Galatians who entered into Anatolia in about 280 B.C., in order to help the Bithynian king Nicomedes I against his brother Zipoetas, had a significant role in the history of the ancient Asia Minor. Archaeological material that were recovered from different sites such as Gordion, Pessinus and Tavion and fort settlements mostly dating to the late Hellenistic Period are the most important sources that provide information on their presence in Galatia region named after them. The main purpose of this thesis is to bring together all the archaeological, historical and epigraphical data to present in a coherent way and examine the fort settlements around Ancyra attributed to the Galatians. It both aims to understand the Galatians archaeologically and also by applying new methods such as Visibility Analysis through GIS studies, it hopes to materialize some of the assumptions regarding settlement systems. In order to achieve these, after a thorough presentation of the archaeological and historical data, the forts surveyed around Ancyra are described individually and then studied as a system with the help of Visibility Analysis. The thesis also confirms the presumed relationship between the location of the forts and the topography as well as identifying criteria for choice of location for ancient settlements.

Visibility analysis is an important GIS tool that is used in a diverse array of disciplines ranging from earth sciences to telecommunications. Multi-visibility, as a cumulative type of visibility, combines many point-to-point results into a multi-value array. Points, lines, or areas can be used as sources or targets / and the combined values can be calculated in both ways. Through multi-visibility, a special 2.5D visibility value surface can be constructed over a digital elevation model. The effectiveness of multi-visibility can be increased with weighted target zones. Other types of weighting criteria can be defined, such as distance and angle. Open source GIS tools offer a limited amount of support for that type of multivisibility analysis. In this study, a weighted multi-visibility methodology has been developed which accepts a path as the source. The path can have a specific direction to account for moving subjects that have a specific view angle based on their direction. A software tool has been developed to apply the methodology in a practical and automated way. The tool was written in Python programming language and can be run as a plugin to the open source Quantum GIS software. The proposed weighted multi-analysis methodology and its software tool can be used to assess the quality of visibility through the generation of value surfaces and calculation of a combined quantitative visibility value for the full path.

Natural environments, namely green and blue spaces, have been found to have positive influences on mental health outcomes globally. As the contribution of poor mental health to the disease burden increases, the mechanisms through which natural environments may improve health are of growing importance. This study creates a novel visibility index methodology and investigates whether i) views of natural environments and ii) access to natural environments, are associated with psychological stress and physical activity in Wellington, New Zealand. It also builds upon the work conducted in New Zealand as the first study to investigate links between blue space and mental health and provides an insight into the mechanisms through which increased natural environments may improve health. Individual level data for 442 individuals from the New Zealand Health Survey was obtained and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) were used to investigate whether area-level exposure to natural environments influenced their psychological stress and levels of physical activity. Results from regression analysis indicate that increased distant visible green space (beyond 3km), visible blue space, and a combination of green and blue spaces from neighbourhood centroids reduce psychological stress. Some access measures to natural environments were found to have positive associations with psychological stress, however increased proximal access to green space was associated with decreased physical activity. The findings conclude that the visibility of natural environments appears to have stronger associations with stress reduction than access to them. The findings of this paper should influence urban development and inform decision and policy making, particularly the development and/or relocation of health related facilities.

ABSTRACT PRIVACY AND SEGREGATION AS A BASIS FOR ANALYZING AND MODELLING THE URBAN SPACE COMPOSITION OF THE LIBYAN TRADITIONAL CITY CASE STUDY: THE CITY OF GHADAMES Faraj Abubaker El-Agouri Ph.D., Department of City and Regional Planning Supervisor: Asoc. Dr. Baykan Gunay October, 296 pages The study examines the spatial and visual privacy in different areas within the walled city of Ghadames, where different ethnic communities live in distinct localities. Conceptual and theoretical notions of privacy are tested, whose ultimate value is further refinement of privacy regulation conceptually and operationally. Complexities of privacy as a concept and its regulation are clarified through theory and extracted spatio-cultural information about physical settings created by these communities. The space syntax and isovist field analysis are applied as an integrated methodology. The study demonstrates usefulness and adaptability of this integrated approach, which provides a fairly definitive interpretation (i.e. understanding) of physical settings of the city that residents as well as visitors perceive as regulating privacy, and where privacy fits into the user&rsquo / s perception. The structure of the thesis can be understood as consisting of three parts. Part one includes literature about privacy definition, functions, regulating mechanisms, framework within the context of culture as well as the interface between private and public spaces. Second part introduces theory of space syntax and concept of visibility graph analysis (Isovist field). It also introduces the case study of Ghadames, field survey and observations. It illuminates the inhabitants&rsquo / lifestyle, and show how they label spaces by function, gender and user identity. Part three analyses syntactically and visually the spatial structures for the whole walled city as well as the nine selected ethnic communities as embedded within the city and in isolation. In brief, this study attempts to observe and quantify physical settings as privacy regulation mechanisms that operate within context of culture. Mechanisms are the physical elements that facilitate or impede privacy regulation in the city and/or enable users themselves to regulate privacy through their own locales. The elements are composed of field characteristics and barriers. Field characteristics regulate privacy by perceptually altering the physical context through shape, size, orientation, and environmental conditions. Barriers regulate privacy physically and symbolically through walls, screens, objects, and symbols.

Tall buildings have been constructed in many cities over the world to accommodate the demographic and economic growth in urban areas. These structures, however, have been widely discussed concerning their potential negative impacts on urban life. By drawing on concepts of urban morphology and the city image, this thesis aims to examine the impact of tall buildings on predominantly low-rise built urban environments and cities. Through a quantitative case study approach applying geographic information systems this thesis attempts to identify (1) the shadow impacts significantly taller buildings have on surrounding areas, (2) the visual impact and the potential for a proposed tall building to act as a new landmark, and (3) the impact tall buildings have on the skyline of a city dominated by low-rise buildings and a historic city centre. The thesis analysed two proposed buildings in Västerås, Sweden and found that the shadow impact of the analysed structures is concentrated on the winter months. The visibility of the buildings concentrates on open spaces and certain visible corridors but is not widely spread over the city. Therefore, the possibilities of the new structures becoming a new landmark of the city are questionable. Furthermore, the proposed planned structures would be visible in the skyline but would not obstruct the views to the other landmarks of the city. The thesis and its results contribute to the discourse around tall buildings and the research on the city image by showing the importance of the analysis of the potential impact of tall buildings in urban planning processes.

I Jönköping finns idag tre synliga bronsåldersgravar fortfarande stående. I början av1900-talet var detta numret 10. Vissa fynd från bronsåldern i området som Sagaholmshögenhar fått mycket uppmärksamhet av forskare, men få landskapsanalyser har utförts över dettaområdet. På andra håll har landskapsanalyser av gravhögar ofta utförts över betydligt störreområden, och dessa har fått tolkningar som bland annat territoriemarkörer baserat påmonumentens visuella aspekt. Uppsatsen analyserar bronsålderslandskapet i Jönköping utifrånsiktlinjer med hjälp av GIS, och med syftet att undersöka relationen mellan de monumentalagravarna och andra synliga aspekter av landskapet för att försöka nå varför dessa uppfördesdär de står. Resultaten av analysen visar att synlighet troligen inte var en särskilt betydandefaktor för uppförandet av gravarna, men att ett samband i intervisibiliteten mellan dessa kananas, samt belyser uppsatsen några källkritiska problem med tillgängliga strandlinjemodelleroch digital fornminnesdata. / In Jönköping there exists today three visible and still standing barrows from the bronze age.In the beginning of the 20th century these numbered 10. Some findings från the bronze age inthis area like the Sagaholm-barrow have garnered a lot of attention by researchers, but fewlandscape analyses havebeen performed over the area. In other parts of the country landscapeanalyses have been performed across much larger areas, and these have gotten interpretationssuch as markers of territory based on the visual aspects of these monuments. This thesisanalyses the bronze age landscape in Jönköping based on sightlines with the aid of GIS, andwith the goal to explore the relationship between the monumental graves and other visibleaspects of the landscape in order to try and reach an understanding as to why these arestanding where they are. The results of the analysis show that visibility likely wasn’t anespecially important factor in raising the graves, but that a correlation regarding intervisibilitycan be suspected. Furthermore the thesis shines light on a few sources of critique with theavailible shoreline models, as well as the digital data on ancient remains.

This is a study of the spatial affordances of buildings that allow them to organize and transmit cultural ideas and to support the performance of organizational roles. The particular affordances under consideration are those that arise from the manner in which buildings structure the visual fields that are potentially available to a situated observer. In studying directed visibility patterns, supported by the development of appropriate analytical tools, we focus on a previously specified set of visual targets and ask how many become visible from each occupiable location. Parametric restrictions concerning the direction into which a subject faces and the viewing angle sustained by the target object are also taken into consideration. The aim is to demonstrate how such refinements of visibility analysis, lead to more precise and penetrating insights as to how building users tune their behavior to the spatial affordances of environment, and how the environment impacts their understanding in turn. Three different studies were presented. The fist used directed visibility measures to evaluate the affordances of different nursing-unit designs relative to how well nurses are able to survey patients in different rooms as they go about their duties. The second study focuses on the manner in which nurses and physicians position themselves in a Neuro Intensive Care Unit (ICU), particularly when interacting. The third study investigates how aware exhibition visitors become of the visual structure of environment and how the visibility structure of exhibitions affects the ability of visitors to conceptually group paintings according to their thematic content. The case studies support the following conclusions. 1) The way in which people position themselves in an environment as they perform their assigned tasks is tuned to the way in which visual fields are structured. 2) The visual structure of environment is contingent upon the interaction between the underlying structure of visual fields and paths of movement. 3) Directed visibility analysis leads to stronger correlations with behavior and performance than generic visibility analysis. This implies that environments are layered. Their underlying spatial structure is charged by the distribution of the contents that are programmatically primary.