Seismic risk mapping for Germany

International audienceThe aim of this study is to assess and map the seismic risk for Germany, restricted to the expected losses of damage to residential buildings. There are several earthquake prone regions in the country which have produced Mw magnitudes above 6 and up to 6.7 corresponding to observed ground shaking intensity up to VIII?IX (EMS-98). Combined with the fact that some of the earthquake prone areas are densely populated and highly industrialized and where therefore the hazard coincides with high concentration of exposed assets, the damaging implications from earthquakes must be taken seriously. In this study a methodology is presented and pursued to calculate the seismic risk from (1) intensity based probabilistic seismic hazard, (2) vulnerability composition models, which are based on the distribution of residential buildings of various structural types in representative communities and (3) the distribution of assets in terms of replacement costs for residential buildings. The estimates of the risk are treated as primary economic losses due to structural damage to residential buildings. The obtained results are presented as maps of the damage and risk distributions. For a probability level of 90% non-exceedence in 50 years (corresponding to a mean return period of 475 years) the mean damage ratio is up to 20% and the risk up to hundreds of millions of euro in the most endangered communities. The developed models have been calibrated with observed data from several damaging earthquakes in Germany and the nearby area in the past 30 years

Towards an improved seismic risk scenario for Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic

A risk scenario for Bishkek, capital of the Kyrgyz Republic, is evaluated by considering a magnitude 7.5 earthquake occurring over the Issyk-Ata fault.The intensity values predicted through the application of an attenuation relationship and a recently compiled vulnerability composition model are used as inputs for seismic risk assessment, carried out using the CREST (Cedim Risk Estimation Tool) code. Although the results of this study show a reduction by as much as a factor of two with respect to the results of earlier studies, the risk scenario evaluated in this paper confirms the large number of expected injuries and fatalities in Bishkek, as well as the severe level of building damage. Furthermore, the intensity map has also been evaluated by performing stochastic simulations. The spectral levels of the ground shaking are converted into intensity values by applying a previously derived conversion technique. The local site effects are empirically estimated considering the spectral ratios between the earthquakes recorded by a temporary network deployed in Bishkek and the recordings at two reference sites. Although the intensities computed via stochastic simulations are lower than those estimated with the attenuation relationship, the simulations showed that site effects, which can contribute to intensity increments as large as 2 units in the north part of the town, are playing an important role in altering the risk estimates for different parts of the town

Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses in seismic risk assessments on the example of Cologne, Germany

Both aleatory and epistemic uncertainties associated with different sources and components of risk (hazard, exposure, vulnerability) are present at each step of seismic risk assessments. All individual sources of uncertainty contribute to the total uncertainty, which might be very high and, within the decision-making context, may therefore lead to either very conservative and expensive decisions or the perception of considerable risk. When anatomizing the structure of the total uncertainty, it is therefore important to propagate the different individual uncertainties through the computational chain and to quantify their contribution to the total value of risk. The present study analyses different uncertainties associated with the hazard, vulnerability and loss components by the use of logic trees. The emphasis is on the analysis of epistemic uncertainties, which represent the reducible part of the total uncertainty, including a sensitivity analysis of the resulting seismic risk assessments with regard to the different uncertainty sources. This investigation, being a part of the EU FP7 project MATRIX (New Multi-Hazard and Multi-Risk Assessment Methods for Europe), is carried out for the example of, and with reference to, the conditions of the city of Cologne, Germany, which is one of the MATRIX test cases. At the same time, this particular study does not aim to revise nor to refine the hazard and risk level for Cologne; it is rather to show how large are the existing uncertainties and how they can influence seismic risk estimates, especially in less well-studied areas, if hazard and risk models adapted from other regions are used

The additivity of irregularity of outline fonts

Использование изрезанности в качестве количественной характеристики рисунка шрифта позволяет расширить набор измеримых параметров при анализе текстовых данных. Приведены результаты измерений показателей изрезанности для шестидесяти контурных шрифтов и отдельно для строчных букв в них. Показан аддитивный характер изрезанности.Current information’s grow rate requires special tools for processing. An analysis of the text data is one of the main areas of information processing in big data. It’s known that the level of understating of the textual materials depends on a font’s spatial form. Using irregularity of the fonts as quantitative assessment of the font’s drawing allows expand a set of measurable parameters at an analysis of text data. In this paper, we publish the results of the measurements for irregularity of sixty outline fonts as well as individual lowercase and reception of the textual information letters in them. The results can be widely used in experiments like reading. The additive feature of irregularity is shown. This research needs further studies in correlations of font’s geometrical figure with its intelligibility

The RSVP in the study of visual image recognition dinamics by using a symbolic monochrome bitmaps

In this paper provided a description of developing and using a software program which implements RSVP method. The program is applied for study the dynamics of visual stimuli recognition time. By the stimulus used a monochrome bitmaps of two letters from Russian alphabet. The program has shown as universal tool, which able to solve a wide range of research tasks. The results of experiments have shown that the time of recognition is increasing by the serial number of stimuli presentation. Extrapolated recognition time was statistically indistinguishable for all stimulus.В работе описывается разработка и применение специализированной программы, которая реализует метод RSVP. Программа применяется для изучения динамики времени распознавания визуальных стимулов наблюдателем. Стимульным материалом выступали растровые монохромные изображения двух букв русского алфавита в двух различных начертаниях. Программа показала себя как универсальный инструмент, способный помочь решить широкий круг исследовательских задач. Полученные результаты продемонстрировали увеличение времени распознавания с увеличением порядкового номера предъявления для всех предложенных стимулов, что по-видимому связано с нарастанием утомления. Экстраполированное начальное время распознавания оказалось статистически неразличимым

Количественная оценка изрезанности рисунка печатного шрифта и ее влияние на скорость чтения

Для оценки пространственных характеристик шрифтовых рисунков предложено использовать изрезанность — масштабно инвариантный показатель, основанный на идеях фрактальной геометрии. Он чувствителен к форме символов шрифта, которая влияет на разборчивость. Проведенный эксперимент продемонстрировал перспективность применения предложенного показателя для ранжирования шрифтов по скорости чтения.The irregularity, the scale invariant index, based on the ideas of fractal geometry, is proposed to use to assess the spatial features of font’s drawings. The indicator suggests sensitivity to the form of characters which affects font legibility. The conducted study showed the promise of applying the offered index for ranking fonts by reading speeds

Forensic evaluation of obstetric&gynecological care based on expert commission

Study produced 188 examinations in cases of adverse outcome of care according to expert materials for 2001-2007. The paper presents the results of the analysis of defects providing obstetric care in clinics of district are submitted.Произведено изучение 188 экспертиз по делам о неблагоприятном исходе оказания медицинской помощи по данным экспертных материалов за 2001 -2007 годы. В работе представлены результаты анализа дефектов оказания акушерско-гинекологической помощи в медицинских учреждениях округа

Modeling of changes in heat resistance of nickel-based alloys using bayesian artificial neural networks

Resource design of gas turbine engines and installations requires extensive information about the heat resistance of nickel-based superalloys, from which the most critical parts of aircraft and marine engines, pumps of gas-oil pumping stations and power plants are made. The problems are that the data on the heat resistance obtained as a result of testing each alloy under study are quite limited. In the present paper, the task of modelling changes in the heat resistance of nickel-based superalloy on the basis of available experimental data is solved. To solve the task, the most modern approach, the neural network modeling method, was applied. The input data are chemical compositions of heat-resistant nickel-based superalloys and the values of their heat resistance obtained experimentally. The output data are the calculated values of heat resistance modeled by an artificial neural network. In the course of the work, transformations of the input data were carried out to reduce the standard deviation of the modeling of the output data. The choice of the neural network configuration was made in order to achieve the highest possible accuracy. As a result, a neural network of direct error propagation was used, with 27 neurons on the input layer, 13 neurons in the hidden layer and 1 neuron in the output layer. To validate the results of the predictions, a group of alloys with the maximum number of known experimental values of heat resistance was randomly selected before the input of data into the network. After preparing the data, selecting the configuration and training the network, the chemical compositions of the selected group were loaded and their heat resistance values were calculated. Comparison of the obtained data with the experimental data showed high efficiency of the method. As a result, data on the change of heat resistance for the studied alloys were obtained and an analytical expression describing the obtained dependences was formulated. © 2020, Institute for Metals Superplasticity Problems of Russian Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved