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In the open literature, there are numerous studies on the normal and extreme (flood and drought) behavior of wet and dry periods based on the understanding of the standard precipitation index (SPI), which provides a series of categorizations by considering the standard normal (Gaussian) probability distribution function (PDF). The numerical meaning of each categorization assessment is quite lacking in terms of future predictions of wet and dry period duration based on historical records. This paper presents a new approach for calculating possible formations of future wet and dry period durations based on historical records through an effective fractal geometric forecasting approach. The essence of the proposed methodology is based on the number of dry periods (steps) of non-overlapping monthly duration along consecutive broken line paths in the SPI classification for wet and dry period durations. It has been observed that the plot of periods on double logarithmic paper falls along a straight line against the number of such periods, implying a power function, which is the essence of fractal geometry. Extending the empirically derived straight line provides the number of periods that may occur in the future over a range of SPI levels. This methodology is referred to as SPI fractal (SPIF), and the classic SPI classification is converted into SPIF wet and dry polygons, which provide additional information about the drought period number within a valid polygonal area, compared to the classic SPI results. The wet and dry period features of any hydro-meteorology time series are constrained in SPIF polygons. The application of the methodology was carried out on monthly rainfall records on the European side of the Istanbul Florya meteorological station in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The Assyrian Trade Colonies Age, from the EBA to MBA, marked a shift in the trading system between Anatolia and Mesopotamia due to increased mineral trade. Assyrian traders transported tin, textiles, and valuable stones and metals, paying taxes to local rulers. They established settlements and established Karum colonies in major cities and Wabartum stations in smaller ones. It is known that donkeys and mules were used as caravan animals towards the end of the Early Bronze Age in Central Anatolia. However, we have not identified enough archaeological material to prove the existence of mules in particular. Animal bone remains recovered from the Derekutuğun mining settlement were examined, and especially the teeth of equids were further examined by the researcher. This study mentions the existence of the oldest known possible mules, especially based on the dental remains of equids found in Derekutuğun. This paper discusses the discoveries of early donkey and the earliest mule remains in Central Anatolia from the site Derekutuğun. This site represents the remains of a village dating back to the Early Bronze Age and Assyrian Trade Colonies period, associated with mining. The archaeofaunal assemblage was studied by the author and his team using classical archaeozoological methods. The dental remains of the Equidae found at Derekutuğun have been re-examined and are described in this article. The dental evidence indicates that donkeys, and possibly the earliest mules ever found in Central Anatolia, were kept at this site. Although the paper is based on the archaeozoological remains, written sources from the period also support the faunal identification. Derekutuğun was a small settlement that specialized in processing copper ore, and which was an important hub for a trade network because of its extensive mining and extraction operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Easter controversy of the late second century unveiled a profound theological and cultural debate within early Christianity. Originating from differing practices regarding the calculation of Easter dates, the dispute pitted the churches of Asia Minor against the Roman Church. This paper primarily employs a method of documentary analysis. It analyzes the accounts provided by the fourth-century historian Eusebius of Caesarea in his work The History of the Church. It is also cross-referenced with the works of second-century Christian writers. Through this process, this paper seeks to reconstruct the situation of this Easter controversy. Furthermore, it aims to uncover the struggle for apostolic authority concealed beneath the surface of this debate over dates. Central figures like Victor I and Polycrates engaged in this struggle for Apostolic authority, responding to challenges posed by heresies. Victor I leveraged his position to convene religious conferences and issue excommunication decrees against dissenting churches, laying claim to the papal primacy. However, Polycrates invoked the apostolic succession and heritage from John the Apostle to assert the legitimacy of the churches in Asia Minor, challenging Victor I's attempts at centralizing power within the Roman see. The controversy reflected broader debates over apostolic succession and ecclesiastical power structures. The Easter controversy serves as a case study of the Early Church's engagement with practical theology and the integration of religious festival culture with social backgrounds, highlighting the significance of Easter as a symbol of Christian unity and collective memory. This debate highlighted theological nuances and underscored broader issues of communal identity and the power struggle within early Christian communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationalization has become an indispensable part of universities worldwide. Since the 1990s, various research has been conducted with those often seen as the main stakeholders of universities, namely administrators, academics, and students. However, the leading implementors of internationalization and especially mobility programs, international office professionals (IPs), are rarely considered by research. In this study, qualitative research was conducted through 36 semi-structured interviews with IPs in Poland and Turkey. The results revealed that IPs have several professional and institutional challenges. While the professional challenges include diversified responsibilities, incoming students' problems, and communication difficulties with the young generation; institutional challenges are mainly associated with administrative issues like lack of participation in decision-making, temporarily appointed leaders, and lack of academic support. Additionally, in this study, IPs were referred to as street-level bureaucrats as the main contact with the beneficiaries of internationalization. The research revealed that IPs use a high level of discretion in practice. This paper presents examples of how to structure internationalization policies so that the IPs use their power of discretion in a positive way, contributing to policy implementation. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a roadmap for the practical implementation of internationalization and mobility programs in universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyprus with its rich cultural heritage has been the showcase of ornamentation throughout history with a rich variety of materials, details, and narratives. Integrating ornamentation with its body architecture can be seen as one of the storytellers of these narratives through design elements. After the mid-1990s when casinos had been banned in Turkey, five-star casino hotels became one of the main investment areas in North Cyprus. Together with this new building type and new users' expectations with a new understanding of holidays, the 21st century brought the changing use of ornamentation in hotel interiors and, hence, decoration came to the fore more than before. Hotel lobbies welcoming the users to their second homes and introducing the hotels' identities have always been seen as the most important area of hotels by investors, designers, and hotel managers. Sometimes the reception areas were perceived as the living room of the hotel customers where they feel attached culturally, socially, or economically, and sometimes it could be a place where they can feel themselves as one of the characters of ancient history, a king or a queen for a while. Hence, hotel interiors, in general, and hotel lobbies, in particular, acted as a cultural representative, a social status symbol, and a political image of the story told. The aim of this paper is to examine five-star hotel lobbies within the framework of ornamentation through a reading model created with the concepts used by theoreticians. Together with the site visits and visual recordings, the analysis conducted in this paper is based on qualitative data incorporated by a rich theoretical background on ornamentation. The paper tries to highlight the representational value of ornamentation that can help to understand and interpret the spatial transformation of hotel interiors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-track synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) provides a good approach for the monitoring of long-term multi-dimensional earthquake deformation, including pre-, co-, and post-seismic data. However, the removal of atmospheric errors in both single- and multi-track InSAR data presents significant challenges. In this paper, a method of spatio-temporal correlation analysis using independent component analysis (ICA) is proposed, which can extract multi-track deformation components for the accurate retrieval of earthquake deformation time series. Sentinel-1 data covering the double earthquakes in Turkey and Syria in 2023 are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show that co-seismic displacement in the east–west and up–down directions ranged from −114.7 cm to 82.8 cm and from −87.0 cm to 63.9 cm, respectively. Additionally, the deformation rates during the monitoring period ranged from −137.9 cm/year to 123.3 cm/year in the east–west direction and from −51.8 cm/year to 45.7 cm/year in the up–down direction. A comparative validation experiment was conducted using three GPS stations. Compared with the results of the original MSBAS method, the proposed method provides results that are smoother and closer to those of the GPS data, and the average optimization efficiency is 43.08% higher. The experiments demonstrated that the proposed method could provide accurate two-dimensional deformation time series for studying the pre-, co-, and post-earthquake events of the 2023 Turkey–Syria Earthquakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to identify the factors that are positively or negatively impacting students' well-being and their academic engagement. We used partial least-squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using the data collected through a questionnaire from four countries: Romania, Turkey, Slovakia, and Bulgaria. The model includes seven factors that influence the well-being of students and indirectly their academic engagement: stressors in the students' lives; professors' support; social support from family and friends; the students' perceived satisfaction in their lives; engaging in activities during their leisure time; self-exploration regarding their careers; and environmental exploration regarding their careers. The results show that all factors, except for stressors and environmental exploration regarding their careers, positively influence the students' well-being and thus their academic engagement. These findings are useful for university professors and managers in better organizing activities to increase academic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the increasing building demands in Turkey, particularly in the metropolitan area of Istanbul, followed by other major cities such as Ankara and Izmir, the expansion of construction zones has led to the emergence of tall towers as a pragmatic solution. The design and implementation of tall buildings require newer technologies and interdisciplinary collaboration in aspects such as facade installation, vertical circulation solutions, and fire systems, compared to low-rise buildings. In spite of the proliferation of skyscrapers, there is a noticeable lack of thorough study on space efficiency in Turkey's tall buildings. This article aims to fill this significant gap in the literature. The research method employed in this study focuses on a case study of 54 modern towers constructed in Turkey between 2010 and 2023, ranging in height from 147 to 284 m. Key findings are as follows: (1) residential use, central core, and prismatic forms are the most prevalent architectural preferences; (2) the most preferred structural material and system are concrete and the shear-walled frame system, respectively; (3) average space efficiency and the percentage of core-to-gross-floor area (GFA) were 78% and 19%, respectively, with measurement ranges varying from a minimum of 64% and 9% to a maximum of 86% and 34%. This paper will provide insight for construction stakeholders, especially architects, for sound planning decisions in the development of Turkish tall buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses issues pertaining to the future of work and sustainability through the lens of a case study of ecological deterioration and how it destroys and creates green jobs in a forest village of Istanbul. As elsewhere in major urban centres of developing countries, the hyper-expansion of city regions due to authoritarian developmentalism fosters the state-led construction sector in Turkey. Growth-driven economic policies continue to have adverse effects on the environment, resulting in deforestation among an array of ecological damage. Based on a qualitative analysis of oral history interviews and observations informed by a larger interdisciplinary research project, we observe resilience in the forest village under scrutiny as certain types of work are abandoned, and new forms are created by adaptation to the ecological and social conditions. The perceptions of changing conditions by locals vary across existing ethnic, gender, and class hierarchies in the local community. Moreover, our findings indicate that the types of work available in the village prior to urban transformation were not all decent or green. In face of ongoing ecological deterioration in a (formerly) forest community, participatory micro-initiatives, and grassroots, utilizing local community projects emerge that nevertheless pursue a green and just transition. We focus on one such initiative, the Community Fungi platform, to demonstrate the possibility of working towards a collective imagination of a green future inspired by past but unforgotten sustainable communal practices, in the context of the forest village under scrutiny in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: This paper investigates the peak ground acceleration (PGA) and seismogenic fault characteristics of the Mw7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey on 6 February 2023. The paper identifies the near-fault effect, the fault locking segment effect, and the trampoline effect of the earthquake, and presents a detailed spatial distribution of PGA. The featured application of this work is in seismic engineering and disaster prevention, where the PGA and fault characteristics are essential for assessing the seismic demand and capacity of structures, as well as the potential damage and loss induced by earthquakes. This paper also enhances the understanding of the seismogenic mechanism, damage mode, characteristics, and strong earthquake law of the Turkey earthquake, which can facilitate the improvement of the seismic design codes and emergency response plans in Turkey and other regions with similar tectonic settings. A Mw7.8 earthquake struck Turkey on 6 February 2023, causing severe casualties and economic losses. This paper investigates the characteristics of strong ground motion and seismogenic fault of the earthquake. We collected and processed the strong ground motion records of 379 stations using Matlab, SeismoSignal, and Surfer software: Matlab (Version R2016a), SeismoSignal (Version 5.1.0), and Surfer (Version 23.0.15), and obtained the peak ground acceleration (PGA) contour map. We analyzed the near-fault effect, the fault locking segment effect, and the trampoline effect of the earthquake based on the spatial distribution of PGA, the fault geometry, and slip distribution. We found that the earthquake generated a very strong ground motion concentration effect in the near-fault area, with the maximum PGA exceeding 2000 cm/s2. However, the presence of fault locking segments influenced the spatial distribution of ground motion, resulting in four significant PGA high-value concentration areas at a local dislocation, a turning point, and the end of the East Anatolian Fault. We also revealed for the first time the typical manifestation of the trampoline effect in this earthquake, which was characterized by a large vertical acceleration with a positive direction significantly larger than the negative direction. This paper provides an important reference for understanding the seismogenic mechanism, damage mode, characteristics, and strong earthquake law of the Turkey earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the complexity and uncertainty of decision-making, probabilistic linguistic term sets (PLTSs) are currently important tools for qualitative evaluation of decision-makers. The asymmetry of evaluation information can easily lead to the loss of subjective preference information for decision-makers, and the existing operation of decision-maker evaluation information fusion operators is difficult to solve this problem. To solve such problems, this paper proposes some new operational methods for PLTSs based on Dombi T-conorm and T-norm. Considering the interrelationships between the input independent variables of PLTSs, the probabilistic linguistic weighted Dombi Bonferroni mean Power average (PLWDBMPA) operators are extended and the properties of these aggregation operators are proposed. Secondly, the PLWDBMPA operator is used to fuse the evaluation information of decision-makers, avoiding the loss of decision information as much as possible. This paper uses social media platforms and web crawler technology to obtain online comments from users on decision-making to obtain the public's attitude towards decision events. TF-IDF and Word2Vec are used to calculate the weight of alternatives on each attribute. Under traditional group decision-making methods and integrating the wisdom of the public, a novel multi-attribute group decision-making method based on TODIM method is proposed. Finally, the case study of Turkey earthquake shelter selection proves this method is scientific and effective. Meanwhile, the superiority of this method was further verified through comparisons with the PL-TOPSIS, PLWA, SPOTIS and PROMETHEE method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though Turkey's ruling party's (Justice and Development Party, the AKP) nation-building and desired citizen creation policies have been studied, its use of necropolitical narratives and propaganda in education has not been investigated. This paper addresses this gap by examining how the Turkish state ruled by the AKP has propagated its religious necropolitical narrative through the national curriculum and Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) in school textbooks, and magazines and comic books for children. The paper shows that these texts and comics try to indoctrinate children into a religious cult of martyrdom in different ways by encouraging them to view tragic death and getting killed for the nation as a positive event. This paper argues that these propaganda efforts are part of a religious necropolitical indoctrination campaign that seeks to create a new Islamist and jihadist generation of lifelong supporters of the AKP, which portrays itself in the educational texts as the embodiment of Islam, the Muslim Turkish nation and even the global Muslim community (ummah). This new religious generation is expected to believe that dying for the Islamist populist authoritarian regime is the greatest honour a person can bring upon themselves. This paper contributes to the necropolitics literature by showing that not only adults but also children have been targeted by authoritarian rulers' necropolitical propaganda attempts to create desired citizens who are ready to die for the regime, believing this is a religious obligation. Further research is needed to assess if and to what extent this propaganda has an impact on children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A strong motion seismometer is a kind of inertial sensor, and it can record middle- to high-frequency ground accelerations. The double-integration from acceleration to displacement amplifies errors caused by tilt, rotation, hysteresis, non-linear instrument response, and noise. This leads to long-period, non-physical baseline drifts in the integrated displacements. GNSS enables the direct observation of the ground displacements, with an accuracy of several millimeters to centimeters and a sample rate of 1 Hz to 50 Hz. Combining GNSS and a strong motion seismometer, one can obtain an accurate displacement series. Typically, a Kalman filter is adopted to integrate GNSS displacements and strong motion accelerations, using the empirical values of noise uncertainty. Considering that there are significantly different errors introduced by the above-mentioned tilt, rotation, hysteresis, and non-linear instrument response at different stations or at different times at the same station, it is inappropriate to employ a fixed noise uncertainty for strong motion accelerations. In this paper, we present a Sage–Husa Kalman filter, where the noise uncertainty of strong motion acceleration is adaptively estimated, to integrate GNSS and strong motion acceleration for obtaining the displacement series. The performance of the proposed method was validated by a shake table simulation experiment and the GNSS/strong motion co-located stations collected during the 2023 Mw 7.8 and Mw 7.6 earthquake doublet in southeast Turkey. The experimental results show that the proposed method enhances the adaptability to the variation of strong motion accelerometer noise level and improves the precision of integrated displacement series. The displacement derived from the proposed method was up to 28% more accurate than those from the Kalman filter in the shake table test, and the correlation coefficient with respect to the references arrived at 0.99. The application to the earthquake event shows that the proposed method can capture seismic waveforms at a promotion of 46% and 23% in the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively, compared with the results of the Kalman filter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Damping reduction factors (DRFs) play a vital role in the seismic design of structures. DRFs have been widely studied due to their primary importance to the lateral resistance of structures subjected to earthquakes. On the other hand, devastating earthquakes have occurred all over the world, and recently, the Kahramanmaraş earthquakes in Turkey revealed the import of the vertical component of earthquakes and their impact on structures and infrastructures. Considering the importance of this parameter, this paper aims to develop new damping reduction factor (DRF) equations for the acceleration (DRFa), velocity (DRFv), and displacement spectra (DRFd) of the vertical components of earthquakes. For this purpose, 775 real ground motion records were selected from the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) strong motion database, and the vertical elastic response spectra of selected records were computed according to linear dynamic analysis. Taking the 5%-damped vertical response spectra as the target, the vertical spectral damping reduction factors (DRFa, DRFv, and DRFd) were computed for 1%, 3%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 30%, and 40% damping ratios. The effect of the earthquake magnitude, distance, and soil types on the DRFs was investigated. The results indicated that magnitude, distance, and soil type had no particular effect on the trend in the DRFs. Based on the evaluations, extensive statistical analyses were carried out, and new prediction equations were developed according to the nonlinear regression method. The developed equations were then compared to those found in the literature and seismic design codes. The comparisons proved that the proposed DRFa, DRFd, and DRFv models are strongly compatible with real DRFs and show strong robustness compared to existing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the urban centers of Türkiye, where cultural changes are more widespread and effective, wedding processional is replaced by the solemnization of the marriage at indoor weddings, and the Kūdegū (old Turkic language; refers to bridegroom, son-in-law) awaiting the bride's arrival at the boy's house is replaced by differences in the way of the bride and groom's entry together; moreover, while wedding rituals such as the bridal bath and groom's hammam are being forgotten, bachelor/bachelorette parties are on the rise. The beliefs and practices related to the bride being taken out of the girl's house with a special ceremony have deep meanings, such as blessing the bride who has just joined the family, acclimatizing the bride who feels like an outsider and avoiding her from these feelings, and protecting the bride and groom from the körmös (spirits in Turkic mythology, devilish entities living in the underworld), bad spirits, and the evil eye. In this paper, the structure, function, practices, and beliefs of the rituals surrounding the bride and groom on the last day of Anatolian Turkish weddings are analyzed using a qualitative research method. In addition, this study identified the betrothal, performance, beliefs, and practices surrounding the ritual of "bridal pick up" among Anatolian Turks and evaluated the symbols and signs in the ritual procedures in the functional context of the origins and reflections of traditional Turkish beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the Ottoman Period urban fabric of Silifke, a crucial historical town in Turkey. The aim of this paper is to develop a research framework for the transfer of cultural heritage and cultural continuity in multi-layered historical cities. In this context, investigating the level of sociocultural transition and physical permeability between layers is the main problem of the article. The scope of the study consists of an approximately 1.5 km2 (150 hectares) area within the boundaries of the 3rd Degree archaeological site determined in 1995 by the Adana Cultural and Natural Heritage Conservation Regional Board. In the case area, there are building remains and 58 registered buildings, 40 of which were built during the Ottoman Period. The findings and evaluations were examined in three parts: the periods before the Ottoman Period, the Ottoman Period, and the Republican Period. Analyses were developed independently or overlapped from archive documents such as the Presidential Ottoman Archive (BOA), provincial yearbooks, engravings of travelers, photographs, aerial photographs of different years, current maps, zoning plans, and conservation plans. Then, we made descriptions and inferences about urban change/transformation, which is affected by the political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental factors of the town and will shape the future change/transformation and management of the town. The ultimate goal is to set up a basis for the Silifke town center that will guide future interventions and design and planning policies for cultural continuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The warnings about Turkey's not-so-near accession to the EU are explored as a strategic tool in the Brexit campaign, linking concerns about sovereignty and immigration compounded with the anxieties surrounding Islam and the threat of terrorism. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Edward Said's Orientalism and the unique perspectives gathered from British Turks, this paper sheds light on their nuanced responses. It uncovers strategies of disbelief and denial in the face of the constructed narrative that portrayed Turkey as an undesirable 'Other' with its predominantly Muslim population. A closer analysis of some British Turks' narratives is premised not only on the sacralised defence of the principles of Turkish westernisation but also on the socio-political reputation of the Islamic Ottoman past as almighty. The article equally contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between British national identity and discourses surrounding immigration, sovereignty, and Islamophobia within the context of Brexit, as well as the principles by which the privileges of modern, secular Turkey, as well as the demise of the mighty Ottoman image, are maintained. In a paradoxical manner, the act of denial only serves to affirm the Brexit campaign's narrative depicting Turkey as an undesirable 'Other' with a predominantly Muslim demographic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel route optimization framework to solve the problem of instant pick-up and delivery for e-grocery orders. The proposed framework extends the traditional time-windowed package delivery problem. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach for this integrated problem using actual delivery data from HepsiJet, a leading e-commerce logistics provider in Turkey. We first employ several machine learning algorithms and simulations to investigate the capacity of the courier. Subsequently, a dynamic route planning workflow is executed with a highly specialized and novel routing algorithm. Our proposed heuristic approach considers combined fleet operations for delivering regular packages originating from a central depot and dynamic e-grocery orders picked up at local supermarkets and delivered to the customers. The heuristic algorithm constitutes k-opt and node transfer operation variations customized for this integrated problem. We report the performance of our approach in problem instances from the literature and instances from HepsiJet's daily operations, which we also publicly share as new route optimization problem instances. Our results suggest that, despite the more complex nature of the integrated problem, our proposed algorithm and solution framework produce more efficient and cost-effective solutions that offer additional business opportunities for companies such as HepsiJet. The computational analyses reveal that implementing our proposed approach yields significant efficiency gains and cost reductions for the company, with a distance reduction of over 30%, underscoring our approach's effectiveness in achieving substantial cost savings and enhanced efficiency through integrating two distinct delivery operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once voted into office, populist governments have often found undemocratic means to prolong their stay. The literature on populists in power is evolving and expanding. However, it has mainly focused on how the populists in power attack institutions such as the judiciary, rule erosion, and dirty institutionalism. How populists make use of the law and the judiciary to prolong their authoritarian rule remains an area that is under-researched. The populists' use of informal institutions such as the unofficial law when in power has not been studied either. This paper addresses these gaps in the populism literature by studying Turkey's Islamist populist ruling party's use of informal law in prolonging its authoritarian rule. The paper argues that the Islamist civilisational populist AKP has been using informal Islamist law for both the legitimation of its rule and the repression of the opposition. It shows how the AKP officials, the state's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), the pro-AKP Sharia scholars, and other informal religious authorities employ the civilisational populist Islamist legal narrative to argue that according to Sharia it is obligatory to choose the side of the God that is represented by the AKP and to vote against the infidel opposition that is an existential danger to the pure Muslim people of Turkey and their religion. The paper combines and contributes to two theoretical strands. The first is civilisational populism, and the second is the informal institutions, with a focus on informal law and legal pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rampant terrorism poses a serious threat to the national security of many countries worldwide, particularly due to separatism and extreme nationalism. This paper focuses on the development and application of a temporal self-exciting point process model to the terror data of three countries: the US, Turkey, and the Philippines. To account for occurrences with the same time-stamp, this paper introduces the order mark and reward term in parameter selection. The reward term considers the triggering effect between events in the same time-stamp but different order. Additionally, this paper provides comparisons between the self-exciting models generated by day-based and month-based arrival times. Another highlight of this paper is the development of a model to predict the number of terror events using a combination of simulation and machine learning, specifically the random forest method, to achieve better predictions. This research offers an insightful approach to discover terror event patterns and forecast future occurrences of terror events, which may have practical application towards national security strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal recycling workers (IRWs), including waste pickers (WPs) and waste sorters, are essential constituents of sustainable ecosystems in many cities in the Global South. Despite their valuable contributions to the economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable urban waste recycling, most IRWs work in precarious conditions. This paper examines recent efforts by local municipalities in Izmir to implement co-production design as a new institutional arrangement to generate green jobs for informal workers that provide high and stable incomes, job security, and social recognition. Using qualitative analyses of recent developments in the legal framework and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, this paper identifies the following challenges associated with the current co-production efforts as its main findings: the lack of fiscal and legislative support from the central government; failure to include all IRWs in the co-production schemes; and the potential exclusion of marginalized communities due to the arbitrary requirements of a security clearance, which limit the inclusion of IRWs in co-production efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hearing loss that arises from various causes at different stages of life has a direct impact on individuals' physical and mental well-being. This paper aimed to evaluate the employment, workplace adaptation, productivity, and professional success of individuals who have hearing loss and whose hearing loss is corrected with a cochlear implant. In this cross-sectional study, data were collected between November 2022 and March 2023 with the participation of individuals with cochlear implants living in several settlements in all regions of Türkiye. A total of 142 participants with severe hearing loss who were corrected with a cochlear implant were included in this study. The survey method was used to collect data for the study. The questionnaire consisted of 32 questions and was distributed to the participants online. In the first part of the questionnaire (questions 1–10), the general characteristics of implant patients were investigated. In the second part (questions 11–32), the positive or negative effects of implantation on the work lives of the participants were evaluated. Almost half of the research group (49.3%, n = 70) consisted of women, and the mean age of the participants was determined to be 35.8 ± 14.8 years. There was no significant difference between gender, educational status, implanted side, working time, working style (physical, desk), and factors affecting work life (p > 0.05). Professional satisfaction and success at work increased significantly more in those with acquired hearing loss (p = 0.010). Post-implantation workplace compliance, success, and productivity were found to be higher in those with acquired hearing loss (p = 0.013). Hearing loss had a significantly less negative impact on work performance in those implanted in childhood than in those implanted in adulthood (p = 0.043). It was observed that hearing loss had a greater negative impact on the work life of married people (p = 0.006). Cochlear implantation greatly enhances workplace satisfaction, increases self-confidence, and has a positive impact on the future of profoundly deaf individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainties related to runout distances in shallow landslide analyses may not only affect lives but may also result in economic losses. Owing to the increase in shallow landslides, which are especially triggered by heavy rainfall, runout distances have been investigated to decipher whether applications of a functional runout distance are feasible. This paper aims to give insights into the modeling of the shallow landslide runout probability in Eocene flysch facies in the Western Black Sea region of Türkiye. There are two main stages in this study—which are dominated by empirical models, the detection of initiation points, and propagation—which help us to understand and visualize the possible runout distances in the study area. Shallow landslide initiation point determination using machine learning has a critical role in the ordered tasks in this study. Modified Holmgren and simplified friction-limited model (SFLM) parameters were applied to provide a good approximation of runout distances during the propagation stage using Flow-R software. The empirical model parameters suggested for debris flows and shallow landslides were investigated comparatively. The runout distance models had approximately the same performance depending on the debris flow and shallow landslide parameters. While the impacted total runout areas for the debris flow parameters were predicted to amount to approximately 146 km2, the impacted total runout areas for the shallow landslide parameters were estimated to be about 101 km2. Considering the inclusion of the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 precipitation scenarios in the analyses, this also shows that the shallow landslide and debris flow runout distance impact areas will decrease. The investigation of runout distance analyses and the inclusion of the RCP scenarios in the runout analyses are highly intriguing for landslide researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the use of religion by an authoritarian ruling party to delegitimize political opposition through securitization. The case study presented is the ruling AKP in Turkey, which initially promised to desecuritize the Kurdish issue to co-opt the Kurdish opposition but eventually resorted to the demonization narratives and repressive policies of the secular Turkish state; however, in addition to labeling the Kurdish opposition as terrorists, the AKP deployed religion to legitimize its repressive policies on religious grounds. The Turkish case shows that not in legitimizing (via desecuritization), but in delegitimizing opposition (via securitization) religion has been the main tool deployed by the ruling party. This finding needs to be tested in other contexts and cases. Additionally, since this paper only focuses on the narrative of the AKP's religious delegitimization, further research is needed to measure its efficacy and impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emission of air pollutants from energy production and consumption is a major cause of environmental problems. In addition, urbanisation and CO2 emissions have become major environmental concerns that are closely related to climate change and sustainable economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the long-run relationship among CO2 emissions, energy consumption, economic activities, and management issues for Turkey for the period between 1980 and 2021. The STIRPAT hypothesis and the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis were employed by using dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) and ARDL bound methodologies for these goals. The findings indicate that there is a long-run relationship between variables of the STIRPAT model. The coefficient of economic expansion and energy consumption affected CO2 emissions positively, which means that energy consumption and the expansion of economic activity have significant effects on environmental degradation. Those results are also confirmed by the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) model. In addition, the N-shaped environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) is developed for Turkey. The DCC model also shows that economic growth increases CO2 emissions significantly, and energy productivity can be considered for decreasing CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 6 February 2023, East Anatolia was devastated by two major earthquakes resulting in hundreds of thousands of collapses and tens of thousands of human casualties. This paper investigates the factors related to building properties and earthquake environmental effects (EEEs) that contributed to the building damage grade and distribution in southeastern Turkey. In regards to the building construction properties, the loose enforcement of the building code, the random urban planning solutions and the poor construction standards are the main construction deficiencies that led to one of the largest disasters in Turkey's recent history. Regarding geological factors, the triggering of primary and secondary EEEs largely shaped the grade and distribution of damage. Where coseismic surface ruptures intersected with the built environment, heavy to very heavy structural damage was observed. This was evident in many cases along the ruptured segments of the East Anatolian Fault Zone (EAFZ). Liquefaction observed close to waterbodies caused damage typical of building foundation load-bearing capacity loss. The earthquake-triggered landslides affected mainly mountainous and semi-mountainous settlements characterized with pre-earthquake high related susceptibility. The high susceptibility to generation of EEEs was extensively confirmed in many cases resulting in extensive damage. The provided information highlights the importance of such studies for hazard mitigation and disaster risk reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural displacement monitoring is one of the major tasks of structural health monitoring and it is a significant challenge for research and engineering practices relating to large-scale civil structures. While computer vision-based structural monitoring has gained traction, current practices largely focus on laboratory experiments, small-scale structures, or close-range applications. This paper demonstrates its applications on three landmark long-span suspension bridges in Turkey: the First Bosphorus Bridge, the Second Bosphorus Bridge, and the Osman Gazi Bridge, among the longest landmark bridges in the world, with main spans of 1074 m, 1090 m, and 1550 m, respectively. The presented studies achieved non-contact displacement monitoring from a distance of 600 m, 755 m, and 1350 m for the respective bridges. The presented concepts, analysis, and results provide an overview of long-span bridge monitoring using computer vision-based monitoring. The results are assessed with conventional monitoring approaches and finite element analysis based on observed traffic conditions. Both displacements and dynamic frequencies align well with these conventional techniques and finite element analyses. This study also highlights the challenges of computer vision-based structural monitoring of long-span bridges and presents considerations such as the encountered adverse environmental factors, target and algorithm selection, and potential directions of future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the determinants of refugee students' social integration in Lebanon, Turkey, and Australia. This paper seeks to understand how legal status and the corresponding length of refugee asylum shape refugee children's social integration. The three host countries offer refugees different legal statuses ranging from short-term in Lebanon, medium-term in Turkey, and long-term in Australia. Therefore, our data collection covers a sample of 1298 middle school refugee students from all three countries. Our probit regression analysis sheds light on the importance of micro-level factors related to individual and household characteristics and meso-level factors related to school factors shaping refugee students' social integration. The statistical dominance of meso-level factors indicates that the within-country differences are stronger than the between-country differences, yet it does not rule out the importance of macro policies that indirectly influence refugee students' social integration by shaping provisions at the micro and meso levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey's government seeks to apply both "religious soft power" and "economic soft power" to increase its influence in Ghana. Turkey's religious soft power relationship with Ghana is exemplified by Turkey's paying for construction of a new national mosque in the African country, at a cost of USD 10 million. Turkey's economic soft power relationship with Ghana is exemplified by both considerable recent investments and in fast-growing bilateral trade. The overall aim of the government of Turkey is to increase the country's influence in Ghana, part of a wider initiative to expand its regional influence in Africa. Ghana is important to Turkey as it is regarded as a strategically important African country, one of the region's few democracies and an economic success. The paper assesses Turkey's various forms of influence in Ghana and considers what Turkey hopes to achieve in foreign policy terms. The paper is in four sections. The first examines religious soft power and Turkey–Ghana relations, noting that recently they have become closer and more cordial, involving both religious and non-religious aspects. The second section examines Muslims' traditionally marginal political position in Ghana and explains that over time Muslims have become more politically assertive, open to external religious influences, including from Turkey, a country well known to use religious soft power to try to expand its foreign policy influence. The third section assesses recent Ghana-Turkey relations, including the expansion of Turkey's economic soft power, with three examples: the national mosque, encouraging Islamic education, and mutual desire to quell the activities of what the government of Turkey refers to as the "Fethullah Terrorist Organisation". The section also considers the role of Turkey's economic soft power in increasing the country's presence in Ghana. The concluding section argues that the government of Turkey uses several techniques to increase its influence in Ghana, including both religious soft power and economic soft power. The government of Ghana broadly welcomes Turkey's influence from both religious and economic perspectives: from a religious point of view, Turkey's Sunni orthodoxy is seen as very unlikely to stimulate radicalization among Ghana's Muslims, while Turkey's economic presence is welcomed as an important means to help further build Ghana's economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to clarify the concept of 'civilizational populism' and work towards a concise but operational definition. To do this, the article examines how populists across the world, and in a variety of different religious, geographic, and political contexts, incorporate and instrumentalize notions of 'civilization' into their discourses. The article observes that although a number of scholars have described a civilization turn among populists, there is currently no concrete definition of civilization populism, a concept which requires greater clarity. The article also observes that, while scholars have often found populists in Europe incorporating notions of civilization and 'the clash of civilizations' into the discourses, populists in non-Western environments also appear to have also incorporated notions of civilization into their discourses, yet these are rarely studied. The first part of the article begins by discussing the concept of 'civilizationism', a political discourse which emphasizes the civilizational aspect of social and especially national identity. Following this, the article discusses populism and describes how populism itself cannot succeed unless it adheres to a wider political programme or broader set of ideas, and without the engendering or exploiting of a 'crisis' which threatens 'the people'. The article then examines the existing literature on the civilization turn evident among populists. The second part of the article builds on the previous section by discussing the relationship between civilizationism and populism worldwide. To do this, the paper examines civilizational populism in three key nations representing three of the world's major faiths, and three different geographical regions: Turkey, India, and Myanmar. The paper makes three findings. First, while scholars have generally examined civilizational identity in European and North American right-wing populist rhetoric, we find it occurring in a wider range of geographies and religious contexts. Second, civilizationism when incorporated into populism gives content to the key signifiers: 'the pure people', 'the corrupt elite', and 'dangerous 'others'. In each case studied in this article, populists use a civilization based classification of peoples to draw boundaries around 'the people', 'elites' and 'others', and declare that 'the people' are 'pure' and 'good' because they belong to a civilization which is itself pure and good, and authentic insofar as they belong to the civilization which created the nation and culture which populists claim to be defending. Conversely, civilizational populists describe elites as having betrayed 'the people' by abandoning the religion and/or values and culture that shaped and were shaped by their civilization. Equally, civilizational populists describe religious minorities as 'dangerous' others who are morally bad insofar as they belong to a foreign civilization, and therefore to a different religion and/or culture with different values which are antithetical to those of 'our' civilization. Third, civilizational populist rhetoric is effective insofar as populists' can, by adding a civilizational element to the vertical and horizontal dimensions of their populism, claim a civilizational crisis is occurring. Finally, based on the case studies, the paper defines civilizational populism as a group of ideas that together considers that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people, and society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, 'the pure people' versus 'the corrupt elite' who collaborate with the dangerous others belonging to other civilizations that are hostile and present a clear and present danger to the civilization and way of life of the pure people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resurgence of religion worldwide proved that secularization is not a de facto reality of modernity and the initial chaos that came along with the birth of postmodernity evolved into uniquely developing combinations that recognized cosmopolitan, multicultural, and hybrid (i.e., fluid and hyphenated) identities. Universal values became more instrumental than ever to connect members of hyper diverse societies while ethnocentric, nativist and exclusivist patriotism expired (and only recently starting to attract far right and white supremacist groups alone). Most Islamic revivalist movements emerging from this context have had minimal interactions with non-Muslims and influence on mainstream societies. Being in search of a solution to respond to the overwhelming effects of the West on Muslim societies, these revivalist movements could not change (and maybe contributed to) the binary positioning of Islam and the West. On the contrary, the Hizmet movement, inspired by Muhammed Fethullah Gülen and his predecessor Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, appeared in the global arena as an Islamic revivalist movement whose discourse resonated with the commonly shared universal values of every culture, ethnicity, and religion. The Hizmet movement did not position itself as an antithesis to Westernization, secularism, and modernity; the movement adopted a universalist and all-inclusive attitude, which re-introduced to the world that Islam is universal religion with the capacity to accommodate people of diversity and meet the needs of every age. This paper explores the Hizmet movement's historical, theological, and social roots as a transnational Islamic revivalist movement. It analyzes the movement's outreach across multicultural societies and its capability to adapt to a changing world through its educational and interfaith and intercultural activities across the globe. While unpacking thirty years of the Hizmet movement's activities and the contribution to the literature, the paper also addresses some of the criticisms that have emerged regarding the movement and its activities, particularly in the wake of the 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkey. It should be noted that much criticism toward the movement emerged in recent years, and the movement did not face much backlash in its early years of development. With this in mind, this paper explores the development of the Hizmet movement and how much of its initiatives rapidly left a positive mark on diverse societies around the world. The paper is thus structured chronologically, tracing the birth, growth, stagnation, and transition (or according to some collapse) of the movement. The paper, by extension, too, positions the Hizmet movement within the phenomenon of contemporary Islamic revivalism as this movement is born out of similar conditions as are other Islamic revivalist movements but taking a slightly different direction, which is that it challenges the prevailing binary 'us and them' discourses produced mostly in ethno-centric political discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The founders of the secular Turkish Republic, the Kemalists used secular nationalist education to build a secular Turkish nation and to create their own version of modern pro-Western secular Turkish citizens. This paper argues that Turkey's current ruling party, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) has been using the same system of education to create its own desired citizens with Islamist Populist ideals. This has been done without changing the secular principles of the constitution and laws on national education since there are several constraints that would prevent AKP to have open and declared pro-Sharia changes to the law. Thus, unlike many other Islamists in the other parts of the world, the paper shows that the AKP has chosen to undermine the secularity of the system, constitution, and law in an ad hoc, gradual and undeclared fashion. The paper concludes by noting that no matter the change in political actors and their ideologies, education is monopolized by the state for political purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The genus Microphor contains small to very small true flies (Diptera) well known for the kleptoparasitic behavior of females, often observed as "stealing" tiny prey from spider webs. Altogether, 22 species of the genus (including 5 described in this paper) are known worldwide, and our paper loosely follows a recent study from North America. It is quite surprising that we add five new species to seven already known from West Palaearctic, which is the most studied area in the world with respect to the Diptera. Microphor baechlii sp. nov. (Switzerland, Turkey), M. chvalai sp. nov. (France), M. nevadensis sp. nov. (Spain), M. pallipes sp. nov. (Italy), and M. turcicus sp. nov. (Turkey) are described and illustrated. The neotype of M. anomalus (Meigen, 1824) is designated. Males of all known Palaearctic species of Microphor are keyed, genitalia are illustrated for new species and species previously inadequately illustrated, and main diagnostic characters are discussed. Microphorstrobli Chvála, 1986 is newly recorded from Bulgaria, M. anomalus (Meigen, 1824) is newly recorded from Turkey, and M. holosericeus (Meigen, 1804) is newly recorded from Turkey and Portugal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The physicochemical conditions of thermal springs are one of the most significant barriers for detecting microbial life. According to the findings of various studies, high-throughput DNA sequencing technology can be utilized to perform more precise and detailed microbiome assessments. The main goal of this paper was to determine the microbiome in a thermal spring by metabarcoding environmental DNA obtained from four different sources and revealing how temperature and chemical composition affect the microbiome. This research also aimed to gather information that will aid in determining the best gene region and bioinformatic pipeline. The findings revealed a link between four different thermal springs' physicochemical parameters and microbial composition and we found various manipulable steps in this study. This research is also first comprehensive thermal spring metabarcoding study conducted in Turkey. One of the most significant challenges for detecting microbial life in thermal springs by conventional techniques such as culturing is these places' physicochemical (temperature, heavy metal content, pH, etc.) conditions. Data from several studies suggest that high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies can be used to perform more accurate and detailed microbiome analyses. The primary aim of this paper was to determine the microbiome in the thermal source by metabarcoding environmental DNA isolated from four different sources and reveal the reflection of differences caused by temperature and chemical content on the microbiome. DNA was extracted from water filtered with enclosed filters and using the Illumina high-throughput sequencing platform, V3 and V4 regions of the 16S rRNA gene were sequenced. The results showed a correlation between physicochemical conditions and microorganism composition of four different thermal springs. Springs with extremely high temperature (89–90 °C) were dominated by hyperthermophiles such as Hydrogenobacter and Thermus, while a spring with a high temperature (52 °C) was dominated by thermophiles such as Thermoanaerobaculum and Desulfurispora, and a spring with a low temperature (26 °C) and high salinity was dominated by halophiles and sulfur-oxidizers such as Hydrogenovibrio and Sulfirimonas. With this research, we observed many manipulable steps according to the work of interest. This study sought to obtain data that will help decide the right gene region and choose the optimal bioinformatic pipeline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper which comes under the theme of macro-historical perspectives and Mediterranean history I shall discuss the exchange of gifts in three sections: first between the Lusignan kings of Cyprus and the sultans of Mamluk Egypt and Syria, between the Lusignan kings and the Turkish emirs of Anatolia, and thirdly between the Venetian rulers of Cyprus, including Queen Catherine Cornaro, and the Mamluk sultans for the period postdating 1473. Many of these exchanges of gifts took place during times of war, sometimes during the prelude to hostilities and sometimes immediately after their end. In addition, exchanges of gifts between Christian and Muslim rulers occasionally took place at times of peace. The reasons why gifts were exchanged, the type of gifts exchanged when these are described, not an invariable occurrence, and the symbolism underlying these exchanges of gifts will also be analyzed where possible. Furthermore, occasions when the recipient refused to accept the gift and why it was rejected shall also be examined. Where possible, comparisons with the exchange of gifts taking place in other societies and countries of the Eastern Mediterranean will be alluded to and discussed. In terms of source materials, the Cypriot chronicles of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries will form the principal source but reference shall also be made to diplomatic correspondence of the period under discussion. The exchanges of gifts normally took place within a diplomatic setting, this being the arrival of embassies, and gifts were sent sometimes to the close advisers of a ruler who could influence his policy and decision-making. On certain occasions, however, the exchanges of gifts could take place outside of this diplomatic context, for example as an expression of gratitude for assistance received. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The building damage caused by natural disasters seriously threatens human security. Applying deep learning algorithms to identify collapsed buildings from remote sensing images is crucial for rapid post-disaster emergency response. However, the diversity of buildings, limited training dataset size, and lack of ground-truth samples after sudden disasters can significantly reduce the generalization of a pre-trained model for building damage identification when applied directly to non-preset locations. To address this challenge, a self-incremental learning framework (i.e., SELF) is proposed in this paper, which can quickly improve the generalization ability of the pre-trained model in disaster areas by self-training an incremental model using automatically selected samples from post-disaster images. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified on the 2010 Yushu earthquake, 2023 Turkey earthquake, and other disaster types. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of collapsed building identification, with an average increase of more than 6.4% in the Kappa coefficient. Furthermore, the entire process of the self-incremental learning method, including sample selection, incremental learning, and collapsed building identification, can be completed within 6 h after obtaining the post-disaster images. Therefore, the proposed method is effective for emergency response to natural disasters, which can quickly improve the application effect of the deep learning model to provide more accurate building damage results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 6 February 2023, southeastern Turkey was struck by two major earthquakes that devastated 11 provinces. Tens of thousands of buildings collapsed and more were later demolished. During post-event field surveys conducted by the authors, several disposal sites set up in the most affected provinces were detected and checked for suitability. Based on field observations on the properties of sites and their surrounding areas as well as on the implemented debris management activities, it is concluded that all sites had characteristics that did not allow them to be classified as safe for earthquake debris management. This inadequacy is mainly attributed to their proximity to areas, where thousands of people reside. As regards the environmental impact, these sites were operating within or close to surface water bodies. This situation reveals a rush for rapid recovery resulting in serious errors in the preparation and implementation of disaster management plans. In this context, measures for effective debris management are proposed based on the existing scientific knowledge and operational experience. This paper aims to highlight challenges during earthquakes debris management and related threats posed to public health and the environment in order to be avoided in future destructive events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calibration methods enhance estimates by modifying the initial design weights, for which supplementary information is exploited. This paper first proposes a generalized class of minimum-covariance-determinant (MCD)-based calibration estimators and then presents a novel class of MCD-based calibrated estimators under a stratified median-ranked-set-sampling (MRSS) design. Further, we also present a double MRSS version of generalized and novel classes of estimators. To assess and compare the performance of the generalized and novel classes of estimators, both real and artificial datasets are utilized. In the presented practical scenarios and real-world applications, we utilize information from a dataset comprising 800 individuals in Turkey from 2014. These data include body mass index (BMI) as the primary variable of interest and age values as auxiliary variables. The BMI results shows that the proposed estimators (y ¯ P M I = 581.1897 , y ¯ P a M I = 544.8397) have minimum and (y ¯ P M I I = 669.1822 , y ¯ P a M I I = 648.2363) have maximum PREs in the case of single and double MRSS for odd sample sizes. Similarly, (y ¯ P M I = 860.0099 , y ¯ P a M I = 844.7803) have minimum and (y ¯ P M I I = 974.5859 , y ¯ P a M I I = 953.7233) have maximum PREs in the case of single and double MRSS for even sample sizes. Additionally, we conduct a simulation study using a symmetric dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buildings that have cultural and historical significance are very important elements of our living spaces and they must be protected by public authorities. However, the preservation of these buildings prevents their landowners from using their development rights and causes economic losses. If those losses are not compensated, it results in social injustice. Leaving this problem unsolved makes historic buildings a target for arson, facilitates the destruction of unregistered (unlisted) historic buildings for redevelopment with a higher density. The traditional methods, namely expropriation and property exchange, generally fail to compensate those development losses. However, the method of transfer of development rights (TDR) can be a good option for this task in Turkey as well. Although there have been some important legislative actions, an "implementing regulation" could not be enacted so far. In this study, we attempt to develop a step-by-step methodology for the implementation of a TDR program from the perspective of land management. The methodology introduced in this paper is also tested for its validity by interviewing 18 professionals from related sectors and all the interviewees agreed on them with minor suggestions. The results derived from this study could benefit not only property owners, but also overall preservation efforts in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a semiparametric local polynomial estimator for modelling agricultural time-series. We consider the modelling of the crop yield variable according to determined financial risk factors in Turkey. The derivation of a semiparametric local polynomial estimator is provided with its fundamental statistical properties to estimate the semiparametric time-series model. This paper attaches importance to precision agriculture (PA) and therefore a local polynomial technique is considered due to some advantages it has over alternative methods. The introduced estimator provides less estimation risk, involving both parametric and nonparametric components that allow the estimator to represent the data structure better. From that, it can be said that the proposed estimator and model is beneficial to agricultural researchers for financial decision-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 6 February 2023, at 1:17:34 UTC, a powerful Mw = 7.8 earthquake shook parts of Turkey and Syria. Investigating the behavior of different earthquake precursors around the time and location of this earthquake can facilitate the creation of an earthquake early warning system in the future. Total electron content (TEC) obtained from the measurements of GPS satellites is one of the ionospheric precursors, which in many cases has shown prominent anomalies before the occurrence of strong earthquakes. In this study, five classical and intelligent anomaly detection algorithms, including median, Kalman filter, artificial neural network (ANN)-multilayer perceptron (MLP), long short-term memory (LSTM), and ant colony optimization (ACO), have been used to detect seismo-anomalies in the time series of TEC changes in a period of about 4 months, from 1 November 2022 to 17 February 2023. All these algorithms show outstanding anomalies in the period of 10 days before the earthquake. The median method shows clear TEC anomalies in 1, 2 and, 3 days before the event. Since the behavior of the time series of a TEC parameter is complex and nonlinear, by implementing the Kalman filter method, pre-seismic anomalies were observed in 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 days prior to the main shock. ANN as an intelligent-method-based machine learning also emphasizes the abnormal behavior of the TEC parameter in 1, 2, 3, 6, and 10 days before the earthquake. As a deep-learning-based predictor, LSTM indicates that the TEC value in the 10 days prior to the event has crossed the defined permissible limits. As an optimization algorithm, the ACO method shows behavior similar to Kalman filter and MLP algorithms by detecting anomalies 3, 7, and 10 days before the earthquake. In a previous paper, the author showed the findings of implementing a fuzzy inference system (FIS), indicating that the magnitude of the mentioned powerful earthquake could be predicted during about 9 to 1 day prior to the event. The results of this study also confirm the findings of another study. Therefore, considering that different lithosphere–atmosphere–ionosphere (LAI) precursors and different predictors show abnormal behavior in the time period before the occurrence of large earthquakes, the necessity of creating an earthquake early warning system based on intelligent monitoring of different precursors in earthquake-prone areas is emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, Allium sphaeronixum, a new species of the sect. Codonoprasum from Turkey, is described and illustrated. The new species is endemic to Central Anatolia, limited to the area of Nevşehir, where it grows on sandy or rocky soil at an elevation of 1000–1300 m a.s.l. Its morphology, phenology, karyology, leaf anatomy, seed testa micromorphology, chorology, and conservation status are examined in detail. The taxonomic relationships with the closest allied species, A. staticiforme and A. myrianthum, are also highlighted and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Damage identification soon after a large-magnitude earthquake is a major problem for early disaster response activities. The faster the damaged areas are identified, the higher the survival chances of inhabitants. Current methods for damage identification are based on the application of artificial intelligence techniques using remote sensing data. Such methods require a large amount of high-quality labeled data for calibration and/or fine-tuning processes, which are expensive in the aftermath of large-scale disasters. In this paper, we propose a novel semi-supervised classification approach for identifying urban changes induced by an earthquake between images recorded at different times. We integrate information from a small set of labeled data with information from ground motion and fragility functions computed on large unlabeled data. A relevant consideration is that ground motion and fragility functions can be computed in real time. The urban changes induced by the 2023 Turkey earthquake sequence are reported as an evaluation of the proposed method. The method was applied to the interferometric coherence computed from C-band synthetic aperture radar images from Sentinel-1. We use only 39 samples labeled as changed and 9000 unlabeled samples. The results show that our method is able to identify changes between images associated with the effects of an earthquake with an accuracy of about 81%. We conclude that the proposed method can rapidly identify affected areas in the aftermath of a large-magnitude earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the intricate relationship between religious populism and the legitimization of digital authoritarianism in Turkey. Specifically, it investigates how the ruling party, AKP, has strategically linked Islamist values to state policies as a means of justifying its repressive control over digital technology. Through an examination of internet governance at multiple levels—full network-level governance, sub-network or website-level governance, proxy or corporation-level governance, and network–node or individual-level governance—the study reveals the instrumentalization of religious populism to consolidate support and validate the government's autocratic agenda. Furthermore, it sheds light on the role of state-controlled religious institutions, traditional media, social media outlets, as well as religious leaders and organizations in shaping public opinion, enabling the government to exert greater control over the dissemination of information. By dissecting the religious populist justification of digital authoritarianism in Turkey, this research provides valuable insights into the complex dynamics at play in the realm of online governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In February 2023, Mw 7.8 and Mw 7.7 earthquakes struck southeastern Turkey. Generating a coseismic 3D deformation field that can directly reflect the characteristics of surface deformation is important for revealing the movement mode of a seismogenic fault and analyzing the focal mechanism. Optical image sub-pixel correlation (SPC) only captures deformation in the horizontal direction, and SAR image pixel offset tracking (POT) obtains range deformation that is not sensitive to north–south deformation signals. Thus, neither of them can capture the complete 3D deformation alone. Combining them may be able to allow the monitoring of 3D deformation. In this study, we used Sentinel-2 optical images to obtain the horizontal deformation (east–west and north–south) and Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 data to extract the range and azimuth offsets. The least-squares method was used to fuse the optical and SAR offsets to obtain the 3D deformation field of the 2023 Turkey earthquake sequence, which indicates that the two events were both left-lateral strike-slip earthquakes. The surface deformation caused by the two large earthquakes is mainly in the east–west direction. In the vertical direction, the two earthquakes caused a small-magnitude uplift and subsidence. The findings in this paper can be used as a reference for the study of coseismic 3D deformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rice, as one of the significant grain products across the world, features a wide range of varieties in terms of usability and efficiency. It may be known with various varieties and regional names depending on the specific locations. To specify a particular rice type, different features are considered, such as shape and color. This study uses an available dataset in Turkey consisting of five different varieties: Ipsala, Arborio, Basmati, Jasmine, and Karacadag. The dataset introduces 75,000 grain images in total; each of the 5 varieties has 15,000 samples with a 256 × 256-pixel dimension. The main contribution of this paper is to create Quantized Neural Network (QNN) models to efficiently classify rice varieties with the purpose of reducing resource usage on edge devices. It is well-known that QNN is a successful method for alleviating high computational costs and power requirements in response to many Deep Learning (DL) algorithms. These advantages of the quantization process have the potential to provide an efficient environment for artificial intelligence applications on microcontroller-driven edge devices. For this purpose, we created eight different QNN networks using the MLP and Lenet-5-based deep learning models with varying quantization levels to be trained by the dataset. With the Lenet-5-based QNN network created at the W3A3 quantization level, a 99.87% classification accuracy level was achieved with only 23.1 Kb memory size used for the parameters. In addition to this tremendous benefit of memory usage, the number of billion transactions per second (GOPs) is 23 times less than similar classification studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two strong earthquakes occurred in Turkey on 6 February 2023, at 01:17:34 (nighttime, Mw = 7.8) and at 10:24:50 UT (daytime, Mw = 7.5). The seismo-ionospheric impact is an important part of the near-Earth environment state. This paper provides the first results on the ionospheric effects associated with the aforementioned earthquakes. We used data from global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers and ionosondes. We found that both earthquakes generated circle disturbance in the ionosphere, detected by GNSS data. The amplitude of the ionospheric response caused by daytime M7.5 earthquake exceeded by five times that caused by nighttime M7.8 earthquake: 0.5 TECU/min and 0.1 TECU/min, respectively, according to the ROTI data. The velocities of the earthquake-related ionospheric waves were ~2000 m/s, as measured by ROTI, for the M7.5 earthquake. TEC variations with 2–10 min periods showed velocities from 1500 to 900 m/s as disturbances evolved. Ionospheric disturbances occurred around epicenters and propagated to the south by means of 2–10 min TEC variations. ROTI data showed a more symmetric distribution with irregularities observed both to the South and to the North from 10:24:50 UT epicenter. The ionospheric effects were recorded over 750 km from the epicenters. Ionosonde located 420/490 km from the epicenters did not catch ionospheric effects. The results show significant asymmetry in the propagation of coseismic ionospheric disturbances. We observed coseismic ionospheric disturbances associated with Rayleigh mode and acoustic modes, but we did not observe disturbances associated with acoustic gravity mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether Turkish populism has undergone a 'civilizational turn' akin to what Brubaker, Haynes, Yilmaz, and Morieson have described occurring among populist parties in Europe and North America. The article applies Yilmaz and Morieson's definition of 'civilizational populism' to Turkey under the rule of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) in order to determine whether the party conforms to this definition. The article investigates how the AKP, an Islamist and populist political party lead by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has increasingly incorporated what we term 'civilizational populism' into its discourse. The article shows the impact of civilizational populism on Turkey's domestic and foreign policy under the AKP rule. The article finds that the AKP has increasingly, and especially since the 2013 Gezi Park protests and the mysterious coup attempt in 2016, construed opposition between the Turkish 'self' and the 'other' not in primarily nationalist terms, but in religious and civilizational terms, and as a conflict between the Ottoman-Islamic 'self' and 'Western' other. Furthermore, the article finds that the AKP's domestic and foreign policies reflect its civilizational populist division of Turkish society insofar as the party is attempting to raise a 'pious generation' that supports its Islamizing of Turkey society, and its nostalgic neo-Ottomanist power projections in the Middle East. Finally, the paper discusses how the AKP's civilizational populism has become a transnational populist phenomenon due to the party's ability to produce successful television shows that reflect its anti-Western worldview and justify its neo-Ottoman imperialism in the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using auxiliary information, the calibration approach modifies the original design weights to enhance the mean estimates. This paper initially proposes two families of estimators based on an adaptation of the estimators presented by recent researchers, and then, it presents a new family of calibration estimators with the set of some calibration constraints under stratified median ranked set sampling (MRSS). The result has also been implemented to the situation of two-stage stratified median ranked set sampling (MRSS). To best of our knowledge, we are presenting for the first time calibration-based mean estimators under stratified MRSS, so the performance evaluation is made between adapted and proposed estimators on behalf of the simulation study with real and artificial datasets. For real-world data or applications, we use information on the body mass index (BMI) of 800 people in Turkey in 2014 as a research variable and age as an auxiliary variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forecasting stock markets is an important challenge due to leptokurtic distributions with heavy tails due to uncertainties in markets, economies, and political fluctuations. To forecast the direction of stock markets, the inclusion of leading indicators to volatility models is highly important; however, such series are generally at different frequencies. The paper proposes the GARCH-MIDAS-LSTM model, a hybrid method that benefits from LSTM deep neural networks for forecast accuracy, and the GARCH-MIDAS model for the integration of effects of low-frequency variables in high-frequency stock market volatility modeling. The models are being tested for a forecast sample including the COVID-19 shut-down after the first official case period and the economic reopening period in in Borsa Istanbul stock market in Türkiye. For this sample, significant uncertainty existed regarding future economic expectations, and the period provided an interesting laboratory to test the forecast effectiveness of the proposed LSTM augmented model in addition to GARCH-MIDAS models, which included geopolitical risk, future economic expectations, trends, and cycle industrial production indices as low-frequency variables. The evidence suggests that stock market volatility is most effectively modeled with geopolitical risk, followed by industrial production, and a relatively lower performance is achieved by future economic expectations. These findings imply that increases in geopolitical risk enhance stock market volatility further, and that industrial production and future economic expectations work in the opposite direction. Most importantly, the forecast results suggest suitability of both the GARCH-MIDAS and GARCH-MIDAS-LSTM models, and with good forecasting capabilities. However, a comparison shows significant root mean squared error reduction with the novel GARCH-MIDAS-LSTM model over GARCH-MIDAS models. Percentage decline in root mean squared errors for forecasts are between 39% to 95% in LSTM augmented models depending on the type of economic indicator used. The proposed approach offers a key tool for investors and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]