Smart cities to improve resilience of communities

This paper presents a new approach to predict the potential damage and physical impacts of an earthquake on the built environment. A new methodology to the urbanized systems and large-scale simulations within a seismic scenario is explored, by evaluating multipurpose codes for numerical simulation. A 3-D building shape of a standard virtual city is developed for evaluat-ing the seismic effects at increasing intensities. Four different building sectors that provide essential functions to a community, including housing, education, business, and public ser-vices are considered. Once the buildings are integrated into the city, parallel simulations are applied to compute the system functionality following a disruptive scenario. Tri-linear elasto-plastic backbone curve representative of global shear behavior of each building is estimated considering the dominant modal shapes and building irregularities. Monte Carlo Simulations (MCS) are applied to take into account the epistemic uncertainties associated with geometry and mechanical properties within the range of observations. For each set of buildings’ data, the nonlinear dynamic analysis is performed through SAP2000 Application Programming In-terface (API) in order to assess the dynamic response of the buildings in an organized and au-tomatic fashion. Accordingly, the city is mapped into different zones representative to the possibility of having different levels of damage (complete, extensive, moderate, and slight). This methodology supports decision-makers to explore how their community will respond to a disruptive event, to develop different strategies for monitoring and control the emergency in urbanized areas, and to plan better resilience-building and evacuation strategies

Mollusc feeding guilds on sandy beaches in Sao Paulo State, Brazil

The feeding guilds of four communities of molluscs living in the intertidal zone of Enseada in Caraguatatuba Bay and Barra Velha and Aracaa beaches along the Sao Sebastiao Channel were identified. Three-letter codes were assigned to each feeding guild, identifying the feeding habit, mobility patterns related to feeding, and food-capturing structures. Data were obtained from qualitative analyses of the digestive tract contents and from observations on the feeding behaviour of the gastropod Olivella minuta and the bivalves Tagelus plebeius, Macoma constricta, Tellina lineata, and T. versicolor. These data were complemented by published information on the feeding of congeneric or confamilial species. Six feeding guilds were identified. The SDS (suspension-feeder, discreetly motile, inhalant siphon and ctenidia) and DDS (deposit-feeder, discreetly motile, inhalant siphon and ctenidia) groups were more abundant. Suspension-feeding bivalves showed higher Trophic Importance Index (TI) values in all the study areas. Deposit-feeders showed high TI values only at Barra Velha beach. The species in the SDS feeding guild tended to occur in areas with lower salinity and moderately to well-sorted sediments with very fine sand predominating. The distribution of the feeding guilds correlated best with salinity, particle size distribution, and the contents of silt-clay and organic matter in the sediment.143469170

Arenophilic mantle glands in the Laternulidae (Bivalvia: Anomalodesmata) and their evolutionary significance

The mantle margins of several anomalodesmatans bear multicellular arenophilic glands, the mucoid secretions of which attach sand grains and other foreign particles to the outer surface of the periostracum. These glands have been recorded for many of the anomalodesmatan families and are used as a key morphological character in recent attempts to unravel the evolutionary relationships within the Anomalodesmata. The glands occur in Laternula elliptica, L. truncata, L. boschasina and L. marilina, discharging from the top of muscular papillae at the distal tip of the siphons. The secretions are laid down as threads organized in longitudinal lines along the length of the periostracum that covers the siphonal walls. This is the first record of arenophilic mantle glands in members of the Laternulidae, a finding that not only broadens our current knowledge of the family's morphology, but assists in the reconstruction of anomalodesmatan evolutionary history

Smart cities to improve resilience of communities

This paper presents a new approach to predict the potential damage and physical impacts of an earthquake on the built environment. A new methodology for large-scale simulations within a seismic scenario are explored by evaluating multipurpose codes. In particular, a 3-D model of a virtual city is developed for evaluating the seismic effects at increasing intensities. Four different building sectors that provide essential functions to a community, including housing, education, business, and public services are considered. Once the buildings are integrated into the city, parallel simulations are applied to compute the system functionality following a disruptive scenario. Tri-linear elastoplastic backbone curve representative of the global shear behavior of each building is estimated considering the dominant modal shapes and building irregularities. Monte Carlo Simulations (MCS) are applied to take into account the epistemic uncertainties associated with geometry and mechanical properties within the range of observations. The nonlinear dynamic analyses are performed through SAP2000 Application Programming Interface (API) in order to assess the dynamic response of the buildings in an organized and automatic fashion. Accordingly, the city is mapped into different zones representative to the possibility of having different levels of damage (complete, extensive, moderate, and slight). This methodology supports decision-makers to explore the community response to a disruptive events, to develop monitoring and control strategies in urbanized areas, to plan better resilience-building and evacuation strategies

Fuzzy based tool to measure the resilience of communities

Last decades have been characterized by an increasing number of disasters all over the world. Therefore, the concept of community resilience has attracted the attention of the scientists who started to explore and assess the ability of communities to recover after undesirable events. In this work, a method for assessing the earthquake community resilience based on the PEOPLES framework is presented. PEOPLES is a framework that defines community resilience using seven dimensions. Each of the dimensions is defined through a set of indicators to describe the different aspects of resilience. The exact evaluation of the indicators is usually not possible due to the lack of deterministic data related to the damaged system after the disaster. The proposed method exploits a knowledge-based fuzzy modelling to allow the quantitative evaluation of the PEOPLES indicators taking into account uncertainties. The output of the implemented fuzzy method is a resilience index

Growth and reproduction in the Antarctic brooding bivalve Adacnarca nitens (Philobryidae) from the Ross Sea

We present information on the reproductive biology, population structure, and growth of the brooding Antarctic bivalve Adacnarca nitens Pelseneer 1903, from the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Individuals ranging from 0.85 - 6.00 mm were found attached to a hydrozoan colony. This species shows low fecundity and large egg size, common to other brooding species. The minimum size at which oogenesis was detected was 2.3 mm and the minimum size at which brooding was evident was 3.9 mm. Embryos of a full range of developmental stages were brooded simultaneously in females. The population showed a log-normal distribution and results suggest non-periodic reproduction with continuous embryonic development. The reproductive traits of A. nitens are discussed in the context of circum-Antarctic species distribution and limitations to dispersal in brooding benthic invertebrates

Integrated platform to assess seismic resilience at the community level

Due to the increasing frequency of disastrous events, the challenge of creating large-scale simulation models has become of major significance. Indeed, several simulation strategies and methodologies have been recently developed to explore the response of communities to natural disasters. Such models can support decision-makers during emergency operations allowing to create a global view of the emergency identifying consequences. An integrated platform that implements a community hybrid model with real-time simulation capabilities is presented in this paper. The platform's goal is to assess seismic resilience and vulnerability of critical infrastructures (e.g., built environment, power grid, socio-technical network) at the urban level, taking into account their interdependencies. Finally, different seismic scenarios have been applied to a large-scale virtual city model. The platform proved to be effective to analyze the emergency and could be used to implement countermeasures that improve community response and overall resilience.Accepted Author ManuscriptIntegral Design and Managemen