Expansion of the Nishinomiya Built Environment Database

The Nishinomiya Built Environment Database, which can be used to analyze the disaster process of the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster in Nishinomiya City, has been expanded with new data entries. The database contains the following very detailed datasets: (1) the urbanization area base map, (2) casualty data, (3) three sets of building damage data surveyed by the Nishinomiya City, the Architectural Institute of Japan and the City Planning Institute of Japan, and the Kobe University, (4) building property data based on the real estate tax roll, (5) photographs of the damaged buildings with the information on the place and orientation of the picture, and (6) the estimated distribution of the seismic ground motion. The seismic ground motion was simulated for the southern part of Nishinomiya City and two verification sites in Kobe City and Amagasaki City. In the simulation, the borehole data of public facilities were used to model the surface soils as one-dimensional layers, taking into consideration the fact that the spatial distribution of the sediment/basement interface forms a slope. The model of the fault rupture process simulated the characteristics of the seismic motion at basement level, and amplification effects of the surface layers were evaluated based on multiple reflection theory. The distribution of peak ground acceleration and peak ground velocity was estimated from acceleration response spectra at each borehole point. In addition, the relationship between simulated seismic ground motion and building damage was studied based on newly proposed band-passed spectrum intensity using the expanded database. This confirmed that detailed categorization is necessary in order to evaluate the fragility functions, especially for reinforced concrete structures. The database should provide fundamental information for identifying the relationship between the ground motions and the extent and pattern of building damage, or the pattern of the occurrence of casualties.Presently     

Fine structure in photoluminescence spectrum of S<Subscript>2</Subscript><Superscript>−</Superscript> center in sodalite

The photoluminescence and excitation spectra of sodalites from Greenland, Canada and Xinjiang (China) are observed at 300 and 10 K in detail. The features of the emission and excitation spectra of the orange-yellow fluorescence of these sodalites are independent of the locality. The emission spectra at 300 and 10 K consist of a broad band with a series of peaks and a maximum peak at 648 and 645.9 nm, respectively. The excitation spectra obtained by monitoring the orange-yellow fluorescence at 300 and 10 K consist of a main band with a peak at 392 nm. The luminescence efficiency of the heat-treated sodalite from Xinjiang is about seven times as high as that of untreated natural sodalite. The emission spectrum of the S₂ ⁻ center in sodalite at 10 K consists of a band with a clearly resolved structure with a series of maxima spaced about 560 cm⁻¹ (20–25 nm) apart. Each narrow band at 10 K shows a fine structure consisting of a small peak due to the stretching vibration of the isotopic species of ³²S³⁴S⁻, a main peak due to that of the isotopic species of ³²S₂ ⁻ and five peaks due to phonon sidebands of the main peak.     

Pore Creation due to Fault Slip in a Fluid-permeated Fault Zone and its Effect on Seismicity: Generation Mechanism of Earthquake Swarm

—Spatio-temporal variation of rupture activity is modeled assuming fluid migration in a narrow porous fault zone formed along a vertical strike-slip fault in a semi-infinite elastic medium. Pores are assumed to be created in the fault zone by fault slip. The effective stress principle coupled to the Coulomb failure criterion introduces mechanical coupling between fault slip and pore fluid. The fluid is assumed to flow out of a localized high-pressure fluid compartment in the fault with the onset of earthquake rupture. The duration of the earthquake sequence is assumed to be considerably shorter than the recurrence period of characteristic events on the fault. The rupture process is shown to be significantly dependent on the rate of pore creation. If the rate is large enough, a foreshock–mainshock sequence is never observed. When an inhomogeneity is introduced in the spatial distribution of permeability, high complexity is observed in the spatio-temporal variation of rupture activity. For example, frequency-magnitude statistics of intermediate-size events are shown to obey the Gutenberg–Richter relation. Rupture sequences with features of earthquake swarms can be simulated when the rate of pore creation is relatively large. Such sequences generally start and end gradually with no single event dominating in the sequence. In addition, the b values are shown to be unusually large. These are consistent with seismological observations on earthquake swarms.     

Coupled process-based cyclone surge simulation for the Bay of Bengal

We have developed a wind-wave-surge coupled process-based numerical model for simulating storm surge, consisting of a meso-scale atmospheric model (MM5), a third-generation spectral wave model (WW3) and a coastal ocean model (POM). We introduced an additional sea surface shear stress by wave dissipation into the model to consider the process of energy transfer from winds to currents through whitecap breaking. We demonstrate the importance of this energy transfer path through a hindcast simulation of a cyclone surge in April, 1991 in the Bay of Bengal: it helps generate mean current and has wave effects on wind-induced current fields in extremely shallow water areas.     

An Observation of Diffuse Soft X-Ray Background and Distribution of Hot Interstellar Medium

The diffuse soft X-ray background in 0.07∼ 2.0 keV has been observed along a small circle with the angular width of 10– covering b=—57– ∼ 77– and crossing the galactic plane at l=125– and 283–. Observed spectra are well fitted with models emitted from a thin hot gas with two or multi-temperature components and attenuated by a slab or interspersed neutral gas clouds. However the multi-temperature component model has some difficulties to explain the diffuse component expected from observations of OVI absorption lines. The two temperature component model with interspersed clouds consistently interprets a physical state of the hot interstellar medium. It turned out that the hot interstellar medium interspersed with neutral clouds of a representative hydrogen column density of 1× 10²⁰ cm^-2has two temperature components (10^5.8 K,(1.2-4.5)× 10⁶ K) and a disk-like distribution with the thickness of 580(± 100). {(p/k)/10⁴cm^-3 K} ^-2 pc at the pressure of p/k cm^-3 K along the galactic plane. Its pressure (p/k) is obtained to be 1.4(+0.7,-0.5)× 10⁴cm^-3 K, assuming that hot gases responsible for the diffuse soft X-rays and OVI ions are in pressure equilibrium. This interpretation qualitatively agrees with the theoretical prediction proposed by McKee and Ostriker. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.