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Ports are the key elements of maritime transportation, which is crucial for world trade. Approximately 180 port facilities are located in Turkey. After 2007, 5 of the ports, which are formerly owned by Turkish Republic Railways Administration (TRRA), are privatized. The aim of the study is to evaluate the performance of these privatized ports by multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach.

The application process is performed by a MCDM model. This model includes both criteria (dry bulk, liquid bulk, general cargo, container, RO-RO capacity, total port area, total berth, total berths length and depth) and alternatives (Mersin, Samsun, Bandirma, Iskenderun and Derince Ports). It determines the weights of the criteria by entropy and ranks the alternatives by ARAS and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) methods.

The results of entropy, ARAS and TOPSIS methods are compared. According to these results, “container” is the most important criteria while Mersin port has the best performance.

In the literature, most of the studies about this subject were analyzed by data envelopment analysis (DEA) and there are no studies had been taken into consideration ports that are owned by TRRA, in Turkey. Moreover, few of these studies used integrated MCDM models, and this is the first study that integrates entropy, ARAS and TOPSIS methods in this field.

3-MCPD (3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol) and glycidyl esters (GE) are process contaminants generated during thermal processing, associated with adverse health effects, including carcinogenicity and genotoxicity. This study aims to investigate the impact of the use of artificial [butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA)] and natural (nettle and olive leaf) antioxidants in palm olein oil during deep-fat frying on the levels of 3-Monochloropropan-1,2-diol (3-MCPD) and GE in French fries samples.

Artificial antioxidants BHT and BHA, along with natural antioxidants from nettle (Urtica dioica L.) and olive leaf (Olea europaea L. folium) extracts, were incorporated into palm olein oil during deep frying. Frying was conducted repeatedly over a period of three days. The 3-MCPD and GE contents of the oils collected from the French fries during the frying process were quantified using the AOCS analytical method.

The finding indicated that the levels of 3-MCPD and GE in the french fry samples from groups with both artificial and natural antioxidants were reduced compared to the control group (p < 0.001, p < 0.001; respectively). Upon examination of all data, Nettle extract exhibited the highest level of 3-MCPD ester (1.66 ± 0.01 ppm); whereas the BHT+BHA group demonstrated the lowest level (0.52 ± 0.01 ppm). The analysis of GE levels revealed a maximum of 1.59 ± 0.01 ppm in the control group and a minimum of 1.22 ± 0.34 ppm in the group treated with Nettle extract.

This study assessed the levels of 3-MCPD and GE in repeated deep-frying with palm olein supplemented with olive leaf and nettle extract, a novel investigation to date.

Academic freedom is of central importance in all kinds of activities of academics and students. Considering this, many reforms were made to secure and improve academic freedom in Turkey. The most important reforms and changes were made in 1933, 1946, 1960, 1973 and 1981, and they all coincided with significant social and political periods. But, the history of Turkey’s academic freedom is not bright. The past university policies pertaining to academic freedom had occasionally positive, but often restrictive, results in expanding academic freedom. Despite policies and reforms, illegal dismissals of faculty members, disciplinary inspections and penalties were experienced. Moreover, the restrictions also affected freedom of expression in the forms of censorship and self-censorship; freedom to learn, teach and conduct researches had limitations. On the other hand, the removal of headscarf ban and the abolishment of coefficient policy which disadvantaged some students in the university entrance examinations can be given as examples of improvement in academic freedom of students, both of which improved students’ access to higher education. When compared with other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, the rankings and various indicators present Turkey at lower end in terms of academic freedom. This shows that further steps are to be taken to improve academic freedom in Turkey.

The aim of the chapter is to compare Public–Private Partnership (PPP) healthcare investments in developed countries with those in emerging economies, analysing the sustainability issues of health-led growth. Healthcare PPP best practices in developed nations represent a template that catching-up economies may follow with local adaptations. A comparison starts from the UK case and then examines the Turkish experience as an ideal bridge between advanced and developing countries. Healthcare investments are a primary social infrastructure, with a deep impact on poverty alleviation. Demand for the infrastructure necessary to provide healthcare services has increased substantially in developing and emerging economies due to rapid economic growth, industrialization and urbanization, while public supply is limited by budget constraints. PPP best practices provide a global benchmark (World bank, 2015b). Integrated supply and value chains and management of viability milestone improve healthcare PPP sustainability and bankability. Different legal frameworks and funding issues are not thoroughly investigated. Careful customization and local fine-tuning of best practices require further scrutiny. Homogenization of best practices improves comparison of different projects, fostering competition and easing cross-border investments, accompanied by knowledge transfer, sharing and consequent value co-creation. Best practices improve value for money, bankability and resilience of PPP investments, with potential benefits for healthcare services and quality of life. This chapter makes an innovative and comprehensive comparison of healthcare PPP projects worldwide, looking for a common denominator of value-enhancing rules and resilient pro-growth strategies.

Traditional risk assessment (RA) methodologies cannot model vagueness in risk and cannot prioritize corrective-preventive measures (CPMs) by considering effectiveness of those on risk types (RTs). These cannot combine and reflect accurately different subjective opinions and cannot be used in a linguistic manner. Risk factors (RFs) are assumed to have the same importance and interrelations between RFs are not considered. This study aims to overcome these disadvantages by combining fuzzy logic with multi-criteria decision-making in a dynamic manner.

This study proposes a novel three-stage fuzzy risk matrix-based RA integrating fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (F-DEMATEL) and fuzzy multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (F-MABAC). At the first stage, importance weights of RFs are computed by F-DEMATEL. At the second stage, risk degrees of RTs are computed via using fuzzy risk matrix. At the third stage, CPMs are ranked by F-MABAC. Finally, a numerical example for RA in a warehouse is given.

Results show that developing instructions for material loading or unloading is the most important CPM and severity is the most important RF for the warehouse.

This study has originality in terms of having fuzzy dynamic structure. At first, RFs are assumed to be criteria sets then, RTs are assumed to be criteria set considering their risk degrees to rank CPMs in a fuzzy manner. Risk degrees of RTs are used for weights of RTs and effectiveness of CPMs are used for performance values of CPMs.

The purpose of this review paper is to provide a review of the most recent advances in the field of manufacturing composite sandwich panels along with their advantages and limitations. The other purpose of this paper is to familiarize the researchers with the available developments in manufacturing sandwich structures.

The most recent research articles in the field of manufacturing various composite sandwich structures were reviewed. The review process started by categorizing the available sandwich manufacturing techniques into nine main categories according to the method of production and the equipment used. The review is followed by outlining some automatic production concepts toward composite sandwich automated manufacturing. A brief summary of the sandwich manufacturing techniques is given at the end of this article, with recommendations for future work.

It has been found that several composite sandwich manufacturing techniques were proposed in the literature. The diversity of the manufacturing techniques arises from the variety of the materials as well as the configurations of the final product. Additive manufacturing techniques represent the most recent trend in composite sandwich manufacturing.

This work is valuable for all researchers in the field of composite sandwich structures to keep up with the most recent advancements in this field. Furthermore, this review paper can be considered as a guideline for researchers who are intended to perform further research on composite sandwich structures.