Accountability in Turkish public administration and security services

Bu çalışmanın amacı, Türk Kamu Yönetiminde ve Güvenlik Hizmetlerinde hesap verebilirlik ilkesinin incelenmesidir. Çalışmanın birinci bölümünde, hesap verebilirlik kavramı ele alınarak, hesap verebilirlik türlerine değinilmiştir. Kamu yönetimi kapsamında geleneksel ve modern anlayış içerisinde hesap verebilirliğin yeri araştırılmış ve güvenlik sektöründe hesap verebilirlik kavramı üzerinde durulmuştur. İkinci bölümde güvenlik kavramı ve dünyadan hesap verebilirlik örnekleri incelenmiş, bu örneklerin olumlu ve sakıncalı yanları ortaya konulmuştur. Üçüncü bölümde Türkiye’de kamu yönetimi ve özellikle emniyet teşkilatı açısından hesap verebilirlik kavramının nasıl algılandığı irdelenerek, dünyada kamu yönetiminde reform hareketlerine değinilmiş ve Türkiye’de reform hareketleri kapsamında hesap verebilirlik uygulamaları incelenmiştir. Neticede yapılan literatür çalışması sonucunda Türkiye’de özellikle son yıllarda kamu yönetiminde ve güvenlik hizmetlerinde hesap verebilirlik kavramı üzerinde hassasiyetle durulduğu fakat uygulamada henüz istenilen düzeye ulaşılamadığı tespit edilmiştir.This study aims to examine the principle of accountability in Turkish public administration and security services. In the first part of the study, the concept of accountability was examined and types of accountability were mentioned. Accountability was researched from the perspective of public administration in the traditional and modern understanding and focused on the concept of accountability in the security services. In the second part, the concept of security and examples of accountability around the world were examined and advantages and disadvantages of these samples were determined. In the third part, perceptions for the concept of accountability in the public administration in Turkey, especially for the police organization were examined and addressed public administration reform movements in the world and investigated accountability practices in Turkey within the scope of reform movements. As a result, it was determined that the concept of accountability in public administration and security services has already been discussed and also made some legal arrangements, especially in recent years in Turkey, but it has not reached desired level in practice yet

HEVC video compression hardware designs

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), a recently developed international standard for video compression, offers significantly better video compression efficiency than previous international standards. However, this coding gain comes with an increase in computational complexity. Therefore, in this thesis, we first designed a high performance hardware architecture for deblocking filter algorithm used in HEVC standard. Two parallel datapaths are used in the hardware to increase its performance. The proposed hardware is implemented in Verilog HDL. The Verilog RTL code is mapped to a Xilinx XC6VLX240T FPGA, and it is verified to work correctly on a Xilinx ML605 FPGA board which includes a Xilinx XC6VLX240T FPGA. The FPGA implementation can work at 108 MHz, and it can code 30 full HD (1920x1080) video frames per second. We then proposed an energy reduction technique for Sum of Absolute Transformed Difference (SATD) based HEVC intra mode decision algorithm. We designed an efficient hardware architecture for SATD based HEVC intra mode decision algorithm including the proposed technique. The proposed hardware is implemented in Verilog HDL. The Verilog RTL code is mapped to a Xilinx XC6VLX365T FPGA, and it is verified with post place & route simulations. The FPGA implementation can work at 116 MHz, and it can code 21 HD (1280x720) video frames per second. The proposed technique reduced its energy consumption up to 64.6% on this FPGA without any PSNR loss

Neighbourhood Structural and Social Factors and Mental Health

Current evidence suggests that the places where people live affect their health and contribute to health inequalities between the individuals. Neighbourhood conditions affect people’s health over and above individual factors, such as socioeconomic position. Although studies have shown that the role of neighbourhood factors for health is relatively small compared to individual socio-demographic and socioeconomic factors, changing them has the potential to influence many people living in a neighbourhood and therefore to contribute to the reduction of social and ethnic inequalities in health. Despite the considerable geographical differences in mental health outcomes, such as common mental disorders, mood and anxiety disorders and depression, the impact of neighbourhoods on individual mental health has been understudied. Understanding the role and impact of neighbourhoods on depression might be important for prevention of disease burden of mental health. This thesis aimed to investigate which and how the neighbourhood factors influence mental health among urban adult residents

Selective removal to soft dentine or selective removal to firm dentine for deep caries lesions in permanent posterior teeth: a randomized controlled clinical trial up to 2 years

ObjectivesThe aim of this randomized clinical trial was to compare selective removal to soft dentin (SRSD) and selective removal to firm dentin (SRFD) in permanent teeth. The primary outcome of the study was to compare the success rates of the two caries removal techniques. The secondary outcome of the study was to investigate whether or not calcium silicate-based material (CS) had an effect on the success rate of the treatment. Materials and methodsBetween November 2018 and March 2020, patients with deep caries lesions were invited to participate in the study. Posterior teeth (N = 165) with primary caries lesion radiographically extending 3/4 of dentin and positive response to cold test were randomly selected. A total of 134 participants meeting the inclusion criteria were randomized to SRSD and SRFD (control) groups. After the caries removal procedure, teeth with exposed pulps were assigned to the pulp exposure (PE) group, and the SRSD group was further divided into test 1 (with CS) and test 2 groups (without CS). Success was defined as a positive response to the cold test, a negative response to percussion, the absence of pain, an abscess, a fistula, and periapical alterations. Fisher-Freeman-Halton exact tests, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, and the log-rank tests were performed for comparisons between groups. ResultsNo statistically significant difference was found between the success rates of test 1 (100%) and test 2 (93.5%) groups, whereas the proportion of success in control (82.4%) and PE (84%) groups were significantly lower when compared with test groups (p = 0.024; p < 0.05) at the end of 2-year follow-up. ConclusionsSRSD had a higher success rate when compared to SRFD to treat deep carious lesions after 2 years of follow-up. The use of CS material after SRSD as a liner had no effect on the treatment outcome. Trial registrationClinical trial registration number NCT04052685 (08/09/2019).Istanbul Medipol Universit

Selective removal to soft dentine or selective removal to firm dentine for deep caries lesions ın permanent posterior teeth: a randomized controlled clinical trial up to 2 years

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this randomized clinical trial was to compare selective removal to soft dentin (SRSD) and selective removal to firm dentin (SRFD) in permanent teeth. The primary outcome of the study was to compare the success rates of the two caries removal techniques. The secondary outcome of the study was to investigate whether or not calcium silicate-based material (CS) had an effect on the success rate of the treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between November 2018 and March 2020, patients with deep caries lesions were invited to participate in the study. Posterior teeth (N = 165) with primary caries lesion radiographically extending ¾ of dentin and positive response to cold test were randomly selected. A total of 134 participants meeting the inclusion criteria were randomized to SRSD and SRFD (control) groups. After the caries removal procedure, teeth with exposed pulps were assigned to the pulp exposure (PE) group, and the SRSD group was further divided into test 1 (with CS) and test 2 groups (without CS). Success was defined as a positive response to the cold test, a negative response to percussion, the absence of pain, an abscess, a fistula, and periapical alterations. Fisher-Freeman-Halton exact tests, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, and the log-rank tests were performed for comparisons between groups. RESULTS: No statistically significant difference was found between the success rates of test 1 (100%) and test 2 (93.5%) groups, whereas the proportion of success in control (82.4%) and PE (84%) groups were significantly lower when compared with test groups (p = 0.024; p < 0.05) at the end of 2-year follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: SRSD had a higher success rate when compared to SRFD to treat deep carious lesions after 2 years of follow-up. The use of CS material after SRSD as a liner had no effect on the treatment outcome. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: SRSD with good coronal sealing might be recommended without CS application for the treatment of deep caries lesions in permanent teeth

Socioeconomic inequalities in psychological distress among urban adults

__Background:__ Various studies have reported socioeconomic inequalities in mental health among urban residents. This study aimed at investigating whether neighborhood social cohesion influences the associations between socio-economic factors and psychological distress. __Methods:__ Cross-sectional questionnaire study on a random sample of 18,173 residents aged 16 years and older from 211 neighborhoods in the four largest cities in the Netherlands. Psychological distress was the dependent variable (scale range 10-50). Neighborhood social cohesion was measured by five statements and aggregated to the neighborhood level using ecometrics methodology. Multilevel linear regression analyses were used to investigate cross-level interactions, adjusted for neighborhood deprivation, between individual characteristics and social cohesion with psychological distress. __Results:__ The mean level of psychological distress among urban residents was 17.2. Recipients of disability, social assistance or unemployment benefits reported higher psychological distress (β = 5.6, 95%CI 5.2 to 5.9) than those in paid employment. Persons with some or great financial difficulties reported higher psychological distress (β = 3.4, 95%CI 3.2 to 3.6) than those with little or no financial problems. Socio-demographic factors were also associated with psychological distress, albeit with much lower influence. Living in a neighborhood with high social cohesion instead of low social cohesion was associated with a lower psychological distress of 22% among recipients of disability, social assistance or unemployment benefits and of 13% among citizens with financial difficulties. __Conclusions:__ Residing in socially cohesive neighborhoods may reduce the influence of lack of paid employment and financial difficulties on psychological distress among urban adults. Urban policies aimed at improving neighborhood social cohesion may contribute to decreasing socio-economic inequalities in mental health

The thiol/disulfide balance in ketone positive and ketone negative pregnant women with nausea and vomiting — a prospective study in a tertiary center

Objectives: We aimed to investigate the thiol/disulfide balance in ketone positive (hyperemesis gravidarum) and ketonenegative pregnant women with nausea and vomiting.Material and methods: A total of 60 patients under the 14th week of pregnancy were included in this study, and they weredivided into two groups. Group 1 included 30 pregnant women with ketone positive, group 2 included 30 ketone negativepregnant women with nausea, and vomiting.Results: The native thiol, disulfide, and total thiol concentrations were measured using an automated method and comparedamong the two groups. There were also three indexes that are derived from disulfide, native and total thiol (Index1 = 100 × disulfide/native thiol); (Index 2 = 100 × disulfide/total thiol); (Index 3 = 100 × native thiol/total thiol). Whencompared with Group 1 and Group 2, total thiol was high, native thiol was low but not statistically significant. Disulphide(p = 0.046), index 1 (p = 0.036) and index 3 (p = 0.034) were statistically significant.Conclusions: Patients with ketone positive are shifting to OS direction due to lack of nutrients and electrolytes. This studyemphasizes the therapeutic potential of antioxidant supplementation, which is becoming an increasingly used approachin treating the symptoms of women with ketone positive

Knowledge on preconceptional folic acid supplementation and intention to seek for preconception care among men and women in an urban city: A population-based cross-sectional study

Background: To study the knowledge of a large city population on preconception folic acid supplementation and intention to seek for preconception care within an urban perinatal health program. Methods: Cross-sectional surveys run in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 2007 and annually from 2009 to 2014. A random sample of residents aged between 16 and 85 years was taken each year from the municipal population register. Bivariate analysis, interaction analysis, trend analysis and logistic regression were performed. Results: Knowledge on preconceptional folic acid supplementation significantly improved (+20 %) between 2007 and 2009, and the intention to consult a GP or midwife in the preconception period significantly increased (+53 %) from 2007 to 2012. Logistic regression analyses showed that low socio-economic status was significantly associated with low preconceptional folic acid knowledge, but with higher intention to seek out preconception care. An interaction effect was found between educational level and ethnicity, showing that the higher the educational level the lower the gap of level of knowledge between the different ethnic groups. Conclusion: Despite campaigns about folic acid supplementation knowledge on this supplement remains low. The intention amongst men and women to seek out preconception care is still insufficient. Structural interventions to increase and maintain awareness on folic acid supplementation, especially among high-risk groups, are needed

Combining Processor Virtualization and Component-Based Engineering in C for Heterogeneous Many-Core Platforms

Embedded system design is driven by strong efficiency constraints in terms of performance, silicon area and power consumption, as well as pressure on the cost and time-to-market. As of today, this forms three tough problems: 1) many-core systems are becoming mainstream, however there is still no decent approach for distributing software applications on those platforms; 2) these systems still integrate heterogeneous processors for efficiency reasons, thus programming them requires complex compilation environments; 3) hardware resources are precious and low-level languages are still a must to exploit them subtly. These factors have negative impact on the programmability of many-core platforms and limit our ability to address the challenges of the next decade. This paper devises a new programming approach leveraging processor virtualization and component-based software engineering technologies to address these issues all together. It presents a programming model based on C for developing fine grain component-based applications, and a toolset that compiles them into a processor-independent bytecode representation that can be deployed on heterogeneous platforms. We also discuss the effectiveness of this approach and present some ideas that might have a key role in addressing the above challenges

The Association of Neighborhood Social Capital and Ethnic (Minority) Density with Pregnancy Outcomes in the Netherlands

Background: Perinatal morbidity rates are relatively high in the Netherlands, and significant inequalities in perinatal morbidity and mortality can be found across neighborhoods. In socioeconomically deprived areas, ‘Western’ women are particularly at risk for adverse birth outcomes. Almost all studies to date have explained the disparities in terms of individual determinants of birth outcomes. This study examines the influence of neighborhood contextual characteristics on birth weight (adjusted for gestational age) and preterm birth. We focused on the influence of neighborhood social capital – measured as informal socializing and social connections between neighbors – as well as ethnic (minority) density. Methods: Data on birth weight and prematurity were obtained from the Perinatal Registration Netherlands 2000–2008 dataset, containing 97% of all pregnancies. Neighborhood-level measurements were obtained from three different sources, comprising both survey and registration data. We included 3.422 neighborhoods and 1.527.565 pregnancies for the birth weight analysis and 1.549.285 pregnancies for the premature birth analysis. Linear and logistic multilevel regression was performed to assess the associations of individual and neighborhood level variables with birth weight and preterm birth. Results: We found modest but significant neighborhood effects on birth weight and preterm births. The effect of ethnic (minority) density was stronger than that of neighborhood social capital. Moreover, ethnic (minority) density was associated with higher birth weight for infants of non-Western ethnic minority women compared to Western women (15 grams; 95% CI: 12,4/17,5) as well as reduced risk for prematurity (OR 0.97; CI 0,95/0,99). Conclusions: Our results indicate that neighborhood contexts are associated with birth weight and preterm birth in the Netherlands. Moreover, ethnic (minority) density seems to be a protective factor for non-Western ethnic minority women, but not for Western women. This helps explain the increased risk of Western women in deprived neighborhoods for adverse birth outcomes found in previous studies