The ability of high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) to extend the shelf life of Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) and red mullet (Mullus barbatus) was assessed in this study. For that purpose, fillets of both atlantic mackerel and red mullet were subjected to pressure treatments at 200, 300, 400 MPa at 5, 10, 15&deg / C for 5 and 15 minutes. The influence of the treatments on Trimethylamine Nitrogen (TMA-N) level, lipid oxidation stability (Thiobarbituric Acid, TBA level) was investigated as well as color changes. The suitable combinations for Atlantic mackerel were determined as 200 MPa, 15&deg / C for 5 min and 400 MPa, 5&deg / C for 5 min / and for red mullet 200 MPa, 15&deg / C for 5 min. In the second stage, the shelf life of fish samples, which were treated with these conditions and stored at 4&deg / C, were studied by measurement of pH, color, sensorial features (appearance and odor), TMA-N, TBA, Total Volatile Basic Nitrogen (TVB-N), Histamine and Total Mesophilic Aerobic Count (TMAC) formations. Based on these analyses, the unpressurised mackerel samples were acceptable up to only 7 days compared to 17 and 19 days after 200 and 400 MPa treatments / respectively. For red mullet samples pressurization at 200 MPa extended the shelf life an additional 3 days (from 1 week to 10 days). HHP treatment in combination with chilled storage can improve the shelf life and quality of fish.

Water distribution network models are used for different purposes. In this study, a model, used for daily operational issues is concerned. Models results should be consistent with actual conditions for sound decisions during operational studies. Adjusting model parameters according to site measurements in order to fit the model to obtain realistic results is known as calibration. Researchers have carried out numerous studies on calibration and developed various methods. In this study, an actual network (N8.3 Pressure Zone, Ankara) has been calibrated by two classical methods developed by Walski (1983) and Bhave (1988). The network parameter calibrated in this study is Hazen-Williams roughness coefficient, C-factor, and other parameters have been lumped in the C-factor. Results of the analysis showed that, C-factors have been found in a wide range.

&lsquo / Green Buildings&rsquo / play an important role to increase the implementation of sustainable strategies in the construction industry. Although there is a process of change within Turkish building environment towards implementation of green strategies nowadays, limited research has been conducted to search the reasons that drive the market and the important barriers that block the green building movement. This thesis is intended to fill this gap in the literature and contribute to the field of knowledge regarding green building construction in Turkey. The results shall benefit both government and market practitioners for the development of green building market. The data presented in this thesis are mainly obtained from a comprehensive questionnaire survey developed based on a deep literature search. The questionnaire is completed by professionals who have an interest on this topic or who have involvement in green building projects. In order to analyze the gathered data, a variety of statistical methods are used and the results are evaluated in detail. In addition to questionnaire survey, six case study green building projects in Turkey are examined and so a snapshot picture of current situation of the green movement is taken. Accordingly, financial considerations, faced difficulties and lessons learned are explained. The findings shall assist in understanding the real needs for green building development in Turkish construction sector. Finally, recommendations for government and researchers are presented so as to steer the construction sector in the direction of sustainability.

The user of an image database often wishes to retrieve all images similar to the one (s)he already has. In this thesis, shape analysis methods for retrieving shape are investigated. Shape analysis methods can be classified in two groups as contour-based and region-based according to the shape information used. In such a classification, curvature scale space (CSS) representation and angular radial transform (ART) are promising methods for shape similarity retrieval respectively. The CSS representation operates by decomposing the shape contour into convex and concave sections. CSS descriptor is extracted by using the curvature zero-crossings behaviour of the shape boundary while smoothing the boundary with Gaussian filter. The ART descriptor decomposes the shape region into a number of orthogonal 2-D basis functions defined on a unit disk. ART descriptor is extracted using the magnitudes of ART coefficients. These methods are implemented for similarity comparison of binary images and the retrieval performances of descriptors for changing number of sampling points of boundary and order of ART coefficients are investigated. The experiments are done using 1000 images from MPEG7 Core Experiments Shape-1. Results show that for different classes of shape, different descriptors are more successful. When the choice of approach depends on the properties of the query shape, similarity retrieval performance increases.

In this study, settlement analysis of pile groups by hand calculation methods were investigated. Settlement ratio, equivalent pier, and equivalent raft methods were studied. Variations in some of the calculation methods were noted, and some suggestions were given. More than thirty piled raft foundation case histories whose foundation and soil properties known have been found. The settlement of piled foundation in each case was solved by these methods. Results obtained from the calculations following different methods were presented for each case in the form of tables and graphs. Measured and calculated values were compared by making use of graphs and tables. Effect of type of piles was shown. It was tried to find out that which method is suitable under different conditions. In conclusion, suggestions for methods and calculation procedures were given.

In this thesis, a national information technology (IT) strategy applicable to Turkish construction industry for future implementation of IT is developed, advising guidance to current and future stakeholders but also researchers and decision makers to set the right priorities and pre-harmonization for IT in construction. Within this study, the present situation of the industry is discussed, so as to structure today&rsquo / s required industry abilities fulfilling tomorrow&rsquo / s demands and innovative IT solutions. Then, a coherent vision is developed for agile, model-based, knowledge driven Turkish construction industry. Following the analysis of IT trends and opportunities, a national IT strategy framework for the industry is specified. Finally / other country applications are examined to give direction for the developed strategy implementation approach.

In this thesis primarily structural induced liquefaction potential was aimed to be analyzed. Also the effect of base isolation systems both on structural performance and liquefaction potential was studied. FLAC software was chosen for the analyses so that structure and soil could be modeled together. By these means the soil structure interaction effects were also examined. Four different structures and three different sites were analyzed under two different input motions. All the structures were also analyzed as base isolated. It was mainly found that depending on the structural type and for a certain depth the liquefaction potential could be higher under the structure than the one in the free field. Also it was concluded that base isolation systems were very effective for decreasing the story drifts, shear forces in the structure and liquefaction potential in the soil. It was also found that the interaction took place between structure, soil and input motions.

In this study, we consider single model deterministic Assembly Line Balancing problem with task paralleling. The objective is to minimize the total cost which is composed of station opening cost and task dependent equipment cost. A branch and bound algorithm that allows two-level task paralleling is proposed. A heuristic algorithm is also developed both for obtaining efficient upper bounds to branch and bound and for achieving good approximate solutions for large sized problems. Computational experiments are conducted to investigate the effects of experimental parameters on the cost-related and algorithm-related performance measures. The exact algorithm results are compared to the proposed heuristic algorithm results, station paralleling results and optimal solutions without paralleling.

In this thesis, we introduce a new shape descriptor and a graph based matching algorithm to detect a template shape in an image that contains a single object. The shape descriptor, Generalized Beam Angle Statistics, GBAS is obtained with the generalization of the boundary based shape descriptor, Beam Angle Statistics, BAS cite{BAS}. GBAS improves BAS so that it can compute the feature vector of a boundary point without the requirement of the parametric boundary representation. This way, it can be used in matching an individual edge pixel with a boundary point of template shape, even if it is not possible to extract the shape boundary in the image with the available techniques. Given a template shape, the matching algorithm solves the correspondence problem between the sampled boundary points of the template and the edges of the query image, using the GBAS feature vectors and the spatial information of edges. The match graph represents the correspondence problem and the optimum path on this graph gives the solution of it. Optimum path is found using a polynomial time algorithm that is based on the dynamic programming approach. In the experiments, we show that the proposed shape descriptor is very powerful and the matching algorithm is capable of detecting a template shape in edge detected images under a variety of transformations and noise.

In this study settlement behaviour of K&uuml / rt&uuml / n dam, which is the first concrete faced rockfill dam in Turkey, is investigated. Two dimensional plane strain finite element analyses are carried out in order to determine the total stresses and displacements during construction and reservoir filling conditions. Hardening soil model is used in order to represent the non-linear, inelastic and stress dependent behaviour of rockfill material. Material model parameters are selected mainly referring to the previous studies on the dams consisting of similar materials. Calculated stresses and settlements are compared with the observed values and in general, they were found to be in good agreement for the construction stages. It is seen that, due to the relatively narrow valley and steep abutment slopes, arching is a significant parameter as far as the stresses and settlements are concerned. For the reservoir impounding condition, calculated settlements were found to be slightly larger than the observed values, which may indicate that during the reservoir impounding, the rockfill embankment behaves in a stiffer manner as compared to that of during construction stages.