Usak University

Castell’s book is the first part of his milstone “The Information Age: Economy Society, and Culture” work. The author states that, the triology was prepared to be a single book, but then with the contributions of the editor, it was divided into three books by making each part of the study a separate book. In this particular book, Castells presents an easily understandable and comprehensive analysis by examining the economic, social, and cultural changes that caused by the Network Society. He does this by being as realistic as possible and reaching a clear conclusion by supporting all of his claims with various statistics and examples.

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics, the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched, as an international collaboration hosted by CERN. This study covers a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee) and an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), which could, successively, be installed in the same 100 km tunnel. The scientific capabilities of the integrated FCC programme would serve the worldwide community throughout the 21st century. The FCC study also investigates an LHC energy upgrade, using FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the second volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the electron-positron collider FCC-ee. After summarizing the physics discovery opportunities, it presents the accelerator design, performance reach, a staged operation scenario, the underlying technologies, civil engineering, technical infrastructure, and an implementation plan. FCC-ee can be built with today's technology. Most of the FCC-ee infrastructure could be reused for FCC-hh. Combining concepts from past and present lepton colliders and adding a few novel elements, the FCC-ee design promises outstandingly high luminosity. This will make the FCC-ee a unique precision instrument to study the heaviest known particles (Z, W and H bosons and the top quark), offering great direct and indirect sensitivity to new physics.

Abstract: We review the physics opportunities of the Future Circular Collider, covering its e+e-, pp, ep and heavy ion programmes. We describe the measurement capabilities of each FCC component, addressing the study of electroweak, Higgs and strong interactions, the top quark and flavour, as well as phenomena beyond the Standard Model. We highlight the synergy and complementarity of the different colliders, which will contribute to a uniquely coherent and ambitious research programme, providing an unmatchable combination of precision and sensitivity to new physics.

Abstract: In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (EPPSU), the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched as a world-wide international collaboration hosted by CERN. The FCC study covered an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee), the corresponding 100 km tunnel infrastructure, as well as the physics opportunities of these two colliders, and a high-energy LHC, based on FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the third volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the hadron collider FCC-hh. It summarizes the FCC-hh physics discovery opportunities, presents the FCC-hh accelerator design, performance reach, and staged operation plan, discusses the underlying technologies, the civil engineering and technical infrastructure, and also sketches a possible implementation. Combining ingredients from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the high-luminosity LHC upgrade and adding novel technologies and approaches, the FCC-hh design aims at significantly extending the energy frontier to 100 TeV. Its unprecedented centre of-mass collision energy will make the FCC-hh a unique instrument to explore physics beyond the Standard Model, offering great direct sensitivity to new physics and discoveries.

Praise for the Fourth Edition"Outstanding praise for previous editions.the single best general reference for the organic chemist."-Journal of the Electrochemical Society"The cast of editors and authors is excellent, the text is, in general, easily readable and understandable, well documented, and well indexed those who purchase the book will be sa

This study investigates the implications of ChatGPT, an AI-powered language model, for students and universities by examining the perceptions of scholars and students. The responses of seven scholars and 14 PhD students from four countries – Turkey, Sweden, Canada and Australia – are analysed using a thematic content analysis approach. Nine key themes emerge from the findings. According to their frequency of recurrence, these themes are: “Evolution of learning and education systems”, “changing role of educators”, “impact on assessment and evaluation”, “ethical and social considerations”, “future of work and employability”, “personalized learning”, “digital literacy and AI integration”, “AI as an extension of the human brain”, and “importance of human characteristics”. The potential benefits of AI in education as well as the challenges and barriers that may arise from its integration are discussed in the context of existing literature. Based on these findings, suggestions for future research include further exploration of the ethical implications of AI for education, the development of strategies to manage privacy concerns, and the investigation of how educational institutions can best prepare for the integration of AI technologies. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding the potential opportunities and challenges associated with AI in higher education and the need for continued research in this area.

<p>This study intends to explore the current trends in the field of distance education research during the period of 2009-2013. The trends were identified by an extensive review of seven peer reviewed scholarly journals: <em>The American Journal of Distance Education</em> (AJDE), <em>Distance Education</em> (DE), <em>The European Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning</em> (EURODL), <em>The Journal of Distance Education</em> (JDE), <em>The Journal of Online Learning and Technology</em> (JOLT), <em>Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning</em> (OL) and <em>The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning</em> (IRRODL). A total of 861 research articles was reviewed. Mainly content analysis was employed to be able to analyze the current research. Also, a social network analysis (SNA) was used to interpret the interrelationship between keywords indicated in these articles. Themes were developed and the content of the articles in the selected journals were coded according to categories derived from earlier studies. The results were interpreted using descriptive analysis (frequencies) and social network analysis. The reporting of the results were organized into the following categories: research areas, theoretical and conceptual frameworks, variables, methods, models, strategies, data collection and analysis methods, and the participants. The study also identified the most commonly used keywords, and the most frequently cited authors and studies in distance education. The findings obtained in this study may be useful in the exploration of potential research areas and identification of neglected areas in the field of distance education. </p>

It is crucial for social researchers to clarify their researchers’ roles, especially for those utilizing qualitative methodology to make their research credible. The purpose of this paper is to examine the advantages and disadvantages of the researcher’s insider role, an instructor, occupied within case study research on the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the teaching-learning process at the School for the Handicapped (SfH) in Turkey. In this respect the author will demonstrate and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of being an insider-researcher considering the researcher’s role, determining the case, the aim and research questions of the study, issues of the research design, the collection and analysis of data, ethical issues and reporting the data. Each theme is discussed concerning the advantages and disadvantages of being an insider researcher. The researcher concluded that in order to conduct valid research a researcher must overcome some of the disadvantages with the help of several preventions. The results have been discussed in the light of related literature and the whole data.

Purpose The leadership shift from conventional to digital comes from the compulsory digitalization of the workplace because the technological progress provides the opportunity of doing work remotely, and this is a great advantage of reducing costs that stem from the offline workplace. Thus, this research aims at demonstrating the relationship between digitalization of leadership and innovative work behavior. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 320 Turkish department managers in the Textile Industry through digital leadership and innovate work behavior scales. The hypotheses were tested using path analysis. The analyses were conducted by using SPSS and AMOS package programs. Findings The results show that the employees’ perceptions of digital leadership have a positive and significant effect on all dimensions of an employee innovative work behavior. Also, the leaders with high digital skills were perceived positively by the employees and the employees tend to adapt innovative behaviors when they have the digitally skilled leaders. Originality/value This study contributes to leadership research by providing evidence for the role of leadership shift in innovative work behavior. Extending the verification of leadership shift in innovative work behavior that can be adopted in Turkey has also been considered.

The global economic outlook is more uncertain than ever before and sensitive to uncertainties related to a variety of economic policies decisions of all stakeholders and governments. These perceived uncertainties may be the culprit in shrinking the size of overall economic activity. Under increasing uncertainties, travel and vacation plans of consumers can be canceled or postponed. Therefore, policy-related economic uncertainties are expected to affect tourism demand beyond well-established economic and noneconomic factors. In this study, we explore the efficacy and the impact of the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index in predicting the tourism demand on international tourist arrivals (a measure of tourism demand) to the United States from Mexico and Canada over the period of January 1996–September 2017. The findings of the study reveal that EPU is a significant predictor as increases in the EPU index lead to decreases in tourism demand to the United States. Canadian tourists seem to be more sensitive to EPUs. Increases in the EPU index cause them to reduce Canadians’ vacations to the United States proportionally more than the Mexicans. To enhance the explanatory power of current models, the uncertainty can be a theoretically significant construct thus needs to be included when calibrating demand models.

Chitosan is mainly derived from seafood by-products and the thereof chitosan nanoparticles (CNPs) are known as nontoxic, biocompatible, biodegradable and functionalized nanostructures. CNPs, as green fillers, showed an appropriate potential in reinforcement of various biodegradable composites for food packaging and biomedical applications. After evaluation of different fabrication approaches and characterization techniques of CNPs, the changes in physical, mechanical, thermal, structural, morphological, and antimicrobial attributes of nanobiocomposites as a result of CNPs addition are discussed. The influence of bioactive loaded-CNPs and hybrid CNPs with metal nanoparticles, graphene, and montmorillonite in nanocomposites is also presented. Finally, the safety aspects of CNPs-loaded structures are highlighted to evaluate their implementation in food packaging and biomedical systems. It can be concluded that regardless of a few drawbacks, CNPs are promising nanomaterials to improve various operational, structural and antimicrobial properties of biocomposites for various applications in food packaging, delivery systems and biomedical uses.

BACKGROUND: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and immunosuppression, such as in renal transplantation (RT), stand as one of the established potential risk factors for severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Case morbidity and mortality rates for any type of infection have always been much higher in CKD, haemodialysis (HD) and RT patients than in the general population. A large study comparing COVID-19 outcome in moderate to advanced CKD (Stages 3-5), HD and RT patients with a control group of patients is still lacking. METHODS: We conducted a multicentre, retrospective, observational study, involving hospitalized adult patients with COVID-19 from 47 centres in Turkey. Patients with CKD Stages 3-5, chronic HD and RT were compared with patients who had COVID-19 but no kidney disease. Demographics, comorbidities, medications, laboratory tests, COVID-19 treatments and outcome [in-hospital mortality and combined in-hospital outcome mortality or admission to the intensive care unit (ICU)] were compared. RESULTS: A total of 1210 patients were included [median age, 61 (quartile 1-quartile 3 48-71) years, female 551 (45.5%)] composed of four groups: control (n = 450), HD (n = 390), RT (n = 81) and CKD (n = 289). The ICU admission rate was 266/1210 (22.0%). A total of 172/1210 (14.2%) patients died. The ICU admission and in-hospital mortality rates in the CKD group [114/289 (39.4%); 95% confidence interval (CI) 33.9-45.2; and 82/289 (28.4%); 95% CI 23.9-34.5)] were significantly higher than the other groups: HD = 99/390 (25.4%; 95% CI 21.3-29.9; P < 0.001) and 63/390 (16.2%; 95% CI 13.0-20.4; P < 0.001); RT = 17/81 (21.0%; 95% CI 13.2-30.8; P = 0.002) and 9/81 (11.1%; 95% CI 5.7-19.5; P = 0.001); and control = 36/450 (8.0%; 95% CI 5.8-10.8; P < 0.001) and 18/450 (4%; 95% CI 2.5-6.2; P < 0.001). Adjusted mortality and adjusted combined outcomes in CKD group and HD groups were significantly higher than the control group [hazard ratio (HR) (95% CI) CKD: 2.88 (1.52-5.44); P = 0.001; 2.44 (1.35-4.40); P = 0.003; HD: 2.32 (1.21-4.46); P = 0.011; 2.25 (1.23-4.12); P = 0.008), respectively], but these were not significantly different in the RT from in the control group [HR (95% CI) 1.89 (0.76-4.72); P = 0.169; 1.87 (0.81-4.28); P = 0.138, respectively]. CONCLUSIONS: Hospitalized COVID-19 patients with CKDs, including Stages 3-5 CKD, HD and RT, have significantly higher mortality than patients without kidney disease. Stages 3-5 CKD patients have an in-hospital mortality rate as much as HD patients, which may be in part because of similar age and comorbidity burden. We were unable to assess if RT patients were or were not at increased risk for in-hospital mortality because of the relatively small sample size of the RT patients in this study.

Abstract The Large Hadron–Electron Collider (LHeC) is designed to move the field of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) to the energy and intensity frontier of particle physics. Exploiting energy-recovery technology, it collides a novel, intense electron beam with a proton or ion beam from the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). The accelerator and interaction region are designed for concurrent electron–proton and proton–proton operations. This report represents an update to the LHeC’s conceptual design report (CDR), published in 2012. It comprises new results on the parton structure of the proton and heavier nuclei, QCD dynamics, and electroweak and top-quark physics. It is shown how the LHeC will open a new chapter of nuclear particle physics by extending the accessible kinematic range of lepton–nucleus scattering by several orders of magnitude. Due to its enhanced luminosity and large energy and the cleanliness of the final hadronic states, the LHeC has a strong Higgs physics programme and its own discovery potential for new physics. Building on the 2012 CDR, this report contains a detailed updated design for the energy-recovery electron linac (ERL), including a new lattice, magnet and superconducting radio-frequency technology, and further components. Challenges of energy recovery are described, and the lower-energy, high-current, three-turn ERL facility, PERLE at Orsay, is presented, which uses the LHeC characteristics serving as a development facility for the design and operation of the LHeC. An updated detector design is presented corresponding to the acceptance, resolution, and calibration goals that arise from the Higgs and parton-density-function physics programmes. This paper also presents novel results for the Future Circular Collider in electron–hadron (FCC-eh) mode, which utilises the same ERL technology to further extend the reach of DIS to even higher centre-of-mass energies.

Wearable technology is increasingly vital for improving sports performance through real-time data analysis and tracking. Both professional and amateur athletes rely on wearable sensors to enhance training efficiency and competition outcomes. However, further research is needed to fully understand and optimize their potential in sports. This comprehensive review explores the measurement and monitoring of athletic performance, injury prevention, rehabilitation, and overall performance optimization using body wearable sensors. By analyzing wearables’ structure, research articles across various sports, and commercial sensors, the review provides a thorough analysis of wearable sensors in sports. Its findings benefit athletes, coaches, healthcare professionals, conditioners, managers, and researchers, offering a detailed summary of wearable technology in sports. The review is expected to contribute to future advancements in wearable sensors and biometric data analysis, ultimately improving sports performance. Limitations such as privacy concerns, accuracy issues, and costs are acknowledged, stressing the need for legal regulations, ethical principles, and technical measures for safe and fair use. The importance of personalized devices and further research on athlete comfort and performance impact is emphasized. The emergence of wearable imaging devices holds promise for sports rehabilitation and performance monitoring, enabling enhanced athlete health, recovery, and performance in the sports industry.

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (EPPSU), the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched as a world-wide international collaboration hosted by CERN. The FCC study covered an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee), the corresponding 100 km tunnel infrastructure, as well as the physics opportunities of these two colliders, and a high-energy LHC, based on FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the third volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the hadron collider FCC-hh. It summarizes the FCC-hh physics discovery opportunities, presents the FCC-hh accelerator design, performance reach, and staged operation plan, discusses the underlying technologies, the civil engineering and technical infrastructure, and also sketches a possible implementation. Combining ingredients from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the high-luminosity LHC upgrade and adding novel technologies and approaches, the FCC-hh design aims at significantly extending the energy frontier to 100 TeV. Its unprecedented centre-of-mass collision energy will make the FCC-hh a unique instrument to explore physics beyond the Standard Model, offering great direct sensitivity to new physics and discoveries.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the Project-Based Learning (PBL) method on undergraduate students’ achievement and its association with these students’ self-efficacy beliefs about science teaching and pinions about PBL. The sample of the study consisted of two randomly chosen classes from a set of seven classes enrolled in the Science Teaching Course in a Primary School Education Department of a State University in Turkey. The randomly assigned treatment group (n =33) was instructed based on a PBL method. The control group (n = 33) was instructed through the use of a traditional teaching (TT) method. The Science and Technology Teaching Achievement Test (STTAT) and self-efficacy belief scale (SEBS) were used as pre- and post-test measures. The results showed that students in the treatment group produced better performance on the Post- SEBS and the Post-STTAT. The students in the treatment group expressed mostly positive opinions about the use of the Project-Based Learning method.

The effects of maturation (green, pink, and ripe) on phenolic composition of strawberry cultivars Camarosa, Dorit, Chandler, and Osmanli and their hybrids were investigated using a high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. p-Hydroxybenzoic acid, p-coumaric acid, ellagic acid, cyanidin-3-glucoside, pelargonidin-3-glucoside, kaempferol, quercetin, and myricetin were individually quantified for each stage. The highest amounts of anthocyanins were obtained from ripe fruits whereas ellagic acid was found as the main phenolic in the green fruits. Phenolic concentrations were found statistically different in green and ripe fruits. One hybrid was found to have higher phenolic contents than the other genotypes. The p-hydroxybenzoic and p-coumaric acid levels changed during maturation, but no differences in contents of flavonoids in green and ripe fruit were detected.

The dominant roles that digital connective technologies have in the 21st century are causing profound changes in all domains of life, which signal that we have reached a new age: the digital age. Education is one of the fundamental domains of life re-engineered to adopt to the changing landscape of what it means to function in this new age. The school paradigm which rests on the conditions and requirements of the industrial age appears to fall short in terms of meeting the needs and demands of the 21st century learner. The emerging digital connective technologies and the educational innovations they triggered such as open educational resources (OER), massive online open courses (MOOCs) and learning analytics are disrupting the learning processes and structures of the industrial age such that it is now an imperative to develop a new educational paradigm. These new innovations enable learners to extend learning outside the boundaries of traditional learning institutions through informal and enriched learning experiences using online communities on new platforms such as social media and other social platforms. The digital innovations aforementioned also free the learners from the shackles of time so that learners can, not only access but also create knowledge through social interaction and collaboration. The age we live in is ripe for unprecedented fundamental changes and opportunities for higher education (HE). Therefore, policymakers involved in education need to re-think the implications of digital connective technologies, the challenges and opportunities they bring to the educational scene while developing value-added policies regarding HE. This paper addresses the learner, instructor, learning environments and the administration dimensions of HE and how the digital connective technologies are impacting on these dimensions in the digital age. The paper also offers, as a conclusion, a road map for HE to better function in this age.

Though only a dream a while ago, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a reality, being now part of our routines and penetrating every aspect of our lives, including education. It is still a field in its infancy, but as time progresses, we will witness how AI evolves and explore its untapped potential. Against this background, this chapter examines current insights and future perspectives of AI in various contexts, such as natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and deep learning. For this purpose, social network analysis (SNA) is used as a guide for the interpretation of the key concepts in AI research from an educational perspective. The research identified three broad themes: (1) adaptive learning, personalization and learning styles, (2) expert systems and intelligent tutoring systems, and (3) AI as a future component of educational processes.

Although research has previously been done on multilingual speech recognition, it has been found to be very difficult to improve over separately trained systems. The usual approach has been to use some kind of “universal phone set” that covers multiple languages. We report experiments on a different approach to multilingual speech recognition, in which the phone sets are entirely distinct but the model has parameters not tied to specific states that are shared across languages. We use a model called a “Subspace Gaussian Mixture Model” where states' distributions are Gaussian Mixture Models with a common structure, constrained to lie in a subspace of the total parameter space. The parameters that define this subspace can be shared across languages. We obtain substantial WER improvements with this approach, especially with very small amounts of in-language training data.