International joint ventures (IJVs) have become popular because of their importance as a strategic alternative in global competition. Construction companies consider IJVs as a vehicle to enter new markets and exploit business opportunities. Being a special type of strategic alliance, IJVs offer partnering companies to combine the distinctive competencies and the complementary resources. Despite the benefits associated with IJVs, such entities are very difficult to manage mainly due to their inherent complexity, involving a mixture of different cultures, managerial systems, philosophies, and attitudes. As a result of these difficulties, the failure rate of IJVs is generally high. Therefore, measurement of the performance of IJVs has been an important research topic for a few decades. However there is no consensus on an appropriate definition of the indicators and determinants of IJV performance in construction. In this study, a framework is proposed to model the IJV performance in construction industry. A multi-dimensional performance measure is developed and determinants influencing the level of performance are defined. In this context, a questionnaire survey was administered to Turkish construction companies that have established IJVs with foreign partners. The validity of the proposed drivers and measures of performance is investigated and relationships between them are analyzed using the structural equation modeling technique. The results point out the significance of the inter-partner fit and the quality of partner relations for a successful IJV operation. The findings of the study also suggest that project-related factors have a moderate influence on IJV performance. In a properly designed IJV structure, partners with compatible skills, resources, and cultures are found to maintain good relations and are expected to achieve greater IJV success.

This study investigates two significant components of architectural design, &lsquo / &lsquo / form&rsquo / &rsquo / and &lsquo / &lsquo / space&rsquo / &rsquo / and the basic design elements and principles used in their creation in the context of Roman domestic architecture. It more specifically examines how, by which means and for which purposes certain form and space defining tools such as the column, wall, floor, ceiling and opening with their architectural equivalents as the point, line, plane and volume were used in the atrium houses exemplified in Pompeii in Italy. The study discusses how Romans organized their daily life in reference to certain domestic spaces and how the form and spatial qualities of these spaces contributed to the architectural articulation of the private sphere. By concentrating on a group of recurring domestic spaces including the atrium, garden, and banqueting room and by illustrating the form and spatial composition of these, the study presents an architectural reading of the Roman atrium house.

This thesis aims to examine the Turkish Pavilion in the Brussels Expo &amp / #8217 / 58 in order to comprehend architectural modernization in Turkey during the 1950s. The Pavilion as well as Turkey&amp / #8217 / s participation in the Expo&amp / #8217 / 58 can be considered as special cases that provide the significant information about contemporary context of the country. In parallel with the changes occurred in the world in the aftermath of the Second World War, the postwar period in Turkey transformed towards modernist attitudes not only in architectural realm but also in socioeconomic discourses and practices. The case of the Turkish Pavilion has important and remarkable characteristics in many respects of architectural modernization in the country. Having analyzed the Expo &amp / #8217 / 58 as an international event, the main part of the study aims to discuss Turkey and the Turkish Pavilion in the Expo with the related and detailed information. This chapter is composed of four main parts. Having discussed the role of the state in the new international structure, the locus of the Turkish Pavilion within contemporary architectural scene is, firstly, examined. The second part intends to reveal the specific characteristics of the Pavilion. The next part is an examination to explain the conscious effort to construct the idea of the synthesis of arts in the architecture of the Pavilion. Finally, the last part explores, firstly, the exhibition and the display objects within the Pavilion in terms of their contents, secondly, the wide-ranging activities and events of the Turkish participation beyond the Pavilion.

Western Anatolia witnessed a crucial and eventful period between the end of the 13th and the middle of the 15th centuries. The region stood in a critical position giving way to trade between East and West, located at the junction of the sea and land routes. This following study concentrates on a crucial aspect of Western Anatolia within these circumstances on the rise, through the 14th and 16th centuries. That is to say, this thesis focuses on the establishment and remodeling of the urban centers in Western Anatolia between the 14th and 16th centuries. In addition, it proposes an in depth analysis of one of these centers, namely Tire to further substantiate its theses on the making of these centers. The main argumentation of the dissertation is twofold. First, it asserts the influence of the socio-economic backgrounds of these urban centers, particularly the role of trade activities, trade relations, trade road and urban network in the making of these towns. Second, it asserts the influence of architectural constituents of urban form in the formation and transformation of these towns. Namely, it argues the role of particular architectural types, monuments that act as urban artifacts in urban development, the most significant of which are building groups in the form of k&uuml / lliyes or zaviyes. Accordingly, the thesis maintains that both trade, trade roads and urban network, related with the socio-economic backgrounds of the urban centers, and particular urban artifacts, that are the components of urban form, affect the making towns as physical entities. It claims that all these factors and the town at their intersection, are in a continuous intercourse and they steadily transform each other. Hence, the thesis endeavors to highlight and corroborate the interrelation of trade roads, urban form, and components of urban form, in regional, urban, and in architectural scale. In so doing, first it studies each of the themes separately within the general framework of Western Anatolian urban centers and next associates them particularly through the in depth analysis of Tire. In these lines, this thesis is an effort to interconnect and integrate the varied scholarly disciplines of social, cultural, economic history, urban geography and particularly architectural history through the explorations on urban space in general. It is also an undertaking to reveal the development and transformation of the urban space concentrating particularly on medieval Western Anatolia.

This thesis formulates a conceptual framework to account for the rural architectural traditions. The proposal is presented by referring to &Uuml / r&uuml / nl&uuml / , a Mediterranean highland settlement in Southwestern Turkey. The thesis&#039 / basic assumption is the environmental coherence of the traditional rural culture. Environmental aesthetics provides the conceptual basis through which architectural elements of the environmental coherence are investigated. Environmental aesthetics enhances the inclusive conceptions of &quot / environment&quot / as an integral whole merging nature with culture and &quot / aesthetics&quot / as an integrated realm of perceptual engagement with environment. The integrative perspectives of environmental aesthetics unify the phenomenological approach with the concepts of &quot / tectonic syntax&quot / and &quot / pattern language,&quot / which have been raised by previous studies of the traditional built environment. This integral conceptual framework is used to derive the conceptual tools. Environmental coherence between the various scale levels of the rural settlement ranging from architectural detail to settlement pattern defines &quot / aesthetics of continuity.&quot / The conceptual tools, which are the &quot / tectonic joint,&quot / the organic interface and the environmental armature, serve as the successive scale levels on which the architectural elements of the &quot / aesthetics of continuity&quot / are analyzed. This framework is applied to &Uuml / r&uuml / nl&uuml / for identifying the spatial articulations of environment as multileveled patterns illustrating culture-specific solutions to contextual problems. Hence, the patterns are reconsidered as the aspects of architectural enculturation. The thesis&#039 / proposal for an environmental representation of the settlement concretizes the patterns of integration between the rural architectural tradition and environment and explains the aesthetics of continuity between nature and culture. The intended contribution of the case study is a new theoretical approach generally applicable to the rural settlements.

In this thesis, meta-heuristic algorithms are developed to obtain optimum or near optimum solutions for the time-cost-resource trade-off and resource leveling problems in project scheduling. Time cost trade-off, resource leveling, single-mode resource constrained project scheduling, multi-mode resource constrained project scheduling and resource constrained time cost trade-off problems are analyzed. Genetic algorithm simulated annealing, quantum simulated annealing, memetic algorithm, variable neighborhood search, particle swarm optimization, ant colony optimization and electromagnetic scatter search meta-heuristic algorithms are implemented for time cost trade-off problems with unlimited resources. In this thesis, three new meta-heuristic algorithms are developed by embedding meta-heuristic algorithms in each other. Hybrid genetic algorithm with simulated annealing presents the best results for time cost trade-off. Resource leveling problem is analyzed by five genetic algorithm based meta-heuristic algorithms. Apart from simple genetic algorithm, four meta-heuristic algorithms obtained same schedules obtained in the literature. In addition to this, in one of the test problems the solution is improved by the four meta-heuristic algorithms. For the resource constrained scheduling problems / genetic algorithm, genetic algorithm with simulated annealing, hybrid genetic algorithm with simulated annealing and particle swarm optimization meta-heuristic algorithms are implemented. The algorithms are tested by using the project sets of Kolisch and Sprecher (1996). Genetic algorithm with simulated annealing and hybrid genetic algorithm simulated annealing algorithm obtained very successful results when compared with the previous state of the art algorithms. 120-activity multi-mode problem set is produced by using the single mode problem set of Kolisch and Sprecher (1996) for the analysis of resource constrained time cost trade-off problem. Genetic algorithm with simulated annealing presented the least total project cost.

Construction cost estimating is essential for all of the stakeholders of a construction project from the beginning stage to the end. At early stages of a construction project, the design information and scope definition are very limited, hence / during conceptual (early) cost estimation, achieving high accuracy is very difficult. The level of uncertainty included in the cost estimations should be emphasized for making correct decisions throughout the dynamic stages of construction project management process, especially during early stages. By using range estimating, the level of uncertainties can be identified in cost estimations. This study represents integrations of parametric and probabilistic cost estimation techniques in a comparative base. Combinations of regression analysis, neural networks, case &ndash / based reasoning and bootstrap method are proposed for the conceptual (early) range cost estimations of mass housing projects. Practical methods for early range cost estimation of mass housing projects are provided for construction project management professionals. The methods are applied using bid offers of a Turkish contractor given for 41 mass housing projects. The owner of all projects is Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKI). The mass housing projects of TOKI are generally a mix of apartment blocks, social, health and educational facilities, and some projects may also have mosques. Results of the three different approaches are compared for predictive accuracy and predictive variability, and suggestions for early range cost estimation of construction projects are made.

Reconfigurable hardware architectures have been available now for several years. Yet the application development for such architectures is still a challenging and error-prone task, since the methods, languages, and tools being used for development are inappropriate to handle the complexity of the problem. This thesis introduces a novel approach that tackles the complexity challenge by raising the level of abstraction to system-level and increasing the degree of automation. The approach is centered around the paradigms of object-orientation, platforms, and modeling. An application and all platforms being used for its design, implementation, and deployment are modeled with objects using UML and an action language. The application model is then transformed into an implementation, whereby the transformation is steered by the platform models. In this thesis solutions for the relevant problems behind this approach are discussed. It is shown how UML can be used for complete and precise modeling of applications and platforms. Application development is done at the system-level using a set of well-defined, orthogonal platform models. Thereby the core features of object-orientation - data abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism - are fully supported. Novel algorithms are presented, that allow for an automatic mapping of such application models to the target architecture. Thereby the problems of platform mapping, estimation of implementation characteristics, and synthesis of UML models are discussed. The thesis explores the utilization of platform models for generation of highly optimized implementations in an automatic yet adaptable way. The approach is evaluated by a number of relevant applications. The execution of the generated implementations is supported by a run-time service. This service manages the hardware configurations and objects comprising the application. Moreover, it serves as broker for hardware objects. The efficient management of configurations and objects at run-time is discussed and optimized life cycles for these entities are proposed. Mechanisms are presented that make the approach portable among different physical hardware architectures. Further, this thesis presents UML profiles and example platforms that support system-level design. These extensions are embodied in a novel type of model compiler. The compiler is accompanied by an implementation of the run-time service. Both have been used to evaluate and improve the presented concepts and algorithms.

Eine heftig geführte und lang dauernde philosophische Debatte wurde im 20. Jahrhundert um die Aufklärung geführt, um das wissenschaftliche Denken, um die Rationalität überhaupt. Das 20. Jahrhundert war das Jahrhundert der "Kritik der wissenschaftlichen Vernunft", sowohl im Sinne einer Prüfung methodischer Rationalität wie auch als Absetzbewegung davon. In der zweiten Hälfte des Jahrhunderts hat dieser Streit oft die Form eines deutsch-französischen Zwists angenommen, mit Anklägern und Verteidigern beiderseits des Rheins. Descartes und die Philosophie der Subjektivität bildete oft den Einsatz in diesem Streit, Leibniz spielte dagegen kaum eine Rolle, obwohl er nicht minder als Vertreter des klassischen Rationalismus galt. Bemerkenswert ist auf französischer Seite zuletzt ein durchaus emphatisches Bekenntnis zum Leibnizianismus von Gilles Deleuze, der 1988 Leibniz als barocken Denker der Falte apostrophierte. Leibniz als postmoderner oder poststrukturalistischer Philosoph? Wo steht Leibniz im 20. Jahrhundert und in der Debatte um Rationalität? Diesen Fragen soll der folgende Text nachgehen. In diesem Zusammenhang ist mitzudenken, daß Martin Heidegger in langjähriger Auseinandersetzung mit Leibniz dessen Rationalismus ähnlich emphatisch wie Deleuze rezipierte, allerdings mit negativem Vorzeichen und als Teil seiner geschichtsphilosophischen Abwertung traditioneller Metaphysik. Heidegger überführt die klassische Vernunft mittels einer Kritik an Leibnizens "Satz vom Grund" der philosophischen Unzulänglichkeit. So ist offenbar im Rationalismusproblem des 20. Jahrhunderts eine Leibniz-Rezeption versteckt, deren Streitwert noch gehoben werden muß.

Drei fast zugleich veröffentlichte Texte französischer Philosophen zu lesen, mag zum Nachdenken über den Zusammenhang auffordern - hier soll einmal bewußt den Unterschieden nachgegangen werden, zum Erweis der Brüchigkeit des philosophischen Diskurses, der von vielen für manifest gehalten wird. Gibt es eine postmoderne, post-strukturalistische, post-analytische Philosophie? Das ist zweifelhaft. Es gibt Fraktionen. Es gibt so verschiedene Autoren wie Jean Baudrillard, JeanFrancois Lyotard und Jean-Luc Nancy.