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Abstract: This study was designed to apply cleaner production concepts in a Turkish pulp and paper mill, for the first time in Turkey, to introduce the concept as well as to provide a framework for future initiatives. To achieve this objective a comprehensive waste reduction audit was conducted at SEKA Balikesir pulp and paper mill. First, audit schemes from different sources were examined and compiled that resulted in the methodology employed in this work. The audit covered water emissions and water usage. Then, the collected data were compared with international environmental performance indicators from other companies in the USA, Canada, Australia, and Europe. This comparison provided specific opportunities for improvement at different processes in the mill. For each viable opportunity, different waste reduction measures were analyzed and determined. Furthermore, the benefits of the identified waste reduction options were analyzed for increasing production efficiency and achieving target raw effluent pollution loads from the mill. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Turkish electricity market law (EML) came into force in 2001 aiming at establishing a financially strong, stable, transparent and competitive electricity market based on bilateral contracts. Also, a balancing and settlement system (BSS) was put into practice in November 2004 to create a market where uncontracted generation can be traded, and actual implementation of the BSS started on August, 1st 2006 following a 21-month virtual implementation period. However, BSS has always been criticized from its beginning as transferring excessive profits to private generation companies. The present paper analyzes the implementation of BSS and argues that current BSS not only undermines the healthy development of the electricity market in Turkey but also prevents power investments due to uncertainties it created. It concludes that since the inconsistency between the objectives of EML and results of BSS in practice is obvious, Turkish policy makers need to modify current electricity market policy in line with suggestions presented in the paper. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper proposes a new family of estimators for population mean with a non-response using a simple random sampling. It specifically applies this method to estimate the mean in Turkey's Education sector data sets, accounting for non-response. The study integrates additional information in the form of mean and cdf of the auxiliary variable which is highly positively correlated with the study variable to develop a general class of estimators tailored for the non-response using a simple random sampling scheme. Through numerical research, the characteristics of these estimators – namely, their biases and mean square errors – have been carefully investigated and deeply evaluated. The basic estimator of a population mean is under-performed by the suggested estimators. The empirical investigation validates the results, demonstrating the improved relative efficiency of the proposed estimator over the existing estimators, as demonstrated by theoretical and numerical comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) is a common oral mucosal disease. Despite a variety of scientific articles have been available till date, merely a few scientometric analyses have been systematically carried out in this field. The objective of this study was to recognize the hotspots and research trends related to RAS via bibliometric approach. The Elsevier's Scopus database was searched to retrieve qualified literature through an advanced search strategy on 9 Feb 2023. The basic information was collected as following: article type, publication year, journals, impact factor, the count of citations, citation density, keywords, authors, contributing institutions and country. A list of 986 publications were identified from 1933 to 2022, and the number of citations for each paper varied from 0 to 283. A steady increasing trend in the number of documents could be observed each decade with the summit in 2010s. Controlled study (n = 334) and major clinical study (n = 192) were the most common types of study design. Scully C (n = 26) was identified as the most productive author. United States (n = 166) and Turkey (n = 101) top the list of dedicating countries. This report would offer profound insight into the current status of RAS research and serve as a reference source for anyone planning to enhance the quality of future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southeastern Turkey perished by the M w 7.8, Kahramanmaras earthquake on February 6, 2023, at 01:17 UT (04:17 LT). The Kahramanmaras-centered event, hit by the break of the East Anatolian Fault Line, is felt in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, and Cyprus on the border of Turkey. Together with Syria, it causes loss of lives and severe damage in 10 cities. This work is dedicated to the people of the region. The study discusses the causality of anomalies by conducting ionospheric anomaly research via the interpolated TEC map obtained from the CODE according to the coordinates of the epicenter of the earthquake (latitude, longitude). The TEC amplitudes are observed by evolving the time-domain TEC map into the frequency-domain with the Fourier transform. The peaks of the amplitudes allow preliminary information for the anomaly days. For the anomaly, the TEC (TECU) boundaries are drawn by the statistical specification. The TEC map outside these boundaries is marked as an anomaly. The causality of abnormalities is tried to be read through the triad of the geomagnetic storm(s) , solar activity , and the earthquake effect. One can find seven anomaly days in the paper. January 30, February 2, 3, 11, 15, 16, and 21 are the anomaly days. The essay probably detects the anomaly before 3 days related to the Southeastern earthquake. • Reads the causality of the earthquake in southeast Turkey (Mw 7.8), through the ionosphere-earth crust relationship. • Notices potential anomalies by presenting the time-domain TEC atlas in the frequency domain with Fourier spectral analysis. • Considering all possible TEC anomaly essentials detect the precursors of the earthquake 3 days before the event day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Turkey, the transportation industry's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increased by 147.1% between 1990 and 2019. Today, this transportation industry (i.e., freight and passenger) is among the significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in Turkey's megacities. Moreover, 65.43% of short-distance trips between home to work and home to school have been made by private automobiles in Istanbul and increasing concerns about environmental pollution have led practitioners to seek practical, robust, and effective solutions to reduce GHG emissions. Shared electric scooters have rapidly become popular for end-users and practitioners in megacities, depending on their valuable advantages. However, the rapid spread of micro-mobility, characterized by e-scooters, has also raised questions about this system's sustainability, suitability, and applicability. Thus, there are some critical and noteworthy gaps in this issue. This study investigates the factors affecting the suitable e-scooter selection for a sustainable urban transport system. Besides, it aims to develop a methodological framework for assessing the available e-scooter alternatives. For this purpose, a novel negotiation approach, a new form of the Delphi technique, was developed with the help of Fermatean fuzzy sets to identify the influential criteria. Also, the current paper presents a consensus-based MULTIMOORA (Multiple Objective Optimization on the basis of Ratio Analysis plus Full Multiplicative Form) decision-making model based on Fermatean fuzzy sets to address the appraisal problem concerning e-scooter selection. The current paper indicated that economic measures such as acquisition price and upkeep costs affect the e-scooter selection processes. In addition, an optimization model based on cross-entropy and dispersion measures is utilized to compute criteria weights. It highlighted that the costs of e-scooters are still high, and operators consider these criteria instead of the technical and operational features of the e-scooters. Finally, the validity check executed to test the robustness and trustworthiness of the model affirms the model's firmness and trustworthiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing knowledge-based and usable climate change policies requires establishing science-policy interfaces through which knowledge producers and policymakers cooperate. Current research reveals that co-production-based interfaces dominated neither by knowledge producers nor policymakers succeed in facilitating the transformation of knowledge into politics. From this point of view, this paper explores how Izmir Development Agency (IZKA), a regional development agency in Turkey, utilizes scientific knowledge and science-policy interfaces in its activities on climate change. Based on the analysis of agency documents and semi-structured interviews with experts from and outside IZKA, the findings indicate that IZKA thrives in integrating scientific knowledge on climate change in its activities drawing from multi-stakeholder and multi-level science-policy interfaces that have significant similarities with the co-production model. In these interfaces, international, national, regional, and local stakeholders share their resources, knowledge, and experience on climate change. Although legal, geographical, and demographic conditions also have an impact, the main reason behind IZKA's success is the agency's climate-focused vision that shapes decisions, strategies, organizational structure, and activities. In parallel to the indicated finding, this paper also discloses that the perspective of not prioritizing climate change and considering the potential benefits as only "co-benefit" does not yield results with the desired efficiency. Another finding is that even though the national government is the main actor on climate in Turkey, development agencies are capable of carrying out transformative activities in their regions, albeit limited. • Effective climate policies necessitate multi-stakeholder and multi-level science-policy interfaces. • The concept of "co-production" provides a useful theoretical framework for science-policy interaction. • To improve science-policy interfaces, barriers and facilitators must be well identified. • Climate change should be integrated into the local policy agenda as "the main focus", not as "a co-benefit". • Although Turkey has a centralized political system, local and regional actors can also be influential in climate policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to explore the success factors and barriers to digital co-creation between Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). The analysis is based on a qualitative approach, and particularly 80 semi-structured interviews with experts in digital co-creation from HEIs and NGOs from Poland, Germany, Turkey and Italy. The article identifies key success factors, including country's level of digitalization, individual's motivation to engage with digital platforms and methods, common goals, attitudes, and expectations. The study also highlights several barriers to successful digital co-creation, including variety of digital platforms, interpersonal connection, disengagement, and decreased attention spans. Among the success factors and barriers both external and internal factors were identified, all comprising a network of driving fosters and limitations to digital co-creation. Main of them include country's level of digitalization, motivation to engage with digital technology, digital literacy, incentives for engagement, shared goals and mutual understanding, variety of digital platforms, fear from losing interpersonal interactions, disengagement, and decreased attention span. The findings of this study will be of interest to HEIs, NGOs, policymakers, and other stakeholders involved in digital co-creation initiatives, providing insights on how to overcome barriers and optimize success factors to achieve effective and sustainable partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional method to authenticate users on mobile devices or applications requires usernames and passwords. This approach authenticates the user only at the entry point of an application without providing continuous authentication during the whole session. This paper explores the use of behavioral biometrics, which involves tracking the unique movements of a user while interacting with a device, for continuous authentication on a mobile banking application. As a methodology, we use binary classification and explore the performance of deep learning algorithms. A dataset is collected from 45 participants using a mobile banking application in Turkey. We train four different types of deep architectures, including Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), LSTM, bi-directional LSTM, and convolutional LSTM. The dataset includes data from both touch screens and motion sensors. The results of the experiments reveal that MLP and the convolutional-LSTM algorithms achieve the best performance on raw data from both motion sensors and touch screens. Accuracy rates are over 99.85%, and FAR, FRR, and EER are below 0.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• SEEA ecosystem accounts help to identify the role of forests in economy, but there have been limited tests so far. • We apply the SEEA EA to quantify hydrological ecosystem services provided by forests. • We develop SEEA ecosystem supply and use accounts for groundwater recharge, flood control and sediment control services. • The average total value of the three ecological services is about 201 million €/year (2001–2020) in the Southern Aegean Region of Turkey. • The methodology developed in this paper potentially has wide applications in sustainable regional development. This study aims to model hydrological ecosystem services provided by forests and explore how they can be captured in an ecosystem accounting framework. We test a dynamic GIS-based hydrological model to quantify and map key hydrological ecosystem services in the Southern Aegean Region of Turkey and integrate the services into an ecosystem account following the System of Environmental Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA). We map and account for services in physical and monetary terms, using an innovative model to quantify flood control services. Our paper connects forest management with water resource supply, eliciting the hydrological role of forests. The combined value of the three ecological services (groundwater recharge, flood control and sediment control) is about 201 million €/year. Reduction in forest coverage means that the economy will face the consequences of losses of these critical regulating services. Finally, we discuss opportunities, challenges, and limitations in the practical application of the ecosystem accounting concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile broadband (MBB) services are rapidly growing, causing a massive increase in mobile data traffic growth. This surge in data traffic is due to several factors (such as the massive increase of subscribers, mobile applications, etc.) which have led to the need for more bandwidth. Mobile service providers are constantly improving their network efficiency by upgrading current networks and investing in newer mobile network generations. However, these improvements will not be enough to accommodate the future spectrum demands. This paper proposes a time series forecasting model to analyze future spectrum demands based on the spectrum efficiency growth of MBB networks. This model depends on two key input data: the average spectrum efficiency per site and the number of sites per technology. The model is used to predict the spectrum efficiency growth of three countries (Turkey, Malaysia, and Oman) from 2015 to 2025. The proposed model is compared with various traditional statistical models such as the Moving Average (MA), Auto-Regression (AR), Autoregressive–Moving-Average (ARMA), and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA). The forecasted results indicate that the average spectrum efficiency and growth will continue to rise multiple times by 2025 compared to 2015. The data from this prediction model can be used as input data to forecast the required spectrum needed in future for any specific country. This study further contributes to the network planning of future mobile networks for Fifth Generation (5G) and Sixth Generation (6G) technology. The proposed model obtains higher accuracy (by 90%) compared to other models. The proposed model is also applicable to any country, especially when new wireless communication technologies emerge in future. It is customizable and scalable since spectrum regulators can add additional metrics that positively contribute towards accurately estimating future spectrum efficiency growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) has recently attracted significant interest in building timber or hybrid structures owing to the rapidly growing demand for low-carbon construction materials with excellent mechanical properties. To investigate the seismic performance of CLT structures adopting novel dissipative angle brackets and hold-downs with soft-steel and rubber (i.e., SRD-ABs and SRD-HDs), a series of shaking table tests were performed on two full-scale specimens, i.e., a benchmark specimen (Specimen Ⅰ) and a specimen with a multi-doorway at the ground (Specimen Ⅱ). Several representative ground motions, including the Turkey wave, El Centro wave, Wenchuan wave, and Shanghai artificial wave, were selected as excitations, whose peak acceleration increased gradually from 0.035 g to 0.80 g. The damage patterns of the structures were revealed, and the dynamic characteristics and responses were obtained and analyzed. The results show that the fundamental frequencies of Specimen Ⅰ and Specimen Ⅱ were 4.125 Hz and 3.625 Hz, respectively. The mode shapes of each specimen remained similar before tests with peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.51 g, with only a slight decrease of approximately 5 % in the fundamental frequency, indicating that the specimens only suffered minor damage because of the great energy-dissipating capacity of the SRD-ABs and SRD-HDs. After experiencing tests with PGA of 0.80 g, the specimen exhibited a maximum inter-story drift of 1/60 with a structural damping ratio of 13 %, and the damage was mainly exhibited at the SRD-ABs and SRD-HDs, which realized the performance objective of replaceability of dissipative connections and repairability of structures under the 9-degree rare earthquakes. Furthermore, non-linear numerical models were developed to duplicate the dynamic characteristics and responses of the test specimen, and the analytical results from the models show satisfactory agreement with the test results. Overall, the outcomes of this paper can provide valuable references for future research and applications of CLT structures with the SRD-ABs and SRD-HDs. • Full-scale shaking table tests on two CLT structures with novel dissipative connections. • Damage patterns, dynamic characteristics and responses were obtained and analyzed. • A non-linear numerical model was developed to duplicate the seismic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to evaluate the failure probability of buried pipelines under pulse-like ground motions based on the seismic records detected during the Kahramanmaraş earthquake in Turkey. The incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) method was used to evaluate the vulnerability of continuous and segmented steel pipes, taking into account the corrosion effect in alkaline and near-neutral soil environments. The results show that pulse-like ground motion can significantly impact the fragility of buried pipelines, particularly segment steel pipelines. Moreover, the failure probability of buried pipelines tends to increase with service age, although the rate of failure gradually decreases. Empirical models notably underestimate the failure probability of buried pipelines under pulse-like ground motion, so they should be used cautiously in engineering application. These insights contribute to advancing our understanding of the seismic fragility of buried pipelines. • Studied the influence of pulse-like ground motion form the Kahramanmaraş earthquake on buried pipelines failure probability. • Considered seismic fragility and failure probability of buried pipelines based on geological environments and pipeline type. • Revealed experiential model underestimates failure probability of buried pipelines under pulsating seismic motion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Facial reconstruction is the approximation of an antemortem face from human skeletal remains. Since the nineteenth century, several methods have been developed for reconstruction of the face; all of them require the measurement of average tissue thicknesses at various points on the face. To our knowledge, there are no publications on soft tissue thickness in the Turkish population. In addition, there are few publications on the value of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in measuring soft tissue thickness for forensic sciences. The aim of this study was to create a reference database of facial tissue thickness in the Turkish population, and to present data illustrating the successful use of MRI for this purpose. The study included 161 patients (79 males and 82 females) between the ages of 18 and 78 who had undergone brain MRI in our radiology clinic, and showed no sign of maxillofacial pathology. Measurements were taken at 9 points at the midline; glabella, nasion, end of nasals, mid-philtrum, upper lip margin, lower lip margin, chin-lip fold, mental eminence, and beneath chin points. The mean values for these points in the patient sample population were determined, and differences related to age, sex, and body mass index (BMI) were calculated. The values were then compared to the findings of the Manhein study. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• 54 regolith simulants by 10 countries are presented in one list for the first time. • TBG-1 is a recent lunar soil simulant by Turkey with soils from 9 volcanic areas. • Using 3D printing in lunar construction materials can to transform ISRU capabilities. • Sintered simulants used as building blocks have promising compressive strengths. • Investigation results may vary greatly according to the simulants' characteristics. One of the hot subjects in space civil engineering is the research for establishing outposts on space bodies, starting with the Moon. This wide research topic mainly covers learning about ground conditions and soils of these extraterrestrial bodies, looking for means of using the soil in producing construction materials, designing structures appropriate for local conditions, and finally choosing construction techniques to be applied using mainly these materials. In this paper, as the title indicates, an overview is presented on three aspects of using local materials in lunar construction activities: nature of in-situ soils obtained with lunar missions, the variety of lunar soil simulants produced on Earth, and their use in producing lunar construction materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EFQM Excellence Model was introduced in 1990s as a framework for assessing applications for The UK Excellence Award and it is the most widely-used Business Excellence Framework in Europe, with over 30,000 businesses using the Excellence Model to improve performance and increase their bottom-line. EFQM model focuses on the continuous development idea that all sectors can benefit from. EFQM model enables a company to highlight and develop its strengths in nine main areas for further development. In this study, nine of only 2 areas 1) process and 2) customer areas that are considered to be more effective on companies' performance will be evaluated regarding a construction company in Turkey. As mentioned, this paper puts EFQM model into practice on a construction company. It is a functional company with an unstable environment. The company has a variable environmental circumstances all over Turkey due to its various construction areas in different cities; and the central office is in Ankara. The aim of this paper is to improve the quality of construction organizations by applying the EFQM excellence model and to show how EFQM model can be applied to advance companies. Furthermore, the paper provides analysis of current quality management trends on construction sector, and describes EFQM model structure to contribute the development of construction companies. This practice allows in a little while to appraise company quality management level and to describe opportunities for constant quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a quality development methodology which demonstrates right customer needs into technical solutions. The purpose of QFD methodology in this paper provides to connect customer requirements and technical characteristics in the textile-production industry. This method supports to define the customer and market-business expectations by a group of tools-house of quality and combine the expectations of the consumer to the existent system from the start of its design. This study aims to present an overview of this method, and also usage of QFD and Pareto Analysis with an application. This paper focuses on the application of these methods about the assessment of the sustainability of the lifecycle of Textile products in Textile Companies of Turkey. The results of this study are assessed on the framework of quality, robust and environment-oriented production such as green production. The study highlights an initial perception towards the development of the quality management for further investigation and scientific research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of trends in drought variables at 29 stations across the Euphrates-Tigris Basin over the period 1965–2022. Drought variables were calculated using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) for 1-, 3-, 6- and 12-month scales. The drought values have been decomposed for these time scales through application of Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). The components are defined as short, medium and long periodicities. DWT-based trend analysis was computed using Mann-Kendall (MK) and Innovative Trend Analysis (ITA) methods. As the time scale and the periodicity of drought increase, a strong increase in drought occurs. It was revealed that drought increased significantly at all time scales in almost all stations, especially in the long periodicity, according to both MK and ITA. The droughts and the serious increasing trend of droughts in this basin constitute a significant threat to water resources. • Drought in the largest basin of Turkey, the Euphrates-Tigris Basin, was scrutinized through an assessment of the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI). • Short, medium, and long periodicities acquired by decomposing Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) time series have been introduced. • The trends of SPI time series and short, medium and long periodicity series were analysed by MK and ITA tests. • The most severe droughts began after 2020 throughout the basin and the drought intensified significantly during the long periodicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of social networks is ever-increasing. Many available scientific publications evidence the interest of researchers in this area. Within a time span of eight years from 2011 to 2018, approximately 2600, 230, 150, and 110 scientific articles were published from the USA, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, respectively around this area of research. To comprehensively survey all the sub-fields and interests within this research area, the present paper proposes a novel density-based method for finding topic descriptors from academic articles. By employing a robust to noise fuzzy clustering algorithm, the terms are clustered, and by utilizing a modified Parzen window, k topic descriptors from each cluster are extracted. Besides, an optimization problem has been designed to detect the similarity between word pairs. By conducting the experiments, the research priorities for four countries within this time span have been found. Moreover, the closeness of the research in developing countries to the developed country have been measured. The experimental results show that for four years, the research topics in Turkey were close to the research topics in the USA on average, and the research topics in Saudi Arabia were close to the USA topics during the past two years. Additionally, the experimental comparison of the proposed method with two clustering baselines indicates the superiority of the proposed method in terms of precision, recall, and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naturally occurring volcanic glassy rocks, obsidians, are widely used for medical tools and have great interests in alternative medicine, auxiliary therapy, spa, cosmetics and jewellery fields. In this paper, we studied the spectroscopic and radiation shielding properties of obsidian samples collected from four main volcanic regions, named as Nemrut Mountain, Erzurum-Pasinler, Kars-Sarıkamış and Rize-Ikizdere, eastern Turkey. In this regard, important and effective spectroscopic techniques; Electron paramagnetic resonance, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectrometry, Raman spectroscopy, Energy dispersive spectroscopy and Scanning electron microscopy were used to give information about structural, magnetic and morphological features of the obsidians. Additionaly, radiation shielding potentials of the obsidians were evaluated by determination of mass attenuation coefficients, effective atomic numbers, and buildup factors. Recently developed EpiXS code was used for obtaining radiation shielding parameters. It is concluded that the studied obsidians can be considered as radiation shielding materials. By this comprehensive study, both spectroscopic and shielding properties of obsidian samples from different volcanic regions in Turkey are presented and compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This is the first report on phenolics and biological activity of C. oppositifolia and S. cilicius. • The plant extracts possessed significant antioxidant and enzyme inhibitory activity. • Kaempferol and quercetin were identified as major flavonoids in the extracts. • Protocatechuic acid and gallic acid were identified as major phenolic acids in the extracts. • The plant extracts could be potential sources of bioactive molecules. In the paper, the phenolic compounds and biological activity of Corydalis oppositifolia DC. and Senecio cilicius Boiss., the endemic plants growing in Turkey, were investigated for the first time. The ethanol extract of C. oppositifolia exhibited more potent antimicrobial activity while the ethanol extract of S. cilicius exhibited the highest radical scavenging activity on ABTS (81.4±1.1a mg TE g−1 extract) and DPPH (23.4±0.2a mg TE g−1 extract). In C. oppositifolia , the highest total flavonoid and phenolic acid contents were found to be in the ethanol (94.2±3.5a mg QE g−1 extract) and methanol (320.5±3.3c mg GAE g−1 extract) extracts, respectively. In S. cilicius , the highest total flavonoid and phenolic acid contents were found to be in the methanol (56.9±0.9c mg QE g−1 extract) and ethanol (568.0±3.3a mg GAE g−1 extract) extracts, respectively. The ethanol extract of C. oppositifolia has the most prominent activity against α-amylase, AChE and BChE whereas the methanol extract of this plant displayed the highest inhibitory activity against α-glucosidase. HPLC analysis of the ethanol extracts revealed that the major flavonoids were kaempferol and quercetin whereas the major phenolic acids were protocatechuic acid, gallic acid, gentistic acid and 2,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid. The findings suggested that the plants and their extracts have the potential to be used in the treatment of diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer's diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring large infrastructures is vital for determining structural safety over time. Dams are structures that influence agricultural activities and have high economic contributions. The dams' structural safety was mainly addressed using conventional measurement techniques. However, these might not be time-efficient and practical, considering the large surfaces of dams. This paper presents a long-term InSAR analysis of the Atatürk Dam, Turkey's largest and one of the five biggest dams in Europe using ERS, ENVISAT, and Sentinel-1 satellites images. Since only Sentinel-1 data have acquisitions in ascending and descending orbits, we could estimate surface movements also in the vertical and east-west directions using both lines of sight (LOS) displacements. The results showed that the east-west movement is higher than vertical movement. As a result, we observe a maximum of 10 mm/yr displacement in the LOS direction at the dam's crest for period of 2003 and 2010, decreasing down the slope. • The stability of the biggest dam of Turkey was monitored by InSAR technique. • Long term displacement at Ataturk Dam was determined. • The highest deformation was extracted at the crest of the dam. • The dam shows slow displacement after 28 years of its construction. • The total deformation in 28 years is up to 11 cm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistics on occupational accidents published by international organizations show that mobile cranes are the riskiest heavy equipment among all crane types. The most significant reason for these crane accidents is the decision-makers' wrong selection of mobile cranes. Making misevaluations and selecting improper mobile cranes can cause many problems besides mobile crane accidents. In addition, selecting a mobile crane is a highly complicated decision-making problem, as there are many conflicting criteria and uncertainties. Besides, no commonly accepted criteria set is used to solve this decision-making problem in the literature. The current paper proposes the fuzzy BWM (Best and Worst Method) and fuzzy MARCOS (Measurement of Alternatives and Ranking according to COmpromise Solution) combination as a robust and practical decision-making tool that can overcome many complicated ambiguities. The suggested model has been applied to solve a mobile crane selection problem encountered by a large-scale project logistics and heavy transport company in Turkey. The acquired outcomes demonstrated that technical criteria are more influential than economic and quality criteria. The criterion "Maximum hoist height" in the technical criteria group is the most influential factor in selecting the best mobile crane option. In addition, the A1 Brand-L. 4.2 is the most appropriate alternative to meet the company's requirements. Finally, a comprehensive sensitivity analysis performed to test the validity and applicability of the model approves the robustness of the model. • The current paper presents the fuzzy BWM and MARCOS approach to mobile crane selection. • The proposed model is applied to solve mobile crane selection problems, which are highly complex and include uncertainties. • It has identified the set of selection criteria for mobile cranes for the first time. • It presents a flexible decision-making approach, which is proper for real decision-making problems. • It demonstrates interrelations among factors for making it more understandable in complex situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the electricity demands of some Fortune 500 companies in Türkiye have been forecasted by using deep learning techniques. This is a quite harder problem than the forecasting of the aggregated electricity demand in which the negative and positive fluctuations are absorbed on paper. Forecasting of firm-level electricity demand is an important problem since it can help automating firms' routine forecasting operations, reducing the electricity supply costs of the firms by improving the quality of the forecasts, and improving the quality of the electricity on the transmission network. Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) techniques have been preferred concerning the successful results in the literature. As the originality of this paper, the Multiple Seasonal-Trend Decomposition using Loess (MSTL) technique is used for the electricity demand forecasting problem for the first time. The obtained results showed that although it is simple to implement, MSTL outperforms MLP and LSTM for most of the firms operating in mass production form. It is seen that the complexity of the model does not always guarantee good results and simple methods sometimes can work well. Load balancing studies are also very important for the economic sustainability of the industry since the electricity price and imbalance penalty have extremely increased (i.e., 8 times in Türkiye) during the post-pandemic period. Therefore, the energy cost reduction potential of the companies has also been assessed. This study resulted in cost savings of approximately 378 minimum wages for the pilot company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monoculture farming pollutes the environment by increasing the use of inputs, accelerating soil erosion, polluting water resources, raising carbon level in the atmosphere, and decreasing biodiversity. Therefore, farmers are advised to implement diversified farming systems such as crop rotation. However, crop rotation, i.e., planting more than one crop in the same field over a given year, may also harm the environment. To combat the environmental problems of monoculture, Turkey announced to implement a new crop rotation policy in 2020. The government said it would not provide support payments if farmers planted the same crop in the same plot for three consecutive years. This paper estimates the impact of this crop rotation policy on monoculture and shows how agricultural fires changed with this policy. We find that Turkey's crop rotation policy significantly decreased monoculture practices. Farmers decreased their cotton acreages and replaced cotton with wheat as the primary and corn as the secondary crop. However, since farmers burn their fields after the primary crop is harvested, the number of fires tripled after the policy. This environmentally friendly policy unexpectedly polluted the environment. Our paper shows how policies may create unintended environmental problems if they do not consider farmers' behavioral constraints. • This paper estimates the impact of a crop rotation policy on monoculture and the number of fires in Turkey. • We find that the crop rotation policy significantly decreased monoculture farming. • Farmers decreased their cotton acreages and replaced cotton with wheat as the primary and corn as the secondary crop. • Since farmers burn their fields after the primary crop is harvested to plant the secondary crop, the number of fires tripled with the policy change. • Consequently, an environmentally friendly policy unexpectedly polluted the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water in all of its forms takes part nearly in all meteorological activities. Therefore, in climate and atmospheric studies, water vapor plays a central role. Precipitable Water Vapor (PWV) is hard to obtain since its distribution in the troposphere is heterogeneous and anisotropic. Radiosonde observations provide data for mapping the PWV for local to regional scale at low spatial and temporal resolution. Global Positioning System (GPS) provides an alternative option for gathering high temporal and spatial resolution PWV data. In this paper, seasonal PWV variations are studied. Data from six Turkish radiosonde stations were used to validate the performance of GPS estimated PWV. The computed root mean square error (RMSE) of PWV differences between GPS and radiosonde stations is about 1.40–1.82 mm. After assessing the performance of GPS estimated PWV, trends and seasonal variations are computed from a decade worth of 90 GPS stations in Turkey (Jan. 2010–Dec. 2019). These trends at GPS stations were validated using the Mann-Kendall trend test. The test suggests that the trends are statistically significant for all the stations. It has been found that the distinct seasonal cycles are in summer with a maximum water vapor and in winter with a minimum water vapor. The higher amplitudes are located in higher latitudes and lower latitudes (9–15 ± 0.1 mm), and at middle latitudes, amplitudes are considerably lower with 5–7 ± 0.1 mm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geocast routing aims the transmission of a message to a community of vehicles in the same geographical area. The GPS information of vehicles, especially taxis, in a city gives reliable information about the traffic pattern of a city. With the help of this information smart models can be created to use when making routing decisions. In this paper, a smart geocasting protocol, GeoAKOM, is introduced and implemented by using the GPS data of taxis in Bursa city, Turkey. In GeoAKOM, the mobility pattern of city is analized in two levels as in GeoMobCon introduced earlier. In the macroscopic level analysis, the city is segmented into clusters using k-means clustering and optimal paths for a message is generated using these clusters. In the microscopic level, mobility based likelihood value is used to make routing decision. The message is transmitted if the encountered vehicle has a larger mobility based likelihood or contact history based likelihood value than the carrying vehicle as in GeoMobCon. Moreover, in GeoAKOM, the next cluster of a vehicle is predicted with the help of all k-order Markov model (AKOM) by using GPS records of all vehicles. Mobility based likelihood calculations are performed by using this prediction. With these features, GeoAKOM provides a robust solution for the vehicles which do not have large GPS record history and which are relatively new in the system. Simulations on real world taxi GPS data are compared for various number of clusters in terms of delivery ratio, average delay, and hop count by using the ONE simulator. Simulation results show that, GeoAKOM provides promising results when compared with GeoMobCon and the First Contact routing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The waste management subject is a very important issue today and in the future. Therefore, lots of scholars are endeavoring to investigate the valorization of wastes from different sources, such as paper, metal, glass, and vegetables. In this study, the pistachio soft and hard shells, as an industrial waste material, were used as natural dye sources. For this purpose, waste were collected from Gaziantep province in the south of Türkiye. Then, the soft and hard pistachio shells that had been dried in the shadow were investigated in terms of FTIR analysis and then used as a dyestuff source in the dyeing of cotton fabrics with the help of bio-mordants and metal mordants. Additionally, the antioxidant capacity of the soft and hard shell of pistachio was assessed through the DPPH and FRAP assay methods, and the antibacterial activities were tested against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli for selected dyed samples. A spectrophotometer was used to determine the CIE L*a*b* color values and (K/S) of cotton fabrics that had been dyed. The results exhibited that the tested wastes could be useful for the coloration of the cotton fabrics, and depending on the used natural dye source, mordanting agent, and mordanting method, the colors were found to have changed, but in general, light brown-ecru-brown colors were observed in the dyed samples. Meanwhile, the fastness of the samples was examined, and the sources were found to exhibit limited light fastness values but good or perfect washing, rubbing, and perspiration fastness. In conclusion, the evaluated conditions were found to be useful for the coloration of cotton, and even more importantly, the pistachio soft and hard shells were observed to reveal great potential for use in textile dye houses as a natural dye source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On February 6, 2023, two heavy earthquakes with moment magnitudes (M W) of 7.7 and 7.6 hit the Kahramanmaraş region in southeast Türkiye. Aftershocks of moment magnitude of 6 occurred consequently. These earthquakes affected more than 14 million people, and caused severe damage to civil infrastructure including buildings, government offices, religious buildings, dams, bridges, airports, and roads. After the earthquakes, a group of researchers visited the Hatay province to assess the response of buildings. Hatay was one of the most heavily affected cities in the region. The researchers gathered data on damaged reinforced concrete buildings, steel structures, as well as masonry buildings. This paper focuses on discussing the findings and analyzing the gathered data from reinforced concrete buildings and steel structures. A wide variety of issues that resulted in heavy damage or, in some cases, complete collapse of the buildings are discussed. These problems include construction mistakes such as insufficient shear reinforcements, neglected corrosion, utilizing low-quality concrete, insufficient development length in flexural reinforcements, and strong beam- weak column failure. In addition, various design errors including excessive torsional response of buildings, rigidity difference in two orthogonal directions of east–west and north–south of the building plan, pounding effect, short column failure, and development of weak and soft stories are described using gathered pictorial data. Finally, recommendations were made, and conclusions were drawn based on previous experimental and numerical studies of the seismic behavior of buildings as well as Turkish Building Earthquake Code (TBEC- 2018) requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The most profitable system is on-grid PV-Wind Turbine system with an NPC of $52.8 M. • For 0% and 25% sale constrained systems low penetration systems are optimal. • For 50% sale constrained and unconstrained systems high penetration systems are preferred. • Fire hawk Optimizer, Grey Wolf Optimizer and Particle Swarm Optimizer are used to size the system by power flow analysis. Fire Hawk Optimizer is found to be usable in optimal power flow analysis and system sizing. • Increase in penetrations leads to enlargement of the system in the region with high load demand because of optimizations. Today, with a human population of 7.5 billion, increasing power consumption, and widespread use of high-technology equipment, the need for energy in the world is increasing day by day. The damage to nature caused by non-renewable energy resources and the economic and political disadvantages they cause in countries that must import these resources have led the world to search for alternative energy sources. One of the most important benefits of renewable energy sources is that they can create hybrid energy systems with other energy sources. Hybrid energy systems are structures in that more than one energy generation unit works together to feed the electrical load. In this paper, a hybrid system will be designed by using Homer PRO, to supply the energy consumed in the residential areas of Karaburun and Urla districts of Izmir province in Turkey with hybrid renewable energy systems. Systems of different sizes are designed for 50%, 75%, and 100% penetration rates, and sales to the grid are constrained to 0%, 25%, 50%, and no constraint on sales. Sensitivity analyses have been performed for 10% and 20% more power required by the load. Techno-economic analyses were done for the systems and the optimal system has been identified. The power flow of the optimal system is inspected by defining the network in Python and Fire Hawk Optimizer (FHO), Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO), and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) are used for optimal sizing of the system. The optimal system has a Net Present Cost (NPC) of $52.3 M, 34 wind turbines, and 954 kW PV with conditions of 100% penetration and no restrictions on sales to the grid. FHO proposed 26 wind turbines and 780 kW PVs for Urla and 8 wind turbines, and 174 kW PVs for Karaburun. GWO proposed 25 wind turbines and 747 kW PVs for Urla, 9 wind turbines, and 165 PVs for Karaburun. PSO offered 24 wind turbines and 708 kW PVs for Urla, 10 wind turbines, and 246 kW PVs for Karaburun. When there is no sale to and 25% sales to the grid, it is seen that the optimal scenario is the system with a 50% penetration rate. In fully sale-constrained systems, NPCs are higher than the base system and they can never pay for themselves compared to the base system. It is concluded that smaller-sized systems are more suitable for systems with high constraints. The proposed FHO algorithm and GWO algorithm react to increasing penetration ratios by enlarging the system size in the regions with high load demand. PSO sizes the system like predictions by load demand. FHO reacts quicker to increasing penetrations than PSO and GWO. FHO algorithm is found to be usable to solve optimal power flow problems and optimal system sizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ranking Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets (IFS) using distance-based methods involves calculating the distance between an IFS and a reference point which represents either maximum (positive ideal solution) or minimum (negative ideal solution) value. These methods assume that similarity of an IFSs to the reference point increases as its distance from it decreases. While it is a common practice to use nonlinear distance functions for ranking IFSs, this paper proves that no nonlinear IF distance function can be robust. In this study, the shortcomings of the conventional procedure are demonstrated by providing a mathematical proof and an alternative ranking method based on the hypervolume metric is proposed. In addition, the suggested ranking approach is extended as a new multi-criteria decision making method called Hypervolume-based Evaluation and Ranking Technique (HEART). HEART is applied for multi-criteria assessment of Turkey's energy alternatives. Results are compared with three distance based multi-criteria decision making methods: TOPSIS, VIKOR, and CODAS. • The study uncovers the critical shortcomings of distance-based methods in ranking Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets (IFS). • An alternative ranking method to distance based approaches, based on the hypervolume metric is proposed. • The hypervolume based ranking approach is extended for use in multi-criteria decision making problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Likened to the economic calamity of World War Two, the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked fears of a deep economic crisis, killed more than six million people worldwide and had a ripple effect on all aspects of life. MCDM (multi-criteria decision making) methods have become increasingly popular in modeling COVID-19 problems owing to the multi-dimensionality of this crisis and the complexity of health and socio-economic systems. This paper is aimed to review 72 papers published in 37 leading peer-reviewed journals indexed in Web of Science that used MCDM methods in different areas of COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, data retrieval follows the PRISMA protocol for systematic literature reviews. 35 countries have contributed to this multidisciplinary research and India is identified as the leading country in this field followed by Turkey and China. Also 36 articles, namely 50% of papers are presented in the form of international cooperation. " Applied Soft Computing " is the journal with the highest number of articles whereas "Journal of infection and public health" and " Operations Management Research " are ranked in the second place. The results indicate that AHP (including fuzzy AHP) is the most popular MCDM method applied in 37.5% of papers followed by TOPSIS and VIKOR. This review reveals that the use of MCDM methods is one of the most attractive research areas in the field of COVID-19. As a result, one of the main purposes of this work is to identify diverse applications of MCDM methods in the COVID-19 pandemic. Most studies i.e. 69% (49 papers) of the papers combined various fuzzy sets with MCDM methods to overcome the problem of uncertainty and ambiguity while analyzing information. Nevertheless, the main drawback of those papers has been the lack of theoretical justifications. In fact, fuzzy MCDM methods impose heavy computational load and there is no general consensus on the clear advantage of fuzzy methods over crisp methods in terms of the solution quality. We hope the researchers who applied fuzzy MCDM methods to COVID-19-related research understand the theoretical basis of MCDM methods and the serious challenges associated with basic operations of fuzzy numbers to avoid potential disadvantages. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge via suggesting a deep vision to critique the fuzzy MCDM methods from mathematical perspective. • We provide a literature review on peer-reviewed journal articles with high impact factor related to the application of MCDM methods in COVID-19 era. • A total of 72 articles are collected from 37 leading journals and categorized into 52 types of application. • We highlight some claims on fuzzy arithmetic which are at use in the fuzzy literature but having little theoretical support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to assess the renewable energy capacity of Turkey in order to consider main priorities in the energy policy of Turkey. In this paper, renewable energy potential and regulatory conditions are discussed in Turkey in comparison with European Union. The results of the study implemented within the framework of EnviroGRIDS project indicated a promising yet very susceptible future for the implementation of renewable energy power plants in Turkey. The forecasts have shown that the solar power potential utilization is becoming more significant after 2020. The projections for 2050 indicate that electricity consumption from small and medium renewable energy sources including solar and wind will constitute 15% of the total, whereas the solar thermal will constitute around 16%. Geothermal and other renewables will remain around 3%. According to the high demand scenario, in 2050 the share of hydropower in overall electricity generation will be 12%, followed by solar power at 7% and wind power at 3%. Additionally, renewable energy policy and regulations in Turkey and in EU are overviewed in this study. On the contrary to EU, the constant feed-in tariff amount does not consider capital investments of specific energy sources in Turkey that brings disadvantage to the implementation. However, new regulations published and currently applied should be accepted as milestones in acquisition period of Turkey in EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquake (EQ) anomalies in the form of enhancement and depletion in ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) from Global Positioning System (GPS) may considerably alarm about short and long term precursors of the impending main shock. In this paper, TEC anomalies are investigated from permanent GPS ground-stations in Turkey associated to M w ≥ 6.0 EQs occurred in 2011–2012. Temporal and spatial analyses of TEC at 2 h sampling have shown significant evidences about EQ induced ionospheric anomalies during 10–14 h of UT (Universal Time) within 5 days before M w 6.0 Greece, and M w 7.1, Turkish EQ. Spatial analyses have manifested arrival of TEC anomalies at UT = 10 h to epicenter of both EQs, which linger above epicenter during UT = 12–14 h and left seismogenic zone after UT = 14 h before every EQ during K p < 3 and D st = 0 nT. Meanwhile, a geomagnetic storm (D st < -100 nT) induce perturbation two days after the M w 7.1 Turkish EQ, showing no relation with epicenter during spatial analysis. It also shows that TEC can be useful to distinguish geomagnetic storm variations to successfully detect EQ precursors. These anomalies during quiet storm (K p < 3; D st = 0 nT) conditions may be effective to link the lithosphere and ionosphere in severe seismic zones to detect EQ precursors before future EQs. Interpretation of TEC anomalies and it enhancements over EQ epicenters during UT = 12–14 h for both EQs have shown that EQs anomalies only occurred in particular time. Whereas, geomagnetic storm effect occurred during whole abnormal day over the Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a dynamic analysis considering site-specific seismic characteristics for a masonry clock tower located at the city of Çorum, Turkey according to the new Turkish earthquake code. Finite element model of the tower was modeled using ANSYS software in order to determine numerical dynamic characteristics of the structure such as natural frequencies and mode shapes. Non-destructive experimental measurements were performed to extract the experimental dynamic characteristics. Experimental results were used as a reference parameter for finite element model updating to reflect the current structural behavior of clock tower. Model updating procedure was carried out by changing of initial material properties of structural stone elements, and maximum differences were reduced from 23.44% to 4.90%. Numerical results indicated that displacements have an increasing trend with the height of the clock tower. Furthermore, the maximum displacements occurred at the top point between the values of 18.88 mm to 42.5 mm. Numerical results also showed that both the maximum and minimum principal stresses occurred at the upper body (clock zone) walls and transition segment between the values of 1.08 MPa/2.86 MPa and − 0.87 MPa/−3.00 MPa, respectively. The maximum and minimum principal strains occurred at the upper body (clock zone) walls between the values of 0.65E-3/1.56E-3 and − 0.78E-3/−1.50E-3, respectively. It is also concluded that non-destructive experimental measurement is very useful method to evaluate in-situ structural identification, validate and update the initial finite element model for further analyses. • Investigation on dynamic response of historical masonry clock tower is presented. • Ambient vibration tests are conducted to extract the dynamic characteristics. • Manual model updating is performed to minimize the differences. • Site-specific seismic characteristics is used to determine the strong ground motion record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freight Villages (FV) are logistics clusters in which all activities related with freight transportation are realized. Various operators conduct business under one roof in FVs. Coordination and collaboration are the essential part for creating harmony to achieve sustainability. The establishment of such facilities in Turkey has been realized in late 2000s. In this paper, the aim is to provide a broad overview of the FVs in Turkey and shed light into their potential for the future. To do so site visits to all existing operational public FVs and a private FV have been made, where interviews with the management units have been conducted and comparisons to global counterparts have been made. As a result of these, it has been observed that currently, FVs in Turkey are overwhelmed due to lack of coordination and collaboration. However, also light has been shed into possible alternative working principles for Turkish FVs, and it has been showed that if coordination and collaboration could be realized, significant positive effects can be achieved in terms of different aspects regarding sustainability and social equity. • FVs are logistics clusters necessarily focusing on coordination and collaboration. • FVs have potential for sustainable freight transportation. • FVs in Turkey can significantly affect transportation. • Case studies and paradigm change are required for analyzing Turkish FVs. • Physical Internet is promising in FVs future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of trade credit in the transmission of global liquidity conditions. Specifically, we investigate whether trade credit complements or substitutes the decline in bank lending activity as global liquidity tightens. Using a detailed bank and firm-level dataset for Turkish firms, we find that firms which are more bank-finance constrained have less access to trade credit as global liquidity tightens. The rate of trade credit tightening is amplified during crisis periods. While bank-finance constrained firms receive significantly less trade credit from suppliers, they reduce the amount of trade credit that they extend to customers even more, implying that tightening trade credit conditions propagate further through supply chains. In addition, trade credit conditions deteriorate more for small firms and for cash-poor firms in times of crisis. • Bank-finance constrained firms have less access to trade credit in tight periods. • The rate of trade credit tightening is amplified during crises. • Tight trade credit conditions propagate further through supply chains during crises. • Trade credit conditions deteriorate more for small firms during crises. • Trade credit conditions deteriorate more for cash-poor firms during crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the distribution problem of the COVID-19 vaccine at the provincial level in Turkey and the management of medical waste, considering the cold chain requirements and the perishable nature of vaccines. In this context, a novel multi-period multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model is initially presented over a 12-month planning horizon for solving the deterministic distribution problem. The model includes newly structured constraints due to the feature of COVID-19 vaccines, which must be administered in two doses at specified intervals. Then, the presented model is tested for the province of Izmir with deterministic data, and the results show that the demand can be satisfied and community immunity can be achieved in the specified planning horizon. Moreover, for the first time, a robust model is created using polyhedral uncertainty sets to manage uncertainties related to supply and demand quantities, storage capacity, and deterioration rate, and it has been analyzed under different uncertainty levels. Accordingly, as the level of uncertainty increases, the percentage of meeting the demand gradually decreases. It is observed that the biggest effect here is the uncertainty in supply, and in the worst case, approximately 30% of the demand cannot be met. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the modeling and identification of a walking-beam-type slab reheating furnace in one of the biggest Iron and Steel Industry in Turkey. Firstly, the dynamical model of the furnace is established as it is running with 12 control zones based on energy balance equations in the zones. Secondly, a disturbance observer is designed to estimate the disturbances that represents unmeasurable energy losses and the effects of unknown dynamics of the system based on Immersion and Invariance (I&I) approach. Then, model is identified with real data collected from the running furnace. The model and real furnace outputs are compared zone by zone. The results demonstrate the validity of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Surface sediments from the north-eastern coast of the Marmara Sea, Turkey's most industrialized coastal region, were enriched with radioisotopes from the Chernobyl explosion in 1986. Caesium-137 in these sediments is also thought to originate from one former paper mill located nearby that used wood contaminated by Chernobyl explosion-originated 137Cs for paper production. The average activity concentration of the 137Cs was 21 Bq kg−1, while naturally occurring radioisotopes, i.e. 40K, 226Ra, and 228Ra, were 568, 18 and 24 Bq kg−1, respectively, in surface sediments. The natural radionuclide activities reached their highest levels near petrochemical, phosphate and fertilizer processing facilities. Average 137Cs activities were generally up to ten times higher than in Middle Eastern marine sediments and lower than those in Northern European sediments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper evaluates the failures of masonry and adobe buildings during the June 23, 2011, Maden (Elazığ) earthquake. Maden is a township approximately 80km away from Elazığ city in Turkey. The magnitude of the earthquake was announced as ML =5.3 by the Earthquake Division of the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (DEMA). Most of masonry and adobe buildings in Maden and the neighboring settlements had been damaged severely at this moderate earthquake. In this paper, reasons of damages and failures of these structures which are lack of engineering services were examined and explained in detail. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The October 23, 2011 Tabanlı and November 9, 2011 earthquakes that hit Tabanlı and Edremit districts of Van province in Turkey and their impacts on different types of structures are studied in this paper. According to United States Geological Survey (USGS), the magnitudes of these earthquakes, which caused partial or total collapse of numerous buildings and more than 600 casualties, were 7.1 and 5.6, respectively. Other than negatively impacting all aspects of daily life, the earthquakes remarkably disrupted the economical activities in the area. This paper summarizes the seismological characteristics of the affected region, the general characteristics of the strong ground motion and the types of structural damage observed during site investigations. Emphasis is given to the failures and seismic performance of different types of structures, through detailed explanation of damage mechanisms. The structural damage levels are observed to be directly related to the extent of irregularities of the structural system, level of the insufficient quality in the workmanship, and usage of inadequate building materials. It was also clearly observed that if a minimum amount of engineering attention had been paid during the construction stages, and the requirements of design and construction codes had been satisfied, most of the existing buildings could have sustained the earthquakes without considerable damage. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the risk-taking behavior of banks in emerging economies in a context of international capital mobility. Our paper highlights a new channel through which depositors can exercise pressure to control risk-taking. Depositors can reallocate their savings away from their home country to the more protective system of a developed economy. We recover a classical result according to which increased competition resulting from more international financial openness induces banks to take excessive risks. We find however that sufficiently high financial openness is necessary for a positive link between financial transparency and safe risk management. Finally, we test the relationship between disclosure, financial openness and bank risk-taking for a panel of 258 banks from the MENA region and Turkey. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In recent years, because of the high potential for insurability in Turkey and the rapid improvement of insurance sector, foreign investors are interested in Turkish insurance market. Since insurability rate has reached saturation point in their countries, foreign investors tended to make investments in Turkey and start to purchase local insurance companies in Turkey. In this paper we analyze five Turkish insurance companies for a foreign investor who wants to purchase a local insurance company. For selecting the most appropriate alternative we used the extended VIKOR method which applied to determine the best feasible solution according to the selected criteria. This method was developed to solve multiple criteria decision making problems with conflicting and non-commensurable criteria, assuming that compromising is acceptable for conflict resolution. In this paper, the alternatives are evaluated according to all established criteria with the VIKOR method completely under fuzzy environment with fuzzy sets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Training neural networks (NNs) is a complex task of great importance in the supervised learning area. However, performance of the NNs is mostly dependent on the success of training process, and therefore the training algorithm. This paper addresses the application of harmony search algorithms for the supervised training of feed-forward (FF) type NNs, which are frequently used for classification problems. In this paper, five different variants of harmony search algorithm are studied by giving special attention to Self-adaptive Global Best Harmony Search (SGHS) algorithm. A structure suitable to data representation of NNs is adapted to SGHS algorithm. The technique is empirically tested and verified by training NNs on six benchmark classification problems and a real-world problem. Among these benchmark problems two of them have binary classes and remaining four are n-ary classification problems. Real-world problem is related to the classification of most frequently encountered quality defect in a major textile company in Turkey. Overall training time, sum of squared errors, training and testing accuracies of SGHS algorithm, is compared with the other harmony search algorithms and the most widely used standard back-propagation (BP) algorithm. The experiments presented that the SGHS algorithm lends itself very well to the training of NNs and also highly competitive with the compared methods in terms of classification accuracy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The aim of this study is to examine the development process of nanotechnology in the world and present to the evaluations of related experts on the nanotechnology productivity and standards in Turkey. In this paper focuses on in-depth interviewing- involves asking informants open-ended questions, and obtain data deemed useful by the researchers. Ten authorities in nanotechnology institutions (Turkish Standards Institute, Nanotem, Economy Ministry, universities) were interviewed and their opinions were given. Turkey needs to overcome some issues on nanotechnology. Some of them: Certifying in abroad due to the inadequate accredited institutions, the lack of health and environment standards of nanotechnology, the lack of legal arrangements, problems with nanotechnology products and commercialization, the lack of a unity providing coordination between sectors in nanotechnology, the lack of an arrangement about using of nano/nanotechnology word. There are international nanotechnology standards but there is not health and environment standards in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to elaborate the concept of the intellectual property rights and comparatively analyse intellectual property laws in the UK and Turkey. The first reason of selecting one developed and one developing country for this analysis is that, after a country level analysis of the impact of intellectual property rights on capital accumulation is conducted, the empirical analysis has shown that, as well as macroeconomic indicators, the amount of intellectual property rights also explains the differences in capital accumulation in both developed and developing countries. In the countries where IP laws are stronger, it is observed that countries benefit from FDI inflows where IPR are stronger. The second reason behind the choice of countries is that, various empirical studies have shown that companies with greater intellectual capital performs better in the UK and Turkey. For the UK, the main focus of the study is English law and EU laws where relevant2 as well as international agreements. As a result, it is found that there are on-going works on improving the IP laws in Turkey in order to comply with the EU accession criteria and international obligations on intellectual property rights protections. However, all the IP laws remain to be decree laws, and the enforcement needs to be strengthened in order to provide efficiency in the use of the written laws. As multinationals tend to get attracted to countries where there are better IPR enforcement, the impact of FDI on capital accumulation in developing countries such as Turkey can be different subject to quality of institutions including IP Laws [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of credit risk on banks performance. The dataset consist of 26 commercial banks operating in Turkey between 2005 - 2017. The secondary data collected from the statistical report of the Banks Association of Turkey. Three panels' data are considered respectively state-owned banks, privately-owned banks and foreign banks in order to compare banks according to their ownership structure. Return on Asset (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) were used as proxies for financial performance indicators while Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) was used as credit risk indicators. The estimation results showed that there is a negative relationship between credit risk and ROA as well as between credit risk and ROE. This result suggest that there is a relationship between credit risk management and profitability of Turkish deposit banks from the period of 2005 to 2017. Accordingly, banks should focus more on credit risk management, especially on the control and monitoring of non-performing loans. In addition, managers should focus more on modern credit risk management techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to measure the relative performance of the countries in transition towards industry 4.0 by using industry level indicators such as big data, CCS and CPS. In the first stage of the analysis, differently from the literature, industry 4.0 performance index for the countries is developed. In the second stage, cluster analysis is applied to determine the different country groupings in transition towards industry 4.0. According to Industry 4.0 index, Denmark has the highest performance among the European countries, Romania has the lowest performance. Turkey also is 31 in the ranking of European countries. Finland, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany have the highest score values. On the other hand, the countries performing below the Union's average were Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. By using ten indicators and including 33 countries, cluster analysis was also performed. Cluster results have indicated that 33 countries can be divided into five groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship is one of the main factors of production and hence, it plays a key role in determining the level of production and employment. Together with the globalization process entrepreneurship has become a fundamental determinant of economic growth and development. Thus, establishing the drivers of entrepreneurship is crucial for determining the necessary policies in order to increase the level of economic growth and development of a country. This paper investigates the determinants of entrepreneurship in Turkey by using individual level data taken from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [1]. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [2] provides a rich dataset with regard to the entrepreneurial behaviour and attitudes of individuals and how the national context of countries affect entrepreneurship. By considering the current economics literature demographic and economic features of individuals are used as potential determinants of becoming an entrepreneur. Moreover, similar to Arenius and Minniti [3]'s study perceptual variables are taken into account as explanatory variables of entrepreneurship in the empirical analysis. The results of our empirical study put forward the determinants of entrepreneurship in Turkey at the individual level. Hence, we contribute to the existing literature by presenting new evidence with regard to the determinants of entrepreneurship in Turkey. The results of our analysis will be helpful for policy makers in designing new policies in order to increase the number of entrepreneurs in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]