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How do nonstate organizations carry out their programs in political contexts hostile to civil society activity? This paper examines the case of refugee-supporting organizations in Turkey, which hosts over 3.6 million Syrians under a temporary protection regime. While the Turkish state has taken a central role in refugee reception, nonstate organizations have played a sizeable role in refugee support. Analyzing interviews with key personnel across 23 organizations in Istanbul, the paper finds that organizational capacity and organizational identity together explain variations in CSO-state relations. While high-capacity organizations that adopt a variety of "rights-based" and "needs-based" identities will cooperate with state institutions, lower-capacity organizations use comparable signifiers to justify selective engagement or avoidance of state institutions. The paper argues that analyzing how organizations negotiate their identities can help explain variations in CSO-state relations in restrictive contexts without relying on a priori assumptions about CSO alignment with or opposition to the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to recent advancements in connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), freeway traffic control (FTC) has become a trendy area of research. Combining CAVs and control measures has opened more efficient traffic flow possibilities. However, while there is extensive research on how traffic control and CAVs can enhance traffic flow performance, their safety benefits should be evaluated more comprehensively. It is challenging to distinguish their contributions to traffic flow safety. Studies on the safety of CAVs in traffic flow indicate that traffic flow safety improves with higher market penetration rates (MPR) of CAVs. However, this finding only sometimes aligns with the traffic flow performance effects of CAVs on freeways. This paper introduces a framework for assessing the safety effects of FTC strategies in mixed traffic scenarios involving human-driven vehicles and CAVs. The proposed framework is tested through a microsimulation-based case study in Istanbul, Turkey. The results show that, despite varying MPRs, the safety effects of CAVs and FTC methods do not consistently reduce the number of conflicts in the traffic flow context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought concepts, definition, and classification processes have been in the field of research for decades, and especially the effects of global warming and the resulting climate change have accelerated these researches. The most used procedure for drought categorization has been in the literature under the name of Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) with the recommendation of the World Meteorological Organization, and many modified versions of it have appeared in the open literature. Although conceptually the SPI is based on the probabilistic standardization index (PSI), some publications use the statistical standardization procedure (SSP) incorrectly. This paper lays out and explains the difference between the two types of standardization. In proper SPI applications, it is necessary to convert a given hydro-meteorological time series probability distribution function (PDF) to a standard (Gaussian) PDF with zero mean and unit standard deviation. SSP cannot accomplish this task, because the original PDF type remains the same after shifting and scaling applications. The comparison of PSI vs. SSP is provided along with their pros and cons. Accurate application of PSI is presented for annual Danube discharge, New Jersey temperature, and Istanbul/Florya precipitation records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the whole world struggles with the COVID-19 pandemic, there are many different measures taken by countries. In this sense, the distribution of free masks to citizens between the ages of 20–65 in Turkey is one of the important measures taken against to spread of the pandemic. This distribution process is carried out through pharmacies and people can obtain their masks from any pharmacy in their area of residence. However, this situation may cause some pharmacies to be very busy, and thus social distance cannot be maintained and health and safety of the people may be threatened. In this paper, we aim to prioritize pharmacies so that only determined pharmacies in certain regions perform mask distribution process to prevent virus transmission. For this purpose, Esenler district is taken into consideration for a pilot study which is one of the risky regions in terms of virus spread in Istanbul, Turkey. Multi-criteria decision-making approach (MCDM) is used because of the necessity of handling many factors in decision-making process and the contradiction of evaluation factors in the prioritization of pharmacies. In order to best model the uncertainty in the decision process, the MCDM approach is applied in a fuzzy environment. In addition, spherical fuzzy AHP and VIKOR MCDM approaches are used as novel hybrid method in this paper. As a result of spherical fuzzy multi-criteria analysis, the pharmacies that need to provide free mask distribution in the Esenler region have been successfully identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, logistics is one of the most important tools in disaster relief operations. The logistic planning is essential and a key component in covering the initial needs in the immediate aftermath of any disaster. Planning is both necessary and practical, as it is generally possible to predict the types of disasters that should affect a given location and the needs that such disasters will be likely to cause. Transport planning, reception and distribution of emergency supplies, type and quantity of the resources, the way of procurement and storage of the supplies, the tools of the tracking and means transportation to the stricken area, the specialization of teams participating in the operation and plan of cooperation between these teams, are some vital life-saving coordination roles after natural disasters are connected directly to logistic planning. Turkey is located in one of the most active earthquake and volcanic regions which causes to many major earthquake-prone, in the world with a majority of the population living in these earthquake-prone areas. Earthquakes are one of the major disasters that require emergency logistic planning strategies due to their devastating effects, the large-scale natural disasters could cause major problem on commodities such as food, medicine etc. In this paper, a game theoretical model for emergency logistic planning is developed. To do this a cooperative game model is constructed from a flow problem which occurred after an earthquake in Istanbul. Several solution concepts for maximizing the transferred commodity are given. The paper ends with a conclusion and outlook to future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Timely delivery of products to customers is the great importance for retailers in supply chain management. Vending machines are one of the most effective retail tools for consumers to get the product they want at any time. With the developing technology, retailers tend to establish distribution with vending machines to provide faster service to the consumer. At this point, one of the primary objectives is to make the location selection decisions for these vending machines. The most suitable location selection decision includes the evaluation of each alternative under the specified criteria in a problem where there are multiple alternative locations. The present paper proposes a novel modified Delphi-based spherical fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (SFAHP) integrated spherical fuzzy combinative distance-based assessment (SFCODAS) methodology to the vending machine location selection (VMLS) problem. After determining the main and sub-criteria hierarchically, the Modified Delphi method is used to consolidate the opinions of the experts regarding the criteria and integrate them into the study. The main and sub-criteria weights are provided by the SFAHP method. And the most suitable location is determined by the SFCODAS method by ranking among the alternative locations according to these weighted criteria. The case study of VMLS is presented for a retail firm in Istanbul. Sensitivity analysis is performed to measure the flexibility of the proposed methodology. To validate the applicability of the proposed methodology, comparison analysis is presented with the results of the spherical fuzzy weighted aggregated sum-product assessment (SFWASPAS) method. Finally, the conclusions and future directions are discussed in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to expose the significant contribution of colour information to the classification of 3D points from dense aerial image matching. In this study, colour information was used to compensate for the lack of additional information in photogrammetric point clouds with the proposed automatic hierarchical rule-based classification approach. Two point-based classification approaches based on only spatial-based features and combining the use of spatial-based features and colour information were developed in order to classify photogrammetric point cloud data. The hierarchical rules were developed using the selected features for the proposed point-based classification approaches. Detailed parameter analyses for the developed rules were carried out in pilot areas. The photogrammetric point clouds from the Zekeriyakoy test site in Istanbul were automatically classified, and ground, building, and vegetation classes were acquired using only spatial-based features and using both spatial-based features and colour information. The contribution of the colour information was clearly seen in the vegetation points classified as buildings in woodland and urban areas, as well as in the ground points classified as vegetation in urban areas. The performed accuracy analysis of photogrammetric 3D point cloud classification with the combined use of spatial-based features and colour information verified the improvement of overall accuracy from 70 to 78% in comparison to the classification of only spatial-based features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the high necessity of medical face masks and face shields during the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare centers dealing with infected patients have faced serious challenges due to the high consumption rate face masks and face shields. In this regard, the supply chain of healthcare centers should put all of their efforts into avoiding any shortages of masks and shields as these products are considered as primary ways to prevent the spread of the virus. Since, any shortages in these products would lead to irrecoverable and costly consequences in terms of the mortality rate of patients and medical staff. Therefore, healthcare centers should decide on best supplier to supply required products, considering technical, and sustainability measures. Dynamicity and uncertainty of the pandemic are other factors that add up to the complexity of the supplier selection problem. Therefore, this paper develops a novel decision-making approach using Measuring attractiveness through a categorical-based evaluation technique (MACBETH) and a new combinative distance-based assessment method to address the supplier selection problem during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to high uncertainty, vague and incomplete information for decision-making problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, the developed decision-making approach is implemented under fuzzy rough numbers as a superior uncertainty set of the traditional fuzzy set and rough numbers. Extensive sensitivity analysis tests are performed based on parameters of the decision-making approach, impacts of weight coefficients, and consistency of results in comparison to other MCDM methods. A real-life case study is investigated for a hospital in Istanbul, Turkey to show the applicability of the developed approach. Based on the results of MACBETH method, job creation and occupational health and safety systems are two top criteria. Results of the case study for five suppliers indicate that supplier (A1) is the best supplier with a distance score of 3.308. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of soil–structure interaction and site amplification on the seismic response of one of the towers of the Theodosian walls of Constantinople during the Kocaeli earthquake in 1999, that largely damaged it. The interacting system is first analysed in the frequency domain by the well-known replacement oscillator model, turning out that the effect of soil–structure interaction could be relevant. The complete system is then examined by the direct approach considering non linearity of the behaviour of both the structure and the soil. The failure mechanism detected from where stress and plasticization concentrate into the masonry panels is consistent with the out-of-plane mechanism of one of the tower façades triggered by the reference earthquake. The focus was then set on the effectiveness of some retrofitting interventions, including the lateral disconnection of the embedded sides of the tower from the surrounding soil, the soil treatment by grouted columns and the classical technique for masonry rehabilitation. Even though the latter choice is the most common one, retrofitting interventions concentrated into the soil could be effective as well. Their use should be properly considered when the scope of the intervention is the preservation of cultural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the significant hazards in the event of a fire in high-rise residential buildings in cities is the length of time taken to completely evacuate a large number of occupants. On a city scale, it is important that a city's fire and rescue services are in place to minimize the consequences which can be incurred in any potential fire incident. The paper presents the methodology and results of a study that evaluates the city-wide vulnerability in high-rise residential building fires in the City of Istanbul, Turkey. In the context of fire and rescue service arrival to burning buildings, a high-rise building can be considered vulnerable if the fire and rescue service arrives at the building site only after the expected completion of evacuation of the building, thus unable to fulfill its intended purpose of saving the occupants. The study is based on comparison of an agent-based evacuation model of safe escape times for 1167 high-rise residential buildings against their fire and rescue service arrival times estimated using GPS data. This methodology can be used to inform the decision about optimal locations of a city's fire and rescue services. As an example, this study indicates that adding a single new fire station in the City of Istanbul can improve its preparedness for fire accidents by reducing the risk of its most vulnerable district by more than 26%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In natural disasters, having a capable network of collecting and distributing crucial items such as blood is one of the major concerns. However, due to damage to the infrastructure after disasters, mobile blood collecting facilities (blood mobiles) are usually required. This paper aims to decide the locations of mobile facilities in each period for collecting donated blood, plan the blood distribution from the fixed and mobile facilities to the main blood centers, as well as from blood centers to the hospitals and field-hospitals, under uncertain conditions. To do so, a multi-period, bi-objective mixed-integer mathematical model is developed under a multiple-scenario, aiming to minimize the unsatisfied blood demand as well as the total cost of the network. In the proposed model, the blood group compatibility matrix, failure rate of the facilities, and patients' urgency levels are considered. An augmented ε-constraint method is applied to solve this bi-objective model. Due to the complex nature of the proposed blood supply chain model, the Lagrangian relaxation approach is used to solve the proposed model. An expected Istanbul earthquake is considered, and the blood supply planning through the Red Crescent's European branch is performed utilizing the proposed model to examine its validity. According to the numerical results, the mobile facilities' locations in each period under each scenario are determined, the unsatisfied demand in each hospital and field-hospital for each blood type are reported, and the tradeoff between the supply chain costs and unsatisfied demand are discussed in detail. Finally, to illustrate the robustness of the proposed model, a detailed sensitivity analysis is performed. According to the study results, opening new blood centers near the high-demand sub-districts for faster testing and supply, increasing the hospitals' capacities, and usage of drones and helicopters for blood distribution are suggested can be considered as managerial insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Number of tall buildings in metropolitan areas such as Istanbul increased dramatically in recent years. On the other hand, it is crucial to conduct condition assessment of such structures after an earthquake due to public safety and owner-need reasons. Structural health monitoring (SHM) enables condition assessment of structures before, during and after earthquake rapidly, remotely and objectively. SHM systems are mandatory to be installed on tall buildings in Turkey since 2019 because of their significant contribution to our understanding of dynamic behavior of tall buildings and our capability of condition monitoring. With the motivations and reasons mentioned above, three tall buildings in Istanbul have been monitored continuously by the research team led by the second author. In the first part of this paper, results from long-term monitoring of Building-3 are presented and also, identification of modal parameters before, during and after Mw 5.7 earthquake by different methods are discussed. Afterwards, a unique methodology on the development and updating of Timoshenko beam model of the building based on identification results is given. This methodology is able to estimate the accelerations of non-instrumented floors from instrumented floors; therefore, condition assessment of the building during an earthquake can be precisely performed by computing inter-story drift ratios. In addition to tracking modal values and calculating inter-story drifts, determination of wave propagation is explained as an alternative condition assessment tool. Lastly, in-house developed software platform for real-time monitoring of tall buildings is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, presented in a pair of articles, defines a comprehensive methodological approach to the reconstruction of a traditional masonry-timber mansion building constructed in the 1880s of the Turkish house typology on Istanbul's historical peninsula area that was intentionally demolished in 1948. A historical process research was carried out in the first stage of the study, after which ground penetration radar measurements and an archeological excavation were carried out to determine any possible remains or ruins of the structure, and the original architectural features of the demolished building were ascertained from the obtained data. The proposed stages in the current paper can be considered a comprehensive approach to the determination of the authentic properties of demolished or destroyed buildings in historical areas, given that the methodology allows for the integration of construction features obtained separately and independently through different activities, such as excavations, georadar measurements and historical surveys. The result is a versatile approach to the complete and realistic reconstruction of historical buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate estimation of wind speed distributions is a challenging task in wind power planning and operation. The selection of convenient functions for describing wind speed distribution is a crucial requisite. In this paper, remarkable bi-parameter Weibull function is presented to estimate the wind energy potential. Weibull parameters based on different six estimation methods, namely graphical, method of moment, energy pattern factor, mean standard deviation, power density methods, and genetic algorithm are evaluated. Besides, the goodness of fit of the estimation methods is investigated via mean absolute error, root mean square error, normalized mean absolute error, Chi-square error, and regression coefficient. To plainly identify the best matching estimation method, Net Fitness test is also presented. Catalca in the Marmara region in Istanbul, Republic of Turkey, is selected to be the underlying site. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the estimation methods in modeling wind distribution but with relatively small differences in terms of performance. However, the genetic algorithm and energy pattern factor accomplish the best and worst matching estimation methods, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increase in the number of people who have changed their country for compulsory reasons due to the wars experienced worldwide. This raises the problem of identifying the regions where these people, called refugees, will live in the countries. In this regard, we determine in this paper where the camps established for refugees living in Istanbul should be located. The presence of many quantitative and qualitative factors which should be handled in determining the best location has enabled this problem to have multi-criteria decision-making structure. In addition, the advantage of fuzzy logic is used to convert the evaluations taken from experts into available numbers and to include them in decision-making process. For this purpose, a novel model with the integration of Pythagorean fuzzy AHP and Pythagorean fuzzy WASPAS methods is proposed for the first time in the literature, to select the best location for the refugee camp. In addition, a comparative analysis is applied to determine the validity of the results obtained and the sensitivity analysis is applied to check the robustness of the model. As a result, the most suitable location for a refugee camp in Istanbul is identified reasonably with the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 2000s, there has been a long-term price increase trend in the Istanbul housing market, and this situation also has led to price bubble speculations. Since the housing sector was caught with a high level of unsold housing stock to the economic slowdown emerging in the second half of 2018, housing price bubble speculations have increased even more, especially for the Istanbul market. In this period, housing loan interest reduction campaigns were implemented by the government through state banks to stimulate the housing demand, and a probable collapse in the housing market was prevented. On the other hand, house prices continued to rise during this period due to the stimulated demand. In this paper, we perform a price bubble research on the selected districts in the Istanbul housing market over the 2007–2019 period using LSTM autoencoder model. The first analysis on monthly data is performed by using housing price index, housing rent index, consumer prices index, stock market index, return on government debt securities, USD/TRY exchange rates, BIST price index, monthly deposit interest rates, mortgage interest rates and consumer confidence index, and the second analysis on quarterly data is carried out by adding building construction cost index and GDP data to the previous dataset. In the first analysis, the bubble formations differ regionally and periodically and disappeared toward the end of 2019 in some districts, while in the second analysis, the housing bubble formations have a more common and continuous appearance. Experimental results show that LSTM autoencoder model can be used to detect housing bubbles effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landslides are one of the devastating geohazards that cause extensive socio-economic and environmental damages on local, regional, and global scales. Previous studies based on digital media sources have attracted attention to the high fatal landslide rate in Turkey, at a continental or global scale; however, the preparation of a comprehensive and long-term database for Turkey has been neglected until today. To examine this data gap, we present a new database of fatal landslide events resulting in fatalities from 1929 to 2019, which has been compiled using Turkish national and local printed and digital media reports, academic papers, disaster, and city annual reports. The fatal database of Turkey (FATALDOT) shows that, in total, 1343 people were killed in 389 fatal landslide events. The spatiotemporal distribution of the fatal landslides highlighted increasing trends with reference to two distinct hotspot zones throughout the Eastern Black Sea and Marmara Region, mostly around Istanbul megacity. Our results show that there has been a significant uniformity between the number of fatalities and fatal landslides triggered by anthropogenic and natural factors over the past decade, indicating an increasing dominance of human activities in fatality rates. Our findings also, for the first time, remarked the potential signatures of the economic crisis and political steadiness on fatal landslide trends. Nevertheless, we conclude that the increasing rate of anthropogenic disturbances in urban and mountainous areas, together with regional variances in topography and climatic setting, is essential in governing the pattern of fatal landslides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new Istanbul Airport is being constructed over an old coal field area, 35 km away from the city center. The construction of a rail link between the city and the airport entails the excavation of tunnels in the areas of complex geology, creating several problems for tunnel construction. This paper summarizes the effect of different grades of weathering of an interbedded sandstone-mudstone-siltstone sequence and transition zones on the performance of an earth pressure balance tunnel boring machine (EPB-TBM) during this work. The variation of EPB pressure, TBM thrust, torque, penetration, and specific energy values were analyzed in different lithologies and weathering zones and with respect to the attitude of transition zones between different materials. Normalized thrust and torque values considered in respect of penetration rate and EPB pressure showed that the attitude of transition zone on TBM performance is strictly dependent on the position of each geologic formation in the respect to the other, inclined or horizontal. To be specific, in an inclined transition zone, the thrust and torque values were almost double compared to the values obtained in a horizontal transition zone in the same lithology. This was probably due to increased over-break in inclined transition zones, which created loose material that accumulated in front of the cutter head. However, further case studies would be required definitely to confirm this. Mean normalized thrust and torque values were almost half in moderately/highly weathered sandstone compared to fresh/slightly weathered sandstone. The highest mean penetration of 28 mm/rev and mean lowest specific energy of 2.4 kWh/m3 were obtained in transition zone between claystone with silty sand and highly weathered interbedded sandstone-mudstone-siltstone. Due to impact effects, increased disc consumption was experienced where passage was made from low strength due to high strength formations, with up to one disc per 115 m3 of excavated material in the transition zones included in the study. The relatively high production rates were achieved, which attributed to a combination of logging daily the face conditions accompanied by appropriate adjustments of soil conditioning agents (FIR-foam injection ratio and FER foam expansion ratio values) and anti-clogging agents to control the sticking behavior of the spoil. The impact of different ground conditions on EPB-TBM performance in different projects is also discussed in relation to the results obtained in this study. It is believed that this research will help to manage better mechanized tunneling activities in similar conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early twenty-first century, tall building construction has gained significant momentum in the urban cities of Turkey as a result of the population and economic growth. Accruing more than 1500 buildings by year 2015, the majority of the country's exposure now clusters across the seismically active landscape of the Istanbul metropolitan area. As such, the underlying earthquake risk calls for the investigation of the seismic performance of these structures. While hazard studies for Istanbul are available, the literature is still devoid of studies related to the seismic risk assessment of tall buildings located there. As an attempt to fill this gap, this paper focuses on the characterization and quantification of the existing exposure to allow risk assessment both at single building and portfolio levels. To this end, an extensive tall building inventory containing the structural drawings of 94 buildings is compiled and thoroughly examined to make a projection of the design practice. After establishing statistically representative archetypes, we quantified their dynamic response to 1999 Düzce and Kocaeli earthquake ground motions. We notice a maximum difference of 100% in the maximum interstory drift ratios (equaling a 2% increase in absolute value) between two different tall building archetypes. Moreover, the analysis results indicate that the incident angle of the applied ground-motion can be a discriminant factor between structural collapse and survival. The outcome of this study puts forward a robust basis for prospective structural analyses, collapse risk assessment as well as loss estimation analyses of tall buildings in Istanbul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper three historical masonry minarets in Istanbul, Turkey, are assessed for the dependency between the input harmonic motion and structural response parameters. Their heights are 40, 73 and 74 m, while the slenderness is 12, 6 and 12, respectively. The discrete element method is used in dynamic nonlinear analyses. Models were calibrated with measured natural frequencies. A series of sine-wave excitations is created for different frequency-amplitude pairs varying between 0.4 and 10 Hz, and between 0.1 and 1 m/s. From the results of dynamic simulations, a general trend was observed for masonry minarets. Especially, slenderness and wall thickness play an important role on their dynamic response and damage pattern. Dynamic behavior of these minarets cannot reliably be estimated by static non-linear analysis. Two engineering demand parameters (EDPs) are defined to characterize the displacement of the minaret top and the inter-ring shear displacements along the minaret body. Damage performance criteria for minarets are proposed based on four damage states and tentative limit values are given. We were able to identify the occurrence of those limit states as a function of frequency and amplitude of sinusoidal input motion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable urban transitions promise high mitigation and adaptation potential to address the effects of anthropogenic climate change. The two coastal megacities studied in this paper, Shanghai and Istanbul, have the potential for low-carbon urban transitions that can destabilize existing regimes. The destabilization is brought about by the disruptive business model innovations of the sharing economy in Shanghai's mobility sector and by the energy-efficient practices developed alongside the intensification of the building sector through the process of urban renewal in Istanbul. However, the emergence of such urban transitions through the actions of agents relies on the existence of enabling environments for regime destabilization. In a comparative case study of Shanghai and Istanbul, we assess the challenges of realizing regime destabilization opportunities through an enabling environment framework. We find that without adequate enabling environments for regime destabilization, urban transitions to sustainability may fail to achieve effective low-carbon action and make progress towards meeting the sustainable development goals. We also show that while deliberate and collective efforts are underway from multiple agents within and beyond the two megacities, the environments for regime destabilization in the building and transport sectors considered remain insufficient primarily due to conflicting priorities among key agents in the underlying urban systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green businesses based on economic, social and technological innovations are engines of green growth and climate change adaptation across the world. However, without proper interactive mechanisms with the city, green businesses are particularly vulnerable in today's fast-changing socio-economic and political urban contexts. Existing research on climate change adaptation and low-carbon transitions have not explained the crucial components and mechanisms involved in realising sustainable transformations through green businesses in cities. Synthesizing the latest green innovation and urban transformation literature, the paper analyses four distinctive urban green business cases: free-floating bike sharing in Shanghai (Mobike), a renewable energy cooperative in Girona (Som Energia), urban agriculture in Venice and green building start-ups in Istanbul. Based on a comparative analysis, we theorize a 3-Co model to explain the city-green-business transformation process consisting of: first, co-creation of sustainable values between green business and the respective society; second, co-evolution between the business ecosystem and the city's visions and policies; and third, co-governance of sustainable trade-offs during the business development and implementation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pollution, climate change, fast natural resource depletion, deforestation and global warming have become major worldwide problems relevant with the petroleum-based powered vehicles and alternatives for this conventional transportation type have been started to change in the last decade. In this modification process, electric vehicles (EVs) have a leading position due to their low damage effect to the environment. Selecting the most sustainable location for charging station for EVs plays an important role in the life cycle of them. This process needs to consider some conflicting criteria and has a complex decision problem that can be modeled as a multi-criteria decision-making problem. The inclusion of such criteria in a location selection requires the fuzzy sets to be used in the decision-making methodology. For this aim, intuitionistic fuzzy sets have been used in this paper. By the way, a decision-making procedure based on intuitionistic fuzzy sets and consists of the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory, analytic hierarchy process and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution has been suggested for the location selection of charge stations. The proposed fuzzy-based model is applied to a case study for Istanbul in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper represents a milestone in the UNB effort to formulate an accurate and self-consistent theory for regional geoid determination. To get the geoid to a sub-centimetre accuracy, we had to formulate the theory in a spherical rather than linear approximation, advance the modelling of the effect of topographic mass density, formulate the solid spherical Bouguer anomaly, develop the probabilistic downward continuation approach, incorporate improved satellite determined global gravitational models and introduce a whole host of smaller improvements. Having adopted Auvergne, an area in France as our testing ground, where the mean standard deviation of observed gravity values is 0.5 mGal, according to the Institute Geographique Nationale (Duquenne in Proceedings of the 1st international symposium of the international gravity field service "gravity field of the earth", International gravity field service meeting, Istanbul, Turkey, 2006), we obtained the standard deviation of the gravity anomalies continued downward to the geoid, as estimated by minimizing the L2 norm of their residuals, to be in average 3 times larger than those on the surface with large spikes underneath the highest topographic points. The standard deviations of resulting geoidal heights range from a few millimetres to just over 6 cm for the highest topographic points in the Alpine region (just short of 2000 m). The mean standard deviations of the geoidal heights for the whole region are only 0.6 cm, which should be considered quite reasonable even if one acknowledges that the area of Auvergne is mostly flat. As one should expect, the main contributing factors to these uncertainties are the Poisson probabilistic downward continuation process, with the maximum standard deviation just short of 6 cm (the average value of 2.5 mm) and the topographic density uncertainties, with the maximum value of 5.6 cm (the average value of 3.0 mm). The comparison of our geoidal heights with the testing geoidal heights, obtained for a set of 75 control points (regularly spaced throughout the region), shows the mean shift of 13 cm which is believed to reflect the displacement of the French vertical datum from the geoid due to sea surface topography. The mean root square error of the misfit is 3.3 cm. This misfit, when we consider the estimated accuracy of our geoid, indicates that the mean standard deviation of the "test geoid" is about 3 cm, which makes it about 5 times less accurate than the Stokes–Helmert computed geoid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to know the reliability of the correlations unconfined compressive strength (UCS) versus blow count of standard penetration test (SPT-N) available in the literature for foundation design of constructions. However, selection of best performed equation verified with local data always becomes a primary issue for the site of interest foundation constructed. Thus, this paper investigates the performances of some UCS versus SPT-N correlations for the applicability to fine-grained soils in an interested area. A novel ranking measure called ranking distance (RD) that accounts equal weighting to the accuracy and precision of estimation has been used for the performance assessment of the equations, in comparison with alternative measures. The RD index is a comprehensive ranking measure for performing the dependability of an empirical equation with regard to the accuracy and precision, using the ratios of estimated and measured UCS. Dependent upon the analysis results in the study, the performances of equations have been ranked high, moderate, low and unacceptable (the worst equations). The equations have also been categorized whether they influence more weighting to precise or accuracy, or equal accuracy and precise during the estimations of UCS. From the results, it is concluded that the best performed estimation based on the RD is proposed by the equation of low plastic clay (Sivrikaya and Togrol, in: 5th international congress on advances in civil engineering, Istanbul, Turkey, pp 943–952, 2002; Eng Geol 86:52–69, 2006). Consequently, the study has successfully demonstrated the use of RD for assessing the best equation by confirming its results with the alternative methodologies compared. This could be beneficial for the experimenters in practice to attempt the validations of different empirical equations with different parameter through a good ranking procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquakes trigger other earthquakes and build up clusters in space and time that in turn create a bias in seismic catalogues. Therefore, declustering is considered as a prerequisite in seismic studies, particularly for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, not only to eliminate the bias but also to decouple mainshocks and triggered events. However, a declustering process is not a straightforward task due to the complex nature of earthquake phenomena. There exist several declustering methods that mostly employ subjective rules to distinguish between background seismicity and offsprings. Eventually, the final declustered catalogues usually deviate significantly according to the employed method. This issue is raising some concerns, such as how to select the most suitable declustering algorithm, or to assess how this selection affects seismic hazard assessment. In consequence, the main goal of this paper is to quantify the sensitivity of seismic hazard assessments to different declustering techniques. Accordingly, the recently compiled Turkish earthquake catalogue was declustered by making use of three declustering algorithms. A total of six declustered catalogues, two catalogues per method, one by implementing the default input parameters, and one by altering the free input parameters of the employed methods, were produced. The clusters of selected earthquakes were studied in terms of the spatial-temporal distribution of earthquake sequences. A sensitivity analysis was conducted through the major steps of seismic hazard assessment for Istanbul metropolitan city. The seismicity of Istanbul and surroundings was modeled on the basis of four areal source zones. Comparative studies showed that, while the selected declustering algorithm did not significantly affect the completeness periods of moderate to large size earthquakes, it considerably altered those of small magnitude events (e.g. Mw 4.3-5.2) and consequently the recurrence parameters of the source zones. Depending on the declustering algorithm and input parameters, the activity rate was observed to vary up to a factor of two. The differences in the declustered catalogues obtained from different declustering approaches resulted in considerable variations in seismic hazard estimations. The hazard maps at return periods of 475 and 2475 years indicated that peak ground acceleration values may vary up to 20% at some locations. Moreover, the differences in 5% damped elastic spectral accelerations at T = 0.2 for the return periods of 475 and 2475 years are about 18 and 12%, respectively, on the southern shores of Istanbul where the highest hazard levels are observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an approach proposed for assessing economic performance of retrofit applications performed at functional building element level in residential buildings and exemplifies it for the city of Istanbul, which has a temperate-humid climate. This approach covers three steps. In the first step, typical buildings and their properties are determined by analysing the residential buildings in Istanbul, and then the retrofit alternatives are generated. In the second step, an economic impact analysis is performed for typical buildings by considering the costs during their life cycle phases. In the third step, a life cycle cost assessment is done according to the variables, which are defined as window-to-wall ratio (WWR), window system, thermal insulation material, orientation and building age. The most beneficial retrofits are lastly determined depending on their economic performance ratios (EPRs). In conclusion, insulating exterior wall, projected floors, floors above unheated space and roof floors separately provide the highest benefits at the age of 30, and the lowest benefits occur at the age of 15 for all WWRs. The highest EPRs are obtained for the WWR of 10% at all ages. The renewal with PVC frame provides benefit while the renewal with wooden frame causes losses. Orientation slightly affects the EPRs. The use of stone wool in the retrofit causes a reduction in the EPRs due to high investment cost of stone wool. When the 20-year-old building which has the WWR of 10% is insulated with extruded polystyrene and renewed with PVC, it provides the highest benefit of about 45%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residents' perception of cultural activities is an important aspect of quality of life. This paper explores the association between the residents' perception of quality of life and their attendance in cultural activities. Firstly, we investigate the effect of the spatial distribution of existing cultural facilities on the level of attendance to cultural activities, and secondly, explore the relationship between the people's socio-economic structure and their level of attendance to culture related activities. A dataset of 1,635 dwelling units was selected through a systematic random sampling method for face-to-face interviews. Using surface modeling technique, a close relationship between the socio-economic structure and attendance to culture related activities was observed and the results show a need for a balanced spatial distribution of cultural facilities in the city. In addition, attendance to culture related activities should be increased and be more widespread through a balanced distribution of accessible activity nodes. This may help to improve the quality of life in Istanbul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social integration is the harmonious and coherent processing of the structures of a social system and refers to the degree to which people are integrated to the systems of a social structure. Although social integration issue is often considered on a regional scale and especially in association with the migration literature, it is also associated with urban dynamics. Especially in metropolitan cities, it is a process that shapes the opportunities and resources of urban life, such as socio-cultural life, the built environment and urban services. This paper aims to analyze the spatial differentiation of the interactive dimension of social integration in the case of Istanbul. It describes different forms and levels of social relations of the residents of Istanbul while also depicting the interaction between social integration and location, particularly in terms of residential area characteristics. With this aim, different types of social relations are analyzed using statistical and spatial analysis methods. The results of the study indicate that different social groups which are integrated into the macro structures of the society with different degrees produce different forms of social relations and they also live in residential areas which differ with their environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]