Afyon Kocatepe University

Objective: Anatomy education is a fundamental component of health education and professional competence. Anatomical self-efficacy is defined as the belief in one's ability to successfully complete anatomy instruction. This study aimed to examine the difference in anatomical self-efficacy perception score over a semester and assess its impact on predicting the academic performance of associate degree students enrolled in gross anatomy courses. Methods: The demographic data of the students were collected. The “Self-efficacy Perception Scale for the Human Anatomy Course” was administered twice before the mid-term and final exams during the semester. As an academic performance, the mid-term and final exam grades were retrieved from the e-campus information system. Differences in exam grades and anatomical self-efficacy perception were analyzed using a t-test, while the effect of anatomical self-efficacy perception on exam grades was assessed through simple linear regression analysis. Results: The mid-term (P<0.001) and final exam grades (P<0.001), and anatomical self-efficacy perception increased significantly (P<0.001). A simple linear regression analysis showed that both midterm (P<0.001) and final exam grades (P<0.001) were predicted by anatomical self-efficacy perception, suggesting that higher self-efficacy perception is associated with better academic performance. Conclusion: To enhance academic performance, lecturers should organize training activities designed to increase anatomical self-efficacy.

Uveal tumors represent the most common primary intraocular neoplasms in adults and constitute a significant component of ocular oncology practice. Among these tumors, uveal melanoma is the most frequent malignant intraocular tumor arising from melanocytes located within the iris, ciliary body, and choroid. Despite advances in diagnostic imaging, molecular classification, and treatment modalities, metastatic disease remains the leading cause of mortality in affected patients. The liver is the predominant site of metastasis and accounts for nearly 90% of metastatic cases [1–3]. Recent advances in molecular oncology have significantly improved understanding of the pathogenesis of uveal melanoma, particularly the identification of driver mutations in GNAQ and GNA11 genes and prognostic biomarkers such as BAP1, SF3B1, and EIF1AX [4–7]. Imaging modalities including ultrasonography, optical coherence tomography (OCT), and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) have improved early detection and monitoring of uveal tumors [8– 10]. Current treatment strategies include plaque brachytherapy, proton beam radiotherapy, surgical management, and emerging systemic targeted therapies [11-13]. This review summarizes current knowledge on the epidemiology, molecular genetics, clinical presentation, diagnostic advances, and contemporary management of uveal tumors.

Acute lung injury secondary to sepsis remains a major problem in critical patients. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced lung injury is characterized by inflammatory infiltration, oxidative stress, and extensive apoptosis, particularly via the mitochondrial pathway. Omega-3 (OM3) polyunsaturated fatty acids have been proposed as promising modulators of inflammation and oxidative damage. However, their role in regulating mitochondria-mediated apoptosis in sepsis remains underexplored. Thirty-two female Wistar albino rats were randomized into four groups: Control, LPS (5mg/kg, i.p. 3th), LPS-OM3 (400mg/kg/day, i.p., 3day), and OM3 only. After 72h, lung tissues were collected for histopathological scoring, immunohistochemistry as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), heat shock protein (HSP70), caspase-3 (Cas-3); biochemical analyses as total oxidant status (TOS), total antioxidant status (TAS), oxidative stress index (OSI) and qRT-PCR for mitochondrial apoptosis markers B cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), Bcl-2-associated X protein (Bax), cytochrome-c (Cyt-c) and Cas-9. LPS induced ALI characterized by bronchiolar epithelial degeneration, alveolar hemorrhage, inflammation, and hyaline membrane formation. Biochemically, TOS and OSI levels were significantly elevated, while TAS remained unchanged. Immunohistochemical and genetic analysis showed marked upregulation of TNF-α, HSP70, and Cas-3 Bax, Cyt-c, and Casp-9 expression and decreased Bcl-2 expression in the LPS group. OM3 supplementation significantly attenuated histopathological damage, reduced oxidative stress markers, suppressed immunopositivity of proinflammatory and apoptotic proteins, and favorably modulated the apoptosis-related gene expressions. OM3 fatty acids exert a potent protective effect against LPS-induced ALI by suppressing mitochondrial apoptosis, reducing oxidative stress, and modulating the inflammatory response. These findings highlight the therapeutic potential of OM3 in mitigating sepsis-associated pulmonary damage through mitochondrial preservation.

Aim: Renal ischaemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, which is an important contributing factor to acute kidney damage, leading to increased morbidity and mortality. Olive leaf extract (OLE) possesses antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties due to its rich polyphenolic content. This study comprehensively investigates the protective effects of OLE obtained from the Memecik variety of olive leaves against renal I/R injury, evaluated by employing two different doses.Material and Methods: A total of 32 male Wistar albino rats were randomly divided into four groups: Sham, Control I/R, I/R+OLE200, and I/R+OLE400. Serum biochemical parameters (urea, creatinine, electrolytes, total antioxidant status [TAS], total oxidant status [TOS], TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, and nitric oxide [NO]) and renal tissue histopathology were evaluated.Results: OLE significantly improved serum biochemical parameters, reduced pro-inflammatory cytokines, and enhanced systemic antioxidant capacity, indicated by increased TAS and decreased TOS levels compared to the I/R control group (p

Speech is one of the most natural and effective forms of human communication, carrying both linguistic and non-linguistic information. It plays a crucial role in many applications such as gender classification, biometric authentication, and personalized human-computer interaction. This study aims to investigate the contribution of a hybrid deep learning model based on Neural Circuit Policies (NCP), inspired by biological neural systems, for gender classification on Turkish speech data, by evaluating its performance in terms of accuracy and computational efficiency in comparison with conventional recurrent models. Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and log-Mel spectrogram features are combined to simultaneously capture the spectral and temporal properties of speech signals. These features are learned as low-level acoustic patterns via Conv1D layers. Long-term temporal dependencies are modeled using Liquid Time Constant (LTC) cells defined within the NCP architecture. To evaluate the generalizability of the model, the experiments were conducted under a speaker-independent setup, and ablation studies were performed by removing different components of the architecture to clearly assess the contribution of the NCP component. Cross-validation was applied on the Mozilla Common Voice 12.0 Turkish dataset during the experiments. The Conv1D+NCP model achieved 99.29% accuracy and 99.28% F1-score, while the LSTM-based model yielded slightly lower results. The NCP-based model offers high performance and computational efficiency with fewer parameters, making it a powerful alternative for real-time applications

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused changes in every sector of life, including the field of education. In addition, students still have difficulty understanding biological concepts in depth during the learning process. This indicates that students' critical thinking skills in biology learning are still low. Objective: The objective of this research is to determine the feasibility and effectiveness level of Augmented Reality (AR) media based on Discovery Learning (DL) on the digestive system material in enhancing students' critical thinking skills and collaboration abilities. Model: This study uses the ADDIE development model. The study was conducted at State Senior High School 1 Srandakan-Yogyakarta, with field trial subjects consisting of 60 students from two classes selected using the cluster random sampling technique. Results: The research results show that the AR media based on DL the digestive system material is deemed suitable for use based on expert assessments, very practical based on the evaluations of biology teachers and students, and effective in enhancing students' critical thinking skills and collaboration abilities based on the MANOVA test results with a significance value of 0.016 (p < 0.05). Conclusion: AR media based on DL can be used as an innovative learning medium to enhance students' critical thinking and collaboration skills in biology education.

Background: Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a severe neuropathic pain disorder primarily diagnosed on clinical grounds, and objective molecular biomarkers that could support diagnosis remain limited. Increasing evidence suggests that inflammation-apoptosis interactions contribute to TN pathophysiology. Methods: In this exploratory prospective case-control study, circulating apoptosis-related microRNAs (miRNAs) were analyzed in 30 patients with idiopathic TN and 20 healthy controls. Plasma miRNA expression levels were quantified using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Diagnostic performance of individual miRNAs was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. A multivariable logistic regression model integrating multiple miRNAs was constructed to evaluate combined diagnostic performance, with internal validation performed using five-fold cross-validation. Results: Circulating miRNA expression profiles differed between TN patients and controls. Among individual markers, hsa-miR-183-5p demonstrated the highest diagnostic accuracy (AUC = 0.72), followed by hsa-miR-23a-3p (AUC = 0.65). hsa-miR-223-3p showed reversed directionality (AUC = 0.28), consistent with lower expression in TN and high specificity but low sensitivity at the optimal threshold. The combined miRNA panel achieved an apparent AUC of 0.86, with a mean cross-validated AUC of 0.84 ± 0.12, suggesting improved discrimination over single miRNAs but with variability consistent with the limited sample size. Conclusions: Apoptosis-related circulating miRNAs exhibit distinct expression patterns in idiopathic TN. While individual miRNAs show modest diagnostic performance, integration into a multi-miRNA panel improved discrimination between TN patients and healthy controls in this pilot dataset. These findings support the potential of apoptosis-based miRNA signatures as candidate minimally invasive biomarkers for TN, warranting further validation in larger, independent cohorts, ideally including clinically relevant disease-control facial pain conditions.

Kalıpyargı İçeriği Modeli, toplumdaki çeşitli gruplara yönelik kalıpyargı içeriklerinin yetkinlik ve sevecenlik boyutları üzerinden temsil edilebileceğini öne sürerek, bu değerlendirmelerin sosyal-yapısal kaynaklarını ve duyuşsal (affective) sonuçlarını kapsamlı bir çerçevede sunmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, Kalıpyargı İçeriği Modelinin kökenleri ve ilişkili olduğu diğer kuramlar tartışılarak güncel araştırma bulgularının eleştirel bir değerlendirmesi yapılmıştır. Ayrıca, model bağlamında Türkiye’de yürütülen çalışmalar ele alınarak gelecekteki araştırmalar için öneriler sunulmuştur. Bu bağlamda, çalışmalarda incelenecek grupların katılımcıların aşina olduğu gruplar arasından seçilmesi, yetkinlik ve sevecenlik ölçümlerinin yapı geçerliliğinin her çalışmada yeniden test edilmesi, bu boyutlardaki olumsuz değerlendirmelerin de ölçümlere dahil edilmesi ve belirli bir gruba yönelik kalıpyargı içerikleri incelenirken o gruba özgü özellik boyutlarının da eklenmesi yönünde yöntemsel önerilerde bulunulmuştur. Ayrıca, yetkinlik ve sevecenlik atıflarının asimetrik doğası göz önünde bulundurularak, bu boyutların birbirine eşdeğer olarak ele alınmaması, sosyal-yapısal değişkenlerle ilişkileri değerlendirilirken bu durumun dikkate alınması ve yetkinlikle sevecenlik arasındaki ilişkinin incelenmesinde grup üyelikleriyle gruplararası bağlamın da göz önünde bulundurulması gerektiği yönünde kuramsal öneriler sunulmuştur. Böylece, kalıpyargı içeriklerini inceleyecek gelecekteki çalışmalar için kapsamlı bir çerçeve ortaya konulmuştur.

• Introduces CircularB-DfC, a design-stage framework for assessing and prioritising circularity in buildings • Integrates 35 circularity indicators and 20 enabling factors across design and value-chain processes • Provides Delphi-weighted scoring and a practitioner-oriented Excel tool for decision support • Demonstrates framework applicability through three contrasting regional and structural scenarios • Reveals how design strategies and enabling conditions jointly shape circular performance Circularity is increasingly recognised as a critical paradigm for sustainability in the built environment, yet existing efforts to assess it—whether focused on material flow analysis, design-for-disassembly strategies, durability metrics, or carbon accounting—remain fragmented and operate at different scales. Despite numerous indicator sets, the literature lacks an integrated framework that combines both technical design factors and the enabling organisational conditions required to support circular outcomes at the building level. This paper introduces CircularB-DfC (CircularB COST Action – Design for Circularity), a decision-Support Tool with a structured matrix for prioritising building design factors to enhance circular Material flows. The framework consolidates insights from a systematic literature review and a multi-stage expert engagement process, resulting in 35 technical indicators and 20 enabling factors . These are organised into four technical categories: Material Selection; Design for Disassembly; Embodied Energy and Carbon Footprint; Waste Minimisation, and one enabling category, Circular Construction Management, including Governance, Certification, Stakeholder Engagement, Digitalisation, and Socio-economic aspects. Indicators and enablers are aggregated into a Design Score and an Enabler Score to support early decision-making. The tool was applied to three illustrative scenarios: a reinforced-concrete industrial hall in the Western Balkans, a steel office building in Central Europe, and a timber residential project in East London. The steel scenario achieved the highest Design and Enabler Scores, the concrete scenario performed strongest in Waste Minimisation through prefabrication and site-based strategies, and the timber scenario scored lowest overall due to limited reuse and disassembly provisions in the original design. While CircularB-DfC offers a simple and transparent basis for integrating circularity in design, it is limited by the subjectivity of expert-based weighting and its static structure. Future research will focus on dynamic modelling, integration with digital tools, and broader validation to enhance applicability.