Exploring the intersections: subordination and resistance among Kurdish women in Aydınlı, Tuzla

This study aims to explore the intersecting dynamics of social exclusion in low-class Kurdish women's lives in the Aydınlı neighborhood, Tuzla-Istanbul. Women's narratives show that Aydınlı is a setting of urban poverty and marginalization. This thesis argues that Kurdish women are ''urban outcasts'', who are subordinated by the intersecting dynamics of gender, class and ethnicity. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, this study argues that there are multiple agents consisting of class, ethnicity and gender, which lead to women's subordination. Women's narratives on language, identity, poverty and patriarchal oppression show that, these multiple agents should not be analyzed separately from one another. This thesis argues that, there are heterogeneous identities as well as differing factors of intersectionality, since women do not encounter the pressures of gender, ethnicity and class at the same time and in equal degrees. This study aims to contribute to the existing feminist literature in Turkey by posing these complex dynamics of intersectionality. Besides, aiming to provide an intersectional approach for poverty studies in Turkey, this research argues that women encounter constant threats which may approximate them to absolute poverty. These threats are determined and reproduced by the intersectionality of gender, ethnicity and class. The ways women manage to display particular resistances against these multiple agents constitute another focal point of this research. This study argues that women perform resistances against the dynamics of marginalization, which are reproduced at the neighborhood, as well as in households and workplaces with the intersecting dynamics of class, gender and ethnicity in Aydınlı

CLP1 Founder Mutation Links tRNA Splicing and Maturation to Cerebellar Development and Neurodegeneration

SummaryNeurodegenerative diseases can occur so early as to affect neurodevelopment. From a cohort of more than 2,000 consanguineous families with childhood neurological disease, we identified a founder mutation in four independent pedigrees in cleavage and polyadenylation factor I subunit 1 (CLP1). CLP1 is a multifunctional kinase implicated in tRNA, mRNA, and siRNA maturation. Kinase activity of the CLP1 mutant protein was defective, and the tRNA endonuclease complex (TSEN) was destabilized, resulting in impaired pre-tRNA cleavage. Germline clp1 null zebrafish showed cerebellar neurodegeneration that was rescued by wild-type, but not mutant, human CLP1 expression. Patient-derived induced neurons displayed both depletion of mature tRNAs and accumulation of unspliced pre-tRNAs. Transfection of partially processed tRNA fragments into patient cells exacerbated an oxidative stress-induced reduction in cell survival. Our data link tRNA maturation to neuronal development and neurodegeneration through defective CLP1 function in humans

Cognitive behavior therapy for overweight and obese adolescents with psychiatric symptoms: a pilot study

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate whether cognitive behavioral therapy intervention lead to improvement in psychological parameters and obesity parameters. Methods: Ten participants, nine females and one male, were assigned to two different cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based groups. The adolescents' mean age was 14.10 +/- 1.79 years and their mean body mass index was 29.95 +/- 4.18 kg/m(2). The CBT comprised of nine sessions followed by one parent session. The participants also received lifestyle interventions which include weekly weight checks, diet, and exercise. Results: The evaluations of the nine CBT sessions showed a signifi-cant reduction in depressive symptoms, social anxiety, social phobia, and a significant improvement in self-es-teem, but the BMI scores remained unchanged which was a deviation from our expectation. Discussion: This is the first study in Turkey to evaluate the impact of group-based CBT on depressed adolescents. The results demonstrate that further researches are needed, with the objective of developing cognitive-behavioral interven-tions that help patients to lose weight and maintain their weight at a healthy level

Neuroacanthocytosis in a psychiatry clinic: a case report

Neuroacanthocytosis (NA) syndromes are a group of genetically defined diseases characterized by peripheral blood acanthocytes, central nervous system as well as neuromuscular symptoms. The clinical presentation of neuroacanthocytosis typically includes chorea and dystonia. Psychiatric and cognitive symptoms may be significant including obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and schizophrenia-like psychosis. Here, we aim to discuss a case presented with psychiatric symptoms and orofacial dyskinesia with the diagnosis of neuroacanthocytosis. A 25 year-old man was admitted to our outpatient clinic with depression, tongue biting and a speech disorder alleviated. His symptoms began after the death of his mother one year ago. Psychiatric examination showed that he had depression childish speaking as well as behavioral abnormalities. His history revealed dependent personality disorder. Neurological examination showed chorea, tics in his face and arms and hypotonia in all extremities. His cranial magnetic resonance imaging was normal, muscle enzymes were elevated, peripheral blood smear showed increased number of acanthocytes. The differential diagnosis was made between chorea-acanthocytosis, McLeod's syndrome and Huntington's disease. The gene analysis for Huntington's disease was negative, his lipid profile was normal. Symptomatic treatment was commenced

Convergence and dissimilarity: centralisation of power, but variationin practices in STEM in academia cross-nationally

This paper is concerned with providing an analytical understanding of the way decision-making power works in higher level education and research institutes cross-nationally. It draws on documentary and interview data from a purposive sample of twenty-five people involved in power structures in academic organizations in Ireland, Turkey and Italy. Drawing particularly on Lukes’ (2005, 1974) work it looks first at the centralization of power at the level of strategy and resource allocation. It then identifies three kinds of practices that obscure that centralization: ‘talking shops’; loyalty to positional power holders and the absence of alternatives. In contrast to the similarities existing cross-nationally in the centralization of power, there was evidence of some local variation in such practices. Local variation also existed in the perceived legitimacy of power in general, with Irish women being most likely to make visible gendered power in particular

Micro-political practices in Higher Education: A challenge to excellence as a rationalizing myth?

Excellence has become a ‘hoorah’ word which is widely used in higher education institutions to legitimate practices related to the recruitment/progression of staff. It can be seen as reflecting an institutionalised belief that such evaluative processes are unaffected by the social characteristics of those who work in them or their relationships with each other. Such views have been challenged by gender theorists and by those researching informal power in state structures. The purpose of this article is to raise the possibility that excellence is an ‘idealised cultural construct’ and a ‘rationalising myth’. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with 67 men and women, who were candidates or evaluators in recruitment/progression processes in five higher educational institutions (in Ireland, Turkey, Bulgaria, Germany and Italy), it conceptualises and illustrates masculinist, relational and ‘local fit’ micro-political practices that are seen to affect such recruitment/progression. Variation exists by gender and by contextual positioning in the process (i.e. as evaluator/candidate). These practices illustrate the perceived importance of the enactment of informal power. The article suggests that the construct of excellence is used to obscure these practices and to maintain organisational legitimacy in the context of multiple stakeholders with conflicting expectations

Leadership practices by senior position holders in Higher Educational Research Institutes: Stealth power in action

Using the concept of stealth power and a critical realist perspective, this article identifies leadership practices that obscure the centralisation of power, drawing on data from interviews with 25 academic decision-makers in formal leadership positions in HERIs in Ireland, Italy and Turkey. Its key contribution is the innovative operationalisation of stealth power and the inductive identification of four practices which obscure that centralised power, i.e. rhetorical collegiality, agenda control, in-group loyalty and (at a deeper level) the invisibility of gendered power. The purpose of the article is emancipatory: by creating an awareness of these leadership practices, it challenges their persistence