Rip currents near coastal structures in Lake Michigan: Characterization and assessment for warnings

Rip currents near coastal structures commonly occur in Lake Michigan in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Lack of timely warning due to undocumented characteristics of rip currents and no assessment tool can contribute to tragic drownings incidents. In this paper, we characterized rip current occurrences near breakwater structures and developed an assessment tool for providing timely rip current warnings to beachgoers at the study site, City of Port Washington, WI. Characteristics of rip currents near the structure were observed from field measurements or visual images. Deflection rip currents had speeds of ～ 0.2 m/s and lasted for several hours. The rip current occurrences were associated with environmental proxies. It was found that rip currents can occur even when the water appears calm near the structure. A Structure Rip Checklist and Assessment Matrix (SRiCAM) with a four-tiered risk was developed and validated using observations. Furthermore, the SRiCAM was integrated into cyberinfrastructure with a data contingency plan to provide real-time warnings to the public. The applicability of the SRiCAM to other locations across Lake Michigan was further tested and results are promising. Overall, the SRiCAM has the potential to be widely extended to foster recreational water safety and resilience to rip current hazards in the Great Lakes.     

Evaluating residents' satisfaction with market-oriented urban village transformation: A case study of Yangji Village in Guangzhou,China

The large-scale urban village transformation in China has had a profound influence on the livelihood and interests of residents, which has also affected the residents' satisfaction and the stability of the society. This study extends the connotation of residential satisfaction to evaluate residents' satisfaction with market-oriented urban village transformation and to establish a conceptual framework in evaluating the aspects of result satisfaction and process satisfaction. The study examines residents' satisfaction with the market-oriented urban village transformation and the factors that influence this satisfaction using data from a field investigation in Yangji Village, Guangzhou City. Results show that overall, the residents in Yangji Village are satisfied with the transformation and that the residents' satisfaction is influenced considerably by both the results and the process of transformation, that is, community environment and quality, government and enterprise behaviours and housing conditions. The market-oriented model contributes to residents' satisfaction. The study suggests that by considering the process and results of the transformation as well as giving full play to the market-oriented model and paying attention to the model's risks can improve residents' satisfaction with urban village transformation.     

Multi-innovation auto-constructed least squares identification for 4 DOF ship manoeuvring modelling with full-scale trial data

This research is concerned with the problem of 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) ship manoeuvring identification modelling with the full-scale trial data. To avoid the multi-innovation matrix inversion in the conventional multi-innovation least squares (MILS) algorithm, a new transformed multi-innovation least squares (TMILS) algorithm is first developed by virtue of the coupling identification concept. And much effort is made to guarantee the uniformly ultimate convergence. Furthermore, the auto-constructed TMILS scheme is derived for the ship manoeuvring motion identification by combination with a statistic index. Comparing with the existing results, the proposed scheme has the significant computational advantage and is able to estimate the model structure. The illustrative examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, especially including the identification application with full-scale trial data.     

Bearing capacity of composite ground with soil-cement columns under earth fills: Physical and numerical modeling

Soil-cement columns are widely used to improve soft ground, and the bearing capacity of the formed composite ground is a key design parameter. The currently employed design method was developed for composite grounds under rigid footings, whilst the bearing capacity behavior of composite grounds under earth fills with different degrees of stiffness has rarely been investigated. Hence, the present study attempts to fill this gap. In this investigation, 1-g laboratory model tests are conducted to compare the bearing capacity behavior of composite grounds under a rigid footing and under embankment fill, based on which a numerical model that can capture the strain-softening behavior of soil-cement columns is established. The calibrated numerical model is further employed to perform 144 analyses. The results indicate that the failure mode of composite grounds differs for different types of earth fills: soil failure occurs prior to column failure under soft clay and dredged slurry, whereas column failure is the primary failure mode for composite grounds under embankment fill. This difference in failure mode of composite grounds can be explained using soil arching theories. For different failure modes, different bearing capacity efficiency factors should be used in design.     

Model test of immersed tube tunnel foundation treated by sand-flow method

In order to explore the immersed tunnel foundation treated by sand-flow method, modeling principles for the full-scale model test of sand flow were put forward. In addition, a sand-flow test model was built, which consisted of model system, equipment system and measurement system. The situation of sand-deposit expanding and the water pressure in the foundation trench were evaluated through the model test. The results show that a semi-closed space was formed between the model board and the expanding sand deposit, which made the water pressure in it rising with little range of volatility. The sand deposit gradually became non-circular truncated cone which shaped with its expanding radius, and the difference of the water pressure increased at each direction. The water pressure in crater had a linear increase with the sand-deposit radius, with a maximal value of 0.015 2 MPa. The volatility of the water pressure under the tunnel board and the water pressure value in the crater could be used as bases of construction control.     

Employing statistical model emulation as a surrogate for CFD

This work focuses on substituting a computationally expensive simulator by a cheap emulator to enable studying applications where running the simulator is prohibitively expensive. The procedure consists of two steps. In a first step, the emulator is calibrated to closely mimic the simulator response for a number of pre-defined cases. In a second step the calibrated emulator is used as surrogate for the simulator in the otherwise prohibitively expensive application. An appealing feature of the proposed framework contrary to other approaches is that the uncertainty on the emulator prediction can be determined. While the proposed framework is applicable in virtually all areas of natural sciences, we discuss the approach and evaluate its performance based on a typical example in the realm of computational wind engineering, namely the determination of the wind field in an urban area.     

脑卒中血浆脂肪酸及其代谢产物的UPLC-MS分析

脑卒中是一类高致残率、高死亡率的脑血管疾病,分为缺血性脑卒中和出血性脑卒中2种亚型,二者具有相似的临床症状,但治疗策略完全不同。目前,主要依赖医学影像学技术进行诊断,但存在耗时、费用高、难以区分2种脑卒中亚型等缺点,进而影响疾病治疗和预后。本研究收集了59例健康志愿者、60例急性脑缺血和36例脑出血患者的血浆样本,运用超高效液相色谱-质谱（UPLC-MS）技术测定了158种脂肪酸代谢物的含量,并结合多维统计和受试者工作曲线进行分析。结果表明,通过脂肪酸代谢物不仅能有效区分健康人和脑卒中患者,且能进一步区分急性脑缺血和脑出血,是很有前景的脑卒中潜在诊断生物标志物,该结果为脑卒中发病机理和诊断标志物的研究提供了新的依据。     

Consequence of drying on the compression behaviour of soft clay

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment - The soft clay is widely distributed in the nearshore and offshore areas in China. The sensitivity to drying and wetting raises serious concerns...     

Genetic identification of global commercial sea cucumber species on the basis of mitochondrial DNA sequences

Sea cucumbers are regarded as traditional delicacies, medicine and aphrodisiacs in Asia over many centuries. Generally, sea cucumbers are gutted, boiled and roasted, then preserved through drying, smoking or freezing. Thus, it is very difficult to identify clearly the species of processed sea cucumber on the basis of their morphology. In this work, FINS methodology was developed as a tool to assess the incidence of incorrect labeling of sea cucumbers belonging to family Holothuriidae in commercial food products. The result showed that 7 samples were incorrectly labeled (63.6%). Moreover, the technique allows the genetic identification of more than 40 species from all over the world.