Tiriamas nepriklausomų atsitiktinių dydžių k-tųjų ekstremaliųjų reikšmių konvergavimo greitis, bei nepriklausomų atsitiktinių dydžių k-tųjų ekstremaliųjų reikšmių tankio konvergavimo greitis. Konkrečių skirstinių atveju parenkamos centravimo ir normavimo konstantos, gaunami k- tųjų maksimumų (minimumų) ribiniai skirstiniai , bei k-tųjų maksimumų (minimumų) tankiai. Aproksimavimo paklaidos tiriamos remiantis kompiuterine analize. / In this work we research the convergence rate of k-th extreme values to limit distribution. This problem is solving in case of particular distributions such as, exponential, Pareto, uniform. The phase of this problem solving are: 1) the matching of centering and normalization constants; 2) the determination of extreme values limit distribution; 3) the determination of k-th extreme values distribution; 4) computerized analysis.

Over the course of the last few decades, most developing countries, including Libya, have experienced a rapid economic growth and associated increase in population. This growth has led to a substantial increase in the implementation of contemporary housing programmes and urbanisation in the form of new districts, mainly influenced by western models, although the use of some traditional forms continues in hybrid designs. Traditional housing gains its name due to its close relationship between the functional needs of the occupants, the culture, the climate, and other aspects of the living environment. In contrast contemporary designs of houses have appeared only recently in State development plans and projects, and have begun to show some shortcomings in functionality. Thus, this study aims to investigate and understand the reason for these shortcomings and to make recommendations for future housing policies in the state. The design of traditional and contemporary housing in Tripoli-Libya is analysed in terms of suitability for cultural, social and climate conditions. This is explored through contextual research based on a review of the literature, concentrating on the development of housing design in Libya since 1885, including all the factors that have influenced Libyan housing design. The satisfaction level of the occupants living within both types of housing has been explored in three representative case study areas in Tripoli. Residents' views on their satisfaction with their house were sought through questionnaires. Interviews were also conducted amongst government officials and design professional concerned with housing design and implementation programmes to understand professional opinion on the quality of traditional and contemporary housing. The main conclusions drawn from the research emphasises the importance of social and cultural factors, climate conditions, and local building materials, as they all play an important role in designing any house and are important to the level of satisfaction of users. Regardless of the advantages of the contemporary housing used in the case study areas in terms of space and access for motor transport, most respondents were dissatisfied with their new houses in terms of privacy, climate condition, and building materials used in the construction. The research also illustrates the danger of not properly considering all these factors may result in dissatisfaction of users, and may lead them to alter or modify their houses. This may lead to illegal and possibly unsafe modifications, or at least to unsatisfactory visual appearance. Finally, based on the study of both traditional and contemporary houses, the findings of the empirical study, and the opinions of experts, a set of guidelines for future house designs are presented. The guidelines inform and possibly assist designers, planners, academics and Libyan public policy makers to achieve the goals of providing new housing concepts and forms, which are appropriate to the requirements of residents, and which do not detract nor constrain their social and cultural activities.

The growth of the international movement to involve the public in urban planning urges us to find new ways to achieve this. Recent studies have identified information communication technologies (ICT) as a mechanism to support such movement. It has been postulated that integrating geographic information system (GIS), virtual reality (VR) and Internet technologies will facilitate greater participation in planning activity and therefore strengthen and democratise the process. This is a growing area of research. There is, however, concern that a lack of a theoretical basis for these studies might undermine their success and hamper the widespread adoption of GIS-VR combination (GVIS). This thesis presents a theoretical framework based on the Learning System Theory (LST). ICT technologies are then assessed according to the framework. In the light of the assessmenta, prototype has been designed and developed based on a local urban regeneration project in Salford, UK. The prototype is then evaluated through two phases, namely formative evaluation and summative evaluation, to test the feasibility of the framework. The formative evaluation was focused on evaluating the functionality of the prototype system. In this case, evaluators were experts in IT or urban planning. The summative evaluation focused on testing the value of the prototype for different stakeholder groups of the urban regeneration project from local residents to planning officers. The findings from this research indicated that better visualization could help people in understanding planning issues and communicate their visions to others. The interactivity functions could further support interaction among users and the analysis of information. Moreover, the results indicated that the learning system theory could be used as a framework in looking at how GVIS could be developed in order to support public participation in urban planning.

Governments all around the world have tried to address the problem of providing adequate and affordable housing to the nation over the last three decades. With no exemption, the Malaysian Government is committed to provide all Malaysians, particularly those in the low-income categories, access to adequate and affordable housing. Even with the numerous housing programmes implemented over the various five-year Malaysia Plans, there is still a shortage of affordable homes for the low-income people. The shortage of low-cost dwelling units, along with the high cost of limited land has resulted in rapid expansion of squatter settlements in urban areas. Around the World there is a shift from public to private finance for the delivery of infrastructure projects or related services. However, it has not been implemented to the same extent in affordable housing. This investigation examines not just the measurable deviation from the Malaysia Plan targets, but more importantly, determines an explanation for the deviation and develops a new model of public private partnership for affordable housing. The aim of this research is "to develop a housing model for implementation in affordable housing schemes through the promotion of innovative partnerships between the Government and Private Developers in Malaysia". The research methodology was a combination of literature investigation andinductive reasoning in which a theoretical proposition was tested and developed during data collection and analysis. The data collection included literature review, questionnaires, and follow up interviews with private developers in Malaysia. This research study identifies three models for partnerships between the Government and private developers for affordable housing in Malaysia. An evaluation process was undertaken to assess the appropriateness of the proposed models. The three models will provide tangible benefits in the provision of and access to affordable housing.

This thesis is concerned with the improvement of construction practices by studying the application in the sector of some core principles underlying current production management theories. The research is motivated by the recognition in recent literature that the best production practices world-wide have a common core. The core principles investigated in this research are the "reduction of cycle time", "reduction of variability", "increase of transparency" and "build of continuous improvement into the process". The fundamental rationale underlying these principles is the concept of flow where production is seen as composed of waiting, transporting, inspecting and transformation (processing) activities. According to this concept, transformation activities are the only ones that actually add value. Hence, all other activities should be reduced or eliminated from the flow whilst increasing the efficiency of transformation activities. The assessment of construction practices against the theory was carried out through six case studies, based in England and Brazil, and a complementary meta-case. Cross-case study analysis showed that construction already applies all heuristic approaches relating to the flow principles under study. However, the intra-case study analysis revealed a serious lack of integration among the literal replications identified in each of the case studies. Integration of practices matching the theory is critical since the evidence suggests that there is a correlation between production performance and the level of integration among literal replications. An additional case study investigated the issue of how to implement these principles in the practice of construction. The interaction with the host company happened through an Action Learning set supported by the Revans Centre for Action Learning and Research. The experiment showed that a combination of both "push" and "pull" learning seems to be an appropriate approach for introducing the principles in study in the construction sector. Top management positive support during "gestation" period was the most important factor for motivating people to "pull" the learning after the initial 'push' learning exercise.

The client briefing of the proposed building design is usually in the form of drawings and artistic impressions being presented to the client. However, very few clients are able to read a technical drawing and the artist impressions are limited and do not aid the client to visualise all aspects of the proposed building. During the client briefing process the client needs to have the experiential quality described, to be able to fully understand the design of the proposed building. Generally, humans perceive and directly experience architectural space by building qualities like texture, form, colour, light, scale, movement. A full-scale model of the proposed building would fully afford the experimental qualities. In reality it would be impractical and not cost effective. However, VR technology allows the creation of an inclusion of space in user's mind, through a minimum of means, but achieves a maximum impact, and affords all the experiential qualities offered by a physical model. A virtual model with a high degree of detail which can be explored by the designer and his clients will therefore be of significant help. However, to give clients the best possible impression of the proposed design it is important to understand how dimensions of those designed spaces are perceived. Therefore, a study was carried out focusing on fundamental investigations into the perception of basic architectural dimensions in order to assess the potential usefulness of VR technology in architecture and the client briefing process. In two experiments, subjects were required to estimate egocentric and exocentric dimensions in Virtual Environments and Real World Setting (RWS). The influence of stimuli orientation was also investigated. In estimating all dimensions a magnitude estimation procedure was employed using a modified free-modulus technique. All participants were pre-tested. Psychometric and visual tests were used for choosing an experimental group with a fair degree of homogenity. Two independent subject groups were used. In addition to dimension estimations recall of simple layout and feeling of space were investigated when evaluating the virtual interface. The general null hypothesis assumed that people perceive space in VE as well as in the real world. It has been shown that the results are statistically significant and therefore one was able to reject the general hypothesis. Overall participants underestimated the dimensions in both experiments by approximately 20%. Results and limitations of the study are discussed. The results of the experiments would indicate that VR technology can be used for simulations of architectural spaces because despite underestimations of dimensions it still performed relatively well if one compares it with results of experiments in the Real World Settings.

Station buildings are the most significant components of metro systems that combine underground facilities to the outer world, and include public life in itself. Thus, it is the main objective of that research, to put forward an acknowledgement documentation, which identifies the main design and construction problems of existing and under construction metro station buildings&trade / entrances, and which comes up with solutions to these problems. In the scope of thesis, foremost, basic terminology about station buildings are given and historical development of these buildings in abroad and Turkey are explained briefly. Then, observed problems of metro station entrances are put forward in detail. These problems are mainly categorized as design, construction, material and application related problems. Design part is investigated under following sub-titles: Psychological effects, lighting conditions, space requirements, relationship with city, navigation and disabled accessibility of stations. The affect of recent construction techniques and technological developments on design are also explained. Lastly, material choice and application related problems are investigated through such components of station as wall, floor, ceiling and details. All these problems are assessed by making comparisons with examples both from abroad and from Turkey. Finally, it is comprehended that, because of having weak connections to outer world, the entrances of the stations have adequate contributions neither to the station nor to the city. Assessment of building performance is made under the light of predefined problems and proposals are made in order to be used in design studies to get station entrances free from those problems.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT FOR R/C BUILDING VULNERABILITY INDEX AND MEMBER IMPORTANCE CALCULATION Turkey has many active faults which have the potential to generate large earthquakes. Recent earthquakes showed that the buildings in Turkey are not well designed and vulnerable to earthquakes. Previous studies on the subject showed that many structures in Turkey need to be strengthened before the next major earthquake to minimize property loss and casualties. A number of fast and approximate (mostly empirical) methods have been developed in the past to process large building stock. However, there are some important and special structures that do not fit with the general building stock and needs special consideration (e.g., disaster management center, governmental buildings, hospitals, tall structures, etc.). This study targets to evaluate those important and special structures in a detailed, fast, and correct manner. The developed software, which constitutes an important part of this study, does process the building information several times to determine member-based importance factors. The vulnerability index of the building will be determined using the importance of each load-carrying member and how much each member is forced with respect to its capacity. In order to augment user perception, a functional graphical user-interface is designed. Software is equipped with modules that generate input files for SAP2000 analysis program, conduct dynamic and static analysis automatically, and postprocess the generated analysis results which enable the engineer to make a decision on the vulnerability of the structure. Program is written in C++, using object-oriented programming technique. The main difference between this and similar studies is the generator program which automatically generates 3D-FE models and post-processes nonlinear analysis results for an effective decision mechanism. In this way, more realistic results can be obtained much faster. As future studies, new routines are planned to be implemented to the graphical user interface of the program which will suggest smart and engineered retrofit/strengthening alternatives to the user.

The aim of this study was to investigate the quantifiable planimetric design efficiency of residential buildings designed to be built with &amp / #147 / Autoclaved &AElig / rated Concrete&amp / #148 / (AAC) panels. Focus was on the effects of plan shape, plan size and layout organization and the modularity of vertical AAC wall panels on the planimetric design efficiency of residential buildings. To this end, relevant analyses were conducted on 30 residential building projects obtained from the design office of an AAC panel manufacturing firm in T&uuml / rkiye, AKG Gazbeton. The lengths, widths and areas of building elements (quantitative data) were then calculated from the production drawings of these building. A total of fifteen ratios, which were considered relevant to the study as indicators of design efficiency, were computed by using this quantitative data. This was followed by the construction of frequency distribution tables and histograms showing the variations of the computed ratios. At the final phase, Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) were conducted to determine the source of variation and Chi-Square tests conducted to determine whether or not the distributions could be considered &amp / #145 / normal&amp / #146 / . According to the results of the study, it was found that plan shape and plan size of building projects together with their layout organizations, were the main influential factors on the efficiency of their wall and floor areas. It was also found that the modularity of vertical wall panels used in these buildings was another important factor to be considered in planimetric design efficiency.

Economic instabilities in our country over the past few decades and improvement in communication technologies, have encouraged Turkish construction firms to utilize business opportunities in foreign countries. However, working abroad brings with it certain risks and problems. The aim of this thesis were to define and clarify problematic factors during the design stages in international design projects (IDP), to collect relevant suggested solutions and to try and determine the sources of these factors. The survey starts with general problems and/or factors which affect international projects and continues to examine whether these problems are the same as those faced in the architectural field. Also, the place of the Turkish construction industry in the world market, the reasons for the increase in international projects and the problems which might be faced while executing IDP have formed the scope of this thesis. To this end informal interviews were carried out with managers and design professionals of architectural firms, based in Ankara, which were involved in international projects, in order to determine types of problems encountered in execution of IDPs. The first questionnaire was based on insight gained from these interviews. Thereafter, the results of the first questionnaire formed the basis of the second questionnaire, which was delivered more extensively. According to the research carried out in this study, the major effective factors in execution of IDPs could be listed as, cultural differences, communication within the project team, information technologies, standards and regulations, client and local authorities and economical situation of target country.