Creating a high-quality wool-oriented Turkish merino herd and investigation of mechanical and dyeability properties of fabrics produced from Turkish merino in comparison with Australian merino

Today, the need for quality wool suitable for worsted fabric production in the world is mainly met by Australian merino wool. In Turkey, which has a significant sheep population, in addition to domestic breeds, approximately 10% of the total sheep population (around four million head) is composed of merino cross breeds. However, the fleece quality is far from meeting Australian merino wool standards. Therefore, the aim of this study is to ensure a merino herd with high-quality wool in Turkey. For this aim, by carrying out field studies in the Thrace region of Turkey where Turkish Merino sheep are widely bred, sheep with fleece that can meet the demands of the worsted industry were determined. As a result of field studies in which thousands of sheep were examined, it was determined that 43 female and 10 male sheep had fleece that would meet these standards. Then the breeders of the sheep, which had quality fleece, were persuaded and these sheep were purchased, and “Turkey's wool-oriented Turkish (Karacabey) Merino Herd” consisting of 30 sheep and three rams was formed in the farm of Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University. In the second part of this study, a 100% wool fabric produced by using Australian merino was taken as a reference and it was aimed to produce the same fabric from Turkish merino wool. For this aim, the wool-oriented Turkish Merino herd, which was bred at the university farm for 1 year, was shorn in May 2022. Then, Turkish and Australian merino wools were first converted into worsted yarn and then into woven fabric. The results of mechanical (tensile strength, pilling, abrasion resistance, felting shrinkage, Hofmann dimensional change, bending stiffness) and dyeability (dye-uptake, CIE L*a*b* and colour yield (K/S) values; washing, rubbing and light fastness values) properties of fabrics produced from Turkish and Australian merino wool is presented.     

Predominant yeasts in the sourdoughs collected from some parts of Turkey

In the present study, a total of eight sourdough samples were collected from three different bakeries at two different times in Turkey. Also, laboratory-scale sourdough production was conducted by daily back-slopping for 7 days. Microbiological and chemical properties of the sourdoughs were investigated. Yeast species in the sourdoughs were identified by subjecting all presumptive yeast cultures to internal transcribed spacer region amplification of the 5.8S rRNA gene, restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis using Hae III, Hha I, and Hinf I endonucleases, and sequence analysis of the D1/D2 domain of the 26S rDNA gene. A total of seven profiles were determined according to the restriction fragments. Totally, 148 yeast isolates were identified at the species level (≥400 bp , 99% identity) as Saccharomyces cerevisiae (106), Kazachstania bulderi (11), Pichia fermentans (nine), Pichia membranifaciens (eight), Kazachstania servazzii (seven), Kazachstania unispora (four), and Hanseniaspora valbyensis (three). Although collected sourdoughs were produced without using baker's yeast, S. cerevisiae was the most frequently isolated yeast species. This can be related to the contamination of the bakery environment with commercial baker's yeast during the production of other bakery products. The pH and acidity levels of the collected sourdough samples ranged from 3.71 to 3.96 and 6.78 to 23.93 mL 0.1 N NaOH/10 g dough, respectively. Mean values of the content of maltose + sucrose, glucose, fructose, lactic acid, and acetic acid were 2.43, 1.57, 2.67, 7.30, and 1.40 g/kg, respectively. Due to the artisan and region-dependent handling of the sourdough, different biochemical patterns were observed among the collected samples.     

Evaluation of the shifting of the line of sight and higher order aberrations of eyes with keratoconus after corneal cross-linking

Aim

To evaluate changes in the coordinates of the line of sight (LoS) and higher order aberrations (HOAs) of eyes with keratoconus, following corneal cross-linking (CXL).

A medico-legal evaluation of the use of assisted reproductive technologies in Turkey

In Turkey, as possibly in the case of several or even many other countries, infertility is generally regarded as a negative phenomenon in women. Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs), which provide certain childless couples with the possibility of having a baby, are being applied more and more frequently in this country, apparently as has been the case in the world at large. From a medicolegal point of view, the related applications in Turkey can only be realized in the case of married couples. Other forms of application in this area, on the other hand, such as sperm banks or surrogate motherhood, are not allowed legally. A text which was called "Guidelines Regarding the Centers of In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer" was prepared in 1987 by the Ministry of Health. The aim of these Guidelines is to find solutions to the medico-legal problems created by the application of ARTs in this country.     

Inverse propagation of uncertainties in finite element model updating through use of fuzzy arithmetic

A fuzzy finite element model updating (FFEMU) method is presented in this study for the damage detection problem. The uncertainty caused by the measurement noise in modal parameters is described by fuzzy numbers. Inverse analysis is formulated as a constrained optimization problem at each α-cut level. Membership functions of each updating parameter which correspond to reduction in bending stiffness of the finite elements is determined by minimizing an objective function using a hybrid version of genetic algorithms (GA) and particle swarm optimization method (PSO) which is very efficient in terms of accuracy and robustness. Practical evaluation of the approximate bounds of the interval modal parameters in FFEMU iterations is addressed. A probabilistic analysis is performed using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and the results are compared with presented FFEMU method. It is apparent from numerical simulations that the proposed method is well capable in finding the membership functions of the updating parameters within reasonable accuracy. It is also shown that the results obtained by FFEMU are in good agreement with the MCS results while FFEMU is not as computationally expensive as the MCS method. Nevertheless, the proposed FFEMU do not required derivatives of the objective function like existing methods except in the deterministic case.     

A Two‐Sided Cumulative Sum Chart for First‐Order Integer‐Valued Autoregressive Processes of Poisson Counts

Count data processes are often encountered in manufacturing and service industries. To describe the autocorrelation structure of such processes, a Poisson integer‐valued autoregressive model of order 1, namely, Poisson INAR(1) model, might be used. In this study, we propose a two‐sided cumulative sum control chart for monitoring Poisson INAR(1) processes with the aim of detecting changes in the process mean in both positive and negative directions. A trivariate Markov chain approach is developed for exact evaluation of the ARL performance of the chart in addition to a computationally efficient approximation based on bivariate Markov chains. The design of the chart for an ARL‐unbiased performance and the analyses of the out‐of‐control performances are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A fast minimization technique for subspace fitting with arbitraryarray manifolds

A new technique for minimization of a multidimensional subspace fitting criterion is proposed. An approximation is made to the exact criterion function, giving an explicit least squares solution for location parameters. Ideas from alternating projections are employed for initialization. The new technique gives global convergence with a high probability, has a low computational cost, is applicable to general array manifolds, and provides simple solutions for many problems with intricate parameterization     

Joint symbol detection and channel parameter estimation inasynchronous DS-CDMA systems

A method for jointly estimating the time delay and complex gain parameters, as well as detecting the transmitted symbols in an asynchronous multipath DS-CDMA system, is presented. A short training sequence is used to obtain a coarse estimate of the channel parameters, which is consequently used to detect the symbols. By exploiting structure in the digitally modulated signals, the method iterates to (i) improve the estimate of the channel parameters and (ii) reduce the probability of incorrect detection. The method's efficacy is demonstrated by numerical simulations