Global policies in disaster management have radically changed since 1990s, shifting the previously entrenched emphasis on emergency management, towards new applications of risk management. A series of international declarations expressed the determination and principles to reduce risks at every level, which were followed by many national governments. The disaster management system in Turkey seems to tend towards this approach, not necessarily based on an awareness of the global trends, but due to the severe impacts of the 1999 events. Since no understanding and political commitment for disaster mitigation prevails in Turkey, risk mitigation planning at every level is yet far from being effective. This claim constitutes the basic working hypothesis of the study. Verification of the hypothesis is based on a comparative analysis of the organizational structures of the selected countries, and a survey of recent local performance. The framework developed by the Kobe Conference is employed in both analyses. The former analysis indicated that despite the new institutional developments like &lsquo / construction supervision&rsquo / and &lsquo / obligatory insurance&rsquo / , Turkey in its disaster policy is still far from a comprehensive mitigation approach in terms of the Kobe criteria. Although the laws of local administrations now contain new tasks of city-level disaster management, not only confusions between pre-disaster and post-disaster responsibilities prevail, but no operational guidance is given for the fulfillment these responsibilities. A whole range of activities are therefore in need of being streamlined into the tasks of urban planning in the reduction of disaster risks. With the amendment of laws, modification of the professional practice and the training of planners are expected.

Chronic seismic hazards and resulting secondary impacts are due to the geological conditions of Turkey and the nature of current response mechanisms. Local know-how of building and settlement that evolved over centuries eroded with the growth in population, and the introduction of reinforced concrete building economics. This makes cities the most vulnerable geographical and social entities in Turkey. A basic formal reference of disaster management is the National Seismic Hazard Map indicating zones of hazard probabilities which are directly related to different measures in construction. This is hardly a sufficient disaster policy tool however, as cities may have very different risk profiles independent from the hazard probabilities. City level risk variations are not considered in the Seismic Hazard Map. This study intends to establish indicators for different risk levels in urban areas other then those implied by the National Seismic Hazard Map. Apart from local morphological and geological conditions, attributes of building stock, rates of unauthorized buildings and social conditions represent vulnerability indicators and could be effective in the determination of local risk levels. One specific description of risk levels is available in the obligatory reporting of the local authorities about the &quot / most likely level of disaster losses&quot / . This information, as an obligatory task of the governorates represents a local assessment of the most likely disaster losses and it is available from the GDDA. The city-level statistics of building stock on the other hand are available from the Turkish Statistical Institute. Correlation and Regression analyses are employed to determine what combinations of the independent variables might best denote city-level risks, and these may vary independently from their positions in the Hazard Map. The research may thus generate information for a more effective disaster policy.

The rapid industrialization, population growth, urbanization and economic and social development cause many environmental problems, such as climate change which is the result of the increase in the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) especially CO2. Combustion of fossil fuels, particularly from electricity generation, has the major responsibility for CO2 emissions. Decreasing the amount of CO2 emission requires a significant shift from our present energy use pattern toward one of lesser reliance on fossil fuels. Using renewable energy sources is one of the ways to supply some of the electricity demand reducing the associated GHG emissions and thus decreasing the adverse effects of climate change. In this study, generated electricity associated CO2 emissions and the specific CO2 emission factors are calculated based on IPCC methodology for each fuel type and each thermal power plant for Turkey between 2001 and 2008. The electricity demand of Turkey is estimated to increase about 7% annually till to 2019. Based on the planned power plant data obtained from EMRA, it was found that the total electricity supply (planned + existing) will not be sufficient to provide the estimated demand between 2011 and 2019. To overcome supply deficiency problem, four different scenarios are developed and the mitigation potential of CO2 emission from electricity generation based on these scenarios are examined. The results from these scenarios show that there is a significant decrease in the amount of CO2 emission from electricity generation. Renewable Energy Scenario which is the best scenario in terms of mitigation of CO2 emissions, provides to mitigation of 192 millions of CO2 emissions between 2009 and 2019. with respect to BAU scenario

Liquefiable soils are common at ports due to the use of hydraulic fills for construction of waterfront facilities. Liquefaction-induced ground failure can result in permanent ground deformations that can cause loss of foundation support and structural damage. This can lead to substantial repair and/or replacement costs and business interruption losses that can have an adverse effect on the port and the surrounding community. Although numerous soil improvement methods exist for remediating a liquefaction-prone site, many of these methods are poorly suited for developed sites because they could damage existing infrastructure and disrupt port operations. An alternative is to use a passive remediation technique. Treating liquefiable soils with colloidal silica gel via permeation grouting has been shown to resist cyclic deformations and is a candidate to be used as a soil stabilizer in passive mitigation. The small-strain dynamic properties are essential to determine the response to seismic loading. The small-to-intermediate strain shear modulus and damping ratio of loose sand treated with colloidal silica gel was investigated and the influence of colloidal silica concentration was determined. The effect of introducing colloidal silica gel into the pore space in the initial phase of treatment results in a 10% to 12% increase in the small-strain shear modulus, depending on colloidal silica concentration. The modulus reduction curve indicates that treatment does not affect the linear threshold shear strain, however the treated samples reduce at a greater rate than the untreated samples in the intermediate-strain range above 0.01% cyclic shear strain. It was observed that the treated sand has slightly higher damping ratio in the small-strain range; however, at cyclic shear strains around 0.003% the trend reverses and the untreated sand begins to have higher damping ratio. Due to the nature of the colloidal silica gelation process, chemical bonds continue to form with time, thus the effect of aging on the dynamic properties is important. A parametric study was performed to investigate the influence of gel time on the increase in small-strain shear modulus. The effect of aging increases the small-strain shear modulus after gelling by 200 to 300% for the 40-minute-gel time samples with a distance from gelation (time after gelation normalized by gel time) of 1000 to 2000; 700% for the 2-hour-gel time sample with a distance from gelation of 1000; and 200 to 400% for the 20-hour-gel time samples with a distance from gelation of 40 to 100. The treatment of all potentially liquefiable soil at port facilities with colloidal silica would be cost prohibitive. Identifying treatment zones that would reduce the lateral pressure and resulting pile bending moments and displacements caused by liquefaction-induced lateral spreading to prevent foundation damage is an economic alternative. Colloidal silica gel treatment zones of varying size and location were evaluated by subjecting a 3-by-3 pile group in gently sloping liquefiable ground to 1-g shaking table tests. The results are compared to an untreated sample. The use of a colloidal silica treatment zone upslope of the pile group results in reduced maximum bending moments and pile displacements in the downslope row of piles when compared to an untreated sample; the presence of the treatment zone had minimal effect on the other rows of piles within the group.

<p>Today many car manufactures are developing systems that help the driver to avoid collisions. Examples of this kind of systems are: adaptive cruise control, collision warning and collision mitigation / avoidance. </p><p>All these systems need to track and predict future positions of surrounding objects (vehicles ahead of the system host vehicle), to calculate the risk of a future collision. To validate that a prediction is correct the predictions must be correlated to observations. This is called the data association problem. If a prediction can be correlated to an observation, this observation is used for updating the tracking filter. This process maintains the low uncertainty level for the track. </p><p>From the work behind this thesis, it has been found that a sequential nearest- neighbour approach for the solution of the problem to correlate an observation to a prediction can be used to find the solution to the data association problem. </p><p>Since the computational power for the collision mitigation system is limited, only the most dangerous surrounding objects can be tracked and predicted. Therefore, an algorithm that classifies and selects the most critical measurements is developed. The classification into order of potential risk can be done using the measurements that come from an observed object.</p>

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) offers preservationists a unique tool with the potential to revolutionize hazard mitigation for historic resources. The program’s ability to link information to a specific geographical location and efficiently disperse this information can solve two of the most destructive issues of current natural disaster response practices: a lack of organized information and an efficient means of disseminating this data. The resources necessary to implement a GIS program and to the requisite cooperation between both public and private preservation organizations may seem prohibitive to many preservation programs; yet, the benefits make this initial investment cost-effective. Despite efforts to mitigate disasters, both natural and man-made, their effects constantly threaten historic resources. In the past two decades, the United States has made significant strides toward a greater protection of these sites; yet damage continues to occur. In this thesis, I have investigated methods of risk mitigation implemented in the United States at both the state and local level, and in the public and private sectors, using New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as a case study. Through this analysis, I discovered that a lack of accessible, organized information and cooperation between preservationists compounded the damage caused by the actual event itself. I argue that the implementation of GIS could solve many of these issues by providing a means of both consolidating data and distributing it among responders. In this work, I demonstrate the ability of GIS to easily solve the problems of current mitigation practices for historic resources. By discussing the tools and basic functions of the program, I clearly illustrate this utility to those unfamiliar with the program, while arguing its potential as a mitigation implement to all preservationists. / text

This research project, funded by the Federal Highway Administration, entails the construction of an outdoor exposure site in order to evaluate various methods for mitigating alkali-silica reaction (ASR) in hardened concrete. The exposure site, built at the Concrete Durability Center at the University of Texas at Austin J.J. Pickle Research campus, included a series of bridge deck, column and slab elements. The specimens were cast in 2008, allowed to expand to predetermined expansion levels and then treated with various mitigation measures, after which the specimens were monitored for expansion, humidity, and deterioration. / text

No description available.

This is a research-based thesis building upon the study conducted over the past two years with Dr. Elizabeth English on the Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP). The BFP is currently developing an amphibious foundation system to retrofit vernacular wooden ‘shotgun’ houses in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. This neighbourhood was chosen because of its unique cultural heritage and the severe, but recoverable, damage incurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The BFP system will allow homes to float when flooding occurs, rising and descending vertically to avoid flood damage. It provides an alternative solution to permanent static elevation, the mitigation strategy currently recommended by the United States federal government. The thesis will demonstrate how the Buoyant Foundation Project is a culturally supportive, technically feasible, economical, sustainable and resilient form of flood mitigation for post-Katrina New Orleans.

A number of Defence organizations worldwide are moving towards outsourcing. The United Arab Emirates Air Force & Air Defence (UAE AF&AD) is also transforming some of its activities from military entities into civilian organizations. This paper studies the risks associated with the transformation of the UAE AF&AD Flight Test Centre (FTC) into a civilian organization to become a competitive, independent and autonomous outsourcing agency able to undertake additional, complex and specialized aeronautical projects.In this paper, the author describes the FTC "AS IS" organization, mission and function while focusing on the future "TO BE". He underlines the existing challenges and develops the future needs of the FTC. In his mind, it is clear that the future of the FTC has to be sustainable, competitive, process oriented, cohesive and dynamic in response to changes. The need of an enterprise framework is, in the authors view, a critical matter. The greatest challenge is to identify or develop the right framework with a risk dimension and governance for a specific FTC application: a framework that will assist the FTC to identify, determine and assess at an earlier stage various risks