• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.485-510
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• 2014

In performance-based seismic design procedures Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) and pseudo-Spectral acceleration ($S_a$) are commonly used to predict the response of structures to earthquake. Recently, research has been carried out to evaluate the predictive capability of these standard Intensity Measures (IMs) with respect to different types of structures and Engineering Demand Parameter (EDP) commonly used to measure damage. Efforts have been also spent to propose alternative IMs that are able to improve the results of the response predictions. However, most of these IMs are not usually employed in probabilistic seismic demand analyses because of the lack of reliable Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs). In order to define seismic hazard and thus to calculate demand hazard curves it is essential, in fact, to establish a GMPE for the earthquake intensity. In the light of this need, new GMPEs are proposed here for the elastic input energy spectra, energy-based intensity measures that have been shown to be good predictors of both structural and non-structural damage for many types of structures. The proposed GMPEs are developed using mixed-effects models by empirical regressions on a large number of strong-motions selected from the NGA database. Parametric analyses are carried out to show the effect of some properties variation, such as fault mechanism, type of soil, earthquake magnitude and distance, on the considered IMs. Results of comparisons between the proposed GMPEs and other from the literature are finally shown.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.15-33
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• 2014

This paper describes partial turbulence simulation and validation of the aerodynamic pressures on building models for an open-jet small-scale 12-Fan Wall of Wind (WOW) facility against their counterparts in a boundary-layer wind tunnel. The wind characteristics pertained to the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) mean wind speed profile and turbulent fluctuations simulated in the facility. Both in the wind tunnel and the small-scale 12-Fan WOW these wind characteristics were produced by using spires and roughness elements. It is emphasized in the paper that proper spectral density parameterization is required to simulate turbulent fluctuations correctly. Partial turbulence considering only high frequency part of the turbulent fluctuations spectrum was simulated in the small-scale 12-Fan WOW. For the validation of aerodynamic pressures a series of tests were conducted in both wind tunnel and the small-scale 12-fan WOW facilities on low-rise buildings including two gable roof and two hip roof buildings with two different slopes. Testing was performed to investigate the mean and peak pressure coefficients at various locations on the roofs including near the corners, edges, ridge and hip lines. The pressure coefficients comparisons showed that open-jet testing facility flows with partial simulations of ABL spectrum are capable of inducing pressures on low-rise buildings that reasonably agree with their boundary-layer wind tunnel counterparts.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.282-287
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• 2015

In this study, an optical fiber detector was constructed by using a Ce:GAGG scintillator, optical fiber, and photomultiplier. The single crystal size of the scintillator was set to $3{\times}3{\times}20mm^3$ after simulating the counting efficiency of gamma rays in the scintillator by using the MCNPX code. The constructed detector used the standard gamma ray sources $^{137}Cs$ and $^{133}Ba$ to measure radiation and analyze the spectral characteristics of gamma rays. The resulting trend curve showed excellent linearity with an R-squared value of 0.99741, and the detector characteristics were found to vary 2% or less with distance based on comparison with the MCNPX value. Furthermore, the spectroscopic analysis of the gamma ray energy from the single-ray and mixed-ray sources showed that $^{137}Cs$ had its peak energy at 662 keV, and $^{133}Ba$ had at 356 keV. It seems that if the fiber-optics detector is used, working hours and exposure of worker can be reduced.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.30-33
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• 2013

Chalcones are naturally occurring, biologically active molecules generating interest from a wide range of research applications including synthetic methodology development, biological activity investigation and studying fragmentation patterns. In this article, a series of chalcones has been synthesized and their fragmentation behavior was studied using modern ambient ionization technique Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART). DART ion source connected with an ion trap mass spectrometer was used for the fragmentation of various substituted chalcones. The chalcones were introduced to the DART source using a glass capillary without sample preparation step. All the chalcones showed prominent molecular ion peaks $[M]^{{\cdot}+}$ corresponding to the structures. Multistage mass spectral data $MS^n$ ($MS^2$ and $MS^3$) were collected for all the chalcones studied. The chalcones with substitutions at 3, 4 or 5 positions gave product ion peaks with the loss of a phenyl radical ($Ph^{\cdot}$) by radical initiated ${\alpha}$-cleavage, while substitution at 2 position of chalcone in the A-ring gave a product ion peak with the loss of substituted styryl radical (PhCH = $CH^{\cdot}$). In case of the chalcones with the substituent at 4 positions in A and B rings gave both types of fragmentation patterns. In conclusion, chalcones can be easily characterized using modern DART interface in very short time and efficiently without any cumbersome sample pretreatment.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.31-41
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• 1988

Recently, the offshore structures are increasingly constructed to explore the natural resources. These offshore structures are to be designed to resist the repetitive wave forces. A probabilistic method for the fatigue analysis of offshore concrete structures is presented in this study. The present spectral fatigue analysis calculates wave forces first and then the transfer functions for unit waves from which stress spectra are determined. The calculated fatigue stresses may then be used to evaluate the fatigue damage of concrete structures. A simplified model for the estimation of fatigue damage of the structures, which employs only the probabilistic moments of the peak stress distribution without direct integration, is also proposed. The present study allows more realistic fatigue analysis of offshore concrete structures.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.31 no.2C
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• pp.191-199
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose a method to implement a predistorter of the $rho$-th order inverse filter structure to prevent signal distortion and spectral re-growth due to the high PAPR (peak-to-average ratio) of the OFDM signals and the non-linearity of high-power amplifiers. We model the memory-less non-linearity of the high-power amplifier with a polynomial model and utilize the inverse of the model, the $rho$-th order inverse filter, for the predistorter. Once the non-linearity is modeled with a polynomial, since we can determine the $rho$-th order inverse filter only with the coefficients of the polynomial, large memory is not required. To update the coefficients of the non-linear high-power amplifier model, we can use LMS or RLS algorithms. The convergence speed is high since the number of coefficients is small, and the computation is simple since manipulation of complex numbers is not necessary.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.34 no.4C
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• pp.403-413
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• 2009

We compare three predistortion methods to prevent signal distortion and spectral re-growth due to the high PAPR (peak-to-average ratio) of OFDM signal and the non-linearity of high-power amplifiers. The three predistortion methods are pth order inverse, indirect learning architecture and look up table. The pth order inverse and indirect learning architecture methods requires less memory and has a fast convergence because these methods use a polynomial model that has a small number of coefficients. Nevertheless the convergence is fast due to the small number of coefficients and the simple computation that excludes manipulation of complex numbers by separate compensation for the magnitude and phase. The look up table method is easy to implement due to simple computation but has the disadvantage that large memory is required. Computer simulation result reveals that indirect learning architecture shows the best performance though the gain is less than 1 dB at $BER\;=\;10^{-4}$ for 64-QAM. The three predistorters are adaptive to the amplifier aging and environmental changes, and can be selected to the requirements for implementation.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.532-541
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• 2010

Peroxidase-like activity of Vitreoscilla hemoglobin (VHb) has been recently disclosed. To maximize such activity, two catalytically conserved residues (histidine and arginine) found in the distal pocket of peroxidases have successfully been introduced into that of the VHb. A 15-fold increase in catalytic constant ($k_{cat}$) was obtained in P54R variant,which was presumably attributable to the lower rigidity and higher hydrophilicity of the distal cavity arising from substitution of proline to arginine. None of the modifications altered the affinity towards either $H_2O_2$ or ABTS substrate. Spectroscopic studies revealed that VHb variants harboring the T29H mutation apparently demonstrated a spectral shift in both ferric and ferrous forms (406-408 to 411 nm, and 432 to 424-425 nm, respectively). All VHb proteins in the ferrous state had a $\lambda_{soret}$ peak at ~419 nm following the carbon monoxide (CO) binding. Expression of the P54R mutant mediated the downregulation of iron superoxide dismutase (FeSOD) as identified by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF). According to the high peroxidase activity of P54R, it could effectively eliminate autoxidation-derived $H_2O_2$, which is a cause of heme degradation and iron release. This decreased the iron availability and consequently reduced the formation of the $Fe^{2+}$-ferric uptake regulator protein ($Fe^{2+}$-Fur), an inducer of FeSOD expression.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.110-114
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• 2014

The method of direct mass spectrometry profiling is reliable and reproducible for the rapid identification of clinical isolates of bacteria and fungi. This is the first study evaluating the approach of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry profiling for rapid identification of carbapenemase-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE). Proof of concept was achieved by the discrimination of CRE using MALDI Biotyper MS based on the protein. This profiling appears promising by the visual observation of consistent unique peaks, albeit low intensity, that could be picked up from the mean spectra (MSP) method. The Biotyper MSP creation and identification methods needed to be optimized to provide significantly improved differences in scores to allow for subspecies identification with and without carbapenemases. These spectra were subjected to visual peak picking and in all cases; there were pertinent differences in the presence or absence of potential biomarker peaks to differentiate isolates. We also evaluated this method for potential discrimination between different carbapenemases bacteria, utilizing the same strategy. Based on our data and pending further investigation in other CREs, MALDI-TOF MS has potential as a diagnostic tool for the rapid identification of even closely related carbapenemases but would require a paradigm shift in which Biotyper suppliers enable more flexible software control of mass spectral profiling methods.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.269-285
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• 2020

The statistical characteristics of typhoon wind speed records tend to have a considerable time-varying trend; thus, the stationary wind model may not be appropriate to estimate the wind characteristics of typhoon events. Several nonstationary wind speed models have been proposed by pioneers to characterize wind characteristics more accurately, but comparative studies on the applicability of the different wind models are still lacking. In this study, three landfall typhoons, Ampil, Jongdari, and Rumbia, recorded by ultrasonic anemometers atop the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC), are used for the comparative analysis of stationary and nonstationary wind characteristics. The time-varying mean is extracted with the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) method, and the time-varying standard deviation is calculated by the autoregressive moving average generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARMA-GARCH) model. After extracting the time-varying trend, the longitudinal wind characteristics, e.g., the probability distribution, power spectral density (PSD), turbulence integral scale, turbulence intensity, gust factor, and peak factor, are comparatively analyzed based on the stationary wind speed model, time-varying mean wind speed model and time-varying standard deviation wind speed model. The comparative analysis of the different wind models emphasizes the significance of the nonstationary considerations in typhoon events. The time-varying standard deviation model can better identify the similarities among the different typhoons and appropriately describe the nonstationary wind characteristics of the typhoons.