Socioeconomic Evaluation of Einkorn Wheat Production

Today, economic shocks, negative effects of climate change, and the crises that directly affect human health, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have shown that food security is always important for every country, regardless of its development status. With the introduction of the concept of healthy food along with adequate food, people have begun to change the criteria they look for when they eat. The demand for wheat-related products, which constitute the raw material of one of the most basic nutrients for human beings, has changed within this structure. It can be said that einkorn, emmer, and spelt wheats, which are known as the ancestors of wheat, come to the fore more today, especially when the demand for the products produced from wheat landraces is getting to increase. The fact that the products obtained from these wheats, which are important in terms of genetic resources, are healthier and more nutritious than the products obtained from commercial wheats is one of the main reasons for this interest. There are important initiatives in the production and commercialization of hulled wheat-based products in many countries in the world. It is seen that the products obtained from emmer and einkorn wheats are offered to the market, especially in Europe, as well as in countries such as Turkiye and the production is supported by the states, NGOs, and private sector. The products obtained from this type of wheats are finding more and more place day by day in different systems such as geographical indication and organic agriculture. For this reason, wheat landraces are of great importance as a genetic resource, and their sociological and economic aspects need to be evaluated in their conservation and sustainable use. In this study, the socioeconomic evaluation of einkorn wheat has been done and the results of a case study on Iza wheat, an einkorn wheat from Turkiye, have been presented. As a result of the study, it has been shown that economic sustainability is important in the protection and sustainability of this type of wheat, and it needs start-up support at the starting point. When these are provided, it has been revealed that the production of such wheat can become widespread both in organic agriculture and in the geographical indication system, and this type of wheat can be used as a development tool in local economic development by transforming it into value-added products. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Tourists' attitudes toward cultural heritage: Pre- and post-visit evaluation

Cultural heritage tourism is the branch of tourism where people travel to experience the place which authentically represents the stories of the past people. Cultural tourists were those who had concerned with buildings, monuments, landscapes, books, documentations, artifacts, and historical structures of a country. There are several types of tourism which are almost equally important for the tourists to travel frequently. More than 1000 cultural heritages are officially listed by UNESCO in 167 countries. Majority of the cultural heritages are in the Europe and North America. Tourist's nature is a concept that denotes the fundamental dispositions and distinctiveness including ways of feeling, acting, accepting, motives, and thinking that tourists are said to have naturally. Theere are seven attributes of cultural heritages that identified the purpose of the tourists. Tourists' traveling attitude divided into two different parts, the first one is the pre-tour and the other one is the post-tour attitude. There are multiple factors which play an important role in the pre- and post-attitude. Since 1950, the tourism industry has grown rapidly and surpassed many other industries in the world, but now the tourism industry is facing the worst crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The above number was expected to increase in 2020. Tourists give importance to cultural heritage and to their visit;in this sense, they are more willing to pay for cultural heritage if money goes for cultural heritage conservation and for better facilities. © 2023 Apple Academic Press, Inc. Co-published with CRC Press (Taylor & Francis).

Associations between breastfeeding intention, breastfeeding practices and post-natal depression during the COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-country cross-sectional study.

Associations between breastfeeding intention, duration and post-natal depression (PND) have been shown in pre-COVID-19 studies. However, studies during COVID-19 have not examined the associations between breastfeeding intention, breastfeeding practices, and PND in an international sample of post-natal women, taking into consideration COVID-19 related factors. This is the first study to address this gap as both PND and breastfeeding may be affected by COVID-19, and have important long-term effects on women's and infant's health. A cross-sectional internet-based survey was conducted with 3253 post-natal women from five countries: Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom from July to November 2021. The results showed that women who intended to breastfeed during pregnancy had lower odds of having PND than women who did not intend to. Women who had no breastfeeding intention but actually breastfed had greater odds (AOR 1.75) of having PND than women who intended to breastfeed and actually breastfed. While there was no statistical significance in expressed breast milk feeding in multivariable logistic regression models, women who had shorter duration of breastfeeding directly on breast than they planned had greater odds (AOR 1.58) of having PND than those who breastfed longer than they planned even after adjusting for covariates including COVID-19-related variables. These findings suggested the importance of working with women on their breastfeeding intention. Tailored support is required to ensure women's breastfeeding needs are met and at the same time care for maternal mental health during and beyond the pandemic.

A preliminary field work on digital heritage and the use of virtual reality for cultural heritage management

This paper presents the results of a multidisciplinary research project carried on during the Covid-19 Pandemic and supported by TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey). The results are gathered from six months of field and office work, as the project was limited with this period. The archaeological site of Letoon in Mugla/Turkey has been chosen as the test area, specifically the triple temples of Leto, Apollo, and Artemis. Photogrammetric reconstruction of the current situation, as well as archaeologically accurate 3D models, have been created and converted into interactive immersive VR content to measure consumer behaviour and experience. These two different types of 3D content are integrated into the VR environment both separately and as a single content with switching from one to the other. After the creation process, the content was experienced by the visitors with different demographic characteristics and a survey was conducted to measure this experience.

SARS-CoV-2 Viral Entry-Related Gene Expression Changes in Response to Cigarette and Glucocorticoid Exposures

Rationale: Cigarette smoking has been associated with worse COVID-19 outcomes, while inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) use may be protective against COVID-19. Previous studies have suggested that gene expression levels of key cellular mediators of SARS-CoV-2 infectivity, such as ACE2 and TMPRSS2, are increased in response to cigarette exposure and decreased with glucocorticoids. We sought to determine whether the SARS-CoV-2 entry factor genes ACE2, TMPRSS2 and FURIN had changed expression levels according to publicly available cigarette-, e-cigarette- and glucocorticoid-related transcriptomic datasets of various human cell types. Methods: Thirty-eight transcriptomic datasets related to cigarette and e-cigarette smoking and glucocorticoid response were obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/), including 18 studies related to cigarette and e-cigarette smoking involving 7 airway cell types and 20 studies related to glucocorticoid response involving 11 cell types. RAVED (https://github.com/HimesGroup/raved) was used to analyze each dataset. For genes of interest, which included housekeeping (ATCB, RPL19), positive smoking controls (CYP1A1, CYP1B1) and positive glucocorticoid controls (FKBP5, TSC22D3), nominal p-values and transcriptomic-level false-discovery rate adjusted q-values were obtained. Results: When comparing cigarette smokers versus non-smokers, ACE2 expression levels were significantly increased in small airway epithelia (SAE) and TMPRSS2 expression levels were increased in trachea (q-value <0.05) [Figure 1A]. None of the genes had consistent expression changes in other airway cell types (large airway epithelia (LAE), bronchial epithelia (BE), nasal epithelia (NE), alveolar macrophages, and buccal mucosa) derived from smokers or in in vitro models where cells were exposed to cigarette or e-cigarette smoke [Figure 1A]. Expression levels of FURIN were higher in macrophages and two airway smooth muscle (ASM) studies when exposed to glucocorticoids, but otherwise, ACE2, TMPRSS2 and FURIN were generally unchanged with glucocorticoid exposure in vitro or in asthma patients treated with ICS versus placebo [Figure 1B]. Conclusion: Potential mechanisms linking cigarette smoking to worse COVID-19 outcomes or use of ICS to improved COVID-19 outcomes are unlikely to result from direct gene expression changes to SARS-CoV-2 viral entry genes.