, creating the social preconditions for violence. While focusing on the role of social mobilization from below, the overall analysis demonstrates that it was the interaction of intra-elite, intra-group, and elite-mass contention in the course of democratization that created the conditions for the emergence and institutionalization of anti-Kurdish communal violence in present-day Turkey. This dissertation demonstrates that democratization is not a magical tool to resolve ethnic conflicts, notwithstanding academic and political hopes to the contrary. While this finding is in line with a segment of the existing social science literature, the dissertation attempts to move beyond the existing literature by avoiding static/rigid definitions of ethnicity, formalist conceptualizations of democratization, and elite-centric approaches to ethnic violence that ignore societal dynamics. By focusing on how social movement driven democratization processes create contention on the societal level, the dissertation seeks to provide a more grounded and nuanced analysis of why democratization processes are susceptible to communal violence

Response of aphid predators to synthetic herbivore induced plant volatiles in an apple orchard.

The indirect defence compounds termed herbivore induced plant volatiles (HIPVs), which are used to attract beneficial fauna, are one of the most effective biological control tools for the aggregation of natural enemies of key pests. The aim of this study was to test the attraction of three aphid predators of the Chrysopidae, Coccinellidae and Syrphidae families using synthetic formulations of four main HIPVs [methyl salicylate (MeSa), benzaldehyde (B), linalool (L) and farnesene (F)] alone and in binary combinations (MeSa + B; MeSa + F; MeSa + L; F + B; B + L; F + L) in an apple orchard in the Bursa province of Turkey. This study was the first demonstration of the attraction of these aphid predators to single and binary combinations of synthetic HIPVs in an apple orchard. A larger number of coccinellids were captured using single treatments of both B and F than with other HIPV combinations. Furthermore, the chrysopid individuals studied were significantly attracted to traps baited with single HIPVs. In addition, the binary combination of MeSa + L significantly attracted more Syrphids than in both single treatments and control traps. Thus, some of the HIPV’s tested were found to have potential value for the congregation of aphid predators in apple orchard