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A broadband soil dielectric spectra retrieval approach ( 1 MHz– 2 GHz) has been implemented for a layered half space. The inversion kernel consists of a two-port transmission line forward model in the frequency domain and a constitutive material equation based on a power law soil mixture rule (Complex Refractive Index Model - CRIM). The spatially-distributed retrieval of broadband dielectric spectra was achieved with a global optimization approach based on a Shuffled Complex Evolution (SCE) algorithm using the full set of the scattering parameters. For each layer, the broadband dielectric spectra were retrieved with the corresponding parameters thickness, porosity, water saturation and electrical conductivity of the aqueous pore solution. For the validation of the approach, a coaxial transmission line cell measured with a network analyzer was used. The possibilities and limitations of the inverse parameter estimation were numerically analyzed in four scenarios. Expected and retrieved layer thicknesses, soil properties and broadband dielectric spectra in each scenario were in reasonable agreement. Hence, the model is suitable for an estimation of in-homogeneous material parameter distributions. Moreover, the proposed frequency domain approach allows an automatic adaptation of layer number and thickness or regular grids in time and/or space.
Für eine Abschätzung des Heizwärmebedarfs von Gebäuden und Quartieren können thermisch-energetische Simulationen eingesetzt werden. Grundlage dieser Simulationen sind geometrische und physikalische Gebäudemodelle. Die Erstellung des geometrischen Modells erfolgt in der Regel auf Basis von Bauplänen oder Vor-Ort-Begehungen, was mit einem großen Recherche- und Modellierungsaufwand verbunden ist. Spätere bauliche Veränderungen des Gebäudes müssen häufig manuell in das Modell eingearbeitet werden, was den Arbeitsaufwand zusätzlich erhöht. Das physikalische Modell stellt die Menge an Parametern und Randbedingungen dar, welche durch Materialeigenschaften, Lage und Umgebungs-einflüsse gegeben sind. Die Verknüpfung beider Modelle wird innerhalb der entsprechenden Simulations-software realisiert und ist meist nicht in andere Softwareprodukte überführbar.
Mithilfe des Building Information Modeling (BIM) können Simulationsdaten sowohl konsistent gespeichert als auch über Schnittstellen mit entsprechenden Anwendungen ausgetauscht werden. Hierfür wird eine Methode vorgestellt, die thermisch-energetische Simulationen auf Basis des standardisierten Übergabe-formats Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) inklusive anschließender Auswertungen ermöglicht. Dabei werden geometrische und physikalische Parameter direkt aus einem über den gesamten Lebenszyklus aktuellen Gebäudemodell extrahiert und an die Simulation übergeben. Dies beschleunigt den Simulations-prozess hinsichtlich der Gebäudemodellierung und nach späteren baulichen Veränderungen. Die erarbeite-te Methode beruht hierbei auf einfachen Modellierungskonventionen bei der Erstellung des Bauwerksinformationsmodells und stellt eine vollständige Übertragbarkeit der Eingangs- und Ausgangswerte sicher.
Thermal building simulation based on BIM-models. Thermal energetic simulations are used for the estimation of the heating demand of buildings and districts. These simulations are based on building models containing geometrical and physical information. The creation of geometrical models is usually based on existing construction plans or in situ assessments which demand a comparatively big effort of investigation and modeling. Alterations, which are later applied to the structure, request manual changes of the related model, which increases the effort additionally. The physical model represents the total amount of parameters and boundary conditions that are influenced by material properties, location and environmental influences on the building. The link between both models is realized within the correspondent simulation soft-ware and is usually not transferable to other software products.
By Applying Building Information Modeling (BIM) simulation data is stored consistently and an exchange to other software is enabled. Therefore, a method which allows a thermal energetic simulation based on the exchange format Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) including an evaluation is presented. All geometrical and physical information are extracted directly from the building model that is kept up-to-date during its life cycle and transferred to the simulation. This accelerates the simulation process regarding the geometrical modeling and adjustments after later changes of the building. The developed method is based on simple conventions for the creation of the building model and ensures a complete transfer of all simulation data.
Wireless sensor networks have attracted great attention for applications in structural health monitoring due to their ease of use, flexibility of deployment, and cost-effectiveness. This paper presents a software framework for WiFi-based wireless sensor networks composed of low-cost mass market single-board computers. A number of specific system-level software components were developed to enable robust data acquisition, data processing, sensor network communication, and timing with a focus on structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. The framework was validated on Raspberry Pi computers, and its performance was studied in detail. The paper presents several characteristics of the measurement quality such as sampling accuracy and time synchronization and discusses the specific limitations of the system. The implementation includes a complementary smartphone application that is utilized for data acquisition, visualization, and analysis. A prototypical implementation further demonstrates the feasibility of integrating smartphones as data acquisition nodes into the network, utilizing their internal sensors. The measurement system was employed in several monitoring campaigns, three of which are documented in detail. The suitability of the system is evaluated based on comparisons of target quantities with reference measurements. The results indicate that the presented system can robustly achieve a measurement performance commensurate with that required in many typical SHM tasks such as modal identification. As such, it represents a cost-effective alternative to more traditional monitoring solutions.
Urban planners are often challenged with the task of developing design solutions which must meet multiple, and often contradictory, criteria. In this paper, we investigated the trade-offs between social, psychological, and energy potential of the fundamental elements of urban form: the street network and the building massing. Since formal mehods to evaluate urban form from the psychological and social point of view are not readily available, we developed a methodological framework to quantify these criteria as the first contribution in this paper. To evaluate the psychological potential, we conducted a three-tiered empirical study starting from real world environments and then abstracting them to virtual environments. In each context, the implicit (physiological) response and explicit (subjective) response of pedestrians were measured. To quantify the social potential, we developed a street network centrality-based measure of social accessibility.
For the energy potential, we created an energy model to analyze the impact of pure geometric form on the energy demand of the building stock. The second contribution of this work is a method to identify distinct clusters of urban form and, for each, explore the trade-offs between the select design criteria. We applied this method to two case studies identifying nine types of urban form and their respective potential trade-offs, which are directly applicable for the assessment of strategic decisions regarding urban form during the early planning stages.
A categorical perspective towards aerodynamic models for aeroelastic analyses of bridge decks
(2019)
Reliable modelling in structural engineering is crucial for the serviceability and safety of structures. A huge variety of aerodynamic models for aeroelastic analyses of bridges poses natural questions on their complexity and thus, quality. Moreover, a direct comparison of aerodynamic models is typically either not possible or senseless, as the models can be based on very different physical assumptions. Therefore, to address the question of principal comparability and complexity of models, a more abstract approach, accounting for the effect of basic physical assumptions, is necessary.
This paper presents an application of a recently introduced category theory-based modelling approach to a diverse set of models from bridge aerodynamics. Initially, the categorical approach is extended to allow an adequate description of aerodynamic models. Complexity of the selected aerodynamic models is evaluated, based on which model comparability is established. Finally, the utility of the approach for model comparison and characterisation is demonstrated on an illustrative example from bridge aeroelasticity. The outcome of this study is intended to serve as an alternative framework for model comparison and impact future model assessment studies of mathematical models for engineering applications.
Estimating the solubility of carbon dioxide in ionic liquids, using reliable models, is of paramount importance from both environmental and economic points of view. In this regard, the current research aims at evaluating the performance of two data-driven techniques, namely multilayer perceptron (MLP) and gene expression programming (GEP), for predicting the solubility of carbon dioxide (CO2) in ionic liquids (ILs) as the function of pressure, temperature, and four thermodynamical parameters of the ionic liquid. To develop the above techniques, 744 experimental data points derived from the literature including 13 ILs were used (80% of the points for training and 20% for validation). Two backpropagation-based methods, namely Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) and Bayesian Regularization (BR), were applied to optimize the MLP algorithm. Various statistical and graphical assessments were applied to check the credibility of the developed techniques. The results were then compared with those calculated using Peng–Robinson (PR) or Soave–Redlich–Kwong (SRK) equations of state (EoS). The highest coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.9965) and the lowest root mean square error (RMSE = 0.0116) were recorded for the MLP-LMA model on the full dataset (with a negligible difference to the MLP-BR model). The comparison of results from this model with the vastly applied thermodynamic equation of state models revealed slightly better performance, but the EoS approaches also performed well with R2 from 0.984 up to 0.996. Lastly, the newly established correlation based on the GEP model exhibited very satisfactory results with overall values of R2 = 0.9896 and RMSE = 0.0201.
Seit 50 Jahren wird über Erklärungsansätze für Gentrifizierung gestritten. Sehr viel länger schon wandert anlagesuchendes Kapital von einem
Ort zum anderen und hinterlässt dabei Investitionsruinen einerseits und Menschen, die durch Verdrängung ihr Zuhause verlieren, andererseits. Sehr viel kürzer erst wird der Begriff Gentrifizierung hier und da von sozialen Bewegungen aufgegriffen, die sich mit letzterem Phänomen auseinandersetzen.
In diesem Beitrag soll es nicht um die wissenschaftliche Debatte um Erklärungsansätze für Gentrifizierung und auch nicht um die wissenschaftliche Relevanz des Begriffes gehen, sondern um seine Rolle und Funktion in sozialen Bewegungen.
FCS-MBFLEACH: Designing an Energy-Aware Fault Detection System for Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks
(2019)
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) include large-scale sensor nodes that are densely distributed over a geographical region that is completely randomized for monitoring, identifying, and analyzing physical events. The crucial challenge in wireless sensor networks is the very high dependence of the sensor nodes on limited battery power to exchange information wirelessly as well as the non-rechargeable battery of the wireless sensor nodes, which makes the management and monitoring of these nodes in terms of abnormal changes very difficult. These anomalies appear under faults, including hardware, software, anomalies, and attacks by raiders, all of which affect the comprehensiveness of the data collected by wireless sensor networks. Hence, a crucial contraption should be taken to detect the early faults in the network, despite the limitations of the sensor nodes. Machine learning methods include solutions that can be used to detect the sensor node faults in the network. The purpose of this study is to use several classification methods to compute the fault detection accuracy with different densities under two scenarios in regions of interest such as MB-FLEACH, one-class support vector machine (SVM), fuzzy one-class, or a combination of SVM and FCS-MBFLEACH methods. It should be noted that in the study so far, no super cluster head (SCH) selection has been performed to detect node faults in the network. The simulation outcomes demonstrate that the FCS-MBFLEACH method has the best performance in terms of the accuracy of fault detection, false-positive rate (FPR), average remaining energy, and network lifetime compared to other classification methods.
Rapid advancements of modern technologies put high demands on mathematical modelling of engineering systems. Typically, systems are no longer “simple” objects, but rather coupled systems involving multiphysics phenomena, the modelling of which involves coupling of models that describe different phenomena. After constructing a mathematical model, it is essential to analyse the correctness of the coupled models and to detect modelling errors compromising the final modelling result. Broadly, there are two classes of modelling errors: (a) errors related to abstract modelling, eg, conceptual errors concerning the coherence of a model as a whole and (b) errors related to concrete modelling or instance modelling, eg, questions of approximation quality and implementation. Instance modelling errors, on the one hand, are relatively well understood. Abstract modelling errors, on the other, are not appropriately addressed by modern modelling methodologies. The aim of this paper is to initiate a discussion on abstract approaches and their usability for mathematical modelling of engineering systems with the goal of making it possible to catch conceptual modelling errors early and automatically by computer assistant tools. To that end, we argue that it is necessary to identify and employ suitable mathematical abstractions to capture an accurate conceptual description of the process of modelling engineering systems.
This study aims to evaluate a new approach in modeling gully erosion susceptibility (GES) based on a deep learning neural network (DLNN) model and an ensemble particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm with DLNN (PSO-DLNN), comparing these approaches with common artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM) models in Shirahan watershed, Iran. For this purpose, 13 independent variables affecting GES in the study area, namely, altitude, slope, aspect, plan curvature, profile curvature, drainage density, distance from a river, land use, soil, lithology, rainfall, stream power index (SPI), and topographic wetness index (TWI), were prepared. A total of 132 gully erosion locations were identified during field visits. To implement the proposed model, the dataset was divided into the two categories of training (70%) and testing (30%). The results indicate that the area under the curve (AUC) value from receiver operating characteristic (ROC) considering the testing datasets of PSO-DLNN is 0.89, which indicates superb accuracy. The rest of the models are associated with optimal accuracy and have similar results to the PSO-DLNN model; the AUC values from ROC of DLNN, SVM, and ANN for the testing datasets are 0.87, 0.85, and 0.84, respectively. The efficiency of the proposed model in terms of prediction of GES was increased. Therefore, it can be concluded that the DLNN model and its ensemble with the PSO algorithm can be used as a novel and practical method to predict gully erosion susceptibility, which can help planners and managers to manage and reduce the risk of this phenomenon.
When it comes to monitoring of huge structures, main issues are limited time, high costs and how to deal with the big amount of data. In order to reduce and manage them, respectively, methods from the field of optimal design of experiments are useful and supportive. Having optimal experimental designs at hand before conducting any measurements is leading to a highly informative measurement concept, where the sensor positions are optimized according to minimal errors in the structures’ models. For the reduction of computational time a combined approach using Fisher Information Matrix and mean-squared error in a two-step procedure is proposed under the consideration of different error types. The error descriptions contain random/aleatoric and systematic/epistemic portions. Applying this combined approach on a finite element model using artificial acceleration time measurement data with artificially added errors leads to the optimized sensor positions. These findings are compared to results from laboratory experiments on the modeled structure, which is a tower-like structure represented by a hollow pipe as the cantilever beam. Conclusively, the combined approach is leading to a sound experimental design that leads to a good estimate of the structure’s behavior and model parameters without the need of preliminary measurements for model updating.
The amount of adsorbed styrene acrylate copolymer (SA) particles on cementitious surfaces at the early stage of hydration was quantitatively determined using three different methodological approaches: the depletion method, the visible spectrophotometry (VIS) and the thermo-gravimetry coupled with mass spectrometry (TG–MS). Considering the advantages and disadvantages of each method, including the respectively required sample preparation, the results for four polymer-modified cement pastes, varying in polymer content and cement fineness, were evaluated.
To some extent, significant discrepancies in the adsorption degrees were observed. There is a tendency that significantly lower amounts of adsorbed polymers were identified using TG-MS compared to values determined with the depletion method. Spectrophotometrically generated values were lying in between these extremes. This tendency was found for three of the four cement pastes examined and is originated in sample preparation and methodical limitations.
The main influencing factor is the falsification of the polymer concentration in the liquid phase during centrifugation. Interactions in the interface between sediment and supernatant are the cause. The newly developed method, using TG–MS for the quantification of SA particles, proved to be suitable for dealing with these revealed issues. Here, instead of the fluid phase, the sediment is examined with regard to the polymer content, on which the influence of centrifugation is considerably lower.
Acoustic travel-time TOMography (ATOM) allows the measurement and reconstruction of air temperature distributions. Due to limiting factors, such as the challenge of travel-time estimation of the early reflections in the room impulse response, which heavily depends on the position of transducers inside the measurement area, ATOM is applied mainly outdoors. To apply ATOM in buildings, this paper presents a numerical solution to optimize the positions of transducers. This optimization avoids reflection overlaps, leading to distinguishable travel-times in the impulse response reflectogram. To increase the accuracy of the measured temperature within tomographic voxels, an additional function is employed to the proposed numerical method to minimize the number of sound-path-free voxels, ensuring the best sound-ray coverage of the room. Subsequently, an experimental set-up has been performed to verify the proposed numerical method. The results indicate the positive impact of the optimal positions of transducers on the distribution of ATOM-temperatures.
Discrete function theory in higher-dimensional setting has been in active development since many years. However, available results focus on studying discrete setting for such canonical domains as half-space, while the case of bounded domains generally remained unconsidered. Therefore, this paper presents the extension of the higher-dimensional function theory to the case of arbitrary bounded domains in Rn. On this way, discrete Stokes’ formula, discrete Borel–Pompeiu formula, as well as discrete Hardy spaces for general bounded domains are constructed. Finally, several discrete Hilbert problems are considered.
This article focuses on further developments of the background-oriented schlieren (BOS) technique to visualize convective indoor air flow, which is usually defined by very small density gradients. Since the light rays deflect when passing through fluids with different densities, BOS can detect the resulting refractive index gradients as integration along a line of sight. In this paper, the BOS technique is used to yield a two-dimensional visualization of small density gradients. The novelty of the described method is the implementation of a highly sensitive BOS setup to visualize the ascending thermal plume from a heated thermal manikin with temperature differences of minimum 1 K. To guarantee steady boundary conditions, the thermal manikin was seated in a climate laboratory. For the experimental investigations, a high-resolution DLSR camera was used capturing a large field of view with sufficient detail accuracy. Several parameters such as various backgrounds, focal lengths, room air temperatures, and distances between the object of investigation, camera, and structured background were tested to find the most suitable parameters to visualize convective indoor air flow. Besides these measurements, this paper presents the analyzing method using cross-correlation algorithms and finally the results of visualizing the convective indoor air flow with BOS. The highly sensitive BOS setup presented in this article complements the commonly used invasive methods that highly influence weak air flows.
The contribution explores the migratory situation on the Balkans and more specifically in the so-called Refugee District in Belgrade from a spatial perspective. By visualizing the areas of tensions in the Refugee District, the city of Belgrade, Serbia and Europe it aims to disentangle the political and socio-spatial levels that lead to the stuck situation of in-betweenness at the gates of the European Union.
Neuartige Sanitärsysteme zielen auf eine ressourcenorientierte Verwertung von Abwasser ab. Erreicht werden soll dies durch die separate Erfassung von Abwasserteilströmen. In den Fachöffentlichkeiten der Wasserwirtschaft und Raumplanung werden neuartige Sanitärsysteme als ein geeigneter Ansatz für die zukünftige
Sicherung der Abwasserentsorgung in ländlichen Räumen betrachtet. Die Praxistauglichkeit dieser Systeme wurde zwar in Forschungsprojekten nachgewiesen, bisher erschweren jedoch für Abwasserentsorger vielfältige Risiken die Einführung einer ressourcenorientierten Abwasserbewirtschaftung. Ausgehend von einer Untersuchung der Kontexte bei der Umsetzung eines neuartigen Sanitärsystems im ländlichen Raum Thüringens wird in diesem Beitrag der Frage nachgegangen, wie auf Landesebene mit dem abwasserwirtschaftlichen Instrumentarium die Einführung von ressourcenorientierten Systemansätzen unterstützt werden kann. Zentrale Elemente des Beitrags sind die Darstellung der wesentlichen Transformationsrisiken in Bezug auf die Einführung innovativer Lösungsansätze, eine Erläuterung der spezifischen abwasserwirtschaftlichen Instrumente sowie die Darlegung von Steuerungsansätzen,mit denen die Einführung von neuartigen Sanitärsystemen gefördert werden kann. Im Ergebnis wird die Realisierbarkeit von neuartigen Sanitärsystemen durch den strategischen Einsatz des Instrumentariums deutlich, gleichwohl die Wasserwirtschaft durch die Erweiterung der bisherigen Systemgrenzen auf die Kooperation mit anderen Bereichen der Daseinsvorsorge angewiesen ist.
A Machine Learning Framework for Assessing Seismic Hazard Safety of Reinforced Concrete Buildings
(2020)
Although averting a seismic disturbance and its physical, social, and economic disruption is practically impossible, using the advancements in computational science and numerical modeling shall equip humanity to predict its severity, understand the outcomes, and equip for post-disaster management. Many buildings exist amidst the developed metropolitan areas, which are senile and still in service. These buildings were also designed before establishing national seismic codes or without the introduction of construction regulations. In that case, risk reduction is significant for developing alternatives and designing suitable models to enhance the existing structure’s performance. Such models will be able to classify risks and casualties related to possible earthquakes through emergency preparation. Thus, it is crucial to recognize structures that are susceptible to earthquake vibrations and need to be prioritized for retrofitting. However, each building’s behavior under seismic actions cannot be studied through performing structural analysis, as it might be unrealistic because of the rigorous computations, long period, and substantial expenditure. Therefore, it calls for a simple, reliable, and accurate process known as Rapid Visual Screening (RVS), which serves as a primary screening platform, including an optimum number of seismic parameters and predetermined performance damage conditions for structures. In this study, the damage classification technique was studied, and the efficacy of the Machine Learning (ML) method in damage prediction via a Support Vector Machine (SVM) model was explored. The ML model is trained and tested separately on damage data from four different earthquakes, namely Ecuador, Haiti, Nepal, and South Korea. Each dataset consists of varying numbers of input data and eight performance modifiers. Based on the study and the results, the ML model using SVM classifies the given input data into the belonging classes and accomplishes the performance on hazard safety evaluation of buildings.
Personalisierte Lüftung (PL) kann die thermische Behaglichkeit sowie die Qualität der eingeatmeten Atemluft verbessern, in dem jedem Arbeitsplatz Frischluft separat zugeführt wird. In diesem Beitrag wird die Wirkung der PL auf die thermische Behaglichkeit der Nutzer unter sommerlichen Randbedingungen untersucht. Hierfür wurden zwei Ansätze zur Bewertung des Kühlungseffekts der PL untersucht: basierend auf (1) der äquivalenten Temperatur und (2) dem thermischen Empfinden. Grundlage der Auswertung sind in einer Klimakammer gemessene sowie numerisch simulierte Daten. Vor der Durchführung der Simulationen wurde das numerische Modell zunächst anhand der gemessenen Daten validiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Ansatz basierend auf dem thermischen Empfinden zur Evaluierung des Kühlungseffekts der PL sinnvoller sein kann, da bei diesem die komplexen physiologischen Faktoren besser berücksichtigt werden.
The latest earthquakes have proven that several existing buildings, particularly in developing countries, are not secured from damages of earthquake. A variety of statistical and machine-learning approaches have been proposed to identify vulnerable buildings for the prioritization of retrofitting. The present work aims to investigate earthquake susceptibility through the combination of six building performance variables that can be used to obtain an optimal prediction of the damage state of reinforced concrete buildings using artificial neural network (ANN). In this regard, a multi-layer perceptron network is trained and optimized using a database of 484 damaged buildings from the Düzce earthquake in Turkey. The results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the selected ANN approach to classify concrete structural damage that can be used as a preliminary assessment technique to identify vulnerable buildings in disaster risk-management programs.
Die im Jahr 2020 in Deutschland praktizierte Siedlungs- und Wohnungspolitik erhält in Anbetracht ihrer Auswirkungen auf die soziale und ökologische Lage einen bitteren Beigeschmack. Arm und Reich triften weiter auseinander und einer zielgerichteten ökologischen Transformation der Art und Weise, wie Stadtentwicklung und Wohnungspolitik gestaltet werden,stehen noch immer historisch und systemisch bedingte Pfadabhängigkeiten im Weg. Diese werden nur durch eine integrierte Betrachtung sozialer und ökonomischer Aspekte sichtbar und deuten auf eine der ursprünglichen Fragen linker Gesellschaftsforschung hin: Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Verhältnis von Eigentum und Gerechtigkeit.
Im Ergebnis stehen drei wesentliche Befunde: Der Diskurs zum Schutz des Klimas und der Biodiversität berührt direkt die Parameter Dichte, Nutzungsmischung und Flächeninanspruchnahme; zweitens steigt letztere relativ mit erhöhtem, individuell verfügbaren Kapital und insbesondere im selbstgenutztem Eigentum gegenüber Mietwohnungen; und drittens wächst der Eigentumsanteil mit fortschreitender Finanzialisierung des Wohnungsmarktes, sodass das Risiko sozialer und ökologischer Krisen sich verschärft.
In this paper, an artificial neural network is implemented for the sake of predicting the thermal conductivity ratio of TiO2-Al2O3/water nanofluid. TiO2-Al2O3/water in the role of an innovative type of nanofluid was synthesized by the sol–gel method. The results indicated that 1.5 vol.% of nanofluids enhanced the thermal conductivity by up to 25%. It was shown that the heat transfer coefficient was linearly augmented with increasing nanoparticle concentration, but its variation with temperature was nonlinear. It should be noted that the increase in concentration may cause the particles to agglomerate, and then the thermal conductivity is reduced. The increase in temperature also increases the thermal conductivity, due to an increase in the Brownian motion and collision of particles. In this research, for the sake of predicting the thermal conductivity of TiO2-Al2O3/water nanofluid based on volumetric concentration and temperature functions, an artificial neural network is implemented. In this way, for predicting thermal conductivity, SOM (self-organizing map) and BP-LM (Back Propagation-Levenberq-Marquardt) algorithms were used. Based on the results obtained, these algorithms can be considered as an exceptional tool for predicting thermal conductivity. Additionally, the correlation coefficient values were equal to 0.938 and 0.98 when implementing the SOM and BP-LM algorithms, respectively, which is highly acceptable. View Full-Text
The performance of ductless personalized ventilation (DPV) was compared to the performance of a typical desk fan since they are both stand-alone systems that allow the users to personalize their indoor environment. The two systems were evaluated using a validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of an office room occupied by two users. To investigate the impact of DPV and the fan on the inhaled air quality, two types of contamination sources were modelled in the domain: an active source and a passive source. Additionally, the influence of the compared systems on thermal comfort was assessed using the coupling of CFD with the comfort model developed by the University of California, Berkeley (UCB model). Results indicated that DPV performed generally better than the desk fan. It provided better thermal comfort and showed a superior performance in removing the exhaled contaminants. However, the desk fan performed better in removing the contaminants emitted from a passive source near the floor level. This indicates that the performance of DPV and desk fans depends highly on the location of the contamination source. Moreover, the simulations showed that both systems increased the spread of exhaled contamination when used by the source occupant.
The K-nearest neighbors (KNN) machine learning algorithm is a well-known non-parametric classification method. However, like other traditional data mining methods, applying it on big data comes with computational challenges. Indeed, KNN determines the class of a new sample based on the class of its nearest neighbors; however, identifying the neighbors in a large amount of data imposes a large computational cost so that it is no longer applicable by a single computing machine. One of the proposed techniques to make classification methods applicable on large datasets is pruning. LC-KNN is an improved KNN method which first clusters the data into some smaller partitions using the K-means clustering method; and then applies the KNN for each new sample on the partition which its center is the nearest one. However, because the clusters have different shapes and densities, selection of the appropriate cluster is a challenge. In this paper, an approach has been proposed to improve the pruning phase of the LC-KNN method by taking into account these factors. The proposed approach helps to choose a more appropriate cluster of data for looking for the neighbors, thus, increasing the classification accuracy. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated on different real datasets. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach and its higher classification accuracy and lower time cost in comparison to other recent relevant methods.
In this study, machine learning methods of artificial neural networks (ANNs), least squares support vector machines (LSSVM), and neuro-fuzzy are used for advancing prediction models for thermal performance of a photovoltaic-thermal solar collector (PV/T). In the proposed models, the inlet temperature, flow rate, heat, solar radiation, and the sun heat have been considered as the input variables. Data set has been extracted through experimental measurements from a novel solar collector system. Different analyses are performed to examine the credibility of the introduced models and evaluate their performances. The proposed LSSVM model outperformed the ANFIS and ANNs models. LSSVM model is reported suitable when the laboratory measurements are costly and time-consuming, or achieving such values requires sophisticated interpretations.
A novel combination of the ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO)and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) data is proposed for modeling the multiphase chemical reactors. The proposed intelligent model presents a probabilistic computational strategy for predicting various levels of three-dimensional bubble column reactor (BCR) flow. The results prove an enhanced communication between ant colony prediction and CFD data in different sections of the BCR.
Recently, the demand for residence and usage of urban infrastructure has been increased, thereby resulting in the elevation of risk levels of human lives over natural calamities. The occupancy demand has rapidly increased the construction rate, whereas the inadequate design of structures prone to more vulnerability. Buildings constructed before the development of seismic codes have an additional susceptibility to earthquake vibrations. The structural collapse causes an economic loss as well as setbacks for human lives. An application of different theoretical methods to analyze the structural behavior is expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, introducing a rapid vulnerability assessment method to check structural performances is necessary for future developments. The process, as mentioned earlier, is known as Rapid Visual Screening (RVS). This technique has been generated to identify, inventory, and screen structures that are potentially hazardous. Sometimes, poor construction quality does not provide some of the required parameters; in this case, the RVS process turns into a tedious scenario. Hence, to tackle such a situation, multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods for the seismic vulnerability assessment opens a new gateway. The different parameters required by RVS can be taken in MCDM. MCDM evaluates multiple conflicting criteria in decision making in several fields. This paper has aimed to bridge the gap between RVS and MCDM. Furthermore, to define the correlation between these techniques, implementation of the methodologies from Indian, Turkish, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) codes has been done. The effects of seismic vulnerability of structures have been observed and compared.
This research aims to model soil temperature (ST) using machine learning models of multilayer perceptron (MLP) algorithm and support vector machine (SVM) in hybrid form with the Firefly optimization algorithm, i.e. MLP-FFA and SVM-FFA. In the current study, measured ST and meteorological parameters of Tabriz and Ahar weather stations in a period of 2013–2015 are used for training and testing of the studied models with one and two days as a delay. To ascertain conclusive results for validation of the proposed hybrid models, the error metrics are benchmarked in an independent testing period. Moreover, Taylor diagrams utilized for that purpose. Obtained results showed that, in a case of one day delay, except in predicting ST at 5 cm below the soil surface (ST5cm) at Tabriz station, MLP-FFA produced superior results compared with MLP, SVM, and SVM-FFA models. However, for two days delay, MLP-FFA indicated increased accuracy in predicting ST5cm and ST 20cm of Tabriz station and ST10cm of Ahar station in comparison with SVM-FFA. Additionally, for all of the prescribed models, the performance of the MLP-FFA and SVM-FFA hybrid models in the testing phase was found to be meaningfully superior to the classical MLP and SVM models.
Energy‐Efficient Method for Wireless Sensor Networks Low‐Power Radio Operation in Internet of Things
(2020)
The radio operation in wireless sensor networks (WSN) in Internet of Things (IoT)applications is the most common source for power consumption. Consequently, recognizing and controlling the factors affecting radio operation can be valuable for managing the node power consumption. Among essential factors affecting radio operation, the time spent for checking the radio is of utmost importance for monitoring power consumption. It can lead to false WakeUp or idle listening in radio duty cycles and ContikiMAC. ContikiMAC is a low‐power radio duty‐cycle protocol in Contiki OS used in WakeUp mode, as a clear channel assessment (CCA) for checking radio status periodically. This paper presents a detailed analysis of radio WakeUp time factors of ContikiMAC. Furthermore, we propose a lightweight CCA (LW‐CCA) as an extension to ContikiMAC to reduce the Radio Duty‐Cycles in false WakeUps and idle listening though using dynamic received signal strength indicator (RSSI) status check time. The simulation results in the Cooja simulator show that LW‐CCA reduces about 8% energy consumption in nodes while maintaining up to 99% of the packet delivery rate (PDR).
The classical Internet of things routing and wireless sensor networks can provide more precise monitoring of the covered area due to the higher number of utilized nodes. Because of the limitations in shared transfer media, many nodes in the network are prone to the collision in simultaneous transmissions. Medium access control protocols are usually more practical in networks with low traffic, which are not subjected to external noise from adjacent frequencies. There are preventive, detection and control solutions to congestion management in the network which are all the focus of this study. In the congestion prevention phase, the proposed method chooses the next step of the path using the Fuzzy decision-making system to distribute network traffic via optimal paths. In the congestion detection phase, a dynamic approach to queue management was designed to detect congestion in the least amount of time and prevent the collision. In the congestion control phase, the back-pressure method was used based on the quality of the queue to decrease the probability of linking in the pathway from the pre-congested node. The main goals of this study are to balance energy consumption in network nodes, reducing the rate of lost packets and increasing quality of service in routing. Simulation results proved the proposed Congestion Control Fuzzy Decision Making (CCFDM) method was more capable in improving routing parameters as compared to recent algorithms.
Coronary Artery Disease Diagnosis: Ranking the Significant Features Using a Random Trees Model
(2020)
Heart disease is one of the most common diseases in middle-aged citizens. Among the vast number of heart diseases, coronary artery disease (CAD) is considered as a common cardiovascular disease with a high death rate. The most popular tool for diagnosing CAD is the use of medical imaging, e.g., angiography. However, angiography is known for being costly and also associated with a number of side effects. Hence, the purpose of this study is to increase the accuracy of coronary heart disease diagnosis through selecting significant predictive features in order of their ranking. In this study, we propose an integrated method using machine learning. The machine learning methods of random trees (RTs), decision tree of C5.0, support vector machine (SVM), and decision tree of Chi-squared automatic interaction detection (CHAID) are used in this study. The proposed method shows promising results and the study confirms that the RTs model outperforms other models.
The longitudinal dispersion coefficient (LDC) plays an important role in modeling the transport of pollutants and sediment in natural rivers. As a result of transportation processes, the concentration of pollutants changes along the river. Various studies have been conducted to provide simple equations for estimating LDC. In this study, machine learning methods, namely support vector regression, Gaussian process regression, M5 model tree (M5P) and random forest, and multiple linear regression were examined in predicting the LDC in natural streams. Data sets from 60 rivers around the world with different hydraulic and geometric features were gathered to develop models for LDC estimation. Statistical criteria, including correlation coefficient (CC), root mean squared error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE), were used to scrutinize the models. The LDC values estimated by these models were compared with the corresponding results of common empirical models. The Taylor chart was used to evaluate the models and the results showed that among the machine learning models, M5P had superior performance, with CC of 0.823, RMSE of 454.9 and MAE of 380.9. The model of Sahay and Dutta, with CC of 0.795, RMSE of 460.7 and MAE of 306.1, gave more precise results than the other empirical models. The main advantage of M5P models is their ability to provide practical formulae. In conclusion, the results proved that the developed M5P model with simple formulations was superior to other machine learning models and empirical models; therefore, it can be used as a proper tool for estimating the LDC in rivers.
Temporary changes in precipitation may lead to sustained and severe drought or massive floods in different parts of the world. Knowing the variation in precipitation can effectively help the water resources decision-makers in water resources management. Large-scale circulation drivers have a considerable impact on precipitation in different parts of the world. In this research, the impact of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on seasonal precipitation over Iran was investigated. For this purpose, 103 synoptic stations with at least 30 years of data were utilized. The Spearman correlation coefficient between the indices in the previous 12 months with seasonal precipitation was calculated, and the meaningful correlations were extracted. Then, the month in which each of these indices has the highest correlation with seasonal precipitation was determined. Finally, the overall amount of increase or decrease in seasonal precipitation due to each of these indices was calculated. Results indicate the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), NAO, and PDO have the most impact on seasonal precipitation, respectively. Additionally, these indices have the highest impact on the precipitation in winter, autumn, spring, and summer, respectively. SOI has a diverse impact on winter precipitation compared to the PDO and NAO, while in the other seasons, each index has its special impact on seasonal precipitation. Generally, all indices in different phases may decrease the seasonal precipitation up to 100%. However, the seasonal precipitation may increase more than 100% in different seasons due to the impact of these indices. The results of this study can be used effectively in water resources management and especially in dam operation.
Hydrological drought forecasting plays a substantial role in water resources management. Hydrological drought highly affects the water allocation and hydropower generation. In this research, short term hydrological drought forecasted based on the hybridized of novel nature-inspired optimization algorithms and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). For this purpose, the Standardized Hydrological Drought Index (SHDI) and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) were calculated in one, three, and six aggregated months. Then, three states where proposed for SHDI forecasting, and 36 input-output combinations were extracted based on the cross-correlation analysis. In the next step, newly proposed optimization algorithms, including Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm (GOA), Salp Swarm algorithm (SSA), Biogeography-based optimization (BBO), and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) hybridized with the ANN were utilized for SHDI forecasting and the results compared to the conventional ANN. Results indicated that the hybridized model outperformed compared to the conventional ANN. PSO performed better than the other optimization algorithms. The best models forecasted SHDI1 with R2 = 0.68 and RMSE = 0.58, SHDI3 with R 2 = 0.81 and RMSE = 0.45 and SHDI6 with R 2 = 0.82 and RMSE = 0.40.
In Germany, bridges have an average age of 40 years. A bridge consumes between 0.4% and 2% of its construction cost per year over its entire life cycle. This means that up to 80% of the construction cost are additionally needed for operation, inspection, maintenance, and destruction. Current practices rely either on paperbased inspections or on abstract specialist software. Every application in the inspection and maintenance sector uses its own data model for structures, inspections, defects, and maintenance. Due to this, data and properties have to be transferred manually, otherwise a converter is necessary for every data exchange between two applications. To overcome this issue, an adequate model standard for inspections, damage, and maintenance is necessary. Modern 3D models may serve as a single source of truth, which has been suggested in the Building Information Modeling (BIM) concept. Further, these models offer a clear visualization of the built infrastructure, and improve not only the planning and construction phases, but also the operation phase of construction projects. BIM is established mostly in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) sector to plan and construct new buildings. Currently, BIM does not cover the whole life cycle of a building, especially not inspection and maintenance. Creating damage models needs the building model first, because a defect is dependent on the building component, its properties and material. Hence, a building information model is necessary to obtain meaningful conclusions from damage information. This paper analyzes the requirements, which arise from practice, and the research that has been done in modeling damage and related information for bridges. With a look at damage categories and use cases related to inspection and maintenance, scientific literature is discussed and synthesized. Finally, research gaps and needs are identified and discussed.
Der Beitrag verbindet die Diskussion um die postpolitische Stadt mit der zunehmenden wissenschaftlichen und aktivistischen Auseinandersetzung mit dem Anthropozän, ein Konzept, das die ökologischen und sozialpolitischen Implikationen menschlichen Handelns auf die Erdoberfläche beschreibt. Anhand von drei ausgewählten Fallstudien erkunden wir,
wie die spezifisch anthropogene, also menschengemachte, Krise urbaner Luftverschmutzung in künstlerischen Positionen problematisiert wird. Im Kontext des potenziellen Vormarschs von Postpolitik besprechen wir, wie der ambivalente Diskurs des Anthropozäns einerseits Depolitisierung begünstigt und andererseits neue Möglichkeiten für die Repolitisierung
globaler Umweltherausforderungen ermöglicht.
Conventional superplasticizers based on polycarboxylate ether (PCE) show an intolerance to clay minerals due to intercalation of their polyethylene glycol (PEG) side chains into the interlayers of the clay mineral. An intolerance to very basic media is also known. This makes PCE an unsuitable choice as a superplasticizer for geopolymers. Bio-based superplasticizers derived from starch showed comparable effects to PCE in a cementitious system. The aim of the present study was to determine if starch superplasticizers (SSPs) could be a suitable additive for geopolymers by carrying out basic investigations with respect to slump, hardening, compressive and flexural strength, shrinkage, and porosity. Four SSPs were synthesized, differing in charge polarity and specific charge density. Two conventional PCE superplasticizers, differing in terms of molecular structure, were also included in this study. The results revealed that SSPs improved the slump of a metakaolin-based geopolymer (MK-geopolymer) mortar while the PCE investigated showed no improvement. The impact of superplasticizers on early hardening (up to 72 h) was negligible. Less linear shrinkage over the course of 56 days was seen for all samples in comparison with the reference. Compressive strengths of SSP specimens tested after 7 and 28 days of curing were comparable to the reference, while PCE led to a decline. The SSPs had a small impact on porosity with a shift to the formation of more gel pores while PCE caused an increase in porosity. Throughout this research, SSPs were identified as promising superplasticizers for MK-geopolymer mortar and concrete.
Die derzeitige Wohnungskrise hat eine sozial-ökologische Kernproblematik. Dabei ist die sozial ungerechte und ökologisch problematische Verteilung von Wohnfläche meist unsichtbar und wird weder in wissenschaftlichen noch in aktivistischen Kontexten ausreichend als Frage der Flächengerechtigkeit problematisiert. Denn Wohnraum und Fläche in einer Stadt sind keine endlos verfügbaren Güter: Wenn einige Menschen auf viel Raum leben, bleibt für andere Menschen weniger Fläche übrig. Und die Menschen, die am wenigstens für eine Verknappung von Wohnraum verantwortlich sind, leiden am meisten darunter. Dieser Artikel arbeitet zunächst den Begriff der Wohnflächengerechtigkeit heraus, wobei auf die Ungleichverteilung von Wohnfläche und deren gesellschaftliche Implikationen unter derzeitigen Wohnungsverteilungsmechanismen Bezug genommen wird. Anschließend wird der Verbrauch von (Wohn-)Fläche aus ökologischer Perspektive problematisiert. Der Artikel diskutiert scheinbare und transformationsorientierte Lösungs- und Handlungsansätze. Abschließend fordert er in der kritischen Stadtforschung und in aktivistischen Kontexten eine stärkere Debatte um eine Wohnflächengerechtigkeit, deren Verwirklichung gleichermaßen eine soziale wie ökologische Dimension hat.
Matthias Bernt und Andrej Holm weisen zu Recht darauf hin, dass es einer Forschung zu ostdeutschen Städten als konzeptionell eigenständigem Feld bedarf, die die spezifische Verräumlichung des tiefgreifenden gesellschaftlichen Transformationsprozesses nach 1990 ins Zentrum stellt. Dabei betrachten sie insbesondere das Feld des Wohnens als produktiv, um Kenntnis über die Struktur und Wirkung dieses Prozesses zu erlangen. Allerdings bleiben sie vage dabei, wie eine solche spezifisch auf Ostdeutschland gerichtete Wohnungsforschung zu konzipieren wäre und in welcher Weise die Besonderheiten und Parallelitäten ostdeutscher Entwicklungen zu den Transformationen von Wohnungs- und Stadtentwicklungspolitik in Westdeutschland, aber auch international, in Bezug zu setzen wären.
Prediction of the groundwater nitrate concentration is of utmost importance for pollution control and water resource management. This research aims to model the spatial groundwater nitrate concentration in the Marvdasht watershed, Iran, based on several artificial intelligence methods of support vector machine (SVM), Cubist, random forest (RF), and Bayesian artificial neural network (Baysia-ANN) machine learning models. For this purpose, 11 independent variables affecting groundwater nitrate changes include elevation, slope, plan curvature, profile curvature, rainfall, piezometric depth, distance from the river, distance from residential, Sodium (Na), Potassium (K), and topographic wetness index (TWI) in the study area were prepared. Nitrate levels were also measured in 67 wells and used as a dependent variable for modeling. Data were divided into two categories of training (70%) and testing (30%) for modeling. The evaluation criteria coefficient of determination (R2), mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) were used to evaluate the performance of the models used. The results of modeling the susceptibility of groundwater nitrate concentration showed that the RF (R2 = 0.89, RMSE = 4.24, NSE = 0.87) model is better than the other Cubist (R2 = 0.87, RMSE = 5.18, NSE = 0.81), SVM (R2 = 0.74, RMSE = 6.07, NSE = 0.74), Bayesian-ANN (R2 = 0.79, RMSE = 5.91, NSE = 0.75) models. The results of groundwater nitrate concentration zoning in the study area showed that the northern parts of the case study have the highest amount of nitrate, which is higher in these agricultural areas than in other areas. The most important cause of nitrate pollution in these areas is agriculture activities and the use of groundwater to irrigate these crops and the wells close to agricultural areas, which has led to the indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers by irrigation or rainwater of these fertilizers is washed and penetrates groundwater and pollutes the aquifer.
Image Analysis Using Human Body Geometry and Size Proportion Science for Action Classification
(2020)
Gestures are one of the basic modes of human communication and are usually used to represent different actions. Automatic recognition of these actions forms the basis for solving more complex problems like human behavior analysis, video surveillance, event detection, and sign language recognition, etc. Action recognition from images is a challenging task as the key information like temporal data, object trajectory, and optical flow are not available in still images. While measuring the size of different regions of the human body i.e., step size, arms span, length of the arm, forearm, and hand, etc., provides valuable clues for identification of the human actions. In this article, a framework for classification of the human actions is presented where humans are detected and localized through faster region-convolutional neural networks followed by morphological image processing techniques. Furthermore, geometric features from human blob are extracted and incorporated into the classification rules for the six human actions i.e., standing, walking, single-hand side wave, single-hand top wave, both hands side wave, and both hands top wave. The performance of the proposed technique has been evaluated using precision, recall, omission error, and commission error. The proposed technique has been comparatively analyzed in terms of overall accuracy with existing approaches showing that it performs well in contrast to its counterparts.
This paper proposes a practice-theoretical journalism research approach for an alternate and innovative perspective of digital journalism’s current empirical challenges. The practice-theoretical approach is introduced by demonstrating its explanatory power in relation to demarcation problems, technological changes, economic challenges and challenges to journalism’s legitimacy. Its respective advantages in dealing with these problems are explained and then compared to established journalism theories. The particular relevance of the theoretical perspective is due to (1) its central decision to observe journalistic practices, (2) the transgression of conventional journalistic boundaries, (3) the denaturalization of journalistic norms and laws, (4) the explicit consideration of a material, socio-technical dimension of journalism, (5) a focus on the conflicting relationship between journalistic practices and media management practices, and (6) prioritizing order generation over stability.
This study investigates the performance of two systems: personalized ventilation (PV) and ductless personalized ventilation (DPV). Even though the literature indicates a compelling performance of PV, it is not often used in practice due to its impracticality. Therefore, the present study assesses the possibility of replacing the inflexible PV with DPV in office rooms equipped with displacement ventilation (DV) in the summer season. Numerical simulations were utilized to evaluate the inhaled concentration of pollutants when PV and DPV are used. The systems were compared in a simulated office with two occupants: a susceptible occupant and a source occupant. Three types of pollution were simulated: exhaled infectious air, dermally emitted contamination, and room contamination from a passive source. Results indicated that PV improved the inhaled air quality regardless of the location of the pollution source; a higher PV supply flow rate positively impacted the inhaled air quality. Contrarily, the performance of DPV was highly sensitive to the source location and the personalized flow rate. A higher DPV flow rate tends to decrease the inhaled air quality due to increased mixing of pollutants in the room. Moreover, both systems achieved better results when the personalized system of the source occupant was switched off.
In this research, an attempt was made to reduce the dimension of wavelet-ANFIS/ANN (artificial neural network/adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system) models toward reliable forecasts as well as to decrease computational cost. In this regard, the principal component analysis was performed on the input time series decomposed by a discrete wavelet transform to feed the ANN/ANFIS models. The models were applied for dissolved oxygen (DO) forecasting in rivers which is an important variable affecting aquatic life and water quality. The current values of DO, water surface temperature, salinity, and turbidity have been considered as the input variable to forecast DO in a three-time step further. The results of the study revealed that PCA can be employed as a powerful tool for dimension reduction of input variables and also to detect inter-correlation of input variables. Results of the PCA-wavelet-ANN models are compared with those obtained from wavelet-ANN models while the earlier one has the advantage of less computational time than the later models. Dealing with ANFIS models, PCA is more beneficial to avoid wavelet-ANFIS models creating too many rules which deteriorate the efficiency of the ANFIS models. Moreover, manipulating the wavelet-ANFIS models utilizing PCA leads to a significant decreasing in computational time. Finally, it was found that the PCA-wavelet-ANN/ANFIS models can provide reliable forecasts of dissolved oxygen as an important water quality indicator in rivers.
Why Do Digital Native News Media Fail? An Investigation of Failure in the Early Start-Up Phase
(2020)
Digital native news media have great potential for improving journalism. Theoretically, they can be the sites where new products, novel revenue streams and alternative ways of organizing digital journalism are discovered, tested, and advanced. In practice, however, the situation appears to be more complicated. Besides the normal pressures facing new businesses, entrepreneurs in digital news are faced with specific challenges. Against the background of general and journalism specific entrepreneurship literature, and in light of a practice–theoretical approach, this qualitative case study research on 15 German digital native news media outlets empirically investigates what barriers curb their innovative capacity in the early start-up phase. In the new media organizations under study here, there are—among other problems—a high degree of homogeneity within founding teams, tensions between journalistic and economic practices, insufficient user orientation, as well as a tendency for organizations to be underfinanced. The patterns of failure investigated in this study can raise awareness, help news start-ups avoid common mistakes before actually entering the market, and help industry experts and investors to realistically estimate the potential of new ventures within the digital news industry.
Earthquake is among the most devastating natural disasters causing severe economical, environmental, and social destruction. Earthquake safety assessment and building hazard monitoring can highly contribute to urban sustainability through identification and insight into optimum materials and structures. While the vulnerability of structures mainly depends on the structural resistance, the safety assessment of buildings can be highly challenging. In this paper, we consider the Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) method, which is a qualitative procedure for estimating structural scores for buildings suitable for medium- to high-seismic cases. This paper presents an overview of the common RVS methods, i.e., FEMA P-154, IITK-GGSDMA, and EMPI. To examine the accuracy and validation, a practical comparison is performed between their assessment and observed damage of reinforced concrete buildings from a street survey in the Bingöl region, Turkey, after the 1 May 2003 earthquake. The results demonstrate that the application of RVS methods for preliminary damage estimation is a vital tool. Furthermore, the comparative analysis showed that FEMA P-154 creates an assessment that overestimates damage states and is not economically viable, while EMPI and IITK-GGSDMA provide more accurate and practical estimation, respectively.
Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) is a procedure that estimates structural scores for buildings and prioritizes their retrofit and upgrade requirements. Despite the speed and simplicity of RVS, many of the collected parameters are non-commensurable and include subjectivity due to visual observations. This might cause uncertainties in the evaluation, which emphasizes the use of a fuzzy-based method. This study aims to propose a novel RVS methodology based on the interval type-2 fuzzy logic system (IT2FLS) to set the priority of vulnerable building to undergo detailed assessment while covering uncertainties and minimizing their effects during evaluation. The proposed method estimates the vulnerability of a building, in terms of Damage Index, considering the number of stories, age of building, plan irregularity, vertical irregularity, building quality, and peak ground velocity, as inputs with a single output variable. Applicability of the proposed method has been investigated using a post-earthquake damage database of reinforced concrete buildings from the Bingöl and Düzce earthquakes in Turkey.
Pressure fluctuations beneath hydraulic jumps potentially endanger the stability of stilling basins. This paper deals with the mathematical modeling of the results of laboratory-scale experiments to estimate the extreme pressures. Experiments were carried out on a smooth stilling basin underneath free hydraulic jumps downstream of an Ogee spillway. From the probability distribution of measured instantaneous pressures, pressures with different probabilities could be determined. It was verified that maximum pressure fluctuations, and the negative pressures, are located at the positions near the spillway toe. Also, minimum pressure fluctuations are located at the downstream of hydraulic jumps. It was possible to assess the cumulative curves of pressure data related to the characteristic points along the basin, and different Froude numbers. To benchmark the results, the dimensionless forms of statistical parameters include mean pressures (P*m), the standard deviations of pressure fluctuations (σ*X), pressures with different non-exceedance probabilities (P*k%), and the statistical coefficient of the probability distribution (Nk%) were assessed. It was found that an existing method can be used to interpret the present data, and pressure distribution in similar conditions, by using a new second-order fractional relationships for σ*X, and Nk%. The values of the Nk% coefficient indicated a single mean value for each probability.
Cooling Performance of a Novel Circulatory Flow Concentric Multi-Channel Heat Sink with Nanofluids
(2020)
Heat rejection from electronic devices such as processors necessitates a high heat removal rate. The present study focuses on liquid-cooled novel heat sink geometry made from four channels (width 4 mm and depth 3.5 mm) configured in a concentric shape with alternate flow passages (slot of 3 mm gap). In this study, the cooling performance of the heat sink was tested under simulated controlled conditions.The lower bottom surface of the heat sink was heated at a constant heat flux condition based on dissipated power of 50 W and 70 W. The computations were carried out for different volume fractions of nanoparticles, namely 0.5% to 5%, and water as base fluid at a flow rate of 30 to 180 mL/min. The results showed a higher rate of heat rejection from the nanofluid cooled heat sink compared with water. The enhancement in performance was analyzed with the help of a temperature difference of nanofluid outlet temperature and water outlet temperature under similar operating conditions. The enhancement was ~2% for 0.5% volume fraction nanofluids and ~17% for a 5% volume fraction.
Along with environmental pollution, urban planning has been connected to public health. The research indicates that the quality of built environments plays an important role in reducing mental disorders and overall health. The structure and shape of the city are considered as one of the factors influencing happiness and health in urban communities and the type of the daily activities of citizens. The aim of this study was to promote physical activity in the main structure of the city via urban design in a way that the main form and morphology of the city can encourage citizens to move around and have physical activity within the city. Functional, physical, cultural-social, and perceptual-visual features are regarded as the most important and effective criteria in increasing physical activities in urban spaces, based on literature review. The environmental quality of urban spaces and their role in the physical activities of citizens in urban spaces were assessed by using the questionnaire tool and analytical network process (ANP) of structural equation modeling. Further, the space syntax method was utilized to evaluate the role of the spatial integration of urban spaces on improving physical activities. Based on the results, consideration of functional diversity, spatial flexibility and integration, security, and the aesthetic and visual quality of urban spaces plays an important role in improving the physical health of citizens in urban spaces. Further, more physical activities, including motivation for walking and the sense of public health and happiness, were observed in the streets having higher linkage and space syntax indexes with their surrounding texture.