• Educational Technology International
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.69-95
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• 2020

The purpose of this research is to analyze the predictive powers of the five technostress creators - techno-overload, techno-invasion, techno-complexity, techno-insecurity, and techno-uncertainty - in job satisfaction and teacher efficacy of primary school teachers in Korea when they incorporated mobile technology into teaching. A questionnaire was designed to measure the level of teacher's stress from technology, job satisfaction and teacher efficacy. Data were collected from 164 teachers. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to explain which area of technostress led to varying degrees of job satisfaction and teacher efficacy. The results showed that techno-complexity alone predicted both job satisfaction and teacher efficacy. The reason why techno-complexity was the only predictor is that teachers would have first needed to understand how to incorporate mobile technology into teaching, before feeling overloaded, invaded, insecure, or uncertain about it, meaning techno-complexity precedes other constructs. Therefore, the only stress factor that affected them was how to understand the complexity of mobile technology. This calls for adequate training and support from schools and governments in order for the teachers to fully incorporate technology into teaching.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.165-175
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• 2017

This paper studies soil properties uncertainty and its implementation in the seismic response evaluation of structures. For this, response sensitivity of two 4- and 12-story RC shear walls to the soil properties uncertainty by considering soil structure interaction (SSI) effects is investigated. Beam on Nonlinear Winkler Foundation (BNWF) model is used for shallow foundation modeling and the uncertainty of soil properties is expanded to the foundation stiffness and strength parameters variability. Monte Carlo (MC) simulation technique is employed for probabilistic evaluations. By investigating the probabilistic evaluation results it's observed that as the soil and foundation become stiffer, the soil uncertainty is found to be less important in influencing the response variability. On the other hand, the soil uncertainty becomes more important as the foundation-structure system is expected to experience nonlinear behavior to more sever degree. Since full This paper studies soil properties uncertainty and its implementation in the seismic response evaluation of structures. For this, response sensitivity of two 4- and 12-story RC shear walls to the soil properties uncertainty by considering soil structure interaction (SSI) effects is investigated. Beam on Nonlinear Winkler Foundation (BNWF) model is used for shallow foundation modeling and the uncertainty of soil properties is expanded to the foundation stiffness and strength parameters variability. Monte Carlo (MC) simulation technique is employed for probabilistic evaluations. By investigating the probabilistic evaluation results it's observed that as the soil and foundation become stiffer, the soil uncertainty is found to be less important in influencing the response variability. On the other hand, the soil uncertainty becomes more important as the foundation-structure system is expected to experience nonlinear behavior to more sever degree. Since full probabilistic analysis methods like MC commonly are very time consuming, the feasibility of simple approximate methods' application including First Order Second Moment (FOSM) method and ASCE41 proposed approach for the soil uncertainty considerations is investigated. By comparing the results of the approximate methods with the results obtained from MC, it's observed that the results of both FOSM and ASCE41 methods are in good agreement with the results of MC simulation technique and they show acceptable accuracy in predicting the response variability.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.58 no.3
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• pp.443-458
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• 2016

In this paper, we propose a method for taking into account uncertainties based on the projection on polynomial chaos. Due to the manufacturing and assembly errors, uncertainties in material and geometric properties, the system parameters including assembly defect, damping coefficients, bending stiffness and traction-compression stiffness are uncertain. The proposed method is used to determine the dynamic response of a one-stage spur gear system with uncertainty associated to gear system parameters. An analysis of the effect of these parameters on the one stage gear system dynamic behavior is then treated. The simulation results are obtained by the polynomial chaos method for dynamic analysis under uncertainty. The proposed method is an efficient probabilistic tool for uncertainty propagation. The polynomial chaos results are compared with Monte Carlo simulations.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2009

The present contribution addresses uncertainty quantification and uncertainty propagation in structural mechanics using stochastic analysis. Presently available procedures to describe uncertainties in load and resistance within a suitable mathematical framework are shortly addressed. Monte Carlo methods are proposed for studying the variability in the structural properties and for their propagation to the response. The general applicability and versatility of Monte Carlo Simulation is demonstrated in the context with computational models that have been developed for deterministic structural analysis. After discussing Direct Monte Carlo Simulation for the assessment of the response variability, some recently developed advanced Monte Carlo methods applied for reliability assessment are described, such as Importance Sampling for linear uncertain structures subjected to Gaussian loading, Line Sampling in linear dynamics and Subset simulation. The numerical example demonstrates the applicability of Line Sampling to general linear uncertain FE systems under Gaussian distributed excitation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.41-64
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• 2014

The main objective of this article is the exploitation of a stochastic hybrid mesh-free method based on stochastic generalized finite difference (SGFD), Newmark finite difference (NFD) methods and Monte Carlo simulation for thermoelastic wave propagation and coupled thermoelasticity analysis based on GN theory (without energy dissipation). A thick hollow cylinder with Gaussian uncertainty in mechanical properties is considered as an analyzed domain for the problem. The effects of uncertainty in mechanical properties with various coefficients of variations on thermo-elastic wave propagation are studied in details. Also, the time histories and distribution on thickness of cylinder of maximum, mean and variance values of temperature and radial displacement are studied for various coefficients of variations (COVs).

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.19-43
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• 2014

A risk assessment framework for evaluating building structures is implemented in this study. This framework allows considering sources of uncertainty both on structural capacity and seismic demand. In particular randomness on seismic load, incident angle, material properties, floor mass and structural damping are considered; in addition the choice of fibre modelling versus plastic hinge model is also considered as a source of uncertainty. The main objective of this work is to study the contribution of these sources of uncertainty on the fragilities of steel and steel-reinforced concrete composite 3D building structures. The fragility curves are expressed in the form of a two-parameter lognormal distribution where vertical statistics in conjunction with metaheuristic optimization are implemented for calculating the two parameters.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.357-372
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• 2008

This study investigates effect of uncertainty in natural vibration period on the seismic demand. It is shown that since this uncertainty affects the acceleration and displacement responses differently, two ratios, one relating peak acceleration responses and the other relating the peak displacement responses, are not equal and both must be employed in evaluating and defining the critical seismic demand. The evaluation of the ratios is carried out using more than 200 strong ground motion records. The results suggest that the uncertainty in the natural vibration period impacts significantly the statistics of the ratios relating the peak responses. By using the statistics of the ratios, a procedure and sets of empirical equations are developed for estimating the probability consistent seismic demand for both linear and nonlinear systems.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.539-548
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• 2017

Thermoelasticity is a contactless technique for measuring stress distributions in structural elements stressed by dynamic loads. This work describes the characteristics, analyzes the main causes of uncertainty and illustrates a series of operative methods for reducing its effects. More specifically, the effects of the angle of view between the thermographic camera and the surface of the object are studied, along with those due to the heat transmission by conduction between the various parts of the thing being measured as a function of the stress frequencies. The analyses, both theoretical and experimental, are aimed at defining the operational limits and optimal measurement and test conditions in relation to the measurement uncertainty that is considered tolerable in the specific application.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.447-458
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• 2013

Splitting tensile strength (STS) is a respectable mechanical property reflecting ability of the concrete. The STS of concrete is mainly related to compressive strength (CS), water/binder (W/B) ratio and concrete age. In this study, the assessment of STS is made by a novel uncertainty-oriented method which uses least square optimization and then predicts STS of concrete by uncertain (fuzzy) numbers. The approximation method addresses a novel integration of fuzzy set theory and multivariate statistics. The numerical examples showed that the method is applicable with relatively limited data. In addition, the prediction of uncertainty at various levels of possibility can be described. In conclusion, the uncertainty-oriented interval analysis can be suggested an effective tool for appraising the uncertainties in concrete technology.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.263-276
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• 2007

This paper presents a fuzzy finite element model for the analysis of structures in the presence of multiple uncertainties. A new methodology to evaluate the cumulative effect of multiple uncertainties on structural response is developed in the present work. This is done by modifying Muhanna's approach for handling single uncertainty. Uncertainty in load and material properties is defined by triangular membership functions with equal spread about the crisp value. Structural response is obtained in terms of fuzzy interval displacements and rotations. The results are further post-processed to obtain interval values of bending moment, shear force and axial forces. Membership functions are constructed to depict the uncertainty in structural response. Sensitivity analysis is performed to evaluate the relative sensitivity of displacements and forces to uncertainty in structural parameters. The present work demonstrates the effectiveness of fuzzy finite element model in establishing sharp bounds to the uncertain structural response in the presence of multiple uncertainties.