ORDERED PEAK STATISTICS THROUGH DIGITAL SIMULATION

A detailed knowledge of the seismic response time history in the form of the first, second, third, … largest peak amplitudes is useful to understand the progressive damage in a structure. This information is however not available from the conventionally used response spectra. This paper provides a formulation of the statistics of these higher order peaks by proposing a digitally simulated joint density function for the peaks in a stationary, Gaussian process. A digital experimentation has been done by generating an ensemble of the single-degree-of-freedom oscillator response to several artificial accelerograms, and the corresponding ordered peak distributions have been found to be in close agreement with the predictions based on the formulation in this paper. The peak factors based on the proposed formulation have also been compared with those from the existing formulations based on the Markov theory and on the assumption of peak independence. It has been found that whereas the peak factors from the proposed and Markovian formulations are compatible, the assumption of independence may give reasonable estimates only for the first few orders of peaks.     

Temporal changes in suspended sediment transport in a gullied loess basin: the lower Chabagou Creek on the Loess Plateau in China

Suspended sediment dynamics are still imperfectly understood, especially in the loess hilly region on the Loess Plateau, with strong temporal variability, where few studies heretofore have been conducted. Using a dataset up to eight years long in the Lower Chabagou Creek, the variability in suspended sediment load at different temporal scales (within‐flood variability, monthly–seasonal and annual) is analyzed in this paper. The results show that, on the within‐flood scale, most of the sediment peaks lag behind peak discharges, implying that slope zones are the main sediment source area; independent of the occurring sequences of the peaks of sediment and discharge, all the events could present an anti‐clockwise hysteresis loop resulting from the abundant material and the influence of hyperconcentrated flows on suspended sediment concentration. At monthly and seasonal scales, there is a ‘store–release’ process, i.e. sediment is prepared in winter, spring and late autumn, and exported in summer and early autumn. At the annual scale, the high variability in concentration and sediment yield are highly correlated with water yield, resulting from the number and magnitude of floods recorded yearly, and almost all the suspended load is transported during these events. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Biot理论的唯象修正对S波特性的影响

将复模量引入Biot方程后，在一维条件下通过S波的波动方程研究了S波的传播特性，S波的数值分析显示在频率域或温度域上都能获得热弛豫衰减峰和Biot衰减峰. 在频率域上由于温度的变化引起两峰相向位移,在温度域上,因频率的变化也发生相对移动. 随着温度和频率的不断提高，两峰发生叠加，叠加后两峰互换位置. 低频或低温段的热弛豫峰移到了高频或高温段，高频或高温段的Biot峰移到了低频或低温段.由于两峰的衰减机制不同，导致S波波速随频率或温度变化规律的复杂性. 这些规律已部分被共振实验所证实，证实该理论模型具有实验基础.     

Local relief and the height of Mount Olympus

A three‐dimensional assessment of the net volume of rock differentially eroded from below mountain tops to form valleys yields a range‐wide constraint on feedback between valley development and the height of mountain peaks. The ‘superelevation’ of mountain peaks potentially attributable to differential removal of material from below peaks in the Olympic Mountains, Washington, was constrained by fitting a smoothed surface to the highest elevation points on a 30 m grid digital elevation model of the range. High elevation areas separate into two primary areas: one centred on Mount Olympus in the core of the range and the other at the eastern end of the range. The largest valleys, and hence areas with the greatest volume of differentially eroded material, surround Mount Olympus. In contrast, the highest mean elevations concentrate in the eastern end of the range. Calculation of the isostatic rebound at Mount Olympus attributable to valley development ranges from 500 to 750 m (21 to 32 per cent of its height) for a 5 to 10 km effective elastic thickness of the crust. Comparison of cross‐range trends in mean and maximum elevation reveals that this calculated rebound for Mount Olympus corresponds well with its ‘superelevation’ above the general cross‐range trend in mean elevation. It therefore appears that the location of the highest peak in the Olympics is controlled by the deep valleys excavated in the centre of the range. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changes in seasonality and timing of peak streamflow in snow and semi‐arid climates of the north‐central United States, 1910–2012

Changes in the seasonality and timing of annual peak streamflow in the north‐central USA are likely because of changes in precipitation and temperature regimes. A source of long‐term information about flood events across the study area is the U.S. Geological Survey peak streamflow database. However, one challenge of answering climate‐related questions with this dataset is that even in snowmelt‐dominated areas, it is a mixed population of snowmelt/spring rain generated peaks and summer/fall rain generated peaks. Therefore, a process was developed to divide the annual peaks into two populations, or seasons, snowmelt/spring, and summer/fall. The two series were then tested for the hypotheses that because of changes in precipitation regimes, the odds of summer/fall peaks have increased and, because of temperature changes, snowmelt/spring peaks happen earlier. Over climatologically and geographically similar regions in the north‐central USA, logistic regression was used to model the odds of getting a summer/fall peak. When controlling for antecedent wet and dry conditions and geographical differences, the odds of summer/fall peaks occurring have increased across the study area. With respect to timing within the seasons, trend analysis showed that in northern portions of the study region, snowmelt/spring peaks are occurring earlier. The timing of snowmelt/spring peaks in three regions in the northern part of the study area is earlier by 8.7– 14.3 days. These changes have implications for water interests, such as potential changes in lead‐time for flood forecasting or changes in the operation of flood‐control dams. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于SW统计量的自适应时频峰值滤波压制地震勘探随机噪声研究

由于金属矿区地震记录中随机噪声性质复杂且信噪比低,常规降噪方法难以达到预期的滤波效果.时频峰值滤波(TFPF)方法是实现低信噪比地震勘探记录中随机噪声压制的有效方法,但其在复杂地震勘探随机噪声下时窗参数优化问题仍难以解决.本文充分利用地震勘探噪声的统计特性,结合Shapiro-Wilk(SW)统计量辨识地震勘探记录中的微弱有效信号,提出基于SW统计量的自适应时频峰值滤波降噪方法(S-TFPF).在S-TFPF方案中,对于有效信号集中区,S-TFPF方法根据信号频率特征,选择有利于信号保持的较短时窗长度;对于噪声集中区,按噪声方差自适应增加时窗长度,增强随机噪声压制能力.S-TFPF应用于合成记录和共炮点记录的滤波结果表明,与传统时频峰值滤波方法相比,S-TFPF方法可以有效抑制低信噪比地震勘探记录中的随机噪声,更好地恢复出同相轴.     

A probabilistic assessment of seismic damage in ductile structures

The current practices in ductility-based earthquake design ignore the damage caused by the repeated random inelastic excursions. A ductile structure may however suffer different degrees of damage depending on the number and amplitudes of these inelastic excursions. The information about the largest response peak as available from the response spectra may not thus be enough as the higher-order peaks are likely to play an important role in the progressing damage. A probabilistic model is proposed here to estimate the damage in a structure with a given amount of ductility by using the order statistics of the higher-order peaks. The proposed formulation relates damage to the entire response process, not just to the largest response. It thus accounts for the different roles played by the total number of peaks in the process, the relative amplitudes and number of excursions, and frequency content of the response process.     

Modelling impacts of agricultural practice on flood peaks in upland catchments: An application of the distributed TOPMODEL

Upland agricultural land management activities such as grazing, vegetation burning, and bare ground restoration impact hydrological elements of headwater catchments, many of which may be important for downstream flood peaks (e.g., overland flow and soil water storage). However, there is poor understanding of how these management practices affect river flow peaks during high magnitude rainfall events. Using the distributed TOPMODEL, spatial configurations of land management were modelled to predict flood response in an upland catchment, which contains different regions operating subsidized agricultural stewardship schemes. Heavy grazing leading to soil compaction and loss of vegetation cover in stewardship regions covering 79.8% of the catchment gave a 42‐min earlier flow peak, which was 82.2% higher (under a 1‐hr 15‐mm storm) than the current simulated hydrograph. Light grazing over the same regions of the catchment had much less influence on river flow peaks (18 min earlier and 32.9% increase). Rotational burning (covering 8.8% of the catchment), most of which is located in the headwater areas, increased the peak by 3.2% in the same rainfall event. Vegetation restoration with either Eriophorum or Sphagnum (higher density) in bare areas (5.8%) of the catchment provided a reduction of flood peak (3.9% and 5.2% in the 15‐mm storm event), whereas the same total area revegetated with Sphagnum in riparian regions delivered a much larger decrease (15.0%) in river flow peaks. We show that changes of vegetation cover in highly sensitive areas (e.g., near‐stream zones) generate large impacts on flood peaks. Thus, it is possible to design spatially distributed management systems for upland catchments, which reduce flood peaks while at the same time ensuring economic viability for upland farmers.     

Statistics of extremes in hydrology

The statistics of extremes have played an important role in engineering practice for water resources design and management. How recent developments in the statistical theory of extreme values can be applied to improve the rigor of hydrologic applications and to make such analyses more physically meaningful is the central theme of this paper. Such methodological developments primarily relate to maximum likelihood estimation in the presence of covariates, in combination with either the block maxima or peaks over threshold approaches. Topics that are treated include trends in hydrologic extremes, with the anticipated intensification of the hydrologic cycle as part of global climate change. In an attempt to link downscaling (i.e., relating large-scale atmosphere–ocean circulation to smaller-scale hydrologic variables) with the statistics of extremes, statistical downscaling of hydrologic extremes is considered. Future challenges are reviewed, such as the development of more rigorous statistical methodology for regional analysis of extremes, as well as the extension of Bayesian methods to more fully quantify uncertainty in extremal estimation. Examples include precipitation and streamflow extremes, as well as economic damage associated with such extreme events, with consideration of trends and dependence on patterns in atmosphere–ocean circulation (e.g., El Niño phenomenon).     

High-resolution ion-microprobe measurement of lead isotopes: Variations within single zircons from Lac Seul,northwestern Ontario

Selected-area measurements of lead-isotope ratios in zircons have been made at high mass resolution using a modified A.E.I. IM20 ion-microprobe. At a working resolution of 3200 it is shown that the important interfering molecular peaks generated from the zircon matrix may be separated from atomic lead peaks. Corrections for overlapping peaks, which are necessary in measurements of lead isotopes at low mass resolution, are then only required for ²⁰⁸Pb.Measurements on N.B.S. standards show no isotope discrimination within counting statistics. Determination of ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb on 29 single zircon grains from a tonalite gneiss and a granite from Lac Seul, northwestern Ontario, give very variable ratios with mean values close to those of bulk separates. Peaks in the distribution of 207/206 ratios obtained from the tonalite gneiss may be interpreted as evidence for two stages of lead loss. High 207/206 ratios are shown to be significant for at least two zircons and probably record a minimum age of formation of 3.3 ± 0.1 b.y. for the gneiss.     

Comparison of scenario‐neutral approaches for estimation of climate change impacts on flood characteristics

Scenario‐neutral assessments of climate change impact on floods analyse the sensitivity of a catchment to a range of changes in selected meteorological variables such as temperature and precipitation. The key challenges of the approach are the choice of the meteorological variables and statistics thereof and how to generate time series representing altered climatologies of the selected variables. Different methods have been proposed to achieve this, and it remains unclear if and to which extent they result in comparable flood change projections. Here, we compare projections of annual maximum floods (AMFs) derived from three different scenario‐neutral methods for a prealpine study catchment. The methods chosen use different types of meteorological data, namely, observations, regional climate model output, and weather generator data. The different time series account for projected changes in the seasonality of temperature and precipitation, in the occurrence statistics of precipitation, and of daily precipitation extremes. Resulting change in mean AMF peak magnitudes and volumes differs in sign between the methods (range of ?6% to +7% for flood peak magnitudes and ?11% to +14% for flood volumes). Moreover, variability of projected peak magnitudes and flood volumes depends on method with one approach leading to a generally larger spread. The differences between the methods vary depending on whether peak magnitudes or flood volumes are considered and different relationships between peak magnitude and volume change result. These findings can be linked to differing flood regime changes among the three approaches. The study highlights that considering selected aspects of climate change only when performing scenario‐neutral studies may lead to differing representations of flood generating processes by the approaches and thus different quantifications of flood change. As each method comes with its own strengths and weaknesses, it is recommended to combine several scenario‐neutral approaches to obtain more robust results.     

Observations on the application of artificial neural network to predicting ground motion measures

Application of the artificial neural network (ANN) to predict pseudospectral acceleration or peak ground acceleration is explored in the study. The training of ANN model is carried out using feed-forward backpropagation method and about 600 records from 39 California earthquakes. The statistics of the residuals or modeling error for the trained ANN-based models are almost the same as those for the parametric ground motion prediction equations, derived through regression analysis; the residual or modeling error can be modeled as a normal variate. The similarity and differences between the predictions by these two approaches are shown. The trained ANN-based models, however, are not robust because the models with almost identical mean square errors do not always lead to the same predictions. This undesirable behaviour for predicting the ground motion measures has not been shown or discussed in the literature; the presented results, at least, serve to raise questions and caution on this problem. A practical approach to ameliorate this problem, perhaps, is to consider several trained ANN models, and to take the average of the predicted values from the trained ANN models as the predicted ground motion measure.     

基于广义帕累托分布的地震震级分布尾部特征分析

极值理论在地震危险性分析中有着重要应用, 发震震级超过某一阈值的超出量分布可以近似为广义帕累托分布. 基于广义帕累托分布给出了若干地震活动性参数的估计公式, 包括强震震级分布、 地震复发周期和重现水平、 期望重现震级、 地震危险性概率和潜在震级上限等; 以云南地区震级资料为基础数据, 讨论了阈值选取、 模型拟合诊断和参数估计; 在此基础上计算了该地区的地震活动性参数. 结果表明, 广义帕累托分布较好地刻画了强震震级分布, 通过超阈值(POT)模型计算的复发周期与实际复发间隔统计基本一致, 高分位数估计在一定阈值范围内表现稳定, 为工程抗震中潜在震级上限的确定提供了一种途径.      

Seismic response of multistoried buildings including the effects of soil-structure interaction

A simplified response spectrum superposition method has been generalized for the dynamic analysis of the multistoried building-soil response to earthquake ground motions via Fourier-transformed frequency domain. It involves the “scaling” of the Fourier amplitudes of the freefield translational and rocking motions to account for the soil-structure interaction effects, and then analyzing the building as fixed at the base. Envelopes of peak displacements, shear forces and overturning moments in the building are illustrated in terms of the order statistics of the response peaks.     

Non-stationary seismic response of MDOF systems by wavelet transform

A wavelet-based formulation has been presented in this paper for the stochastic analysis of a linear multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) classically damped system subjected to earthquake ground motion. The ground motion has been modelled as a non-stationary process (both in amplitude and frequency) using wavelets. Closed-form expressions of the moments of the instantaneous Power Spectral Density Function (PSDF) of the response have been derived and used to predict the statistics of the response peak of any desired order. For illustration of the formulation, an example torsionally coupled multistoried building has been considered along with the twenty synthetically generated time-histories corresponding to an example ground motion process. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Asymmetric X-ray diffraction peak of metamorphosed carbonaceous material

Abstract It was revealed that the asymmetric X-ray diffraction peak of metamorphosed carbonaceous material was a combination of two types of symmetric peaks from the coaly material and graphite crystallite. Numerical synthesis using the two symmetric peaks shows the graphitization process observed in a metamorphic sequence is accompanied by a continuous change of the peak shape and apparent interplanar spacing. Based on the analytical results and geological observations, it is suggested that graphitization of carbonaceous material consists of two processes: (i) the formation of graphite crystallites at the expense of the coaly material through the formation of transitional material and the increasing abundance of crystallites which is observed in the chlorite zone; and (ii) growth of crystallites forming well-ordered graphite, which occurs in the higher-grade zone.     

Comparison of automatic procedures for selecting flood peaks over threshold based on goodness‐of‐fit tests

In comparison with the traditional analysis of annual maximums, the peaks over threshold method provides many advantages when performing flood frequency analysis and trend analysis. However, the choice of the threshold remains an important question without definite answers and common visual diagnostic tools are difficult to reproduce on a large scale. This study investigates the behaviour of some automatic methods for threshold selection based on the generalized Pareto model for flood peak exceedances of the threshold and the Anderson–Darling test for fitting this model. In particular, the choice of a critical significance level to define an interval of acceptable values is addressed. First, automatic methods are investigated using a simulation study to assess fitting and prediction performance in a controlled environment. It is shown that P values approximated by an existing table of critical values can speed up computation without affecting the quality of the outcomes. Second, a case study compares automatically and manually selected thresholds for 285 sites across Canada by flood regime and super regions based on site characteristics. Correspondences are examined in terms of prediction of flood quantiles and trend analysis. Results show that trend detection is sensitive to the threshold selection method when studying the evolution of the number of peaks per year. Finally, a hybrid method is developed to combine automatic methods and is calibrated on the basis of super regions. The outcomes of the hybrid method are shown to more closely reproduce the estimates of the manually selected thresholds while reducing the model uncertainty.     

A distributed TOPMODEL for modelling impacts of land‐cover change on river flow in upland peatland catchments

There is global concern about headwater management and associated impacts on river flow. In many wet temperate zones peatlands can be found covering headwater catchments. In the UK there is major concern about how environmental change, driven by human interventions, has altered the surface cover of headwater blanket peatlands. However, the impact of such land‐cover changes on river flow is poorly understood. In particular, there is poor understanding of the impacts of different spatial configurations of bare peat or well‐vegetated, restored peat on river flow peaks in upland catchments. In this paper, a physically based, distributed and continuous catchment hydrological model was developed to explore such impacts. The original TOPMODEL, with its process representation being suitable for blanket peat catchments, was utilized as a prototype acting as the basis for the new model. The equations were downscaled from the catchment level to the cell level. The runoff produced by each cell is divided into subsurface flow and saturation‐excess overland flow before an overland flow calculation takes place. A new overland flow module with a set of detailed stochastic algorithms representing overland flow routing and re‐infiltration mechanisms was created to simulate saturation‐excess overland flow movement. The new model was tested in the Trout Beck catchment of the North Pennines of England and found to work well in this catchment. The influence of land cover on surface roughness could be explicitly represented in the model and the model was found to be sensitive to land cover. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

山东内陆及附近海域构造环境剪应力场的分布特征

利用山东数字地震台网二年多的地震记录资料,根据陈培善等用地震发生的断裂力学模式和震源谱理论,导出的震源处峰值加速度与构造环境剪应力值的关系,计算了山东内陆及附近海域发生的46次中小地震构造环境剪应力值,并对应力场的分布状况和时空变化进行了分析。