• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.43 no.3
• /
• pp.223-232
• /
• 2017

Objectives: In response to increased interest in the safety of children's products, a risk management system is being prepared through exposure assessment of hazardous chemicals. To estimate exposure levels, risk assessors are using deterministic and probabilistic approaches to statistical methodology and a commercialized Monte Carlo simulation based on tools (MCTool) to efficiently support calculation of the probability density functions. This study was conducted to analyze and discuss the usage patterns and problems associated with the results of these two approaches and MCTools used in the case of probabilistic approaches by reviewing research reports related to exposure assessment for children's products. Methods: We collected six research reports on exposure and risk assessment of children's products and summarized the deterministic results and corresponding underlying distributions for exposure dose and concentration results estimated through deterministic and probabilistic approaches. We focused on mechanisms and differences in the MCTools used for decision making with probabilistic distributions to validate the simulation adequacy in detail. Results: The estimation results of exposure dose and concentration from the deterministic approaches were 0.19-3.98 times higher than the results from the probabilistic approach. For the probabilistic approach, the use of lognormal, Student's T, and Weibull distributions had the highest frequency as underlying distributions of the input parameters. However, we could not examine the reasons for the selection of each distribution because of the absence of test-statistics. In addition, there were some cases estimating the discrete probability distribution model as the underlying distribution for continuous variables, such as weight. To find the cause of abnormal simulations, we applied two MCTools used for all reports and described the improper usage routes of MCTools. Conclusions: For transparent and realistic exposure assessment, it is necessary to 1) establish standardized guidelines for the proper use of the two statistical approaches, including notes by MCTool and 2) consider the development of a new software tool with proper configurations and features specialized for risk assessment. Such guidelines and software will make exposure assessment more user-friendly, consistent, and rapid in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.41 no.8
• /
• pp.619-624
• /
• 2013

To predict the probabilistic service life, statistical factors should be included to consider the uncertainty of parameters. Generally the probabilistic analysis is one of the common methods to account the uncertainty of parameters on the structural failure. In order to apply probabilistic analysis on the deterministic life analysis, it would be necessary to introduce Probability of Failure(PoF) and conduct risk assessment. In this work, we have studied probabilistic risk assessment of aircraft structures by using PoF approach. To achieve this goal, the Bayesian method was utilized to model PoF estimation since this method is known as the proper method to express the uncertainty of parameters. A series of proof tests were also conducted in order to verify the result of PoF estimation. The results from this efforts showed that the PoF estimation model can calculate quantitatively the value of PoF. Furthermore effectiveness of risk assessment approach for the aircraft structures was also demonstrated.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.97-105
• /
• 2002

Random properties of discontinuities were attributed to the limitation of test methods and lack of obtained data. Therefore, the uncertainties are pervasive and inevitable in rock slope engineering as well as other geotechnical engineering fields. The probabilistic analysis has been proposed to deal properly with the uncertainty. However, previous probabilistic approaches do not take account of the condition of kinematic instability but consider only kinetic instability. In this study, in order to overcome the limitation of the previous studies, the geometric characteristics as well as the shear strength characteristics in discontinuities are taken account into the probabilistic analysis. Then, the new approach to evaluate the probability of failure is suggested. The results of the deterministic analysis which was carried out to compare with the result of the probabilistic analysis, are somewhat different from those of the probabilistic approach. This is because the selected and used data in the deterministic approach do not take account of the random properties of discontinuities.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.125-132
• /
• 2007

The oedometer, radial CRS and Rowe cell tests, composite discharge capacity tests and smear effect tests are carried out to estimate the parameters for the reliability-based design of vertical drain method. Also the sensitivity analysis, the probabilistic and deterministic solutions of radial consolidation theory are presented. The result of probabilistic analysis was compared to that of deterministic analysis using the tested and estimated parameters. The results indicated that the drain spacing in the deterministic method is larger than that in the probabilistic method because the former does not consider the uncertainties in the geotechnical property. The divergence of two methods is dependent on the probability of achieving target degree of consolidation by a given time and the coefficient of variation (COV) of the coefficient of horizontal consolidation ($c_h$).

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.13 no.9
• /
• pp.4814-4832
• /
• 2019

Plagiarism detection is increasingly exploiting text alignment. Text alignment involves extracting the plagiarism passages in a pair of the suspicious document and its source document. The heuristics have achieved excellent performance in text alignment. However, the further improvements of the heuristic methods mainly depends more on the experiences of experts, which makes the heuristics lack of the abilities for continuous improvements. To address this problem, machine learning maybe a proper way. Considering the position relations and the context of text segments pairs, we formalize the text alignment task as a problem of sequence labeling, improving the current methods at the model level. Especially, this paper proposes to use the probabilistic graphical model to tag the observed sequence of pairs of text segments. Hence we present the sequence labeling approach for text alignment in plagiarism detection based on Conditional Random Fields. The proposed approach is evaluated on the PAN@CLEF 2012 artificial high obfuscation plagiarism corpus and the simulated paraphrase plagiarism corpus, and compared with the methods achieved the best performance in PAN@CLEF 2012, 2013 and 2014. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach significantly outperforms the state of the art methods.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.32-40
• /
• 2005

Recent earthquakes over magnitude 5 in the eastern coast of Korea have aroused interests in the earthquake analyses and seismic design of breakwater structures. Most of earthquake analysis methods such as equivalent static analysis, response spectrum analysis, nonlinear analysis, and capacity analysis methods are deterministic and have been used for seismic design and performance evaluation of breakwater structures. However, deterministic methods are difficult to reflect one of the most important characteristics of earthquakes, i.e. the uncertainty of earthquakes. This paper presents results of probabilistic seismic risk assessment(PSRA) of an actual caisson type breakwater structure considering uncertainties of earthquake occurrences and soil properties. First the seismic vulnerability of a structure and the seismic hazard of the site are evaluated using earthquake sets and seismic hazard map, and then seismic risk of the structure is assessed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.169-184
• /
• 2022

The importance of seismicity in developing countries and the strengthening of buildings is a topic of major importance. Therefore, the study of several solutions with the development of new technologies is of great importance to investigate the damage on retrofitted structures by using probabilistic methods. The Federal Emergency Management Agency considers three types of performance levels by considering different scenarios, intensity and duration. The selection and scaling of ground motions mainly depends on the aim of the study. Intensity-based assessments are the most common and compute the response of buildings for a specified seismic intensity. Assessments based on scenarios estimate the response of buildings to different earthquake scenarios. A risk-based assessment is considered as one of the most effective. This research represents a practical method for developing countries where exists many active faults, tall buildings and lack of good implementable approaches. Therefore, to achieve the main goal, two high-rise steel buildings have been modeled and assessed. The contribution of buckling-restrained braces in the elastic design of both buildings is firstly verified. In the nonlinear static range, both buildings presented repairable damage at the central top part and some life safety hinges at the bottom. The nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis was applied by 15 representative/scaled accelerograms to obtain levels of performance and fragility curves. The results shown that by using probabilistic methods, it is possible to estimate the probability of collapse of retrofitted buildings by buckling-restrained braces and tuned mass dampers, which are practical retrofitting options to protect existing structures against earthquakes.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.51-58
• /
• 1992

The primary objective of this study is the development of the system reliability analysis of offshore structures against progressive fatigue failure. Two methods based on the second moment reliability methods are used. One is the improved first order reliability method(IFORM) and the other is the modified probabilistic network evaluation technique(MPNET). Using idealized parallel member models, reliability analyses for progressive fatigue failures are carried out for various cases with multiple members composed of multiple connecting joints per member. Numerical results indicate that the effectiveness of the used methods over the conventional ones (i.e. the FORM and the PNET) increases very significantly as the number of failure modes of the system increases.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.65 no.6
• /
• pp.751-760
• /
• 2018

Damages in concrete structures due to aging and other factors could be a serious and immense matter. Making the best selection of the most viable and practical repairing and strengthening techniques are relatively difficult tasks using traditional methods of structural analyses. This is due to the fact that the traditional methods used for assessing aging structure are not fully capable when considering the randomness in strength, loads and cost. This paper presents a reliability-based methodology for assessing reinforced concrete members. The methodology of this study is based on probabilistic analysis, using statistics of the random variables in the performance function equations. Principles of reliability updating are used in the assessment process, as new information is taken into account and combined with prior probabilistic models. The methodology can result in a reliability index ${\beta}$ that can be used to assess the structural component by comparing its value with a standard value. In addition, these methods result in partial safety factor values that can be used for the purpose of strengthening the R/C elements of the existing structure. Calculations and computations of the reliability indices and the partial safety factors values are conducted using the First-order Reliability Method and Monte Carlo simulation.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.16 no.11
• /
• pp.1125-1135
• /
• 2010

A fundamental characteristic of PMHT (Probabilistic Multi-Hypothesis Tracker) is that the number of targets and initial states of targets in the surveillance area must be a priori known. This requirement is impossible to fulfil in almost every realistic scenario. In the paper, we present two track initiation methods to solve the problem. The proposed track initiation methods are 2-point track initiation and Hough transform track initiation, and they are used to evaluate track initial states and weights for FTD (False Track Discrimination) of the PMHT algorithm. Also suggested as automatic target detection for tracking systems that combines track initiation for target detection with the PMHT algorithm for target tracking in a cluttered environment. A series of Monte-Carlo simulation runs is employed to evaluate the overall system performance with the two track initiation methods and the results are compared and analyzed.