1. Zeycan HELVACI, (Aksaray U., Aksaray, Turkey): “Geographic structure of the edible dormouse (Glis glis) in Turkey”
2. Halil Can KAŞKAVALCI  (Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey): “University course timetabling using multi objective genetic algorithms”
3. Ferhat Alkan (Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey): “Global Many-to-Many Alignment of Multıple PPI Networks”
4. Duygu Pembe Öksüz (Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey): “Testing the Central-Peripheral Hypothesis on the populations of Poecilimon similis (Retowski,1889) (Orthoptera: Tettigonidae) in Eastern Blacksea Region”
5. Nazlı Ayhan (Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey): “Altitudinal variantion in life-span and chill-coma in wild populations of Drosophila melanogaster“
6. Dilek Koptekin (Ege University, İzmir, Turkey): “Origin and Evolution of Plant microRNAs“
7. Burcu Daşer (Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey): “DNA Barcoding in Animals“
8. Özgül Yahyaoğlu (Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey): “Integrating 3D Geometric Morphometrics, How organismal shapes evolve”
9. Nuran Özlem KÖROĞLU  (Mersin University, Turkey): “PSYLLOCAMPTUS ERIDANI (COPEPODA, HARPACTICOIDA, AMEIRIDAE): A NEW RECORD FOR TURKISH SEAS”
10. Behçet Şahin (Balıkesir University, Turkey): “Acceptence of Evolution among University Students in Turkey”
11. Burçin Danacı (İstanbul Technical University, Turkey) “DYNAMICAL AND STATISTICAL FEATURES OF ARTIFICIALLY EVOLVED AND BIOLOGICAL NETWORKS”
12. Yusuf Can Semerci  (Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey): “A Dynamic Path Planning with Cellular Automata”
13. Murat Tuğrul (IST-Austria, Vienna): Inferring selection for RNA polymerase (sigma-70) binding sites

Abstracts:

1. Z. Helvacı: “The present study aims at investigating the geographic structure of a hibernating forest species, the edible dormouse (Glis glis) in a seldom investigated zone of its distributing area: the Northern part of Turkey (Thrace, Marmara and Black Sea regions). Two complementary approaches were combined: genetics (mtDNA) and morphometrics (tooth size and shape). Morphometric results evidenced a complex pattern of differentiation. A major signal opposed Western vs. Eastern parts of Northern Turkey. A secondary differentiation occurred along the Eastern part of the Black Sea coast. In contrast, mitochondrial DNA revealed a surprising homogeneity amongst Turkish and European populations, all sharing the same haplotype.
   We interpret these apparently discrepant results as the consequence of a complex history: (1) post-glacial recolonization from a single refuge; (2) isolation of populations in different forest blocks. This may be the results of changes in the composition of the forest, driven by climatic and topographic factors, as well fragmentation of the forest, due to local climatic variations but also possibly to anthropogenic factors. “.
2. H. C. KAŞKAVALCI: “University course timetabling is a research area in combinatorial optimization. Since the problem is NP-Hard, exhaustive search is not feasible. Therefore, smarter methods need to be applied. University timetables should be feasible and decent. Constraints introduced by faculty and department can be categorized as hard and soft objectives. Hard objectives should be satisfied strictly, whereas soft objectives should be fulfilled as much as possible. In this work, Yeditepe University Computer Engineering department’s course timetabling problem is solved by using multi objective genetic algorithms. YU-CSE timetabling problem introduces new constraints which are not covered in literature. In this work YU-CSE constrains are handled and graphical user interface is implemented for a user friendly experience. In the end timetable with 152 course sections is created with zero hard and 24 soft fitness violation.”
3. TBA
4. D.P. Öksüz: “Researches on genetic structure across species ranges shed light on spatial patterns of populations’ size, genetic variation and differentiation profiles. Central-Peripheral Hypothesis is one of the most studied hypotheses currently and has statements about the versatile relation of species’ genetic structures and their distributions in terms of local adaptation capacity, gene flow, genetic and morphological differentiation statuses of populations. My MSc thesis is about testing Central-Peripheral Hypothesis on populations of an endemic cricket species; Poecilimon similis, grounding on body size and COI region studies.”
5. N. Ayhan: “Geographical variations occur along latitude and altitude in diverse group of animals and plants. Latitudinal populations have received much attention, whereas altitudinal populations remain largely unexplored. We study with populations derived from 6 different altituds vary between 35 m and 2173 m with a short distance of 40 km between these two elevations point in Firtina Valley-Turkey. We test for a clinal trend in longevity under experimental conditions in order to test for geographical and/or environmental variation.Stress is an environmental factor causing a change in the biological system which is potentially injurious (Hoffmann&Parsons, 1991). Reduction in fitness of the organism or population caused by the environmental factor. To overcome such fitness reductions, organisms and populations can respond phenotypically or genetically and evolve adaptive mechanisms to reduce the detrimental impact of the stress (Bijlsma& Loeschcke, 2005). In this perspective we use nutrition and temperature stress for compare the degree of phenotypic variation relative to manipulated enviromental conditions.Our results point out that, decrease of protein concentration not extend life span in recently collected natural population from wild. However, as its known temperature is a important selective agent of longevity. Phenotypic variation varies between populations for all experimental conditions and there was a significant interaction between temperature and population. Negative significant corellation occure between mean life span and altitude (r= – 0.143; p<0.0001) and nutrition (r= – 0.115; p<0.004) in extreme temperature (29°C), also in standart temperature the significant and negative corellation did not chang for nutrition (r= – 0.117; p<0.004), but the significant correlation between altitude and life span changes (r= -0.071; p=0.055) in 25°C. Longevity seems to be population specific but not correlated with geographical origin in standard conditions. Populations under stressful temperature introduce a response correlated with geographical origin. Population longevity seems therefore to be independent from the experienced environments under standard conditions and indicating that this trait and its plasticity is population specific but not related to the geographical origin unless confronted with stressful condition.As an other stress factor we use cold shock. Chill-coma recovery time in Drosophila species is highly significant character to measure cold tolerance and heat adaptation. Generally, populations from high latitudes are exposed to lower temperatures than low-latitude populations, and correlations between thermal tolerances and latitude have been documented for various arthropods (Addo-Bediako,2000; Chown&Nicolson, 2004). Our data support this proposition, two populations which were collected from approximatly 2000 m high shows shortest chill-coma recovery time for both sex. Despite culturing in standart laboratory conditions for 10 generations, populations from high latitudes has significant cold tolerance which can be explained with genetic differences between populations.”
6. D. Koptekin: “MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of endogenous, non-coding, short RNAs found in eukaryotic cells as well as a number of DNA viruses. Moreover, microRNA-like RNAs have been reported to exist in fungi. Mature miRNA is an around 22 nucleotides (nt) long and they are identified in nearly all plants where they play important roles in growth, development and stress responses by guiding mRNA cleavage or by repressing translation. However, only limited studies are existent about origin and evolution of miRNAs in plant genomes. In recent years, high throughput discovery tools such as next-generation sequencing significantly increased the number of known miRNAs and their evolutionary changes in different organisms. To date, many data demonstrate that subsets of miRNA families, which regulate ancestral transcription factors, are conserved between plant families, indicating their very ancient origin. In contrast, multiple non-conserved miRNAs expressed by any given plant species have a limited phylogenetic distribution, suggesting they are evolutionary young miRNAs. Several studies have shown that plants non-conserved miRNAs already largely outnumber their conserved counterparts and plants use highly conserved as well as young, lineage specific miRNAs to regulate numerous biological processes. The aim of this poster is to summarize the conservation and divergence in plant miRNAs in evolutionary perspectives.”
7. B. Daser: “The diversity of life forms is the basis of all biological studies and much biological research depends upon species diagnoses. Predicted number of eukaryotic species on the earth and in the ocean are ~8.7 million (±1.3 million SE).  Although 250 years of work in classification, ~1.7-1.9 million species have been described and the majority of species remains to be identified.  Morphology-based species identification has some limitations such as characters’ phenotypic plasticity and genetic variability, cryptic taxa which are common in many groups. Morphological keys are often effective only for a life stage or gender and the use of keys demands a high level of expertise that misdiagnoses are common. DNA barcoding has recently been proposed as a tool to simplify species-level identification and recent works suggest that a 648 bp regions of cytocrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) might serve as a DNA barcode for identification of animal species. This technique can be used for (1) identification of all life stages, egg, larvae, nymph, pupae, (2) identification of cryptic species, (3) identification of stomach contents, trace ecological food-chains, (4) invasive species control and (5) food control. “
8. ‘Quantifying integration and modularity of evolutionary changes in morphometric traits is crucial for understanding how organismal shapes evolve.’(Klingenberg,2013). Geometric morphometrics is the quantitative representation and analyses of morphological shape.In contrast to traditional morphometrics, geometric coordinates are used instead of linear measurements. One of the advantages of geometric morphometrics is graphical representation of results but 2D analysis of 3D objects cause the lost of many details of shape. Developments in 3D digitization technologies and extension of algorithms for Procrustes superimposition enables researchers to overcome this deficiency. Thus, 3D geometric morphometrics is being used as an efficient method for the studies on systematics, phylogeny, ontogeny, variation and evolutinary changes.”
9. N. Ö. KÖROĞLU: “Copepods are aquatic crustaceans, diminutive relatives of the crabs and shrimps. They are the most important primary consumers in aquatic food web. Harpacticoida is one of the ten orders of Copepoda and contains over 4,300 species belonging to 589 genera and 56 families. The marine harpacticoid fauna of the Turkey is poorly known despite the fact that the country has a vast coastline of about 8,300 kilometers. Here we contribute to the knowledge of the copepod biodiversity in Turkey by reporting P. eridani from the Turkish coasts for the first time. On the basis of published data and with the results of this study, the number of harpacticoid species that have been recorded so far from Turkey has reached to 133. P. eridani was originally described from North Adriatic (Italy) in 1988 and it has not been recorded from another locality in the world since then. Therefore it is speculated that it may be an endemic species inhabiting narrow range of habitats in Italy. During the intensive sampling on Kara Ada (Bodrum), P. eridani was found among the interstitial samples. The detailed comparison with the relevant literature revealed no significant morphological differences between Turkish and Italian populations.”
10. B. Şahin: “When evolution is not accepted as a subject of science and is debated in nonscientific circles, it not only fails to serve a purpose for science but can also be damaging to societies. It is for this reason that it is of great importance that evolution is taught as a subject of science and with scientific accuracy. The people who can do this the right way are teachers. This study was conducted in this context, with the goal of researching the levels of acceptance of evolution among pre-service teachers. Toward this goal, in the consecutive years 2011, 2012 and 2013, a questionnaire was administered to 214 Science Teaching 3^rd year students who had not taken a course in evolution. Part 1 of the questionnaire used in the study relating to the acceptance of evolution was evaluated. The analysis showed an acceptance level of 57.9% regarding evolution among the pre-service teachers. Despite the fact that this level is very much above the average for Turkey, it should not be treated as a satisfactory result. This is because 42.1% of the science teacher candidates either did not accept evolution or were doubtful about the theory. Studies have shown that the level of scientific education teachers receive as well as their personal thoughts affect the time they spend on the subject of evolution in their schoolwork. Under the circumstances, the results of our study cause concern about the future of teaching evolution.”
11. B. Danacı: “Populations of Boolean networks were evolved using a genetic algorithm with a fitness function favoring point attractors or attractors having at most a period two. We have examined the topological properties of the evolved networks and found that they have motif statistics similar to those of gene regulatory networks.”
12. Y.C. Semerci: “One of the important issues in robotic research is to configure a path to a pre-determined destination. The existing solutions work on captured images from a camera placed above the environment. With this approach comes an issue that while the robot plans for a path to the destination,it must see the whole environment. However, in reality it is impossible for the robot to see the whole environment. Hence, the approach becomes problematic. In this thesis we will be working on a novel method for path planning which will be based on the point of view of the robot. There are several ways to represent the environment, but nowadays Cellular Automata is becoming popular for this representation. Cellular Automata is simply a representation of a universal Turing Machine. Cellular Automata represents an environment by dividing it into cells where each cell can be in one of a finite number of states, such as on and off. For each cell, a set of cells called its neighborhood is defined relative to the specified cell. Usually these neighbors are chosen to be the eight cells surrounding a central cell in a two-dimensional square lattice. This thesis will focus on path planning for NAO robot with Cellular environment representation. The states of the cells in the Cellular Automata will be representing the positions of the obstacles in the environment.”
13. M. Tuğrul: “Variation in protein coding regions cannot explain the extensive phenotypic diversity between and among populations. It is believed that variation in transcriptome levels which are regulated by non-coding DNA are responsible for natural variation. However, lack of a regulatory code prevents us from understanding the evolution of regulatory sequences. We would like to know what different patterns of regulation evolve in nature. In this study, we integrate a biophysical model of transcription into population genetics framework in order to understand the evolution of regulatory sequences.”