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Computer aided process planning (CAPP) is an effective way to integrate computer aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM). There are two key issues with the integration: design input in a feature‐based model and acquisition and representation of process knowledge especially empirical knowledge. This paper presents a state of the art review of research in computer integrated manufacturing using neural network techniques. Neural network‐based methods can eliminate some drawbacks of the conventional approaches, and therefore have attracted research attention particularly in recent years. The four main issues related to the neural network‐based techniques, namely the topology of the neural network, input representation, the training method and the output format are discussed with the current systems. The outcomes of research using neural network techniques are studied, and the limitations and future work are outlined.

Housing quality is determined by both objective and subjective dynamics. This research was conducted to explore the importance of users’ memory as a tool for assessing housing quality. While objective features of the surroundings generally require physical measurements, subjective features can be supported by residents’ memories. Memory studies can therefore be used as a research tool to understand the housing environment as they provide important references to the past, present, and future. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between users’ (residents) memory and housing quality.

The methodology comprised a literature review of spatial quality studies and a field study of a modern housing estate in Istanbul. For the field study, housing quality was examined through the memories of residents in the neighbourhood, buildings, and units. With the research, site observations were made, a questionnaire was issued to residents, and in-depth interviews were conducted with residents who had lived there the longest. New dimensions of housing quality problems were then discussed in the conclusion with reference to residents’ memories.

Memory studies can be used as a research tool to understand the housing environment, as they provide important references to the past, present and future. In the conclusion, new dimensions of the housing quality problems were discussed with the help of the residents’ memories. It was seen that different dimensions of housing quality can be revealed with the help of user memory.

In all, 40 of the total residents (101) accepted to make questionnaires. In-depth interviews were conducted with three long-term residents that are the only ones still alive and had lived the area since the beginning of the life after construction.

With the aim of developing new tools and methods to analyse housing quality, this research presents a new perspective by utilising users’ memories to evaluate spatial quality.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of window proximity on perceptions of employees in the call center offices.

A semantic differential scale composed of nine bipolar adjectives, four of which dealt with “planning,” three of “privacy,” while the rest measured “lighting” was applied for evaluation. In total, 92 employees at the TEPE Call Center in the Bilkent District, Ankara, Turkey participated in the research.

The results showed that window proximity directly affected the call center employees’ perceptions. In addition, a positive approach was even less affected when the location of the workstation was more at the inner part of the workspace. On the contrary, workstations in front of the window were evaluated more positively, presumably because the employees were happy at feeling roomy and by giving them a higher level of privacy, while also minimizing distractions and interruptions. It was also found that call center employees with secondary education responded more positively than higher educated employees.

This study was limited to examining the effects of window proximity in a call center on employees’ perceptions of an open-plan office. The study supports the results of planning, privacy and lighting, as well as the study on physical environmental factors, such as design, ambient and social, which are thought to be realized in the future.

This study presents suggestions that would be useful for increasing the working and solution-focused perceptual performance values in call center environments from the new generation of work areas. They should be appropriate for the psychological and physical needs of employees in twenty-first-century communication environments, especially in spatial environments and for the suitability of the technological equipment used.

Sports and physical activity are widely recommended, both as guidelines and in clinical practice, because of their broad range of positive effects on health, depression, anxiety, and psychological well-being. While several studies have examined the anti-depressive and anxiolytic effects of physical activity in clinical populations, and fewer studies have focused on the nonclinical populations, the relationship between tennis and well-being has not been clearly investigated. This study was carried out with 76 student volunteers from Kocaeli University (Turkey) who had chosen tennis lessons as their University. The tennis exercise program consisted of 90-minute basic tennis skills lessons for 13 weeks. At the beginning and at the end of the study, the students were given the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scales, and were evaluated by the DeWitt-Dugan Tennis Service Test, the DeWitt-Dugan Speed Test, and the Dyer Backboard Tennis Test. Upon evaluating the students' pre- and post-test scores, we concluded that their BDI and BAI scores had significantly decreased, with the most significant decreases seen in several sub-scores of the SCL-90-R; their tennis skills, meanwhile, increased significantly. This study shows that partaking in tennis exercise once a week decreases depression and anxiety symptoms and enhances well-being in healthy young people.

The purpose of this study is to review the use of partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in the field of hospitality and tourism and thereby to assess whether the PLS-SEM-based papers followed the recommended application guidelines and to investigate whether a comparison of journal types (hospitality vs tourism) and journal qualities (top-tier vs other leading) reveal significant differences in PLS-SEM use.

A total of 206 PLS-SEM based papers published between 2000 and April 2017 in the 19 SSCI-indexed hospitality and tourism journals were critically analyzed using a wide range of guidelines for the following aspects of PLS-SEM: the rationale of using the method, the data characteristics, the model characteristics, the model assessment and reporting the technical issues.

The results reveal that some aspects of PLS-SEM are correctly applied by researchers, but there are still some misapplications, especially regarding data characteristics, formative measurement model evaluation and structural model assessment. Furthermore, few significant differences were found on the use of PLS-SEM between the two fields (hospitality and tourism) and between the journal tiers (top-tier and other leading).

To enhance the quality of research in hospitality and tourism, the present study provides recommendations for improving the future use of PLS-SEM.

The present study fills a sizeable gap in hospitality and tourism literature and extends the previous assessments on the use of PLS-SEM by providing a wider perspective on the issue (i.e. includes both hospitality and tourism journals rather than the previous reviews that focus on either tourism or hospitality), using a larger sample size of 206 empirical studies, investigating the issue over a longer time period (from 2000 to April, 2017, including the in-press articles), extending the scope of criteria (guidelines) used in the review and comparing the PLS-SEM use between the two allied fields (hospitality and tourism) and between the journal tiers (top-tier and other leading).

The purpose of this study is to compare the natural lighting performance of roof skylight systems in buildings with atriums and to compare the sustainability and energy efficiency of several roof skylight systems for educational buildings with atriums.

Five roof skylight systems previously assessed in another study were adapted for simulation. In order to determine the effects of each skylight system on natural lighting, all the physical data of the building to be studied were recorded and entered into a computer.

The results of the study showed that roof skylight systems should be designed both to limit light during periods of maximum daylight to avoid such problems as glare, flare, and so on; and to direct light indoors as fully as possible during periods of limited daylight. In this regard, the “Moving Sunshade Double Layer” roof system showed better performance than the other four roof skylight systems.

In subsequent studies, roof systems appropriate for natural lighting should be studied for other plan types, hospitals, public buildings and so on. Moreover, real structures in which direct environment measurements can be taken could be used for obtaining data, instead of simulations.

Use of the roof system suggested by the research will minimize lighting and air conditioning costs, and enhance building sustainability.

This study explores methods of taking advantage of natural lighting indoors through the use of roof skylight systems, and identifies the most appropriate, sustainable and energy efficient roof skylight system for education buildings having an atrium.

The natural control, feedback, stimuli and protection of these subsequent principles founded this project. Via properly conducted experiments, a multilayer computer rehabilitation system was created that integrated natural interaction assisted by electroencephalogram (EEG), which enabled the movements in the virtual environment and real wheelchair. For blind wheelchair operator patients, this paper involved of expounding the proper methodology. For educating the value of life and independence of blind wheelchair users, outcomes have proven that virtual reality (VR) with EEG signals has that potential.

Individuals face numerous challenges with many disorders, particularly when multiple dysfunctions are diagnosed and especially for visually effected wheelchair users. This scenario, in reality, creates in a degree of incapacity on the part of the wheelchair user in terms of performing simple activities. Based on their specific medical needs, confined patients are treated in a modified method. Independent navigation is secured for individuals with vision and motor disabilities. There is a necessity for communication which justifies the use of VR in this navigation situation. For the effective integration of locomotion besides, it must be under natural guidance. EEG, which uses random brain impulses, has made significant progress in the field of health. The custom of an automated audio announcement system modified to have the help of VR and EEG for the training of locomotion and individualized interaction of wheelchair users with visual disability is demonstrated in this study through an experiment. Enabling the patients who were otherwise deemed incapacitated to participate in social activities, as the aim was to have efficient connections.

To protect their life straightaway and to report all these disputes, the military system should have high speed, more precise portable prototype device for nursing the soldier health, recognition of solider location and report about health sharing system to the concerned system. Field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based soldier’s health observing and position gratitude system is proposed in this paper. Reliant on heart rate which is centered on EEG signals, the soldier’s health is observed on systematic bases. By emerging Verilog hardware description language (HDL) programming language and executing on Artix-7 development FPGA board of part name XC7ACSG100t the whole work is approved in a Vivado Design Suite. Classification of different abnormalities and cloud storage of EEG along with the type of abnormalities, artifact elimination, abnormalities identification based on feature extraction, exist in the segment of suggested architecture. Irregularity circumstances are noticed through developed prototype system and alert the physically challenged (PHC) individual via an audio announcement. An actual method for eradicating motion artifacts from EEG signals that have anomalies in the PHC person’s brain has been established, and the established system is a portable device that can deliver differences in brain signal variation intensity. Primarily the EEG signals can be taken and the undesirable artifact can be detached, later structures can be mined by discrete wavelet transform these are the two stages through which artifact deletion can be completed. The anomalies in signal can be noticed and recognized by using machine learning algorithms known as multirate support vector machine classifiers when the features have been extracted using a combination of hidden Markov model (HMM) and Gaussian mixture model (GMM). Intended for capable declaration about action taken by a blind person, these result signals are protected in storage devices and conveyed to the controller. Pretending daily motion schedules allows the pretentious EEG signals to be caught. Aimed at the validation of planned system, the database can be used and continued with numerous recorded signals of EEG. The projected strategy executes better in terms of re-storing theta, delta, alpha and beta complexes of the original EEG with less alteration and a higher signal to noise ratio (SNR) value of the EEG signal, which illustrates in the quantitative analysis. The projected method used Verilog HDL and MATLAB software for both formation and authorization of results to yield improved results. Since from the achieved results, it is initiated that 32% enhancement in SNR, 14% in mean squared error (MSE) and 65% enhancement in recognition of anomalies, hence design is effectively certified and proved for standard EEG signals data sets on FPGA.

The proposed system can be used in military applications as it is high speed and excellent precise in terms of identification of abnormality, the developed system is portable and very precise. FPGA-based soldier’s health observing and position gratitude system is proposed in this paper. Reliant on heart rate which is centered on EEG signals the soldier health is observed in systematic bases. The proposed system is developed using Verilog HDL programming language and executing on Artix-7 development FPGA board of part name XC7ACSG100t and synthesised using in Vivado Design Suite software tool.

Despite the quantity of collaborations, the vocational network of the housing production in Ankara during its first five years (1923–1928) remains dispersed. The aim of this study is to identify all the actors of housing production and their collaborations which shaped Ankara's urban development as the new capital city.

The study engages with the literature and archival documents to identify the actors of the housing production, i.e. architects, master-builders, public institutions, private companies, contractors and entrepreneurs, and their resultant vocational network in the housing production in Ankara during 1923–1928.

Due to different agendas, such as speculation, financial interests or patriotism, the construction industry in Ankara had become an arena where many paths intersected, forming an intertwined vocational network. The profession of contractor became popular, and local architects, engineers and even individuals of various other professions began to work as mediators for foreign companies and public institutions, which required support especially in large-scale projects.

The dispersed information revealed that the actors of the housing production remained mostly anonymous, or only the famous architects were commemorated; however, others could be found within the lines of the established literature on Ankara and/or in archival documents. This research not only focuses on “salient” actors but also highlights the “silent” actors of the housing production and prepares charts to clarify the vocational network in Ankara during its first five years to contribute to the future studies on Ankara and its housing.

Legibility, intelligibility, mental images and cognitive and syntactical mapping are significant issues that help expose the spatial knowledge necessary for effective urban design. They also help us understand how a city’s new image is forming. This paper aims to present a new holistic approach to define urban design strategies that improve a city’s imageability through cognitive and syntactic concepts.

The study establishes a coherent framework by including residents’ mental images and space syntax theory’s descriptors to understand how residents perceive their physical environment. Using a mixed-methods research design, the authors studied the Iskenderun city center’s image and spatial design. First, the authors used descriptive analysis techniques (questionnaires, verbal interviews and cognitive mapping) and consulted 110 Iskenderun residents. Second, the authors used analytical analysis techniques to investigate the structural relations among city elements with the help of space syntax descriptors.

The results demonstrated the importance of applying combined descriptive and analytic techniques to provide an understanding of the city’s image. The authors also offered a proposal including the appropriate urban design strategies to promote Iskenderun city center’s imageability.

Applying this new coherent framework can support design decision-making for redesigning cities at the micro level and for planning new cityscapes at the macro level.