In this study, annual variations in biochemical composition of seston and zooplankton community were investigated to characterize the nutritional environment of zooplankton in the Mersin Bay, NE Mediterranean Sea. For this goal, seawater and zooplankton samples were collected at monthly intervals from two stations / one representing coastal and other representing open waters characteristics from November 2004 to January 2006. Seawater samples were collected with Niskin bottles from the sea surface. Zooplankton samples were collected both in the horizontal and vertical plane by towing a Nansen net (70 cm mouth diameter with 112 &micro / m mesh). Surface seston chl-a, lipid, protein and carbohydrate concentrations were measured by fractionating seawater into three different size groups, 0.7-2.7, 2.7-18 and &gt / 18 &micro / m representing pico, nano and micro particulates in the seston. Zooplankton biomass and abundance were determined at four size fractions: 112-200, 200-500, 500-1000 and &gt / 1000 &micro / m / dry and organic weights were measured by gravimetric method and major taxonomic groups of zooplankton was identified under stereo-microscope. The nearshore station was always more productive than the offshore station in terms of chl-a, particulate organic matter (POM: protein+lipid+carbohydrate), zooplankton abundance and biomass. Chl-a maxima occured in spring and autumn at both stations. Very low chl-a concentrations at the offshore station (0.02-0.35 &micro / g L-1) confirmed oligotrophic character of the Northeastern Mediterranean. The highest chl-a concentration (2.4 &micro / g L-1) was observed in March 2005 at the nearshore station due to the input of Lamas River nearby. POM varied from 42.1 &micro / g L-1 (in January 2006) to 1082 &micro / g L-1 (in March 2005) and 53.7 &micro / g L-1 (in January 2006) to 246 &micro / g L-1 (in May 2005) at the nearshore and offshore stations, respectively. The oligotrophy of this system was indicated by the extremely low particulate lipid, protein and carbohydrate concentrations (1-3 times lower than in more productive systems). The most evident characteristic of this oligotrophic environment was the dominance of pico-POM throughout the study period, accounting for 31&ndash / 65 % of the total carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and chl-a. The prt:cho ratio was generally lower than 1 (low in organic nitrogen). Carbohydrate was the dominant biochemical component at both stations. Zooplankton varied during the sampling period, and they showed two peak abundances, in spring and autumn, with small increase in summer. The higher biomasses of zooplankton were observed in summer and autumn in the entire water column, but in spring and autumn periods in the surface water. Zooplankton data showed that 200-500 and 112-200 &micro / m size fractions were dominant in abundance at both stations. However, 200-500 &micro / m size fraction was dominant in zooplankton biomass at nearshore, whereas &gt / 1000 &micro / m size fraction was at offshore station. Copepods were the most abundant zooplankton group and dominated the distribution of total zooplankton, followed by crustace nauplii, appendicularia, cladocera and pteropoda.

This thesis provides an analysis of Israel&amp / #8217 / s security conceptions, discourses and practices, in the context of the Arab&amp / #8211 / Israeli conflict in general and the Israeli&amp / #8211 / Palestinian conflict in particular, between 1948 and 2000. The purpose of the study is, to explore those processes through which particular definitions and practices of security have been produced and changed, against the background of the domestic debates and competing worldviews among key political actors / and to highlight the overall impact of these points in different periods on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and, thus, on Israel&amp / #8217 / s overall security. In this context, it is observed that the debates among the political actors, regarding the future borders and the identity of the state, have played a key role in the construction and reconstruction of Israeli security policy particularly vis-&agrave / -vis the Palestinian problem. Nevertheless, it is also observed that the extent of these differences has been limited to the objectives of the security policy, and that a zero-sum conception of security, and the primacy of military means to confront the perceived threats have prevailed as common characteristics of Israeli security understanding, informing Israel&amp / #8217 / s related practices. Along these lines the thesis considers the Oslo peace process as an anomaly, and tries to assess it within the framework of the continuities and changes it has introduced to thinking and acting about security in Israel.

This thesis is a descriptive study of four contrastive discourse connectives in Turkish. The main aim of this study is to analyze the connectives with respect to their meaning and predicate-argument structure and lay out the similarities and differences among contrastive discourse connectives with the help of quantitative analysis. Although the study is limited with contrastive connectives, it will have implications on how to resolve discourse structure in general and illustrate how lexico-syntactic elements contribute to discourse semantics.

Universities have a significant role in society as they are generators of economic activity, as land developers, as neighbors and as property owners. Therefore it is a focal point in the community. Every university lives within a surrounding community. They have been creating their own relations with the neighborhoods. The space that the university confronts with the city is shaped according to the needs of the people from the university and the inhabitants of the area. Between the university and the city, every university creates their own interface in accordance with the location and the inhabitants of the area. While planning the city or the university the interface zone did not take into account. It has been behaved as a part of the city although it has been a neighbor with university. While designing the university there has been no attempt to design this zone or making decisions including this zone. Therefore this space creates its own character in time. As it is locating between the city and the university it has been carrying both the character of the university and the city. The main aim of this study is to examine the spatial formation of the interface of university and city in respect to the planning decisions and spatial features of the area by investigating the two different types of universities in their own contexts in Ankara / Ankara University and METU. In this context, the spatial character of interface area is defined by examining this space as a transitional area, boundary and threshold. Then universities and their historical developments are examined in urban space and the relations between these two domains are investigated through the selected universities in Europe and USA. Finally, the situation of the university in Turkey is handled and searched the formation of the interface areas around the campuses of the two selected universities in Ankara.

Inflammation and aberrant microRNAs expressions promote colon cancer growth and progression. However, the molecular mechanisms that link these pathways remain to be determined. In this dissertation, the causal relationship between inflammation and aberrant microRNAs expressions were explored. Elevated expression of prostaglandin E₂ (PGE₂) receptor EP4 has been seen in human colon cancer. However, the mechanism by which EP4 receptor protein is deregulated is not known. Experiments in this dissertation demonstrate, for the first time, that the EP4 receptor is negatively regulated by miR-101.In previous work, we show that S100P is induced by stimulation of the PGE₂/EP4 receptor signaling pathway. S100P is a ligand for Receptor for Advance Glycation End-products (RAGE). However, little is known about the downstream targets of S100P/RAGE signaling. Here, we demonstrated that S100P/RAGE receptor signaling induces expression of miR-155 via the transcription factor AP-1. In addition, we investigated the genes that are downstream of S100P/RAGE/miR-155 pathway. Our microarrays and bioinformatics analyses identified two novel miR-155 targets, WNK1 and ZNF493 that are down-regulated upon activation of the S100P/RAGE/miR-155 pathway. Lastly, we investigated whether inhibition of S100P/RAGE signaling pathway would be beneficial as a cancer therapy using methyl-2-acetamidoacrylate (M2AA). M2AA treatments decreased colon cancer cells viability and also suppressed colon tumor growth and metastasis in vitro and also in the CAM assay in vivo. Taken together, our results suggest that modulation of S100P/RAGE signaling by M2AA offers therapeutic potential as anti-metastatic agents. In summary, this dissertation provides new insights on the molecular events that link inflammation pathways and microRNAs to colon cancer as well as show that therapeutic strategies targeting these pathways could be effective in treatment of neoplasia.

No description available.

Network analysis in GIS is often related to finding solutions to transportation problems. In a GIS the real world is represented by either one of two spatial models, vector-based, or raster-based. Prefering raster or vector GIS is more a question of choice than of accuracy. A raster-based GIS model shows a better fit, when the problem is concerned with finding a path across terrain which does not have predefined paths. The approach of this study is to translate the scenario into a &lsquo / least-cost path&rsquo / graph with an associated cost function on the raster-based GIS layer. Sometimes, computation of shortest paths between different locations on a raster-based GIS has to be done in real-time. Therefore, knowing which shortest path algorithm runs fastest on real networks is needed. In order to meet this requirement, Dijsktra&rsquo / s algorithm with priority queue implementation is selected, because it reduces the time complexity of Dijsktra&rsquo / s algorithm from O(V2 log V) to O(E log V ). The run-time results of Dijsktra&rsquo / s algorithm, Dijsktra&rsquo / s algorithm with priority queue implementation and ArcMap Spatial Analyst Tool are compared for a number of raster GIS layers which have different number of nodes. Dijsktra&rsquo / s algorithm with priority queue implementation and Spatial Analyst tool of ArcMap show a linear relationship between node numbers and time, whereas Dijsktra&rsquo / s algorithm represents a quadratic relationship. Hence, when the number of nodes and edges in graph is increased, the run-time performance of the Dijsktra&rsquo / s algorithm decreases rapidly.

Muscle strength is assumed to be closely related with BMD, the so called determinant of bone strength, however, new methods for bone strength measurement are arising. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between bone mineral density (BMD), muscle strength and natural frequency of the radius in the dominant and non-dominant arm in healthy and osteopenic individuals aged between 50-70 years. Sixty sedentary male (thirty healthy and thirty osteopenic) participated this study. Bone mineral density assessment was performed by dual x-ray absorbtiometry (DEXA) and quantitative computed tomography (QCT), whereas muscle strength was measured by an isokinetic dynamometer quantitatively. Natural frequency of the radius was determined by a dual channel frequency analyzer. Differences between BMD, muscle strength and natural frequency in healthy and osteopenic participants according to dominancy were examined by Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Pearson Product Correlation Coefficient test was conducted to determine the magnitude of the correlation between cortical, trabecular and average BMD, muscle strength and natural frequency. Results demonstrated a statistically significant difference between BMD, natural frequency and muscle strength in the dominant arm of both groups. There was also a significant difference in the non-dominant arm in terms of BMD, natural frequency and muscle strength, except in total work in the non-dominant arms. Moreover, there was a moderate positive correlation between BMD measured by DEXA and natural frequency in the dominant arm (r = ,59 / p &lt / .001) and non-dominant arm (r = 0,64 / p &lt / 0.001), whereas the muscle strength was correlated to BMD with a low positive correlation in terms of peak torque in extension (r = ,36 / p = ,005), peak torque in flexion (r = ,31 / p = ,016), total work in extension (r = ,28 / p = ,030) and total work in flexion (r = ,27 / p = ,041) in the dominant arms. The correlation between muscle strength and BMD was not significant in the non-dominant arm. The highest correlation between natural frequency and bone geometry parameters was observed in cortical thickness (r = ,82 / p = ,02). A statistically significant positive correlation (r = ,81 / p = ,04) was also observed between average BMD measured by QCT and by DEXA. In summary, according to the findings of this study, it can be concluded that vibration analysis is a precise method in predicting bone strength that depends highly on its size, shape and the distribution of its trabecular and cortical components.

In this thesis, it is aimed to investigate to what extent Bulgarian Turkish immigrants of 1989 and the following years, integrated to the urban life and to analyze the role of their social networks in this process. In this respect, demographic, socioeconomic variables and migration process, social networks and organized and political behaviour of the immigrants have been evaluated in a comparative perspective with Turkish rural migrants in order to understand their difference in urban integration levels. Economic, social and political levels of urban integration of immigrants have been analyzed and the findings of two different age-groups were compared on these levels to see the generational difference in urban intaegration A total of 140 members of the association &ldquo / Bulgaristan T&uuml / rkleri Deliorman K&uuml / lt&uuml / r Dernegi&rdquo / were interviewed in Yenibosna for this purpose. Contrary to assumptions, they couldn&rsquo / t easily integrate to the urban life in Turkey because they came from a country, which is different in ideological, economic, social and cultural aspects. The most important difference was political and ideological, since they were raised in a country, which was socialist in that period before immigration. They formed a strong community to cope with the difficulties in the new environment. Although they became successful in economic integration to a certain extent, they couldn&rsquo / t integrate socially and politically in the same way.

This thesis analyzes the validity of main assumptions of housing classes approach, which is a Weberian mode of analyses developed to explain the effects of spatial stratification on social structures of cities, in an empirical level through a case study. According to this approach, housing is a scarce resource which is subject to processes of competition between different social groups and struggles among these groups to get access to desirable housing types constitute the basis of urban social processes. In this context, it is suggested that housing type resided in has apparent effect on individuals&rsquo / position in social stratification system and their life chances are restricted in the style and location of housing to which they could get access. It is seen that the way of analysis proposed by housing classes approach has certain effects on urban studies conducted in Turkey, as well. These studies suggest that differences in accessed housing types and in living spaces on a large scale affects life chances of social groups residing in there. By the same token, apartment and squatter (gecekondu) have been used as two concepts representing the relationships of different social sections with the city and they have been considered as two different social environments or neighborhoods. In this context, in addition to analyzing the main assumptions of housing classes approach in an empirical level, this study also questions the mode of analysis used in studies conducted in Turkey insofar as they share the main assumptions of this approach, within the frame of transformations experienced in gecekondu neighborhoods. In this study, in the light of the findings gathered through case study, it is concluded that spatial stratification arising from the housing ownership is parallel to the social divisions based on labor market. Moreover, it is found out that gecekondu and apartment being constructed during transformation processes in gecekondu areas do not indicate different social environments or living spaces which represent opposite forms of social relations and, therefore, which separate from each other through definite lines.