Explore the vast range of titles available.

Although a voluminous literature has studied the substantive representation of women, these studies have largely been confined to advanced democracies. Similarly, studies that focus on the relationship between Islam and women's rights largely ignored the substantive representation of women in Muslim-majority countries. As one of the first studies of its kind, this article investigates the role of religion in the substantive representation of women by focusing on a Muslim-majority country: Turkey. Using a novel data set of 4,700 content coded private members' bills (PMBs) drafted in the Turkish parliament between 2002 and 2015, this article synthesizes competing explanations of women's representation in the Middle East and rigorously tests the implications of religion, ideology, critical mass, and labor force participation accounts. The results have significant implications for the study of gender and politics in Muslimmajority countries.

Although various explanations have been proposed in regard to the persistency of patriarchal attitudes and gendered outcomes in political processes, much of the scholarly attention has focused on structural factors related to cultural dynamics and modernization. Motivated by a growing body of research looking into the role political elites play in shaping public attitudes about issues of normative importance, we make an attempt to shift empirical focus to shorter-term dynamics and understand how elite cues can undermine gender egalitarian values within the mass public. Drawing on an original population-based survey experiment of over 2700 subjects from a nation-wide face-to-face survey in Turkey, we examined how President Erdogan’s patriarchal statements influence gender-egalitarian attitudes and how this influence varies across partisan groups. Our results show that the treatment group, relative to the control group, reports significantly lower levels of gender-egalitarian attitudes, and this effect is discernible even among secular opposition party voters. We conclude by discussing the potential implications of our findings for the study of gender-egalitarian values and elite influence in political processes.

Policymakers in democratic systems are expected to respond to the issue preferences of citizens and fulfill their electoral mandate as this responsiveness is central to democratic theory. Most empirical research on opinion-policy/program-policy linkage found a significant relationship between opinion and policy as well as program and policy. However, these studies have concentrated on a few developed Western countries with programmatic party systems. I focus on an emerging democracy with a highly clientelistic party system, Turkey, and address the following questions: Are policymakers' priorities driven by public opinion? Do parties take into account their electoral mandate in the legislature? To answer these questions, I use a novel dataset of parliamentary activities and public priorities in Turkey. I also offer an alternative method to measure party priorities which proves superior to the currently used measures.

Past scholarship has documented that the poor are more likely to withhold their policy preferences in public opinion surveys, suggesting income gaps in political engagement. Despite the wealth of scholarly interest in opinion formation, however, previous studies focused almost exclusively on opinion gaps in preferences, leaving income-related gaps in policy prioritisation virtually unexamined. Drawing on 596 public opinion surveys conducted with nearly 700,000 Americans over 55 years, we make a comprehensive attempt to examine income-level differences in “don’t know” responses to the most important problem (MIP) question. Our results show that the less affluent are more likely to say “don’t know” when asked about the MIP facing their country, even after controlling for various factors including educational attainment and political attention. Importantly, we also show that income-related differences in opinionation cross cut other socio-economic differences in policy prioritisation. These results have important implications for the study of public opinion.

Despite the policy-relevant aspirations of military regimes, scholars have shown surprisingly little interest in exploring the agenda dynamics and policy processes in these regimes. We sought to close this gap by analysing the original datasets of over 13,000 legislative speeches, public budgets, and the background characteristics of 160 representatives who served in the Consultative Assembly of the military regime of Kenan Evren in Turkey (1980–1983). Empirical analyses indicate that the regime’s policy priorities did not differ significantly from those of democratic governments, and that while representatives with military backgrounds showed far more interest in the core functions of the government, the process through which they were selected (whether or not directly appointed by the National Security Council) appeared to have no explanatory power. Perhaps more importantly, there were more similarities than differences between the military regime of Kenan Evren and the coalition, minority and majority governments of the 1970s and 1980s. Our findings imply that the effect of institutions on policy agendas is overstated.

How does weak party institutionalization and clientelistic linkage mechanisms affect policy responsiveness? Research on representation and responsiveness usually find a positive relationship between public priorities and subsequent policy making activities. However, most research on this topic assumes the context of strongly institutionalized party systems and presupposes that programmatic voter-party relations are prevalent. In weakly institutionalized party systems, on the other hand, clientelistic linkage mechanisms are the norm. Previous studies have suggested that clientelistic linkage mechanisms decrease policy responsiveness since non-policy, selective benefits are substituted for the collective, policy-based benefits. To investigate the dynamics of representation in a weakly institutionalized party system, this dissertation departs from the current literature, and focuses on Turkey; a country with a weakly institutionalized party system and clientelistic parties. This dissertation uses a novel dataset created by collecting and content coding over 13000 parliamentary documents (laws, parliamentary bills and oral questions) and over 10000 manifesto sentences as well as the most important problem question of public opinion surveys for a period of 11 years. My dissertation will show that parties largely relying on clientelistic linkage mechanisms are indeed responsive to the priorities of the median voter. The results also indicate that the policymaking agenda is jointly structured by public priorities and party preferences. In this regard, I also offer a new approach to measure party priorities which is theoretically more relevant.

ObjectiveThis study aimed to evaluate the radiomorphometric indexes and fractal dimension (FD) on dental panoramic radiography (DPR) of Thalassemia Major (TM) patients.MethodsIn 59 TM patients and in 59 healthy control subjects, mandibular cortical index (MCI), mandibular cortical width (MCW), panoramic mandibular index (PMI), and FD of four different regions (FD1-4) were evaluated and compared using DPRs.ResultsThe distribution of MCI in TM patients was similar to control subjects (p > 0.05). The mean MCW was significantly lower in TM patients (p = 0.001). There was no significant difference in PMI between TM patients and control subjects. The mean of FD measured in the supracortical area above the angle of mandible (FD2), in the anterior to the mental foramen (FD4) and mean FD of four different regions was significantly lower in TM patients (p = 0.003, p = 0.001, and p = 0.014, respectively).ConclusionsThe radiomorphometric indices and fractal dimensions evaluated in the panoramic radiograph are capable of identifying thalassemia patients’ jaw bone, and the results of DPR scanning can be used to refer these patients to appropriate medical investigation.

Introduction Talazoparib is a strong PARP inhibitor with significant catalytic inhibition as well as the ability to cause PARP entrapment at DNA damage sites. It is one of the recommended treatments for individuals with BRCA-mutant advanced breast cancer, although research on its efficacy in advanced ovarian cancer is limited. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of talazoparib in advanced breast and ovarian cancer patients with BRCA mutations. Materials and methods Patients with advanced breast (HR + or TNBC) and ovarian cancer who had germline BRCA mutations were included in this multicenter, retrospective study. There were no exclusion criteria regarding treatment-line, metastatic sites or performance status. All patients received talazoparib treatment via early-access programme. The primary endpoint was PFS. Secondary endpoints were OS and ORR. Results There were 47 and 42 patients in the breast cancer (BC) and ovarian cancer (OC) cohorts, respectively. In BC cohort, after median 13.6 months follow-up the median PFS was 6.5 months (5.0–8.1 months, 95% CI). In this heavily pretreated cohort, the ORR was 31.9% and the estimated 12-month OS rate was 73.6%. In OC cohort, the median follow up period was 13.7 months and the median PFS was 9.1 months (7.3–10.8 months, 95% CI). The ORR was 47.6% and the estimated 12-month OS rate was 75.9% in OC patients. Conclusion Talazoparib may be an effective therapy option for patients with advanced BRCA-mutant breast cancer. In the absence of prospective phase 2/3 data, the outcomes of OC cohort may also considerably contribute to the literature on BRCA-mutant ovarian cancer.

In the literature, a variety of techniques are recommended for intraoperative biliary tract imaging. The objective of this study was to develop a more cost-effective and widely applicable technique that could serve as an alternative to existing imaging techniques by taking advantage of the chemiluminescence effect of luminol. An experimental study using rabbits was designed. The rabbits in the control group received isotonic solution, while the other groups were administered various concentrations of luminol chemical solutions with catalyst and activator chemicals. Biliary tract imaging was conducted using chemiluminescence in the biliary tract during luminol injection, and the resulting images were recorded. The intraoperative imaging of bile ducts in rabbits was successfully achieved through the utilization of the chemiluminescence effect of luminol. The statistical analysis of the laboratory results and histopathological examination revealed no statistically significant difference between the groups used with varying concentrations of luminol and other chemicals and the control group. The methodology employed in this study is cost-effective, readily accessible, and straightforward to implement. In light of these findings, we posit that this technique may serve as a potential alternative to existing methods in the future.

The BRICS has emerged as a strategic actor in global environmental and economic governance, encompassing 42% of the world’s population, 32% of global GDP, and nearly half of the world’s forest resources. Member countries have integrated forest management with renewable energy transition and carbon market mechanisms as part of their sustainable development strategies. In this context, Türkiye positions the forestry sector as both an environmental and economic lever in its potential alignment with BRICS while seeking to diversify its foreign policy. This study examines the long-term relationships between forest area, population, forest product trade, renewable energy production, and carbon emissions in BRICS-T countries for the period 2009–2023, employing panel econometric methods (FMOLS and DOLS). The findings indicate that population growth, forest expansion, and forest product trade are associated with increased emissions, while renewable energy production contributes to emission reductions. Moreover, bidirectional causality is identified between population and emissions and between renewable energy and emissions. The results suggest that environmental sustainability depends not only on the availability of resources but also on the quality of governance, policy coherence, and sectoral coordination. The study provides an original contribution to the literature by analyzing Türkiye’s environmental and economic integration with BRICS through the combined lens of forestry and energy transition, offering exploratory policy implications for Türkiye’s strategic position in a multipolar world.