• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.699-701
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• 2015

The high plateaus in west China may provide suitable sites for astronomical observations with the institute's middle-range telescopes and possibly with larger telescopes. Under China-Japan collaborations for site survey in west China, we have been conducting searches for good sites and monitoring their characteristics over several years. As recent results of our site survey show, sites in west Tibet are revealed with a high possibility of good astronomical observations. Weather characteristics at Gar in Ali, Tibet, show its high clear-sky ratios, especially in winter, comparable to Mauna Kea, Hawaii. But it has some wind problem in winter, where stronger wind speeds, over 20m/sec, occur frequently even though the sky is clear. To find calmer sites, we have conducted numerical simulations for the Ali area using the Japan Meteorological Agency NonHydrostatic Model. We have found another site, named ZoZo Hill, near Gar. We will continue to monitor the Gar site to clarify weather characteristics over the whole year and hopefully start to negotiate for site monitoring at ZoZo Hill this year.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.5
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• pp.529-542
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• 2020

As limited well-documented experimental data are available for assessing the attributes of different deformation components of flanged walls, few appropriate models have been established for predicting the inelastic responses of flanged walls, especially those of asymmetrical flanged walls. This study presents the experimental results for three large-scale T-shaped reinforced concrete walls and examines the variations in the flexural, shear, and sliding components of deformation with the total deformation over the entire loading process. Based on the observed deformation behavior, a simple model based on moment-curvature analysis is established to estimate flexural deformations, in which the changes in plastic hinge length are considered and the deformations due to strain penetration are modeled individually. Based on the similar gross shapes of the curvature and shear strain distributions over the wall height, a proportional relationship is established between shear displacement and flexural rotation. By integrating the deformations due to flexure, shear, and strain penetration, a new load-deformation analytical model is proposed for flexure-dominant flanged walls. The proposed model provides engineers with a simple, accurate modeling tool appropriate for routine design work that can be applied to flexural walls with arbitrary sections and is capable of determining displacements at any position over the wall height. By further simplifying the analytical model, a simple procedure for estimating the ultimate displacement capacity of flanged walls is proposed, which will be valuable for performance-based seismic designs and seismic capacity evaluations.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.231-251
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• 2016

This paper presents the experimental results of the wind tunnel tests for three symmetric, rectangular, tall building models on a typical open terrain considering the torsional motion-induced vibrations. The time histories of the wind pressure on these models under different reduced wind speeds and torsional amplitudes are obtained through the multiple point synchronous scanning pressure technique. Thereafter, the characteristics of both the Root Mean Square (RMS) coefficients and the spectra of the base shear/torque in the along-wind, across-wind, and torsional directions, respectively, are discussed. The results show that the RMS coefficients of the base shear/torque vary in the three directions with both the reduced wind speeds and the torsional vibration amplitudes. The variation of the RMS coefficients in the along-wind direction results mainly from the change of the aerodynamic forces, but sometimes from aeroelastic effects induced by torsional vibration. However, the variations of the RMS coefficients in the across-wind and torsional directions are caused by more equal weights of both the aerodynamic forces and the aeroelastic effects. As such, for the typical tall buildings, the modification of the aerodynamic forces in the along-wind, across-wind, and torsional directions, respectively, and the aeroelastic effects in the across-wind and torsional directions should be considered. It is identified that the torsional vibration amplitudes and the reduced wind speeds are two significant parameters for the aerodynamic forces on the structures in the three directions.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.850-855
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• 2009

Keratin is an important protein used in wound healing and tissue recovery. In this study, keratin was modified chemically with iodoacetic acid (IAA) to enhance its solubility in organic solvent. Poly(hydroxybutylate-co-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) and modified keratin were dissolved in hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) and electrospun to produce nanofibrous mats. The resulting mats were surface-characterized by ATR-FTIR, field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA). The pure m-keratin mat was cross-linked with glutaraldehyde vapor to make it insoluble in water. The biodegradation test in vitro showed that the mats could be biodegraded by PHB depolymerase and trypsin aqueous solution. The results of the cell adhesion experiment showed that the NIH 3T3 cells adhered more to the PHBV/m-keratin nanofibrous mats than the PHBV film. The BrdU assay showed that the keratin and PHBV/m-keratin nanofibrous mats could accelerate the proliferation of fibroblast cells compared to the PHBV nanofibrous mats.

• The korean journal of orthodontics
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.165-171
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• 2022

Objective: This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the characteristics of malocclusions in scoliotic patients through clinical examinations. Methods: Fifty-eight patients with idiopathic scoliosis (IS) and 48 patients with congenital scoliosis (CS) participated in the study. A randomly selected group of 152 orthopedically healthy children served as the control group. Standardized orthodontic and orthopedic examination protocols were used to record the occlusal patterns and type of scoliosis. Assessments were made by three experienced orthodontists and a spinal surgery team. The differences in the frequency distribution of occlusal patterns were evaluated by the chi-squared test. Results: In comparison with patients showing IS, patients with CS showed a higher incidence of Cobb angle ≥ 45° (p = 0.020) and included a higher proportion of patients receiving surgical treatments (p < 0.001). The distribution of the Angle Class II subgroup was significantly higher in the IS (p < 0.001) and CS (p = 0.031) groups than in the control group. In comparison with the healthy controls, the CS and IS groups showed significantly higher (p < 0.05) frequencies of asymmetric molar and asymmetric canine relationships, upper and lower middle line deviations, anterior deep overbite, unilateral posterior crossbite, and canted occlusal plane, with the frequencies being especially higher in CS patients and to a lesser extent in IS patients. Conclusions: Patients with scoliosis showed a high frequency of malocclusions, which were most obvious in patients with CS.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.365-375
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• 2021

Rammed earth (RE) buildings have existed all over the world for thousands of years, and have gained increasing attention because of its sustainable advantages, however, the shrinkage cracks reduce its bearing capacity and seriously affect its durability and applicability. In this study, the shrinkage cracks test was carried out to investigate the effects of initial water content, proportion of sand and gravel, compaction degree, thickness and the additives (polypropylene fiber, cement and sodium silicate) of shrinkage cracks in RE buildings, ten groups of RE samples were prepared and dried outdoors to crack. Four quantitative parameters of geometrical structure of crack patterns were used to evaluate the development of cracks. The results show that the specimens cracking behavior and the geometrical structure of crack patterns are significantly influenced by these considered factors. The formation of crack can be accelerated with the increase of initial water content and thickness of specimen, while restricted with the increase of the compaction degree and the proportion of sand and gravel. Moreover, the addition of 1% polypropylene fiber, 10% cement and 0.5 volume ratio sodium silicate can significantly restrain the form and development of cracks. In RE construction, these factors should be considered comprehensively to prevent the harm caused by shrinkage cracks. Further works should be carried out to obtain the optimum dosage of the additives, which can benefit the construction of RE buildings in future.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2022

This work elaborately investigates the influences of the guideway geometry parameters and track irregularity on the dynamic performances of the suspended monorail vehicle-guideway system (SMVGS). Firstly, a spatial dynamic analysis model of the SMVGS is established by adopting ANSYS parameter design language. Then, the dynamic interaction between a vehicle with maximum design load and guideway is investigated by numerical simulation and field tests, revealing the vehicle-guideway dynamic features. Subsequently, the influences of the guideway geometry parameters and track irregularity on the dynamic performances of the SMVGS are analyzed and discussed in detail, and the reasonable ranges of several key geometry parameters of the guideway are also obtained. Results show that the vehicle-guideway dynamic responses change nonlinearly with an increase of the guideway span, and especially the guideway dynamic performances can be effectively improved by reducing the guideway span; based on a comprehensive consideration of all performance indices of the SMVGS, the deflection-span ratio of the suspended monorail guideway is finally recommended to be 1/1054~1/868. The train load could cause a large bending deformation of the pier, which would intensify the car-body lateral displacement and decrease the vehicle riding comfort; to well limit the bending deformation of the pier, its cross-section dimension is suggested to be more than 0.8 m×0.8 m. The addition of the track irregularity amplitude has small influences on the displacements and stress of the guideway; however, it would significantly increase the vehicle-guideway vibrations and rate of load reduction of the driving tyre.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.3976-3990
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• 2022

Currently, cross-attention is widely used in Siamese trackers to replace traditional correlation operations for feature fusion between template and search region. The former can establish a similar relationship between the target and the search region better than the latter for robust visual object tracking. But existing trackers using cross-attention only focus on rich semantic information of high-level features, while ignoring the appearance information contained in low-level features, which makes trackers vulnerable to interference from similar objects. In this paper, we propose a Multi-level Cross-attention Siamese network(MCSiam) to aggregate the semantic information and appearance information at the same time. Specifically, a multi-level cross-attention module is designed to fuse the multi-layer features extracted from the backbone, which integrate different levels of the template and search region features, so that the rich appearance information and semantic information can be used to carry out the tracking task simultaneously. In addition, before cross-attention, a target-aware module is introduced to enhance the target feature and alleviate interference, which makes the multi-level cross-attention module more efficient to fuse the information of the target and the search region. We test the MCSiam on four tracking benchmarks and the result show that the proposed tracker achieves comparable performance to the state-of-the-art trackers.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.303-312
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• 1998

In this study, the multimedia CAl program for chemical equilibrium in high school grade 3 was developed and the effect of CAl on achievement and attitude toward chemistry instruction and computer was investigated. Before instruction, the test of attitudes toward chemistry instruction and computer were administered, and the grade in the mid-term examination was obtained. These scores were used as covariates. Mid-term science score was used as blocking variable. For chemical equilibrium instruction, traditional and computer assisted instruction were used. After instruction, the achievement test and the test of attitudes toward science instruction and computer were administered. The results indicated that students in the treatment group achieved significantly better than those in the control group, but did not show improvement of attitude to chemistry instruction and computer compared to those in the control group. No significant interaction between the treatment and the level of students' prior achievement was found. Female achieved significantly better under CAl than under traditional instruction. In two subtests(understanding and application), treatment group achieved better in the subtest of application than control group. CAl had an effect on chemical equilibrium state (about reversibility) significantly. While female of the treatment group did not show more positive attitude toward both chemistry instruction and computer significantly than that of the control group, male showed more positive attitude significantly. Educational implications are discussed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.273-286
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• 2018

In recent years, significant progress has been made in developing design rules for stainless steel members, while the investigation on bolted connections is relatively limited, in particular at elevated temperatures. In this paper, experimental and numerical investigations on stainless steel bolted connections at ambient and elevated temperatures from the literature were reviewed. Firstly, the research program that focused on structural behavior of cold-formed stainless steel (CFSS) bolted connections at elevated temperatures carried out by the authors were summarized. Over 400 CFSS single shear and double shear bolted connection specimens were tested. The tests were conducted in the temperature ranged from 22 to $950^{\circ}C$ using both steady state and transient state test methods. It is shown that the connection strengths decrease as the temperature increases in the similar manner for the steady state test results and the transient state test results. Generally, the deterioration of the connection strengths showed a similar tendency of reduction to those of the material properties for the same type of stainless steel regardless of different connection types and different configurations. It is also found that the austenitic stainless steel EN 1.4571 generally has better resistance than the stainless steel EN 1.4301 and EN 1.4162 for bolted connections at elevated temperatures. Secondly, extensive parametric studies that included 450 specimens were performed using the verified finite element models. Based on both the experimental and numerical results, bearing factors are proposed for bearing resistances of CFSS single shear and double shear bolted connections that subjected to bearing failure in the temperature ranged from 22 to $950^{\circ}C$. The bearing resistances of bolted connections obtained from the tests and numerical analyses were compared with the nominal strengths calculated from the current international stainless steel specifications, and also compared with the predicted strengths calculated using the proposed design equations. It is shown that the proposed design equations are generally more accurate and reliable than the current design rules in predicting the bearing resistances of CFSS (EN 1.4301, EN 1.4571 and EN 1.4162) bolted connections at elevated temperatures. Lastly, the proposed design rules were further assessed by the available 58 results of stainless steel bolted connections subjected to bearing failure in the literature. It is found that the proposed design rules are also applicable to the bearing resistance design of other stainless steel grades, including austenitic stainless steel (EN 1.4306), ferritic stainless steel (EN 1.4016) and duplex stainless steel (EN 1.4462).