Site response assessment at the city of Al Khobar, eastern Saudi Arabia, from microtremor and borehole data

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 10015-10030
Author(s):  
M. Alharbi ◽  
M. Fnais ◽  
A. Al-Amri ◽  
Kamal Abdelrahman ◽  
Meinrat O. Andreae ◽  
...  
Author(s):  
J. B. Berril ◽  
R. O. Davis ◽  
I. F. McCahon

A pilot zoning study has been carried out for ground shaking hazard in the city of Christchurch, using the grade-3 procedures of the draft manual on seismic zonation for geotechnical hazards, being developed by Technical Committee TC-4 of the ISSMFE. Because of limited site data, we were not able to produce a complete zoning map for the city, but ground motions were estimated at six distinct sites for which borehole data was available, and this provided a good test for the procedures of the manual. The city of Christchurch is situated on nearly 1 km of volcanic rock and alluvial sediments overlying greywacke basement, on the edge of the main seismic region of New Zealand. In addition to being an interesting site from the point of view of ground shaking, there are also liquefaction and slope stability hazards in the alluvial and beach sands found throughout the city, and in the recent loess deposits mantling the adjacent Port Hills. In the pilot study of ground shaking hazard, a seismicity model for the central South Island region published recently by Elder et al. (1991) was combined with the attenuation model of Kawashima et al. (1984) recommended in the draft manual, to estimate rock motion at Christchurch, described by its acceleration response spectrum. Transfer functions were computed for the site response to estimate motions at the six selected sites using the Thomson-Haskell method. The results were highly sensitive to details of. the upper 30 m or so of the soil profile. In the local context, the large disparity between our estimates of ground shaking at Christchurch and those implicit in the draft revision of NZS 4203 are disturbing. According to our study the draft code underestimates shaking by about a factor of two or more.


2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 2347-2357
Author(s):  
Sattam Almadani ◽  
Kamal Abdelrahman ◽  
Elkhedr Ibrahim ◽  
Abdulaziz Al-Bassam ◽  
Awad Al-Shmrani

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayda Alrige ◽  
Hind Bitar Bitar ◽  
Maram Meccawi ◽  
Balakrishnan Mullachery

BACKGROUND Designing a health promotion campaign is never an easy task, especially during a pandemic of a highly infectious disease, such as Covid-19. In Saudi Arabia, many attempts have been made toward raising the public awareness about Covid-19 infection-level and its precautionary health measures that have to be taken. Although this is useful, most of the health information delivered through the national dashboard and the awareness campaign are very generic and not necessarily make the impact we like to see on individuals’ behavior. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to build and validate a customized awareness campaign to promote precautionary health behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. The customization is realized by utilizing a geospatial artificial intelligence technique called Space-Time Cube (STC) technique. METHODS This research has been conducted in two sequential phases. In the first phase, an initial library of thirty-two messages was developed and validated to promote precautionary messages during the COVID-19 pandemic. This phase was guided by the Fogg Behavior Model (FBM) for behavior change. In phase 2, we applied STC as a Geospatial Artificial Intelligence technique to create a local map for one city representing three different profiles for the city districts. The model was built using COVID-19 clinical data. RESULTS Thirty-two messages were developed based on resources from the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia. The enumerated content validity of the messages was established through the utilization of Content Validity Index (CVI). Thirty-two messages were found to have acceptable content validity (I-CVI=.87). The geospatial intelligence technique that we used showed three profiles for the districts of Jeddah city: one for high infection, another for moderate infection, and the third for low infection. Combining the results from the first and second phases, a customized awareness campaign was created. This awareness campaign would be used to educate the public regarding the precautionary health behaviors that should be taken, and hence help in reducing the number of positive cases in the city of Jeddah. CONCLUSIONS This research delineates the two main phases to developing a health awareness messaging campaign. The messaging campaign, grounded in FBM, was customized by utilizing Geospatial Artificial Intelligence to create a local map with three district profiles: high-infection, moderate-infection, and low-infection. Locals of each district will be targeted by the campaign based on the level of infection in their district as well as other shared characteristics. Customizing health messages is very prominent in health communication research. This research provides a legitimate approach to customize health messages during the pandemic of COVID-19.


Author(s):  
Ghazi Saad A Elawi ◽  
Mohammed Algahtany ◽  
Dean Kashiwagi ◽  
Kenneth Sullivan

Delays are a major cause for concern in the construction industry in Saudi Arabia. This paper identifies the main causes of delay in infrastructure projects in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and compares these with projects around the country and other Gulf countries. Data was obtained from 49 infrastructure projects undertaken by the owner and were analyzed quantitatively to understand the causes and severity of delay. 10 risk factors were identified and were grouped into four categories. Average delay in infrastructure projects in Mecca was found to be 39% of the estimated projects schedules. The most severe cause of delay was found to be the land acquisition factor. This highlights the critical land ownership and acquisition issues that are prevailing in the city. Additionally, other factors that contribute to delay include contractors’ lack of expertise, haphazard underground utilities (line services), and re-designing. It is concluded that the majority of project delays were caused from the owner’s side as compared to contractors, consultants, and other project’s stakeholders. This finding matched with the research findings of the Gulf Countries Construction (GCC) industry’s literature. This study fills an important practice and research gap for improving the efficiency in delivering infrastructure projects in the holy city of Mecca and Gulf countries at large.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (06) ◽  
pp. 2050024
Author(s):  
Zhengru Tao ◽  
Xinyan Wang ◽  
Baihui Zhu ◽  
Tao Shang

Kappa ([Formula: see text]) describes the amplitude decay of acceleration Fourier spectrum at high frequencies. Using the records of K-NET and KiK-net stations during the mainshock of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, we examine if the typical measurement method of [Formula: see text] can be extended to this size of event and how propagation path and site condition affect [Formula: see text]. The strength of the linear relationship between epicentral distance and [Formula: see text] is the most apparent in the KiK-net borehole data; for other data sets, the statistical significance of the best-fitting logarithmic model is more tenuous. Our study on site effects reveals that high-frequency amplitudes diminish about 20% at soft soil stations than they do at hard rock stations. The effect on high-frequency filters is around diminution in most cases. And, the effect of nonlinear site response on [Formula: see text] values can be observed.


1990 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 713-737 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Jongmans ◽  
M. Campillo

On November 8, 1983, a moderate magnitude (Ml=4.9) earthquake struck Liege (Belgium). A damage study has shown that site effects at different scales have played an important role in amplifying ground motion. On a large scale, the damage distribution has been determined by the presence of a large Carboniferous syncline beneath the city as shown by 2D numerical modeling. On a small scale, the main damage concentrations can be correlated with local superficial deposits which have amplified ground motions in the frequency range of buildings. A geophysical survey was carried out to measure the shear wave velocity of the different formations. Site response computations were made at numerous sites in order to estimate the possible amplification and to compare the results with the damage. It was shown that the spectral amplifications computed in the dominant frequency range of the buildings are consistent with the damage data. In very affected areas, 1D amplifications of 4 to 6 were obtained and in some cases 2D effects may have occurred. The Liege earthquake, taking place in the intraplate region of Northwestern Europe, presents a significant interest to other similar areas as the eastern United States.


Acta Tropica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 181 ◽  
pp. 105-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anwar M. Hashem ◽  
Turki Abujamel ◽  
Rowa Alhabbab ◽  
Mansour Almazroui ◽  
Esam I. Azhar

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