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In the current study, the researchers tracked the steps that were taken (in the past 20 years after the occurrence of the 921 earthquake) to enhance the safety of students and teachers on campus by rebuilding the schools according to higher standards. Additionally, the researchers analyzed the process of school reconstruction in Taiwan after the Chi-Chi earthquake, as well as the resilience of the rebuilt schools.

This paper collected extensive relevant literature to serve as a basis for data analysis. Subsequently, they examined the conditions of selected schools before and after they were affected by the earthquake, as well as the reconstruction process of these schools. The purposive sampling method was also adopted to assemble a unique and representative sample.

This study concluded a new disaster risk reduction education system in Taiwan, from safe learning facilities, school disaster management and risk reduction and resilience education perspectives. It encouraged school and community collaboration regarding establishing a comprehensive disaster management framework.

The paper kept tracks of how schools recovered and restored after the 921 earthquake based on global disaster management trends and local disaster risk reduction education. It also highlighted the major changes within the school resilience system and the importance of disaster risk reduction education in Taiwan.

Street closure following an earthquake makes life-saving and rescue work more difficult, especially in congested urban areas. After the great Chi-chi earthquake, recovery and reconstruction work became necessary. In particular, we have to investigate the street network damages and other effects. Considering the road improvement plan, not only malfunction recovery but also a comprehensive evaluation should be considered in future urban planning. The reliable street network against earthquakes is the central concern of this survey.

This study attempts to implement a case study survey of damaged areas, and analyze the effecting factors on street closure. We also try to evaluate the road function against earthquake integrated with the street-damaged characteristics. Using a discriminant model of street closure, some design guidelines for future transportation planning decisions are proposed.

Nan-tou City network has 365 links and 66.6% of them are less than 6 meters in width. Ton-shi Town network has 248 links and 35% of them are less than 6 meters in width. The same definition of street closure (impassable by vehicles) of ‘street width less than 4 meters’ was applied to these two case studies. This research considered several street network alternatives, the inaccessible nodes for all alternatives and analysis in order to determine a more reliable street network for increased safety. Results of both surveyed areas suggest that when we decrease the interval distance of the 8-M street, the percentage of the differences of inaccessible nodes will also decrease.

The Chi-chi earthquake did great harm in the disaster area. Fortunately we find the street damages of our surveying area were not too severe to maintain their functions in times of earthquake. However, it is still meaningful for a transport planner to evaluate the reliability of residential streets because the main target of planning a residential street network is to restrain through-traffic in this area to ensure safe and comfortable conditions for pedestrians while meeting residential access requirements.

Rivers flowing through the land are a source of life. They have different importance and functions such as for drinking, sailing, irrigating crops, generating electricity, sightseeing, fishing, and so on. In addition, animals like amphibians, birds, and mammals also live and propagate near the river environment. Therefore, rivers are ecosystems for some animals and plants that are special, rare, or on the brink of extinction (Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs, 2006).

The objective of the study is to examine the response of reinforced concrete (RC) structures subjected to Near-Fault Ground Motions (NFGM) and highlight the importance of considering various factors including the influence of the relative geographical position of near-fault sites that can affect the structural response during an earthquake.

In this paper, the response of a four-storey RC building subjected to NFGMs with varied characteristics like hanging wall and footwall in conjunction with directivity and the effect of pulse-like ground motions with rupture direction are investigated to understand the combined influence of these factors on the behavior of the structure. Furthermore, the capacity and demand of the structural element are investigated for computing the performance ratio.

Results from this study indicate that the most unfavorable combinations for structural damage due to near-fault ground motion are the hanging wall with forward rupture, the fault normal component of ground motions, and pulse-like ground motions with forward directivity.

The results from this study provide valuable insight into the response of RC structures subjected to NFGM and highlight the importance of considering various factors that can affect the structural response during an earthquake. Moreover, the computation of capacity and demand of the critical beam indicates exceedance of desired limits, resulting in the early deterioration of the structural elements. Finally, the analytical analysis from the present study confirms that the hanging wall with forward ruptures, pulse-like motions, and fling steps are the most unfavorable combinations for seismic structural damage.

In this paper, the peak kinetic energy density (KED) of soil particles during earthquake excitation is used as an intensity measure for the evaluation of liquefaction potential under field conditions. The paper seeks to discuss this measure.

Using centrifuge tests data, it is shown that seismic pore water pressure buildup is proportional to cumulative KED at a particular soil depth. Linear relationships are found between cumulative kinetic energy and corresponding cumulative strain energy. To consider the effect of soil amplification, several equivalent linear ground response analyses are performed and the results are used to derive an equation for depth reduction factor of peak kinetic energy density. Two separate databases of liquefaction case histories are used in order to validate the proposed model. The performance of the proposed model is compared with a number of commonly used shear stress‐based liquefaction assessment methods. Finally, the logistic regression method is employed to obtain probabilistic boundary curves based on the present model. Parametric study of the proposed probabilistic model is carried out to verify its agreement with the previous methods.

It has been shown that the kinetic energy model works satisfactorily in classifying liquefied and non‐liquefied cases compared with the existing recommendations of shear stress‐based criterion. The results of the probabilistic kinetic energy model are in good agreement with those of previous studies and show a reasonable trend with respect to the variations of fines content and effective overburden pressure. The proposed model can be as used an alternative approach for assessment of liquefaction potential.

These findings make a sound basis for the development of a kinetic energy‐based method for assessment of liquefaction potential.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between structural damage and sensitivity indices using the Hilbert‐Huang transform (HHT) method.

The relationship between structural damage and the sensitivity indices is obtained by using the HHT method. Three sensitivity indices are proposed: the ratio of rotation (RR), the ratio of shifting value (SV) and the ratio of bandwidth (RB). The nonlinear single degree of freedom and multiple degree of freedom models with various predominant frequencies are constructed using the SAP2000 program. Adjusted PGA El Centro and Chi‐Chi (TCU068) earthquake data are used as the excitations. Next, the sensitivity indices obtained using the HHT and the fast Fourier transform (FFT) methods are evaluated separately based on the acceleration responses of the roof structures to earthquakes.

Simulation results indicate that, when RR < 1, the structural response is in the elastic region, and neither the RB nor SV in the HHT and FFT spectra change. When the structural response is nonlinear, i.e. RR1, a positive trend of change occurs in RB and RR, while in the HHT spectra, SV increases with an increasing RR. Moreover, the FFT spectra reveal that SV changes only when the RR is sufficiently large. No steady relationship between the RB and the RR can be found.

The paper demonstrates the effectiveness of the HHT method.

In the literature, several empirical methods can be found to predict the occurrence of nonlinear soil liquefaction in soil layers. These methods are limited to the seismic conditions and the parameters used in developing the model. This paper seeks to present General Regression Neural Network (GRNN) model that addresses the collective knowledge built in simplified procedure.

The GRNN model incorporates the soil and seismic parameters of the region. It was developed in four phases; identification, collection, implementation, and verification. The data used consisted of 3,895 case records, mostly from the cone penetration test (CPT) results produced from the two major earthquakes that took place in Turkey and Taiwan in 1999. The case records were divided randomly into training, testing and validation datasets. Soil liquefaction decision in terms of seismic demand and seismic capacity is determined by the stress‐based method and strain‐based method, and further tested with the well‐known Chinese criteria.

The results produced by the proposed GRNN model explore effectively the complex relationship between the soil and seismic input parameters and further forecast the liquefaction potential with an overall success ratio of 94 percent. Liquefaction decisions were further validated by the SPT, confirming the viability of the SPT‐to‐CPT data conversion, which is the main limitation of most of the simplified methods.

The proposed GRNN model provides a viable tool to geotechnical engineers to predict seismic condition in sites susceptible to liquefaction. The model can be constantly updated when new data are available, which will improve its predictability.