Application of wavelet transform in structural health monitoring

Structural health monitoring(SHM)is a process of implementing a damage detection strategy in existing structures to evaluate their condition to ensure safety.The changes in the material,geometric and/or structural properties affect structural responses,which can be captured and analyzed for condition assessment.Various vibration-based damage detection algorithms have been developed in the past few decades.Among them,wavelet transform(WT)gained popularity as an efficient method of signal processing to build a framework to identify modal properties and detect damage in structures.This article presents the state-of-the-art implementation of various WT tools in SHM with a focus on civil structures.The unique features and limitations of WT,and a comparison of WT and other signal processing methods,are further discussed.The comprehensive literature review in this study will help interested researchers to investigate the use of WT in SHM to meet their specific needs.

A conceptual evolutionary aseismic decision support framework for hospitals

In this paper, aconceptual evolutionary framework for aseismic decision support for hospitalsthat attempts to integrate a range of engineering and sociotechnical models is presented. Genetic algorithms are applied to find the optimal decision sets. A case study is completed to demonstrate how the frameworkmay applytoa specific hospital.The simulations show that the proposed evolutionary decision support framework is able to discover robust policy sets in either uncertain or fixed environments. The framework also qualitatively identifies some of the characteristicbehavior of the critical care organization. Thus, by utilizing the proposedframework, the decision makers are able to make more informed decisions, especially toenhance the seismic safety of the hospitals.

Probing the Large-scale Structure of the Universe Through Gravitational Wave Observations

The improvements in the sensitivity of the gravitational wave(GW) network enable the detection of several large redshift GW sources by third-generation GW detectors. These advancements provide an independent method to probe the large-scale structure of the universe by using the clustering of the binary black holes(BBHs). The black hole catalogs are complementary to the galaxy catalogs because of large redshifts of GW events, which may imply that BBHs are a better choice than galaxies to probe the large-scale structure of the universe and cosmic evolution over a large redshift range. To probe the large-scale structure, we used the sky position of the BBHs observed by third-generation GW detectors to calculate the angular correlation function and the bias factor of the population of BBHs. This method is also statistically significant as 5000 BBHs are simulated. Moreover, for the third-generation GW detectors, we found that the bias factor can be recovered to within 33% with an observational time of ten years. This method only depends on the GW source-location posteriors;hence, it can be an independent method to reveal the formation mechanisms and origin of the BBH mergers compared to the electromagnetic method.

Impacts of land use and planning on island ecosystem service values: a case study of Dinghai District on Zhoushan Archipelago, China

Recently designated as a new special economic zone in China,Zhoushan Archipelago is going through a rapid land use change that is expected to have significant impacts on ecosystem services.However,there is no baseline of ecosystem service value(ESV)of the Zhoushan Archipelago up to date,making it impossible to assess any impacts of land use changes.In this study,we adopted the concept of“equivalent value per unit area of ecosystem services in China”and computed the ESV for 2006,2012,and 2020 of a representative district,Dinghai,on the Zhoushan Archipelago.We then analyzed the spatial and temporal patterns of land use changes and their impacts on ESV.The results indicated that the ESV of Dinghai District declined by 59.3 M Chinese yuan($9.5 M US dollars)from 2006 to 2012 and would further decrease by an additional 30.9 M yuan($5 M US dollars)by 2020 according to its planned land uses.These declines in ESV were primarily due to increases in buildup areas and losses in wetland,farmland,and water areas.The results imply that more attention should be paid to controlling urban growth and protecting coastal wetlands in order to preserve valuable ecosystem services of the Archipelago.