Land subsidence induced by groundwater extraction and building damage level assessment—a case study of Datun, China

As in many parts of the world, long-term excessive extraction of groundwater has caused significant land-surface sub- sidence in the residential areas of Datun coal mining district in East China. The recorded maximum level of subsidence in the area since 1976 to 2006 is 863 mm, and the area with an accumulative subsidence more than 200 mm has reached 33.1 km2 by the end of 2006. Over ten cases of building crack due to ground subsidence have already been observed. Spatial variation in ground subsi- dence often leads to a corresponding pattern of ground deformation. Buildings and underground infrastructures have been under a higher risk of damage in locations with greater differential ground deformation. Governmental guideline in China classifies build- ing damages into four different levels, based on the observable measures such as the width of wall crack, the degree of door and window deformation, the degree of wall inclination and the degree of structural destruction. Building damage level (BDL) is esti- mated by means of ground deformation analysis in terms of variations in slope gradient and curvature. Ground deformation analysis in terms of variations in slope gradient has shown that the areas of BDL III and BDL II sites account for about 0.013 km2 and 0.284 km2 respectively in 2006, and the predicted areas of BDL (define this first) III and II sites will be about 0.029 km2 and 0.423 km2 respectively by 2010. The situation is getting worse as subsidence continues. That calls for effective strategies for subsidence miti- gation and damage reduction, in terms of sustainable groundwater extraction, enhanced monitoring and the establishment of early warning systems.

Research on the Application of Meteorological Disaster Losses Assessment Technology

According to the influence degree of meteorological disaster,we analyzed the existing deficiencies in hazard assessment,proposed the fuzzy evaluation method of quantitative assessment.The casualties caused by meteorological disasters and ecological damages to the environment,direct economic losses,efficiency losses,rescue losses,reconstruction and other assessment indices were converted into more accurate indicators of losses indexes.The quantitative formula of the meteorological disasters damage assessment was summarized.The disasters damage grades and damage indexes were used as the relative assessment indices of meteorological disaster losses.Finally,a damage assessment application example was given to verify the validity of the assessment methods.

Dynamic Responses of Block Type Quay Walls Under Cyclic Loading

The purpose of this research is to study the dynamic responses of gravity quay walls with block type consisting of“three blocks”experimentally.For this purpose,1g shaking table tests were conducted under different cyclic loadings for two different saturated granular backfill materials(Soil 1 and Soil 2).In this study,D_(n50) of Soil 1 and Soil 2 are selected as 2.2 cm and 1.0 cm,respectively.During the experiments,accelerations,soil pressures and displacements were measured for each block.Test results pointed out that Soil 2 caused more damage on structures.The measurements for displacement and tilting of each block were discussed in view of“acceptable level of damage in performance-based design”given in PIANC(2001).The result of the study showed that the definitions of damaged levels given in PIANC(2001)were reliable for using in performance-based methods for seismic design of block type quay walls.

External blast load factors for dome structures based on reliability

Dome structures have been used extensively for industrial,residential,and military infrastructure.Therefore,it is necessary to understand the damage risk potential for such structures for blast-resistant design considerations.This paper investigates the effect of blast load variability on the design value and the structural dynamic response.Therefore,the sources of uncertainty in the external blast load on dome structures were discussed firstly.Then based on the probabilistic blast load model for the dome,the rationality of a deterministic mass-increase safety method was assessed.It was found that previous deterministic design method cannot provide a consistent and sound assurance factor or reliability index on the entire dome roof.In addition,it was also proved that the assurance-based load method fails to ensure compliance with structural safety design standards on the dome roof when compared with the reliability-based blast method.A sensitivity analysis on the probabilistic blast load was conducted,and the results indicate that stand-off distance and explosive mass both act as dominant sources to influence the mean and variability of blast load.Therefore,based on the Latin hypercube sampling method,a reliability-based external blast load factor technique was proposed.This technique was further used to estimate structural damage levels of a single-layer reticulated dome under different reliability requirements,associated with a low,medium,and high level of protection grades for a specific explosion scenario,and it indicated that this technique can be useful in the building design to achieve a higher structural anti-explosion capacity.This study herein can serve as a reference for the calculation method of designed blast load.

Research on recognition for cotton spider mites’damage level based on deep learning

The changes in cotton leaf characteristics are closely related to the cotton spider mites’damage level.Extracting the distinguishable features of cotton leaves is an effective method to identify the level.However,it faces enormous challenges for the classification due to various factors,such as illumination intensity,background complexity,shooting angle and so on.A recognition model is proposed,which is trained through transfer learning with the two-stage learning rate from 0.01 to 0.001 based on MobileNetV1.The experiments demonstrate that the deep learning model attains the accuracy of 92.29%for the training set and 91.88%for the test set of the mixed data.For testifying the effectiveness of the two-stage training method,the models are trained with the two public datasets,CIFAR-10 and Flowers,and attain the accuracy of 95.46%and 95.57%for the test sets,respectively.The average recognition time for a single cotton leaf image is about 0.015 s.Furthermore,the mobile terminal application is developed with the model embedded,to realize the real-time recognition for cotton spider mites’damage level in the field.

Temperature-dependent development of Xyleborus fornicatus （Coleoptera： Scolytidae）, the shot-hole borer of tea in Sri Lanka： Implications for distribution and abundance

The effect of temperature on the rate of development of Xyleborus fornicatus （Eichh.） was determined by rearing individuals under a range of constant temperatures （15 - 32℃）. Rates of development changed in a linear fashion over a wide range of temperatures. Estimates of lower development thresholds were obtained for eggs （15.7±0.5℃）, larvae （15.8±0.8℃） and pupae （14.3±1.4℃） and the degree days （DD） for development were 70±4.4, 95±8.5 and 72±5.1 DD, respectively. Optimum temperature for development was around 30~C for all stages. Temperature fluctuation in cooler High Country areas （above 1400 m） with a mean temperature around 15℃ seems to be critical for the development of the pest, which may be responsible for the near absence of pest in those areas. Temperature fluctuations （18- 30℃） in the Mid Country region （600- 1200 m） favor the development of the pest compared to development under constant conditions. The altitudinal distribution of the shot-hole borer across tea growing areas in Sri Lanka is, therefore, mainly governed by temperature.