Incorporation of the Spatial Correlation of Arias Intensity Within Earthquake Loss Estimation

Arias Intensity (Ia) has been identified as an efficient intensity measure for the purpose of estimating the likelihood and extent of landslides. This efficiency implies that Arias intensity may logically be used within earthquake loss estimation applications in order to ultimately estimate the damage to spatially-distributed systems or portfolios. In order to estimate the effects of ground motions on such spatially-distributed systems it is important to take into account the spatial correlation of the intensity measure. However, existing landslide loss-estimation models, which use Ia as an input, do not take this aspect of the ground motion into account. Due to the areal nature of landslides, accounting for the spatial distribution of Ia is important if one wishes to accurately predict the probability of landslides occurring, and their subsequent displacements. In this paper, a model for the spatial correlation of Arias intensity is proposed. In order to obtain this model, a new empirical prediction equation for Arias intensity is first developed. The empirical predictive model is developed using recordings from the PEER NGA database while the model for spatial correlation makes use of the well-recorded events from this database, i.e. the Northridge and Chi-Chi earthquakes

Imagined Contexts - Art and Visual Perception

The meaning of an artwork is always a direct function of its context. Whether we create or view an artwork, we automatically contextualise it in order position it and ourselves within a coherent complex of sensible parameters. Without a sense of context it is not possible to determine a meaningful orientation either subjective, objective, temporal or spatial. An artist or audience must first contextualise themselves in relation to the world beyond the frame before they can begin to create or interpret an artwork. Indeed the processes of creative and interpretive contextualisation, both in relation to the artwork and the surrounding world, are absolutely coextensive

Investigation of the effect of hot water and water vapour treatments on the strength of thermally conditioned E-glass fibres

The processing and reuse of end-of-life composite products in an environmentally friendly manner is an important challenge facing the industry. The development of an economically viable process for regenerating the properties of thermally recycled glass fibres would have significant technological, economic and environmental impacts. Thermal recycling processes for composites are relatively technologically advanced; however, they present a substantial challenge when considering their use for recycling of glass fibre reinforced materials. A combination of exposure to elevated temperatures in the region 450 – 600 °C and to mechanical damage has been shown to cause significant strength loss in glass fibres of up to 90 % of their original value. The recovered fibres are thus unsuitable for use as reinforcement in a second generation composite. Methods of strength recovery that may be applied to such recycled fibres are therefore of interest, particularly if these methods are relatively technologically straightforward. An investigation of possible strength recovery methods using hot water or water vapour was carried out on E-glass fibres. The methods were derived from similar studies on silica in which significant strengthening effects were presented alongside theoretical frameworks to explain the phenomenon [1–3]; a maximum threefold increase in strength following water vapour treatment at 250 °C was demonstrated on silica artificially weakened by abrasion

The Sri Lankan insurgency: a rebalancing of the orthodox position

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University London.The insurgency in Sri Lanka between the early 1980s and 2009 is the topic of this study, one that is of great interest to scholars studying war in the modern era. It is an example of a revolutionary war in which the total defeat of the insurgents was a decisive conclusion, achieved without allowing them any form of political access to governance over the disputed territory after the conflict. Current literature on the conflict examines it from a single (government) viewpoint – deriving false conclusions as a result. This research integrates exciting new evidence from the Tamil (insurgent) side and as such is the first balanced, comprehensive account of the conflict. The resultant history allows readers to reframe the key variables that determined the outcome, concluding that the leadership and decision-making dynamic within the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had far greater impact than has previously been allowed for. The new evidence takes the form of interviews with participants from both sides of the conflict, Sri Lankan military documentation, foreign intelligence assessments and diplomatic communiqués between governments, referencing these against the current literature on counter-insurgency, notably the social-institutional study of insurgencies by Paul Staniland. It concludes that orthodox views of the conflict need to be reshaped into a new methodology that focuses on leadership performance and away from a timeline based on periods of major combat

THz spectroscopy of the atmosphere for climatology and meteorology applications

We present a new satellite-based instrument concept that will enable global measurements of atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles with unprecedented resolution and accuracy, compared to currently planned missions. It will also provide global measurements of essential climate variables related to ice clouds that will better constrain global climate models. The instrument is enabled by the use of superconducting detectors coupled to superconducting filterbank spectrometers, operating between 50GHz and 850 GHz. We present the science drivers, the current instrument concept and status, and predicted performance

Intelligent scheduling for in-car notifications.

The process of driving a car involves a cognitive load that varies over time. Additional load comes from secondary factors not directly associated with the driving process, including navigation devices, entertainment systems and the car’s own warnings. In this paper, we present a framework for intelligent scheduling of in-car notifications based on the driver’s estimated cognitive load. As the single channel for communication, it reschedules the notifications using a priority queue, and relays them to the driver based on the urgency of the notification and the overall estimated cognitive load being experienced by the driver at any given moment. We evaluate our system using a dataset collected from a car’s CAN bus during multiple onroad trials and show that our proposed approach reduces the number of simultaneous calls on the driver’s attention during the driving task. We also demonstrate that our intelligent scheduling significantly reduces the maximum cognitive load experienced by the driver and the frequency with which high loads occur