8th MCM and WG's Meetings, COST Action 724, March 2006, Antalya, Turkey COST 724 Turkish Initiative: Activities Relevant to WG1; WG2; WG3; WG4 Yurdanur Tulunay, Ersin Tulunay [1] METU/ODTÜ, Dept. of Aerospace Eng., Ankara, Turkey [2] METU/ODTÜ, Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Eng., Ankara, Turkey and TÜBİTAK / MAM Institute of Information Technologies, Gebze Kocaeli, Turkey

8th MCM and WG's Meetings, COST Action 724, March 2006, Antalya, Turkey Introduction The Turkish group has been employing their Neural Network Modeling skills and know-how on the concept of COST 724 Workgroup terms of references in principle. The first attempt along this line was the forecast of the number of occurrence of large X-Ray Bursts – Events by using the data returned from the GOES Satellite. In this action the METU NN Model forecast the events quite well. (Tulunay, Messerotti, et al. 2005). However, it has been an ongoing interest to improve the performance of the model by including more parameters in training the Neural Nets.

8th MCM and WG's Meetings, COST Action 724, March 2006, Antalya, Turkey Recent Developments - I We have been in contact with Dr. Heynderickx to integrate our METU NN Model to Dr. Heynderickx’s server at the BIRA. (A short presentation was prepared by Mr. E. T. Senalp briefly summarizing the state of the work)

8th MCM and WG's Meetings, COST Action 724, March 2006, Antalya, Turkey Recent Developments - II Since the Athens MCM some work has been done on the characterization of the Earth – Ionosphere duct in terms of the ELF waves. In particular, the data obtained around the Marmara Sea have been analyzed. (A short presentation was prepared by Mr. Emre Altuntas on the diurnal variation of the Schumann Resonance Parameters obtained at the experimental sites in Gonen and Sarkoy, Turkey during October 2004)

8th MCM and WG's Meetings, COST Action 724, March 2006, Antalya, Turkey Recent Developments - III Some work has been done on the Earth’s Ionospheric variability caused by the IMF Bz polarity reversals for the 21st Solar Cycle, The effect of magnetic conjugacy have been included in selecting almost conjugate Ionospheric Stations. (A short presentation was prepared by Mr. Tolga Yapici on the effect of IMF Bz reversals on the F-Layer critical frequency of the stations Arkhangelsk, Sodankyla and Kerguelen).

8th MCM and WG's Meetings, COST Action 724, March 2006, Antalya, Turkey Recent Developments – IV The Network of European Websites relevant to COST 724 data, models, prediction, education and public outreach will hopefully, include the Turkish Web-Site address during the Antalya MCM in March 2006 (

8th MCM and WG's Meetings, COST Action 724, March 2006, Antalya, Turkey Recent Developments – V Taking the advantage of the 1st European General Assembly on the International Heliophysical Year, the Turkish Initiative including the COST 724 dimension was presented at this meeting in Paris, in (Tulunay et al., 2006)

8th MCM and WG's Meetings, COST Action 724, March 2006, Antalya, Turkey References  “Neural Network Modeling in Forecasting the Near Earth Space Parameters: Forecasting of the Solar Radio Fluxes”, Tulunay Y., Messerotti M., Senalp E.T, Tulunay E., Ozkok Y. I., Yapici T., Altuntas E., Cavus N., COST 724 MCM, Oct. 2005, Athens.  “Near Earth Space Activities: A Turkish Initiative”, Tulunay Y., Tulunay E., Özgüç A., IHY EGA, Jan. 2006, CNRS Paris.  Near Earth Space Activities: A Turkish Initiative – “IHY 2”, Tulunay Y., Tulunay E., Annual Meeting of the Balkan, Black Sea and Caspian Sea Regional Network on Space Weather Studies, 30 March-1 April 2006, Manavgat, Antalya