• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.93-114
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• 2011

Flange and web local buckling in beam plastic hinge regions of steel moment frames can prevent beam-column connections from achieving adequate plastic rotations under earthquake-induced forces. This threat is especially valid for existing steel moment frame buildings with beams that lack adequate flange/web slenderness ratios. As the use of fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) have increased in strengthening and repair of steel members in recent years, using FRPs in stabilizing local instabilities have also attracted attention. Previous computational studies have shown that longitudinally oriented glass FRP (GFRP) strips may serve to moderately brace beam flanges against the occurrence of local buckling during plastic hinging. An experimental study was conducted at Izmir Institute of Technology investigating the effects of GFRP reinforcement on local buckling behavior of existing steel I-beams with flange slenderness ratios (FSR) exceeding the slenderness limits set forth in current seismic design specifications and modified by a bottom flange triangular welded haunch. Four European HE400AA steel beams with a depth/width ratio of 1.26 and FSR of 11.4 were cyclically loaded up to 4% rotation in a cantilever beam test set-up. Both bare beams and beams with GFRP sheets were tested in order to investigate the contribution of GFRP sheets in mitigating local flange buckling. Different configurations of GFRP sheets were considered. The tests have shown that GFRP reinforcement can moderately mitigate inelastic flange local buckling.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.655-666
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• 2008

In the past 20 years, seismic isolation has see a variety of applications in design of structures to mitigate seismic hazard. In particular, isolation has been seen as a means of achieving enhanced seismic performance objectives, such as those for hospitals, critical emergency response facilities, mass electronic data storage centers, and similar buildings whose functionality following a major seismic event is either critical to the public welfare or the financial solvency of an organization. While achieving these enhanced performance objectives is a natural (and oftentimes requisite) application of seismic isolation, little attention has been given to the extension of current design practice to isolated buildings which may have more conventional performance objectives. The development of a rational design methodology for isolated buildings requires thorough investigation of the behavior of isolated structures subjected to seismic input of various recurrence intervals, and which are designed to remain elastic only under frequent events. This paper summarizes these investigations, and proposed a consistent probabilistic framework within which any combination of performance objectives may be met. Analytical simulations are presented, the results are summarized. The intent of this work is to allow a building owner to make informed decisions regarding tradeoffs between superstructure performance (drifts, accelerations) and isolation system performance. Within this framework, it is possible to realize the benefits of designing isolated buildings for which the design criteria allows consideration of multiple performance goals.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.321-340
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• 2007

Structural control technologies have attracted great interest from the earthquake engineering community over the last few decades as an effective method of reducing undesired structural responses. Traditional structural control systems employ large quantities of cables to connect structural sensors, actuators, and controllers into one integrated system. To reduce the high-costs associated with labor-intensive installations, wireless communication can serve as an alternative real-time communication link between the nodes of a control system. A prototype wireless structural sensing and control system has been physically implemented and its performance verified in large-scale shake table tests. This paper introduces the design of this prototype system and investigates the feasibility of employing decentralized and partially decentralized control strategies to mitigate the challenge of communication latencies associated with wireless sensor networks. Closed-loop feedback control algorithms are embedded within the wireless sensor prototypes allowing them to serve as controllers in the control system. To validate the embedment of control algorithms, a 3-story half-scale steel structure is employed with magnetorheological (MR) dampers installed on each floor. Both numerical simulation and experimental results show that decentralized control solutions can be very effective in attaining the optimal performance of the wireless control system.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.467-480
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• 1999

Many antinutritional and toxic factors abound in tropical seeds, which are also generally rich in nutrients and therefore more prone to attack from herbivores. Antinutritional and toxic factors are considered to defend seeds against environmental vagaries and thus help to protect them. These factors though good for the plant, cause deleterious effects or are even toxic to animals and man. The conventional seeds cultivated for oil or non-oil purposes, and general aspects of antinutritional factors are not presented here as these have already been discussed widely by many workers. Deficits in conventional protein and energy sources in the tropics have stimulated a quest for alternative feeds both for animals and humans. This article attempts to highlight two new oilseed crops, Jatropha curcas and Moringa oleifera, and in addition deals with some under-utilized seeds with potential as animal feed. Most of these seed plants are adapted to various marginal growing conditions in the tropics and can help to mitigate the prevailing deficit in protein and energy sources. Antinutritional and toxic factors in seed or seed meal, various approaches to detoxify seed meal, and future research and development priorities for their exploitation as animal feeds are presented.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7451-7457
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• 2013

Background: Understanding and enhancing change capabilities, including Practice Adaptive Reserve (PAR), of Community Health Centers (CHCs) may mitigate cancer-related health disparities. Materials and Methods: Using stratified random sampling, we recruited 232 staff from seven CHCs serving Asian Pacific Islander communities to complete a self-administered survey. We performed multilevel regression analyses to examine PAR composite scores by CHC, position type, and number of years worked at their clinic. Results: The mean PAR score was 0.7 (s.d. 0.14). Higher scores were associated with a greater perceived likelihood that clinic staff would participate in an evidence-based intervention (EBI). Constructs such as communication, clinic flow, sensemaking, change valence, and resource availability were positively associated with EBI implementation or trended toward significance. Conclusions: PAR scores are positively associated with perceived likelihood of clinic staff participation in cancer screening EBI. Future research is needed to determine PAR levels most conducive to implementing change and to developing interventions that enhance Adaptive Reserve.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.67-75
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• 2012

Different from other natural hazards including floods, drought advances slowly and spreads widely, so that the preparedness is quite important and effective to mitigate the impacts from drought. Evaluation and forecast the status of drought for the present and future utilizing the meteorological scenario for agricultural drought can be useful to set a plan for agricultural drought mitigation in agriculture water resource management. In this study, drought climate scenario model on the basis of historical drought records for preparing agricultural drought mitigation was developed. To consider dependency and correlation between various climate variables, this model was utilized the historical climate pattern using reference year setting of four drought levels. The reference year for drought level was determined based on the frequency analysis result of monthly effective rainfall. On the basis of this model, drought climate scenarios at Suwon and Icheon station were set up and these scenarios were applied on the water balance simulation of reservoir water storage for Madun reservoir as well as the soil moisture model for Gosam reservoir watershed. The results showed that drought climate scenarios in this study could be more useful for long-term forecast of longer than 2~3 months period rather than short-term forecast of below one month.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.75-86
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• 2017

The aerosol content dynamics in a virtual system were investigated. The outcome was extended to monitor the mean concentration diffusion of aerosols in a predefined macro and micro scale. The data set used were wind data set from the automatic weather station; satellite data set from Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer aerosol index and multi-angle imaging spectroradiometer; ground data set from Aerosol robotic network. The maximum speed of the macro scale (West Africa) was less than 4.4 m/s. This low speed enables the pollutants to acquire maximum range of about 15 km. The heterogeneous nature of aerosols layer in the West African atmosphere creates strange transport pattern caused by multiple refractivity. It is believed that the multiple refractive concepts inhibit aerosol optical depth data retrieval. It was also discovered that the build-up of the purported strange transport pattern with time has enormous potential to influence higher degrees of climatic change in the long term. Even when the African Easterly Jet drives the aerosols layer at about 10 m/s, the interacting layers of aerosols are compelled to mitigate its speed to about 4.2 m/s (macro scale level) and boost its speed to 30 m/s on the micro scale level. Mean concentration diffusion of aerosols was higher in the micro scale than the macro scale level. The minimum aerosol content dynamics for non-decaying, logarithmic decay and exponential decay particulates dispersion is given as 4, 1.4 and 0 respectively.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.54
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• pp.3-44
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• 2012

Shipbuilding industry is one of the most influential ones in Korea. As shipbuilding industry is labor-intensive, it contributes to enhancing both local economy and national economy. Shipbuilding industry has been downsizing since the end of 2008 due to global financial crisis caused by America's sub-prime mortgage and aggravated by European countries' fiscal deficit. As a large fund is required for a single normal shipbuilding contract, fund raising is one of the most important elements in shipbuilding contract. Shipbuilding contract, requires refund guarantee in order for a buyer to reimburse the progressive payment paid to a builder. The disputes under shipbuilding contracts are mostly settled by arbitration rather than by law suit. English laws and English courts have been preferred for the choice of law as well as for the choice of forum. Due to depreciation of the ship value since the end of 2008, a number of buyers are trying to cancel the contract by raising unjust claim under the contract. Once disputes occurs regarding shipbuilding contract, a large amount of loss is inevitable. In order to mitigate the disputes arising from the shipbuilding contract, careful caution is required in drafting a shipbuilding contract.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.44
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• pp.85-107
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• 2009

L/C allows the exporter to have a bank's payment undertaking against shipping documents required by L/C. This means that the exporter can take export proceeds from a L/C issuing bank regardless of importer's payments and therefore the L/C better mitigate importer's credit risk compared to remittance and collections. Recently the use of L/C has been on down trend in line with increasing use of T/T, causing a big change of payment system. This tells that the payment method change in Korea is positive as the change also happens same in developed countries. This however gives more buyer's credit risk to exporters and therefore a systematic solution to this negative effect is required. In Korea, export credit insurance has been widely used to cover the buyer's credit risk. But the export credit insurance is limited because of lack of government's financial support and strict evaluation of buyer and exporter. Now Korea is ranked 10the largest trading country and therefore the exporters shall find another source for credit risk protection elsewhere. And as such this paper suggest International Factoring as a tool for the credit risk protection. The International Factoring gives advantages to the exporter in terms of credit protection and advances by purchasing account receivables on a without recourse basis.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.38-43
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• 2015

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) where all users share the entire time and frequency resource has paid attention as one of the key technologies to enhance the spectral efficiency and the total throughput. Nevertheless, as the number of users and SIC error increase, the inter-user interference and the residual interference due to the SIC error also increase, resulting in performance degradation. In order to mitigate the performance degradation, we propose grouping-based NOMA system. In the proposed scheme, all users are divided into two groups based on the distance between the BS and each user, where one utilizes the first half of the bandwidth and the other utilizes the rest in the orthogonal manner. On the other hand, users in each group share the spectrum in the non-orthogonal manner. Grouping users can reduce both the inter-user interference and residual interference due to the SIC error, so it can outperform conventional NOMA system, especially in case that the number of users and the SIC error increase. Based on that, we also present the hybrid operation of the conventional and the proposed NOMA systems. In numerical results, the total throughput of the proposed NOMA systems is compared with that of the conventional NOMA systems with regard to the number of users and SIC error. It is confirmed that the proposed NOMA system outperforms the conventional NOMA system as the number of users and the SIC error increase.