TREND ANALYSIS OF ANNUAL MEAN TEMPERATURE DATA USING MANN-KENDALL RANK CORRELATION TEST IN CATALCA - KOCAELI PENINSULA, NORTHWEST OF TURKEY FOR THE PERIOD OF 1970 - 2011

The study area, Catalca-Kocaeli Peninsula was located on Marmara Region,northwestern of Turkey. Due to the industrialization, transportation and job opportunities excess and adequacy of education and health services, the majority ofthe population of the Marmara Region is located in the Catalca-Kocaeli peninsula.But in recent years, population growth and urbanization have warming effect onclimate in the research area.The main objective of this study is to examine the trend analysis of annual mean temperature from 1970 to 2011. Trend becomes the most commonly used technique to detect temperature variability in regional and local basis. In this study Mann-Kendall Rank Correlation Test was applied to annual mean temperature data fromstations located in Catalca-Kocaeli Peninsula to determine the existence and significance of trends, and the years in which changes in the trends started. In order to discuss the trends of annual mean temperature, the annual Mann-Kendallstatistics of temperature are illustrated in graphics with MATLAB software

ANALYZING LAND COVER CHANGES USING REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN AKFIRAT AND ITS SURROUNDINGS (TUZLA - ISTANBUL), NORTH-WEST TURKEY

In this study, land cover changes are analyzed by using of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Akfirat and Its surroundings (Tuzla - Istanbul), North - West Turkey. Akfirat and its surroundings are located in Tuzlatown, southeast of Istanbul. Istanbul is the most populated city in the world with 13.483.052 population according to the recent 2011 census. The city will expandthe north - south and east - west direction of along the Bosporus and increasing theneed for new settlement areas in Istanbul. Akfirat and its surroundings where Istanbul Park Formula 1 racing pist located in this area are interesting example from southeast of Istanbul.For determining the land cover change in the study area, on-screen digitizing method is applied to Landsat satellite images acquired in Landsat 7 ETM + 2003 and Landsat 5 TM 2010 using ArcMap. The method consists of three major steps:(1) determining land cover classes with unsupervised classification method (2) the establishment of land cover change classes based on CORINE land coverclassification theme using on screen digitizing method (3) mapping of land coverchange. According to the obtained results, it was determined that the biggest change in the land cover from 2003 until 2010 occurred with the 271 hectare and 275,4% increase in the non - continuous urban residential land

Privacy-preserving targeted advertising scheme for IPTV using the cloud

In this paper, we present a privacy-preserving scheme for targeted advertising via the Internet Protocol TV (IPTV). The scheme uses a communication model involving a collection of viewers/subscribers, a content provider (IPTV), an advertiser, and a cloud server. To provide high quality directed advertising service, the advertiser can utilize not only demographic information of subscribers, but also their watching habits. The latter includes watching history, preferences for IPTV content and watching rate, which are published on the cloud server periodically (e.g. weekly) along with anonymized demographics. Since the published data may leak sensitive information about subscribers, it is safeguarded using cryptographic techniques in addition to the anonymization of demographics. The techniques used by the advertiser, which can be manifested in its queries to the cloud, are considered (trade) secrets and therefore are protected as well. The cloud is oblivious to the published data, the queries of the advertiser as well as its own responses to these queries. Only a legitimate advertiser, endorsed with a so-called {\em trapdoor} by the IPTV, can query the cloud and utilize the query results. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated with experiments, which show that the scheme is suitable for practical usage

Social Sustainability in Trade and Development Policy: A Life Cycle Approach to Understanding and Managing Social Risk Attributable to Production and Consumption in the EU-27

Improving social sustainability within Europe and abroad is among the founding premises of the European Union. European Commission external policy documents – in particular, those associated with trade and development - explicitly call for the use of policy instruments as a means of improving social conditions in third countries. Unclear, however, is the extent to which progress in social sustainability as a result of Commission policy measures is being assessed, or measures to further leverage improved social sustainability implemented. Life cycle thinking (LCT) refers to a management philosophy predicated on holistic consideration of management alternatives for the purpose of preventing unintentional burden shifting – whether between supply chain activities or issue areas. Significant strides have already been made in the environmental domain to operationalize life cycle thinking in European Commission policies, with supporting methodological norms, frameworks, tools and data. To date, comparable approaches and instruments are lacking in support of life cycle-based social sustainability policy initiatives. Such information and tools are critical in support of improved policy design, implementation, monitoring and/or reformulation. Social risk refers to the potential for one or more parties to be exposed to negative social conditions that, in turn, undermine social sustainability. We conducted a macro-scale analysis of the social risk profile of EU-27 trade by combining trade statistics regarding imports from intra- and extra-territorial trading partners in 2010 with country and sector-specific social risk indicator data. These data cover 17 social themes in five thematic areas: Labour Rights and Decent Work; Health and Safety; Human Rights; Governance; and Community Infrastructure. We assessed the apparent social risk profiles of EU-27 imports based on consideration of country-of-origin social risk data only, compared to a life cycle-based social risk assessment which took into account the distribution of social risk along product supply chains. Our intention was to better understand how and to what extent current trade-based consumption in the EU-27 may be associated with socially unsustainable conditions, and the value of applying a life cycle perspective for sustainability management in this context. Our analysis underscores the importance of a life cycle-based approach to understanding and managing social risk in support of policies for socially sustainable development. Moreover, the methods and information presented herein offer a potentially powerful decision-support tool for policy makers wishing to better understand the magnitude and distribution of social risk associated with EU production and consumption patterns, the mitigation of which will contribute to socially sustainable development within Europe and abroad. A novel opportunity hence presents itself for decision makers and those who provide scientific and technical support to policy making to collaborate closely in moving forward the agenda for socially sustainable development. This will require the identification of strategic policy directions and supporting research projects, building upon existing, complementary environmental and economic sustainability assessment tools within the European Commission, which will continue to strengthen the elaboration, implementation, and impact assessment of science-based policy for sustainable development.JRC.H.8 - Sustainability Assessmen

Plasmid-based gap-repair recombineered transgenes reveal a central role for introns in mutually exclusive alternative splicing in Down Syndrome Cell Adhesion Molecule exon 4

Alternative splicing is a key feature of human genes, yet studying its regulation is often complicated by large introns. The Down Syndrome Cell Adhesion Molecule (Dscam) gene from Drosophila is one of the most complex genes generating vast molecular diversity by mutually exclusive alternative splicing. To resolve how alternative splicing in Dscam is regulated, we first developed plasmid-based UAS reporter genes for the Dscam variable exon 4 cluster and show that its alternative splicing is recapitulated by GAL4-mediated expression in neurons. We then developed gap-repair recombineering to very efficiently manipulate these large reporter plasmids in Escherichia coli using restriction enzymes or sgRNA/Cas9 DNA scission to capitalize on the many benefits of plasmids in phiC31 integrase-mediated transgenesis. Using these novel tools, we show that inclusion of Dscam exon 4 variables differs little in development and individual flies, and is robustly determined by sequences harbored in variable exons. We further show that introns drive selection of both proximal and distal variable exons. Since exon 4 cluster introns lack conserved sequences that could mediate robust long-range base-pairing to bring exons into proximity for splicing, our data argue for a central role of introns in mutually exclusive alternative splicing of Dscam exon 4 cluster

The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Stress-related Dermatologic Diseases

The number and variety of patients admitted to hospitals have changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes have also affected dermatology clinics. The pandemic has had an adverse effect on the psychol- ogy of people by negatively affecting their quality of life. Patients who were admitted to the Bursa City Hospital Dermatology Clinic between July 15, 2020 and October 15, 2020 and from July 15, 2019 to October 15, 2019 were includ- ed in this study. The data of patients were gathered retrospectively by review- ing the electronic medical records and International Classification Diseases (ICD-10) codes. Our results showed that, despite the decrease in the total number of applications, a significant increase was observed in the frequency of stress-related dermatological diseases such as psoriasis (P<0.001), urticaria (P<0.001), atopic dermatitis (P<0.001), and seborrheic dermatitis (P=0.035). However, there was no significant change in the rates of alopecia areata, vit- iligo, herpes zoster, and lichen simplex chronicus (P>0.05, for all). There was a significant decrease in the telogen effluvium rate during the pandemic (P<0.001). Our study demonstrates that the incidence of certain stress-related dermatologic diseases increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may increase awareness of dermatologists on this issue

An Assessment of Land Use/Cover Suitable for Peri-urban Green Space Development: an Example of an Integration of GIS with the Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) Approach

Land allocation priorities to urban green cover are usually neglected particularly in the countries of developing economies such as Turkey. Lack of urban green space can cause many social and physical problems among the residents. Therefore, urban planning and policy should incorporate suitable green land in the urban planning of cities to optimise the benefits obtained from urban green spaces. Land suitability analysis is a commonly used methodology which provides a framework for developing strategies in the planning of green land development. Two different approaches will be utilised for the assessment of suitability of land uses for urban agriculture, forest and natural vegetation in the Pendik district of Istanbul. Standardisation of values in criteria maps was done using the deterministic approach in the first case whereas fuzzy membership was utilised as an alternative in the second case. Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) was used for the weighting of sub-criteria and map layers were overlaid using the weighted linear combination using the GIS software. Geophysical factors, transport and services accessibility, land cover/use, blue and green amenities, soil properties, geology and erosion susceptibility are the main criteria selected for the assessment of urban green land suitability. The provision of suitable land for urban agriculture, forest and natural vegetation uses will provide a framework to the land use planning and decision support aimed at contributing to urban sustainable development