Synergistic combination of systems for structural health monitoring and earthquake early warning for structural health prognosis and diagnosis

Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are currently operating nationwide in Japan and are in beta-testing in California. Such a system detects an earthquake initiation using online signals from a seismic sensor network and broadcasts a warning of the predicted location and magnitude a few seconds to a minute or so before an earthquake hits a site. Such a system can be used synergistically with installed structural health monitoring (SHM) systems to enhance pre-event prognosis and post-event diagnosis of structural health. For pre-event prognosis, the EEW system information can be used to make probabilistic predictions of the anticipated damage to a structure using seismic loss estimation methodologies from performance-based earthquake engineering. These predictions can support decision-making regarding the activation of appropriate mitigation systems, such as stopping traffic from entering a bridge that has a predicted high probability of damage. Since the time between warning and arrival of the strong shaking is very short, probabilistic predictions must be rapidly calculated and the decision making automated for the mitigation actions. For post-event diagnosis, the SHM sensor data can be used in Bayesian updating of the probabilistic damage predictions with the EEW predictions as a prior. Appropriate Bayesian methods for SHM have been published. In this paper, we use pre-trained surrogate models (or emulators) based on machine learning methods to make fast damage and loss predictions that are then used in a cost-benefit decision framework for activation of a mitigation measure. A simple illustrative example of an infrastructure application is presented

Maritime mechanisms of contact and change: archaeological perspectives on the history and conduct of the Queensland labour trade

This thesis examines, from an archaeological perspective, the ‘maritime mechanisms’ of contact and change between Europeans and Indigenous populations (Islanders) in Oceania in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; in particular, how those mechanisms might be better understood through the application of archaeological methodology. For the purposes of this thesis, maritime mechanisms are defined as those mechanisms of contact and change associated with human activities on the sea. The Queensland labour trade is used as a case study. The key research questions are: • How were the Islanders being changed as a result of their participation in the Queensland labour trade? • Was the Queensland labour trade affected, changed or controlled by the Islanders involved in the trade, and • Did Victorian society and its values, as expressed in part through a changing legislative framework, have any influence on the Queensland labour trade? The thesis begins with a re-analysis of the historical sources, in particular citing the changing legislation that pertained to the Queensland labour trade. This analysis concentrates on understanding the nature of trade relationships within the islands before European influence and what changes seem to have come about after. Archaeological research centred on the wreck of the Foam, combined with my analysis of the artefacts recovered from this site by the Queensland Museum, are also key to this dissertation. The main conclusions fall into two groups. First, the more practical outcomes include the following; 1. schooners were the favoured types of vessels used across the labour trade, 2. some island groups were frequented more by recruiters than others, and 3. the ceramic armbands used as items of trade were not specifically manufactured for the Queensland labour trade but were part of a larger European trading system in which ceramic copies of Indigenous status goods were used as trade items from Africa across to Papua New Guinea and the South Sea Islands. Secondly, the broader conclusions are that; 1. when analysed as artefacts in their own right and due to their nature as ‘built environments’, the vessels themselves should be considered as sites of change for the Islanders as they were being transported, 2. the Islanders’ identity continued to transform during their participation in the various stages of the trade, 3. part of the reason for these transformations is that the existence of the Queensland labour trade allowed individuals to bypass traditional restrictions on travel and provided the opportunity to increase status and/or develop new trading relationships, 4. people of influence on the islands exploited the Europeans, their vessels and trade goods to maintain and enhance their status, and 5. given the prevailing position on slavery and with ongoing lobbying from Missionary groups, legislation did bring about changes in the European method of operation. In sum, the Queensland labour trade was a catalyst for change in indigenous social, political and economic systems. Further, it is argued that it is critical to recognise that the Queensland labour trade was as much a Melanesian system as it was a European one. Finally, it is recommended that further field work on the wreck of the Foam be conducted, together with an investigation of the extent to which trade goods are present in the South Sea Island archaeological record. A major question that remains to be answered is whether the labour trade challenged, subverted or inflated traditional systems

Sources and Occurrences of Nonpoint-Source Chemicals in Groundwater, Jackson Purchase Region, Kentucky

Nitrate concentrations that exceed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency drinking-water standards have been reported in Jackson Purchase Region groundwater since the 1960\u27s. More recently, other nonpoint-source chemicals such as pesticides and volatile organic compounds have also been found. The sources of these chemicals and the pathways by which they reach domestic groundwater supplies must be determined to protect human health and to design effective land-management practices. To investigate the occurrence of nonpoint-source chemicals in Jackson Purchase groundwater, 60 wells were selected on the basis of geographic location, hydrostratigraphic unit penetrated, and well type (bored or drilled); distances to row crops, known septic systems, and active and abandoned feedlots were recorded for each well. Groundwater was sampled in the spring and fall of 2005 for field measurements, water properties, major and minor solutes, nutrients, metals, pesticides, volatile organic compounds, caffeine, and bacteria. Nitrate concentrations exceeded EPA maximum contaminant levels in three wells, and exceeded half the MCL in three other wells. High nitrate concentrations were found mainly in samples from shallow wells in the Continental Gravel hydrostratigraphic unit near row crops. The combination of the permeable gravel and proximity to fertilizer applications makes these wells highly susceptible to nitrate contamination. Pesticides and caffeine were most commonly detected in Continental Gravel samples, but also in other units throughout the area. Total coliform bacteria were found throughout the region from all hydrostratigraphic units and all well types. High nitrate concentrations and detectable caffeine and pesticides are most often found in shallow wells regardless of whether the well was drilled or bored. Shallow wells, bored wells, and those near septic systems were most likely to produce water containing total coliform bacteria, however. The occurrence of high nitrate concentrations and detectable amounts of pesticides and caffeine shows that groundwater contamination is occurring in the Jackson Purchase. Land management practices that take into account the different hydrologic properties of hydrostratigraphic units and bored wells\u27 greater susceptibility to annular leakage are needed to protect groundwater quality from further degradation. The occurrence of total coliform bacteria in groundwater samples indicates contamination of either the well or water delivery system (or both) or the water-producing aquifer. More extensive testing is needed to determine exactly where the bacteria reside. This study was one of the first to consider well types and distances to potential sources of nonpoint groundwater contaminants with water-chemistry investigations. Future studies of nonpoint-source groundwater contamination must first establish that pollutants are not entering the well via local pathways such as leaky well casings or near-wellhead surface sources of chemicals, but rather that the local or regional groundwater system is affected. Second, future studies must carefully document distances from wells to potential sources of contaminants. In many cases this will require historical investigations to locate abandoned confined-animal feeding operations or on-site waste-disposal systems

On the 2-categories of weak distributive laws

A weak mixed distributive law (also called weak entwining structure) in a 2-category consists of a monad and a comonad, together with a 2-cell relating them in a way which generalizes a mixed distributive law due to Beck. We show that a weak mixed distributive law can be described as a compatible pair of a monad and a comonad, in 2-categories extending, respectively, the 2-category of comonads and the 2-category of monads. Based on this observation, we define a 2-category whose 0-cells are weak mixed distributive laws. In a 2-category K which admits Eilenberg-Moore constructions both for monads and comonads, and in which idempotent 2-cells split, we construct a fully faithful 2-functor from this 2-category of weak mixed distributive laws to K^{2 x 2}.Comment: 15 pages LaTeX source, final version to appear in Comm. Algebr

Spectral radiative properties of cirrus clouds deduced from interferometric measurements

July, 1994.Includes bibliographical references.Sponsored by National Aeronautics and Space Administration NAG 1-1146.Sponsored by Office of Naval Research N00014-91-J-1422.Sponsored by Dept. of Energy DE-FG02-90ER60970

Predicting bloc support in Irish general elections 1951–2020: A political history model

Election forecasting is a growing enterprise. Structural models relying on “fundamental” political and economic variables, principally to predict government performance, are popular in political science. Conventional wisdom though is these standard structural models fall short in predicting individual blocs’ performance and their applicability to multiparty systems is restricted. We challenge this by providing a structural forecast of bloc performance in Ireland, a case primarily overlooked in the election forecasting literature. Our model spurns the economic and performance variables conventionally associated with structural forecasting enterprises and instead concentrates on Ireland’s historical party and governance dynamics in the vein of testing whether these patterns alone offer solid predictions of election outcomes. Using Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR), our approach, comprising measures of incumbency, short-term party support, and political and economic shocks, offers reasonable predictions of the vote share performance of four blocs: Ireland's two major parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, Independents, and the Left bloc combined across 20 elections spanning 60 years

A political economy forecast of Ireland’s 2020 general election: government seat losses less than assumed?

Ireland votes in a general election on Saturday, 8 February. Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Stephen Quinlan explain how a new forecast model suggests that Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael will lose seats, but perhaps fewer than opinion polls currently suggest

Macroeconomy and macropartisanship: Economic conditions and party identification

“It's the economy stupid”—is the phrase that captures the ubiquity of economics in determining election outcomes. Nevertheless, while several studies support the premise of economic voting, a constant critique of valence economic models is that partisan bias contaminates voters' economic perceptions, thus invaliding any independent effect of economic opinions on the vote. Here, we test whether partisanship may itself be endogenous to the macroeconomy. Aggregating data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), supplemented with European Social Survey (ESS) data to bolster the time analysis, we focus on macropartisanship and find a drop-off of party identifiers for governing parties in tandem with the economic downturn, specifically from rising unemployment. More generally, macropartisanship responds to economic conditions, suggesting that the endogeneity concern between party attachment and valence economic conditions is not unidirectional. That is, while economic perceptions may be influenced by party identification, party identification can be influenced by economic conditions.publishedVersio