In Turkey with increasing energy demand by industrialization and urbanization, hydropower seemed to be the most environmental friendly and sustainable solution for the problem. However, hydropower has also environmental effects especially when hydropower projects are numerous on a single river, and they use almost entire water in the river. Environmental flow as a new term became popular in media with increased density of small hydropower projects in Turkey. It is the required flow in the part of diversion for Run-off River type of hydropower plant in order to protect health of the river / in other words, to balance components of the river, including physico-chemical quality standards, surface and groundwater, geomorphological dynamics, social, economic, cultural and landscape values. In this study, an analysis utilizing hydrological (desktop) environmental flow assessment methods is prepared for Turkey, focusing on the Pazarsuyu Basin as a case study, and the results are compared with the applications done by the Governmental Institutions. Moreover, insufficient applications with regard to environmental flow assessment are given and reasons for public concerns are pointed out due to small hydropower development in Turkey.

It is an important task that design engineers in practice predict the local scour around bridge piers as accurately as possible because excessive local scour around bridge piers unbalance and demolish the bridges. Many equations have been proposed previously by various researchers, based on their experimental findings, but no general method has been developed so far due to the complexity of the topic. In the present study two new bridge pier groups were employed to investigate the inclination effect of the most upstream and downstream piers on the local scours around all piers. Total of 72 experiments have been conducted with 3 inclination angles, one of which representing the vertical case, each experiment lasting 6 hours, under uniform flow and clear-water conditions for a range of water depths and flow velocities on the uniform bed material. It is clearly observed and measured that the amount of local scour reduces substantially by the effect of inclination in the group piers, especially the reduction in the scour around the most upstream pier is found notable. Based on the experimental data, regression analyses are made and an empirical scour depth equation is developed for each individual pier in the pier groups studied. Comparisons with the similar studies performed by other researchers have been made and the results discussed.

The need of water and the limited sources, force the researchers to find the most economical and feasible solution in the design of a water distribution network. In this study, reliability and optimization of a water distribution network are taken into account together in the design stage of the network. The relationship between reliability of a water distribution network and its cost is examined during the design of a water distribution network. A methodology for deciding the reliability level of the selected design is proposed by examining the reliability-cost relationship. The design alternatives for the case study area are obtained by the aid of a commercially available software WADISO employing partial enumeration optimization technique. The reliability value for each of the design alternative is calculated according to Misirdali (2003)&rsquo / s adaptation based on the methodology proposed by Bao and Mays (1990) by the aid of a hydraulic network solver program HapMam prepared by Nohut&ccedil / u (2002). For purposes of illustration, the skeletonized form of Ankara Water Distribution Network subpressure zone (N8-1) is taken as the case study area. The methodology in this study, covering the relation between the reliability and the cost of a water distribution network and the proposed reliability level can be used in the design of new systems.

This study investigated the equilibrium sorption capacities and rates of sorption of some alcohols on Na- and/or H- form of ZSM-35 at different temperatures by gravimetric method using an electrobalance. The alcohols studied were methanol, ethanol, propan-1-ol, propan-2-ol, n-butanol. The ZSM-35 sample used in sorption experiments resulted from a study for synthesis of high silica ZSM-35 zeolite. This ZSM-35 sample was called as NaZSM-35. The influence of ion-exchange on the sorption capacity and kinetics was investigated by converting NaZSM-35 into H-form by the ion exchange method. In this method, a sufficient amount of ZSM-35 sample (200-250 mg) was mixed with 25 ml of 1 N NH4Cl solution for 24 hours at room temperature. This procedure was repeated until no Na+ was detected by a Flame Photometer. After the ion exchange was completed , the sample was washed with deionized water, filtered, dried and recalcined for the removal of the ammonia and this sample was denoted as HZSM-35. The highest sorption capacity (cm3/g) was observed for methanol on HZSM-35 / 0.1656 cm3/g and the lowest sorption capacity was observed for propan-2-ol at NaZSM-35 / 0.003 cm3/g. Sorption of methanol and ethanol were very rapid. The sorption capacities of other three alcohols / propan-1-ol, propan-2-ol and n-butanol, were lower and they had slower rates of sorption. HZSM-35 had greater limiting sorption capacity than NaZSM-35 for propan-1-ol, propan-2-ol and n-butanol at all temperatures.

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A growing number of therapeutic compounds currently being developed by pharmaceutical companies are poorly water soluble leading to limited and/or erratic bioavailability. The rate limiting step for absorption of these compounds is dependent on the dissolution and apparent solubility. Nanoparticle formation has been exploited as a method to improve the bioavailability of these poorly water soluble active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) by increasing the dissolution rates and apparent solubilities. The influence of hydrophilic stabilizers in powder compositions prepared by the spray freezing into liquid (SFL) process using either an emulsion feed dispersion or organic co-solvent feed solutions on enhancing the wetting and dissolution properties of nanostructured aggregates containing itraconazole (ITZ). Subsequently, an in vivo pharmacokinetic study was conducted comparing the SFL processed powder to commercial Sporanox®. An ultra-rapid freezing (URF) technology has been developed to produce high surface area powders composed of solid solutions of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and a polymer stabilizer. Rapid freezing technologies are known to enhance the physico-chemical properties of APIs and thus increase bioavailability. However, the effect of the different freezing geometries and rates in the URF process are unknown. Therefore, this study investigated how solvent properties and thin film geometry of the droplet affect the freezing rate and thus the physico-chemical properties of micronized danazol powders. Amorphous nanoparticles containing tacrolimus (TAC) in a solid dispersion were prepared using the Ultra-rapid Freezing (URF) process. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of combinations of polymeric stabilizers on the maximum degree and extent of supersaturation of TAC. An attempt to establish if an in vitro-in vivo correlation exists between supersaturation and improved pharmacokinetic parameters for orally dosed TAC was performed. Enteric solid dispersions could overcome limitations of premature precipitation of supersaturated solutions by 1.) delaying dissolution until the compound enters the intestines where absorption is favored and 2.) increasing the apparent solubility at higher pH to increase the driving force for absorption. The objective of the study is to investigate the influence of composition parameters including drug:polymer ratio and polymer type, and particle structure of enteric solid dispersions on the release of ITZ. / text

For a bridge engineer, it is very important to estimate the maximum scour depth around the piers as accurately as possible, in order to design the footing safely. Many experimental studies have been performed by several investigators until now, in order to obtain information about scouring mechanism. The aim of this experimental study is to examine the effect of inclination of the dual bridge piers on scour depth. The experiments have been conducted with dual pier models under clear-water conditions, for various uniform flow depths. Scour depths had been measured at four different points around the piers / namely upstream and downstream faces of both piers. Dimensional and non-dimensional scour curves have been developed and presented to show the temporal variation of scour depth. The depths of local scour around inclined piers have been observed to be smaller than the scour depths around vertical piers.

Water distribution networks are being designed by traditional methods based on rules-of-thumb and personal experience of the designer. However, since there is no unique solution to any network design, namely there are various combinations of pipes, pumps, tanks all of which satisfy the same pressure and velocity restrictions, it is most probable that the design performed by traditional techniques is not the optimum one. This study deals how an optimization technique can be a useful tool for a designer during the design to find a solution. The method used within the study is the partial enumeration technique developed by Gessler. The technique is applied by a commercially available software, i.e. WADISO SA. The study is focused on discrepancies between a network designed by traditional techniques and the same network designed by partial enumeration method. Attention is given to steps of enumeration, which are basically grouping of pipes, candidate pipe size and price function assignments, to demonstrate that the designers can control all the phases of optimization process. In this respect, special attention is given to price functions to show the effect of them on the result. The study also revealed that the cost of fitting materials cannot be included in the price function although it may have significant effect in a system composed of closely located junctions. The results obtained from this study are useful to show that although optimization methods do not provide a definite solution / partial enumeration method can assist designers to select the optimum system combination.

Turkey has very different geomorphologic, hydrologic and climatic conditions, so the runoff coefficient should be different from one basin to another. But only one constant value, which is 0.37, is being used for all the basins in Turkey. In this thesis, monthly, seasonal and annual runoff coefficients of 48 sub-basins in western and southern part of Anatolia are determined by using synchronous and average rainfall, runoff data of 26 year record period. Their temporal and spatial distributions are investigated. The relationship between the basin parameters and the runoff coefficient are also examined. Some of the basins have unrealistic large runoff coefficients, therefore excluded from the analyses. The basin boundaries and parameters are determined by using Geograhic Information System (GIS), and areal average precipitations are found by a program written in visual basic language that uses ArcObjects. The Box-Cox transformed data are used in regression analysis. There are a number of dams in the region, which affect the natural flow. Such streams are found and their sub-basins are not used in the analyses. The results revealed that there is not a strong the relationship between the basin parameters and annual and seasonal runoff coefficients for the whole region, but there are significant relations between them for some basins.

Computerized data visualization and analysis tools, especially Geographic Information Systems (GIS), constitute an important part of today&amp / #65533 / s water resources development and management studies. In order to obtain satisfactory results from such tools, accurate and comprehensive hydrography datasets are needed that include both spatial and hydrologic information on surface water resources and watersheds. If present, such datasets may support many applications, such as hydrologic and environmental modeling, impact assessment, and construction planning. The primary purposes of this study are production of prototype national hydrography and watershed datasets for Turkey, and development of GIS-based tools for the analysis of local water quality and quantity data. For these purposes national hydrography datasets and analysis systems of several counties are reviewed, and based on gained experience / 1) Sub-watershed boundaries of 26 major national basins are derived from digital elevation model of the country by using raster-based analysis methods and these watersheds are named according to coding system of the European Union, 2) A prototype hydrography dataset with built-in connectivity and water flow direction information is produced from publicly available data sources, 3) GIS based spatial tools are developed to facilitate navigation through streams and watersheds in the hydrography dataset, and 4) A state-of-the art GIS-based stream flow and water quality data analysis system is developed, which is based on the structure of nationally available data and includes advanced statistical and spatial analysis capabilities. All datasets and developed tools are gathered in a single graphical user-interface within GIS and made available to the end-users.