Empirical assessment of rockfall and debris flow risk along the Karakoram Highway,Pakistan

Natural Hazards - The Karakoram Highway links north Pakistan with southwest China. It passes through unique geomorphological, geological and tectonic setting. This study focused 200-km-long section...     

Investigation of Failed Slopes Based on a New Method of Back Analysis in Rock Masses: A Case Study

Geotechnical and Geological Engineering - Small variation in shear strength parameters results in remarkable changes in the safety factor (SF) of a rock slope. In this regard, rock mass strength of...     

APG:A novel python-based ArcGIS toolbox to generate absence-datasets for geospatial studies

One important step in binary modeling of environmental problems is the generation of absence-datasets that are traditionally generated by random sampling and can undermine the quality of outputs.To solve this problem,this study develops the Absence Point Generation(APG)toolbox which is a Python-based ArcGIS toolbox for automated construction of absence-datasets for geospatial studies.The APG employs a frequency ratio analysis of four commonly used and important driving factors such as altitude,slope degree,topographic wetness index,and distance from rivers,and considers the presence locations buffer and density layers to define the low potential or susceptibility zones where absence-datasets are gener-ated.To test the APG toolbox,we applied two benchmark algorithms of random forest(RF)and boosted regression trees(BRT)in a case study to investigate groundwater potential using three absence datasets i.e.,the APG,random,and selection of absence samples(SAS)toolbox.The BRT-APG and RF-APG had the area under receiver operating curve(AUC)values of 0.947 and 0.942,while BRT and RF had weaker per-formances with the SAS and Random datasets.This effect resulted in AUC improvements for BRT and RF by 7.2,and 9.7％from the Random dataset,and AUC improvements for BRT and RF by 6.1,and 5.4％from the SAS dataset,respectively.The APG also impacted the importance of the input factors and the pattern of the groundwater potential maps,which proves the importance of absence points in environmental bin-ary issues.The proposed APG toolbox could be easily applied in other environmental hazards such as landslides,floods,and gully erosion,and land subsidence.     

An effective stress-based DSC model for predicting the coefficient of lateral soil pressure in unsaturated soils

Acta Geotechnica - In this study, an analytical model is developed to establish a framework for predicting the coefficient of lateral soil pressure in unsaturated soils. To this end, the disturbed...     

Geochemical Prospectivity Mapping Through a Feature Extraction–Selection Classification Scheme

Natural Resources Research - Machine learning (ML) schemes can enhance success in geochemical prospectivity mapping. This study has examined the effectiveness of several feature extraction or...     

A study of crude oil‐degrading bacteria from mangrove forests in the Persian Gulf

Mangroves are coastal ecosystems, found in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. They are found in the transitional zones between land, sea, and rivers. Petroleum hydrocarbons are the most common environmental pollutants, and oil spills pose a great hazard to mangroves forests. This research was focused on the isolation and characterization of crude oil‐degrading bacteria from mangrove ecosystems at the Persian Gulf. Sixty‐one crude oil‐degrading bacteria were isolated from mangrove samples (plant, sediment, and seawater) that enriched in ONR7a medium with crude oil as only carbon source. Some screening tests such as growth at high concentration of crude oil, bioemulsifier production, and surface hydrophobicity were done to select the most efficient strains for crude oil degradation. Molecular identification of strains was carried out by amplification of the 16S rRNA gene by PCR. The results of this study were indicated that the quantity of crude oil‐degrading bacteria was higher in the root of mangrove plants compare to other mangrove samples (sediment and seawater). Also, identification results confirmed that these isolated strains belong to Vibrio sp. strain NW4, Idiomarina sp. strain BW32, Kangiella sp. strain DP40, Marinobacter sp. strain DW44, Halomonas sp. strain BS53, and Vibrio sp. strain DS35. The application of bioremediation strategies with these bacteria can reduce crude oil pollution in this important marine environment.     

Isolation, distribution and evaluation of cytotoxic and antioxidant activity of cultivable actinobacteria from the Oman Sea sediments

Screening bioactive natural products from bacteria is a determinative step in the drug discovery programs. The present study aim to isolate actinobacteria from the Oman Sea sediments for determining the effects of different culture media and treatments on the yield of the isolation process, and measure the DPPH radical scavenging and Artemia cytotoxic activity of culture extracts of the actinobacterial isolates. A total of 290 actinobacterial isolates were collected from 14 sediment samples. Heat treatment(40.68%) and M_4 medium(29.31%) exhibited the maximum isolation rates of actinobacteria. Streptomyces isolates were dominantly distributed in all of the investigated stations according to 16 S rRNA gene sequencing. The distribution pattern of Streptomyces followed a depth-dependent frequency trend, whereas the members of rare genera including Micromonospora, Nocardia Actinoplanes, Nocardiopsis, Saccharopolyspora and Crossiella were distributed in deeper stations. Approximately,25% of the examined isolates could scavenge 90% of 10~(–4) mol/L DPPH solutions at 1 250 μg/mL final concentration of their ethyl acetate culture extracts. Furthermore, the most potent extracts could scavenge DPPH radicals with IC50 ranges from 356.8 to 566.4 μg/mL. Brine shrimp cytotoxicity tests showed that 38.88% of the examined culture extracts exhibited LC_(50) lower than 1 000 μg/mL against the Artemia cells. Moreover, the most potent culture extracts exhibited LC_(50) range from 335.4 to 534.4 μg/mL. Phylogenetic analysis by 16 S rRNA gene sequence revealed that the OS 005, OS 263 and OS 157 closely related to Streptomyces djakartensis, Streptomyces olivaceus and Nocardiopsis dassonvillei respectively. These results suggested the widespread distribution of the antioxidant and cytotoxic producing actinobacteria in the Oman Sea sediments, which could be considered as promising candidates for the discovery of microbial bioactive compounds.     

Statistical analysis of surface urban heat island intensity variations: A case study of Babol city,Iran

The urban heat island is considered as one of the most important climate change phenomena in urban areas, which can result in remarkable negative effects on flora, concentration of pollutants, air quality, energy and water consumption, human health, ecological and economic impacts, and even on global warming. The variation analysis of the surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) is important for understanding the effect of urbanization and urban planning. The objective of this study was to present a new strategy based on the Shannon’s entropy and Pearson chi-square statistic to investigate the spatial and temporal variations of the SUHII. In this study, Landsat TM, ETM+, OLI and TIRS images, MODIS products, meteorological data, topographic and population maps of the Babol city, Iran, from 1985 to 2017, and air temperature data recorded by ground recorder devices in 2017 were used. First, Single-Channel algorithm was used to estimate land surface temperature (LST), and the maximum likelihood classifier was employed to classify Landsat images. Then, based on LST maps, surface urban heat island ratio index was employed to calculate the SUHII. Further, several statistical methods, such as the degree-of-freedom, degree-of-sprawl and degree-of-goodness, were used to analyse the SUHII variation along different geographic directions and in various time periods. Finally, correlation between various parameters such as air temperature, SUHII, population variation and degree-of-goodness index values were investigated. The results indicated that the SUHII value increased by 24% in Babol over different time periods. The correlation coefficient yielded 0.82 between the values of the difference between the mean air temperature of the urban and suburbs and the SUHII values for the geographic directions. Furthermore, the correlation coefficient between the population variation and the degree-of-goodness index values reached 0.8. The results suggested that the SUHII variation of Babol city had a high degree-of-freedom, high degree-of-sprawl and negative degree-of-goodness.     

Direct CPT and CPTu methods for determining bearing capacity of helical piles

Helical piles are structural deep foundation elements, which can be categorized as torque-driven piles without any limitations to implement in marine situations. Different methods are used to predict the axial capacity of helical piles, such as static analysis, but have some limitation for this type of piles on marine conditions. In situ testing methods as supplement of static analysis have been rarely used for helical piles. In geotechnical engineering practice, the most common in situ tests particularly applicable for coastal or offshore site investigation are cone penetration test (CPT) and piezocone penetration test (CPTu). The CPT is simple, repeatable, and prepares the continuous records of soil layers. In this paper, a data bank has been compiled by collecting the results of static pile load tests on thirty-seven helical piles in ten different sites including CPT or CPTu data. Axial capacities of thirty-seven helical piles in different sites were predicted by direct CPT methods and static analysis. Accuracy estimation of ten direct CPT methods to predict the axial capacity of helical piles was investigated in this study. Comparisons have been made among predicted values and measured capacity from the pile load tests. Results indicated that the recently developed methods such as NGI-05 (2005), ICP-05 (2005), and UWA-05 (2005) predicted axial capacity of helical piles more accurately than the other methods such as Meyerhof (1983), Schmertmann (1978), Dutch (1979), LCPC (1982), or Unicone (1997). However, more investigations are required to establish better correlation between CPT data and axial capacity of helical piles.     

Limit states and failure mechanisms of viscous dampers and the implications for large earthquakes

Fluid viscous dampers are used to control story drifts and member forces in structures during earthquake events. These elements provide satisfactory performance at the design‐level or maximum considered earthquake. However, buildings using fluid viscous dampers have not been subjected to very large earthquakes with intensities greater than the design and maximum considered events. Furthermore, an extensive database of viscous damper performance during large seismic events does not exist. To address these issues, a comprehensive analytical and experimental investigation was conducted to determine the performance of damped structures subjected to large earthquakes. A critical component of this research was the development and verification of a detailed viscous damper mathematical model that incorporates limit states. The development of this model and the laboratory and simulation results conclude good correlation with the new model and the damper limit states and provide superior results compared with the typical damper model when considering near collapse evaluation of structures. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.