Browsing by Author "Uçar, A."
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Item Open Access Item Open Access A feminist approach to family folklore: "Aganigi Naganigi"(2006) Uçar, A.This article is devoted to analysis of gender stereotyping in a TV commercial with a special focus on patriarchal family and family folklore. A recent TV commercial promoting consumption of hazelnuts, namely "Cave Man", portrays a "pre-historical" patriarchal family which reproduces stereotypical gender roles in economic and social spheres. In the commercial, women appear in stereotypical roles in which their position confined to private sphere of "cave" and excluded from knowledge. While two female protagonists cook and flaunt the "discoveries" of their husbands "inside" of a cave, two male protagonists "discover" fire and hazelnuts "outside" the cave. The commercial which reproduces passive, subordinated and domicile female stereotyping, stretches the historical domination of man to pre-historical ages and attributes universality to patriarchal nucleus family. The cave man, who discovered "hazelnuts", uses ciphered and vernacular phrase, "Aganigi Naganigi, to call his mate for sexual intercourse. Underlying message of the commercial conveys that "hazelnuts" help to increase male sexual power. By using oral formulas and rhymed slogans as its advertising strategy, the commercial increases the efficiency of its message, which explicitly stresses male sexuality and power while confining female identity and experience to a "cave".Item Open Access Jokes in "Englishman-Frenchman and German" verbal narrative form and ethnic humor(2005) Uçar, A.This paper is largely based on the linguistic theories of humor as formulated by Raskin and Attardo, and Davis's interpretation of these theories in relation to the ethnic jokes. The main argument is that, a joke could be regarded as "truly" ethnic, only if it contains an ethnic element which is integral to that joke and cannot easily be removed. As a matter of fact, most jokes can be applied to all ethnic backgrounds and are not "truly" ethnic. As the study of samples of "Englishman-Frenchman and German" jokes told in Turkish have shown that there are not any "truly etnic" element in those jokes and it is easy to find jokes which have the same scripts also told in english for different nationalities. The script opposition of these jokes is not based on truly ethnic elements and they do not contain any ethnic stereotypes or prejudices or they do not require any prior knowledge in regard to these nationalities. Although it can be said that they contain a certain kind of aggression and a certain sense of "superiority", this agression has not been directed to any special ethnic group but rather to the unknown "Other".Item Open Access Karacaoğlan şiirlerinde imajlar(Geleneksel Yayıncılık, 2008) Uçar, A.Makalenin ilk bölümü Karacaoğlan’ın beş şiirindeki imajların çözümlenmesine ayrılmıştır, bu çözümlemenin amacı bu şiirlerin ne tür duyusal deneyimler—görsel, işitsel, kokusal, dokunsal, tatsal-uyandırdıklarını araştırmaktır. Şiirlerin çözümlenmesinden sonra elde edilen bulgular, Marshall McLuhan’ın Gutenberg Galaksisi kitabında ortaya koyduğu düşünsel çerçeve bağlamında tartışılmıştır. Bu kitapta McLuhan, iletişim teknolojilerinin insanların algısal ve bilişsel yapılarını nasıl etkilediğini anlamaya çalışmıştır. Matbaa kültürünün algılama alışkanlıklarımızı değiştirdiğini, duyularının oranını alt üst ettiğini ve görselliği ön plana çıkararak işitsel-dokunsallığı bastırdığını ileri sürmüştür. Karacaoğlan şiirleri zengin duyusal imajlarla yüklü olsalar da, şiirlerin içeriğine bakıldığında görsel imajların diğer türdeki imajlardan daha baskın olduğu görülebilir. Ancak şiirlerin biçimi ve icrası düşünüldüğünde, işitselliğin daha ağır bastığına da dikkat çekmek gerekir.Item Open Access ON two-dimensional sparse matrix partitioning: models, methods, and a recipe(Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2010) Çatalyürek, U. V.; Aykanat, Cevdet; Uçar, A.We consider two-dimensional partitioning of general sparse matrices for parallel sparse matrix-vector multiply operation. We present three hypergraph-partitioning-based methods, each having unique advantages. The first one treats the nonzeros of the matrix individually and hence produces fine-grain partitions. The other two produce coarser partitions, where one of them imposes a limit on the number of messages sent and received by a single processor, and the other trades that limit for a lower communication volume. We also present a thorough experimental evaluation of the proposed two-dimensional partitioning methods together with the hypergraph-based one-dimensional partitioning methods, using an extensive set of public domain matrices. Furthermore, for the users of these partitioning methods, we present a partitioning recipe that chooses one of the partitioning methods according to some matrix characteristics. © 2010 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.Item Open Access p53 codon 72 polymorphism in bladder cancer-No evidence of association with increased risk or invasiveness(Springer, 2001) Törüner, G. A.; Uçar, A.; Tez, M.; Çetinkaya, M.; Özen, H.; Özçelik, T.We studied the effect of the p53 gene Arg72Pro polymorphism on bladder cancer susceptibility in a case control study of 121 bladder cancer patients and 114 age-sex matched controls to determine whether this polymorphism is a biomarker for the risk and how aggressive the disease is. Genomic DNA was obtained from venous blood samples for genotype determination by PCR and restriction digestion. The genotype frequencies in the patient group were Arg/Arg: 0.3553, Arg/Pro: 0.4711, Pro/Pro: 0.1736, and in the control group Arg/Arg: 0.3684, Arg/Pro: 0.4825, Pro/Pro: 0.1491. The distribution of genotypes between the two groups was not statistically different (χ2 = 0.260, df: 2, P = 0.878). The patient group was subdivided into two groups as superficial bladder cancer (n = 88) and invasive bladder cancer (n = 33), according to the presence of muscle invasion. The distribution of genotypes in the superficial group was Arg/Arg: 0.3409, Arg/Pro: 0.5114, Pro/Pro: 0.1477 and in the invasive group Arg/Arg: 0.3940, Arg/Pro: 0.3636, Pro/Pro: 0.2424. No association was observed with the invasiveness of the tumor (χ2 = 2.542, df: 2, P = 0.281). Stratification of the data by tobacco exposure did not result in a significant difference in genotype frequencies. These data do not support an association between the p53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and bladder cancer.Item Open Access Polymorphisms of glutathione S-transferase genes (GSTM1, GSTP1 and GSTT1) and bladder cancer susceptibility in the Turkish population(Springer, 2001) Törüner, G. A.; Akyerli, C.; Uçar, A.; Aki, T.; Atsu, N.; Özen, H.; Tez, M.; Çetinkaya, M.; Özçelik, T.We investigated the effect of the GSTM1 and GSTT1 null genotypes, and GSTP1 313 A/G polymorphism on bladder cancer susceptibility in a case control study of 121 bladder cancer patients, and 121 age- and sex-matched controls of the Turkish population. The adjusted odds ratio for age, sex, and smoking status is 1.94 [95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.15-3.26] for the GSTM1 null genotype, and 1.75 (95% CI 1.03-2.99) for the GSTP1 313 A/G or G/G genotypes. GSTT1 was shown not to be associated with bladder cancer. Combination of the two high-risk genotypes, GSTM1 null and GSTP1 313 A/G or G/G, revealed that the risk increases to 3.91-fold (95% CI 1.88-8.13) compared with the combination of the low-risk genotypes of these loci. In individuals with the combined risk factors of cigarette smoking and the GSTM1 null genotype, the risk of bladder cancer is 2.81 times (95% CI 1.23-6.35) that of persons who both carry the GSTMl-present genotype and do not smoke. Similarly, the risk is 2.38-fold (95% CI 1.12-4.95) for the combined GSTP1 313 A/G and G/G genotypes and smoking. These findings support the role for the GSTM1 null and the GSTP1 313 AG or GG genotypes in the development of bladder cancer. Furthermore, gene-gene (GSTM1-GSTP1) and gene-environment (GSTMl-smoking, GSTP1-smoking) interactions increase this risk substantially.Item Open Access A questionnaire: University students and proverbs(2005) Uçar, A.; Aygün, A.Results of the questionnaire in regard to proverbs, which has been done in April 2005 with the participation 84 university students, have been evaluated in two respects. Firstly, proverbs which are the products of oral cultures are patterned expressions and due to their formulaic patterns they are easy to remember. It also shows that thinking processes of oral and literate cultures share great deal of similarities in respect to the verbal expressions like proverbs. In addition to this, results have shown that, patterned expressions like proverbs could substitute each other. Secondly, the possible relationship between proverbs and historical experiences has been analyzed. The proverbs which are patterned expression forms contain certain social and historical experiences generally accepted by people. Based on the fact that the most of the university students primarily cited proverbs with "economic" contents, it is been argued that this collectivity of answers in economic grounds could be related to the "saving discourse" of the Turkish Republic and social history.Item Open Access Sourtimes: "Format" is watching (S)users(2006) Uçar, A.In that study, I discussed the socio-political importance of Ekşi Sözlük (www.sourtimes.org), which is one of the largest internet communities in Turkey. At first glance, Ekşi Sözlük, a web site which has more than 60.000 official users and more than 10.000 writers, would appear like a democratic and polyphonic platform displaying variety of opinions and ideas. This giant and non-linear text, which has no beginning and end, works through links and accumulation of sub-texts has a heterogeneous form which seems to include pluralistic and subversive energies. However, a closer look to the folkloric performance and cultural production mode of this collective text would reveal that hierarchical organization of the community restrains plurality of views and potential subversive energies to a great extent. So-called "format" of the website sets the rules for the production of texts. Conformity to these rules has been supervised by inside "moderators" and "informers". As a result, the writers of the website are under close surveillance of moderators, informers and other writers as well. These formal requirements and procedures of the website might seem like innocuous internal regulations. Nevertheless, high rates of "erased entries" and "expelled writers" arouse suspicions about the scope of these "internal regulations". The high rates of erasure and expulsion suggest that hegemonic power relations play a pivotal role in the production of that collective and folkloric text.Item Open Access Tribological interaction between polytetrafluoroethylene and silicon oxide surfaces(AIP Publishing LLC, 2014) Uçar, A.; Çopuroğlu, M.; Baykara, M. Z.; Arıkan, Orhan; Süzer, ŞefikWe investigated the tribological interaction between polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and silicon oxide surfaces. A simple rig was designed to bring about a friction between the surfaces via sliding a piece of PTFE on a thermally oxidized silicon wafer specimen. A very mild inclination (∼0.5°) along the sliding motion was also employed in order to monitor the tribological interaction in a gradual manner as a function of increasing contact force. Additionally, some patterns were sketched on the silicon oxide surface using the PTFE tip to investigate changes produced in the hydrophobicity of the surface, where the approximate water contact angle was 45° before the transfer. The nature of the transferred materials was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). XPS results revealed that PTFE was faithfully transferred onto the silicon oxide surface upon even at the slightest contact and SEM images demonstrated that stable morphological changes could be imparted onto the surface. The minimum apparent contact pressure to realize the PTFE transfer is estimated as 5 kPa, much lower than reported previously. Stability of the patterns imparted towards many chemical washing processes lead us to postulate that the interaction is most likely to be chemical. Contact angle measurements, which were carried out to characterize and monitor the hydrophobicity of the silicon oxide surface, showed that upon PTFE transfer the hydrophobicity of the SiO2 surface could be significantly enhanced, which might also depend upon the pattern sketched onto the surface. Contact angle values above 100° were obtained.