• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• 제8권3호
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• pp.5-12
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• 2018

Purpose - The purpose of current paper is to identify features of advertisements at social media that generate the ad-click and to further identify if these advertisements lead to purchase. If no purchase is made, then reasons for not making purchase are identified. Users' purchase experience after users clicked at advertisements are also studied. Research design, data, and methodology - Research design followed is exploratory research, where various factors leading to ad-clicks and generating purchase at social media platform were explored. Raw data was gathered by means of survey among a sample of 185 respondents in India using online structured questionnaire. GLM model and multinomial regression were used to analyze the data. Results - Several factors including endorsement by friends, advertisement aesthetics, product reviews, and aggressive pricing played major role in generating ad-clicks. Major impediment to purchase on were product misrepresentation in advertisement, false discounts, and site security. Female users clicked more on social media advertisements and made more purchases compared to their male counterpart. Conclusions - Social media advertisements have significant positive effect on buying behavior of online customers. Transactions culminating from social media ad-click generated significant positive experience for social media users. Thus, social media can be effective marketing tool.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.115-132
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• 2015

This paper presents a new method for seismic vulnerability assessment of buildings with reference to their operational limit state. The importance of this kind of evaluation arises from the civil protection necessity that some buildings, considered strategic for seismic emergency management, should retain their functionality also after a destructive earthquake. The method is based on the identification of experimental modal parameters from ambient vibrations measurements. The knowledge of the experimental modes allows to perform a linear spectral analysis computing the maximum structural drifts of the building caused by an assigned earthquake. Operational condition is then evaluated by comparing the maximum building drifts with the reference value assigned by the Italian Technical Code for the operational limit state. The uncertainty about the actual building seismic frequencies, typically significantly lower than the ambient ones, is explicitly taken into account through a probabilistic approach that allows to define for the building the Operational Index together with the Operational Probability Curve. The method is validated with experimental seismic data from a permanently monitored public building: by comparing the probabilistic prediction and the building experimental drifts, resulting from three weak earthquakes, the reliability of the method is confirmed. Finally an application of the method to a strategic building in Italy is presented: all the procedure, from ambient vibrations measurement, to seismic input definition, up to the computation of the Operational Probability Curve is illustrated.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.95-113
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• 2015

The knowledge of the behavior of any roller compacted concrete (RCC) dam and its foundation is gained by studying the service action of the dam and its foundation using measurements of an external and internal nature. The information by which a continuing assurance of structural safety of the RCC dam can be gauged is of primary importance. Similarly, the fact that the information on structural and thermal behavior and the properties of concrete that may be used to give added criteria for use in the design of future RCC dams is of secondary importance. Wide spread attention is now being given to the installation of more expensive instrumentation for studying the behavior of concrete dams and reservoirs and forecasting of any adverse trends. In view of this, the paper traces installation and need of the comprehensive instrumentation scheme implemented to monitor the structural and thermal behavior of 102.4 m high RCC dam constructed near Mumbai in India. An attempt is made in the present paper to emphasize the need to undertake an instrumentation program and evaluate their performance during construction and post construction stage of RCC structures. Few typical results, regarding the thermal and structural behavior of the dam, obtained through instrumentation installed at the dam site are presented and compared with the design considerations. The fair agreement is seen in the response observed through instrumentation with that governing the design criteria.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제2권3호
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• pp.199-211
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• 2015

The safety and performance of bridges could be monitored and evaluated by Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems. These systems try to identify and locate the damages in a structure and estimate their severities. Current SHM systems are applied to a single bridge, and they have not been used to monitor the structural condition of a network of bridges. This paper propose a new method which will be used in Synthetic Rating Procedures (SRP) developed by the authors of this paper and utilizes SHM systems for monitoring and evaluating the condition of a network of bridges. Synthetic rating procedures are used to assess the condition of a network of bridges and identify their ratings. As an additional part of the SRP, the method proposed in this paper can continuously monitor the behaviour of a network of bridges and therefore it can assist to prevent the sudden collapses of bridges or the disruptions to their serviceability. The method could be an important part of a bridge management system (BMS) for managers and engineers who work on condition assessment of a network of bridges.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제2권3호
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• pp.181-197
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• 2015

Assessing the condition of paint on civil structures is an important but challenging and costly task, in particular when it comes to large and complex structures. Current practices of visual inspection are labour-intensive and time-consuming to perform. In addition, this task usually relies on the experience and subjective judgment of individual inspectors. In this study, hyperspectral imaging and classification techniques are proposed as a method to objectively assess the state of the paint on a civil or other structure. The ultimate objective of the work is to develop a technology that can provide precise and automatic grading of paint condition and assessment of degradation due to age or environmental factors. Towards this goal, we acquired hyperspectral images of steel surfaces located at long (mid-range) and short distances on the Sydney Harbour Bridge with an Acousto-Optics Tunable filter (AOTF) hyperspectral camera (consisting of 21 bands in the visible spectrum). We trained a multi-class Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifier to automatically assess the grading of the paint from hyperspectral signatures. Our results demonstrate that the classifier generates highly accurate assessment of the paint condition in comparison to the judgement of human experts.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제2권3호
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• pp.213-236
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• 2015

The paper presents an investigation into the mode conversion and scattering characteristics of guided waves at delaminations in laminated composite beams. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model, which is experimentally verified using data measured by 3D scanning laser vibrometer, is used in the investigation. The study consists of two parts. The first part investigates the excitability of the fundamental anti-symmetric mode ($A_0$) of guided wave in laminated composite beams. It is found that there are some unique phenomena, which do not exist for guided waves in plate structures, make the analysis become more complicated. The phenomena are observed in numerical study using 3D FE simulations. In the second part, several delaminated composite beams are studied numerically to investigate the mode conversion and scattering characteristics of the $A_0$ guided wave at delaminations. Different sizes, locations and through-thickness locations of the delaminations are investigated in detail. The mode conversion and scattering phenomena of guided waves at the delaminations are studied by calculating reflection and transmission coefficients. The results show that the sizes, locations and through-thickness locations of the delaminations have significant effects on the scattering characteristics of guided waves at the delaminations. The results of this research would provide better understanding of guided waves propagation and scattering at the delaminations in the laminated composite beams, and improve the performance of guided wave damage detection methods.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.165-180
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• 2015

In this paper lead zirconate titanate transducers (PZT) are employed for damage detection of four reinforced concrete (RC) column specimens retrofitted with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) jackets. A major disadvantage of FRP jacketing in RC members is the inability to inspect visually if the concrete substrate is damaged and in such case to estimate the extent of damage. The parameter measured during uniaxial compression tests at random times for known strain values is the real part of the complex number of the Electromechanical Admittance (Conductance) of the sensors, obtained by a PXI platform. The transducers are placed in specific positions along the height of the columns for detecting the damage in different positions and carrying out conclusions for the variation of the Conductance in relation to the position the failure occurred. The quantification of the damage at the concrete substrate is achieved with the use of the root-mean-square-deviation (RMSD) index, which is evaluated for the corresponding strain values. The experimental results provide evidence that PZT transducers are sensitive to damage detection from an early stage of the experiment and that the use of PZT sensors for monitoring and detecting the damage of FRP-retrofitted reinforced concrete members, by using the Electromechanical Admittance (EMA) approach, can be a highly promising method.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.145-164
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• 2015

Bridge scour is the predominant cause of overwater bridge failures in North America and around the world. Several sensing systems have been developed over the years to detect the extent of scour so that preventative actions can be performed in a timely manner. These sensing systems have drawbacks, such as signal inaccuracy and discontinuity, installation difficulty, and high cost. Therefore, attempts to develop more efficient monitoring schemes continue. In this study, the viability of using optical dissolved oxygen (DO) probes for monitoring scour depths was explored. DO levels are very low in streambed sediments, as compared to the standard level of oxygen in flowing water. Therefore, scour depths can be determined by installing sensors to monitor DO levels at various depths along the buried length of a bridge pier or abutment. The measured DO is negligible when a sensor is buried but would increase significantly once scour occurs and exposes the sensor to flowing water. A set of experiments was conducted in which four dissolved oxygen probes were embedded at different soil depths in the vicinity of a mock bridge pier inside a laboratory flume simulating scour conditions. The results confirmed that DO levels jumped drastically when sensors became exposed during scour hole evolution, thereby providing discrete measurements of the maximum scour depth. Moreover, the DO probes could detect any subsequent refilling of the scour hole through the deposition of sediments. The effect of soil permeability on the sensing response time was also investigated.

• Journal of Ship and Ocean Technology
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.41-52
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• 2008

The development of a high-lift rudder is needed because low speed full ships such as the VLCC(Very Large Crude oil Carrier) have difficulty for obtaining enough lifting force from a common rudder. The rudder of a ship is generally positioned behind the hull and propeller. Therefore, rudder design should consider the interactions between hull, propeller, and rudder. In the present study, the FLUENT code and body fitted mesh systems generated by the GRIDGEN program are adopted for the numerical simulations of flow characteristics around a rudder that is interacting with hull and propeller. Sliding mesh model(SMM) is adopted to analyze the interaction between propeller rotation and wake flow behind hull. Several numerical simulations are performed to compare the interactions such as hull-rudder, propeller-rudder, and hull-propeller-rudder. Also, we consider relationships between the interactions. The results of present numerical simulations show the variation of flow characteristics by the interaction between hull, propeller, and rudder, and these results are compared with an existing experimental result. The present study demonstrates that numerical simulations can be used effectively in the design of high-lift rudder behind low speed full ship.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제6권1호
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• pp.33-46
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• 2019

In present study, Operational Modal Analysis (OMA) was employed to carry out the dynamic and vibration analysis of the threshing unit of the combine harvester thresher as a mechanical component. The main study is to find the causes of vibration and to decrease it to enhance the lifetime and efficiency of the threshing unit. By utilizing OMA, structural modal parameters such as mode shapes, natural frequencies, and damping ratio was calculated. The combine harvester was excited by engine to vibrate different parts and accelerometer sensor collected acceleration signals at different speeds, and OMA was utilized by nonparametric and frequency analysis methods to obtain modal parameters while vibrating in real working conditions. Afterwards, finite element model was designed from the thresher and updated using the data obtained from the modal analysis. Using the conducted analyses, it was specified that proximity of the thresher pass frequency to one of the natural frequencies (16.64 Hz) was the most important effect of vibration in the thresher. Modification process of the structure was carried out by increasing mass required for changing the natural frequency location of the first mode to 12.4 Hz in order to reduce resonance and vibration of the thresher.