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Article Citation - WoS: 4An Eye-Controlled Wearable Communication and Control System for Als Patients: Smarteyes(Yildiz Technical Univ, 2017) Sumer, Emre; Uslu, I. Baran; Turker, MustafaALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that involves the malfunctioning of motor neurons. The ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost subsequent to death of motor neurons. People with ALS present the greatest challenge regarding communication issues. Besides, caring for a loved one with ALS is not an easy task. In this study, we developed an eye-controlled wearable system called "SmartEyes" which improves the life qualities of ALS patients and their caregivers by offering two important skills. The first skill is communicating through predefined voice messages generated by a computer and the second one is controlling several peripherals located in the patient's environment. The developed system is novel in that; the patients can easily vocalize their needs and requests with a few sequential eye movements. Moreover, they can control several household items including desk lamp, rolling curtain, television and air conditioner in the same way. The preliminary experiments showed that the performance of the system is satisfactory. The accuracy of the system commands based on pupil gaze direction was tested on several users and about an accuracy of 89% was achieved. It is believed that the developed system has attracted the patients' and their caregivers' interest very much and this is the main motivation in improving our system.Article Citation - WoS: 10Citation - Scopus: 14A Key To the "democratic Opening": Rethinking Citizenship, Ethnicity and Turkish Nation-State(Seta Foundation, 2010) Koker, Levent; LawThis article focuses on the ongoing process of transition in Turkey from a "homogeneous national identity", which produced a notion of "equality as sameness", to a "multiculturalist democracy" that requires a new constitutional system that has a conception of "equality in difference". The organization of this paper is as follows: First a brief evaluation of the Kemalist foundations of the Republic will be provided to establish how the official ideology in Turkey conceives of state-society relations. An evaluation of the persistence of this official ideology under the multiparty political system is provided in the second part. The final part of the paper concentrates on the rising public presence of the Kurdish problem, which is forcing Turkish politics to change its constitutional identity, most notably aided by the process of change driven by EU reforms. The article concludes with a call for the inevitability of a radical change in Turkish constitutional identity to include a public recognition of multiculturalism through an acceptance of linguistic and other cultural rights, but leaves open the question of how this change will be realized.Conference Object Citation - WoS: 16Citation - Scopus: 18Determinants of Entry in Turkish Manufacturing Industries(Springer, 2006) Gunalp, Burak; Cilasun, Seyit MuminThe entry of new firms into markets plays an important role in efficient resource allocation and evolution for long term economic growth. Employing dynamic panel data techniques, this paper investigates entry behavior in 66 four-digit Turkish manufacturing industries for the 1993-1999 period. The results of this paper suggest that potential entrants observe the market before the entry takes place; entry is, in general, a follow-up process; and incumbent firms seem to collude to prevent entry in Turkish manufacturing industries. In addition, the real interest rate appears to be a very important determinant of entry decision.Conference Object Citation - WoS: 1Operator Splitting of the Kdv-Burgers Type Equation With Fast and Slow Dynamics(Amer inst Physics, 2010) Aydin, A.; Karasozen, B.The Korteweg de Vries-Burgers (KdV-Burgers) type equation arising from the discretization of the viscous Burgers equation with fast dispersion and slow diffusion is solved using operator splitting. The dispersive and diffusive parts are discretized in space by second order conservative finite differences. The resulting system of ordinary differential equations are composed using the time reversible Strang splitting. The numerical results reveal that the periodicity of the solutions and the invariants of the KdV-Burgers equation are well preserved.Conference Object Citation - WoS: 3Synthesis of Tio2 Nanostructures Via Hydrothermal Method(John Wiley & Sons inc, 2015) Bilgin, Nursev; Agartan, Lutfi; Park, Jongee; Ozturk, AbdullahTitania (TiO2) nanostructures were produced via hydrothermal method using amorphous TiO2 powders synthesized by the sol-gel precipitation process. The hydrothermal system was isolated from the environment and hydrothermal reactions were allowed to execute at 130 degrees C for 36 h at autogeneous pressure, and at a stirring rate of 250 rpm. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis revealed that TiO2 nanofibers formed instead of nanotubes upon utilization of amorphous TiO2 precursor. After hydrothermal synthesis, the powders were acid treated by HCl several times. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis identified that the synthesized powders were Na-titanate and remained Na-titanate even after subjecting to acidic treatments several times. The photocatalytic performance of the powders was evaluated by degradation of methylene blue (MB) solution in UV illumination. Results were compared with nanotubes which were synthesized previously using P25 commercial titania powder and have shown that TiO2 in tubular structure offers better photocatalytic performance for the degradation of MB solution under UV illumination as compared to fiber-like structure.Conference Object F-Actor: a Multiagent Gaming Environment for Controlling Virtual Flow Networks(Univ Wolverhampton, 2008) Ocal, Ilter Kagan; Cevik, Ahmet; Cereci, Ibrahim; Kilic, Hurevren; Computer EngineeringA gaming environment that enables agent-based local control of a configurable virtual flow network is developed. The gaming software what we call F-Actor provides a graph-based discrete virtual control environment on which user-developed controller agents reside and act according to their assigned design goals. Runtime performances of user-developed controller agent codes are made observable through a graphical user interface. The proposed game can be played by different developers having different level of control and programming knowledge. By playing with F-Actor, engineers (or students) can make practices on a virtual flow environment and try alternative intelligent control algorithms before their potential implementations on field.Conference Object Citation - WoS: 2Citation - Scopus: 3Design Considerations for Sub-Ghz Multilayer Microstrip Antenna for Near Ground Communication Links in Rural Areas(Ieee, 2017) Bilgin, Gulsima; Yilmaz, Vadi Su; Aydin, Elif; Kara, Ali; Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering; Electrical-Electronics EngineeringThis paper presents some preliminary results of design and development of sub-GHz multilayer microstip antenna for use in near ground communication applications. In design stage of the antenna, iterative approach was applied. Firstly, a two layer microstrip antenna design process is presented. Next, the corners of the patch were cut, and a vertical wall on all sides of the antenna were introduced. In this way, both the size and resonant freqeuncy can be tuned. Moreover, as an application specific requirement, it is intended to embed this antenna into a metal box in order to protect it from man-made and natural environmental effects. This was also studied, and effects of the embedding ground on the antenna characteristics were examined. It is shown that the designed antenna provides -27dB resturn loss, and 7.3dB peak gain at 915MHz with the dimension of 150x200x13mm. Some preliminary measurements have proven the simulations.Article Citation - Scopus: 1Evaluation of Rebound Hammer Test as a Combined Procedure Used With Drill Core Testing for Evaluation of Existing Structures(2012) Yeşilmen,S.Rebound hammer is a non-destructive test method often used to assess the surface hardness of engineering materials. The method is used as a part of the procedure applied to evaluate existing structures. The concrete core tests are usually combined with rebound hammer tests to decrease costs and damage to the structure. Various studies attempted to establish a reliable relationship between the concrete strength and the rebound coefficient. Proposed formulas and correlation coefficients stayed reliable for narrow limits on factors like concrete age, composition, moisture content, etc. Despite the high uncertainty of the raw data the methodology remains in use. This paper presents the evaluation of rebound hammer and drill core test data from 256 different buildings in Antalya, Turkey. With uncontrolled parameters like environmental factors, age, compressive strength of concrete, the rebound hammer test results showed very little correlation with concrete core test results even for the statistically large data set. © RILEM 2013.Article Citation - WoS: 5Citation - Scopus: 7G-Csf Treatment of Healthy Pediatric Donors Affects Their Hematopoietic Microenvironment Through Changes in Bone Marrow Plasma Cytokines and Stromal Cells(Academic Press Ltd- Elsevier Science Ltd, 2021) Aerts-Kaya, Fatima; Kilic, Emine; Kose, Sevil; Aydin, Gozde; Cagnan, Ilgin; Kuskonmaz, Baris; Uckan-Cetinkaya, DuyguAlthough G-CSF mobilized peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) transplantation is commonly used in adults, bone marrow (BM) is still the preferred stem cell source in pediatric stem cell transplantation. Despite the fact that G-CSF is increasingly being used to enhance the hematopoietic stem/progenitor cell (HSPC) yield in BM transplantation (G-BM), the direct effects of G-CSF on the pediatric BM microenvironment have never been investigated. The BM hematopoietic niche provides the physical space where the HSPCs reside. This BM niche regulates HSPC quiescence and proliferation through direct interactions with other niche cells, including Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSCs). These cells have been shown to secrete a wide range of hematopoietic cytokines (CKs) and growth factors (GFs) involved in differentiation, retention and homing of hematopoietic cells. Here, we assessed changes in the BM microenvironment by measuring levels of 48 different CKs and GFs in G-BM and control BM (C-BM) plasma from pediatric donors. In addition, the effect of G-CSF on cell numbers and characteristics of HSPCs and MSCs was assessed. IL-16, SCGF-b, MIP-1b (all >1000 pg/mL) and RANTES (>10.000 pg/mL) were highly expressed in healthy donor pediatric BM plasma. Levels of IL-3, IL-18, GROa, MCP-3 (p<0.05) were increased in G-BM, whereas levels of RANTES (p<0.001) decreased after G-CSF treatment. We found a negative correlation with increasing age for IL2-Ra and LIF (p<0.05). In addition, a concomitant increase in the number of both hematopoietic and fibroblast colony forming units was observed, indicating that G-CSF affects both HSPC and MSC numbers. In conclusion, G-CSF treatment of healthy pediatric donors affects the hematopoietic BM microenvironment by expansion of HSPC and MSC numbers and modifying local CK and GF levels.Conference Object Software Quality Management Improvement Through Mentoring: an Exploratory Study From Gsd Projects(Springer-verlag Berlin, 2011) Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo; Soto-Acosta, Pedro; Mishra, Alok; Garcia-Crespo, AngelSoftware Quality Management (SQM) is a set of processes and procedures designed to assure the quality of software artifacts along with their development process. In an environment in which software development is evolving to a globalization, SQM is seen as one of its challenges. Global Software Development is a way to develop software across nations, continents, cultures and time zones. The aim of this paper is to detect if mentoring, one of the lead personnel development tools, can improve SQM of projects developed under GSD. The results obtained in the study reveal that the influence of mentoring on SQM is just temperate.
