Measuring urban quality of life in Istanbul

Günümüzde yaşam kalitesinin ölçülmesi konusunda araştırmacılar temelde iki konu ile karsı karşıya kalmaktadırlar. Birincisi yaşam kalitesinin anlamı ve ölçülmesi, ikincisi yaşam kalitesindeki değişikliği değerlendirmede kullanılacak ölçütler ya da göstergelerin belirlenmesidir. Bu çalışmanın amacı İstanbul halkının yaşam kalitesinin değişik boyutlarını nasıl değerlendirdiklerini irdelemek ve İstanbul’da yaşam kalitesini değerlendirmek için kullanılacak göstergeleri saptamaktır. Yirmi birinci yüzyılın başlangıcında İstanbul'da Şehirsel Yaşam Kalitesi'nin değerlendirilmesi hem İstanbul şehri hem de tüm bölge açısından önem taşımaktadır. Son 50 yıl içinde hızlı bir gelişme gösteren İstanbul’da nüfus artışı ile paralel olarak yeni konut alanları açılmış, yeşil alan kaybı oluşmuş, ulaşım sistemi genişlemiş ve yanı sıra kentsel yaşam standardında yükselme için çalışmalar başlamıştır. Öte yandan kent yaşamında konut, ulaşım, kamu hizmetleri, iş olanakları ve çevre kalitesinde görülen eşitsizlikler İstanbul’da yaşayanların yaşam kalitesini etkilemektedir. Şehir yönetimi açısından, halkın değişik kesimlerinin çevresel koşulları ne şekilde algıladığı önemli bir konudur. Kamu hizmetlerinin etkin kullanımı, seçilecek ulaşım modeli, bölgesel tesislerin kullanımı ve güvenlikten kentsel yayılmaya kadar yaşam kalitesini ilgilendiren konular hakkında halkın davranışı konusunda araştırmalara gereksinim vardır. Bu çalışma temelde bu konulara yönelik soruları yanıtlamaya yöneliktir. Özet olarak çalışma yeni yüzyıl başlangıcında İstanbul’da yaşam kalitesinin portresinin oluşturulmasına yöneliktir. İstanbul’da yaşam kalitesinin ölçülmesi çalışması İstanbul Metropoliten Planlama Bürosu (IMP) de gerçekleştirilen planlama çalışmalarının analitik etütleri kapsamında ve kısmi olarak ITU araştırma fonu desteğinde gerçekleştirilen çalışmada İstanbul’da rasgele örneklem çerçevesinde seçilen 423 noktada 1635 hanehalkı ile gerçekleştirilen anket çalışmasının bulguları konut, ulaşım, konut çevresi, komşuluk, katılım ve güvenlik, istihdam, alışveriş, rekreasyon ve boş vakitlerin değerlendirilmesi, sağlık, eğitim ve kentsel konular başlıkları altında değerlendirilmektedir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Yaşam kalitesi, İstanbul, şehir planlama.During the past quarter century, a number of scholars working in social sciences and planning have argued that quality of life has both a subjective dimension as well as an objective reality. Building on the seminal study  of Campbell et al (1976) that measured people's satisfactions, Marans and his colleagues began to explore quality of life issues from a conceptual and empirical perspective (Marans and Rodger, 1975; Lee and Marans,, 1980; Connerly and Marans, 1988, Marans, 2003). Their contention has been that quality of life in a particular geographic setting is a subjective phenomenon, and that each occupant of a setting may differ in his/her views about it. Furthermore, those views would reflect their assessments of a number of setting attributes that could be influenced by certain characteristics of the occupant. The model also suggests that the occupant's assessments of setting attributes are associated with the attributes themselves. A major research program that utilizes this model in measuring the quality of community life has been launched in metro Detroit (Marans and Gocmen, 2005). As part of the research program, parallel studies are underway in several world cities including Istanbul. This paper presents findings from the Istanbul study on quality of urban life. The study was undertaken as part of the Istanbul Strategic Plan prepared by the Greater Istanbul Municipality (BIMTAS, Istanbul Metropolitan Planning Office) and partially supported by Istanbul Technical University Research Fund. The key purpose of the research was to provide useful information for developing planning/design strategies that will foster sustainable urbanization through enhancing quality of life, which is one of the most important principles of sustainable urbanization. Another purpose was to explore the impact of environmental, economic, social, physical and health related indicators on quality of life satisfaction among Istanbul residents. Ultimately, the research will provide recommendations which will further enhance the quality of life in Istanbul at a number of levels, from empowering communities at a local level to participate in the evolution of their neighborhoods to influencing institutional and corporate objectives and regional and national government sustainability policies. The research will 'paint a picture' of the quality of life in Istanbul, and establishes the foundation for further future research that examines change. The primary means of measuring quality of life was the questionnaire which closely followed the protocol of the Detroit Area Study (DAS) 2001. As research method questionnaire survey was applied to measure quality of life in Istanbul. The questionnaire framework opted for is closely related to that of the Detroit Area Study (DAS) 2001 model. The DAS model attempts to capture the reality of community quality of life by exploring both objective and subjective indicators based around domains, thus providing the research with a more rounded and complete profile of communities. The DAS research program is successfully 'exported' around the world. For example, the cities of Beijing (China), Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Brisbane (Australia) (Stimson, et al, 2007) and Cape Town (South Africa), are in the process of, or are considering fielding the core module of DAS. DAS therefore provides a useful medium for future comparisons with a number of global cities. Whilst fielding the core modules of the DAS study the Istanbul Area Study (IAS) also contains a number of additional questions that are region specific thus establishing a bespoke criterion which best captures the community profile of Istanbul and issues relating to the city. Housing and residential mobility, residential history, travel demand, transportation and public services, educational services, health and health care facilities, parks and recreation, shopping and entertainment, neighborhood and neighboring, community participation and involvement, safety issues, employment and journey to work, environmental and regional issues are explored in the survey. In total 1635 households across 423 points within the city were interviewed. The contribution to the overall Istanbul strategic plan was to identify regions and neighbourhoods profiles and to map accordingly, to identify satisfaction levels of communities and identify problematic areas for households and identify regions of preference and to provide data to contribute to the residential development strategy. In this paper the methodology and initial findings of the study is presented. Keywords: Quality of Life, Istanbul, urban planning, residential satisfaction.

Social impacts as a function of place change

This paper argues that both impacts felt by and attitudes to tourism are a function of place change. Destinations are comprised of three types of place: tourism, non-tourism and shared. It is believed attitudes are generally positive when stasis exists among the three types, but deteriorate during periods of rapid place change. Likewise, impacts are felt when place changes, especially when non-tourism place is transformed into either shared or tourism place. This proposition is tested through a meta-analysis of more than 90 journal articles examining social impacts of tourism. Nine types of place change were identified as well as a relationship between place change and lifecycle stage

PERFORMANCA E MAKINAVE KERKUESE DUKE PERDORUR CLOUD SHËRBIMET “ELASTICSEARCH” DHE “ALGOLIA”

Ueb Aplikacionet me data-set të mëdha në kohën e tanishme janë shumë më të përhapura. Kërkimet e të dhënave në data-set të tilla për shkak të performances bëhen duke përdorur makinat kërkuese. Provider të ndryshëm ofrojnë makina kërkuese si Software as a Service(SaaS) shërbime të cilat kanë për avantazh konfigurimin minimal që duhet bërë makinave kërkuese për t’i vënë në funksion. Nëpërmjet këtij punimi synohet që së pari të analizohen shërbimet cloud computing që ofrohen nga provider të ndryshem. Pastaj pasi që fokusi i makinave kërkuese ndodhet në “information retrieval” është bë analizimi i disa teknikave të “information retrieval”. Makinat kërkuese kanë qwllim tw njejtë, megjithatë ato dallojnë nga njëra tjetra në mënyrën se si bëjnë kërkimin dhe kthimin e të dhënave si rezultat. Ky punim është i fokusuar mbi makinat kërkuese Elasticsearch dhe Algolia, mbi karakteristikat e tyre, mënyrat se si operojnë ato si dhe dallimet në performancë gjatë kërkimit të të dhënave. Gjatë integrimit të makinave kërkuese në ueb aplikacione mund të hasim ende në vështirësi gjatë konfigurimit që duhet të kryejmë ne dhe gjatë përpunimit të dhënave që na kthehen si rezultate nga makinat kërkuese. Për t’i arritur objektivate këtij punimi është zhvilluar një “throw away prototype” tek i cili kemi integruar makinat kërkuese Elasticsearch dhe Algolia. Nëpërmjet këtij prototipi janë sqaruar mënyrat e integrimit të makinave kërkuese dhe vështirësit që mund t’i hasim si dhe është bërë krahasimi i performancës ndërmjet makinave kërkuese. Në krahasimin e performancës në këtë studim ku është përdorur një data-set me 1.6 milion tweets makina kërkuese Algolia dukshëm ka shfaq performancë më të mirë. Nga objektiva e analizimit të makinave kërkuese është bërë e qartë dhe është pritur një rezultat i tillë pasi që Elasticsearch rezultatet më të mira i shfaq kur operon me Big Data

Performance of search engines using “Elasticsearch” and “Alogia” cloud services

Today the data crawling process within web applications is implemented through various search engines. A number of providers offer various search engines as part of Cloud services, respectively as software as a service. These services are aiming to offer better performance in compare to traditional search engines, with minimal configuration requirements. Throughout this research paper, we aim firstly to identify existing search engines offered through cloud services, and then analyzing the technics used behind each of them, during the information retrieval. Respectively, the paper analyses two popular search engines services, the Elasticsearch and Algolia, by emphasizing their characteristics, implemented algorithms and comparing the response time for a number of key terms. In order to be able to analyse the response time of both cloud services, a throwaway prototype has been developed by integrating both services with a standard web application, and a data-set with 1.6 mil tweets has been used, Through the use of this prototype, we show the performance results of Alogila response time comparing to Elasticsearch engine

The Distribution of Metals in Sediments of the Likova, Kumanova and Pçinja Rivers: Spring Season

The pollution of rivers is an important issue because the utilization of polluted water has a direct effect on the health of people and other living beings, economy, etc. Sediments represent a very suitable indicator for monitoring and detecting pollution sources of river waters. The aim of this study is to analyze the contents of selected metals in the sediments of the rivers Likova, Kumanova and Pçinja rivers. The water samples were taken in June 2014 from six sampling stations. Several physico-chemical parameters of rivers were determined and the contents of twenty-two metals was indicated in the sediment samples taken from these rivers. The obtained physico-chemical quality of the water from these rivers resulted in classification to the first/second category. The sediments were mostly polluted by Al, Ca, Na and Mg. The metals that exceeded the Dutch standard were: Ba, Ni, Zn, Cr and Cu. The order of metals in sediments was as follows: Fe > Al > Ca > Na > Mg > K > Mn > Ba > Sr > Cr > Zn > V > Ni > Cu > Pb > Li. The study results reveal a mild pollution in rivers caused by urban, agricultural and industrial activities

Preventive Impella^® Support in High-Risk Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery

Background: Patients with severely reduced LV-EF ≤ 30% undergoing CABG have a high risk for postoperative cardiogenic shock. The optimal timing of an adequate hemodynamic support has an impact on short- and midterm mortality after CABG. This study aimed to assess the prophylactic use of the Impella pump in high-risk patients undergoing elective cardiac surgery. Methods: In this single-center retrospective study, 14 patients with LV-EF (≤30%) undergoing cardiac surgery received a prophylactic, perioperative Impella (5.0, 5.5) support between 2020 and 2022. Results: The mean age at surgery was 64.2 ± 2.6 years, the mean preoperative LV-EF was 20.7% ± 1.56%. The duration of Impella support was 4 (3–7.8) days and the 30-day survival rate was 92.85%. Acute renal failure occurred in four patients who were dialyzed on average for 1.2 ± 0.7 days. Mechanical ventilation was needed for 1.75 (0.9–2.7) days. Time to inotrope/vasopressor independence was 2 (0.97–7.25) days with a highest lactate level (24 h postoperatively) of 3.8 ± 0.6 mmol/l. Postoperative LV-EF showed a significant improvement when compared to preoperative LV-EF (29.1% ± 2.6% vs. 20.7% ± 1.56% (p = 0.022)). Conclusion: The prophylactic Impella application seems to be a safe approach to improve the outcomes of this patient population