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It is very essential in terms of flood risk management to consider social expectations such as risk perception, flood awareness, preparedness, and socio-economic dynamics together with engineering designs. Understanding the way people perceive flood risk can enhance our capability of improving existing flood risk management methods, thus helps us creating disaster resilient societies. In this study, results of a questionnaire which was used for a previous study and had been administered to participants from Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey were further investigated using statistical methods. The main aim was to understand how demographic factors such as age, gender and education level affect people's flood risk perception. It was also desired to see that whether they were aware of the parties responsible for taking mitigation measures, or whether they know about possible flood mitigation measures or not. Using the same data with the previous study, but in addition using SPSS software to do statistical analysis, questionnaire results were investigated using convenient statistical tests for each parameter, analysis results were interpreted, and conclusions were drawn. Same tests were conducted using weight coefficients adopted using a certain methodology which is explained in the paper, in order to make a better investigation. Also, results were compared with the results of the previous study. It was seen that there were some consistencies and contradictions between the results of the previous study and this study's results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the key challenges for STEM education in Turkey include the problems encountered by teachers when integrating diverse disciplines and technologies into STEM activities, the need for teachers to acquire the skills necessary to prepare and implement appropriate STEM activities for the educational level of their students and their school context, the difficulties faced by teachers when following the Engineering Design (ED) problem-solving process in the implementation of STEM activities, and teachers' heavy workloads, which impede the collaboration required to develop and implement STEM activities. A field study was carried out in Samsun, Turkey between 2017 and 2018 to develop a Design Thinking (DT) approach customized to support STEM teachers. The field study adopted an action research methodology and involved two main studies with fifth-grade teachers and students, facilitated by a researcher-designer. Qualitative methods including co-design workshops, focus groups, interviews, and observation were employed to gather data. The paper presents a seven-step DT approach, customized to support pre-service and in-service secondary school teachers in collaboratively designing and implementing classroom STEM activities. The results indicate that structuring the STEM activity design as a specialized DT process provides a complementary framework. Collaboration among teachers in a structured STEM activity design process supports the integration of disciplines and the development of STEM activities that correspond to the students' level of knowledge and ability. Empathy building, which facilitates familiarization with other teachers and students, enhances collaboration among teachers and aids the development of STEM activities relevant to the students' level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present an activity based on the integration of modeling and STEM to answer a real-life question related to volcanism which is a continuously unobservable but important phenomenon for many countries. For this purpose, firstly an activity was developed about volcanic eruptions to model the characteristics of volcanic eruptions' explosiveness. Afterwards, the participants designed a predictor of a possible eruption by using an engineering design process. The study was conducted in a public university in Turkey with twenty-four 3rd grade Pre-Service Science Teachers (PSSTs) in three weeks. In the first week, the real-life scenario was given to the PSSTs and they modeled the characteristics of volcanic eruptions' explosiveness such as viscosity, pressure, and rate of degassing. Followingly, they planned their predictors of volcanic eruptions based on what they learned in the modeling stage and started to design in the second week. In the third week, they completed their prototypes and shared their prototype development experiences with classmates. Many prototypes were presented as examples in which they used detecting the gas released from a volcano, measuring changes in the shape of the volcano, as well as monitoring earthquakes that may signal a possible eruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students with relatively low affinity and/or weak ability for science and mathematics have been presently acknowledged into Mechanical Engineering (ME) departments around the world. This has resulted in apparent lowering of fully competent graduate engineers, due to insufficient comprehension and its concomitant cognitive issues. Now, the complexity and the demand of ME education have been extremely unbalanced with recruited students. This conflict between the education process and less knowledgeable students has been adequately acknowledged, but remedies for this global issue are not yet available. This is no longer sustainable. The paper gives insight into (individual and combined) plausible reasons for fewer fully competent graduate engineers, taking the specific case study in Turkey. It proposes a generic approach, which can be extended to courses of any university/degree subject. Findings on student learning are provided using a hierarchical decomposition. A proposed remedy for this issue has been thoroughly evaluated, and accountability measures, qualitative data and a survey has been conducted for the ME design course taught in Turkey. The findings indicate that the new recruits are not fully to blame for the conflict, because there have also been other reasons for the issues within teaching. It identified multiple instances of the reasons such as unnecessary complexity of textbooks, unsolved contradictions even between the technical component design standards and etc. If these are considered by educators, this will help to reduce the perceived degree of teaching difficulty, and have a positive effect on the quality of graduates. It may even assist in attracting higher ability students into ME. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global competition has forced companies to consider increasing quality and decreasing all costs, including quality costs. When constructing the quality plan for both the incoming raw materials and the manufacturing process, all quality characteristics (QCs) of products or processes cannot be measured or tested because of preventive costs. Companies should decide which QCs are significant and should be measured or tested. This paper presents a methodology for selecting the significant QCs of a product. A quality function deployment failure matrix is proposed, incorporating failure information from design failure mode and effect analysis, related QCs, vague information on technical difficulties, and imprecise cost and time measurements for QCs. In addition, this method uses a fuzzy multiple-objective decision model that addresses two objectives: maximising the priorities of QCs and minimising the technical difficulties within the constraints of limited cost and time. A two-phase approach is used for solving the fuzzy multiple-objective model. A real application to a backhoe loader wheel is presented as an illustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to evaluate the compatibility of engineering design activities in 5-8 grade science coursebooks in Turkey with the curriculum and to examine their reflection of design principles. The document analysis method was used in the study. Initially, the 5-8 grade science coursebooks recommended by the Ministry of National Education in 2021-2022 were determined. Then, the engineering design activities in these books and the learning outcomes related to engineering and design skills in the 2018 Science Curriculum were determined. As a data collection tool, an engineering design activity evaluation rubric based on engineering design principles was prepared by reviewing the relevant literature. Based on the prepared rubric, the activities in the science coursebooks recommended by the MoNE in 2020-2021 were examined. At the end of the examination, some learning outcomes had more than one engineering design activity, some learning outcomes did not have design activities, and some learning outcomes had design activities in subjects excluding the learning outcomes. Depending on this, the percentages of the coursebooks reflecting engineering design were determined. It was observed that the percentage of the coursebook with more STEM activities reflecting engineering design principles was low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aimed to introduce a STEM activity specifically prepared in accordance with the engineering design process and to examine a group of prospective preschool teachers' views about the activity. A total of 16 prospective teachers studying in the final year of a public university in the West Black Sea Region, Turkey, during the fall semester of the 2021/22 academic year were the participants of the study. The STEM activity was based on the problem of making a fish model that can sink, swim and float in water. At the end of the activity, an open-ended activity opinion form was used to gather the prospective teachers' views about the activity. The data were analyzed using the descriptive analysis method by taking into consideration the themes related to STEM, as specified in the theoretical framework. The results of the study show that the prospective teachers took the opportunity to experience how a STEM activity is held, that they found the activity fun and interesting, as well as conducive to learning science concepts and higher-order thinking skills. As for the negative aspects of the activity, the respondents stated that the activity was time-consuming, and that it was difficult to decide on and build the design. We believe that this study will provide theoretical and practical contributions to both researchers and preschool teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been acknowledged that two important rock aggregate properties are the Los Angeles abrasion value (LAAV) and magnesium sulphate soundness (Mwl). However, the determination of these properties is relatively challenging due to special sampling requirements and tedious testing procedures. In this study, detailed laboratory studies were carried out to predict the LAAV and Mwl for 25 different rock types located in NW Turkey. For this purpose, mineralogical, physical, mechanical, and aggregate properties were determined for each rock type. Strong predictive models were established based on gene expression programming (GEP) and artificial neural network (ANN) methodologies. The performance of the proposed models was evaluated using several statistical indicators, and the statistical analysis results demonstrated that the ANN-based proposed models with the correlation of determination (R²) value greater than 0.98 outperformed the other predictive models established in this study. Hence, the ANN-based predictive models can reliably be used to predict the LAAV and Mwl for the investigated rock types. In addition, the suitability of the investigated rock types for use in bituminous paving mixtures was also evaluated based on the ASTM D692/D692M standard. Accordingly, most of the investigated rock types can be used in bituminous paving mixtures. In conclusion, it can be claimed that the proposed predictive models with their explicit mathematical formulations are believed to save time and provide practical knowledge for evaluating the suitability of the rock aggregates in pavement engineering design studies in NW Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of the interior surface materials on the acoustic performance of spaces is well known, both theoretically and practically. This paper gives a concrete example of this reality and summarizes the results of a detailed case study. The detailed measurements, calculations and evaluations were carried out on the auditorium of Yıldız Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey. As part of a renovation project, acoustic measurements were performed in the hall before the renovation, on the unfurnished hall and after renovation. The results obtained from these three distinct situations were evaluated in order to show the impact of interior surface materials on the acoustic characteristics of the space. In addition, the theoretically calculated acoustic environment was compared with the actual results after the renovation to evaluate the accuracy of the theoretical calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents engineering geological investigations and the tunnel support design for the Boztepe tunnel of the Ordu Peripheral Highway located in northeast Turkey. In order to characterize the rock masses in Boztepe Tunnel which mainly consist of flysch (mostly alternation of sandstone, marl and siltstone) and pyroclastics (agglomerate and tuff), engineering geological investigations have been carried out in three stages as surface, subsurface and laboratory investigations. Rock mass classification systems (Geomechanics Classification System, RMR; Norwegian Geotechnical Institution Q-system and Geological Strength Index, GSI) have been utilized through information obtained from engineering geological investigations. Sixteen boreholes with a total length of 1497 m have been drilled to assist and verify rock mass classifications. Approximately seventy five rock samples have been obtained for rock mechanics tests. The information provided from all the engineering geological investigation stages has been handled in the characterization of the rock masses at the tunnel elevation. In an attempt to check the validity of empirical tunnel supports of the various rock mass classification systems, stress analysis around the tunnel opening has been executed by the 2D finite element analysis program, Phase2 where rock mass data obtained through the rock mass classification systems have been utilized as input data. In these analyses, the empirically proposed support systems have been found to be successful to prevent further deformations around the tunnel openings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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This study aims to analyse the annual maximum (i.e., outlier or extreme) rainfall datasets, and also to detect potential trends and assess their significance for the Aegean region, Turkey. These datasets were analysed using the parametric Student's t-test, the nonparametric Mann–Kendall (MK) trend test, the Şen trend test, and a novel proposed approach in this present study. Moreover, a homogeneity test was applied to the datasets. The analyses were based on 60-year [1960–2019, except for Uşak (1960–2015)] records at the eight meteorological stations. In this context, the findings showed that there was no statistically significant trend according to the Student's t-test and the MK test except for Afyonkarahisar. Şen test provided some different results from the Student's t-test and the MK trend test except for Kütahya, Manisa, Muğla, and Uşak provinces. The novel approach provided some different results from the Student's t-test, Mann–Kendall (MK) trend test, and the Şen trend test. For example, there was a statistically significant increasing trend in the Student's t-test, Mann–Kendall (MK) trend test, and the Şen trend test for Afyonkarahisar. There was a statistically insignificant increasing trend in the newly developed approach at a 90% confidence interval with a two-tailed hypothesis test; therefore, this increasing trend especially for Afyonkarahisar should be considered in designing of the engineering and other related structures. In addition to these consequences, some advantages of the novel approach can be explained as follow: this novel approach (i) provides a good option to see the limits of the data on the plot because data visualisation is very important; (ii) has benefited both visually and mathematically in considering the extreme data, and (iii) can also be evaluated as a support test for other trend tests, such as MK and Şen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of new winter sports facilities were constructed in the city of Erzurum for 2011 FISU—Universiade Winter Games, some of which constituted the first examples in Turkey. One of those is the ski-jumping complex, which hosts 5 runways along with a cluster of structures in various sizes and annexes, complementing the runways. On the northern slope of Kiremitlik Hill, where the complex is situated, a landslide occurred on 15th July of 2014, leading into complete collapse of the runways and major damage to the entire facility. This study presents a technical summary and forensic analysis of the formation of this natural hazard to illuminate the causes that cumulatively led to this engineering failure that created a massive material loss. In this work, we investigate the issue from geological, geophysical and geotechnical perspectives to illuminate the true causes of this engineering failure. We also hope that this technical evaluation provides an example for engineers as well as public administrators not to overlook the critical ground conditions and well-established design principles of civil engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to design a digital game design-based STEM activity for fifth-grade students learning about endangered organisms and significance of biodiversity for living. This activity was carried out with twenty students in a public school in Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey during academic year of 2018–2019 spring term. This study planned as eight-lesson time (8 × 40 minutes) and completed at this lesson time. The students were given the digital game design challenge in real-life problem context that has been created based on design-based science learning and for which they shall use their knowledge and skills in each of the STEM disciplines. During this design challenge, students worked like a scientist and an engineer. They carried out scientific research and inquiry process in the science discipline, understood the engineering design process in the engineering discipline, established mathematical relations in the mathematics discipline, learned how to make coding in the technology discipline, and used this knowledge and skills thus acquired in their suggested solutions for the design challenge. They designed a digital game by coding and presented science knowledge and skills that acquired from inquiry process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]