Influence of influent tributaries on water quality changes in Lake Mogan, Turkey

Lake Mogan, located in the steppes of central Anatolia, is a vital Turkish ecological system, in terms of its water resources, flora and fauna. The lake also is a unique recreational area for Ankara, the capital of Turkey. However, the lake is currently threatened by severe pollution, being under the risk of serious degradation because of (i) uncontrolled urbanization; (ii) point and non‐point source pollution; (iii) inefficient sewerage systems; (iv) sediment transportation and pollution via influent creeks to the lake; (v) uncontrolled soil erosion in its drainage basin; (vi) inappropriate flood control measures; and (vii) severe degradation of the natural wetlands within its drainage basin. This study evaluates the influence of its influent creeks on the water quality of Lake Mogan, mainly because the creeks are believed to be responsible for the major pollutant load reaching the lake, and because the extensive database documenting this situation has not previously been critically evaluated. Accordingly, this study reviews (i) change in the water quality of Lake Mogan between 1993 and 2002; (ii) the water quality classification of the major influent creeks feeding Lake Mogan; and (iii) the influence of the influent creeks on the water quality of the lake between 1993 and 2004.     

Ant colony optimization approach to estimate energy demand of Turkey

This paper attempts to shed light on the determinants of energy demand in Turkey. Energy demand model is first proposed using the ant colony optimization (ACO) approach. It is multi-agent systems in which the behavior of each ant is inspired by the foraging behavior of real ants to solve optimization problem. ACO energy demand estimation (ACOEDE) model is developed using population, gross domestic product (GDP), import and export. All equations proposed here are linear and quadratic. Quadratic_ACOEDE provided better-fit solution due to fluctuations of the economic indicators. The ACOEDE model plans the energy demand of Turkey until 2025 according to three scenarios. The relative estimation errors of the ACOEDE model are the lowest when they are compared with the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MENR) projection.     

Assessment of the energy and exergy utilization efficiencies in the Turkish agricultural sector

This study deals with evaluating the energy and exergy utilization efficiencies in the Turkish agricultural sector over a 12‐year period from 1990 to 2001. In the energy and exergy analyses, two main energy sources, namely fuels and electricity, are taken into consideration, while the sectoral energy and exergy efficiencies are compared for this period. These main energy sources include diesel for tractors and other vehicles, and electricity for pumps. Overall energy utilization efficiencies are obtained to vary between 29.1 and 41.1%, while overall exergy utilization efficiencies are found to range from 27.9 to 37.4% in the analysed years, respectively. It may be concluded that the present technique proposed here may be used as a useful tool in analysing and evaluating the energy and exergy utilization efficiencies, identifying energy efficiency and/or energy conservation opportunities and dictating the energy strategies of countries. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Achieving sustainable customer loyalty in airports: The role of waiting time satisfaction and self-service technologies

Waiting time appears to be an unavoidable part of the service industry, particularly at the airport, where you may encounter delays due to check-in, screening, and other activities. This waiting experience can vex customers, affecting their perception of the service provider and, consequently, their loyalty. Our study aimed to determine the effect of waiting time satisfaction and the use of self-service technology on the long-term sustainability of customer loyalty. 750 structured questionnaires were distributed to travelers at two international airports in Turkey. PLS-SEM was used to analyses the models. Our findings indicate that customer satisfaction with waiting times and the use of self-service technologies are critical for the long-term sustainability of customer loyalty. Additionally, we discovered that waiting time satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between self-service technology use and long-term customer loyalty. Finally, the managerial implications were discussed, including future research suggestions.     

Groundwater legislation in Turkey: problems of conception and application

The uneven distribution of water resources, a growing population, urbanization and global climate change require new approaches for groundwater management in Turkey. “Safe yield” should yield to broader concepts such as “sustainability”. Groundwater management needs to consider future needs of the people and all ecosystems in accordance with basin development models. Groundwater law needs to be expanded beyond quantity to address quality concerns. A new institutional framework should be established and groundwater regulation should reflect new approaches and ideas, in particular to address problems of application.     

Assessment of Water Quality Management in Turkey

Abstract

There has been a noticeable increase in the amount of pollution in water resources in Turkey in recent years. Negative environmental developments, such as industrialization, increasing urbanization, improper pesticide and fertilizer applications in agricultural lands, and the drainage of domestic and industrial wastewater into water resources without any waste treatment applications, cause rapid pollution of both surface and groundwater resources. Therefore, it is necessary to allocate more attention to water resources monitoring and evaluation studies to prevent the pollution of water resources, and to reclaim these resources.     

Reconnaissance of Golcuk 1999 Earthquake Damage Using Satellite Images

This study utilizes remotely sensed pre- and post-disaster images in order to detect any change specifically associated with structural and major regional damage caused by natural disasters such as a strong earthquake. Currently, postdisaster reconnaissance is conducted using mostly ground-truth teams. Although by using this method high-resolution assessment can be provided, it is very time consuming, costly and sometimes not practical. This study investigates an unsupervised near near-time method of reconnaissance using a pair of coregistered remotely sensed images of the same scene acquired at different times as input. The output is an image (mostly binary) in which “changed” pixels are separated from “not-changed” ones. The approach is fully deterministic using principal component analysis, normalization and further setting a threshold to classify pixels. For verification, a set of multispectral images from Golcuk-Turkey 1999 earthquake was used. It is concluded the program generates very similar results as obtained by ground-truth teams.     

The effect of ISO quality management system standards on industrial property rights in Turkey

The aim of this study was to assess whether the systematical application of the following ISO quality management system standards: ISO 9001 (Quality Management System), ISO 22000 (Food Safety Management System), ISO 14001 (Environment Management System), ISO 13425 (Medical Device Quality Management System), ISO 27001 (Information Security Management System) and ISO 16949 (Automotive Quality Management System) have had an effect on the emergence of industrial property rights in Turkey. Information was collected about the number of ISO standard certification documents that Turkish organizations received in respect of these standards between the period of 2007 and 2013. For the same period, information about the number of granted patents, petty patents, trademarks and industrial designs in Turkey were also collected. The information was analyzed by year, industrial property right type and ISO standard. A Spearman correlation analysis was also conducted to determine the strength of association between the number of certification documents and the number of granted industrial property rights. The analysis showed that some of the ISO standards had either a positive or negative linear relationship with one or more of the granted industrial property right types. Although the total number of certification documents had decreased over the time period of the study, the number of granted industrial property rights in Turkey had increased over the same period indicating that the adoption of quality managment system standards may have led to an increase in national innovation in Turkey. This observation may help to improve innovation in other countries similar to Turkey.     

Adoption of e-government services in Turkey

This research aims to investigate underlying factors that play role in citizens' decision to use e-government services in Turkey. UTAUT model which was enriched by introducing Trust of internet and Trust of government factors is used in the study. The model is evaluated through a survey conducted with Turkish citizens who are from different regions of the country. A total of 529 answers collected through purposive sampling and the responses were evaluated with the SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) technique. According to the results, Performance expectancy, Social influence, Facilitating conditions and Trust of Internet were found to have a positive effect on behavioral intention to use e-government services. Additionally, both Trust factors were found to have a positive influence on Performance expectancy of e-government services, a relation which, to our best knowledge, hasn't been tested before in e-government context. Effect of Effort expectancy and Trust of government were found insignificant on behavioral intention. We believe that the findings of this study will guide professionals and policy makers in improving and popularizing e-government services by revealing the citizen's priorities regarding e-government services in Turkey.     

Second generation bioethanol (SGB) production potential in Turkey

Energy demand is increasing by the years. Population's needs and technological investments bring the new approach about generating energy. It is considered that fossil fuels will not be able to respond to all energy requirements after approximately 150 years. Turkey imports nearly all of its petroleum and so this causes major economic problems. Turkey, as a major cereal producer, has a huge potential to grow energy crops and other cellulosic biomaterials and can obtain plant's residues, which are suitable to produce second generation bioethanol (SGB). With domestic production, bioethanol can reduce the dependence of petroleum for Turkey, and greenhouse gas emissions can be decreased. Taking into account Turkey's situation in fuel–oil consumption, costliness of gasoline and environmentally hazardous specification of fossil fuels, bioethanol gains more importance and increases in value. Especially, SGB production is rising. Foodstuffs are valuable, and producing ethanol from directly those materials can cause a crisis in Turkey because lignocellulosic bioethanol is becoming prominent. In this regard, bioethanol production in Turkey becomes a major alternative to petroleum and may be a key to new and clean energy source. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.