A RESILIENCE-BASED ASSESSMENT OF THE PERFORMANCE OF RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITIES SUBJECT TO HURRICANE HAZARD

Hurricanes are among the most devastating and costliest natural hazards. This devastating impact urged governments and policymakers to implement mitigation plans and strategies that can enhance the community’s resilience against hurricanes. A fundamental step to gauge the performance and effectiveness of these mitigations plans is to develop computational frameworks that can provide a probabilistic assessment of the resilience of the community. Therefore, this paper presents a framework to probabilistically estimate the resilience of residential wooden buildings against hurricane winds. The framework estimates the post-hurricane damage due to dynamic wind pressure and the impact of windborne debris using an engineering-based hurricane vulnerability. The building recovery function is then estimated by integrating the estimated damage with a building-level recovery model. By aggregating building recovery functions, the community recovery function is obtained. The Monte Carlo simulation method is used to account for uncertainties related to the hazard intensity, community vulnerability, and recovery process. The framework is applied to a residential neighborhood in Miami, FL. This framework can help decision-makers to compare current community resilience with target levels, identify the gap, and set strategies to improve community resilience.

New Design of a Boost Drive Circuit with an Energy Recovery Function for the Piezoelectric Jacquard Needle

Aiming at the technical bottlenecks existing in the current warp knitting machine control system such as jacquard drive circuit, the design method of self-boosting power supply circuit integrated with jacquard driver is proposed for the embedded warp knitting machine jacquard control system for miniaturization design. The voltage boost circuit designed can boost the low voltage from the input of the working power supply to the high voltage for the output to drive the oscillation of the piezoelectric ceramic jacquard needles. Since the circuit adopts energy storage inductance instead of current-limiting resistor to optimize the driving circuit, it not only limits the forward charging current of the piezoelectric ceramic, but also effectively realize the energy recovery function. The effectiveness of the design method is verified by simulation.

Neural Recovery Function of the Auditory Nerve in Cochlear Implant Surgery: Comparison between Prelingual and Postlingual Patients

Introduction Cochlear implants (CIs) enable objective measures of the neural function in implanted patients through the measurements of the neural response telemetry (NRT) and of the Auditory nerve Recovery Function (REC). These measurements help in programming the speech processor and understanding the auditory system. Objective To compare the NRT and the REC in prelingual and postlingual implanted patients. Methods An observational, descriptive and prospective study was carried out. The NRT and the REC (through the T0, A, and tau parameters) were evaluated in individuals submitted to CI surgery, who were divided into two groups: prelingual and postlingual patients. Results In total, 46 patients were evaluated. Data analysis showed no statistically significant difference between the NRT measurements and the T0, A, and Tau of the REC in the comparison between the two groups, except for the NRT in the basal cochlear region. Conclusion There was no statistically significant difference in the REC in pre- and postlingual patients.

Reliability analysis of ЭС2Г series compressor train units at the beginning of operation

The article considers reliability analysis of compressor screw units on electric trains of ЭС2Г series on the basis of information received on operating time between failures from the beginning of operation. The combined recovery process and recovery function are plotted, and the fault flow function is calculated and constructed. Conclusions on the reliability of the considered equipment are drawn on the failure flow function. At the beginning of operation of these compressor units a number of failures occurred related to the run-in period. The manufacturer took into account all cases of incorrect operation and made changes in the design and electrical control circuits, which allowed reducing the probability of failures many times in the future. In the future, the present results can be usefully applied to calculate the distribution function and estimate the 90% resource.