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 Academic engagement used to refer to the extent to which students identify with and value schooling outcomes, and participate in academic and non-academic school activities. This study aims to investigate the academic engagement and satisfaction from the school among the university students. The data is taken from the undergraduate students in School of Transportation & Logistics in Istanbul University. We used a questionnaire that consisted of two parts. First part of the questionnaire is about to measure the students’ academic engagement that is improved by Schaufeli et al. Second part of the questionnaire is about to measure the students’ satisfaction from the school. K-means cluster analysis is used to determine two groups of students, group the students in to two clusters based on their school satisfaction scores. We named these two groups as “satisfied” and “unsatisfied” students. Secondly we investigate the relationships between the satisfaction scores and the academic engagement. By means of T Test we investigate whether the academic engagement differs between the clusters that are determined according to the students’ satisfaction scores. Finally we found that academic engagement differs according to the identified clusters.
 
 

Although Turkey has historically concentrated its trade with the European Union (EU) it has diversified its trade markets with the neighbouring regions and different group of countries during the last decade. Among them, Arab countries have come into prominence. Especially, following the “zero problems with neighbours” policy (ZPN), pursued by Turkey since 2002, the trade volume with the Middle Eastern neighbours has increased faster than that with its traditional partners. Nevertheless so called “Arab Spring” has started to manifest its effects on this trend. It deteriorates not only the economies of the concerned countries but also Turkey’s trade expansion. This paper aims: (i) to test through a gravity model the positive impacts of the ZPN policy and the negative impact of the Arab Spring on the trade expansion with the Spring Countries; and (ii) to reveal the positive impact of the policy change and the negative impact of the uprising movements on the realization of trade potential by Turkey in the Spring Countries.

he aims of the study at using AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) are two-fold. First, the study aims to determine the relative importance or weight of multiple criteria and its attributes in the decision problem of location selection. The second aim of the study is to identify a location with the highest potential among alternatives for retailers by using a series of criteria and attributes determined. By the means of the AHP method, decision makers put weighted values to the evaluation criteria with respect to the related goal and the attributes with respect to the corresponding criteria. In addition, the priority weight for every location alternative on each criterion and attribute is estimated. The AHP process involves hierarchically structuring decision problem, setting priority weights, establishing a judgment matrix and weight vector, and then ranking the order of location alternatives. To substantiate the feasibility of this standard approach, a case study is conducted with location selection for a clothing store in this study.

The aim of this study to examine the performance of Support Vector Regression (SVR) which is a novel regression method based on Support Vector Machines (SVM) approach in predicting the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) National 100 Index daily returns. For bechmarking, results given by SVR were compared to those given by classical Linear Regression (LR). Dataset contains 6 technical indicators which were selected as model inputs for 2005-2011 period. Grid search and cross valiadation is used for finding optimal model parameters and evaluating the models. Comparisons were made based on Root Mean Square (RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Theil Inequality Coefficient (TIC) and Mean Mixed Error (MME) metrics. Results indicate that SVR outperforms the LR for all metrics.

In order to meet increased demand for services, municipalities are compelled to use their resources in a most efficient manner. The regular collection of revenues in municipalities, while making expenditures in  most efficient ways depend on the healthy functioning of the budget and accounting and the financial control system correspondingly. In is necessary for municipalities to continuously control the balance of incomes and expenses, determining and eliminating the negativities in this balance. For this purpose, financial analyses and management ratios are needed. With the financial analyses made, a financial control system may be established in a municipality and used for management purposes. Municipalities which continuously produce information by means of financial control, will be able to take corrective measures in line with these information, take expenditure decreasing measures by determining which items cause the increases and decreases in incomes and expenditures and undertake income increasing procedures. For this purpose, financial analysis varieties were mentioned in the study and a practice made by the Beylikdüzü Municipality  for the analysis of financial statements, obtained as a result of the accrual based accounting system, in public institutions included herein.

The purpose of this study is to explore the factors which affect the family functions. Participants of this study consisted of married employees with children at the Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. The sample size is determined using a random sampling method (n = 551). In this research, family functioning style scale, support functions scale, and family needs scale developed by Dunst, Trivette and Deal (1988) used as well as the socio-economic data such as age, gender, level of education, number of children, and the income level. The majority (64.6%) of the sample was men, 35.4% were women. The ages of the participants ranged from 23-65 years (M = 39.76 years, SD =6.98). More than half of were college or more degree (57.0%) and 43.0% had high school or less graduates. Results of means comparisons showed significant differences on the family functioning style by working hours and working status. Regression analysis results suggested significant relationships exist among emotional support and agency support and family functioning style when controlling for socioeconomic variables.

The relationship between leader and followers plays a vital role, particularly in educational institutions where a keen understanding of human character and high level of social interaction ought to be facilitated. For this reason, in stark contrast to contemporary leaders who see people only as units of production or expendable resources in a profit and loss statement, servant leadership focuses on meeting the needs of followers, making them reach their maximum potential and so perform optimally in order to achieve organizational goals and objectives. This study examines the effects of servant leadership behaviors of private college principals on teachers’ organizational citizenship behavior and job performance. Using 300 respondents from the private education institutes in Turkey, servant leadership behavior is examined for its indirect effects on organizational citizenship behavior and job performance by its impact on organizational justice. Organizational justice acts as a mediator between the variables in question. All the results are in support of the studied mediation effects. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Location selection problem in banking is an important issue for the commercial success in competitive environment. There is a strategic fit between the location selection decision and overall performance of a new branch. Providing physical service in requested location as well as alternative distribution channels to meet profitable client needs is the current problematic to achieve the competitive advantage over the rivalry in financial system. In this paper, an integrated model has been developed to support in the decision of branch location selection for a new bank branch. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique has been conductedto prioritize of evaluation criteria, and multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis (MOORA) method has been applied to rank location alternatives of bank branch.

Developments in international financial markets concern both developed countries and developing countries closely. The transactions of institutions arising from of commercial activities display a more complex and more risky state in line with international economic developments. The globalization trend in the world economy, the extreme fluctuations in currencies, interests and product prices have rendered closely following up the developments in financial tools mandatory. Taking advantage of derivative financial tools which increase the revenue of assets by taking future risks into consideration, impact a decrease in debt costs and has the purpose of transferring risks are of vital importance with respect to the successful management of companies. At the present time in which internationalcommerce, free market economy and globalization has gained in importance, one of the derivative products used in risk management and have a wide implementation area is swap transactions. Swap transactions can be expressed as a financial transaction including the exchange of interest, foreign currency or both between two or more parties. Swap transactions in particular are used for purposes such as protection against risks due to interest rates and exchange rates, ensuring low cost financing, changing the debt structure and entering different markets. In this study, the generallydefined characteristics of swap transactions, which have an important standing within financial risk management and have been rapidly developing in the world in recent years and their recognition according to the International Accounting Standard 39 concerning the recognition of swap transactions, which has in particular termed the study have been focused on. In the framework of the standard, interest swap and foreign currency swap implementation study were included with respect to the matter

In recent decades, it is gaining more and more dominance in both academic and business life that the company exists for and has responsibilities toward a wider group of stakeholders and it must have some objectives other than profitability. To achieve sustainable development and growth, the companies must assume more duties, which is called the term “corporate social responsibility (CSR).” In the literature, it is questioned whether CSR activities benefit the company or not; whether there is any relationship exists between CSR activities and the company’s financial performance and the direction of the relationship. We aimedto explore that whether there is any effect corporate social performance (CSP) on financial performance and position and vice versa. We performed content analysis through annual reports and derived a social score composed of the items included in disclosure guidelines and some criteria used in CSR ratings. We also used several financial position and financial performance indicators. In order to explore the relationship between CSP and financial indicators, we run panel data regressions. We found significant results for some of the indicators, where some of the indicators gave insignificant results. The reporting of CSR activities is in very low levels. The conscious toward CSR and sustainability must be promoted and the companies must assume more active roles. The reporting of those activities is also important.

Nowadays the role of local governments is bigger than ever considering the central authority in Turkey. Especially, one can observe that the municipalities’ tasks are depended on their financial structures. In this study the financial resources of Turkish municipalities are evaluated. The obtained findings illustrate that the municipalities have three different financial resources and these resources might be sufficient to make their activities.  


 
 
 Today, the importance of innovation for enterprises, increase each passing day. As a result of globalization, enterprises are under intense competitive pressure. They have to make innovation for increasing to market share or for protecting to it at least. Non- innovative firms lose their customers and their existence is face to threat from other innovative actors in the market. Therefore firms have to design their organization structure that encourage to innovation. Mintzberg’s adhocratic organization structure was investigated in this article. Thus, its aim of this study leads to resemblance and diversity between theory and practice via of the theoretical knowledge. As a result of study; high degree of similarity between the application and Mintzberg’s theory, which is related to adhocratic organization structure, has been identified.
 
 


 
 
 This article was a result of an investigation measuring the ‘Correlation between Borrower Education and Non-payment Behaviour in Low Income Homeowners in South Africa as the premise of the study and poor relationship between lenders and borrowers as the secondary proposition. The study was motivated by the high level of foreclosures for non-payment of mortgages in the Protea Glen area in Johannesburg, Gauteng, as reported by the Human Rights Commission Inquiry in 2008. In investigating this non- payment behaviour the researcher employed largely quantitative instruments supplemented by qualitative methods. The study revealed interesting empirical findings that largely invalidated the founding hypotheses, despite existing theoretical frameworks - underpinned by various scholars - that sought to corroborate the hypotheses. The findings have however supported the premise that households reporting poor relationships with lenders were susceptible to non-payment behaviour. The rest of the secondary hypotheses were rejected by the empirical findings, viz. that there was no correlation between the level of formal education and non-payment behaviour; the link between propensity to default and the age of homeowners were also invalidated. From these findings, it can be demonstrated that there is a critical need for mitigating measures to remedy the identified shortcomings in this sector.
 
 


 
 
 Lean production is a production model which comes about the pursuit of companies to be able to meet competition and make effective production. The main purpose of lean production is to get control about the wastage. This study includes the requirements for the success of the lean production and how the lean production system can be established. In this paper, lean production techniques were applied to the electric water heater line. Measurements using lean initiatives were made, operation cycle times were determined, and Kaizen improvement methods and line balancing methods were applied according to the results. And the last section of study showed conclusion of lean implementation.
 
 


 
 
 Owing to aesthetic components that advertisement texts generally have, advertisements are sometimes perceived as a genre of art by some circles. The study is based upon a perspective presented by an interdisciplinary background and it acknowledges a paradigm that advertising is not a genre of art, it obviously pursues commercial profits and within this context, expolits the created aesthetics in product. The main objective of the study, which focuses advertising aesthetic fundamentally, is to build a scientific model formulating some levels of aestheticisation during its production process. Formulation in question has been reconstructed on theoretical and applied literature.