• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.321-326
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• 2019

Background: Performing cognitive tasks and muscular fatigue have been shown to increase muscle activity of the lower extremity during quiet standing. A common intervention to reduce muscular fatigue is to provide a softer shoe-surface interface. However, little is known regarding how muscle activity is affected by softer shoe-surface interfaces during static standing. The purpose of this study was to assess lower extremity muscular activity during erect standing on three different standing surfaces, before and after an acute workload and during cognitive tasks. Methods: Surface electromyography was collected on ankle dorsiflexors and plantarflexors, and knee flexors and extensors of fifteen male participants. Dependent electromyography variables of mean, peak, root mean square, and cocontraction index were calculated and analyzed with a $2{\times}2{\times}3$ within-subject repeated measures analysis of variance. Results: Pre-workload muscle activity did not differ between surfaces and cognitive task conditions. However, greater muscle activity during post-workload balance assessment was found, specifically during the cognitive task. Cognitive task errors did not differ between surface and workload. Conclusions: The cognitive task after workload increased lower extremity muscular activity compared to quite standing, irrespective of the surface condition, suggesting an increased demand was placed on the postural control system as the result of both fatigue and cognitive task.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.693-708
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• 2023

Composite beams, two materials joined together, have become more common in structural engineering over the past few decades because they have better mechanical and structural properties. The shear connectors between their layers exhibit some deformability with finite stiffness, resulting in interfacial shear slip, a phenomenon known as partial shear interaction. Such a partial shear interaction contributes significantly to the composite beams. To provide precise predictions of the geometric nonlinear behavior shown by two-layered composite beams with interfacial shear slips, a robust analytical model has been developed that incorporates the influence of significant displacements. The application of a higher-order beam theory to the two material layers results in a third-order adjustment of the longitudinal displacement within each layer along the depth of the beam. Deformable shear connectors are employed at the interface to represent the partial shear interaction by means of a sequence of shear connectors that are evenly distributed throughout the beam's length. The Von-Karman theory of large deflection incorporates geometric nonlinearity into the governing equations, which are then solved analytically using the Navier solution technique. Suggested model exhibits a notable level of agreement with published findings, and numerical outputs derived from finite element (FE) model. Large displacement substantially reduces deflection, interfacial shear slip, and stress values. Geometric nonlinearity has a significant impact on beams with larger span-to-depth ratio and a greater degree of shear connector deformability. Potentially, the analytical model can accurately predict the geometric nonlinear responses of composite beams. The model has a high degree of generality, which might aid in the numerical solution of composite beams with varying configurations and shear criteria.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.259-273
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• 2023

Real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) is an effective experimental technique for structural dynamic assessment. However, time delay causes displacement de-synchronization at the interface between the numerical and physical substructures, negatively affecting the accuracy and stability of RTHS. To this end, the authors have proposed a model-based adaptive control strategy with a Kalman filter (MAC-KF). In the proposed method, the time delay is mainly mitigated by a parameterized feedforward controller, which is designed using the discrete inverse model of the control plant and adjusted using the KF based on the displacement command and measurement. A feedback controller is employed to improve the robustness of the controller. The objective of this study is to further validate the power of dealing with a nonlinear control plant and to investigate the potential challenges of the proposed method through actual experiments. In particular, the effect of the order of the feedforward controller on tracking performance was numerically investigated using a nonlinear control plant; a series of actual RTHS of a frame structure equipped with a magnetorheological damper was performed using the proposed method. The findings reveal significant improvement in tracking accuracy, demonstrating that the proposed method effectively suppresses the time delay in RTHS. In addition, the parameters of the control plant are timely updated, indicating that it is feasible to estimate the control plant parameter by KF. The order of the feedforward controller has a limited effect on the control performance of the MAC-KF method, and the feedback controller is beneficial to promote the accuracy of RTHS.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2017.10a
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• pp.14-23
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• 2017

In high-density high-rise cities such as Hong Kong, buildings account for nearly 90% of energy consumption and 61% of carbon emissions. Therefore, it is important to study the design of buildings, especially high-rise buildings, to achieve lower carbon emissions in the city. The carbon emissions of a building consist of embodied carbon from the production of construction materials and operational carbon from energy consumption during daily operation (e.g., air-conditioning and lighting). An integrated analysis of both types of carbon emissions can strengthen the design of low carbon buildings, but most of the previous studies concentrated mainly on either embodied or operational carbon. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to develop a holistic methodology framework considering both embodied and operational carbon, in order to enhance the sustainable design of low carbon high-rise buildings. The framework will be based on the building information modeling (BIM) technology because BIM can be integrated with simulation systems and digital models of different disciplines, thereby enabling a holistic design and assessment of low carbon buildings. Structural analysis program is first coupled with BIM to validate the structural performance of a building design. The amounts of construction materials and embodied carbon are then quantified by a BIM-based program using the Dynamo programming interface. Operational carbon is quantified by energy simulation software based on the green building extensible Markup Language (gbXML) file from BIM. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) will be applied to analyze the ambient wind effect on indoor temperature and operational carbon. The BIM-based framework serves as a decision support tool to compare and explore more environmentally-sustainable design options to help reduce the carbon emissions in buildings.

• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.13-33
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• 2021

Successful sediment management at the watershed scale requires an understanding of the erosion, transport and sedimentation processes at the specific site scale. However, studies on the sediment runoff characteristics in a small uppermost watershed, which serves as a sediment supply function, are very rare. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate the fluctuations in major sediment supply areas and sediment runoff in the uppermost mountain small watershed, and for this purpose, ArcSWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tools with GIS interface) was applied to the Woldong reservoir catchment located in Gosam-myeon, Anseong-si, Gyeonggi-do. The model results were manually calibrated using the monitoring data of the Woldong reservoir sedimentation rate from 2005 to 2007. It was estimated that annual average of 34.4 tons/year of sediment was discharged from the Woldong reservoir basin. This estimate almost coincided with the monitoring data of the Woldong reservoir during the low flow period but tended to be somewhat underestimated during the high flow period. Although the SWAT model does not fully reflect the erosion process of gully and in-channel, this underestimation is probably due to the spatial connectivity of sediment transport and the storage and reactivation of the sediment being transported. Most of the forested hillslopes with a well-developed organic horizon were evaluated as having a low risk of erosion, while the places with the highest risk of erosion were predicted to be distributed in the logged area with some weeds or shrubs (classified as pasture) with relatively steeper slopes, and in the bare land. The results of this study are expected to be useful in developing strategies for sediment control and reservoir management.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.381-392
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• 2023

This study experimentally investigates the flexural behavior of steel-UHPC composite slabs composed of an innovative negative Poisson's ratio (NPR) steel plate and Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC) slab connected via demountable high-strength bolt shear connectors. Eight demountable composite slab specimens were fabricated and tested under traditional four-point bending method. The effects of loading histories (positive and negative bending moment), types of steel plate (NPR steel plate and Q355 steel plate) and spacings of high-strength bolts (150 mm, 200 mm and 250 mm) on the flexural behavior of demountable composite slab, including failure mode, load-deflection curve, interface relative slip, crack width and sectional strain distribution, were evaluated. The results revealed that under positive bending moment, the failure mode of composite slabs employing NPR steel plate was distinct from that with Q355 steel plate, which exhibited that part of high-strength bolts was cut off, part of pre-embedded padded extension nuts was pulled out, and UHPC collapsed due to instantaneous instability and etc. Besides, under the same spacing of high-strength bolts, NPR steel plate availably delayed and restrained the relative slip between steel plate and UHPC plate, thus significantly enhanced the cooperative deformation capacity, flexural stiffness and load capacity for composite slabs further. While under negative bending moment, NPR steel plate effectively improved the flexural capacity and deformation characteristics of composite slabs, but it has no obvious effect on the initial flexural stiffness of composite slabs. Meanwhile, the excellent crack-width control ability for UHPC endowed composite members with better durability. Furthermore, according to the sectional strain distribution analysis, due to the negative Poisson's ratio effect and high yield strength of NPR steel plate, the tensile strain between NPR steel plate and UHPC layer held strain compatibility during the whole loading process, and the magnitude of upward movement for sectional plastic neutral axis could be ignored with the increase of positive bending moment.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.1-11
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• 2023

The phenomenon of sediment resuspension in rivers and lakes causes contaminants (heavy metals and nutrients) accumulated in the sediment to leach into the overlying water. As a result, it can lead to changes in toxic effects and eutrophication in the aquatic ecosystem. In this regard, it is important to quantitatively determine the amount of contaminants leached during sediment resuspension. In this study, methods for assessing the amount of released contaminants and the types of contaminants potentially released due to sediment resuspension were studied and summarized. Methods for assessing leaching can be divided into three groups based on the principle of causing resuspension: (i) the oscillating grid chamber method, (ii) the mechanical stirrer method, and (iii) the shaker method. It was confirmed that the types of contaminants that can potentially be released include heavy metals bound to sulfides, as well as exchangeable and labile forms of heavy metals and nutrients. To effectively manage stable aquatic ecosystems in the future, a simplified leaching test method is needed to assess in advance the risks (i.e., changes in toxic effects and eutrophication) that sediment resuspension may pose to aquatic ecosystems.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.30.1-30.13
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• 2023

Ephs belong to the largest family of receptor tyrosine kinase and are highly conserved both sequentially and structurally. The structural organization of Eph is similar to other receptor tyrosine kinases; constituting the extracellular ligand binding domain, a fibronectin domain followed by intracellular juxtamembrane kinase, and SAM domain. Eph binds to respective ephrin ligand, through the ligand binding domain and forms a tetrameric complex to activate the kinase domain. Eph-ephrin regulates many downstream pathways that lead to physiological events such as cell migration, proliferation, and growth. Therefore, considering the importance of Eph-ephrin class of protein in tumorigenesis, 7,620 clinically reported missense mutations belonging to the class of variables of unknown significance were retrieved from cBioPortal and evaluated for pathogenicity. Thirty-two mutations predicted to be pathogenic using SIFT, Polyphen-2, PROVEAN, SNPs&GO, PMut, iSTABLE, and PremPS in-silico tools were found located either in critical functional regions or encompassing interactions at the binding interface of Eph-ephrin. However, seven were reported in nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Considering the relevance of receptor tyrosine kinases and Eph in NSCLC, these seven mutations were assessed for change in the folding pattern using molecular dynamic simulation. Structural alterations, stability, flexibility, compactness, and solvent-exposed area was observed in EphA3 Trp790Cys, EphA7 Leu749Phe, EphB1 Gly685Cys, EphB4 Val748Ala, and Ephrin A2 Trp112Cys. Hence, it can be concluded that the evaluated mutations have potential to alter the folding pattern and thus can be further validated by in-vitro, structural and in-vivo studies for clinical management.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.34-44
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• 2006

Simulation models allow researchers to model large hydrological catchment for comprehensive management of the water resources and explication of the diffuse pollution processes, such as land-use changes by development plan of the region. Recently, there have been reported many researches that examine water body quality using Geographic Information System (GIS) and dynamic watershed models such as AGNPS, HSPF, SWAT that necessitate handling large amounts of data. The aim of this study is to develop a watershed based water quality estimation system for the impact assessment on stream water quality. KBASIN-HSPF, proposed in this study, provides easy data compiling for HSPF by facilitating the setup and simulation process. It also assists the spatial interpretation of point and non-point pollutant information and thiessen rainfall creation and pre and post processing for large environmental data An integration methodology of GIS and water quality model for the preprocessing geo-morphologic data was designed by coupling the data model KBASIN-HSPF interface comprises four modules: registration and modification of basic environmental information, watershed delineation generator, watershed geo-morphologic index calculator and model input file processor. KBASIN-HSPF was applied to simulate the water quality impact by variation of subbasin pollution discharge structure.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.841-849
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• 2010

Soil erosion is an natural phenomenon. However accelerated soil erosion has caused many environmental problems. To reduce soil loss from a watershed, many management practices have been proposed worldwide. To develop proper and efficient soil erosion best management practices, soil erosion rates should be estimated spatially and temporarily. The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and USLE-based soil erosion and sediment modelling systems have been developed and tested in many countries. The Sediment Assessment Tool for Effective Erosion Control (SATEEC) system has been developed and enhanced to provide ease-of-use interface to the USLE users. However many researchers and decision makers have requested to enhance the SATEEC system for simulation of soil erosion and sediment reflecting effects of single storm event. Thus, the SATEEC R factors were estimated based on 5 day antecedent rainfall data. The SATEEC 2.1 daily R factor was applied to the study watershed and it was found that the R2 and EI values (0.776 and 0.776 for calibration and 0.927 and 0.911 for validation) with the daily R were greater than those (0.721 and 0.720 for calibration and 0.906 and 0.881 for validation) with monthly R, which was available in the SATEEC 2.0 system. As shown in this study, the SATEEC with daily R can be used to estimate soil erosion and sediment yield at a watershed scale with higher accuracy. Thus the SATEEC with daily R can be efficiently used to develop site-specific soil erosion best management practices based on spatial and temporal analysis of soil erosion and sediment yield at a daily-time step, which was not possible with USLE-based soil erosion modeling system.