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It is of great importance to examine the level of science teaching self-efficacy (SE), which is related to technological developments in primary school teacher education. It is seen that this subject is not addressed in the context of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) and visual metaphors. The purpose of this research was to examine the pre-service primary school teachers' SE beliefs related to science teaching in terms of the TPCK levels and visual metaphors they created related to science teaching. For this purpose, qualitative and quantitative methods were used in the research. The research sample consisted of 75 pre-service primary school teachers. A metaphorical perception form, a science SE scale, and a TPCK scale were applied as data collection tools. It was found that the majority of pre-service teachers in science teaching had moderate and high SE and technological pedagogical content. It was also found that pre-service teachers' science teaching SE levels were related to the sub-dimension levels of the TPCK. When the visual metaphors created by the pre-service teachers were associated with quantitative data, it was seen that as the SE level of the pre-service teachers increased, visual metaphors gained a quality from general to specific. It was also concluded that the metaphors of the preservice teachers with high SE levels were formed in more detail and accurately, and the conceptual errors were reduced.

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Copyright of International Journal of InformaticsTechnologies is the property of Institute of Informatics, Gazi University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background and purpose. Cardiac troponin I (cTnI) is a reliable marker to diagnose acute myocardial infarction, but the pathophysiological explanation for the increase in cTnI levels in patients with acute ischemic stroke (IS) remains unknown. To overcome this question, we aimed to compare serum cTnI levels in acute coronary syndrome (ACS) concomitant with and without stroke. By doing like this, we thought that we could demonstrate the effect of stroke on TrpI level. Methods. Serum cTnI levels of 41 patients having ACS with acute IS during hospitalization were compared with 97 control patients having only ACS. Cranial CT was performed to evaluate the lesions. The severity of IS was evaluated objectively by national institutes of health stroke scale. Results. cTnI levels were found to be similar in both groups. Presence of diabetes mellitus, coronary artery disease and previous myocardial infarction were more frequent in patients with acute IS. The cTnI levels in the patients with the cranial lesion in the anterior circulation was higher (p = 0.039). Presence of acute IS, cTnI level higher than 20 ng/mL and left ventricular ejection fraction < 40% were found to be independent risk factors for mortality (p < 0.05). Conclusions. We found that abnormal troponin levels were more likely to be due to cardiac causes than cerebral ones in this first study evaluating the cTnI levels in patients with ACS concomitant with acute IS. The severity of IS, lesion location in the anterior circulation and higher troponin levels were associated with mortality.

Seedless raisins are graded according to their quality which is determined based on several features such as color, size, texture, and humidity. Currently, most of the raisin grading process is performed by human experts manually, which is laborious and subjective work. Therefore, an automated system that enables objective evaluation of the raisins would be helpful for both producers and experts during this process. In this study, we propose a simple machinery prototype that takes images of raisins under standard background and illumination conditions and an automated system that performs quality grading of raisins using convolutional neural networks. The proposed model not only targets color classes but also aims to identify foreign matters and defected raisins. The model achieves about 88.2% average classification accuracy on five classes including four color classes and a defected raisin class; whereas the model's accuracy becomes 98.6% if defected raisins are excluded. Hence, the proposed model is very successful in differentiating color classes and has also considerable success in detecting foreign matters and defected raisins. We provide a comprehensive analysis and discussion on these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies which report cystatin C's (Cys-C) role in immunological disorders are increasing. However, data in the pediatric age group is limited. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the association between serum Cys-C levels and thyroid autoantibodies in children and adolescents diagnosed with euthyroid Hashimoto's thyroiditis. The patient group was included 50 participants aged between 3 and 18 years, and the control group included 50 healthy children matched for age, gender, and body mass index. Patients with hypothyroidism or taking any medication were not included in the study. Fasting glucose, liver enzymes, urea, creatinine, lipid profile, Cys-C, free thyroxine (fT4), free triiodothyronine (fT3), thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), thyroid peroxidase antibody (TPOAb), and thyroglobulin antibodies (TGAb) levels were recorded in all subjects. The mean age of control group was 13.5 ± 2.5 years, and the mean age of Hashimoto thyroiditis (HT) group was 14.2 ± 2.7 years, no statistically significant differences existed (p=0.205). Cys-C values were significantly higher in the HT group than in the control group (p=0.041). When all cases were evaluated, Cys-C levels were statistically positively correlated with fT3, TPOAb, and TGAb values (p<0.001, p=0.029, p=0.013 respectively). Based on the results of our study, Cys-C levels in children and adolescents with euthyroid Hashimoto thyroiditis were statistically higher than their healthy peers. In conclusion, it can be said that Cys-C may be a factor in the etiopathogenesis of autoimmune thyroiditis, and even small changes in TSH values affect Cys-C levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Vaccines generally have reduced effectiveness in hemodialysis patients and a similar condition may also apply for the SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccines. The aim of this study was to analyze humoral responses of hemodialysis patients to SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccines. Methods: Eighty‐five maintenance hemodialysis patients who received either inactivated or mRNA SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccines were investigated. Antibody levels were measured by a commercial antibody kit, which detected antibodies toward receptor binding domain of the SARS‐CoV‐2 spike protein. Comparative analyzes were carried between vaccine groups and with a control group of 103 healthy volunteers. Results: Seropositivity rate and antibody levels were significantly lower in hemodialysis patients who received inactivated vaccine (p = 0.000). While mRNA vaccine had better immunogenicity, both vaccines protected from symptomatic infection when seropositivity was achieved. Discussion/Conclusion: When used in the same dose with the general population, inactivated SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccines generate reduced humoral response in hemodialysis patients. mRNA vaccines have better immunogenicity in this group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel framework that injects future return predictions into portfolio constructionstrategies is proposed in this study. First, a long–short‐term‐memory (LSTM) model is trained to learn the monthly closing prices of the stocks. Then these predictions are used in the calculation of portfolio weights. Five different portfolio construction strategies are introduced including modifications to smart‐beta strategies. The suggested methods are compared to a number of baseline methods, using the stocks of BIST30 Turkey index. Our strategies yield a very high mean annualized return (25%) which is almost 50% higher than the baseline approaches. The mean Sharpe ratio of our strategies is 0.57, whereas the compared methods' are 0.29 and −0.32. Comprehensive analysis of the results demonstrates that utilizing predicted returns in portfolio construction enables a significant improvement on the performance of the portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]