Reliability assessment of serviceability performance of braced retaining walls using a neural network approach

In urban environments, one major concern with deep excavations in soft clay is the potentially large ground deformations in and around the excavation. Excessive movements can damage adjacent buildings and utilities. There are many uncertainties associated with the calculation of the ultimate or serviceability performance of a braced excavation system. These include the variabilities of the loadings, geotechnical soil properties, and engineering and geometrical properties of the wall. A risk‐based approach to serviceability performance failure is necessary to incorporate systematically the uncertainties associated with the various design parameters. This paper demonstrates the use of an integrated neural network–reliability method to assess the risk of serviceability failure through the calculation of the reliability index. By first performing a series of parametric studies using the finite element method and then approximating the non‐linear limit state surface (the boundary separating the safe and ‘failure’ domains) through a neural network model, the reliability index can be determined with the aid of a spreadsheet. Two illustrative examples are presented to show how the serviceability performance for braced excavation problems can be assessed using the reliability index. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Water and power networks and urban fragmentation in Los Angeles: Rethinking assumed mechanisms

Los Angeles is often described as the epitome of urban fragmentation, a notion which in this context is frequently connected to, or even conflated with urban sprawl. At the same time, the city features integrated water and power networks which have been under public ownership for over 70 years. We thus have an apparent paradox in the context of the debate on ‘splintering urbanism’, between socio-spatial fragmentation and the integration of networks. In discussing the idea that deregulation of infrastructural networks exacerbates urban fragmentation, the authors use the case of Los Angeles in order to highlight the central role of private interests in management decisions concerning infrastructure networks. The authors carry out their analysis in an historical perspective, revealing that network integration and universal access can often serve private interests more than the public good. Urban fragmentation in Los Angeles, they conclude, is the result of a complex process of instrumentalisation of network development and management.     

Church-based social capital, networks and geographical scale: Katrina evacuation, relocation, and recovery in a New Orleans Vietnamese American community

This research examines the role of social capital and networks to explain the evacuation, relocation, and recovery experiences of a Vietnamese American community in New Orleans, Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As the single largest community institution, the parish church’s complex bonding and bridging social capital and networks proved particularly critical in part because of its historically based ontological security. The process of evacuation, but especially relocation and recovery, was dependent on deploying co-ethnic social capital and networks at a variety of geographical scales. Beyond the local or community scale, extra-local, regional, and national scales of social capital and networks reproduced a spatially redefined Vietnamese American community. Part of the recovery process included constructing discursive place-based collective-action frames to successfully contest a nearby landfill that in turn engendered social capital and networks crossing ethnic boundaries to include the extra-local African American community. Engaging social capital and networks beyond the local geographical scale cultivated a Vietnamese American community with an emergent post-Katrina cultural and political identity.     

Identifying China’s leading world city: a network approach

This paper reports our research on China’s world cities. Formal network analysis of air passenger linkages for recent years among China’s most populous cities and among many of the world’s largest cities allows us to identify the country’s leading world city from among the leading Mainland candidates, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. We theorize our findings about China’s world cities in relation to both global forces (and China’s increasing entanglement with them) and the policies and actions of the national state. We examine the national and global urban network through a longitudinal, two-level analysis of airline passenger travel for four time points between about 1990 and 2005. We show that Beijing was China’s leading world city at the beginning of the time period, a status it lost nationally in as early as 1995, and then globally 10 years later. On the other hand Shanghai became China’s leading world city, and it acquired this status first nationally in 2000, and then globally in 2005. The changing status of the Chinese capital corresponds to the country’s increasing involvement with the capitalist world economy. Shanghai’s ascendance as the leading world city in China may indicate that global forces have come to play an increasingly important role relative to that of the developmental state.

PSO-RBFNN模型及其在岩土工程非线性时间序列预测中的应用

岩土工程受力变形演化是一个典型的非线性问题,其演化的高度非线性和复杂性,很难用简单的力学、数学模型描述,但可用粒子群优化径向基神经网络对岩土工程应力、位移非线性时间序列进行动态实时预测。网络径向基层的单元数通过均值聚类法确定后,所有其它参数：中心位置、形状参数、网络权值,均通过粒子群优化算法在全局空间优化确定。工程实例应用表明,该模型预测结果准确、精度高,有良好的应用前景。     

P-III分布参数的概率权重矩法S函数计算

概率权重矩法是一种估计统计分布参数的方法.本文根据不完全Γ函数在无限区间积分,推导了P-Ⅲ分布参数的S函数的计算公式.通过现有计算公式比较,其计算结果具有较高的计算精度,避免了的大量的数值积分计算.文中公式只要借助于计算编程进行求解,给定超几何函数项一定的截断误差,其运算具有较高的运行速度.文中计算公式是一种P-Ⅲ分布参数S函数的计算途径.     

海浪的条件特征周期

在海浪波面高度为正态分布的假定下,导出一种以给定波高为条件的条件周期概率密度函数.与风浪槽中测量数据比较,结果表明,在窄谱情况下此概率密度函数与实验室风浪的实际符合良好.根据此密度函数定义了3种条件特征周期,并导出它们与平均周期的关系式.根据这些关系对有关海洋工程上的一些问题作了解释和讨论.     

Internal generation of waves: Delta source function method and source term addition method

In this study, we investigate two internal wave generation methods in numerical modeling of time-dependent equations for water wave propagation, i.e., delta source function method and source term addition method, the latter of which has been called the line source method in literatures. We derive delta source functions for the Boussinesq-type equations and extended mild-slope equations. By applying the fractional step splitting method, we show that the delta source function method is equivalent to the source term addition method employing the energy velocity. This suggests that the energy velocity should be used rather than the phase velocity for the transport of incident wave energy in the source term addition method. Finally, the performance of the delta source function method is verified by accurately generating nonlinear cnoidal waves as well as linear waves for horizontally one-dimensional cases.     

Generation of random waves in time-dependent extended mild-slope equations using a source function method

We develop techniques of numerical wave generation in the time-dependent extended mild-slope equations of Suh et al. [1997. Time-dependent equations for wave propagation on rapidly varying topography. Coastal Engineering 32, 91–117] and Lee et al. [2003. Extended mild-slope equation for random waves. Coastal Engineering 48, 277–287] for random waves using a source function method. Numerical results for both regular and irregular waves in one and two horizontal dimensions show that the wave heights and the frequency spectra are properly reproduced. The waves that pass through the wave generation region do not cause any numerical disturbances, showing usefulness of the source function method in avoiding re-reflection problems at the offshore boundary.     

西洋东大港水道流速垂线分布研究

对辐射沙洲海域东大港4#站位连续2个潮周期的流速测量资料进行了分析、研究,拟合给出了流速垂线分布关系,并根据实际测量资料确定了该站位6个水层的浑水水流尾流函数项表达式。这些表达式表明浑水水流尾流函数是相对深度和摩阻速度的函数。探讨分析了尾流函数的空间分布和潮周期过程。非恒定流的水流尾流函数项的准确表达,对于揭示含沙水流流速结构及水、沙相影响作用规律将起到启发和推动作用。