The last two decades have seen an evolution of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capabilities in the public sector which facilitates the adoption of several IT innovations. Electronic government is one of these strategic innovations that many government agencies have considered adopting to deliver government information and services and support the modernisation of government’s administrative tasks. This research investigates an e-government adoption process as represented by the Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) adoption process. XBRL constitutes one of the key components of the electronic regulatory reporting process in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Companies House (CH). A comprehensive conceptual framework is developed to examine XBRL adoption process and the influential technological, organisational, environmental factors and e-government challenges that affect this process. The contribution of this comprehensive framework is that it develops various relationships among these factors, challenges and stages of the adoption process which have not been identified in the IT adoption or e-government literature. The framework for e-government adoption in the public sector is useful in multiple ways. The major benefit is to contribute to understanding the adoption process, identify the technological infrastructure, and emphasise the importance of the organisational readiness and impact of the environment on the adoption process. The framework can also help government decision makers to visualise a suitable strategic action plan for the future of electronic government by identifying the key issues and potential challenges associated with adopting e-government projects.

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey is the major academic research management and funding agency in Turkey. As a policy-maker, the council has undertaken very important responsibility in designing a science and technology policy of Turkey. By means of impact analysis, evaluating the ongoing research support programmes is important for designing more effective ones. However, impact of academic research are widely disseminated, journal articles being published and cited, number of academic staff involved in the supported projects, patents, and prototypes could be used as an evaluation instrument for impact analysis. In this study first time, we have figured out the social benefits (in 2008 TL fixed prices) of academic research projects, specifically physics academic research projects that were supported during 1998-2008 by T&Uuml / BiTAK. Return of funds of T&Uuml / BiTAK supported physics projects during 2005-2008 was calculated as 142%, when rate of return was taken 28%.

Fuel cells are expected to play a major role in the economy of this century and for the foreseeable future. The use of hydrogen and fuel cells can address critical challenges in all energy sectors like commercial, residential, industrial, and transportation. Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert energy of a chemical reaction directly into electrical energy by combining hydrogen fuel with oxygen from air. If hydrogen is used as fuel, only byproducts are heat and water. The objective of this thesis is to investigate the effect of operating temperature and relative humidity (RH) of reactant gases on proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell performance by adjusting the operation temperature of the fuel cell and humidification temperature of the reactant gases. In this study, the effect of the different operating parameters on the performance of single proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell have been studied experimentally using pure hydrogen on the anode side and air on the cathode side. Experiments with different fuel cell operating temperatures, different air and hydrogen humidification temperatures have been carried out. The experimental results are presented in the form of polarization curves, which show the effects of the various operating parameters on the performance of the PEM fuel cell. The polarization curves data have been fit to a zero dimensional model, and the effect of the fuel cell operation and humidification temperatures on the kinetic parameters and the cell resistance have been determined. The fuel cell has been operated with 1.2 and 2 stoichiometry ratio for hydrogen and air, respectively. Fuel cell performance was detected at different fuel cell operation temperatures changing from 60 to 80 &ordm / C, and relative humidity of the entering gases changing from 20 to 100 % for air and 50 % and 100 % for hydrogen. Tests were performed in a PEM fuel cell test station. The highest performance of 275 mA/cm2 at 0.6 V and 650 mA/cm2 at 0.4 V was obtained for 50 % RH air with a constant 100 % relative humidity of hydrogen for working at atmospheric pressure and 60 oC fuel cell temperature. However, the highest performance of 230 mA/cm2 at 0.6 V for 50 % RH of air with a constant 100 % relative humidity of hydrogen and the highest performance of 530 mA/cm2 at 0.4 V for both 70 % RH and 100% RH air with a constant 100 % relative humidity of hydrogen was obtained for working at atmospheric pressure and 70 oC fuel cell temperature. Besides, the highest performance of 200 mA/cm2 at 0.6 V and 530 mA/cm2 at 0.4 V was obtained for 100 % RH air with a constant 100 % RH of hydrogen for working at atmospheric pressure and 80 oC fuel cell temperature.