• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.30-39
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• 2017

In this study, the predictive toxicity of barley Hordeum vulgare was estimated using a modified terrestrial biotic ligand model (TBLM) to account for the toxic effects of $CuOH^+$ and $CuCO_3(aq)$ generated at pH 7 or higher, and this was compared to that from the original TBLM. At pH values higher than 7, the difference in $EA_{50}\{Cu^{2+}\}$ (half maximal effective activity of $Cu^{2+}$) between the two models increased with increasing pH. As Mg concentration increased from 8.24 to 148 mg/L in the pH range of 5.5 to 8.5, the difference in $EA_{50}\{Cu^{2+}\}$ increased, and it reached its maximum at pH 8. The difference in $EC_{50}[Cu]_T$ (half maximal effective concentration of Cu) between the two models increased as dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration increased when pH was above 7. Thus, for soils with alkaline pH, the toxic effect of $CuOH^+$ and $CuCO_3(aq)$ are greater at higher salt and DOC concentrations. The acceptable Cu concentration in soil porewater can be estimated by the modified TBLM through deterministic method at pH levels higher than 7, while combination of TBLM and species sensitivity distribution through the probabilistic method could be utilized at pH levels lower than 7.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.4 no.4 s.16
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• pp.192-200
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• 2003

The object of this research is to develop a computerized algorithm of cost estimation method to forecast the total construction cost in the bidding stage by the historical and elemental work cost data. Traditional cost models to prepare Bill of Quantities in the korea construction industry since 1970 are not helpful to forecast the project total cost in the bidding stage because the BOQ is always constant data according to the design factors of a particular project. On the contrary, statistical models can provide cost quicker and more reliable than traditional ones if the collected cost data are sufficient enough to analyze the trends of the variables. The estimation system considers non-deterministic methods which referred to as the 'Monte Carlo simulation. The method interprets cost data to generate a probabilistic distribution for total costs from the deficient elemental experience cost distribution.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.1071-1083
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• 2005

By estimating probability distributions of the good solutions in the current population, some researchers try to find the optimal solution more efficiently. Particularly, finite mixtures of distributions have a very useful role in dealing with complex problems. However, it is difficult to choose the number of components in the mixture models and merge superior partial solutions represented by each component. In this paper, we propose a new continuous evolutionary optimization algorithm with distribution estimation by variational Bayesian mixtures of factor analyzers. This technique can estimate the number of mixtures automatically and combine good sub-solutions by sampling new individuals with the latent variables. In a comparison with two probabilistic model-based evolutionary algorithms, the proposed scheme achieves superior performance on the traditional benchmark function optimization. We also successfully estimate the parameters of S-system for the dynamic modeling of biochemical networks.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1087-1105
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• 2016

Traffic load and volume is one of the most important physical quantities for bridge safety evaluation and maintenance strategies formulation. This paper aims to conduct the statistical analysis of traffic volume information and the multimodal modeling of gross vehicle weight (GVW) based on the monitoring data obtained from the weigh-in-motion (WIM) system instrumented on the arch Jiubao Bridge located in Hangzhou, China. A genetic algorithm (GA)-based mixture parameter estimation approach is developed for derivation of the unknown mixture parameters in mixed distribution models. The statistical analysis of one-year WIM data is firstly performed according to the vehicle type, single axle weight, and GVW. The probability density function (PDF) and cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the GVW data of selected vehicle types are then formulated by use of three kinds of finite mixed distributions (normal, lognormal and Weibull). The mixture parameters are determined by use of the proposed GA-based method. The results indicate that the stochastic properties of the GVW data acquired from the field-instrumented WIM sensors are effectively characterized by the method of finite mixture distributions in conjunction with the proposed GA-based mixture parameter identification algorithm. Moreover, it is revealed that the Weibull mixture distribution is relatively superior in modeling of the WIM data on the basis of the calculated Akaike's information criterion (AIC) values.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.28 no.12C
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• pp.1200-1208
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• 2003

Affective computing plays an important role in intelligent Human Computer Interactions(HCI). To detect emotional events, it is desirable to construct a computing model for extracting emotion related features from video. In this paper, we propose a statistical model based on the probabilistic distribution of low level features in video shots. The proposed method extracts low level features from video shots and then from a GMM(Gaussian Mixture Model) for them to detect emotional shots. As low level features, we use color, camera motion and sequence of shot lengths. The features can be modeled as a GMM by using EM(Expectation Maximization) algorithm and the relations between time and emotions are estimated by MLE(Maximum Likelihood Estimation). Finally, the two statistical models are combined together using Bayesian framework to detect emotional events in video.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.53-72
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• 1991

An integrated model is developed in this paper for the performance assessment of high level radioactive waste repository. This integrated model consists of two simple mathematical models. One is a multiple-barrier failure model of the repository system based on constant failure rates which provides source terms to biosphere. The other is a biosphere model which has multiple pathways for radionuclides to reach to human. For the parametric uncertainty and sensitivity analysis for the risk assessment of high level radioactive waste repository, Latin hypercube sampling and rank correlation techniques are applied to this model. The former is cost-effective for large computer programs because it gives smaller error in estimating output distribution even with smaller number of runs compared to crude Monte Carlo technique. The latter is good for generating dependence structure among samples of input parameters. It is also used to find out the most sensitive, or important, parameter groups among given input parameters. The methodology of the mathematical modelling with statistical analysis will provide useful insights to the decision-making of radioactive waste repository selection and future researches related to uncertain and sensitive input parameters.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.811-827
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• 2015

This paper presents a probabilistic investigation of American and European specifications (i.e., AISC and Eurocode 4) for square concrete-filled steel tubular (CFT) stub columns. The study is based on experimental results of 100 axially loaded square CFT stub columns from the literature. By comparing experimental results for ultimate loads with code-predicted column resistances, the uncertainty of resistance models is analyzed and it is found that the modeling uncertainty parameter can be described using random variables of lognormal distribution. Reliability analyses were then performed with/without considering the modeling uncertainty parameter and the safety level of the specifications is evaluated in terms of sufficient and uniform reliability criteria. Results show that: (1) The AISC design code provided slightly conservative results of square CFT stub columns with reliability indices larger than 3.25 and the uniformness of reliability indices is no better because of the quality of the resistance model; (2) The uniformness of reliability indices for the Eurocode 4 was better than that of AISC, but the reliability indices of columns designed following the Eurocode 4 were found to be quite below the target reliability level of Eurocode 4.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.527-542
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• 2002

Wind-excited vibrations of slender structures can induce fatigue damage and cause structural failure without exceeding ultimate limit state. Unfortunately, the growing importance of this problem is coupled with an evident lack of simple calculation criteria. This paper proposes a mathematical method for evaluating the crosswind fatigue of slender vertical structures, which represents the dual formulation of a parallel method that the authors recently developed with regard to alongwind vibrations. It takes into account the probability distribution of the mean wind velocity at the structural site. The aerodynamic crosswind actions on the stationary structure are caused by the vortex shedding and by the lateral turbulence, both schematised by spectral models. The structural response in the small displacement regime is expressed in closed form by considering only the contribution of the first vibration mode. The stress cycle counting is based on a probabilistic method for narrow-band processes and leads to analytical formulae of the stress cycles histogram, of the accumulated damage and of the fatigue life. The extension of this procedure to take into account aeroelastic vibrations due to lock-in is carried out by means of ESDU method. The examples point out the great importance of vortex shedding and especially of lock-in concerning fatigue.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.326-337
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• 2010

This work addresses problems regarding trajectory planning for unmanned aerial vehicle sensors. Such sensors are used for taking measurements of large nonlinear systems. The sensor investigations presented here entails methods for improving estimations and predictions of large nonlinear systems. Thoroughly understanding the global system state typically requires probabilistic state estimation. Thus, in order to meet this requirement, the goal is to find trajectories such that the measurements along each trajectory minimize the expected error of the predicted state of the system. The considerable nonlinearity of the dynamics governing these systems necessitates the use of computationally costly Monte-Carlo estimation techniques, which are needed to update the state distribution over time. This computational burden renders planning to be infeasible since the search process must calculate the covariance of the posterior state estimate for each candidate path. To resolve this challenge, this work proposes to replace the computationally intensive numerical prediction process with an approximate covariance dynamics model learned using a nonlinear time-series regression. The use of autoregressive time-series featuring a regularized least squares algorithm facilitates the learning of accurate and efficient parametric models. The learned covariance dynamics are demonstrated to outperform other approximation strategies, such as linearization and partial ensemble propagation, when used for trajectory optimization, in terms of accuracy and speed, with examples of simplified weather forecasting.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.225-233
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• 2012

The research discusses interrelationship of structural and reliability importance measures which used in the probabilistic safety assessment. The most frequently used component importance measures, such as Birnbaum's Importance (BI), Risk Reduction (RR), Risk Reduction Worth (RRW), RA (Risk Achievement), Risk Achievement Worth (RAW), Fussel Vesely (FV) and Critically Importance (CI) can be derived from two structure importance measures that are developed based on the size and the number of Minimal Path Set (MPS) and Minimal Cut Set (MCS). In order to show an effectiveness of importance measures which is developed in this paper, the three representative functional structures, such as series-parallel, k out of n and bridge are used to compare with Birnbaum's Importance measure. In addition, the study presents the implementation examples of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) metrics and alternating renewal process models with exponential distribution to calculate the availability and unavailability of component facility for improving system performances. System state structure functions in terms of component states can be converted into the system availability (unavailability) functions by substituting the component reliabilities (unavailabilities) for the component states. The applicable examples are presented in order to help the understanding of practitioners.