This thesis presents a coherent, sustained and substantial contribution to the advancement of knowledge or application of knowledge or both in the field of construction management and economics. More specifically, this thesis outlines the strategic development of the built environment through lessons from international construction, quality and productivity management. The strategic role of construction in economic development is emphasized. It describes the contributions transnational construction firms made towards modern-day construction project management practices globally. It establishes the relationship between construction quality and economic development and fosters a better understanding of total quality management and quality management systems in enhancing construction industry performance. Additionally, it prescribes lessons from the manufacturing industry for construction productivity and identifies the amount of carbon emissions reduced through lean construction management practices to alleviate the generally adverse effects of the built environment on global climate change. It highlights the need for integrated management systems to enhance quality and productivity for sustainable development in the built environment. The thesis is an account of how the built environment has evolved, leveraging on lessons from international construction, quality and productivity management for improvements over the past two decades.

A new apatite (U-Th)/He (AHe) dataset from subvertical transects collected in the Teton and Gallatin Ranges in the Teton-Yellowstone region provides insight for the slip history and length of the Teton fault. Along the northernmost segment of the Teton fault, inverse thermal history modeling of AHe data from Eagles Rest Peak yield a ~9 Ma age for onset of fault slip. This age supports previous interpretations that Mount Moran may be the true center of the Teton fault. This refined interpretation coupled with lengthdisplacement fault scaling analysis and previous estimates of total fault displacement (~6 km) indicates that the Teton fault may extend 50-90 km north of Mount Moran. However, this new data precludes the possibility that the Teton and East Gallatin faults represent the same structure. Yet, because these systems share a similar structure trend and initial slip ages (13 Ma and 16 Ma, respectively), they may still be related at a larger scale. To the south, the Teewinot transect yields the oldest onset age of ~32 Ma, however a >500 m vertical data gap in this transect leads us to cautiously interpret the results of this model, particularly as this age conflicts with four other transects along-strike.

La thèse illustre les influences combinées des anisotropies du gap et du cristal sur les propriétés supraconductrices sous champ magnétique. Afin de décrire la supraconductivité multibande de MgB2, nous dérivons la fonctionnelle de Ginzburg-Landau pour un supraconducteur à deux gaps à partir d'un modèle BCS de couplage faible. L'interaction entre condensats est ainsi décrite par un unique couplage de type Josephson. La théorie à deux gaps permet alors d'expliquer la courbure et l'anisotropie du deuxième champ critique, et la rotation de 30° du réseau de vortex accompagnant l'augmentation du champ magnétique appliqué le long de l'axe c. Par ailleurs, nous étudions la géométrie du réseau de vortex dans le fermion lourd PrOs4Sb12. La prise en compte des corrections non-locales, pour un supraconducteur à cristal Th-tétraédrique avec gap de type s, permet d'expliquer la déformation observée. Les résultats ab initio sur les structures de bandes confirment quantitativement notre analyse.

Le Tianshan est une des chaînes majeures d'Asie qui s'étend sur près de 2500 km de longitude avec des reliefs supérieurs à 7000 m. Il s'agit de l'orogène intracontinental le plus actif au monde issu d'une accrétion initiale au Paléozoïque suivie d'une réactivation majeure au Cénozoïque en réponse à la collision Inde-Asie. Mais l'âge exact d'initiation de la déformation cénozoïque reste mal contraint, ce qui est un obstacle important à la compréhension et à la détermination de l'évolution de la déformation en Asie. Les piémonts Nord et Sud du Tianshan sont constitués par deux remarquables prismes d'avant chaîne où les sédiments permiens au quaternaires des bassins flexuraux adjacents de Kuche et de la Junggarie sont très bien exposés. L'histoire de la construction du Tianshan peut être déterminée grâce à une étude de l'enregistrement sédimentaire facilement accessible au niveau des piémonts.<br />Ainsi, nous avons réalisé trois études magnétostratigraphiques le long des coupes de la Kuitun et de la Jingou He au Nord et le long de celle de Yaha au sud pour lesquelles nous avons identifié respectivement 16, 22 et 18 chrons magnétiques que nous avons corrélés à l'échelle de référence donnant des âges compris entre, 3.1 et 10.5 Ma, 8.5 Ma et 22 Ma et 5.2 et 12.6 Ma respectivement. Les vitesses de sédimentations déduites de ces corrélations montrent une accélération à ~11 Ma sur la coupe de Yaha et celle de la Jingou He qui présente également une accélération antérieure à ~15 Ma alors que les vitesses restent stables depuis ~10 Ma sur la coupe Kuitun. Nous avons également réalisé des études de la minéralogie magnétique et des mesures de l'ASM qui montrent des changements importants de la susceptibilité magnétique (Κ) et du paramètre de forme (T) à 21, 15 et 11 Ma sur les deux piémonts. A partir des changements de vitesses de sédimentation, contraint par ailleurs par ceux des paramètres magnétiques, nous pensons que la surrection du Tianshan a probablement débuté vers 15 Ma puis s'est accélérée à ~11 Ma, ce qui est cohérent avec les études précédentes réalisées sur la zone suivant d'autres méthodes.<br />A partir de modèles structuraux des piémonts et des basins de la Junggarie et de Kuche, associés aux âges magnétostratigraphiques et à des datations U-Th/He de grains d'apatites et zircons détritiques , nous déterminons également: (1) l'âge d'activation et les vitesses de déformation de certaines structures des piémonts, (2) les flux et vitesses sédimentaires et (3) l'évolution des taux d'érosion. Nous discutons et décrivons ainsi l'évolution cinétique et cinématique des piémonts et de la haute chaîne.

Being the major energy consumer of electricity and natural gas, buildings consume more than 70% of electricity and 30% of natural gas. On the way to green buildings and zero energy buildings, investigation and improvement of energy efficiency of the buildings will result in significant reductions in energy demands and CO2 emissions / make cost savings and improve thermal comfort as well. Key steps of a successful green, energy efficient building can be summarized as whole building design, site design, building envelope design, lighting and day lighting design and HVAC system design. Energy Plus&reg / software is mainly developed to simulate the performance of the buildings in the view of the above listed points. The design of a building or the analysis of an existing building with the software will show how efficient the building is or will be, and also helps finding the best efficient choice of the whole building system. Thesis focuses on the effect of changes in building envelope properties. In Turkey, topic of green buildings has recently started to be studied. Therefore, this thesis aims to present efficient technologies providing energy savings in buildings, to present green building concept and alternative energy simulation software. In the context of this study, design, methods and material guidelines are introduced to reduce energy needs of buildings and to bring in the green building design concept. Building and system parameters to enhance building energy efficiency and energy savings together with green building principles are summarized. Moreover, whole building energy analysis methods and simulation steps are explained / year-round simulation is performed for a sample building / as a result, energy savings about 36% is achieved.

In general, tall buildings, some of which are termed as &ldquo / skyscrapers&rdquo / , are among the typical and almost unavoidable features of the metropolitan cities. There is a competititive race of constructing higher and higher buildings since the birth of the infamous Home Insurance Building in Chicago which is still considered to be the pioneer of the modern tall buildings. Recently, an efficient service core design is strongly needed and inquired with the increase in height and capacity of tall buildings. Such needs and demands are primarily due to the circulation volume of occupants since height has an adverse effect on the size and capacity of the service core. This thesis investigates the features of service cores that play an important role in the planning considerations of tall building design, and their effect on architectural, structural and sustainable design. Within this context, a classification of service cores based on their location in architectural design is proposed.

Shear-wall dominant multi-story reinforced concrete structures, constructed by using a special tunnel form technique are commonly built in countries facing a substantial seismic risk, such as Chile, Japan, Italy and Turkey. In 1999, two severe urban earthquakes struck Kocaeli and D&uuml / zce provinces in Turkey with magnitudes (Mw) 7.4 and 7.1, respectively. These catastrophes caused substantial structural damage, casualties and loss of lives. In the aftermath of these destructive earthquakes, neither demolished nor damaged shear-wall dominant buildings constructed by tunnel form techniques were reported. In spite of their high resistance to earthquake excitations, current seismic code provisions including the Uniform Building Code and the Turkish Seismic Code present limited information for their design criteria. This study presents experimental investigation of the panel unit having H-geometry. To investigate the seismic behavior of panel buildings, two prototype test specimens which have H wall design were tested at the Structural Mechanics Laboratory at METU. The experimental work involves the testing of two four-story, 1/5-scale reinforced concrete panel form building test specimens under lateral reversed loading, simulating the seismic forces and free vibration tests. Free vibration tests before and after cracking were done to assess the differences between the dynamic properties of uncracked and cracked test specimens. A moment-curvature program named Waller2002 for shear walls is developed to include the effects of steel strain hardening, confinement of concrete and tension strength of concrete. The moment-curvature relationships of panel form test specimens showed that walls with very low longitudinal steel ratios exhibit a brittle flexural failure with very little energy absorption. Shear walls of panel form test specimens have a reinforcement ratio of 0.0015 in the longitudinal and vertical directions. Under gradually increasing reversed lateral loading, the test specimens reached ultimate strength, as soon as the concrete cracked, followed by yielding and then rupturing of the longitudinal steel. The displacement ductility of the panel form test specimens was found to be very low. Thus, the occurrence of rupture of the longitudinal steel, as also observed in analytical studies, has been experimentally verified. Strength, stiffness, energy dissipation and story drifts of the test specimens were examined by evaluating the test results.

Indoor air quality has become a challenge together with the global aim &lsquo / decreasing energy consumption&rsquo / . Increasing insulation levels of building envelopes but implementing inaccurate building system details has caused excessive heat, accumulation of pollutants, etc. in spaces. In terms of educational spaces, the increase in complaints and illnesses due to unfavorable indoor air conditions leads to a decrease in concentration and so academic performance of students and staff. In the context, the aim of the study was indicating the poor indoor air quality conditions caused by inadequate fresh air supply in crowded educational spaces and making recommendations for the improvement. In the study, a classroom and a design studio in the METU Faculty of Architecture building were investigated. In order to examine the existing situation, at two locations of each room the temperature, relative humidity and CO2 were continuously recorded between 13 September 2011 and 24 February 2012 and air speed for ten-day periods between 26 November 2011 and 5 January 2012. The evaluation of the collected data indicated that both of the rooms had temperature, so relative humidity and CO2 accumulation problems mainly due to insufficient fresh air supply in the winter period. In order to eliminate the poor conditions in the rooms, the needed outdoor air can be provided through the inlet openings coupled with fan coils, which are in existence but not in use.

Extruded aluminium has become the material of choice for building envelope owing to its lightness, wide range of possibilities for profile design, durability and the eco-friendly attitude. In the light of recent technological developments in metal and glass industries, there has been various new approaches towards aluminum curtain wall systems which are mostly preferred by architects in high-rise buildings. Herein, the panel curtain wall system is determined as innovative and the modern aluminium curtain wall system. Furthermore, in the recent prestigious high-rise buildings, the demand of the architects and the contractors begins to replace the conventional curtain wall system which is constructed via stick construction technique, with panel curtain wall system which is applied to the building in a modular form . The main aim of this study is to investigate why the panel curtain wall system comes to the forefront especially for high-rise buildings. Accordingly, the basic architectural, structural and constructional design principles of unitized aluminium curtain wall systems are defined, analyzed and then the advantages and disadvantages of this system are pointed out from an architectural point of view. In order to evaluate the performance of panel curtain wall system against environmental factors, the facade tests, which are new and still-developing methods in Turkey, are used. The extensive facade tests have been conducted on full-scale specimen under field conditions reproduced in an equipped test chamber by authorized facade testing company and the assessment of this curtain wall performance was provided accordance with related standards. The two story full-size specimen, was 3000 mm to 7600 mm, belongs to one of the prestigious office towers constructed in Istanbul. The facade tests conducted to the specimen include watertightness, air permeability, wind resistance and building movement tests. In this study, the performance criteria of panel curtain wall system were investigated not only against environmental factors but also against human sourced factors. It is expected that this study will provide a guideline for system designers on the future research and development phase and for architects on the selection of curtain wall systems for their buildings due to the conducted test results and other advantages taken throughout this study.

Tesis por compendio / La exposición crónica a sustancias de abuso lleva a cambios adaptativos en el cerebro que implican alteraciones en la expresión génica. Se ha propuesto que los factores de transcripción CREB y deltaFosB serían dianas moleculares para la regulación de la plasticidad, la cual lleva a la adicción.En este trabajo hemos estudiado los cambios en la activación de CREB, en PVN y NTS, y las quinasas que mediarían su activación durante la dependencia y síndrome de abstinencia a morfina, así como la respuesta del eje HHA durante dicho síndrome. También se investigó la posibilidad de que la activación de CREB y su coactivador transcripcional TORC1 dependan de la activación de receptores adrenérgicos. Además se evaluaron las posibles modificaciones en la expresión de FosB/deltaFosB en diferentes áreas cerebrales implicadas en la adicción, así como los cambios neuroendocrinos/neuroquímicos responsables de las alteraciones metabólicas observadas durante el tratamiento crónico con morfina. / Chronic exposure to opioids and other abused drugs results in adaptive changes in the brain involving alterations in gene expression. It is proposed that the transcription factors CREB and deltaFosB be molecular targets for the regulation of plasticity, which leads to addiction.In this work we studied changes in activation of the cAMP-response element binding protein (CREB) in PVN and NTS and the kinases that may mediate this activation during dependence and morphine withdrawal and the HPA axis response after naloxone-induced morphine withdrawal. We also investigated the possibility that the activation of CREB and the transcriptional coactivator of CREB, TORC1, arises from the activation of adrenergic receptors. We also evaluated the possible modifications in FosB/deltaFosB expression in several brain areas involved in addiction and neuroendocrine/neurochemical changes that are responsible for the metabolic alterations seen during chronic morphine treatment.