Study of Liquefaction Damages of Quay-Walls and Breakwaters During Kobe Earthquake

During Kobe Earthquake, very extensive damages of harbor facilities such as quay-wall and breakwater occurred in Kobe Port and also along the coastal areas between Kobe and Osaka cities. Major causes of the damages were the liquefaction of sands underlying and behind the concrete caisson and also strong earthquake shaking force on the caisson. The degree of damage varied considerably depending on location and also on the size of structure. In order to understand the mechanism of damage as well as the factors that controlled the degree of damage, it was necessary to examine and analyze the case records of damages of these structures. This paper describes the result of such study on liquefaction damage of quay-walls and breakwaters. Through the study, it was found that the movement of sand at shallow depth below the caisson base is mainly responsible for a large settlement of caisson, but the mode of deformation is different between quay wall and breakwater. Also an effective stress liquefaction analysis was performed on the damaged quay-walls and breakwaters in order to check the applicability of effective stress liquefaction analysis on damage assessment. It was found that the effective stress analysis may be used to establish the overall trend of damage variation with the intensity of seismic motion, but problems exist in setting the dynamic parameters for the analysis, such as damping parameters, in order to obtain a reliable result

Synchronization of uncoupled oscillators by common gamma impulses: from phase locking to noise-induced synchronization

Nonlinear oscillators can mutually synchronize when they are driven by common external impulses. Two important scenarios are (i) synchronization resulting from phase locking of each oscillator to regular periodic impulses and (ii) noise-induced synchronization caused by Poisson random impulses, but their difference has not been fully quantified. Here we analyze a pair of uncoupled oscillators subject to common random impulses with gamma-distributed intervals, which can be smoothly interpolated between regular periodic and random Poisson impulses. Their dynamics are charac- terized by phase distributions, frequency detuning, Lyapunov exponents, and information-theoretic measures, which clearly reveal the differences between the two synchronization scenarios.Comment: 18 page

Ethyl pyruvate improves pulmonary function in mice with bleomycin-induced lung injury as monitored with hyperpolarized 129Xe MR imaging

Purpose: High Mobility Group Box1 (HMGB1), which is one of the damage-associated molecular pattern molecules relating to various inflammatory diseases, has gained interest as a therapeutic target because of its involvement in wound healing processes. In the present study, we investigated HMGB1 as a potential therapeutic target in a model of lung fibrosis using a preclinical hyperpolarized 129Xe (HPXe) MRI system. Methods: Lung injury was induced by intra-peritoneal injection of bleomycin (BLM) in 19 mice. Three weeks post-injection (when fibrosis was confirmed histologically), administration of ethyl pyruvate (EP) and alogliptin (ALG), which are down- and up-regulators of HMGB1, respectively, was commenced in six and seven of the 19 mice, respectively, and continued for a further 3 weeks. A separate sham-instilled group was formed of five mice, which were administered with saline for 6 weeks. Over the second 3-week period, the effects of disease progression and pharmacological therapy in the four groups of mice were monitored by HPXe MRI metrics of fractional ventilation and gas-exchange function. Results: Gas-exchange function in BLM mice was significantly reduced after 3 weeks of BLM challenge compared to sham-instilled mice (P < 0.05). Ethyl pyruvate was found to improve HPXe MRI metrics of both ventilation and gas exchange, and repair tissue damage (assessed histologically), to a similar level as sham-instilled mice (P < 0.05), whilst ALG treatment caused no significant improvement of pulmonary function. Conclusion: This study demonstrates the down-regulator of HMGB1, EP, as a potential therapeutic agent for pulmonary fibrosis, as assessed by a non-invasive HPXe MRI protocol

Electrodeposited Fe?Ni Films Prepared in a Citric-Acid-Based Bath with Different pH Values

We plated Fe-Ni films froma citric-acid-based plating bath and evaluated the effect of pH value in the bath on the magnetic properties and the productivities of the films. In this study, the pH value of the bath was controlled from 0.5 to 3.6 by the addition of hydrochloric acid or sodium citrate. The electrodeposited Fe-Ni film with the Fe content of approximately 22 at.% prepared at high pH (>3) tends to show large coercivity (> 100 A/m), rough surface and relatively high cathode efficiency (> 70%) whereas the films prepared at low pH (< 1) tend to show low coercivities (< 50 A/m), smooth surfaces and low cathode efficiencies (< 60%). The Fe 22Ni78 film prepared from the bath without the pH adjuster of a hydrochloric acid or a sodium citrate shows low coercivity of 25 A/m, smooth surface and relatively high cathode efficiency of 65%. Since low coercivity, smooth surface and high cathode efficiency are important factors for mass-producing Fe-Ni films, we concluded that a citric-acid-based bath with pH range from 1 to 3 is suitable for electrodeposition of soft magnetic Fe-Ni films