Towards a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement?

Given its close political, economic, social and cultural ties to the region, stability, prosperity and a cooperative atmosphere in the South Caucasus are of great significance to Turkey. From this perspective, the normalization of Turkey’s relations with Armenia is one of the priorities of the AKP government. So a new era is about to begin in Turkish-Armenian relations, which up until now have been burdened by historical legacies, inertia and a lack of trust. The process of rapprochement launched with the restoration of the Akhtamar Church in 2002 is likely to soon result in the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries; however, the process is complicated, and it is still uncertain when the official ties will be definitively established. That is why a detailed look at the 18 years of deadlock between Turkey and Armenia would be helpful in order to better understand the changing dynamics of the problem

Decision Making and Behavioral Strategy: The role of regulatory focus in corporate innovation processes

__Abstract__ This dissertation makes use of the behavioral strategy perspective in order to examine a number of constructs pertaining to innovation in corporate settings. In particular, the dissertation consists of four studies; one conceptual and three empirical. The conceptual paper introduces the regulatory focus theory and forms a linkage between an individual’s regulatory focus and motivation towards exploration and exploitation. Furthermore, by means of the Motivation-Ability-Opportunity (MAO) schema, this study also provides insight into the concepts moderating this relationship. The first empirical paper tests the relationship between an individual’s (i.e. manager’s) regulatory focus and activities of exploration and exploitation. Moreover, it takes an initial step in understanding the organizational and contextual antecedents of regulatory focus, and thus, of exploration and exploitation at the individual level. The second empirical study, examines the collective regulatory focus of a management team, and its effects on the exploratory innovation level of the organization unit. Moreover, it investigates three primary organizational coordination mechanisms (i.e. centralization, formalization and connectedness) as a mediator of this relationship. Finally, the last study addresses the gap regarding the lack of knowledge about the positive effects of prevention focus in organizational settings. All in all, the contributions and findings of this study have a number of implications for behavioral strategy theory and practice, and presents areas of future research

Energy Relations between Turkey and Israel

This Future Note prepared within the scope of the MENARA project aims to provide a brief outlook to the energy relations between Israel and Turkey. Following a six years of rupture in bilateral relations, Turkey and Israel signed a reconciliation agreement on June 2016 in order to normalize relations. Several developments have unfolded at regional level during this period of détente including the escalation of war in Syria, the coup in Egypt, the nuclear deal between Iran and the West and the rise of terrorism at both regional and international level. Besides regional dynamics, the Israel–Turkey reconciliation was also facilitated by energy-related factors. On that regard, this note aims to briefly outline the energy dimension in bilateral relations along with current developments in the region relevant to the energy- specific cooperation. This publication is part of the MENARA Future Notes series which in the form of policy briefs analyse ongoing events in the SEMCs and Middle East region, emphasising the implications for the EU, suggesting the best policy options and assessing plausible and preferable future scenarios

How Do Deepfakes Move? Motion Magnification for Deepfake Source Detection

With the proliferation of deep generative models, deepfakes are improving in quality and quantity everyday. However, there are subtle authenticity signals in pristine videos, not replicated by SOTA GANs. We contrast the movement in deepfakes and authentic videos by motion magnification towards building a generalized deepfake source detector. The sub-muscular motion in faces has different interpretations per different generative models which is reflected in their generative residue. Our approach exploits the difference between real motion and the amplified GAN fingerprints, by combining deep and traditional motion magnification, to detect whether a video is fake and its source generator if so. Evaluating our approach on two multi-source datasets, we obtain 97.17% and 94.03% for video source detection. We compare against the prior deepfake source detector and other complex architectures. We also analyze the importance of magnification amount, phase extraction window, backbone network architecture, sample counts, and sample lengths. Finally, we report our results for different skin tones to assess the bias

Comparison of cases with and without carpal tunnel release in volar plate fixation of AO type 23-B and 23-C fractures

Aim: To compare the functional results and the frequency of carpal tunnel syndrome between patients who underwent Open reduction internal fixation(ORIF)+carpal tunnel release(CTR) and those who underwent isolated open reduction internal fixation in AO 23 B and C type fractures. Methods: Patients with AO Type 23-B1, 23-B2, 23-B3, 23-C1, 23-C2, and 23-C3 fractures who underwent ORIF were included in the study. The patients who underwent ORIF were divided into two groups: those who underwent CTR and those who did not. The patients’ VAS scores and Patient-Rated Wrist Evaluation (PRWE) scores were evaluated on postoperative day 1,  month one,  month three,  month six, and month twelve. Results: Eighty-two patients were included in the study. ORIF+CTR was performed in 46 patients, and isolated ORIF was performed in 36 patients. CTS symptoms were observed in 6 patients in the group that only underwent ORIF at postoperative three months. At the 6-month control EMG, CTS was detected in 5 out of 6 patients where only ORIF was performed. Conclusion: Concomitant CTR during ORIF in AO type 23B and 23C fractures is an effective surgical treatment procedure in preventing the development of CTS. &nbsp