This study focuses on developing and implementing a web-based public procurement system. As one innovative way of enhancing public procurement, an attempt to develop and implement electronic tendering system is to be made. In designing the system, not only technological aspects but also issues related to public procurement process improvement are considered. As an analysis and design approach, object oriented methodology was chosen and UML was used. Java as a development language was preferred because the resulting system is expected to be portable. This study also puts forward propositions as to how the government should perform direct purchases to ensure that both public and private sector benefit from e-Procurement to achieve full value.

This thesis analyzes factors motivating and inhibiting the adoption of information systems in enterprises in Gaziantep by a scale generated on Rogers&rsquo / theory of diffusion of innovation. These factors are grouped into four as administrative, technological, environmental, and organizational characteristics in the scale built. Structured interview method was used while collecting the data. It was interviewed with 20 firms, operating in various sectors in Gaziantep. Results of the study showed that, within the fifteen factors studied, five of them had significant effects on the rate of information systems utilization. These factors were the relative advantage of information systems, the quality of information systems infrastructure, CEO&rsquo / s attitude towards information systems, employees&rsquo / knowledge about information systems, and the service quality of the vendor.

The aim of this thesis is to develop a GIS methodology to assess urban vulnerability to earthquake through a spatial analytical procedure in which vulnerability is taught of as a spatial decision problem. The main concepts within the framework is vulnerability assessment. In its typology, the defined technology is highly current, emergent and necessary for the local goverments. Considering the discussions on subsidiarity for local area services such a knowledge is hoped to prove the capacity of local goverments. First earthquake losses were estimated. Earthquake loss estimation activities can be categorized into two series of phases: pre-disaster phase / risk assessment, mitigation management post- disaster phase / emergency and rehabilitation management Two methods were used in estimating the primary damages and losses due to earthquake. In the first method spatial multicriteria analysis was performed to assign a vulnerability value to each building. As a second method SRAS(Seismic Risk Analysis Software) was used. Besides criteria for social risks, criteria for systematic vulnerability, which may influence the emergency response and management activities following the earthquake, were also considered. Criteria standardization, weighting and combining were accomplished by means of multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) methods, the theoretical background being based on the multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT). Expert knowledge based analysis was used and also three different earthquake scenarios about Odunpazari were run on SRAS. After the aggregation of the vulnerability values from building scale to neighbourhood scale, the urban facilities were analysed. Results showed that, 1/3 of the neighborhoods in Odunpazari are vulnerable to any possible earthquake.

In most of the studies, face to face interviews are required with individuals for data collection and hence to apply questionnaires. There are two methods for applying the questionnaire / the paper-based and the electronic method. The paper-based method takes time and is of a high cost to the researchers. Because of writing/reading based errors, this method may cause inaccuracy in collected data. On the contrary, conducting questionnaires in electronic environment procures savings in cost and time, improves data accuracy, gives faster results, and increases efficiency. However, in this method some problems may arise in surveys conducted in urban areas, i.e. problems related to communication and network infrastructure. Nevertheless, advances in Information Technologies provide mobile data collection and computing, and hence they have become a significant place in every part of our life. Many researchers have begun to prefer using these developing technologies in their studies since using mobile devices in conducting health surveys is more useful and economical than the paper-based questionnaires. In this thesis, we have developed a mobile device-based questionnaire, which is an adaptation of the one used by the National Cancer Institute of USA in paper-based form. In other words, in this work the &ldquo / Health Habits and History Questionnaire&rdquo / has been adopted to the pocket PCs. It is planned to be used for an ongoing epidemiological study in &Ccedil / ukurova region. We hope that this study will be an example for the similar studies in the future.

Classification of the agricultural fields using remote sensing images is one of the most popular methods used for crop mapping. Most recent classification techniques are based on per-field approach that works as assigning a crop label for each field. Commonly, the spatial vector data is used for the boundaries of the fields for applying the classification within them. However, crop variation within the fields is a very common problem. In this case, the existing field boundaries may be insufficient for performing the field-based classification and therefore, image segmentation is needed to be employed to detect these homogeneous segments within the fields. This study proposed a field-based approach to segment the crop fields in an image within the integrated environment of Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing. In this method, each field is processed separately and the segments within each field are detected. First, an edge detection is applied to the images, and the detected edges are vectorized to generate the straight line segments. Next, these line segments are correlated with the existing field boundaries using the perceptual grouping techniques to form the closed regions in the image. The closed regions represent the segments each of which contain a distinct crop type. To implement the proposed methodology, a software was developed. The implementation was carried out using the 10 meter spatial resolution SPOT 5 and the 20 meter spatial resolution SPOT 4 satellite images covering a part of Karacabey Plain, Turkey. The evaluations of the obtained results are presented using different band combinations of the images.

This thesis proposes a new algorithm for multi-constrained Quality of Service Optimal Path Routing in the context of military applications. The objective of our routing algorithm is to manage network traffic according to quality of service requirements of connection requests using military metrics. The algorithm is mainly based on communication priority. The QoS metrics such as bandwidth, delay and packet loss ratio are considered as basic metrics on path finding. If there is no suitable path for the request, some existing connections with lower priorities may be broken to make space for a higher priority level connection request. In this case, priority and bandwidth are used as decisive metrics in cost computation

Almost all commercially available wireless access devices are special embedded systems with proprietary software that do not allow any modifications. Modifications to these systems are only possible by firmware upgrades released by manufacturers. However, release times of these firmware upgrades are unpredictable, and they are usually for bug-fix purposes rather than being feature and capability improvements. Thus, these devices fail to provide the needed flexibility. Ability to provide timely custom solution that is well integrated into existing network infrastructure is the key factor for a successful wireless access service implementation. In this thesis work, the open source software called AWLP is designed, coded, tested, and released to public as a viable alternative for creating custom wireless access device.

In this study we address the problem of detecting new types of intrusions to computer systems which cannot be handled by widely implemented knowledge-based mechanisms. The solutions offered by behavior-based prototypes either suffer low accuracy and low completeness or require use data eplaining abnormal behavior which actually is not available. Our aim is to develop an algorithm which can produce a satisfactory model of the target system&rsquo / s behavior in the absence of negative data. First, we design and develop an intelligent and behavior-based detection mechanism using genetic-based machine learning techniques with subsidies in the Bucket Brigade Algorithm. It classifies the possible system states to be normal and abnormal and interprets the abnormal state observations as evidences for the presence of an intrusion. Next we provide another algorithm which focuses on capturing normal behavior of the target system to detect intrusions again by identifying anomalies. A compact and highly complete rule set is generated by continuously inserting observed states as rules into the rule set and combining similar rule pairs in each step. Experiments conducted using the KDD-99 data set have produced fairly good results for both of the algorihtms.

Many people use personal informatics systems to gather personal behavioral data, make better decisions, and make changes to their behavior. While the proliferation of new products on the market makes collecting personal data easier, how to help people engage with these systems over a long period of time remains an open question. To uncover which features of personal informatics systems lead to engaging experience and long-term use, two user studies were conducted with people who use personal informatics systems to support or track behavior change. Baseline interviews were conducted and participants were asked to interact with personal informatics systems. Participants rated their experience both qualitatively and quantitatively and particularly in Study2, participants rated their experience with the system daily. At the beginning and at the end of each study, participants were asked to reflect on their physical activity levels and on their perceived behavior change at the end of the each study. The results were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively and similarities and differences between the studies were exhibited. This research reveals that easy and instant access to data is critical, and feeling good and positive social outcomes of interaction will also support sustained product use. In addition, personalization of data is emerged to be an important expectation of the users. At the end, design implications for future personal informatics system are also offered.

As in the case of other information technologies, the best way of obtaining efficient results from electronic signature application is integrating it to the legal and economic systems and increasing the awareness level of technology in the society. This thesis performs the legal and economic analyses of electronic signature in Turkey and measures the awareness level in the society. The analyses performed in the thesis show that electronic signature is not legally established in Turkey even the legal base is harmonious with European Union and it is expensive in practice even though its economic rate of return is high and the awareness level in the society which is measured in this study with a 20 questions test is not very high.