• Title/Summary/Keyword: Natural Hazards

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Multi-hazard vulnerability modeling: an example of wind and rain vulnerability of mid/high-rise buildings during hurricane events

  • Zhuoxuan Wei;Jean-Paul Pinelli;Kurtis Gurley;Shahid Hamid
    • Wind and Structures
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    • v.38 no.5
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    • pp.355-366
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    • 2024
  • Severe natural multi-hazard events can cause damage to infrastructure and economic losses of billions of dollars. The challenges of modeling these losses include dependency between hazards, cause and sequence of loss, and lack of available data. This paper presents and explores multi-hazard loss modeling in the context of the combined wind and rain vulnerability of mid/high-rise buildings during hurricane events. A component-based probabilistic vulnerability model provides the framework to test and contrast two different approaches to treat the multi-hazards: In one, the wind and rain hazard models are both decoupled from the vulnerability model. In the other, only the wind hazard is decoupled, while the rain hazard model is embedded into the vulnerability model. The paper presents the mathematical and conceptual development of each approach, example outputs from each for the same scenario, and a discussion of weaknesses and strengths of each approach.

Antioxidant and Bioactive Films to Enhance Food Quality and Phytochemical Production during Ripening

  • Min Byungjin;Dawson Paul L.;Shetty Kalidas
    • Food Science of Animal Resources
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.60-65
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    • 2005
  • Antioxidant films are one active packaging technology that can extend food shelf-life through preventing lipid oxidation, stabilizing color, maintaining sensory properties and delaying microbial growth in foods. Because raw, fresh and minimal processed foods are more perishable during storage or under display conditions than further processed foods, they rapidly lose their original quality. Foods are susceptible to physical, chemical, and biochemical hazards to which packaging films can be effective barriers. Although films incorporated natural (tocopherols, flavonoids and phenolic acids) or synthetic antioxidants (BHT, BHA, TBHQ, propyl gallate) have been extensively tested to improve quality and safety of various foods, food applications require addressing issues such as physical properties, chemical action, cost, and legal approval. Increased interest in natural antioxidants as substitutes for synthetic antioxidants has triggered research on use of the new natural antioxidants in films and coatings. Use of new components (phytochemicals) as film additives can improve food quality and human health. The biosynthesis of plant phenolics can potentially be optimized by active coatings on harvested fruits and vegetables. These coatings can trigger the plants natural proline-linked pentose phosphate pathway to increase the phenolic contents and maintain overall plant tissue quality. This alternate metabolic pathway has been proposed by Dr. K. Shetty and is supported by numerous studies. A new generation of active food films will not only preserve the food, but increase food's nutritional quality by optimizing raw food biochemical production of phytochemicals.

A Study on Relationships between Environmental Risk and Demographic Characteristics Using GIS (GIS를 이용한 환경 위험과 인구적 특성의 관계에 대한 연구)

  • Hwang, Seong-Nam;Cho, Chun-Man
    • Spatial Information Research
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    • v.19 no.4
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    • pp.1-10
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    • 2011
  • This research examined relationships between Scientifically Estimated Environmental Risks (SEERs) of floods, hurricanes and hazardous material releases, and household characteristics. This research showed that there were no statistically significant relationships between most of the demographic characteristics (age, household size, tenure at the present home) and SEERs of the two natural hazards (a flood and a hurricane). These results support Drabek's findings (1986) that people tend to underestimate or ignore natural hazards in selecting their residence regardless of age, household size, and house tenure. Educational attainment and yearly household income were positively correlated with hurricane risk, but not with flood risk. By contrast, SEER of hazardous materials was correlated with all demographic characteristics mentioned above. This result may show that those who are relatively poorer and have lower educational level tend to be limited to living in communities more vulnerable to human-made risk.

Comparison of classical and reliable controller performances for seismic response mitigation

  • Kavyashree, B.G.;Patil, Shantharama;Rao, Vidya S.
    • Earthquakes and Structures
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.353-364
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    • 2021
  • Natural hazards like earthquakes, high winds, and tsunami are a threat all the time for multi-story structures. The environmental forces cannot be clogged but the structures can be prevented from these natural hazards by using protective systems. The structural control can be achieved by using protective systems like the passive, active, semi-active, and hybrid protective systems; but the semi-active protective system has gained importance because of its adaptability to the active systems and reliability of the passive systems. Therefore, a semi-active protective system for the earthquake forces has been adopted in this work. Magneto-Rheological (MR) damper is used in the structure as a semi-active protective system; which is connected to the current driver and proposed controller. The Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller and reliable PID controller are two proposed controllers, which will actuate the MR damper and the desired force is generated to mitigate the vibration of the structural response subjected to the earthquake. PID controller and reliable PID controller are designed and tuned using Ziegler-Nichols tuning technique along with the MR damper simulated in Simulink toolbox and MATLAB to obtain the reduced vibration in a three-story benchmark structure. The earthquake is considered to be uncertain; where the proposed control algorithm works well during the presence of earthquake; this paper considers robustness to provide satisfactory resilience against this uncertainty. In this work, two different earthquakes are considered like El-Centro and Northridge earthquakes for simulation with different controllers. In this paper performances of the structure with and without two controllers are compared and results are discussed.

A Study for the Conformity Assessment on the Natural Dye by HPLC (1) (HPLC를 활용한 천연염료 적합성 평가 연구 (1))

  • Lee, Eun Mi;Oh, Dong Ki;Yoon, Hong Jin;Kim, Jong Hoon
    • Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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    • v.20 no.6
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    • pp.752-758
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    • 2018
  • Due to environmental pollution and human hazards of some synthetic dyes, the global fashion companies are increasingly interested in eco-friendly products, especially natural dye. For the globalization of natural dyeing industry based on this concern, however, there are some deficiencies of standardization, specification, and conformity assessment on natural dyestuffs as well as natural dyeing process. These obstacles should be not only studied but also defined for a commercial transaction. Accordingly, a study for conformity assessment on commercialized natural dyestuffs (red) was conducted by HPLC analysis in this study. As the results of HPLC analysis, alizarin and purpurin, representative index ingredients, were detected in most of the samples, but the index ingredient content in each sample was different. In addition, some samples showed the variety of peaks including the index ingredients and others. It was inferred that the representative index ingredients could be used on the traceability of natural sourced dyestuffs. These results are related to the index ingredient consistency, standardization, and reproducibility of natural dyed products including such as yarns, fabrics, garments, and so on. Therefore, the present study was demonstrated that in order to determine the conformity assessment system for the satisfaction of all stakeholders, the offering of information on the origin, manufacturing process, and index ingredient content of natural dyes should be prioritized.

A Preliminary Study of the Global Application of HAZUS and ShakeMap for Loss Estimation from a Scenario Earthquake in the Korean Peninsular (지진재해예측을 위한 HAZUS와 ShakeMap의 한반도에서의 적용가능성 연구)

  • Kang, Su-Young;Kim, Kwang-Hee;Kim, Dong-Choon;Yoo, Hai-Soo;Min, Dong-Joo;Suk, Bong-Chool
    • 한국방재학회:학술대회논문집
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    • 2007.02a
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    • pp.152-155
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    • 2007
  • Efficiency and limitations of HAZUS-MH, a GIS based systematic and informative system developed by FEMA and NIBS for natural hazard loss estimations, are discussed by means of a pilot study in the Korean Peninsular. Gyeongsang-do has been selected for the test after careful reviews of previous studies including historical and modern seismicity in the peninsular. A ShakeMap for the selected scenario earthquake with magnitude 6.7 in Gyeongju area is prepared. Then, any losses due to the scenario event have been estimated using HAZUS. Results of the pilot test show that the study area may experience significant physical, economic and social damages. Detailed study in the future will provide efficient and crucial information to the decision makers and emergency agents to mitigate any disaster posed by natural hazards.

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NEUTRON FIELD OF THE EARTH, ORIGIN AND DYNAMICS

  • Kuzhevskij, B.M.;Nechaev, O.Yu.;Panasyuk, M.I.;Sigaeva, E.A.;Volodichev, N.N.;Zakharov, V.A.
    • Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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    • v.26 no.3
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    • pp.315-319
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    • 2001
  • It is shown, that both cosmic radiation (external source) and natural radioactive gases (inner source) are sources of neutrons near the Earth crust. Correlation between the Earth crust dynamics and variations of thermal and slow neutron flux near the Earth surface is studied. It is shown, that variations of neutron flux near the Earth crust can be used for short-term predicting of natural hazards.

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Experimental investigation on hardened properties of recycled coarse aggregate concrete

  • Shohana, Shanjida A.;Hoque, Md. I.;Sobuz, Md. H.R.
    • Advances in concrete construction
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    • v.10 no.5
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    • pp.369-379
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    • 2020
  • Reduction of disposal of waste materials due to construction demolition has become a great concern in recent decades. The research work presents the hardened properties of concrete where the partial substitution of recycled coarse aggregate with natural aggregate in amount of 0%, 10%, 30% and 50%. By using different mixed proportions, fresh and hardened properties of concrete were conducted for this investigation. These properties were compared with control concrete. It can be seen that all of the hardened properties of concrete were decreased with the increasing percentage of recycled aggregate in concrete mixes. It was noticed that up to 30% recycled aggregate replacement can be yielded the optimum strength when it used in normal concrete. Finally, it can be said that disposed recycled concrete utilizing as a partial replacement in natural aggregate is a great way to reuse and reduce environmental hazards which achieve sustainability approach in the construction industry.

Recent advances in natural gas hydrate carriers for gas transportation - A review and conceptual design

  • Kim, Kipyoung;Kim, Youtaek;Kang, Hokeun
    • Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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    • v.38 no.5
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    • pp.589-601
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    • 2014
  • Natural gas hydrate (NGH) is emerging as a new eco-friendly source of energy to replace fossil fuels in the 21st century. It is well known that the Natural Gas Hydrate contains large amount of natural gas about 170 times as much as its volume and it is easy to be stored and transported safely at about $-20^{\circ}C$ under atmospheric pressure due to so called "self-preservation effect". The option of gas transport by gas hydrate pellets carrier has been investigated and developed in various industry and academy. The natural gas hydrate pellet carrier is on major link in a potential gas hydrate process chain, starting with the extraction of natural gas from the reservoir, followed by the production of hydrate pellets and the transportation to an onshore terminal for further processing or marketing. In recent years, Korean project team supported by Korean Government has been working on the development of NGH total systems including novel NGH carrier since 2011. In order to increase the knowledge on the NGH pellet carrier developed and to understand the major hazards that could have significant impact on the safety of the vessel, this paper presents and evaluates the pros and cons of cargo holds, loading and unloading systems through the analysis of current patent technology. Based on the proven and well-known technologies as well as potential measures to mitigate sintering and minimize mechanical stress on the hydrate pellet in the self-preservation state, this study presents the conceptual and basic design for NGH carrier.

Estimating Worst Case Flood and Inundation Damages under Climate Change

  • Kim, Sunmin;Tachikawa, Yasuto;Nakakita, Eiichi
    • Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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    • 2016.05a
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    • pp.189-189
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    • 2016
  • To generate information that contributes to climate change risk management, it is important to perform a precise assessment on the impact in diverse aspects. Considering this academic necessity, Japanese government launched continuous research project for the climate change impact assessment, and one of the representative project is Program for Risk Information on Climate Change (Sousei Program), Theme D; Precise Impact Assessment on Climate Change (FY2012 ~ FY2016). In this research program, quantitative impact assessments have been doing from a variety of perspectives including natural hazards, water resources, and ecosystems and biodiversity. Especially for the natural hazards aspect, a comprehensive impact assessment has been carried out with the worst-case scenario of typhoons, which cause the most serious weather-related damage in Japan, concerning the frequency and scale of the typhoons as well as accompanying disasters by heavy rainfall, strong winds, high tides, high waves, and landslides. In this presentation, a framework of comprehensive impact assessment with the worst-case scenario under the climate change condition is introduced based on a case study of Theme D in Sousei program There are approx. 25 typhoons annually and around 10 of those approach or make landfall in Japan. The number of typhoons may not change increase in the future, but it is known that a small alteration in the path of a typhoon can have an extremely large impact on the amount of rain and wind Japan receives, and as a result, cause immense damage. Specifically, it is important to assess the impact of a complex disaster including precipitation, strong winds, river overflows, and high tide inundation, simulating how different the damage of Isewan Typhoon (T5915) in 1959 would have been if the typhoon had taken a different path, or how powerful or how much damage it would cause if Isewan Typhoon occurs again in the future when the sea surface water temperature has risen due to climate changes (Pseudo global warming experiment). The research group also predict and assess how the frequency of "100-years return period" disasters and worst-case damage will change in the coming century. As a final goal in this research activity, the natural disaster impact assessment will extend not only Japan but also major rivers in Southeast Asia, with a special focus on floods and inundations.

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