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Purpose: This study evaluated the possible effects of empathy-focused group work on the participants, which is designed by bringing together cisgender heterosexual and LGBTQ+ people. Method: The study group of the research consists of 28 people (14 people in each of the experimental and control groups) who receive social service from a municipality in Istanbul, Turkey. The empathy-focused group work lasted 8 weeks, and pretest and posttest measurements were performed using the Affective and Cognitive Measure of Empathy (ACME) Scale and the Social Dominance Orientation Scale. Results: The result of this study showed that the participants were able to experience positive contact experiences in group work with heterogeneous groups, and an increase in the emotional and cognitive empathy levels of the participants and a decrease in their social dominance orientation. Conclusions: Implications for future research and professional practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, synthesis of novel isoindole‐1,3‐dione analogues bearig halo, hydroxy, and acetoxy groups at the position 4,5,6 of the bicyclic imide ring was performed to examine their potential anticancer effects against some cell lines. A multistep chemical pathway was used to synthesize the derivatives. The cytotoxic effect of trisubstituted isoindole derivatives were evaluated by determining cellular viability using the MTT assay against A549, PC‐3, HeLa, Caco‐2, and MCF‐7 cell lines. The C‐2 selective ring‐opening products were obtained from the ring‐opening reaction of 5‐alkyl/aryl‐2‐hydroxyhexahydro‐4H‐oxireno[2,3‐e]isoindole‐4,6(5H)‐diones with nucleophiles such as chloride (Cl−) and bromide (Br−) ions. In addition, the ring‐opening products halodiols were converted to their related acetates. The anticancer activity of synthesized isoindole‐1,3‐dione derivatives was investigated against HeLa, A549, MCF‐7, PC3, and Caco‐2 cells in vitro and resulted in varies cytotoxic effect depend on the group attached to the isoindole molecule. Furthermore, the evaluation of the antimicrobial action of trisubstituted isoindole derivatives against Gram‐positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram‐negative (Escherichia coli) bacteria was assessed and found out selective inhibition of the both bacterial growth via different trisubstituted isoindole derivatives. The results of this work encourage further research on the potential utilization of trisubstituted isoindole derivatives as cytotoxic and antimicrobial agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to evaluate the synthesis of isoindole-1,3-dione analogues and their cytotoxic potential. A549 and HeLa cells exposed to 250–100–50–25 µM doses of each derivative were incubated for 24, 48, and 72 h. The cytotoxicity of the isoindole-1,3-dione derivatives was analyzed using the cell growth inhibition assay and the cell membrane damage test. (3aR,5R,6R,7aS)-5-Azido-2-benzyl-6-hydroxyhexahydro-1H-isoindole-1,3(2H)-dione (1d), (3aR,5R,6R,7aS)-5-azido-6-((tert-butyldiphenylsilyl)oxy)-2-ethylhexahydro-1H-isoindole-1,3(2H)-dione (2a), and (3aR,5R,6R,7aS)-5-azido-6-((tert-butyldiphenylsilyl)oxy)-2-methylhexahydro-1H-isoindole-1,3(2H)-dione (2b) compounds inhibited the growth of the A549 and HeLa cells caused membrane damage and exhibited a dose-dependent cytotoxic effect on lung and cervical carcinoma cells. The effect of tert-butyldiphenylsilyl (TBDPS) groups on cytotoxicity was observed in compounds 2a and 2b, but not in the other compounds. Considering the effect of groups attached to the nitrogen atom, the best activity was exhibited in 2b molecule to which the methyl group is attached. Additionally, the interactions of compounds (3aR,5R,6R,7aS)-5-azido-6-hydroxy-2-methylhexahydro-1H-isoindole-1,3(2H)-dione (1b), 1d, 2a and 2b with mammalian rapamycin target, human ribosomal S6 kinase 1 and human epidermal growth factor receptor were investigated by molecular docking studies,. According to the docking results, 2a and 2b compounds containing a TBDPS group have stronger binding energies than 1b and 1d compounds against all target receptors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With this group work, which includes activities for animal rights, it is aimed that children can raise awareness about animal rights and interact with animals. The research was carried out as a pretest‐posttest experimental study in order to evaluate the effect of group work on children receiving counselling and training from a Guidance and Research Center in Istanbul. The study group of the research between May 2022 and June 2022 consists of 20 children (10 in the experimental group, 10 in the control group) between the ages of 11–12 and continuing their education in Istanbul. In addition to the Personal Information Form, which included questions such as gender, age, education status, number of siblings, socio‐economic levels, and status of living with pets, the Oney Animal Love Scale and Scale of Behaviour for Animals were administered to the study group as pretest‐posttest. The group work was held on Saturdays at 13:00, consisted of six sessions, and in each session, activities for socialization, animal rights and child–animal interaction were carried out. The collected data were analysed in the SPSS 22.0 package program. At the end of the group work, it was observed that there was a positive significant difference in the total scores of the Oney Animal Love and Scale of Behaviour for Animals of the children in the experimental group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have been investigated in different solvent medium to interactions between 4-Ethoxybenzoic acid (4EOBA), 4-Pentylbenzoic acid (4PentBA), and 4-Pentylphenyl 4-Methylbenzoate (4PP4MetB) liquid crystals with CdS, CdSe and ZnS nanoparticles. For this, the new materials composed from LC compound including the solvent and nanoparticle were investigated by use absorbance and fluorescence spectra. Electronic transitions and differences in absorbance and fluorescence spectra were interpreted. The fluorescence of liquid crystals has been defined in the shifts between wavelengths of the fluorescence of nanomaterials. It can be said that it has occurred blue shift at the maximum fluorescence wavelengths of the 4EOBA-CdS-DMSO and 4EOBA-CdSe-DMSO compared to 4EOBA-DMSO. On the other hand, we can say that in the 4EOBA-ZnS-DMSO solution occurs red shift in the fluorescence band, while the peaks seen in the fluorescence band occur in result of interaction of liquid crystals and nanoparticles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aziridine‐containing compounds have many biological activities, particularly antitumor, and antibacterial activities, due to the presence of an aziridine ring. The aim of this study was to synthesize four hybrid isoindol‐1,3‐dione analogues containing aziridine units (8a–d) and evaluate their cytotoxic potential against the A549, MCF7, and PC3 cell lines. A549, MCF7, and PC3 cells exposed to each obtained compound at doses of 5, 25, and 100 μM were incubated for 24 h and 8c was found to exhibit obvious anticancer activity against all three cancer cell lines. Further apoptosis assays and in vitro wound‐healing tests were performed and the results were evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study demonstrates that social workers who participate in online group work that utilizes LGBTQIA+ films, discussion, and didactic training on LGBGQIA+ history, term, and issues can strengthen their empathy for LGBTQIA+ people and reduce their homophobia in preparation for serving people in LGBTQIA+ communities better. A total of 24 social workers from the Istanbul Branch of the Association of Social Workers, 12 in the experimental group and 12 in the control group, participated in the research. It has been observed that online group work, which is carried out with nested design, which is one of the mixed methods, significantly reduces the homophobia levels of social workers. Workshops and group work should be carried out to reduce the LGBTQIA+phobic attitudes of social workers, and these studies should be prepared in a way that includes the life experiences of LGBTQIA+ people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to measure the effects of emotion-based group work containing approaches from the intergroup emotions theory on LGBT people where live in Turkey to provide emotion regulation and improve psychosocial functioning. 20 LGBT people (10 participants in experimental group, 10 participants in control group) were included for group work. The Need for Affect Scale (NAS) was implemented to both groups before and after the group work. After the group work, significant differences were found between the experimental and control groups. It was observed that emotion-based group work was effective in increasing the expression and the experience of LGBT people's positive emotions and improved their psychosocial functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LGBTQIA+ people are often subjected to prejudice, discrimination, and violence in many societies. This sets a barrier for LGBTQIA+ people access to social services. This study was conducted to investigate LGBTQIA+ people access to social services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study findings using convenience sampling and exploration design with participants who identify themselves as LGBTQIA+ (N = 856) show that vast majority of LGBTQIA+ people living in Turkey faced serious problems with accessing social services like housing, social assistance, psycho-social support, and post-violence support mechanisms. Future studies which will investigate experiences of LGBTQIA+ people access to social services will help to make the needs and the problems of the LGBTQIA+ community visible and once awareness is made efforts can be made that contribute to the solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, novel hybrid isoindole‐1,3(2H)‐dione compounds (10 and 11) carrying a 1H‐tetrazole moiety were synthesized, characterized and their inhibitory properties against xanthine oxidase (XO) and carbonic anhydrase isoenzymes (hCA I and hCA II) were investigated. Allopurinol for XO and acetazolamide for carbonic anhydrase isoenzymes were used as positive standards in inhibition studies. In addition, compounds 8 and 9, which were obtained in the intermediate step, were also investigated for their inhibition effects against the three enzymes. According to the enzyme inhibition results, hybrid isoindole‐1,3(2H)‐dione derivatives 10 and 11 showed significant inhibitory effects against all three enzymes. Surprisingly, compound 8, containing a SCN functional group, exhibited a greater inhibitory effect than the other compounds against hCA I and hCA II. The IC50 values of compound 8 against hCA I and hCA II were found to be 3.698 ± 0.079 and 3.147 ± 0.083 µM, respectively. Compound 8 (IC50 = 4.261 ± 0.034 μM) showed higher activity than allopurinol (IC50 = 4.678 ± 0.029 μM) and the other compounds against XO, as well. These results clearly show the effect of the SCN group on the inhibition. In addition, in silico molecular docking studies were performed to understand the molecular interactions between each compound and enzymes, and the results were evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiencing environmental crises and destruction of nature brought along the reorganization and questioning of nature and human relations. Conditions such as excessive consumption of resources, depletion of natural resources, leaving non-human living and / or inanimate beings in the background have opened the way for humanity to be in harmony with nature. Emphasizing that the relationship between human and nature should proceed with the principle of reciprocity, the deep ecology movement states that all humanity is responsible for ecological destruction. From a holistic point of view, deep ecology advocates that all living and/or inanimate beings have an innate core value. The principle of Ahimsa, which is at the center of the belief of Jainism, shares many common aspects with its deep ecology approach. The principle of Ahimsa is based on the adoption of a nonviolent life and no harm to any living and/or inanimate being. The traces of deep ecology are seen in Ahimsa teachings, which are in the belief of Jainism, paying attention to every kind of relationship with nature and advocating a life without violence. In this study, it is aimed to include Ahimsa doctrine in Jainism on the axis of the deep ecology approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthesis of (2S)-3-(2,4,5-trifluorophenyl)propane-1,2-diol by the Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation reaction has been achieved. 2,4,5-Trifluorobenzaldehyde with methyl 2-(triphenyl-λ5-phosphanylidene)acetate gave methyl (E)-3-(2,4,5-trifluorophenyl)acrylate in 83% yield. The reduction of ester group with DibalH followed by Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation gave ((2R,3R)-3-(2,4,5-trifluorophenyl)oxiran-2-yl)methanol. Pd/C-catalyzed hydrogenation of epoxy alcohol furnished (2S)-3-(2,4,5-trifluorophenyl)propane-1,2-diol with >90% ee and 71% yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a widely accepted information transfer method in the nanonetworking domain, molecular communication via diffusion (MCvD) presents many advantages as well as challenges. In order to assess the capabilities and restrictions of MCvD, a thorough understanding of the reception process through the first passage time distribution holds utmost importance. As the network setup becomes more realistic, analytical derivations become increasingly difficult. Using statistical methods on empirical data is a remedy to this challenge. In this paper, we propose two novel heavy-tail distributions, which are well-equipped to model the first passage time distribution for a reflective sphere transmitter and a fully absorbing sphere receiver pair. We present their modeling power using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov goodness of fit test and how the modeling performance behaves under diverse deployment parameters. We also discuss the probability of molecule absorption, signal-to-interference ratio, and the advantages of using a reflective sphere transmitter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of storage capacity and processing power has caused machine learning applications to increasingly rely on using immense amounts of labeled data. It has become more important than ever to have fast and inexpensive ways to annotate vast amounts of data. With the emergence of crowdsourcing services, the research direction has gravitated toward putting the wisdom of crowds to better use. Unfortunately, spammers and inattentive annotators pose a threat to the quality and trustworthiness of the consensus. Thus, high quality consensus estimation from crowd annotated data requires a meticulous choice of the candidate annotator and the sample in need of a new annotation. Due to time and budget limitations, it is of utmost importance that this choice is carried out while the annotation collection is in progress. We call this process active crowd-labeling. To this end, we propose an active crowd-labeling approach for actively estimating consensus from continuous-valued crowd annotations. Our method is based on annotator models with unknown parameters, and Bayesian inference is employed to reach a consensus in the form of ordinal, binary, or continuous values. We introduce ranking functions for choosing the candidate annotator and sample pair for requesting an annotation. In addition, we propose a penalizing method for preventing annotator domination, investigate the explore-exploit trade-off for incorporating new annotators into the system, and study the effects of inducing a stopping criterion based on consensus quality. We also introduce the crowd-labeled Head Pose Annotations datasets. Experimental results on the benchmark datasets used in the literature and the Head Pose Annotations datasets suggest that our method provides high-quality consensus by using as few as one fifth of the annotations (===80% cost reduction), thereby providing a budget and time-sensitive solution to the crowd-labeling problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One-pot synthesis of 2-aryltetrahydrofurans was achieved by a coupling reaction between arylmagnesium bromides prepared in situ and tetrahydrofuran under mild conditions. The reaction between ArBr and n-BuLi gave unexpected butylbenzene derivatives in moderate yields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing the achievable rate of molecular communication via diffusion (MCvD) inherits intricacies due to its nature: MCvD channel has memory, and the heavy tail of the signal causes inter-symbol interference (ISI). Therefore, using Shannon’s channel capacity formulation for memoryless channel is not appropriate for the MCvD channel. Instead, a more general achievable rate formulation and system model must be considered to make this analysis accurately. In this letter, we propose an effective ISI-aware MCvD modeling technique in 3-D medium and properly analyze the achievable rate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A stereospecific synthesis of (2 S) -3-(2,4,5-trifluorophenyl)propane-1,2-diol from D-mannitol has been developed. The reaction of 2,3- O-isopropylidene- D-glyceraldehyde with 2,4,5-trifluorophenylmagnesium bromide gave [(4 R)-2,2-dimethyl-1,3-dioxolan-4-yl](2,4,5-trifluorophenyl)methanol in 65% yield as a mixture of diastereoisomers (1 : 1). The Ph3P catalyzed reaction of the latter with C2Cl6 followed by reduction with Pd/C-catalyzed hydrogenation gave (2 S)-3-(2,4,5-trifluorophenyl)propane-1,2-diol with >99% ee and 65% yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine learning applications can benefit greatly from vast amounts of data, provided that reliable labels are available. Mobilizing crowds to annotate the unlabeled data is a common solution. Although the labels provided by the crowd are subjective and noisy, the wisdom of crowds can be captured by a variety of techniques. Finding the mean or finding the median of a sample׳s annotations are widely used approaches for finding the consensus label of that sample. Improving consensus extraction from noisy labels is a very popular topic, the main focus being binary label data. In this paper, we focus on crowd consensus estimation of continuous labels, which is also adaptable to ordinal or binary labels. Our approach is designed to work on situations where there is no gold standard; it is only dependent on the annotations and not on the feature vectors of the instances, and does not require a training phase. For achieving a better consensus, we investigate different annotator behaviors and incorporate them into four novel Bayesian models. Moreover, we introduce a new metric to examine annotator quality, which can be used for finding good annotators to enhance consensus quality and reduce crowd labeling costs. The results show that the proposed models outperform the commonly used methods. With the use of our annotator scoring mechanism, we are able to sustain consensus quality with much fewer annotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]