Consumers are responsible for almost 50 percent of food waste. Consumer-focused interventions are crucial to achieve many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 12.3. There are many factors that cause food waste, and these can be prevented by changing the consumption behavior of adults. Mobile apps are seen as promising tools to change consumer behavior for ensuring more sustainable food consumption. This study describes the development process and examines the perceived quality of MySusCof, an app intended to reduce the food waste of consumers. The uMARS scale was used for collecting data from consumers. Within the scope of the study, two studies were conducted to examine the development process of the application and to determine the user reactions to the mobile application. Results show that gamification elements with hedonic and social components, as well as functional aspects, are important features for user engagement and perceived impact. The qualitative results also supported the user experience in both hedonic and functional value and role of mobile apps to lead behavior change. This study serves as a guideline for future developers of mobile apps intended to lead consumers to a more sustainable food consumption.

A test apparatus based on electrical conduction principle was designed and manufactured to overcome some difficulties and deficiencies in vertical wicking measurements of fabrics, which is one of the test methods used to determine liquid moisture transmission performance of fabrics. In order to test effectiveness of the apparatus, capillary time with regard to height was measured for woven shirting fabrics, which have different raw material, weave type and weft density. It was found that twill weave type and fabric looseness improved the wickability of fabrics. It was also revealed that raw material was an important factor for vertical wicking. The wicking rate of fabrics obtained from the new test apparatus correlated well with DIN 53924. Consequently, the test apparatus clearly demonstrated differences between the fabrics used in the study, and can be used to determine vertical wicking behaviour of fabrics.

In the future, the world is likely to face water and therefore food shortages due to reasons such as global warming, population growth, the melting of glaciers, the destruction of agricultural lands over time or their use for different purposes, and environmental pollution. Although technological developments are important for people to live a more comfortable and safer life, it is also possible to reduce and even repair the damage to nature and protect nature itself thanks to new technologies. There is a requirement to detect abnormal water usage in agriculture to avert water scarcity, and an electronic system can help achieve this objective. In this research, an experimental study was carried out to detect water leaks in the field in order to prevent water losses that can occur in agriculture, where water consumption is the highest. Therefore, in this study, low-cost embedded electronic hardware was developed to detect over-watering by means of normal and thermal camera sensors and to collect the required data, which can be installed on a mobile agricultural robot. For image processing and the diagnosis of abnormal conditions, the collected data were transferred to a personal computer server. Then, software was developed for both the low-cost embedded system and the personal computer to provide a faster detection and decision-making process. The physical and software system developed in this study was designed to provide a water leak detection process that has a minimum response time. For this purpose, mathematical and image processing algorithms were applied to obtain efficient water detection for the conversion of the thermal sensor data into an image, the image size enhancement using interpolation, the combination of normal and thermal images, and the calculation of the image area where water leakage occurs. The field experiments for this developed system were performed manually to observe the good functioning of the system.

The totally new communication paradigms introduced by the collaborative sensing notion of wireless sensor networks, materialized by the networked deployment of sensor nodes, has in the recent years forced researchers to re-consider the protocol design process. The traditional layered approach is coming under scrutiny. In its place a new, cross-layer approach has emerged that promises to meet much better the specific needs of versatile applications and severely limited resources characteristic for wireless sensor networks. Lately, the idea of cross-layer frameworks has emerged and the research community is faced with the difficult task to investigate this new platform and its suitability, to weigh its pros and cons in light of its possible future evolution. In this paper we first try to present a brief survey of the suggested so far cross-layer frameworks by investigating the ongoing work in the area of cross-layer frameworks, putting that work in perspective, and consolidating the existing results and insights. Our second aim is to classify the cross-layer frameworks by defining some major criteria and identify their advantages and disadvantages in a unified manner. The work is supported by the evaluation of these frameworks against applications from large international projects.

"Smart environments" are discussed as the next step in intelligent systems automation related to utilities, construction, industry, home and transportation. In the core of these environments are the wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSAN) which have seen an unprecedented development in the last decade both in terms of complexity and supporting concepts [1]. In this respect, there are still a number of issues that have to be solved in new ways suitable to the specifics and requirements of the smart environment. One such pressing issue is providing high level of fault tolerance. Fault tolerance is defined as the ability of a network to continue functioning in the presence of link and node failures. As the wireless media has highly varying characteristics and the nodes are easily prone to failures, the development of new fault tolerance algorithms is a pressing question. Furthermore, traditional layered protocol design has proved ineffective for WSAN and the new cross layer design approach has emerged as a foundation for protocol design in smart environments. The paper presents integrated fault tolerance module for WSAN based on the cross layer design approach. The results presented, based on packet loss, delay and energy consumption, support the thesis that adoption of the suggested fault management module improves the general performance of the network.