Teaching the Turkish language to foreigners at higher education level in Northern Cyprus: An evaluation based on self-perceived dominant intelligence types, twenty-first-century skills and learning technologies.

Introduction: There are many foreign students in higher education in Northern Cyprus. Both the academic and life skills of these students depend on attaching the necessary importance to their Turkish language teaching. The goal of this study is to examine how university students employ learning technology, twenty-first-century abilities, and perceived categories of intelligence in the process of learning a foreign language. Methods: In line with the quantitative research design, this study utilized a descriptive approach. Purposeful and convenience sampling methods were used to create the study sample. As a result, the institution in Northern Cyprus with the largest international student body was chosen. At this university, one of the authors of this study has been employed, and Turkish is the language of teaching. The study sample consisted of 431 university students who took Turkish as a foreign language in the 2021-2022 academic year at the selected university. Results: The results of the study revealed a weak yet statistically significant correlation between twenty-first-century skills and usage of foreign language-learning technologies. Additionally, students' twenty-first-century skill scores differed significantly, whereas their foreign language-learning technology scale scores did not match their self-perceived intelligence types. Conclusion: The research's findings indicate that students in higher education possess twenty-first-century skills. Based on this finding, it is possible to engage students in the courses and accomplish effective foreign language acquisition if foreign language education is carried out in accordance with modern methodologies and based on twenty-first-century abilities. It has been revealed in this study that it is important to include social learning rather than individual and competitive learning in foreign language education classes.

Determination of intercanine distance from a proportion calculation: A pilot clinical study.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM: The optimal positioning of artificial teeth is essential for long-term success when providing removable complete dentures. However, information about the original tooth positions may be lacking, especially the canine teeth, which play a key role in the tooth arrangement. PURPOSE: The purpose of this pilot clinical study was to determine if the mandibular and maxillary canine position can be determined by proportioning to certain anatomic landmarks. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Fifty participants (32 women, 18 men) with a mean age of 19.18 years and Angle class 1 and 2 malocclusions were selected randomly from patients who had completed their orthodontic treatment. The distance between the sagittally bisecting lines of the maxillary tuberosity and the distance between the sagittal bisecting lines of the retromolar pads in the mandible were measured from casts and recorded in millimeters. The expected distances between the canine cusps in both jaws (e-DCCmand and e-DCCmax) were calculated, and the distance between the canine cusps in both jaws (DCCmand and DCCmax) was measured. The measurements and the calculated expectation values for maxillary and mandibular cast models were recorded and statistically compared. RESULTS: The mean ±standard deviation value of the maxillary intercanine distance was 35.5 ±1.4 mm, and the calculated value was 35.52 ±1.43 mm. In the mandible, the mean ±standard deviation value of the mandibular intercanine distance was 26.73 ±1.25 mm, and the calculated value was 26.69 ±1.33 mm. The difference between the means of expected DDC for the maxilla and mandible was within the equivalence interval (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: The proportions evaluated were determined to provide accurate canine positions and should be suitable for use in the treatment of edentulous patients.

Transcriptional responses of PBMC in psychosocially stressed animals indicate an alerting of the immune system in female but not in castrated male pigs.

BACKGROUND: Brain and immune system are linked in a bi-directional manner. To date, it remained largely unknown why immune components become suppressed, enhanced, or remain unaffected in relation to psychosocial stress. Therefore, we mixed unfamiliar pigs with different levels of aggressiveness. We separated castrated male and female pigs into psychosocially high- and low- stressed animals by skin lesions, plasma cortisol level, and creatine kinase activity obtained from agonistic behaviour associated with regrouping. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were collected post-mortem and differential gene expression was assessed using the Affymetrix platform (n = 16). RESULTS: Relevant stress-dependent alterations were found only between female samples, but not between castrated male samples. Molecular routes related to TREM 1 signalling, dendritic cell maturation, IL-6 signalling, Toll-like receptor signalling, and IL-8 signalling were increased in high stressed females compared to low stressed females. This indicates a launch of immune effector molecules as a direct response. According to the shifts of transcripts encoding cell surface receptors (e.g. CD14, TLR2, TLR4, TREM1) the study highlights processes acting on pattern recognition, inflammation, and cell-cell communication. CONCLUSIONS: The transcriptional response partly affected the degree of 'stress responsiveness', indicating that the high stressed females altered their signal transduction due to potential infections and injuries while fighting.

Differential mRNA expression of genes in the porcine adrenal gland associated with psychosocial stress.

To gain insight into the adrenal stress response, we analysed differential mRNA expression of genes associated with psychosocial stress in the pig (Sus scrofa domestica). Various levels of psychosocial stress were induced by mixing groups of unfamiliar pigs with different aggressiveness. We selected two experimental groups for comparison, each comprising eight animals, which differed significantly in aggressive behaviour and plasma cortisol levels. To identify differentially expressed genes, we compared the adrenal transcriptome of these two groups of pigs, using the Affymetrix GeneChip porcine Genome Array. Bioinformatic analysis revealed that psychosocial stress induced upregulation of transcripts enriched for functions associated with cholesterol accumulation and downregulation of transcripts enriched for functions associated with cell growth and death. These responses are similar to those induced by ACTH stimulation. Nevertheless, the majority of the differentially expressed genes were so far not described as ACTH responsive. Some, such as GAL and GALP, may have responded to sympathoadrenal stimulation. Several of the differentially expressed transcripts, such as AGT, are associated with processes modulating steroidogenic response of adrenocortical cells to ACTH. One of the most significant findings was upregulation of LOC100039095, comprising a precursor of the microRNA miR-202, pointing to a previously unrecognised layer of regulation of adrenal steroidogenesis by microRNA. Our study, performed under entirely physiological conditions, complements previous studies focusing either on a single adrenal tissue and/or on a single stimulus, and contributes to understanding of the fine-tuning of adrenal stress response.

Association of HPA axis-related genetic variation with stress reactivity and aggressive behaviour in pigs.

BACKGROUND: Stress, elicited for example by aggressive interactions, has negative effects on various biological functions including immune defence, reproduction, growth, and, in livestock, on product quality. Stress response and aggressiveness are mutually interrelated and show large interindividual variation, partly attributable to genetic factors. In the pig little is known about the molecular-genetic background of the variation in stress responsiveness and aggressiveness. To identify candidate genes we analyzed association of DNA markers in each of ten genes (CRH g.233C>T, CRHR1 c.*866_867insA, CRHBP c.51G>A, POMC c.293_298del, MC2R c.306T>G, NR3C1 c.*2122A>G, AVP c.207A>G, AVPR1B c.1084A>G, UCN g.1329T>C, CRHR2 c.*13T>C) related to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, one of the main stress-response systems, with various stress- and aggression-related parameters at slaughter. These parameters were: physiological measures of the stress response (plasma concentrations of cortisol, creatine kinase, glucose, and lactate), adrenal weight (which is a parameter reflecting activity of the central branch of the HPA axis over time) and aggressive behaviour (measured by means of lesion scoring) in the context of psychosocial stress of mixing individuals with different aggressive temperament. RESULTS: The SNP NR3C1 c.*2122A>G showed association with cortisol concentration (p = 0.024), adrenal weight (p = 0.003) and aggressive behaviour (front lesion score, p = 0.012; total lesion score p = 0.045). The SNP AVPR1B c.1084A>G showed a highly significant association with aggressive behaviour (middle lesion score, p = 0.007; total lesion score p = 0.003). The SNP UCN g.1329T>C showed association with adrenal weight (p = 0.019) and aggressive behaviour (front lesion score, p = 0.029). The SNP CRH g.233C>T showed a significant association with glucose concentration (p = 0.002), and the polymorphisms POMC c.293_298del and MC2R c.306T>G with adrenal weight (p = 0.027 and p < 0.0001 respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The multiple and consistent associations shown by SNP in NR3C1 and AVPR1B provide convincing evidence for genuine effects of their DNA sequence variation on stress responsiveness and aggressive behaviour. Identification of the causal functional molecular polymorphisms would not only provide markers useful for pig breeding but also insight into the molecular bases of the stress response and aggressive behaviour in general.