The Regulation of the Credit Card Market in Turkey

The rapid growth in Turkish credit card market brought together new issues. Card holders and consumer unions complain about the high interest rates, economists complain about the default rates and banks complain about the amnesties. After all of these complaints coinciding with the accelerating suicide incidences due to credit card debts, regulation has been enacted in the credit card market in Turkey. In 2003, credit cards had been taken into the scope of the Consumer Protection Law. This was the first legal arrangement on the credit cards. However it was not satisfying. It was criticized for bringing out temporary solutions. In 2005, a more comprehensive credit card law came into effect. With this regulation, Central Bank of Turkey has put a ceiling on the credit card interest rates and clarified some issues that were left untouched. In this paper; reasons, advantages, disadvantages of this regulation are discussed along with a quick glance on the development of credit card market in Turkey. The regulation and amnesties in 2003 and 2005 are examined and their effects are exposed from the point of view of parties involved: banks, customers and government.Credit Cards; Regulation; Amnesty; Interest Rates; Default; Banks; Consumer Unions

Low power energy harvesting and storage techniques from ambient human powered energy sources

Conventional electrochemical batteries power most of the portable and wireless electronic devices that are operated by electric power. In the past few years, electrochemical batteries and energy storage devices have improved significantly. However, this progress has not been able to keep up with the development of microprocessors, memory storage, and sensors of electronic applications. Battery weight, lifespan and reliability often limit the abilities and the range of such applications of battery powered devices. These conventional devices were designed to be powered with batteries as required, but did not allow scavenging of ambient energy as a power source. In contrast, development in wireless technology and other electronic components are constantly reducing the power and energy needed by many applications. If energy requirements of electronic components decline reasonably, then ambient energy scavenging and conversion could become a viable source of power for many applications. Ambient energy sources can be then considered and used to replace batteries in some electronic applications, to minimize product maintenance and operating cost. The potential ability to satisfy overall power and energy requirements of an application using ambient energy can eliminate some constraints related to conventional power supplies. Also power scavenging may enable electronic devices to be completely self-sustaining so that battery maintenance can eventually be eliminated. Furthermore, ambient energy scavenging could extend the performance and the lifetime of the MEMS (Micro electromechanical systems) and portable electronic devices. These possibilities show that it is important to examine the effectiveness of ambient energy as a source of power. Until recently, only little use has been made of ambient energy resources, especially for wireless networks and portable power devices. Recently, researchers have performed several studies in alternative energy sources that could provide small amounts of electricity to low-power electronic devices. These studies were focused to investigate and obtain power from different energy sources, such as vibration, light, sound, airflow, heat, waste mechanical energy and temperature variations. This research studied forms of ambient energy sources such as waste mechanical (rotational) energy from hydraulic door closers, and fitness exercise bicycles, and its conversion and storage into usable electrical energy. In both of these examples of applications, hydraulic door closers and fitness exercise bicycles, human presence is required. A person has to open the door in order for the hydraulic door closer mechanism to function. Fitness exercise bicycles need somebody to cycle the pedals to generate electricity (while burning calories.) Also vibrations, body motions, and compressions from human interactions were studied using small piezoelectric fiber composites which are capable of recovering waste mechanical energy and converting it to useful electrical energy. Based on ambient energy sources, electrical energy conversion and storage circuits were designed and tested for low power electronic applications. These sources were characterized according to energy harvesting (scavenging) methods, and power and energy density. At the end of the study, the ambient energy sources were matched with possible electronic applications as a viable energy source

Ensino de português para nativos turcos: Dificuldades na aprendizagem e fatores determinantes

O presente trabalho é o resultado de um curso de Português para imigrantes turcos em Portugal sem conhecimento prévio de Português. O processo de aprendizagem da língua portuguesa para os alunos nativos turcos foi difícil e desafiante, a partir do qual emergiu a questão fundamental deste trabalho: Quais são as dificuldades sentidas pelos imigrantes turcos em Portugal na aquisição da língua portuguesa? Esta dissertação de mestrado analisa as dificuldades confrontadas pelos falantes nativos da língua turca ao adquirir o português e procura formas de fornecer a educação adequada para os seus requisitos. As línguas turca e portuguesa são representativas de casos de aquisição de línguas em que a língua materna do aprendente é proveniente de uma família linguística diferente e as línguas conhecidas pelo aprendente são línguas distanciadas da língua estudadaThe present work is the result of a Portuguese course for Turkish immigrants without previous knowledge of Portuguese in Portugal. The learning process of the Portuguese language for native Turkish learners was difficult and challenging, from which the fundamental question of this paper emerged: What difficulties do Turkish immigrants in Portugal have in acquiring the Portuguese language? This master's thesis analyses the difficulties faced by native speakers of the Turkish language by acquiring Portuguese and seeks ways of providing an appropriate education for the requirements. The languages Turkish and Portuguese are representative of language acquisition cases in which the learner's native language comes from a different language family and the languages known to the learners are languages distanced from the studied languag

The Regulation of the Credit Card Market in Turkey

The rapid growth in Turkish credit card market brought together new issues. Card holders and consumer unions complain about the high interest rates, economists complain about the default rates and banks complain about the amnesties. After all of these complaints coinciding with the accelerating suicide incidences due to credit card debts, regulation has been enacted in the credit card market in Turkey. In 2003, credit cards had been taken into the scope of the Consumer Protection Law. This was the first legal arrangement on the credit cards. However it was not satisfying. It was criticized for bringing out temporary solutions. In 2005, a more comprehensive credit card law came into effect. With this regulation, Central Bank of Turkey has put a ceiling on the credit card interest rates and clarified some issues that were left untouched. In this paper; reasons, advantages, disadvantages of this regulation are discussed along with a quick glance on the development of credit card market in Turkey. The regulation and amnesties in 2003 and 2005 are examined and their effects are exposed from the point of view of parties involved: banks, customers and government

The effect of gender on response to antithyroid drugs and risk of relapse after discontinuation of the antithyroid drugs in patients with Graves’ hyperthyroidism: a multicentre study

Introduction: The outcome of medical treatment in patients with Graves’ disease (GD) is generally difficult to predict. In this study, we examined the hypothesis that gender may affect the outcome of treatment with antithyroid drugs (ATDs). Material and methods: This is a retrospective multicentre study including 717 (514 female and 203 male) patients with the first episode of GD treated for at least 12 months. Patients were classified as relapse, poorly controlled (several episodes of hyperthyroidism followed by euthyroidism and rarely hypothyroidism, occurring after titration of ATDs), and remission. Results: During the mean follow-up time of 26.75 ± 21.25 months (between 1 and 120 months), 269 (37.5%), 176 (24.5%), and 272 (37.9%) patients experienced a relapse, a poorly controlled disease, and remained in remission, respectively. During the follow-up time, 223 (43.4%) of the female and only 49 (24%) of the male patients remained in remission. Relapse and poorly controlled disease (non-remitting GD) were more common in male compared to female patients with GD (hazard ratio 1.26, 95% CI: 1.03–1.53, p = 0.025). Graves’ disease in male patients tended to relapse earlier, and male patients tended to have larger goiter sizes at diagnosis as well. The smoking habit wasalso significantly more frequent in males compared to female patients with GD. Conclusion: Male patients with GD have a markedly higher frequency of relapse and poorly controlled disease, as compared to female patients. Larger goiter sizes and higher frequency of smoking may contribute to the higher frequency of relapse and poorly controlled disease in male patients.

Implementation of a human avatar for the MARG project in networked virtual environments

The objective of the ongoing MARG project is to animate human motions captured by 15 MARG sensors in wireless networked virtual environment (NVES). Three avatars were developed previously, but none of them met all the desired requirements. The first one was overly simplistic and did not implement H-Anim standards. The other two were created using laser-scanned data and followed the H-Anim standards, but one had its adjacent joints broken and the other was capable of rotating only one joint. Therefore, the cartoon-type humanoid, Andy, was developed to meet the needs of the MARG project. The humanoid Andy implements H-Anim standards using built-in X3D humanoid nodes and is capable of controlling all its 15 joints in NVES. Another need of the MARG project was a wireless network interface for real-time data streaming. A concurrent client-server program implementing multicasting using TCP and UDP protocols was developed for this purpose. Using WiSER2400.IP serial adapters between the MARG sensors and the server program adds a wireless capability to the project. The server program converts the raw MARG sensor data to quaternions using the Quest algorithm. Multiple clients are supported by the system. Each client program receives the motion data and updates the humanoid Andy.http://archive.org/details/implementationof109451680Lieutenant Junior Grade, Turkish NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Investigations of Usage of Seydiler (Afyon) Diatomite as a Fire Brick

Bu çalışmada Şeydiler (Afyon) Bölgesi diyatomtinin izolasyon ateş tuğlası olarak kullanılabilirliği araştırılmıştır. Deneysel çalışmalarda diyatomit ve bağlayıcı olarak kil kullanılmıştır. Çalışma sahasının değişik noktalarından diyatomit örnekleri toplanmıştır. Toplanan bu örnekler ve bağlayıcı malzeme üzerinde mikroskobik inceleme, mineralojik tanımlama ve kimyasal analiz yapılmıştır. Belli oranlarda nemlendirilmiş örnekler kuru presleme yöntemiyle 55 x 8 x 30 mm ebatlarında şekillendirilmiştir. Deneylerde bağlayıcı kil oranı, presleme basıncı ve pişme sıcaklığı değiştirilerek bunların izole tuğla özelliklerine etkisi incelenmiştir