This thesis explored the public value (PV) concept as strategic management to (re)introduce the concept of social responsibility and ethics within the public sector. Public sector governance relied on the assumption that the specific attributes of the various public sector governance approaches influenced public managers’ actions and decisions. The attributes of the management approach became more aligned with the PV concept as it moved along a public sector reform (PSR) continuum. To compare and contrast the PV concept in the various cultures and institutional settings through the lens of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)-related policies and programmes, three countries at the different stages of PSR were chosen. The results showed there were varying degrees of PSR acceptance and compliance at the various government levels. Thus, more than one dominant PSR model existed simultaneously in a country. The extent to which the changes were accepted and complied with depended on several dynamics. Additionally, the results discovered that the PV concept influenced public managers’ practices despite the governance traditions. This discovery validated the fact that a country did not have to be at the most sophisticated PSR stage to strategise using the PV concept. Finally, the results supported the view that ITS enabled easy and continuous data collection for the public managers. This ease of data collection advanced the process of knowledge exchange to co-create/co-produce or share PV with the public. The knowledge collaboration and sharing could lead to innovation, sustainability and the perception of value by the public.

L'objectif de notre étude sur le concept de «civil» dans la pensée de Montesquieu consiste à établir, dans un premier temps, le contexte dans lequel, après Adam Smith en particulier, et dans le cadre du processus de la séparation des sciences économiques et des sciences juridiques, le domaine du «civil», plus tard désigné comme «société civile», devient l'objet des sciences économiques, et, en second lieu, à voir comment, en même temps, cette notion de «civil» perd la connotation de «société politique et juridique» (c'est-à-dire « civitas »). Pour aborder cette question, nous nous intéressons tout d'abord à l'accroissement de l'intérêt pour l'histoire de I'Antiquité romaine qui connaît un renouveau avec l'humanisme en Europe. Les interprétations portant sur l'histoire romaine reflètent les intérêts des intellectuels aux prises avec leur propre société contemporaine, et la diversité de ces interprétations nous permet de retracer l'évolution des moyens analytiques employés pour penser la société en général. Dans cette perspective, nous étudions Montesquieu en référence à Machiavel qui a vécu à une période cruciale dans le Nord de l'Italie entre la fin du 15e et le 16e siècle, puis, à Harrington qui a vécu à l'époque de la 1ère révolution anglaise au milieu du 17e siècle et, finalement, à David Hume qui a défendu le régime établi après la Glorieuse révolution en 1688. À partir de ces analyses, nous rendront compte des causes de l'évolution des sciences sociales au cours de ces siècles, qui constituent la période historique dans laquelle s'est établi graduellement le système étatique moderne. / The objective of our study on the concept of "civil" in the thought of Montesquieu consists at first in presenting the context in which, especially after Adam Smith, and in the process of the separation of economical sciences from legal sciences, the sphere of the "civil", la ter called "civil society", becomes the object of economical sciences, and second, in understanding how, at the same time, the notion of "civil" lost the connotation of "political and legal society", that is "civitas". To approach this question, our first concern focuses on the increasing interest on R.oman antiquity which begin as renewal in huamnist thought in Europe. lntepretations of Roman history actually reflect the interests of intellectuals preoccupied with their own contemporary society. Nonetheless the divcrsity of these interpretations helps to understand the evolution of the analytical means used to analyse the society in general. ln this perspective, we compare Montesquieu with Machiavelli who lived in an incisive period in North of ltaly in the 15th, and the begging of the 16th, century, along with Harrington who lived in the time of the Civil War in England in the middle of the 17th century and, fïnally, with David Hume who defended the govemement established after the Glorious Revolution in 1688. From these analyses, we show the causes of the progressive sophistication of the social sciences matching the historical period during which the modern state system has gradually been established.

University of Macau / Faculty of Education

The marginal glass-forming alloys have attracted much attention due to unique products of devitrification with a very high number density of nuclei up to 10^23 m^-3. Among these alloy systems, utmost interest is given to Al-RE and Al-TM-RE alloys with excellent lightweight mechanical (fracture strength close to 1 GPa) and chemical properties attributed to the presence of an extremely high density of nanocrystals embedded in an amorphous matrix. Classical nucleation theory fails in explaining this abnormal nucleation behavior, several other mechanisms have been proposed / however, there is still no agreement on the exact nucleation mechanism. Al-Tb system was investigated in liquid and solid amorphous states with a collective study of ab-initio MD and RMC simulations and state of art X-rays and e-beam techniques. Regions of pure Al clusters in the solid and liquid states were detected with the sizes extending up to 1-2 nm length. Al clusters interconnecting regions lead to formation of RE rich MRO structure which gave rise to the pre-peak in S(Q)-Q data in liquid and solid states. Specimens having MRO were crystallized within a controlled atmosphere and temperature and investigated using a combined study of TEM, HRTEM, SEM, XRD and DSC. HRTEM investigations and JMA results indicated different mechanism of nucleation. Therefore the kinetics of highly populated nuclei formation was found too complicated to be explained by well-known JMA approach. Mechanical tests were applied to determine the effects of morphology and populations of nanocrystals embedded in amorphous matrix. The tensile tests and the subsequent fracture surface analysis indicated brittle type of failure and the formation of shear bands, respectively. Relatively high hardness and tensile strength were detected by nanocrystallization.

In this study, atmospheric levels and sources of VOCs at Aliaga industrial area was investigated. For this, VOC concentrations were measured at two monitoring stations through winter and summer campaigns in 2005 and 2006. Sampling stations were located in downtown Aliaga and downwind of industrial facilities, approximately 500 m to the south east of Horozgedigi village. After the summer sampling, another temporary station was installed in between PETKIM and T&Uuml / PRAS, named as T&Uuml / PRAS Station to generate T&Uuml / PRAS and PETKIM profiles. More than 50 species were measured in all stations. In all stations, toluene has the highest contribution to total VOC concentration. Toluene is followed by m,p-xylene and benzene. While higher concentrations of traffic related VOCs were measured at Aliaga station, VOCs from industrial solvents and industrial processes were higher at Horozgedigi station. The concentration levels in Aliaga and Horozgedigi are found to be comparable to the other industrial regions reported in the literature. Investigation of episodes, diurnal variations of VOCs and meteorological parameters showed that PETKIM and T&Uuml / PRAS emissions affect the concentrations levels at Horozgedigi and Aliaga stations. Source profiles of PETKIM and T&Uuml / PRAS are determined by using the T&Uuml / PRAS station data set. 2-methyl-hexane, benzene and 2,2,3-tri-methyl-butane+2,3-di-methyl-pentane are found to be good markers of PETKIM emissions. Ten different VOC sources were identified in the region. These were gasoline exhaust, diesel exhaust, natural gas use, gasoline evaporation, industrial emissions-1, natural gas construction, non-industrial solvent use, industrial emissions-2, PETKIM emissions, and mixed emissions from PETKIM and shipbreaking facilities.

All the operational and measurement systems of Ankara Wind Tunnel was modified to operate automatically under the control of a central computer system programmed using the Lab View programming language. A cruciform air-to-air missile with triangular canard control and a trapezoidal wing model was tested by a 35mm diameter internal balance at Mach 0.2 and data was compared with the test data of the same model&rsquo / s test that was performed at NASA Langley Research Center.

Main purpose of this study was to find the optimum conditions to produce a charge material for ferromanganese production or steelmaking with high content of iron and manganese carbides from Denizli-Tavas manganese ore by carbothermic reduction and investigate the effects of temperature, time, amount of active carbon addition and CaO addition on this reduction. The ore was calcined and then mixed with active carbon and CaO. Experiments were performed in a horizontal tube furnace that can be heated up to 1700 &ordm / C with MoSi2 heating elements. After each experiment weight loss data were obtained and converted to percentage reduction. X-Ray, SEM-EDS and chemical analyses were done in order to determine whether or not carbide phases have been obtained, and calculate the composition of the product. Considering the experimental results, the optimum conditions found for reduction of Denizli-Tavas manganese ore were 1250 &deg / C, 4 hours, 100% of stoichiometric amount of active carbon and 5% CaO addition. Under the optimum conditions 83.85% reduction of calcined ore was obtained.

In this study a microbial polyester, poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3- hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV), and its blends were wet or electrospun into fibrous scaffolds for tissue engineering. Wet spun fiber diameters were in the low micrometer range (10-50 &amp / #956 / m). The polymer concentration and the stirring rate affected the properties the most. The optimum concentration was determined as 15% (w/v). Electrospun fiber diameters, however, were thinner. Solution viscosity, potential, distance between the syringe tip and the collector, and polymer type affected the morphology and the thickness of beads formed on the fibers. Concentration was highly influential / as it increased from 5% to 15% (w/v) fiber diameter increased from 284 &plusmn / 133 nm to 2200 &plusmn / 716 nm. Increase in potential (from 20 to 50 kV) did not lead to the expected decrease in fiber diameter. The blends of PHBV8 with lactide-based v polymers (PLLA, P(L,DL-LA) and PLGA (50:50)) led to fibers with less beads and more uniform thickness. In vitro studies using human osteosarcoma cells (SaOs-2) revealed that wet spun fibers were unsuitable because the cells did not spread on them while all the electrospun scaffolds promoted cell growth and penetration. The surface porosities for PHBV10, PHBV15, PHBV-PLLA, PHBV-PLGA (50:50) and PHBV-P(L,DL)LA were 38.0&plusmn / 3.8, 40.1&plusmn / 8.5, 53.8&plusmn / 4.2, 50.0&plusmn / 4.2 and 30.8&plusmn / 2.7%, respectively. Surface modification with oxygen plasma treatment slightly improved the cell proliferation rates. Consequently, all scaffolds prepared by electrospinning revealed a significant potential for use in bone tissue engineering applications / PHBV-PLLA blend appeared to yield the best results.

The design and production of efficient metal-hydrides for hydrogen storage is a long standing subject. Over the years, many different types of intermetallic hydride systems were studied and some of them came out to be operable. However, none of them meet all the storage criteria perfectly. In this study, total energies, hydrogen storage capacity and stability of AB (A = Al, Be, Cu, Fe, Ni, Sb, V and B = Ti) type intermetallics were investigated with the goal of spotting a potential hydrogen storage material. The relation between thermodynamic properties and the atomic and the electronic structure of hydrides are also pointed out. For this task, first principles pseudopotential method within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) to density functional theory (DFT) was used. Calculations correctly predict experimentally determined structures except for CuTiH. Moreover, the atomic and cell parameter were found within the allowable error interval for DFT. In CuTi intermetallic, a structure having considerably lower formation energy than experimentally found mono-hydride was determined. This contradiction may be due to metastability of the experimental phase and high activation energy for the hydrogen movement in the system. It was found that AlTi and SbTi are not suitable candidates for hydrogen storage since their hydrides are too unstable. For the other intermetallic systems, the stability of the hydrides decreases in the order of VTi, CuTi, NiTi, BeTi, FeTi. For VTi, FeTi and NiTi, a change in metallic coordination around hydrogen from octahedron to tetrahedron is predicted when tetra-hydride (MTiH4) is formed. Additionally, at this composition, FeTi and NiTi have hydride structures with positive but near-zero formation energy which may be produced with appropriate alteration in chemical makeup or storage parameters. VTi is a promising intermetallic by means of storage capacity in that even VTiH6 is found to have negative formation energy but the hydrides are too stable which can be a problem during hydrogen desorption.

Lakes can be used for recreational purposes, agricultural irrigation, domestic water supply or industrial use. However, these functions of the lakes can be impaired due to excess nutrient loadings from industrial facilities, agricultural activities, and discharge of wastewaters from sewage systems. Uluabat Lake is one of the important lakes in Turkey faced with water quality problems due to excess nutrient loading from point and non-point sources. In this study, Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP Version 7.2), supported by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was used to simulate the water quality of the lake. The model was calibrated using a set of data belonging to the time period from January 1st to June 1st, 2000, for dissolved oxygen (DO), chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), ortho-phosphate (PO4-P) and nitrate (NO3-N). An acceptable similarity was obtained between the predicted and observed water quality values in calibration. Then, the model was verified for another data set. Verification period was from 1st of June to 31st of December, 1999. Verification results were also coherent with the observed values. Following the calibration and verification, the model was used as a management tool to predict the future quality conditions for the lake for different management scenarios. According to the results, sediment dredging had a significant impact on the water quality. Additional methods on top of sediment dredging improved the quality of the lake. The best result was obtained when buffer zone was formed, phosphorus loads from the MustafakemalpaSa District sewage system and Emet and Orhaneli Watersheds were decreased by 50% and 50% decrease was considered in the fertilizer usage throughout the agricultural lands, in addition to sediment dredging.