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The study aims to examine teachers' participation in professional development (PD) in terms of gender, marital status, seniority, and content area. The causal-comparative model was used in the study. The sample of the study consists of 542 content area teachers working in K-12 schools in Turkey. Personal information form and a professional development activities scale developed by Kwakman (1999), updated by Dijkstra (2009), and adapted to Turkish by Eroglu and Özbek (2020) was used to collect the data. Descriptive statistics, t-test, and Anova were used to analyze the data. Results of the study indicated that teachers' participation in PD activities and especially collaboration activities is lower. Teachers' participation in PD activities differ significantly in terms of their gender, marital status, seniority and branches. It is thought that the low participation of teachers in PD activities is due to the limited effective professional development opportunities and the lack of support for PD in Turkey.

Over the past decades, organic field-effect transistor (OFET) gas sensors have maintained a rapid development. However, the majority of OFET gas sensors show insufficient detection capability towards oxidizing and hazardous gases such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulfide dioxide (SO2). In this report, a sustainable approach toward the fabrication of OFET gas sensors, consisting of a thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (TT) and phthalocyanine (Pc) based electron rich structure (TT-Pc) for the detection of both nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulfide dioxide (SO2) is disclosed for the first time. Khaya gum (KG), a natural, biodegradable biopolymer is used as the gate dielectric in these OFET-based sensors. Thin film properties and surface morphology of TT-Pc were investigated by UV-Vis, SEM, AFM and contact angle measurements, which indicated a uniform and smooth film formation. The UV-Vis properties were supported by computational chemistry, performed using density functional theory (DFT) for optimizing geometry and absorption of TT-Pc models. Sensitive and selective responses of 90% and 60% were obtained from TT-Pc OFET-based sensors upon exposure to 20 ppm of NO2 and SO2, respectively, under ambient conditions. One of the lowest limits of detection of ∼165 ppb was achieved for both NO2 and SO2 using a solution-processed TT-Pc sensor with a natural, biodegradable dielectric biopolymer. The sensors showed excellent long-term environmental and operational stability with only a 7% reduction of the sensor's initial response (%) upon exposure to NO2 and SO2 over nine months of operation in air. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease mainly affecting the colon and remains a challenging disease to manage clinically with its relapsing-remitting course. Traditional treatments for this disease showed some drawbacks, including systemic toxicity and ineffective targeting of the affected colon areas. This article introduces a unique treatment method that uses mesalazine (MSZ)-loaded TPP/Chitosan nanoparticles (MSZNP)-embedded into bovine serum albumin (BSA) hydrogels (MSZNPH) for targeted intrarectal medication delivery. Additionally, conventional MSZ was integrated into BSA hydrogel (MSZH), and then, MSZH, MSZNP, and MSZNPH were characterized and compared with an emphasis on encapsulation efficiency, drug release profile, and hydrogel swelling behavior. Our findings show that MSZNPH composite technology may improve targeted administration and prolonged release of MSZ, indicating a promising new route for UC therapy with the potential to improve patient adherence and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]