Seismic Performance of the Reinforced Concrete Girders Obtained from Existing Building Constructed in 1961

This study examines, through experiments, two reinforced concrete girders obtained from a residential building constructed in 1961. The average concrete strength obtained from the material tests was approximately consistent with the specified strength. Honeycombs were observed in girders; hence, one of the girders was repaired using an epoxy resin injection to investigate the effect of retrofitting.The original and retrofitted girders were subjected to reverse loadings with displacement control and had a sectional area of 250 mm × 800 mm, according to the structural draft. Both girders were designed to exhibit a common shear span length of 1,200 mm to evaluate the validity of the current equations for shear capacity in seismic evaluation, as recommended in the criteria for seismic assessment in Japan. Using these equations, the ratio of the shear strength to flexural strength of the test girders was found to be 1.67. No significant difference was observed in the crack patterns of both girders. Their maximum strength reached the calculated flexural strengths; however, the shear cracks apparently progressed with the increase in drift angle. The hysteresis loops were slip-type because of the bond slippage of the main bars. The final failure mechanism was shear failure mode. The equation for flexural strength predicted the observed value of the original girder; the maximum strength of the retrofitted girder was approximately 1.1 times that of the original. Consequently, the epoxy resin injection recovered the seismic performance of the girders in this building

SIMULATION OF URBAN GROWTH: A CASE STUDY FOR CURITIBA CITY, BRAZIL

The present work seeks to model the simulation of the landscape of the city of Curitiba, through the use of cellular automata (CA) algorithms, together with the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing tools. Four models were elaborated, having as input data classified images from the years 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2014; and different time intervals between the initial and final landscape of the models. Geographic data of the city were also used, as well as the current legislation of the municipality, and such data contributed to the robustness of the modelling. Two validation tests were applied to verify the adequacy of the simulated models concerning the observed reality. The validation performed by the Multiple Resolutions Adjustment method indicated that the model elaborated with data from 2009 and 2011 reached the highest similarity index, being equal to 0.88. Thus, it was possible to carry out geosimulations and these indicated that, as long as the trends observed in the past are maintained, the urban expansion of the municipality will occur at the expense of vegetation

Environmental impacts in Castro zone of the Paraná talc district, Brazil

During the last two centuries, in Castro zone of the Paraná talc district in southern Brazil, native subtropical rain forest was exploited for wood and firewood use. During the last decade the exploitation process of the native forest has continued. In this paper it is presented a multi-temporal research about the impact of the native forest use. The chiefly aim is to discuss and illustrate the consequences of the use of forest and the absence of the reforest action in degraded areas in Castro zone of the Paraná talc district and the relation between the environmental impacts and the economic activities in the region. The landscape impact of the mining activities is evident, although very limited in area if it is considered the territory in its totality. The main impact in the region is the deforestation. Through Landsat images it was possible to determine the changes that occurred in the land use in the region from 1990 to 2000. It is described the behavior of 4 classification entities: riparian forest, forest, cropland and bare soil. In these 10 years the main environmental impact is associated to forest reducing from 52% to 38 % of the total area. The deforestation was associated to wood industries in the past, nowadays it is linked to use of the soil to crop farms, firewood mainly to mining activities, especially lime-kiln and just few amount to dry talc ore product. In the last 3 years the firewood to dry talc was replaced by lumber-mill dust that represents wastes in wood industries

The relationship of muscular peak changes with accuracy in an over-arm throwing task

Many studies regarding throwing tasks have focused on spatial and temporal characteristics of individual muscles. However，the special relationship between muscles is not entirely clear when it comes to describing human skilled movement.The purpose of the present study was to establish the relationship betwccn accuracy in a throwing task (performance) and electromyograms (EMGs) as a measurement of coordination ability in an over-arm throwing task. We recorded surface EMGs for 17 muscles from the upper limb, trunk，and lower limb during throwing task. The task was to throw to a target，and throwing perfonmance was assessed by an accuracy score. This was conducted to examine the relationship between performance and the peak changes in each EMG. The results showed that the activity peaks of the biceps brachii， extensor digitorum， and right rectus femoris were negatively correlated with performance. Regarding inter-peak periods, the difference in peak latencies between the biceps brachii and the rectus abdominis was correlated with performance，as was the difference between the flexor carpi radialis and the biceps brachii. These results show the ability of muscles to coordinate in an over-arm throwing task

Do Education Vouchers Prevent Dropouts at Private High Schools? Evidence from Japanese Policy Changes (Japanese)

Although education voucher programs for students attending private high schools have existed in Japan for decades, as yet there have been no studies that examine their effectiveness. In this paper, we estimate the programs' preventative effect on dropouts using school-track level (academic or vocational) panel data covering all high schools in northern Japan. Facing increasing dropouts due to financial difficulties, prefectural governments have expanded the scope and amount of their private high school tuition support programs since the late 1990s. We use this variation to identify the effect of tuition support on students' decision to dropout, controlling for initial ability of entering students as well as unobservable school-track effects. We also apply the instrumental variable method to account for the possible endogeneity of policy changes. Our results suggest that increasing tuition support is particularly effective in preventing dropouts of private high school students in nonacademic tracks.

Use of Generative Adversarial Network Algorithm in Super-Resolution Images to Increase the Quality of Digital Elevation Models Based on ALOS PALSAR Data

Digital elevation models are responsible for providing altimetric information on a surface to be mapped. While global models of low and medium spatial resolution are available open source by several space agencies, the high- resolution ones, which are utilized in scales 1:25,000 and larger, are scarce and expensive. Here we address this limitation by the utilization of deep learning algorithms coupled with Single Image Super-Resolution techniques in digital elevation models to obtain better spatial quality versions from lower resolution inputs. The development of a GAN-based (Generative Adversarial Network-based) methodology enables the improvement of the initial spatial resolution of low-resolution images. In the geospatial data context, for example, these algorithms can be used with digital elevation models and satellite images. The methodological approach uses a dataset with digital elevation models SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) (30 meters of spatial resolution) and ALOS PALSAR (12.5 meters of spatial  resolution), created with the objective of allowing the study to be carried  out, promoting the emergence of new research groups in the area as well as  enabling the comparison between the results obtained. It has been found that by increasing the number of iterations the performance of the  generated model was improved and the quality of the generated image increased. Furthermore, the visual analysis of the generated image against the high- and low-resolution ones showed a great similarity between the first two