Assessment of building recovery functions for local and global resilience assessment to tsunamis

In this paper we determine the local and global resilience of random graphs $G_{n, p}$ ($p \gg n^{-1}$) with respect to the property of containing a cycle of length at least $(1-\alpha)n$. Roughly speaking, given $\alpha > 0$, we determine the smallest $r_g(G, \alpha)$ with the property that almost surely every subgraph of $G = G_{n, p}$ having more than $r_g(G, \alpha) |E(G)|$ edges contains a cycle of length at least $(1 - \alpha) n$ (global resilience). We also obtain, for $\alpha < 1/2$, the smallest $r_l(G, \alpha)$ such that any $H \subseteq G$ having $\deg_H(v)$ larger than $r_l(G, \alpha) \deg_G(v)$ for all $v \in V(G)$ contains a cycle of length at least $(1 - \alpha) n$ (local resilience). The results above are in fact proved in the more general setting of pseudorandom graphs.

A transportation system like tramway or train is a system in which the functions of the human and the machine are interrelated and necessary for the operation of the whole system according to Human–Machine System (HMS) definition. Both human and machines are sources of system reliability and causes of accident occurrences. Considering the human behaviour contribution to HMS resilience, resilience can only be diagnosed if the human actions improve the system performances and help to recover from instability. Therefore, system resilience is the ability for a HMS to ensure performances and system stability whatever the context, i.e. after the occurrence of regular, unexpected or unprecedented disturbances. The COR&GEST platform is a railway simulation platform developed in the LAMIH in Valenciennes which involves a miniature railway structure. In order to study the human behaviour during the train driving activities with or without any technical failure occurrences, an experimental protocol was built with several inexperienced human operators. In railway transportation systems, traffic safety is the main performance criterion to take into account. Based on this criterion, authors propose to evaluate an instantaneous resilience indicator in order to assess the “local resilience” of HMS. As others performance criteria must be aggregated to reflect the whole studied HMS performance, the “global resilience” of HMS will be defined.

We study how information flows through a multi-robot network in order to better understand how to provide resilience to malicious information. While the notion of global resilience is well studied, one way existing methods provide global resilience is by bringing robots closer together to improve the connectivity of the network. However, large changes in network structure can impede the team from performing other functions such as coverage, where the robots need to spread apart. Our goal is to mitigate the trade-off between resilience and network structure preservation by applying resilience locally in areas of the network where it is needed most. We introduce a metric, Influence, to identify vulnerable regions in the network requiring resilience. We design a control law targeting local resilience to the vulnerable areas by improving the connectivity of robots within these areas so that each robot has at least <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$2F+1$</tex> vertex-disjoint communication paths between itself and the high influence robot in the vulnerable area. We demonstrate the performance of our local resilience controller in simulation and in hardware by applying it to a coverage problem and comparing our results with an existing global resilience strategy. For the specific hardware experiments, we show that our control provides local resilience to vulnerable areas in the network while only requiring 9.90% and 15.14% deviations from the desired team formation compared to the global strategy.

Undertaking systemic risk assessments of critical infrastructures (CIs) is necessary to improve understanding, mitigate impacts, and increase resilience to cascading effects of intensifying hydrometeorological hazards. This paper presents a novel quantitative approach with stakholder participation for simulating local physical interdependencies between multiple infrastructure sectors that may be disrupted by floods. The model comprised power, water, telecommunications, emergency, and transport systems. Local (node-edge) resilience metrics were computed to identify critical, vulnerable, and non-redundant CIs in the network. For infrastructures located in areas under risk of floods, global resilience metrics (for whole-network degradation) evaluated failure propagation. The approach was tested in a case study of Halmstad Municipality, Sweden, with a history of extreme hydrometeorological events. Results identified key power, water, and communication infrastructures with high disruption potential under flood exposure, as well as specific residential and industrial areas near hazard zones being the most vulnerable due to their extensive dependencies.

Assuming the strategic role of municipalities, local communities, and Environmental education in the joint e ort to climate change response, the ClimAdaPT.Local project aimed to launch a set of Municipal Strategies for Adaptation to Climate Change and its integration into municipal planning. The objective was to achieve this goal by developing tools and methodologies, by training local technical sta of 26 municipalities, and by empowering of local actors. This last factor emerged as a sine qua non condition to reach the planned goals and to provide new opportunities for individual and social transformation that can enhance local and global resilience. For this end, within other local actors, teachers of all levels have been mobilised, as well as their formative experience, and their pedagogical capacity to promote individual and collective re ection. This chapter is focused on results of a questionnaire survey, and will draw some conclusions from a comparative analysis that posits the added value of teachers in the community mobilisation process, and confronts their positions, capacities and predispositions with other local actors equally mobilised for adaptation and environment protection.

Power systems and microgrids resilience enhancement strategies: A review

Earthquakes and tsunamis are high-impact geohazard events that can be extremely destructive when they occur at large magnitudes and intensities, although their causes and potential locations are, for the most part, predictable within the framework of plate tectonics. Amongst the main reasons for their high impact include enormous numbers of casualties, extensive property damage in vast areas and significant social and economic disruption in urban settings where populous residential areas, global banking centres, industrial factories and critical facilities (nuclear power plants, dams) may be located. In order to reduce the impact of these geohazards, nations, societies, professional organizations and governments need to collaborate to prepare more effective seismic and tsunami risk assessments, disaster management plans, educational and training programmes for increased preparedness of the public, and strategic plans and objectives for capacity building, skill and knowledge transfer, and building of societal resilience. Improved building design and construction codes and emergency preparedness and evacuation plans should be part of disaster management plans in countries where destructive earthquakes and tsunamis have occurred. The rapid increases in population along coastal corridors in developing and developed countries is likely to escalate the social and economic impacts of these geohazards exponentially in the future. The chapters in this book present case studies of some of the most salient earthquake and tsunami events in historical and modern times, their origins and manifestations, and efforts and the most effective practices of risk assessment and disaster management implemented by various governments, international organizations and inter-governmental agencies following these events. New methods of computing probabilistic seismic hazard risks, delineating respect distance and damage zones along and across seismically active faults and recognizing tsunamigenic and submarine landslides on the seafloor are introduced. The conclusions presented in the chapters show that: (1) scientific understanding of the characteristics of seismically active faults is paramount; (2) increased local (community), national and global resilience is necessary to empower societal preparedness for earthquake and tsunami events; and, (3) all stakeholders, including policy-makers, scientists, local, state and national governments, media and world organizations (UNESCO, IUGS, GeoHazards International, Global Geodetic Observing System, National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program) must work together to disseminate accurate and timely information on geohazards, to develop effective legislation for risk reduction and to prepare realistic and practical hazard mitigation and management measures.

How to learn from the resilience of Human–Machine Systems?

Background: Keloids and hypertrophic scars are prevalent and psychologically distressful dermatologic conditions. Various treatment modalities have been tried but without complete success by any one method. Objective: We evaluated the efficacy of a combination of intense pulsed light (IPL) device and intralesional corticosteroid injection for the treatment of keloids and hypertrophic scars with respect to the recovery of skin barrier function. Methods: Totally 52 Korean patients were treated by the combined treatment at 4–8-week intervals. Using digital photographs, changes in scar appearance were assessed with modified Vancouver Scar Scale (MVSS), physicians’ global assessment (PGA) and patient's satisfaction score. In 12 patients, the stratum corneum (SC) barrier function was assessed by measuring transepidermal water loss (TEWL) and SC capacitance. Results: Most scars demonstrated significant clinical improvement in MVSS, PGA and patient's satisfaction score after the combined therapy. A significant decrease of TEWL and elevation of SC capacitance were also documented after the treatment. Conclusion: The combination therapy (IPL + corticosteroid injection) not only improves the appearance of keloids and hypertrophic scars but also increases the recovery level of skin hydration status in terms of the skin barrier function.

Building resilient cities is playing an increasingly important role in enhancing urban safety and promoting sustainable urban development. However, few scholars pay attention to urban resilience in inland provinces. Choosing Henan Province, as it is a typical representative of China’s major inland economic provinces, has practical guiding significance. This study aims to provide a systematic indicator system and evaluation tool to measure the cuity’s resilience level. Therefore, based on a multidimensional perspective, this paper dissects the urban resilience spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of 18 Henan Province cities with the entropy method, Thiel index, and ESDA (Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis) and explores influencing factors with a spatial econometric model. The main results are as follows: (1) the overall resilience in Henan Province continuously grows, and the resilience level of the Zhengzhou metropolitan area is the highest. In the urban resilience subsystem, economic and social resilience notably drive urban resilience improvement in Henan Province. (2) The spatial difference of urban resilience has been significantly reduced, but the inner metropolitan area presents the characteristics of “core–periphery”. Urban resilience presents a positive spatial correlation, and local spatial agglomeration is relatively stable. (3) Under the state of spatial interaction, urbanization rate, administrative, innovation, market, and industrial structure factors all have significant direct effects and spatial spillover effects on overall resilience, but openness exerts downward pressure on local resilience. (4) On this basis, strategies have been proposed to continuously promote the development of new urbanization, improve the regional coordinated development mechanism, increase market activity, optimize the environment for scientific and educational innovation, and promote the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure. The approach taken in this research may also be useful for developing urban resilience assessment tools in other central plains cities as well as in other cities in the interior of the world with similar conditions.

Multi-hazard resilience assessment framework for prefabricated underground stations with a large-span roof structure

US ports and container/intermodal terminals are critical links in the marine transportation system. Disruption at a port can have a crippling economic effect in the coastal zone as well as the rest of the nation. Port stakeholders have a vested interest in the long-term function and viability of ports, but no standardized measures for performance or resilience exist for ports. The goal of this research is to demonstrate the utility of a predictive port resilience assessment tool. The developed tool encompasses a microscopic traffic simulation model (VISSIM) based hybrid multimodal analyzes of port operations and provides a quantifiable assessment of resilience. The application of this tool is shown on six ports in the Southeast US. The waterside port simulation models were developed using vessel automatic identification system data and programed within a VISSIM simulation of landside operations. This hybrid modeling approach was used to visualize vessels and allow them to interact in both time and space with each other and landside infrastructure. Local and regional resilience was quantified through the analysis of time-dependent resilience plots and used as a performance measure in this study. The utility of the predictive port resilience assessment was demonstrated in response to Hurricane Matthew (2016). However, the novel procedure described herein can be applied to any port hazard. This research grows the understanding of the regional consequences of hurricane events and enhances the knowledge in the development of a stakeholder-focused tool to assess resilience.

To achieve a more reliable assessment on structural residual seismic capacity (RSC) in case of sequence-type earthquakes, the procedures for the estimate of the 50-year expectations of RSC ratios of buildings with different importance categories and different precautionary intensities are developed based on the context of the specified uniform collapse probabilities. In accordance with the Chinese design background, the uniform collapse probability corresponding to each case is specified conservatively by its lowest limit as the uncertainty coefficient increases from 0.275 to 0.95. By these specified uniform collapse probabilities, the rare-level and great-level intensities and corresponding peak ground accelerations for all precautionary regions are modified. Further, the combination of local and global structural resilience indexes obtained from RSC ratio curves results in the expectations of Y-year RSC ratios of various buildings. With the assumed linear relation between the expectations and the collapse probability density functions, the expectations of the RSC ratios for different life extensions to 50-year design service life are also provided by corresponding specified uniform collapse probabilities. The efficiency of two types of passive control devices, especially base isolators, for the improvement of structural RSC and resilience is demonstrated by a case study on an 8-story RC frame.

I examined questions about the local and global stability and resilience characteristics of six small mammal faunas and their relationship to connectance, average interaction strength, community covariance, and indirect competitive pathways. Community matrices estimated elsewhere were used in the analyses. The faunas had from three to nine species and represented several habitat types. The following properties were observed: (1) all community matrices were globally stable, (2) return rates to equilibrium were generally maximized, and (3) competitive interactions were strictly hierarchical. Global stability resulted from a reduction in connectance with increasing species and not from structural characteristics (i.e., community covariance). Average interaction strength did not change with the number of species in these faunas. Increased resilience was due largely to reduced community covariance. Two of the six faunas showed some evidence for indirect pathways, but this appeared to be artifactual. Randomizations of the original community matrices showed that indirect pathways have a high probability of occurrence. Monte Carlo simulations indicated that the probability of indirect pathways increases with increasing number of species or magnitude of competition. These results bring into question previous observational studies invoking indirect competitive pathways. Communities without indirect pathways have a special linear hierarchical structure. This structure has greater resilience than when indirect pathways are present. The observed patterns in community structure are discussed with regard to current theories of habitat selection.

Using Q-methodology to discover disaster resilience perspectives from local residents