Effect of inertia nonlinearity on dynamic response of an asymmetric building equipped with tuned mass dampers

This study investigates the effect of nonlinear inertia on the dynamic response of an asymmetric building equipped with Tuned Mass Dampers (TMDs). In the field of structural engineering, many researchers have developed models to study the behavior of nonlinear TMDs, but the effect of nonlinear inertia has not received as much attention for asymmetric buildings. To consider nonlinear inertia, the equations of motion are derived in a local rotary coordinates system. The displacements and rotations of the modeled building and TMDs are defined by five-degree-of-freedom (5-DOFs). The equations of motion are derived by using the Lagrangian method. Also in the proposed nonlinear model, the equations of motion are different from a conventional linear model. In order to compare the response of the proposed nonlinear model and a conventional linear model, numerical examples are presented and the response of the modeled buildings are derived under harmonic and earthquake excitations. It is shown that if the nonlinear inertia is considered, the response of the modeled structures changes and the conventional linear approach cannot adequately model the dynamic behavior of the asymmetric buildings which are equipped with TMDs.     

A fast joint seismic data reconstruction by sparsity‐promoting inversion

Seismic field data are often irregularly or coarsely sampled in space due to acquisition limits. However, complete and regular data need to be acquired in most conventional seismic processing and imaging algorithms. We have developed a fast joint curvelet‐domain seismic data reconstruction method by sparsity‐promoting inversion based on compressive sensing. We have made an attempt to seek a sparse representation of incomplete seismic data by curvelet coefficients and solve sparsity‐promoting problems through an iterative thresholding process to reconstruct the missing data. In conventional iterative thresholding algorithms, the updated reconstruction result of each iteration is obtained by adding the gradient to the previous result and thresholding it. The algorithm is stable and accurate but always requires sufficient iterations. The linearised Bregman method can accelerate the convergence by replacing the previous result with that before thresholding, thus promoting the effective coefficients added to the result. The method is faster than conventional one, but it can cause artefacts near the missing traces while reconstructing small‐amplitude coefficients because some coefficients in the unthresholded results wrongly represent the residual of the data. The key process in the joint curvelet‐domain reconstruction method is that we use both the previous results of the conventional method and the linearised Bregman method to stabilise the reconstruction quality and accelerate the recovery for a while. The acceleration rate is controlled through weighting to adjust the contribution of the acceleration term and the stable term. A fierce acceleration could be performed for the recovery of comparatively small gaps, whereas a mild acceleration is more appropriate when the incomplete data has a large gap of high‐amplitude events. Finally, we carry out a fast and stable recovery using the trade‐off algorithm. Synthetic and field data tests verified that the joint curvelet‐domain reconstruction method can effectively and quickly reconstruct seismic data with missing traces.     

Evaluation of Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) for Water Quality Monitoring: A Case Study for the Estimation of Salinity

Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) dataset have been used to estimate salinity in the coastal area of Hong Kong. Four adjacent Landsat TM images were used in this study, which was atmospherically corrected using the Second Simulation of the Satellite Signal in the Solar Spectrum (6S) radiative transfer code. The atmospherically corrected images were further used to develop models for salinity using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) based on in situ data of October 2009. Results show that the coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.42 between the OLS estimated and in situ measured salinity is much lower than that of the GWR model, which is two times higher (R² = 0.86). It indicates that the GWR model has more ability than the OLS regression model to predict salinity and show its spatial heterogeneity better. It was observed that the salinity was high in Deep Bay (north-western part of Hong Kong) which might be due to the industrial waste disposal, whereas the salinity was estimated to be constant (32 practical salinity units) towards the open sea.     

Monitoring of dust storm and estimation of aerosol concentration in the Middle East using remotely sensed images

Arabian Journal of Geosciences - Dust storms are one of the major environmental disasters in the arid regions of Middle East, occurring in very high frequency. As a result, monitoring dust storms...     

Initiation and evolution of fault-controlled slope-parallel submarine channels: Miocene eastern slope of Yinggehai Basin,South China Sea

Submarine channels act as the main conduits for the transport of sediment to deep-water basins by sediment gravity flows. The interplay between fault-related deformation and the initiation and development of the channels is poorly known. Here, we present the identification, formation and evolution of the Miocene slope-parallel channel by employing 3D seismic reflection, wireline-log and core data in the eastern slope of Yinggehai Basin, South China Sea. Based on the lengths and plan-view shapes, a total of three different types of fault-associated slope-parallel depressions have been identified. The depressions were formed in the fault zone and controlled by the reactivation of the underlying older faults. Among them, Type-1 depressions are short (<20 km) oval or circle shaped possessing only one depocenter. Type-2 depressions are elongated (25–70 km), and usually have multiple depocenters. Type-3 depressions, which are usually connected by slope-perpendicular channels in the head and middle, are longer (more than 190 km) and connect shallow and deep-water basins. The analysis of morphology, erosivity and material transport shows that Type-3 depressions are fully fledged channels. Type-1 and Type-2 depressions are channel precursors representing the initial stage of channel evolution. With this motive, a model for the initiation and evolution of slope-parallel submarine channels controlled by strike-slip-extensional faults is presented. Unlike the previous investigations which suggest that erosion takes place at the inception of submarine channel formation, the fault-controlled slope-parallel channel is mainly controlled by faulting and has no initial erosive base and does not develop levees. The depressions are extended and elongated by the continuous fault activity. It was not until the slope-parallel depression connected with large-scale slope-perpendicular channels transporting materials into the depression via erosive turbidity currents that it evolved into a channel-levee system. This study is of global importance for understanding submarine channel generation and evolution since the fault-controlled slope-parallel channels have been found in tectonic active basins worldwide.     

A New Framework for Solving the Spatial Network Problems Based on Line Graphs

In this article we define inverse line graphs of directed graphs as a new framework for solving some classical network analysis problems. The extraction method and theories of inverse line graphs are explained in this article. It is shown that by changing the analysis space from the original directed graph to the inverse line graph, complex problems can be changed into simpler problems. We show the usefulness of the proposed framework in two particular applications: shortest path computations and the more general route planning. Considering the implementation result, we expect that this framework could be used in many more network analysis problems.     

The effect of the Zagros Mountains on the formation and maintenance of the Iran Anticyclone using RegCM4

Iran anticyclone is one of the main features of the summer circulation over the Middle East in the middle and upper troposphere. To examine the effect of the Zagros Mountains on the formation and maintenance of the Iran anticyclone, an experiment was conducted by Regional Climate Model (RegCM4) in an area between 22°?C44°N and 35°?C70°E with a 40?km horizontal grid spacing. The NCEP/NCAR re-analysis data set were used to provide the initial and lateral boundary conditions in a control run and in a simulation run by removing the Zagros Mountains. The result reveals that the Zagros Mountains have an important effect on the formation and maintenance of the low-level cyclonic circulation and mid-level anticyclonic circulation in summer. Examining the diabatic heating shows that the elimination of the Zagros Mountains causes a significant change in the heating values and its spatial distributions over the study area. Comparing the diabatic heating terms, the vertical advection term has the main contribution to the total heating. In the absence of the Zagros Mountains, the vertical advection and the mid-troposphere anticyclonic circulation are apparently weak and, therefore, the Iran subtropical anticyclone vanishes over the west of Iran. The study indicates that the Zagros Mountains as an elevated heat source have the main impact in the formation of a thermally driven circulation over the Middle East.     

Relationships between magnetic susceptibility and heavy metals in urban topsoils in the arid region of Isfahan, central Iran

Electromagnetic induction (EMI) method results are shown for vertical magnetic dipole (VMD) configuration by using the EM38 equipment. Performance in the location of metallic pipes and electrical cables is compared as a function of instrumental drift correction by linear and quadratic adjusting under controlled conditions. Metallic pipes and electrical cables are buried at the IAG/USP shallow geophysical test site in São Paulo City, Brazil. Results show that apparent electrical conductivity and magnetic susceptibility data were affected by ambient temperature variation. In order to obtain better contrast between background and metallic targets it was necessary to correct the drift. This correction was accomplished by using linear and quadratic relation between conductivity/susceptibility and temperature intending comparative studies. The correction of temperature drift by using a quadratic relation was effective, showing that all metallic targets were located as well deeper targets were also improved.