Story Building Research Articles

The Narrative Function of “Soundscape” in Eileen Chang’s Novels in the Auditory Narrative Perspective——Taking Red Rose and White Rose as an Example

Auditory narrative is the expression and writing related auditory perception in narrative works. Eileen Chang’s Novels embody rich sensory narratives and take the auditory soundscape as a typical narrative. Scholar Fu Xiuyan believes that auscultating the soundscape with auditory narrative theory can “re-listen” to the classics and achieve the purpose of admonishing the “deafness” of literary research. Based on the theory of “auditory narrative” proposed by Fu Xiuyan, this paper selects the soundscape in Eileen Chang’s typical novel Red Rose and White Rose to analyze, and further explores the relationship between Soundscape Construction and Character Creation, Soundscape Cutting and Story Building, as well as Soundscape Contrast and Aesthetic Embodiment, in order to further supplement and enrich the new issues in the new field of Eileen Chang studies.

Optimization-Based Vibration Control Analysis of Dampers in High-Rise Building

Tuned mass dampers (TMDs) are a useful control of vibrations for tall buildings and can be considered equal to burdens such as breezes and earthquakes. The better limits for TMD are to reduce the earthquake vibrations of tall buildings including soil–structure interaction (SSI) influences. This study proposes the multi-objective Black Widow Optimization (BWO) with Elman neural network (ENN) computation that is brought on to find the optimal limits of TMD. Considering that this proposed model analyzed the mass, stiffness, and damping ratio of TMD to get the maximum accelerations and displacement of 40 story building model, from the execution results, starting from this proposed BWO–Elman model to the expected methodology, the most outrageous TMD limits are better, likewise, the reduction of acceleration and displacement are 25% and 19.86% in the proposed study. This study assists the researchers with a better understanding of earthquake vibration and leads the fashioners to achieve superior TMD for tall designs. The impact of vibration control on the displacements and accelerations of both controlled and uncontrolled buildings is investigated in this work. It uses a MATLAB software technique to analyze their modal replies, moreover, this proposed optimal TMD model is compared with conventional techniques by acceleration and stiffness parameters.

Biobased Construction from Agricultural Crops: Paper 1 - A State of Play of Commercial Solutions in Europe

In response to environmental concerns and the global warming issue in particular there is a growing drive to decarbonise the building sector and transition it to more circular practices. Biobased construction materials, products and systems are an important low carbon and circular strategy as they can enable low to negative carbon construction and have strong circularity advantages notably being able to enter the bio cycle, using renewable, low to zero toxic resources and provide a range of other performance benefits, including moisture and vapour regulation. This novel research presents a unique state of play on the commercial application of biobased construction from selected agricultural crops, straw, miscanthus and hemp, focused on the European context. A desk-based review of known biobased material producers and manufacturers is undertaken, supplemented with semi structured interviews and site visits, to provide a comprehensive overview of the sector and detailed account of the types of biobased materials, products and systems that are being applied in buildings across Europe and beyond. The findings show that a diversity of agricultural crops are being utilised at different process, manufacture and construction technology levels, providing a range of tested and certified materials and products for application in mainly timber frame construction, but also some masonry solutions, and a growing number of modular systems. These operate in a diversity of supply chains and are being applied in a wide range of building types, both domestic and non-domestic, including multi story and complex buildings.

Climate change impact on energy savings in mixed-mode ventilation office buildings in Brazil

With the projected increase in temperature, coupled with the rise in intensity and frequency of heatwaves caused by climate change, it has become essential to investigate the impact of climate change on building energy consumption and thermal comfort. This study focuses on office buildings with mixed-mode ventilation in Brazil as a case study. Using a typical 15-story office building archetype for various Brazilian cities, considering current and predicted scenarios (2050 and 2080), the potential for energy savings through natural ventilation was assessed. It was observed that the average increase in temperature and wind speed in the predicted climate varied in each city and showed significant variations over the years. Predicted projections under high-emission scenarios (SSP5-8.5-2080) reveal significant increases in energy consumption, highlighting the vulnerability of cities like Belo Horizonte, which could face a 77% increase in total energy consumption. Additionally, the analysis of HVAC hours of use over time indicates a progressive increase, suggesting a potential reduction in natural ventilation as a mitigation strategy. Mitigation measures, especially in the SSP1-2.6 scenario, are crucial to stabilize HVAC consumption and preserve the use of natural ventilation, emphasizing the importance of sustainable approaches to address the energy challenges arising from climate change.

Comparison of Asymmetric and Symmetric RCC Building with Soil Structure Interaction by Dynamic Loading

Multi story building are very much common in the urban area nowadays due to scarcity of land and increase in the cost of land. Most of the structure are not in regular either in shape and mass distribution. But the performance of structure will not be good as regular symmetric type structure. A plan asymmetric having L shaped normally exhibits a complex response under dynamic loads. In this research work, effect of change of height and change of number of bays are studied separately with soil structure interaction. In recent years, due to demand in aesthetical view and architectural design, people want unique in building so the building are designed with irregularities. Using software is used for modelling and studying the various parameter such as displacement, time period, frequency and acceleration

Development of an Android Application for Smart Parking System

Now-a-days, vehicle parking has become a major problem in urban areas with the shortage of parking spaces. It is very difficult and frustrating to find a parking space in most metropolitan areas, especially during the rush hours to solve this problem. The project entitled smart parking system using android application, the major motivation of this project is to reduce the traffic congestion in roads, multi storied buildings and malls due to unavailability of parking spaces. The proposed application provides an easy way for reservation of parking slot. In this application user can view various parking areas and also view whether space is available or not. The project displays the nearest empty slot if present with respect to user location. This system gives a further feature of cancelling the bookings. Users may even make price online primarily based totally at the time taken for the reserved area the quantity might be calculated and the person can make charge. This project provides a good insight into the guidance, monitoring and reservations components of the smart parking and directions to the future development.

Analysis of Base Shear and Story Drift in the Low-Rise RC Sructure

<p class="Abstract">Earthquakes frequently occur in Indonesia because it is an earthquake-prone area. Due to lateral load from an earthquake can cause a weakly constructed building to collapse. Designers often only consider tall buildings in designing earthquake-resistant building structures but ignore earthquake-resistant designing for low-rise buildings. This study focuses on the analysis of earthquake resistant structures with a case study of low-rise buildings in the form of a 3-story reinforced concrete (RC) building in the South Jakarta area. The objective of the study is to analyze the base shear and story drift of the structure due to lateral or earthquake loads. The structure is a reinforced concrete with the concrete compressive strength of <em> </em>= 30 MPa and longitudinal reinforcement of = 420 MPa and stirrups of = 280 MPa. This study uses equivalent static analysis manually and using ETABS 20.1.0 application. The results showed that three story buildings analyzed using equivalent static analysis method and using ETABS 20.1.0 application had almost the same results on horizontal forces with manual result of 1680.97 kN and ETABS of 1648.46 kN. The elastic story deflection and inelastic story drift in this study are still within safe limits because it is below the drift limit.</p>

Language Games- The Great Medium to Learn English Language

Abstract: The present study aims to explore the innumerable possibilities that language games create for learning a language as a supplementary material. Language games are ideal for teaching and enhancing vocabulary of ESL learners. Take something as simple as a riddle-in case the teacher asks a riddle in a second Language class, the learners are very interested in listening to it and answering it. The riddle brings enthusiasm to an otherwise silent class. In addition to it, the learners are learning the nuances of the language like figurative language unconsciously or sub –consciously. Another mind sport is quiz that can be used to teach elements of language like grammar and vocabulary and their usage. Games can also be designed to cater to the needs of the learners and enable them to enhance their language skills i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing. A story telling activity can eventually lead to enhancement of listening skill. The chain story building technique can be used to hone the speaking skill. Similarly, cross word puzzles can also be used to remember a few facts from a lesson just read. An activity like a write up on a topic like my favourite offline/online game can enhance the writing skills of the learners. Thus, it can be concluded that language games can be used as a supportive method for teaching and learning English in ELT classroom.

Biaxial Hollow Slab Under Seismic Load

In reinforced concrete building structures, the slab is the component with the largest volume of concrete of all the superstructure components. Various innovations were carried out. Currently, the use of Hollow Core Slab (HCS) to reduce the load on building superstructures is widely used in Indonesia. Another type of slab is Biaxial Hollow Slab (BHS) as an alternative to reduce slab concrete volume. BHS is considered capable of reducing concrete consumption by up to 30% -50% of conventional concrete without reducing the performance of the slab itself. It could be reducing the load on the working superstructure can reduce the influence of seismic loads on the foundation. Indonesia is a country with an earthquake zone, so the use of BHS must be considered with seismic design categories that are appropriate to the earthquake zones in Indonesia. This research is focused on giving information about the numerical study of application BHS in 10th story building with design seismic category D. The thickness used in this study is equivalent thickness of BHS to solid slab. The absence of beams in weak axis and the present of perimeter beam by utilization BHS, gives the result BHS has sufficient capacity to carry the workload.

Light Transmitting Concrete

This paper reviews the Light Emitting Concrete. The increase in population leads to the growth of construction sector and hence construction activities increases day by day. Construction of tall storied and multi storied buildings result in obstructing natural light in the building, thus leading to increase in artificial light. Light-transmitting concrete has property of passing artificial as well as natural light due to optical fibers present in it. Light Transmitting concrete, also known as translucent concrete. Light –transmissive properties due to embedded light optical elements. This paper describes historical development of Light Transmitting concrete. Light transmitting concrete (LTC) or ‘LiTraCon’ is an example of such phenomenal innovation. The aim is to promote translucent concrete as an attractive, promising, and innovative building material for the construction industry

Reliability-based optimization of supported pendulum TMDs’ nonlinear track shape using Padé approximants

Supported Pendulum Tuned Mass Dampers (PTMDs) are vibration absorbers whose mass is constrained to oscillate along a curved path, enabling to use gravity as a restoring force. Through a proper track shape selection, they can adapt to the so-called Nonlinear Energy Sinks (NES) concept, consolidated for spring–mass–damper TMDs. Accordingly, NESs are recognized for their ability to resonate in a wide range of frequencies due to their nonlinear nature, becoming more effective when variations on the host structure’s natural frequencies occur. However, regardless of the recent advances in the last few years, gaps remain to be explored in the track shape optimization of supported PTMDs. For instance, a comprehensive literature review shows that Reliability-Based Design Optimization (RBDO) studies to determine the track shape of supported PTMDs cannot be found to the best of the author’s knowledge. Within this context, this paper proposes an original RBDO approach to define the track shape of supported PTMDs in buildings subjected to seismic excitation. For this purpose, a generic rational function with an arbitrary curvature, determined from the Padé approximation of the circle equation, is constructed to allow the PTMD’s path shape search. This procedure allows optimizing fewer parameters than required in Taylor series expansions while providing a wider range of alternatives for numerical optimization. Finally, an active-learning Kriging-based Efficient Global Optimization (EGO) procedure is employed to find the optimum solutions with few objective function evaluations. The application case consists of a typical soft story building subjected to seismic loadings. The optimal track differs from the circle equation, with a higher slope for moderate displacements.

SEISMIC ANALYSIS OF MULTISTORIED OPEN GROUND STORY BUILDING WITH DIAGONAL STRUT AND SHEAR WALLS

The Open Ground Story (OGS) building is a functional need of all urban areas so cannot be eliminated. According to studies from previous earthquakes, when there is severe earthquake shaking, Reinforced Concrete (RC) frame buildings with open ground levels function badly. In this work, four models of G+14 RC frame buildings with and without a shear wall, coupled sheal wall, and diagonal strut were modeled and analyzed using ETABS-2018 software's static and dynamic response spectrum method. Model 1 open ground story RC building without strut and the shear wall was compared to the other three models that included a shear wall, coupled shear wall, and diagonal strut. As a result of the findings, it has been determined that shear wall, coupled shear wall, and diagonal strut not only increased the stiffness but also reduced displacement. A model with a combination of shear wall and coupled shear wall showed a minimum base shear and overturning moment than all other models.

Comparative Analysis of Structural Reinforcement with Viscoelastic Energy Dissipators, Friction and Metal Creep in Tall Buildings

Seismic risk is a challenging problem in tall buildings due to the possibility of loss of human life and economic caused by seismic events. Peru is located at the interaction of the South American plate and the Nazca plate, which is why various seismic events of moderate to large magnitude occur. Today there are many ways to solve these problems and it is a very challenging case to reinforce tall buildings. In addition, technological advances in software facilitate and help through programmed models in tall buildings that analyze their structure characteristics such as drift, shear and others. This article proposes a comparative analysis of three types of dissipators: viscous fluid, friction, and metal creep through a Time-History analysis in a 15-story high-rise building located in Peru. The proposed methodology considers three stages: (i) definition of the characteristics and properties of the structure in accordance with Peruvian Standard E.030, in addition three accelerograms are used for the dynamic time-history analysis and maximum displacements and drifts are determined by ETABS software. (ii) calculate the design drift of the tall building and the properties of the viscous fluid, friction, and creep dissipator. In addition, calculations are made for the design parameters of each dissipator, and it is modeled as required for the case study. (iii) the new drifts and the damping values that the building presents for each dissipator are analyzed. According to the results obtained, the dissipator with the best results is of the flow type, since it has better performance in drifts and manages to produce an average damping of 96.87% for tall buildings. While the viscous dissipators obtain a 57.85% damping and the friction ones are estimated at 81.57%.

Influence of Building Height Variation on Air Pollution Dispersion in Different Wind Directions: A Numerical Simulation Study

Due to the rapid advancement of urbanization, traffic–related pollutants in street canyons have emerged as the primary source of PM2.5, adversely impacting residents’ health. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce PM2.5 concentrations. In this study, a three–dimensional steady–state simulation was conducted using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Three representative wind directions (θ = 0°, 45°, and 90°, corresponding to parallel, oblique, and perpendicular winds) and five different building height ratios (BHR = 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, and 4) were used to explore the effect of building height variations on PM2.5 dispersion within street canyons. The results indicated that wind direction significantly influenced PM2.5 dispersion (p < 0.001). As θ increased (θ = 0°, 45°, and 90°), PM2.5 concentration in the canyon increased, reaching the most severe pollution under perpendicular wind. Building height variations had a minor impact compared to wind direction, but differences in PM2.5 concentration were still observed among various BHRs. Specifically, under parallel wind, the influence of BHR on PM2.5 dispersion was relatively small as compared to oblique and perpendicular winds. For oblique wind, PM2.5 concentrations varied based on BHR. Street canyons composed of low–rise or multi–story buildings (BHR = 0.25 or 4) slightly increased PM2.5 concentrations within the canyon, while the lowest PM2.5 concentration was observed at a BHR of 0.5. Under perpendicular wind, symmetrical (BHR = 1) and step–down canyons (BHR = 2 and 4) exhibited comparable peak concentrations of PM2.5, whereas step–up canyons (BHR = 0.25 and 0.5) showed relatively lower concentrations.

Changing children's public perception of social work: A narrative evaluation of an educational intervention about social services

Summary This article explores children's learning experiences from taking part in an educational intervention about social services in school. Data were collected from six group interviews with 27 children after they had participated in lessons about social services. Following a narrative evaluation approach, the analysis focuses on the narratives of change that are made visible through the children's shared reflections about their learning experiences. Findings In their narratives of change, the children presented the educational intervention as meaningful for them because it increased their knowledge about social services as a possible support function for children and families. Some of the children related their previous more negative perceptions of social services to a collective story building on the idea that social services take children away from their families. Through the educational intervention, this collective story changed in part into another collective story building on the idea that social services help children and families to improve their relationships. Applications The study shows that an educational intervention about social services in school has the potential to increase children's knowledge about social services and to influence in a positive direction the collective stories that shape public perceptions of social work. Although such changes in collective stories can be expected to benefit social work practice, welfare professionals must be careful to promote opportunities for children to share experiences of social services that challenge, as well as align with, any of these collective stories.

Reply to discussion by KV.Sharma, D.Raj and M.Bharathi on “Modelling efficiency of fluid viscous dampers positioning for increasing tall buildings' Resilience to earthquakes induced structural vibrations”, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 173 (2023) 108108

We appreciate criticism of our study, and we want to address each issue they brought up. However, rather than trying a thorough investigation of all facets of Earthquake engineering, our study exclusively focused on the practical application of fluid viscous dampers (FVDs) in a G+20 story building under varied loads. We are quite concerned by claims of the presentation of fake technical content because our research was carried out honestly and rigorously. Any unintentional technical errors will be fixed in subsequent releases with the critic's detailed criticism. In terms of due diligence, our study was subject to a thorough peer review before publication, and we are willing to address any issues that may arise. In order to ensure that our conclusions are consistent with the findings of the study, misconceptions and a lack of conclusive data will be thoroughly addressed. We are dedicated to enhancing the calibre of our research and value constructive criticism.

Analysis of tunneling-induced ground movements in spatially variable soil under the influence of existing building

Tunnel construction invariably results in ground movement, which is significantly impacted by the spatial variability of soil properties and proximity of existing buildings. However, few studies have examined the coupled effect of these two factors on tunneling-induced ground movement. This study establishes a stochastic finite element model that incorporates both the spatial variability of soil properties and influence of existing buildings. The model is used to perform a series of random analyses, studying the effects of story number, eccentricity, and building length on ground settlements induced by tunneling in soil with spatial variability of Young’s modulus. A probabilistic analysis is conducted to investigate the uncertainties associated with ground settlements. The results of the analysis indicate that the presence of the building enhances the influence of the spatial variability of soil, leading to an increase in the dispersion of ground settlement. For high-rise buildings, the reduction of building eccentricity and length will increase the uncertainty of surface settlement. Neglecting the influence of the existing building in the probability analysis of surface settlement can result in an overestimation of the failure probability.

Using semantic story maps to describe a territory beyond its map

The paper presents the Story Map Building and Visualizing Tool (SMBVT) that allows users to create story maps within a collaborative environment and a usable Web interface. It is entirely open-source and published as a free-to-use solution. It uses Semantic Web technologies in the back-end system to represent stories through a reference ontology for representing narratives. It builds up a user-shared semantic knowledge base that automatically interconnects all stories and seamlessly enables collaborative story building. Finally, it operates within an Open-Science oriented e-Infrastructure, which enables data and information sharing within communities of narrators, and adds multi-tenancy, multi-user, security, and access-control facilities. SMBVT represents narratives as a network of spatiotemporal events related by semantic relations and standardizes the event descriptions by assigning internationalized resource identifiers (IRIs) to the event components, i.e., the entities that take part in the event (e.g., persons, objects, places, concepts). The tool automatically saves the collected knowledge as a Web Ontology Language (OWL) graph and openly publishes it as Linked Open Data. This feature allows connecting the story events to other knowledge bases. To evaluate and demonstrate our tool, we used it to describe the Apuan Alps territory in Tuscany (Italy). Based on a user-test evaluation, we assessed the tool’s effectiveness at building story maps and the ability of the produced story to describe the territory beyond the map.

An Investigation of a Post-tension Problem in a Conference Hall Roof

Introduction: Post-tensioning is a technique for strengthening concrete members by embedding tendons into the concrete before casting. When the concrete has acquired the desired strength, these tendons are tensioned using hydraulic jacks. This study deals with structurally analyzing and designing a 21 m × 25 m conference hall without interior columns contained within eleven stories building. Methods: The hall was located on the 9th floor. Many structural floor systems were proposed for the hall such as composite steel-concrete, waffle concrete, and post tensioned girder slab. The structural system of post-tensioned concrete girders with a top reinforced slab was chosen due to its advantages: low deflection and low risk of cracking, and increase of net floor height. Stressing of strands (live ends) was applied from the four sides of the concrete slab. Twenty-three live ends were placed in north-south direction and 20 live ends in east-west direction. Results: The ultimate strength of the stands was 1860 MPa. The jacking force, 209 kN, was applied in each strand which represented 75% of ultimate strength. The post-tension concrete slab was analyzed with Ram concept software, which revealed that the total elongation of strands in the E-W direction ranged from 116 mm to 152 mm, and the total elongation of strands in the N-S direction ranged from 120 mm to 172 mm. Conclusion: The problem of warping of nine live anchorage ends in the south-north direction was encountered during post-tensioning, which resulted in the movement of strands from their original locations. A rehabilitation plan was proposed to overcome the aforementioned problem.

Facade isolation in seismic design of tall buildings

Vulnerability of non-structural components in buildings subjected to earthquake incidents has caused human and financial losses in recent years. A part of such losses is related to the facade of buildings. In typical structures, facade assembly is directly connected to the structural system and is subjected to large lateral deformation during seismic actions. To reduce the level of earthquake-induced damage to the facade and the main structural system, the method of Facade Isolation (FI) is introduced. In this approach, facade frame is isolated from the main structural system using high damping flexible isolators. Numerical studies on the role of FI in a typical 15-story building with different facade configurations have been carried out in this work. According to the results of this study during seismic actions lateral drift response of facade frame in the isolated building is reduced to about 1/3 of that in the non-isolated one. This has happened while lateral force and drift ratio for the main structural system has also been reduced. In this approach facade frame serves as an integrated part of the structural system; to not only improve seismic performances of the building but to diminish the possibility of breakage and falloff for cladding materials during seismic actions.