En s’appuyant sur le cas d’Asie centrale, cette thèse a pour ambition de comprendre les principes, les mécanismes et le fondement du processus de la politique étrangère européenne actuelle par lesquels l’Union européenne s’efforce de construire une politique de « grand voisinage ». L’objectif central est de savoir si l’Union est en mesure de construire des relations stables et cohérentes avec un espace stratégique et dans un environnement géopolitique complexe, au­delà de sa politique européenne de voisinage. Il s’agit donc d’un cas d’étude sur le savoir­faire de l’Europe dans le monde. Notre étude a montré que l'UE essaie d'exercer son influence en prenant un rôle de « consultant ». Elle se présente comme un acteur inoffensif qui agit en dehors de tout enjeu géopolitique et qui offre son expertise. Ainsi, elle prend consciemment la position d'un acteur de second rang. Cependant, nous avons argumenté que sa vision de la région ainsi que son approche sont tout à fait de nature géopolitique, ce que l’UE dénie pourtant. Quant à son influence réelle, elle est limitée notamment en ce qui concerne sa politique normative (promotion de droits de l’homme, et d’état de droit). Bien que l'UE ne soit pas en mesure de rivaliser avec les autres acteurs dans la région (Russie, Chine), elle a pourtant des avantages comparatifs: elle est perçue comme inoffensive et occupe les domaines de sécurité qui sont négligés par les autres acteurs (la gouvernance, les conflits liés à l’eau et la gestion des frontières), jouant ainsi, certes d’acteur indispensable. / Central Asia is a region beyond the EU’s direct neighborhood and thus an area that allows the EU to demonstrate its desire to enter the global political stage where it needs to cope with other great powers and to pursue its own strategic interests. However, the Central Asian republics have shown little interest for European transition assistance and political norms, unlike other post­communist countries in Europe’s orbit. Hence, the central question of our study was thus: How does the EU exert influence in such a challenging geopolitical context? Our empirical results suggest that the EU tries to exert influence in such environment by consciously taking the position of a second­tier actor who acts as a “consultant”, rather than a power, and whose influence is confined to niche domains in the security sphere. The EU is eager to project a picture of itself as an honest broker with no geopolitical agenda in order to enhance its legitimacy; however, its vision of Central Asia being its ‘far neighborhood’ and the related approach unveils the geopolitical nature of its policies through which the EU tries to shape its close and wider environment. However, the EU struggles to put into effect its normative agenda beyond the EU’s direct neighborhood where other normative actors’ influence (Russia, China) exceeds that of the EU. The EU is not a great power in the region that is capable of competing with other external actors. Nor it is willing to become one. It does, however, have comparative advantages in being perceived as inoffensive and for occupying areas that are neglected by the other actors, thus playing the role of a niche actor, albeit an indispensable one.

There are many combinatorial optimization problems such as traveling salesman problem, quadratic-assignment problem, flow shop scheduling, that are computationally intractable. Tabu search based simulated annealing is a stochastic search algorithm that is widely used to solve combinatorial optimization problems. Due to excessive run time, there is a strong demand for a parallel version that can be applied to any problem with minimal modifications. Existing advanced and/or parallel versions of tabu search algorithms are specific to the problem at hand. This leads to a drawback of optimization only for that particular problem. In this work, we propose a parallel version of tabu search based SA on the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) platform. We propose two variants of the algorithm based on where the tabu list is stored (global vs. local). In the first version, the list is stored in the global shared memory such that all threads can access this list. Multiple random walks in solution space are carried out. Each walk avoids the moves made in rest of the walks due to their access to global tabu list at the expense of more time. In the second version, the list is stored at the block level and is shared by only the block threads. Groups of random walks are performed in parallel and a walk in a group avoids the moves made by the rest of the walks within that group due to their access to shared local tabu list. This version is better than the first version in terms of execution time. On the other hand, the first version finds the global optima more often. We present experimental results for six difficult optimization functions with known global optima. Compared to the CPU implementation with similar workload, the proposed GPU versions are faster by approximately three orders of magnitude and often find the global optima.

Urban decline is one of the most important factors dealing with the creation of urban ills and formation of slums in the city centers. This study investigates the roots of urban decline in urban areas. In order to do so, symptoms, types, causes and participant factors dealing with the process of urban decline are investigated. Also functional decline, as one of the most important triggers of urban decline, is introduced and its force that results in low quality of urban places is explored. The scale of participant factors in the process of functional decline is various. These factors are observed from changes in the global political trends and economy till the regulation changes in local scale. Moreover the ways of talking with urban and functional decline, that is classified into four major category of political considerations, economic financing, planning policy and enhancing the quality of places are explored. Finally the forces of urban and functional decline that have lead to low quality of place in the case of Salipazari, Istanbul are examined. As the scale of study area is in the neighborhood scale, the most important concern will be on the low quality of place in exploring decline in this area.

Previous research in the spatial assimilation of racial and ethnic groups has not assessed trends over time due to methodological difficulties and data limitations. I use an innovative method to assess the intercensal changes in neighborhood spatial attainment for African Americans, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic whites in Houston, Texas, between 1970 and 2000. I extend the current literature by showing that an accepted and commonly used method for assessing longitudinal change in spatial attainment is flawed and yields incorrect results. I highlight an alternative approach which makes use of data readily available in Census Summary Files to estimate individual-level spatial attainment regressions. I also show that the choice of neighborhood size affects estimates of spatial attainment effects. Although the influence of spatial scale has been demonstrated in the segregation literature, its consequences for spatial attainment research have not. I investigate and report findings from four geographic scales useful to and commonly used by spatial attainment researchers: the block group, the Census tract, the Zip Code Tabulated Area, and the Public Use Micro Data Area. I compare the benefits and drawbacks of estimating spatial attainment at each level of geography.

With China¡¦s renaissance the most important factor for its good neighborhood policy is to shape multilateral regime. In this thesis the author is attempted to use the approach of neoliberal institutionalism examining how China uses regime to carry out its national interest. Furthermore, the cooperation between China and ASEAN on regional trade agreements, confidence building measures, nontraditional security area, as well as building of East Asian Community will be discussed. In parallel with this context how China and ASEAN use regime to maintain their own interest and to prevent each other going beyond the proportional profit will be analysed.

This thesis aims to analyze the development of the collective policies of the European Union towards the Middle East by focusing on the reasons behind the formulation of these policies, and the degree of success, failure and prospects of these policies. The general success of the European Community in the 1970s created a desire for European states to form a coordinated European foreign policy. Since the 1970s, the Community started to show willingness to shape international events and to strengthen its international role. The Middle East was one of the leading regions to which the Community turned in the early 1970s, an area, which, for historical and geographical reasons, is of vital interest to it. EU has been becoming a coherent and strategic actor in the Middle East since the 1990s. It has secured an important presence in the Middle East Peace Process and it has further strengthened its role in the Middle East through the adoption of a common, comprehensive regional strategy called the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and developed it with the initiation of the European Neighborhood Policy. However, the European Union&rsquo / s presence is still limited due to its institutional weaknesses, the lack of political unity among its member states, lack of political instruments and military capabilities.

In this study, a metaheuristic procedure, particularly a variable neighborhood search procedure, is proposed to solve the combined location and selective traveling salesman problem in glass recycling. The collection of used glass is done by a collecting vehicle that visits a number of predefined collection centers, like restaurants and hospitals that are going to be referred to as compulsory points. Meanwhile, it is desired to locate a predetermined number of bottle banks to residential areas. The aim is to determine the location of these bottle banks and the route of the collecting vehicle so that all compulsory points and all bottle banks are visited and the maximum profit is obtained. Population zones are defined in residential areas and it is assumed that the people in a particular population zone will recycle their used glass to the closest bottle bank that fully or partially covers their zone. A Variable Neighborhood Search algorithm and its variant have been utilized for the solution of the problem. Computational experiments have been made on small and medium scale test problems, randomly generated and adapted from the literature.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY BEHAVIORS AND NEIGHBORHOOD WALKABILITY PERCEPTIONS OF TURKISH WOMEN IN LOW AND HIGH SOCIO-ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENTS Yildirim, G&uuml / lsen M.S., Department of Physical Education and Sports Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mustafa Levent nce September 2010, 65 pages The purposes of this study were to compare (a) the physical activity (PA) levels, (b) exercise stages of change levels and (c) neighborhood walkability perceptions of Turkish women who are living in Low and High socio-economic (SES) environments. Initially, Low SES and High SES neighborhoods in Ankara were identified by using the classification of Turkish Statistical Institute. Participants were randomly selected 394 women (Low SES=188, High SES=206) between the ages of 18-65 living in these neighborhoods. For data collection, International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form (IPAQ) / Physical Activity Stages of Change Questionnaire (PASCQ), and Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale- Abbreviated (NEWS-A) were used. Descriptive statistics, nonparametric statistical methods (Mann Whitney U test, Pearson chi-square test) and MANOVA were used for the data analysis. According to the IPAQ results, there was no significant difference in walking and vigorous levels by women&rsquo / s neighborhood SES (p&gt / 0.05). However / moderate and total PA level of women living in High SES neighborhoods were significantly higher than the related levels of women living in Low SES neighborhoods (p&lt / 0.05). The results on exercise stages of change levels indicated that the women in Low SES neighborhoods had a higher percentage at precontemplation stage than those of women in High SES neighborhoods (p&lt / 0.05). On he other hand, a higher percentage of women in High SES neighborhoods were at maintenance stage (p&lt / 0.05). NEWS-A results revealed that there were significant differences in women&rsquo / s neighborhood walkability perception by their neighborhood SES, Wilk&rsquo / s = .33, F (8,382) = 97.57, p &lt / .05, 2 = .67. According to further univariate analyses, there were significant differences in all NEWS-A subscales by neighborhood SES in favor of High SES neighborhood, except for the &ldquo / pedestrian/traffic safety&rdquo / subscale (p&lt / 0.05). There were no significant difference in pedestrian/traffic safety scale by neighborhood SES (p&gt / 0.05). In conclusion, women who live in Low SES neighborhood have a higher risk of physical inactivity.Moreover, perceptions of neighborhood environment for the promotion and support of PA were lower in Low SES neighborhood residents as compared to their High SES neighborhood counterparts. Intervention programs for women living in these areas should be provided by considering their PA level, exercise stages of change level and neighborhood walkability perceptions.

Gentrification emerged as a middle-class interest in renovating houses in old city cores. The process changed in parallel with the economic and political restructuring during the last decade. In this period, urban regeneration became an urban strategy used by the local governments as well as a mask for gentrification. It aimed at restructuring the urban land in line with the preferences of wealthier groups rather than the social needs of existing residents. The governments intend to remove poor images of cities through the displacement of poor inhabitants. This, in turn, increases the risk of dilapidating the authenticity of the existing social, cultural, and historic fabric of the regeneration areas. Against this trend, international conservation agencies promote rehabilitation projects to benefit existing communities of historic neighborhoods. In line with the international declarations, they intend to rehabilitate socio-economic conditions of long term inhabitants along with the conservation of historic heritage. Accordingly, the unique architecture of Fener and Balat neighborhoods has been the focus of international efforts during the last decade. Besides, the neighborhoods attracted the local governments&rsquo / interest and were declared as urban regeneration area in 2006. In this regard, thesis intends to compare Rehabilitation of Fener Balat Districts Program (RFBDP) based on the partnership of Fatih Municipality and EU and Fener Balat Neighborhoods Regeneration Project (FBNRP) based on a model of Fatih Municipality and private sector partnership, with a focus on conserving existing communities and preventing displacement.

In this dissertation, we consider the clustering problem in data sets with unknown number of clusters having arbitrary shapes, intracluster and intercluster density variations. We introduce a clustering methodology which is composed of three methods that ensures extraction of local density and connectivity properties, data set reduction, and clustering. The first method constructs a unique neighborhood for each data point using the connectivity and density relations among the points based upon the graph theoretical concepts, mainly Gabriel Graphs. Neighborhoods subsequently connected form subclusters (closures) which constitute the skeleton of the clusters. In the second method, the external shape concept in computational geometry is adapted for data set reduction and cluster visualization. This method extracts the external shape of a non-convex n-dimensional data set using Delaunay triangulation. In the third method, we inquire the applicability of Swarm Intelligence to clustering using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). Ants explore the data set so that the clusters are detected using density break-offs, connectivity and distance information. The proposed ACO-based algorithm uses the outputs of the neighborhood construction (NC) and the external shape formation. In addition, we propose a three-phase clustering algorithm that consists of NC, outlier detection and merging phases. We test the strengths and the weaknesses of the proposed approaches by extensive experimentation with data sets borrowed from literature and generated in a controlled manner. NC is found to be effective for arbitrary shaped clusters, intracluster and intercluster density variations. The external shape formation algorithm achieves significant reductions for convex clusters. The ACO-based and the three-phase clustering algorithms have promising results for the data sets having well-separated clusters.