A review of research on seismic behaviour of irregular building structures since 2002

The paper presents an overview of the progress in research regarding seismic response of plan and vertically irregular building structures. Three areas of research are surveyed. The first is the study of the effects of plan-irregularity by means of single-storey and multi-storey building models. The second area encompasses passive control as a strategy to mitigate torsional effects, by means of base isolation and other types of devices. Lastly, the third area concerns vertically irregular structures and setback buildings. Although fewer papers have been published in this last area with respect to the former ones, this state-of-the-art reports extensively on research efforts and progress into the seismic behaviour of irregular buildings in elevation to show the growing interest among specialists in the field.     

PRELIMINARY STUDY ON THE FLOODING AND DROUGHT CLAMITY DURING PAST 1500 YEARS IN THE HAI′AN REGION，JIANGSU PROVINCE

Collection and arrangement of the historical records of climatic changes and environment evolution,espectial-lyin the aspect of calamities,are made on the history documents of past 1500 years about Haiˊan region,Jiangsu Province.There existed two obvious flooding-drought frequently-occurring periods:one was from 1550 AD to 1850 AD and another was 100 AD to 1200AD.The period of 1550 AD to1850 AD is interrupted by two relatively arid and cold climatic periods:one was from 1630 AD to 1700 AD and another was 1750 AD to 1820 AD.The main characteristic of the calamity periods is that they occurred by turns,and sometimes,both drought and flooding occurred in the same year.The instability of the climatic changes in the Little Ice Age may be the main reason of the frequently-occurring flooding and drought in Haiˊan region.Research results also show that the frequently-occurring periods of flooding and drought is in close relationship with the solar activity,and therefore,occurrence of the flooding and drought may be in relation with the intensity of the solar activity.This hypothesis may need further study in the future.     

APPLICATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL PARAMETER DATABASE TO ESTABLISHMENT OF UNIT POPULATION DATABASE

Now GIS is turning into a good tool in handling geographical, economical, and population data, so we can obtain more and more information from these data. On the other hand, in some cases, for a calamity, such as hurricane, earthquake, flood, drought etc., or a decision-making, such as setting up a broadcasting transmitter, building a chemical plant etc., we have to evaluate the total population in the region influenced by a calamity or a project. In this paper, a method is put forward to evaluate the population in such special region. Through exploring the correlation of geographical parameters and the distribution of people in the same region by means of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis, unit population database (1km× 1km) is established. In this way, estimating the number of people in a special region is capable by adding up the population in every grid involved in this region boundary. The geographical parameters are obtained from topographic database and DEM database on the scale of     

CARBON DYNAMICS OF WETLAND IN THE SANJIANG PLAIN

1INTRODUCTIONWetlandsplayanimportant roleintheprocessofcar-bonstorage.Thetotalcarbonstoredindifferentkindsofwetlandsisabout15%-35%ofthetotalcarboninthegloballandsoils(POSTetal.,1982;GORHAM,1991).Inaddition,wetlandsaresignificantnaturalsources fortheatmospheric CH4 (MOORE,1994).It isestimatedthatabout110×1012gCH4 originates fromanaerobicdecompositioninthenaturalwetlands,CH4 emission fromthenaturalwetlandsis15%-30%oftheglobalCH4 emission andtheCH4 emission from thepeat land at hi…     

Accuracy Assessment of Digital Elevation Model Generated by SAR Stereoscopic Technique Using COSMO-Skymed Data

Radargrammetry technique using the stereoscopic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images is used for the generation of a digital elevation model (DEM) of a region requires only the amplitude images. SAR stereoscopic technique is analogous to the stereo-photogrammetric technique where the optical stereoscopic images are used for DEM generation. While the advantages of the SAR images are their indifference to atmospheric transparency and solar illumination conditions, the side-looking geometry of the SAR increases the complexity in the SAR stereo analysis. The availability of high spatial and temporal resolution SAR data in recent years has facilitated generation of high-resolution DEM with greater vertical accuracy using radargrammetric technique. In the present study, attempt has been made to generate the DEM of Dehra Dun region, India, from the COSMO-Skymed X-band SAR data-pair acquired at 8 days interval through the radargrammetry technique. Here, radargrammetric orientation approach has been adopted to generate the DEM and various issues and processing steps with the radargrammetry technique have been discussed. The DEM was validated with ground measured elevation values using a differential global positioning system and the root-mean-square error of the DEM was found as 7.3 m. The DEM was compared with the reference DEM of the study area generated from the Cartosat-1 stereo data with a model accuracy of 4 m.     

Mechanical behavior and micro-structure of cement kiln dust-stabilized expensive soil

In this study, the effects of cement kiln dust (CKD) on the swelling properties, strength properties, and microstructures of CKD-stabilized expansive soil were investigated. Samples were prepared and stabilized with different CKD content ratios, ranging from 0 to 18% by dry mass. The results obtained show that the maximum swelling pressures decrease exponentially with increases in CKD content. Both the cohesion and unconfined compressive strength (UCS) increase at ratios below 10% CKD and then decrease slightly, above that ratio. CKD can also improve the strength of saturated, expansive soil. There is no visible change of UCS for soil without CKD when cured, while the UCS of a sample with 10% CKD content after curing for 90 days is higher than that after curing for only 1 day. This indicates that CKD can improve the long-term strength of expansive soil. Finally, microstructure analysis reveals that the addition of CKD reduces the montmorillonite content of expansive soil and decreases its swelling properties. The addition of CKD also changes the pore volume distribution, both the size and amount of macro-pores and micro-pores decrease with increase in CKD content. For saturated samples, the size of macro-pores is obviously reduced, while that of micro-pores is slightly increased for both treated and untreated soils. Hydration and saturation processes make the soil structure become dispersive which results in a lower strength, and adding CKD can restrain this process. The suggested optimal CKD content is between 10 and 14% and with a curing time of more than 27 days.     

A review of the metallogeny and tectonics of the Lachlan Orogen

Future mineral exploration within eastern Australia will be enhanced by resolving the tectonic evolution of the Lachlan Orogen to establish the spatial and temporal terrane distribution of the various mineral deposits. The Lachlan Orogen, from north-eastern Tasmania through to central and eastern New South Wales, is host to a number of major mineral deposit styles—including orogenic gold (e.g. Stawell, Ballarat, Bendigo), volcanic-hosted massive sulphide (e.g. Woodlawn, Currawong), sediment-hosted Cu–Au (e.g. Cobar Basin deposits), porphyry Au–Cu (e.g. Cadia, Parkes, Cowal) and granite-related Sn (e.g. Ardlethan, Beechworth). Each of these mineral deposit styles is a sensitive and diagnostic indicator of the prevalent tectonic environment during their formation. In this review, we briefly summarise the deposit- to large-scale factors that define the diverse metallogenic evolution of the Lachlan Orogen. This overview is intended to “set the scene” for subsequent specialist papers published in this thematic issue on the metallogeny and tectonics of the Lachlan Orogen in south-east Australia.     

Biomarkers in the Molar Tooth （MT）-Bearing Limestones in the Jilin-Liaoning Area of China

The origin of Molar Tooth (MT) carbonates has been argued for more than 100 years, which are a kind of Proterozoic carbonates especially composed of microsparite with ptygmatically folded and sheet-like structures. Biomarkers detected in the microcalcsparite from the Wanlong and Xingmincun formations in the Jilin-Liaoning area showed there are abundant normal alkanes, isoprenoids, hopanes, steranes, alkylmethylcyclohexanes, and alkyleyclohexanes, indicating a diversity of biological source: long-chain isoprenoids, the major components of chlorophyll, such as C19, C20, a kind of major biomarkers synthesized early by isoprenoid monomers; hopanes a type of characteristic biomarkers from prokaryote, such as archaebacteria and cyanobacteria; sterane a biomarker for eukaryote; and two kinds of alkanes with C17, C18 as the main peaks representing aquatic bacteria and with C23, C24 as the main peaks representing fungi, respectively. Biomarker analysis showed that MT is the result of bacterial and algal activities, which is a kind of organisms between aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, reproducing well in normal or slightly saline sea water under weak oxidation-reduction conditions, resulting in rapid deposition of calcite as microsparite clue to some mechanisms.     

Geochemistry and genotoxicity of the heavy metals in mine-abandoned areas and wasteland in the Hetai goldfields,Guangdong Province,China

The article presents the geochemical and biogeochemical characteristics of heavy metal elements within the soil–plant system in the Hetai mine-abandoned areas and wasteland, China. The cytogenetic toxic effects of gold mine wastelands environment on the chromosome and micronucleus were analyzed by genetic methods. The results showed that abundances of Au and Au-associated heavy metal elements such as Cu, As, Cd, Pb and Hg in soils, plants and the pigments in those abandoned mine areas were much higher than those in the background region. The cell structures of the plants in the abandoned mine areas were anomalous and aberrant, and there were many nano-metal particles diffused in the cells. Moreover, the heavy metal elements in those abandoned mine areas had entered the ultrastructure and caused toxicities to the organism.     

井中地震用于陆相储层分析的几项技术

中国陆相储层分布广泛，类型复杂，横向变化大，勘探开发成本高，进行储层分析要求采用高新技术和综合利用多种方法。本文总结了在我国几个油区进行陆相储层分析的几项地震技术即：垂直地震剖面（ＶＳＰ）技术，多偏移距和井间层析成象技术以及多参数分析和综合解释技术，在适应我国经济发展的水平和现状的条件下，用以解决我国复杂的陆相油气储层分析的问题。