The Environment for Microdata Access in Japan: A Comparison with the United States and Britain and Future Issues

For most of the post]war period, Japan's administration of statistics was governed by the framework provided by the Statistics Act from 1947. However, because the Act remained largely unchanged since it was originally introduced, it increasingly failed to reflect important changes in economic and social circumstances over time, resulting in various problems, including with regard to the secondary use of various kinds of microdata. To help resolve these problems, the New Statistics Act was enacted in 2007 and came fully into force in April 2009. Among other things, the New Statistics Act provides for a substantial revision of the system of secondary data use. An important element of this is a change in the basic philosophy underlying the legal framework from "statistics for the purpose of administration" to "statistics as an information resource for society." A central aim is ensuring the gusefulnessh of public statistics, and regulations concerning the use of statistics, such as provisions for secondary use, were incorporated in the Act. One important change is that the system of approval by the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications for secondary data use was abolished. Instead, secondary data use can now be directly approved by the survey implementer and procedures have been simplified, so in the new system secondary data use now is considerably easier. Moreover, the New Statistics Act now allows for the provision of anonymized data and for custom tabulations for the purpose of academic research and higher education.

Critical Response of Multi-Story Damped Bilinear Hysteretic Shear Building Under Multi Impulse as Representative of Long-Period, Long-Duration Earthquake Ground Motions

The critical response is investigated for a multi-story damped bilinear hysteretic shear building model under a multi impulse as a representative of long-period, long-duration earthquake ground motions. The critical response for an elastic–plastic single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) model under a multi impulse was derived in previous papers. However, it is difficult to derive the critical response for a multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) model under a multi impulse because the phase lag among masses induces a complicated situation. In place of deriving an explicit critical response, a criterion on the criticality of the multi impulse for the elastic–plastic MDOF model is derived and the properties of the critical responses are clarified. In the analysis, a new concept of “Multi Impulse Pushover (MIP)” is introduced and the progressive performance evaluation for the increasing input level is conducted. The analysis of energy response (input energy, dissipated energy, etc.) and the comparison with the response to the corresponding sinusoidal wave are made to enhance the reliability and practicality of the proposed method using the multi impulse as a substitute of sinusoidal waves, which are representatives of long-period, long-duration earthquake ground motions

Smart Seismic Control System for High-Rise Buildings Using Large-Stroke Viscous Dampers Through Connection to Strong-Back Core Frame

An innovative structural control system is proposed for high-rise buildings. A damping layer is provided between a stiff upper core frame suspended from the top of the main building and a stiff lower core frame connected to the building foundation. As the ratio of stiffness of both core frames to that of the main building becomes larger, the relative displacement in the damping layer (damper deformation) approaches to the top floor displacement of the main building. The large displacement of the top floor displacement of the main building is taken full advantage in the proposed control system as most of the total displacement of the main building results from the damper deformation instead of interstory drift. Transformation of the multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) model into the single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) model enables a simplified but rather accurate response evaluation for pulse-type and long-duration earthquake ground motions. The results of the time history response analysis of buildings including this control system are presented for various recorded ground motions. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed structural control system is discussed from the viewpoint of earthquake input energy

Critical Response of High-Rise Buildings With Deformation-Concentration Seismic Control System Under Double and Multi Impulses Representing Pulse-Type and Long-Duration Ground Motions

The critical responses are investigated for a high-rise building with a deformation-concentration seismic control system under double and multi impulses representing pulse-type and long-duration ground motions, respectively. The critical responses were studied for an elastic-plastic multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) shear building model under a double impulse and a multi impulse in the previous papers. However, it seems difficult to derive the critical response for a realistic three-dimensional (3-D) nonlinear frame model with a deformation-concentration seismic control system under such double and multi impulses. The criteria on the criticality of the double and multi impulses for the elastic-plastic MDOF shear building model derived in the previous research are extended to this realistic controlled 3-D frame model by regarding the sum of base story shear forces of both main and sub buildings as a key quantity. In the analysis, the concepts of “Double Impulse Pushover (DIP)” and “Multi Impulse Pushover (MIP)” introduced before are used effectively for clarifying the progressive performances for the increasing input level. The analyses of total input energy, frame hysteretic energy and damper dissipation energy are conducted and the criticality of the input derived based on the above-mentioned criteria is investigated in detail