Required illumination levels in an electronics manufacturing facility were studied in order to provide feedback for architects and engineers. The study was carried out for the production floor of an electronics company in Ankara. The space considered was a Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) and Surface Mount Device (SMD) production department. The selected area was subdivided into different areas according to required illumination levels for each year. These levels were determined according to the specific work types over the total area according to each individual department. Data compiled by the field survey was analyzed and evaluated for investigating the relation of the potential effectiveness of the lighting systems regarding time, together with illumination levels needed for specific work areas. Changes in the sizes of areas needing various illuminance levels over past years were analyzed. It was found that there had been a decrease in the total required illumination levels.

The aim of this research was to determine the effects of the fineness of different mineral additives on loss on ignition, heat of hydration, physical, mechanical and chemical properties of blended cements. For that purpose, portland cement clinker was replaced with granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS), natural pozzolan (NP) and limestone (L) at 6%, 20% and 35% replacement levels. Blended cements containing GBFS and NP were ground to a fineness of 3000, 5000 and 6000 cm2/g. Cements containing L were ground to 3000 cm2/g, 4000 cm2/g and 4500 cm2/g. All of the blended cement types mentioned above were both interground and separately ground to the specified fineness levels. Therefore, a total of 57 different cements were produced. Loss on ignition, heat of hydration, chemical, mechanical and physical analyses were performed on the produced cements. Moreover, the chemical analyses of the cements were obtained for cement particles finer (-45&mu / m) and coarser (+45&mu / m) than 45 &mu / m in order to determine the ingredients of -45 &mu / m, which is known to be more reactive. As a result it was shown that the grindability differences of the cement ingredients affect the properties of blended cements. An increase in the specific surface area increases both the compressive strength and heat of hydration values and adversely affects the loss on ignition values. The results also showed that if the cement particles were ground finer, it was more prone to moisture which resulted in higher loss on ignition values after longer periods.

This is the report of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study on some masonry wall types. As the starting point, literature on masonry materials, techniques and possible end-of-life scenarios were examined that are needed for the formulation of a LCA study. Prevalent masonry types were detected as fired clay brick, AAC block, natural stone, mud brick as well as prevalent end-of-life cases as landfill, reuse and recycling. Additionally, an overview of the literature on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was presented in order to detect a framework for the structure of a LCA study. After the collection of all needed information, several possible life cycle scenarios were formulated in a realistic manner for each stated masonry type. Obtained information was applied to a LCA evaluation software product named SimaPro life cycle inventory software (PR&eacute / Consultants, 2012). By means of the software product, general scores of environmental impact for all alternatives were obtained. Besides analyzing and comparing the scores, basic reasons behind the results were discussed in terms of similarity and difference. The results reveal that when the requirements shaping the wall are clearly described, the most and the least environmental friendly wall types are detectable. During the study two main scopes, such as commonly used wall thicknesses and thicknesses for thermal insulation were described and several types of walls with life cycle alternatives were labeled as the most or the least harmful to nature. To conclude, although it is not reasonable to point out one type of masonry as the least harmful one for any cases, the conditions of each case detect the most and the least v harmful type of masonry walls. Nevertheless, the relatively low environmental impact of mud brick masonry is striking. Therefore the environmental friendly aspect of mud brick masonry is underlined &ndash / one more time- by the results of this study.

Maritime law enforcement is the fundamental issue for the national security as well a great component for the social and economic stability. This is the trend of international society, especially on the aspects of the highly advancement of scientific technology and the upward surge of human right. People become non-passive on the carrying-out of .law enforcement without contortion and actively conform to the quality and standard of laws by the institutional performance. It is noted that people have serious considered their individual rights, especially to the limitation or prohibition of their rights after the release of 535 th solution by the grand justice. It is the obligation of law maker or practitioner to carefully examining people¡¦s right. Coast Guard Administration of Executive Yuan is the sole institution responsible for maritime law enforcement. Its maritime law enforcement scope consists of internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, the continental shelf and the high seas. The CGA enforce the laws and conform to not only the nation, but also the international jurisdiction rights. The present study has identified following issues for the improvement of current maritime law enforcement; 1) a lack of proper laws for authoring the coast guard administration on maritime enforcement, 2) a need to revising and formulating the laws related to the tasks of the coast guard institution, 3) a proper law to integrate, reform and unify or amend the laws or acts among the different government departments. 4) the unfitness of the function of 535 th solution to meet with the maritime law enforcement, 5) the problem of penalty and fine on the prohibited waters, 6) the future direction and its capacity for international and cross-channel activities related to cut-down the domestic criminal cases. These issues are imperatively needed to improve the governmental effectiveness on the development of resources and manpower in order to enhance the capability of coast guard institution to apprehend smugglers and arrest sneaking people. Furthermore, the laws shall be able to provide the power to maintain fishery resources, protect sea environment, and perform the safe and rescue on the sea. Thus, the nation can be in competitive pace with the international advanced countries in regard to the law system.

UK statistics have shown that a significant percentage of fatalities in fires have suffered from some kind of disability. In this context 'disability' relates to a person's physical or mental condition that impinges on their ability to react and move promptly in an emergency. Various evacuation modelling techniques are being adopted to study the movement of occupants during emergencies since the exposure of people to fires for experimental purposes is unethical. However, many evacuation models have ignored the effects of disability on escape potential and therefore tend to predict optimal evacuation times. Moreover, whilst providing some valuable insights into certain factors affecting occupant movement, current models are generally presented in isolation and fail to define a general framework for designing solutions to fire safety engineering problems. The purpose of this research programme was to develop a more general methodology for predicting evacuation times of mixed-ability populations. This was made possible through the development and use of a novel concept of evacuation peiformance index (EPI), which is the relative ease of evacuating a disabled person compared to an able-bodied person, founded on a consideration of the effects of disabilities and mobility aids on evacuation times. The author shows how this concept relates three aspects of fire safety, namely, individual characteristics of disabled occupants, the amount of assistance they require, and building design and environmental factors. She contends that the evacuation peifornzance index of a class of individuals is primarily dependent on these three categories. Experimental data to verify the above claim was collected from careflully monitored evacuation drills involving a group of disabled people. Their EPIs were determined along a pre-defined route from which their evacuation times were calculated. Comparisons between predicted times using the EPI concept and measured times from alternative empirical data were seen to be in reasonable agreement. An iterative design procedure is also suggested; one that is capable of predicting worst possible evacuation times by incorporating measures of EPI and escape route dimensions and details. The EPI concept provides fire safety engineering with a logical design philosophy, which is flexible and easily comprehensible. It endeavours to increase understanding of evacuation of disabled people, and provide a simplified mechanism for fire safety design and planning of evacuation procedures.

This thesis contributes increased knowledge about climate variability during the late Quaternary in the eastern Mediterranean. Results from a paleoclimate review reveal that regional wetter conditions from 6000 to 5400 years BP were replaced by a less wet period from 5400 to 4600 years BP and to fully arid conditions around 4600 years BP. The data available, however, show that there is not enough evidence to support the notion of a widespread climate event with rapidly drying conditions in the region around 4200 years ago. The review further highlights the lack of paleoclimate data from the archaeologically rich Peloponnese Peninsula. This gap is addressed in this thesis by the provision of new paleoclimate records from the Peloponnese. One stalagmite from Kapsia Cave and two stalagmites from Glyfada Cave were dated and analyzed for stable oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotopes. The Glyfada record covers a period from ~78 ka to ~37 ka and shows that the climate in this region responded rapidly to changes in temperatures over Greenland. During Greenland stadial (interstadial) conditions colder (warmer) and drier (wetter) conditions are reflected by depleted (enriched) δ13C-values in the speleothems. The Kapsia record covers a period from ~2900 to ~1100 years BP. A comparison between the modern stalagmite top isotopes and meteorological data shows that a main control on stalagmite δ18O is wet season precipitation amount. The δ18O record from Kapsia indicates cyclical humidity changes of close to 500 years, with rapid shifts toward wetter conditions followed by slowly developing aridity. Superimposed on this signal is a centennial signal of precipitation variability. A second speleothem from Kapsia with multiple horizons of fine sediments from past flood events intercalated with the calcite is used to develop a new, quick and non-destructive method for tracing flood events in speleothems by analyzing a thick section with an XRF core scanner. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Submitted. Paper 4: Accepted.</p>

Zircon (U-Th)/He (zircon He) dating has become a widely used thermochronologic method in the geosciences. Practitioners have traditionally interpreted (U-Th)/He dates from zircons across a broad spectrum of chemical compositions with a single set of ⁴He diffusion kinetics derived from only a handful of crystals (Reiners et al., 2004). However, it has become increasingly clear that a "one-size-fits-all" approach to these kinetics is inadequate, leading to erroneous conclusions and incongruent data. This dissertation develops a more grain-specific approach by showing the fundamental role that intracrystalline radiation damage plays in determining the He diffusivity in a given zircon. I present three appendices that seek to quantify the radiation damage effect on He diffusion in zircon, explain how this effect manifests in zircon He dates, and show how to exploit such manifestations to better constrain sample thermal histories. Of particular importance, this dissertation represents the first comprehensive study to concentrate on the entire damage spectrum found in natural zircon and also the first to show that two different mechanisms affect He diffusion in zircon in different ways across this spectrum. In the first appendix, I and my fellow co-authors describe results from a series of step-heating experiments that show how the alpha dose of a given zircon, which we interpret to be correlated with accumulated radiation damage, influences its He diffusivity. From 1.2 × 10¹⁶ α/g to 1.4 × 10¹⁸ α/g, He diffusivity at a given temperature decreases by three orders of magnitude, but as alpha dose increases from ~2 × 10¹⁸ α/g to 8.2 × 10¹⁸ α/g, He diffusivity then increases by about nine orders of magnitude. We parameterize both the initial decrease and eventual increase in diffusivity with alpha dose with a function that describes these changes in terms of increasing abundance and size of intracrystalline radiation damage zones and resulting effects on the tortuosity of He migration pathways and dual-domain behavior. This is combined with another equation that describes damage annealing in zircon. The end result is a new model that constrains the coevolution of damage, He diffusivity, and He date in zircon as a function of its actinide content and thermal history. The second and third appendices use this new model to decipher zircon He datasets comprising many single grain dates that are correlated with effective uranium (eU, a proxy for the relative degree of radiation damage among grains from the same sample). The model is critical for proper interpretation of results from igneous settings that show date-eU correlations and were once considered spurious (appendix B). When applied to partially reset sedimentary rocks, other sources of date variability, such as damage and He inheritance, have to be considered as well (appendix C).

A better understanding of these structural changes that occur before Hypertension (HTN) could ultimately result in a treatment that can prevent or reverse this disease state before its onset. T cells have been shown essential for the development of HTN. The aim of these murine studies was to investigate the role of the T-helper CD4⁺ lymphocytes in initiating vascular remodeling and HTN in the absence of an increased mechanical load and to investigate the role of T-helper 17 (Th17) CD4⁺ lymphocyte initiating vascular remodeling and HTN by stimulating Lysyl Oxidase (LOX). LOX is known to cross-link collagen and elastin and. Excess synthesis of collagen and elastin results in a stiffer artery and hypertension. We established L-NAME-induce HTN in wild type (WT) mice. CD4⁺ splenic lymphocytes were isolated from these mice and adoptively transferred into naïve syngeneic severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice. The SCID mice receiving these cells became hypertensive. Cytokine analysis demonstrated an increase in both Th1 and Th17 cytokine in HTN donor mice and of lymphocytes in the aortic infiltrates of the HTN recipient mice. The increased collagen and LOX expression in recipient mice suggest that the adoptively transfer CD4⁺ lymphocytes are associated with vascular extracellular matrix remodeling. Furthermore we examined the role of Th17 lymphocyte in aortic LOX regulation in Angiotensin II-induced hypertension. The Increase in blood pressure and Velocity Time Integral (VTI) was measured in WT Angiotensin II treated mice whereas no change was detected in the Th17 deficient (RORT KO) Angiotensin II treated group. When compared to the control group the WT group infused with Angiotensin II had higher LOX protein expression, LOX fluorescent Immunohistochemical stain and LOX activity. This group also had increased hydroxyproline levels, collagen stain, hyperplasia and aortic thickening. In contrast, the Th17 deficient mice Angiotensin II treated group had no changes in these parameters. The results provide evidence that IL-17 mediates Angiotensin II-induced hypertension and vascular dysfunction by the overstimulation of LOX. Potentially targeting T17 cells will allow for a drug-specific therapeutic approach and delay the progression of hypertension pathology.

Les troubles anxieux, dont le trouble d???anxi??t?? g??n??ralis??e (TAG), repr??sentent une portion importante des troubles se manifestant au cours de la p??riode post-partum. Toutefois, tr??s peu d?????tudes ont tent?? de d??velopper et de v??rifier l???efficacit?? d???interventions ciblant sp??cifiquement l???anxi??t?? dans cette phase de vie et d???observer leurs r??percussions sur l???adaptation parentale des m??res. L???objectif g??n??ral de la pr??sente ??tude consiste ?? tester l???efficacit?? d???un traitement adapt?? pour le TAG et les inqui??tudes qui se d??veloppent chez les m??res primipares en post-partum. L?????tude visait aussi ?? observer l???effet d???une telle intervention sur le niveau d???adaptation parentale des m??res et sur d???autres variables associ??es aux inqui??tudes et ?? l???anxi??t?? en p??riode post-partum (p. ex., sympt??mes somatiques, inqui??tude face ?? la maternit?? et sympt??mes d??pressifs). Un protocole ?? cas unique, ?? niveaux de base multiples en fonction des individus a ??t?? employ??. Trois femmes francophones ayant accouch??es au cours de la derni??re ann??e et ayant l???impression que leur tendance ?? s???inqui??ter s???est exacerb??e suite ?? l???accouchement ont re??u une th??rapie cognitive-comportementale (TCC) compos??e de 13 s??ances et adapt??e pour le TAG et les inqui??tudes en post-partum. Les r??sultats d??montrent que la th??rapie a ??t?? efficace pour r??duire la tendance ?? s???inqui??ter et les sympt??mes d???anxi??t??. ??galement, la th??rapie semble avoir ??t?? b??n??fique ?? l???adaptation parentale des participantes en engendrant des changements au niveau de l???humeur, la satisfaction de vie et la perception de la maternit??. Les r??sultats de l?????tude ont aussi permis d???identifier des enjeux ?? consid??rer pour arriver ?? r??pondre de fa??on plus pr??cise aux probl??matiques entourant le TAG et les inqui??tudes en p??riode post-partum.

Les troubles anxieux, dont le trouble d???anxi??t?? g??n??ralis??e (TAG), repr??sentent une portion importante des troubles se manifestant au cours de la p??riode post-partum. Toutefois, tr??s peu d?????tudes ont tent?? de d??velopper et de v??rifier l???efficacit?? d???interventions ciblant sp??cifiquement l???anxi??t?? dans cette phase de vie et d???observer leurs r??percussions sur l???adaptation parentale des m??res. L???objectif g??n??ral de la pr??sente ??tude consiste ?? tester l???efficacit?? d???un traitement adapt?? pour le TAG et les inqui??tudes qui se d??veloppent chez les m??res primipares en post-partum. L?????tude visait aussi ?? observer l???effet d???une telle intervention sur le niveau d???adaptation parentale des m??res et sur d???autres variables associ??es aux inqui??tudes et ?? l???anxi??t?? en p??riode post-partum (p. ex., sympt??mes somatiques, inqui??tude face ?? la maternit?? et sympt??mes d??pressifs). Un protocole ?? cas unique, ?? niveaux de base multiples en fonction des individus a ??t?? employ??. Trois femmes francophones ayant accouch??es au cours de la derni??re ann??e et ayant l???impression que leur tendance ?? s???inqui??ter s???est exacerb??e suite ?? l???accouchement ont re??u une th??rapie cognitive-comportementale (TCC) compos??e de 13 s??ances et adapt??e pour le TAG et les inqui??tudes en post-partum. Les r??sultats d??montrent que la th??rapie a ??t?? efficace pour r??duire la tendance ?? s???inqui??ter et les sympt??mes d???anxi??t??. ??galement, la th??rapie semble avoir ??t?? b??n??fique ?? l???adaptation parentale des participantes en engendrant des changements au niveau de l???humeur, la satisfaction de vie et la perception de la maternit??. Les r??sultats de l?????tude ont aussi permis d???identifier des enjeux ?? consid??rer pour arriver ?? r??pondre de fa??on plus pr??cise aux probl??matiques entourant le TAG et les inqui??tudes en p??riode post-partum.