Anthropogenetically triggered landslide factors of the Varyant landslide area at Buyukcekmece, NW Turkey

Since early 1950s many natural conditioning factors and interference have given rise to landslides near heavily populated settlement areas at the western part of Istanbul, NW of Turkey. Both human involvement and heavy rainfall have a great impact as triggering factors over the Varyant landslide area (VLA). The onset of the landslide activity ill VLA began in 1950's after the construction of E-5 motorway, at the east of Buyukcekmece Lake. A linkage way to E-5 motorway was built near the drainage divide of Cakmakli Creek catchment has already been causing some disturbance to the slope stability. Excavation activities were carried out in order to get materials for building of the Buyukcekmece Dam, do form one of the important drinking water sources of Istanbul. A great amount of materials were derived from the accumulation zone of the above-mentioned old landslide area with nearly 1 km length and the excavations heightened the slope failures. Following the construction of the Buyukcekmece Dam in 1989, a water pipe-line was installed within a landslide body, resulted in some new slope movements. Finally, a pipe-line-induced destructive landslide occurred on 2(nd) February 2000, causing a great economic damage of nearly US $ 5.5 million. In the present study, both natural conditioning factors and human-induced processes creating slope failures have been discussed. Considering all effective factors, the human interference and rainfall impact have together been evaluated as two dominant triggering factors

The formation of beachrock on the North Cyprus coast

Kıbrıs adasının kuzey kıyılarında yalıtaşı oluşumları tespit edildi. Yalıtaşların petrografik bileşimi ve çimentolanma özellikleri detaylı arazi çalışmaları, ince kesit yorumlamaları ve ICP-AES analizlerine dayalı olarak gerçekleştirildi. Mevcut bulgular yalıtaşlarının genellikle geride kıyı kumulları ve denizel taraçalarla sınırlandırılan plajlarda, istisna olarak da tektonikle yükselmiş dalga aşınım düzlükleri üzerinde geliştiğini göstermektedir. Yalıtaşları özellikle Troodos masifi ve Girne dağlarından gelen kum ve çakıllarca zengindir. Çimentolaşma tuzlu su-tatlı su karışım zonunda gelişmiştir

Using caesium-137 measurements to investigate soil erosion rates in western Istanbul (NW Turkey)

Buyukcekmece Reservoir, located in the western outskirts of Istanbul, is one of the major water resources of Istanbul, and supplies drinking water to about 4 million people. Erosion in the catchment of the reservoir is an important problem in terms of its longer-term sustainability for water supply. There is an urgent need to obtain reliable quantitative data regarding erosion and deposition rates within the catchment to assess the magnitude of the problem and to plan catchment management strategies. In the absence of existing data, attention has focussed on the potential for using 137Cs measurements to provide retrospective estimates of medium-term soil erosion rates within the catchment over the past ca. 40 years. To date, the 137Cs approach has not been used to document soil redistribution rates in Turkey and this contribution reports an attempt to confirm the viability of the approach and the results of a preliminary investigation of rates of soil loss from uncultivated areas within the catchment. The soil redistribution rates estimated using the profile distribution conversion model varied from - 16.11 (erosion) to 4.59 (deposition) t/ha/year. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, (12330/R0

Certify or not? An analysis of organic food supply chain with competing suppliers

Customers expect companies to provide clear health-related information for the products they purchase in a big data environment. Organic food is data-enabled with the organic label, but the certification cost discourages small-scale suppliers from certifying their product. This lack of a label means that product that satisfies the organic standard is regarded as conventional product. By considering the trade-off between the profit gained from organic label and additional costs of certification, this paper investigates an organic food supply chain where a leading retailer procures from two suppliers with different brands. Customers care about both the brand-value and quality (more specifically, if food is organic or not) when purchasing the product. We explore the organic certification and wholesale pricing strategies for suppliers, and the supplier selection and retail pricing strategies for the retailer. We find that when two suppliers adopt asymmetric certification strategy, the retailer tends to procure the product with organic label. The supplier without a brand name can compensate with organic certification, which leads to more profits than the branded rival. As the risk of being abandoned by the retailer increases, the supplier without a brand name is more eager than the rival to obtain the organic label. If both suppliers certify the product, however, they will fall into a prisoner’s dilemma under situation with low health utility from organic label and high certification cost

Determination of the effects of different irrigation programs on water consumption in different soil layers and root growth of cotton [Damla sisteminde farkli sulama programlarinin pamuk bitkisinin degisik toprak katmanlardaki su tuketimine ve kok gelisimine etkilerinin belirlenmesi]

This study was conducted to determine of the effects of different irrigation programs on water consumption in different soil depths and root growth of cotton. The amount of irrigation water applied was based on free water surface evaporation from a screened Class-A Pan. Irrigation treatments consisted two different irrigation intervals (11: 5; 12: 10 days), and three plant-pan cofficients (Kcp1: 0.75, Kcp2: 0.90, Kcp3: 1.05) and two different wetted percentages (P1: 0.70 and P2: based on cover percentage of crop). According to results it was determined that plant water consumption of 42% and root growth of 65% were in 30 cm soil layer. The plant water consumptions and root growth were affected by irrigation intervals, plant-pan cofficients and wetted percentages. On the other hand, under the same conditions, when drip irrigation was used, wetted depth for cotton may be 108 cm

Impact of physical activity on inflammation: Effects on cardiovascular disease risk and other inflammatory conditions

Since the 19th century, many studies have enlightened the role of inflammation in atherosclerosis, changing our perception of "vessel plaque due to oxidized lipoproteins", similar to a "rusted pipe", towards a disease with involvement of many cell types and cytokines with more complex mechanisms. Although "physical activity" and "physical exercise" are two terms with some differences in meaning, compared to sedentary lifestyle, active people have lower cardiovascular risk and lower inflammatory markers. Activities of skeletal muscle reveal "myokines" which have roles in both the immune system and adipose tissue metabolism. In vitro and ex-vivo studies have shown beneficial effects of exercise on inflammationmarkers. Meanwhile in clinical studies, some conflicting results suggested that type of activity, exercise duration, body composition, gender, race and age may modulate anti-inflammatory effects of physical exercise. Medical data on patients with inflammatory diseases have shown beneficialeffects of exercise on disease activity scores, patient well-being and inflammatory markers. Although the most beneficial type of activity and the most relevant patient group for anti-inflammatory benefits are still not clear, studies in elderly and adult people generally support anti-inflammatoryeffects of physical activity and moderate exercise could be advised to patients with cardiovascular risk such as patients with metabolic syndrome

A scoring approach for the assessment of study skills and learning styles

This paper presents the application of a scoring method and algorithm, adapted from the domain of financial risk management, for the computer-based assessment of study skills and learning styles of university students. The goal is to provide a single score that summarizes the overall intensity of a student’s study skills and, in effect, develop a deeper understanding of the relation between learning styles and study skills. The dimensionality reduction obtained through the scoring algorithm also enables comparing the single-dimensional study skill scores of students for various learning styles. The algorithm computes a weight for each study skill to measure its linear contribution to the overall study skill score, also providing a natural ranking of various study skills with respect to impact on total score. Statistical tests have been conducted to measure the differences in scores for various styles in Kolb’s four-region and nine-region models. The results suggest that students with different learning styles can have statistically significant differences in their overall study skill scores. The primary contribution of the study is illustrating how a scoring approach, based on unsupervised machine learning, can enable a deep understanding of learning styles and development of educational strategies. © 2020 by the authors