Istanbul Technical University

The future of mobile communications looks exciting with the potential new use cases and challenging requirements of future 6th generation (6G) and beyond wireless networks. Since the beginning of the modern era of wireless communications, the propagation medium has been perceived as a randomly behaving entity between the transmitter and the receiver, which degrades the quality of the received signal due to the uncontrollable interactions of the transmitted radio waves with the surrounding objects. The recent advent of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces in wireless communications enables, on the other hand, network operators to control the scattering, reflection, and refraction characteristics of the radio waves, by overcoming the negative effects of natural wireless propagation. Recent results have revealed that reconfigurable intelligent surfaces can effectively control the wavefront, e.g., the phase, amplitude, frequency, and even polarization, of the impinging signals without the need of complex decoding, encoding, and radio frequency processing operations. Motivated by the potential of this emerging technology, the present article is aimed to provide the readers with a detailed overview and historical perspective on state-of-the-art solutions, and to elaborate on the fundamental differences with other technologies, the most important open research issues to tackle, and the reasons why the use of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces necessitates to rethink the communication-theoretic models currently employed in wireless networks. This article also explores theoretical performance limits of reconfigurable intelligent surface-assisted communication systems using mathematical techniques and elaborates on the potential use cases of intelligent surfaces in 6G and beyond wireless networks.

Microscopic traffic simulation is an invaluable tool for traffic research. In recent years, both the scope of research and the capabilities of the tools have been extended considerably. This article presents the latest developments concerning intermodal traffic solutions, simulator coupling and model development and validation on the example of the open source traffic simulator SUMO.

This paper reviews the current status and implementation of battery chargers, charging power levels, and infrastructure for plug-in electric vehicles and hybrids. Charger systems are categorized into off-board and on-board types with unidirectional or bidirectional power flow. Unidirectional charging limits hardware requirements and simplifies interconnection issues. Bidirectional charging supports battery energy injection back to the grid. Typical on-board chargers restrict power because of weight, space, and cost constraints. They can be integrated with the electric drive to avoid these problems. The availability of charging infrastructure reduces on-board energy storage requirements and costs. On-board charger systems can be conductive or inductive. An off-board charger can be designed for high charging rates and is less constrained by size and weight. Level 1 (convenience), Level 2 (primary), and Level 3 (fast) power levels are discussed. Future aspects such as roadbed charging are presented. Various power level chargers and infrastructure configurations are presented, compared, and evaluated based on amount of power, charging time and location, cost, equipment, and other factors.

The GPS‐derived velocity field (1988–2005) for the zone of interaction of the Arabian, African (Nubian, Somalian), and Eurasian plates indicates counterclockwise rotation of a broad area of the Earth's surface including the Arabian plate, adjacent parts of the Zagros and central Iran, Turkey, and the Aegean/Peloponnesus relative to Eurasia at rates in the range of 20–30 mm/yr. This relatively rapid motion occurs within the framework of the slow‐moving (∼5 mm/yr relative motions) Eurasian, Nubian, and Somalian plates. The circulatory pattern of motion increases in rate toward the Hellenic trench system. We develop an elastic block model to constrain present‐day plate motions (relative Euler vectors), regional deformation within the interplate zone, and slip rates for major faults. Substantial areas of continental lithosphere within the region of plate interaction show coherent motion with internal deformations below ∼1–2 mm/yr, including central and eastern Anatolia (Turkey), the southwestern Aegean/Peloponnesus, the Lesser Caucasus, and Central Iran. Geodetic slip rates for major block‐bounding structures are mostly comparable to geologic rates estimated for the most recent geological period (∼3–5 Myr). We find that the convergence of Arabia with Eurasia is accommodated in large part by lateral transport within the interior part of the collision zone and lithospheric shortening along the Caucasus and Zagros mountain belts around the periphery of the collision zone. In addition, we find that the principal boundary between the westerly moving Anatolian plate and Arabia (East Anatolian fault) is presently characterized by pure left‐lateral strike slip with no fault‐normal convergence. This implies that “extrusion” is not presently inducing westward motion of Anatolia. On the basis of the observed kinematics, we hypothesize that deformation in the Africa‐Arabia‐Eurasia collision zone is driven in large part by rollback of the subducting African lithosphere beneath the Hellenic and Cyprus trenches aided by slab pull on the southeastern side of the subducting Arabian plate along the Makran subduction zone. We further suggest that the separation of Arabia from Africa is a response to plate motions induced by active subduction.

A measurement of the Higgs boson mass is presented based on the combined data samples of the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the CERN LHC in the H→γγ and H→ZZ→4ℓ decay channels. The results are obtained from a simultaneous fit to the reconstructed invariant mass peaks in the two channels and for the two experiments. The measured masses from the individual channels and the two experiments are found to be consistent among themselves. The combined measured mass of the Higgs boson is m_{H}=125.09±0.21 (stat)±0.11 (syst) GeV.

The use of photoinitiated polymerization is continuously growing in industry as reflected by the large number of applications in not only conventional areas such as coatings, inks, and adhesives but also high-tech domains, optoelectronics, laser imaging, stereolithography, and nanotechnology. In this Perspective, the latest developments in photoinitiating systems for free radical and cationic polymerizations are presented. The potential use of photochemical methods for step-growth polymerization is also highlighted. The goal is, furthermore, to show approaches to overcome problems associated with the efficiency, wavelength flexibility, and environmental and safety issues in all photoinitiating systems for different modes of activation. Much progress has been made in the past 10 years in the preparation of complex and nano-structured macromolecules by using photoinitiated polymerizations. Thus, the new and emerging applications of photoinitiated polymerizations in the field of biomaterials, surface modification, preparation of block and graft copolymers, and nanocomposites have been addressed.

SUMMARY 10 M ≥ 6.7 earthquakes ruptured 1000 km of the North Anatolian fault (Turkey) during 1939–1992, providing an unsurpassed opportunity to study how one large shock sets up the next. We use the mapped surface slip and fault geometry to infer the transfer of stress throughout the sequence. Calculations of the change in Coulomb failure stress reveal that nine out of 10 ruptures were brought closer to failure by the preceding shocks, typically by 1–10 bar, equivalent to 3–30 years of secular stressing. We translate the calculated stress changes into earthquake probability gains using an earthquake-nucleation constitutive relation, which includes both permanent and transient effects of the sudden stress changes. The transient effects of the stress changes dominate during the mean 10 yr period between triggering and subsequent rupturing shocks in the Anatolia sequence. The stress changes result in an average three-fold gain in the net earthquake probability during the decade after each event. Stress is calculated to be high today at several isolated sites along the fault. During the next 30 years, we estimate a 15 per cent probability of a M ≥ 6.7 earthquake east of the major eastern centre of Ercinzan, and a 12 per cent probability for a large event south of the major western port city of Izmit. Such stress-based probability calculations may thus be useful to assess and update earthquake hazards elsewhere.

Maria Pontiki, Dimitris Galanis, Haris Papageorgiou, Ion Androutsopoulos, Suresh Manandhar, Mohammad AL-Smadi, Mahmoud Al-Ayyoub, Yanyan Zhao, Bing Qin, Orphée De Clercq, Véronique Hoste, Marianna Apidianaki, Xavier Tannier, Natalia Loukachevitch, Evgeniy Kotelnikov, Nuria Bel, Salud María Jiménez-Zafra, Gülşen Eryiğit. Proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Semantic Evaluation (SemEval-2016). 2016.

A supplier selection decision inherently is a multi‐criterion problem. It is a decision of strategic importance to companies. The nature of this decision usually is complex and unstructured. Management science techniques might be helpful tools for these kinds of decision‐making problems. The aim of this paper is to use fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to select the best supplier firm providing the most satisfaction for the criteria determined. The purchasing managers of a white good manufacturer established in Turkey were interviewed and the most important criteria taken into account by the managers while they were selecting their supplier firms were determined by a questionnaire. The fuzzy AHP was used to compare these supplier firms.

It would be desirable to establish and standardize methods that can measure the total antioxidant capacity level directly from vegetable extracts containing phenolics. Antioxidant capacity assays may be broadly classified as electron transfer (ET)- and hydrogen atom transfer (HAT)-based assays. The majority of HAT assays are kinetics-based, and involve a competitive reaction scheme in which antioxidant and substrate compete for peroxyl radicals thermally generated through the decomposition of azo compounds. ET-based assays measure the capacity of an antioxidant in the reduction of an oxidant, which changes colour when reduced. ET assays include the ABTS/TEAC, CUPRAC, DPPH, Folin-Ciocalteu and FRAP methods, each using different chromogenic redox reagents with different standard potentials. This review intends to offer a critical evaluation of existing antioxidant assays applied to phenolics, and reports the development by our research group of a simple and low-cost antioxidant capacity assay for dietary polyphenols, vitamins C and E, and human serum antioxidants, utilizing the copper(II)-neocuproine reagent as the chromogenic oxidizing agent, which we haved named the CUPRAC (cupric ion reducing antioxidant capacity) method. This method offers distinct advantages over other ET-based assays, namely the selection of working pH at physiological pH (as opposed to the Folin and FRAP methods, which work at alkaline and acidic pHs, respectively), applicability to both hydrophilic and lipophilic antioxidants (unlike Folin and DPPH), completion of the redox reactions for most common flavonoids (unlike FRAP), selective oxidation of antioxidant compounds without affecting sugars and citric acid commonly contained in foodstuffs and the capability to assay -SH bearing antioxidants (unlike FRAP). Other similar ET-based antioxidant assays that we have developed or modified for phenolics are the Fe(III)- and Ce(IV)-reducing capacity methods.

The standard Λ Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) cosmological model provides a good description of a wide range of astrophysical and cosmological data. However, there are a few big open questions that make the standard model look like an approximation to a more realistic scenario yet to be found. In this paper, we list a few important goals that need to be addressed in the next decade, taking into account the current discordances between the different cosmological probes, such as the disagreement in the value of the Hubble constant H0, the σ8–S8 tension, and other less statistically significant anomalies. While these discordances can still be in part the result of systematic errors, their persistence after several years of accurate analysis strongly hints at cracks in the standard cosmological scenario and the necessity for new physics or generalisations beyond the standard model. In this paper, we focus on the 5.0σ tension between the Planck CMB estimate of the Hubble constant H0 and the SH0ES collaboration measurements. After showing the H0 evaluations made from different teams using different methods and geometric calibrations, we list a few interesting new physics models that could alleviate this tension and discuss how the next decade's experiments will be crucial. Moreover, we focus on the tension of the Planck CMB data with weak lensing measurements and redshift surveys, about the value of the matter energy density Ωm, and the amplitude or rate of the growth of structure (σ8,fσ8). We list a few interesting models proposed for alleviating this tension, and we discuss the importance of trying to fit a full array of data with a single model and not just one parameter at a time. Additionally, we present a wide range of other less discussed anomalies at a statistical significance level lower than the H0–S8 tensions which may also constitute hints towards new physics, and we discuss possible generic theoretical approaches that can collectively explain the non-standard nature of these signals. Finally, we give an overview of upgraded experiments and next-generation space missions and facilities on Earth that will be of crucial importance to address all these open questions.

In this paper, a novel orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) scheme, called OFDM with index modulation (OFDM-IM), is proposed for operation over frequency-selective and rapidly time-varying fading channels. In this scheme, the information is conveyed not only by M-ary signal constellations as in classical OFDM, but also by the indices of the subcarriers, which are activated according to the incoming bit stream. Different low complexity transceiver structures based on maximum likelihood detection or log-likelihood ratio calculation are proposed and a theoretical error performance analysis is provided for the new scheme operating under ideal channel conditions. Then, the proposed scheme is adapted to realistic channel conditions such as imperfect channel state information and very high mobility cases by modifying the receiver structure. The approximate pairwise error probability of OFDM-IM is derived under channel estimation errors. For the mobility case, several interference unaware/aware detection methods are proposed for the new scheme. It is shown via computer simulations that the proposed scheme achieves significantly better error performance than classical OFDM due to the information bits carried by the indices of OFDM subcarriers under both ideal and realistic channel conditions.

This paper is the outcome of a community initiative to identify major unsolved scientific problems in hydrology motivated by a need for stronger harmonisation of research efforts. The procedure involved a public consultation through online media, followed by two workshops through which a large number of potential science questions were collated, prioritised, and synthesised. In spite of the diversity of the participants (230 scientists in total), the process revealed much about community priorities and the state of our science: a preference for continuity in research questions rather than radical departures or redirections from past and current work. Questions remain focused on the process-based understanding of hydrological variability and causality at all space and time scales. Increased attention to environmental change drives a new emphasis on understanding how change propagates across interfaces within the hydrological system and across disciplinary boundaries. In particular, the expansion of the human footprint raises a new set of questions related to human interactions with nature and water cycle feedbacks in the context of complex water management problems. We hope that this reflection and synthesis of the 23 unsolved problems in hydrology will help guide research efforts for some years to come.

Combined ATLAS and CMS measurements of the Higgs boson production and decay rates, as well as constraints on its couplings to vector bosons and fermions, are presented. The combination is based on the analysis of five production processes, namely gluon fusion, vector boson fusion, and associated production with a W or a Z boson or a pair of top quarks, and of the six decay modes H → ZZ, W W , γγ, ττ, bb, and μμ. All results are reported assuming a value of 125.09 GeV for the Higgs boson mass, the result of the combined measurement by the ATLAS and CMS experiments. The analysis uses the CERN LHC proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS and CMS experiments in 2011 and 2012, corresponding to integrated luminosities per experiment of approximately 5 fb$^{−1}$ at $\sqrt{s}$=7 TeV and 20 fb−1 at $\sqrt{s}$=8 TeV. The Higgs boson production and decay rates measured by the two experiments are combined within the context of three generic parameterisations: two based on cross sections and branching fractions, and one on ratios of coupling modifiers. Several interpretations of the measurements with more model-dependent parameterisations are also given. The combined signal yield relative to the Standard Model prediction is measured to be 1.09 ± 0.11. The combined measurements lead to observed significances for the vector boson fusion production process and for the H → ττ decay of 5.4 and 5.5 standard deviations, respectively. The data are consistent with the Standard Model predictions for all parameterisations considered.

Hydrometeorological time series include recent trends, especially over the past 30 years, as a result of climate change impact according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Although there are commonly used trend identification techniques, such as Mann-Kendall (MK) and Spearman’s rho (SR) tests, their validity is possible under a set of restrictive assumptions, such as independent structure of the time series, normality of the distribution, and length of data. It is also not possible to calculate trend magnitude (slope) except through regression approach, which brings additional assumptions for the theoretical validation in practical applications. This paper presents a new methodology on the basis of subsection time series plots derived from a given time series on a Cartesian coordinate system. In such a plot, trend free time series subsections appear along the 45° straightline. Increasing (decreasing) trends occupy upper (lower) triangular areas of the square area defined by the variation domain of the variable concerned. The validity of this new approach is documented through a set of Monte Carlo simulations by taking into consideration independent and dependent processes. In the new approach, all the aforementioned assumptions in the MK and SR tests are avoided, and additionally it is possible to calculate trend magnitude from square area plots. The application of this methodology is given for a set of precipitation and runoff time series from different parts of the world.

This study aims to determine trends in the long-term annual mean and monthly total precipitation series using non-parametric methods (i.e. the Mann–Kendall and Sen's T tests). The change per unit time in a time series having a linear trend was estimated by applying a simple non-parametric procedure, namely Sen's estimator of slope. Serial correlation structure in the data was accounted for determining the significance level of the results of the Mann–Kendall test. The data network used in this study, which is assumed to reflect regional hydroclimatic conditions, consists of 96 precipitation stations across Turkey. Monthly totals and annual means of the monthly totals are formed for each individual station, spanning from 1929 to 1993. In this case, a total of 13 precipitation variables at each station are subjected to trend detection analysis. In addition, regional average precipitation series are established for the same analysis purpose. The application of a trend detection framework resulted in the identification of some significant trends, especially in January, February, and September precipitations and in the annual means. A noticeable decrease in the annual mean precipitation was observed mostly in western and southern Turkey, as well as along the coasts of the Black Sea. Regional average series also displayed trends similar to those for individual stations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Plug-in vehicles can behave either as loads or as a distributed energy and power resource in a concept known as vehicle-to-grid (V2G) connection. This paper reviews the current status and implementation impact of V2G/grid-to-vehicle (G2V) technologies on distributed systems, requirements, benefits, challenges, and strategies for V2G interfaces of both individual vehicles and fleets. The V2G concept can improve the performance of the electricity grid in areas such as efficiency, stability, and reliability. A V2G-capable vehicle offers reactive power support, active power regulation, tracking of variable renewable energy sources, load balancing, and current harmonic filtering. These technologies can enable ancillary services, such as voltage and frequency control and spinning reserve. Costs of V2G include battery degradation, the need for intensive communication between the vehicles and the grid, effects on grid distribution equipment, infrastructure changes, and social, political, cultural, and technical obstacles. Although V2G operation can reduce the lifetime of vehicle batteries, it is projected to become economical for vehicle owners and grid operators. Components and unidirectional/bidirectional power flow technologies of V2G systems, individual and aggregated structures, and charging/recharging frequency and strategies (uncoordinated/coordinated smart) are addressed. Three elements are required for successful V2G operation: power connection to the grid, control and communication between vehicles and the grid operator, and on-board/off-board intelligent metering. Success of the V2G concept depends on standardization of requirements and infrastructure decisions, battery technology, and efficient and smart scheduling of limited fast-charge infrastructure. A charging/discharging infrastructure must be deployed. Economic benefits of V2G technologies depend on vehicle aggregation and charging/recharging frequency and strategies. The benefits will receive increased attention from grid operators and vehicle owners in the future.

The CMS apparatus was identified, a few years before the start of the LHC operation at CERN, to feature properties well suited to particle-flow (PF) reconstruction: a highly-segmented tracker, a fine-grained electromagnetic calorimeter, a hermetic hadron calorimeter, a strong magnetic field, and an excellent muon spectrometer. A fully-fledged PF reconstruction algorithm tuned to the CMS detector was therefore developed and has been consistently used in physics analyses for the first time at a hadron collider. For each collision, the comprehensive list of final-state particles identified and reconstructed by the algorithm provides a global event description that leads to unprecedented CMS performance for jet and hadronic decay reconstruction, missing transverse momentum determination, and electron and muon identification. This approach also allows particles from pileup interactions to be identified and enables efficient pileup mitigation methods. The data collected by CMS at a centre-of-mass energy of 8show excellent agreement with the simulation and confirm the superior PF performance at least up to an average of 20 pileup interactions.

All the extensions of ordinary fuzzy sets with three dimensional membership functions such as intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFS), intuitionistic fuzzy sets of second type (IFS2), and neutrosophic fuzzy sets (NFS) aim at defining the judgments of decision makers/ experts with a more detailed description. Introduction of generalized three dimensional spherical fuzzy sets (SFS) including some essential differences from the other fuzzy sets is presented in this paper. The new type of fuzzy sets is based on the spherical fuzzy distances which have been already defined in the literature. Arithmetic operations involving addition, subtraction and multiplication are presented together with their proofs. Aggregation operators, score and accuracy functions are developed. The multi-criteria decision making method TOPSIS is extended to spherical fuzzy TOPSIS and an illustrative example is presented. Additionally, a comparative analysis with intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS (IF-TOPSIS) is given.

Summary We use the tectonics of Eastern Anatolia to exemplify many of the different aspects of collision tectonics, namely the formation of plateaux, thrust belts, foreland flexures, widespread foreland/hinterland deformation zones and orogenic collapse/distension zones. Eastern Anatolia is a 2 km high plateau bounded to the S by the southward-verging Bitlis Thrust Zone and to the N by the Pontide/Minor Caucasus Zone. It has developed as the surface expression of a zone of progressively thickening crust beginning about 12 Ma in the medial Miocene and has resulted from the squeezing and shortening of Eastern Anatolia between the Arabian and European Plates following the Serravallian demise of the last oceanic or quasioceanic tract between Arabia and Eurasia. Thickening of the crust to about 52 km has been accompanied by major strike-slip faulting on the right-lateral N Anatolian Transform Fault (NATF) and the left-lateral E Anatolian Transform Fault (EATF) which approximately bound an Anatolian Wedge that is being driven westwards to override the oceanic lithosphere of the Mediterranean along subduction zones from Cephalonia to Crete, and Rhodes to Cyprus. This neotectonic regime began about 12 Ma in Late Serravallian times with uplift from wide-spread littoral/neritic marine conditions to open seasonal wooded savanna with colluvial, fluvial and limnic environments, and the deposition of the thick Tortonian Kythrean Flysch in the Eastern Mediterranean. Earthquake hypocentres are scattered throughout the region but large earthquakes are concentrated mainly on the major faults and are mostly shallow, supporting the idea of a brittle elastic lid with hypocentres concentrated towards its base with more ductile deformation in the middle and lower crust. Neotectonic magmatic suites are nepheline-hypersthene normative alkali basalts of mantle origin, and silicic/intermediate/mafic calcalkaline suites, both suites occurring in pull-apart basins in strike-slip regimes and along N-S extensional fissures, and both suites showing a strong change to central activity in the Pliocene. Upper-crustal strains appear to be discontinuous in space and time, with zones of strong shortening representing shoaling of crustal detachment zones flattening between 5 and 10 km. Approximately NW- (dextral) and NE- (sinistral) trending lineaments bound less deformed wedges (low relief seismically ‘dead’ areas) and vary from simple strike-slip faults to complicated braided transform-flake boundaries with pull-apart and compressional segments (N and E Anatolian Transform Faults). Volcanoes lie in grabens on N-S ‘cracks’ that extend into the Arabian Foreland and in transcurrent pull-aparts. Major extensional basins lie at plate (Adana) and flake (Karliova) triple junctions and result from compatibility problems.