In this article, types of potential biomass that could be the source for biohydrogen generation such as energy crops, lignocellulosic residues, waste and wastewaters are discussed. The major criteria that have to be met for the selection of substrates suitable for fermentative biohydrogen production are availability, cost, carbohydrate content (high proportion of readily fermentable compounds such as sugars and carbohydrates) and biodegradability (a high concentration of degradable organic compounds and low concentration of inhibitory to microbiological activity compounds). Although starchy and sugar based biomass and wastes are readily fermentable by microorganisms for hydrogen generation, lignocellulosic biomass needs to be pretreated. Pretreatment is carry out for altering the structural features of biomass which are classified as psysical or chemical. In general, pretreatment methods of lignocellulosic biomass can be divided into three main types, according to the means used for altering its structural features: mechanical, physicochemical and biological.

Leather and leather products industry has shown a significant improvement in export area, as a result of intensive shuttle trades and demand that comes from crumbling Eastern Bloc countries in 1990’s. This development has caused capacity increasing and thus makes large investments in this sector. Leather garment industry differs from woven or fabrics industry at various points. Differantation seems in raw materials features such as size, thickness, biological, chemical or physical homogenity. Due to the natural structure, leather shows different attributes in different regions. This study examines the diversity of production processes of leather and fabric designed jacket.

Mathematics is one of the most important subjects for engineering education. In School of Engineering, students who enter university without basic mathematical knowledge and skills are categorized as mathematically ‘at-risk’. The purpose of this study was to predict ‘at risk’ students by using Support Vector Machine method. Data of Pamukkale University School of Engineering’s 434 incoming students of year 2007 were considered in this study. The result shows that students’ university entrance examination mathematics, science and Turkish tests scores and students’ high school graduation grade point average are important items to predict students’ achievement at university calculus I course. SVM is trained with features of 289 students and tested with features of remaining 145 students. 86% of successful students for calculus I course was predicted as true by SVM.

In this study, a-three layered feed-forward backpropagation Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model is developed for the supplier firms in ceramic sector on the bases of user effectiveness for using concurrent engineering method. The developed model is also questioned for its usability in the supplier evaluation process. The network’s independent variables of the developed model are considered as input variables of the network and dependent variables are used as output variables. The values of these variables are determined with factor analysis. For obtaining the date set to be used in the analysis, a questionnaire form with 34 questions explaining the network’s input and output variables are prepared and sent out to 52 firms active in related sector. For obtaining more accurate results from the network, the questions having factor load below 0,6 are eliminated from the analysis. With the elimination of the questions from the analysis, the answers given for 22 questions explaining 8 input variables are used for the evaluation the network’s inputs, the answers given for 3 questions explaining output variables are used for the evaluation the network’s outputs. The data set of the network’s are divided into four equal groups with k-fold method in order to get four different alternative network structures. As a conclusion, the forecasted firm scores giving the minimum error from the network test simulation and real firm scores are found to be very close to each other, thus, it is concluded that the developed artificial neural network model can be used effectively in the supplier evaluation process.

Over the last 20 years polymer chemistry has created a number of non-lineer structures and introduction of a large number of branches during the polymer synthesis leads to obtain molecules with many end groups. Two types of these polymers are regularly branched “dendrimers” and “hyperbranched polymers” where branching is formed randomly. In this article knowledge about history, classification, molecular structure and properties of dendrimers which have found various application areas also in textile due to their special structures is given.