Evidence of beneficial role of inclined piles: observations and summary of numerical analyses

The behaviour under seismic loading of inclined piles embedded in two idealized soil profiles, a homogeneous and a non-homogenous “Gibson” soil, is analysed with 3D finite elements. Two structures, modeled as single-degree-of-freedom oscillators, are studied: (1) a tall slender superstructure (H _st = 12 m) whose crucial loading is the overturning moment, and (2) a short structure (H _st = 1 m) whose crucial loading is the shear force. Three simple two-pile group are studied: (a) one comprising a vertical pile and a pile inclined at 25°, (b) one consisting of two piles symmetrically inclined at 25°, and (c) a group of two vertical piles. The influence of key parameters is analysed and non-dimensional diagrams are presented to illustrate the role of raked piles on pile and structure response. It is shown that this role can be beneficial or detrimental depending on a number of factors, including the slenderness of the superstructure and the type of pile-to-cap connection.     

Intrinsic Qp seismic attenuation from the rise time of microearthquakes: a local scale application at Rio‐Antirrio,Western Greece

We determine the attenuation structure of a three‐dimensional medium based on first pulse‐width measurements from microearthquake data. Ninety‐five microearthquakes from a seventy stations local network were considered in this study. Measurements of the first half cycle of the wave, the so‐called rise time τ were carried out on high quality velocity seismograms and inverted to estimate the P‐waves intrinsic quality factor Q_p. The results of this investigation indicate that first pulse width data from a local microearthquake network permit retrieval with sufficient accuracy of the heterogeneous Q_p structure. The inferred attenuation variability corresponds to the known geological formations in the region.     

Statistical correlation of earthquake and ambient noise spectral ratios

The Horizontal-to-Vertical Spectral Ratio from earthquake (HVSR) and from ambient noise (HVN) recordings realistically indicate the fundamental frequency of soil response but, for the majority of the worldwide examined sites, they do not provide reliable amplification curves as calculated by the earthquake standard Spectral Ratio (SSR). Given the fact that HVSR and especially HVN can be easily obtained, it is challenging to search for a meaningful correlation with SSR amplification functions for the entire frequency band and to use the results for the SSR estimate at a further site where only noise measurements are available. To this aim we used recordings from 75 sites worldwide and we applied a multivariate statistical approach (canonical correlation analysis) to investigate and quantify any correlation among spectral ratios. The canonical correlation between SSR and HVN is then used to estimate the expected SSR at each site by a weighted average of the SSR values measured at the other sites; the weights are properly set to account more for sites with similar behaviour in terms of the canonical correlation results between HVN and SSR. This procedure, repeated for all sites in turn, constitutes the basis of a cross validation. The comparison between the inferred and the original SSR highlights the improvements of site response estimation with respect to the use of ambient noise techniques. The goodness and limitations of the reconstruction procedure are explained by specific geological settings.     

Geochemical processes and sedimentological characteristics of Holocene lagoon deposits,Alikes Lagoon,Zakynthos Island,western Greece

In this paper we present sedimentological, geochemical, mineralogical and ¹⁴C Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating data of a 21.0‐m core obtained from Alikes Lagoon, Zakynthos Island. It is the first time that sedimentological and geochemical data are presented, up to 21‐m depth, from an Holocene coastal lagoon environment of the Ionia Sea, western Greece. The sedimentological properties and the geochemical composition of sediments were studied for the time period between 8540 years bp to present. Samples were analysed for their particle size, calcium carbonate and total organic carbon (TOC) content. Moreover, bulk sample chemical analyses for major and trace elements were carried out, as well as bulk, oriented mineralogical analyses for the clay fraction (<2 µm) were determined by powder X‐Ray diffraction. The grain size characteristics, statistical parameters and TOC, for the Holocene analysed samples, suggest a coastal environment (restricted‐shallow) with reduced salinity such as a tidal flat and/or particularly marsh in a lagoon margin. Sediment characteristics as well as trace element records may contain additional new palaeoclimate information that provide important new constraint on sediment depositional environment and Holocene climate. Stratigraphic variation of geochemical indices, such as Rb/Ti, Cs/Ti, Eu/Eu*, Th/Ti, La/Ti, Ta/Ti, Yb/Ti and Y/Ti, for the sediments with ages from 8540 to 7210 years bp , remain relatively constant indicating that the provenance of the Alikes Lagoon remained similar throughout the mid Holocene. However, geochemical indices in sediments with ages from 7110 years bp to present, indicate the transition from a warm and wet climate in the middle Holocene to a relatively cold climatic conditions in modern times. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Efficient execution of the WRF model and other HPC applications in the cloud

There are many scientific applications that have high performance computing (HPC) demands. Such demands are traditionally supported by cluster- or Grid-based systems. Cloud computing, which has experienced a tremendous growth, emerged as an approach to provide on-demand access to computing resources. The cloud computing paradigm offers a number of advantages over other distributed platforms. For example, the access to resources is flexible and cost-effective since it is not necessary to invest a large amount of money on a computing infrastructure nor pay salaries for maintenance functions. Therefore, the possibility of using cloud computing for running high performance computing applications is attractive. However, it has been shown elsewhere that current cloud computing platforms are not suitable for running some of these kinds of applications since the performance offered is very poor. The reason is mainly the overhead from virtualisation which is extensively used by most cloud computing platforms as a means to optimise resource usage. Furthermore, running HPC applications in current cloud platforms is a complex task that in many cases requires configuring a cluster of virtual machines (VMs). In this paper, we present a lightweight virtualisation approach for efficiently running the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model (a computing- and communication-intensive application) in a cloud computing environment. Our approach also provides a higher-level programming model that automates the process of configuring a cluster of VMs. We assume such a cloud environment can be shared with other types of HPC applications such as mpiBLAST (an embarrassingly parallel application), and MiniFE (a memory-intensive application). Our experimental results show that lightweight virtualisation imposes about 5 % overhead and it substantially outperforms traditional heavyweight virtualisation such as KVM.     

Storm graded sand at 200 m water depth,Scotian Shelf,Eastern Canada

Graded sand-to-mud beds are a common shelf facies in the rock record. Similar beds were studied in nine cores from the sandmud transition at the edge of Emerald Basin to determine their frequency and mode of origin. Graded sand-to-mud beds 5 to 20 cm thick can be correlated between cores and thicken basinwards, with average sand content decreasing from 60% to 5% over 7 km. European weed pollen distribution indicates only the top bed is less than 200 years old. The graded beds were deposited from suspension during storms with a several hundred year recurrence interval.     

Hydrocarbon potential of the middle Eocene-middle Miocene Mesohellenic piggy-back basin (central Greece): A case study

Two depocentres, >4200 m and >3200 m thick, have been recognized in the Mesohellenic piggy-back basin of middle Eocene to middle Miocene age, where submarine fans have accumulated unconformably over an ophiolite complex. The hydrocarbon potential is indicated by the presence of kerogen types II/III with minor amounts of type I; the evidence is mostly for wet gas and gas, with minor oil. Source rocks are the middle Eocene to lower Oligocene Krania and Eptachori formations, of up to 2000 m total thickness, reaching maturation during the early Miocene. The source rocks consist of outer fan and basin plain deposits. They are conformably overlain by the lower member (late Oligocene) of the up to 2600 m thick Pentalophos Formation, which consists mostly of thick submarine sandstone lobes. Possible stratigraphically trapped reservoirs include the lower member of the Pentalophos Formation, which overlies source rocks, as well as limestones tectonically intercalated within the ophiolite complex, underlying the source rocks. Traps may have formed also on the western side of an internal thrust (Theotokos Thrust), which influenced the evolution of the depocentres.     

A forward/backward principal component analysis of Landsat-7 ETM+ data to enhance the spectral signal of burnt surfaces

In this paper, principal component analysis (PCA), a dimensionality reduction method, has been applied successfully as an image enhancement technique to improve the spectral signal of burnt surfaces. Forward/backward PCA (F/B PCA) and image differencing, which the proposed method consists of, creates a new spectral space that preserves the original spectral patterns while enhancing particular structures of the original satellite data. Burnt surfaces constitute a spectrally enhanced feature after selective removal of spectral information from the original Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper data.Improvement of the spectral separability of burnt surfaces is most evident in spectral channels ETM+4 and ETM+7, where burnt surfaces already compose distinct spectral objects, and channels ETM+2 and ETM+5. This improvement is reasonable since the third PC axis, which is not considered in the back-transformation, is composed mainly of the spectral information in these channels. Another benefit of the technique is a reduction of interband correlation in the satellite data.No clear differences between the standardized and non-standardized F/B PCA were identified to recommend the use of one over the other. Both methods show advances in certain aspects. Finally, an increase of the separability value between burnt areas and dry vegetated areas from 0.473 to 1.06 and 1.31 was obtained with the use of the standardized and non-standardized F/B PCA, respectively.     

Seismic design of RC structures: A critical assessment in the framework of multi‐objective optimization

The assessment of seismic design codes has been the subject of intensive research work in an effort to reveal weak points that originated from the limitations in predicting with acceptable precision the response of the structures under moderate or severe earthquakes. The objective of this work is to evaluate the European seismic design code, i.e. the Eurocode 8 (EC8), when used for the design of 3D reinforced concrete buildings, versus a performance‐based design (PBD) procedure, in the framework of a multi‐objective optimization concept. The initial construction cost and the maximum interstorey drift for the 10/50 hazard level are the two objectives considered for the formulation of the multi‐objective optimization problem. The solution of such optimization problems is represented by the Pareto front curve which is the geometric locus of all Pareto optimum solutions. Limit‐state fragility curves for selected designs, taken from the Pareto front curves of the EC8 and PBD formulations, are developed for assessing the two seismic design procedures. Through this comparison it was found that a linear analysis in conjunction with the behaviour factor q of EC8 cannot capture the nonlinear behaviour of an RC structure. Consequently the corrected EC8 Pareto front curve, using the nonlinear static procedure, differs significantly with regard to the corresponding Pareto front obtained according to EC8. Furthermore, similar designs, with respect to the initial construction cost, obtained through the EC8 and PBD formulations were found to exhibit different maximum interstorey drift and limit‐state fragility curves. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.