A Review on the Building Wind Impact through On-site Monitoring in Haeundae Marine City: 2021 12th Typhoon OMAIS Case Study

Overcrowding of high-rise buildings in urban zones change the airflow pattern in the surrounding areas. This causes building wind, which adversely affects the wind environment. Building wind can generate more serious social damage under extreme weather conditions such as typhoons. In this study, to analyze the wind speed and wind speed ratio quantitatively, we installed five anemometers in Haeundae, where high-rise buildings are dense, and conducted on-site monitoring in the event of typhoon OMAIS to determine the characteristics of wind over skyscraper towers surround the other buildings. At point M-2, where the strongest wind speed was measured, the maximum average wind speed in 1 min was observed to be 28.99 m/s, which was 1.7 times stronger than that at the ocean observatory, of 17.0 m/s, at the same time. Furthermore, when the wind speed at the ocean observatory was 8.2 m/s, a strong wind speed of 24 m/s was blowing at point M-2, and the wind speed ratio compared to that at the ocean observatory was 2.92. It is judged that winds 2–3 times stronger than those at the surrounding areas can be induced under certain conditions due to the building wind effect. To verify the degree of wind speed, we introduced the Beaufort wind scale. The Beaufort numbers of wind speed data for the ocean observatory were mostly distributed from 2 to 6, and the maximum value was 8; however, for the observation point, values from 9 to 11 were observed. Through this study, it was possible to determine the characteristics of the wind environment in the area around high-rise buildings due to the building wind effect.

Vibration Response Characteristics of Adjacent Tunnels under Different Blasting Schemes

The vibration caused by the tunnel blasting and excavation will harm the surrounding rock and lining structure of the adjacent existing tunnels. This paper takes a two-lane large-span highway tunnel as the research object, conducts on-site monitoring tests on the impact of vibration caused by the blasting and excavation of new tunnels on the existing tunnels under different blasting schemes, and analyses in detail the three-dimension vibration velocity by different excavation footages. From the vibration speed, it is concluded that the influence of the existing tunnel of the newly built tunnel blasting team is affected by various factors, such as distance, free surface, charge, and blasthole distribution. With different blasting schemes, the greater the amount of charge, the greater the vibration caused by blasting. Existing tunnels correspond to the front of the tunnel, and the axial and radial vibration peaks are greater than the vertical. Although the cut segment uses a less amount of explosive and has a less blasthole layout, there is only one free surface. Because of the clamping of the rock, it is compared with the other two segments. The vibration caused is the largest. Although the peripheral holes are filled with a large amount of explosive, the arrangement of the blast holes is relatively scattered and there are many free surfaces. Hence, the vibration caused is the smallest. Corresponding to the back of the tunnel face, since there is no rock clamp, the vibration caused by the cut segment is the smallest, and the vibration caused by the peripheral segment and the floor segment is relatively large. The vibration caused by the front explosion side is significantly greater than the vibration caused by the back explosion side. The vibration velocity caused by the unit charge of 1.5 m footage is greater than that of the 3.0 m footage. The vibration velocity caused by the unit charge of the cut segment is the largest, and the vibration velocity caused by the peripheral segment and the floor segment is smaller. The research results provide a reference for the blasting control of similar engineering construction.

Analysis of the Causes of the Collapse of a Deep-Buried Large Cross-Section of Loess Tunnel and Evaluation of Treatment Measures

To address the problem of the collapse of the roof of the Bailuyuan tunnel during construction, the causes of collapse were analyzed, targeted treatment measures were proposed, and the effects of the treatment measures were evaluated through on-site monitoring and three-dimensional numerical simulations. The results showed that the particular characteristics of loess and the synergy of groundwater were the internal causes of the tunnel’s collapse as well as, to a certain extent, atmospheric precipitation. Therefore, the combination of multiple factors contributed to the tunnel’s collapse. Untimely monitoring and measurement, as well as the low initial support parameters, reflect a lack of human understanding of the collapse. Based on the analysis of the causes of the collapse, comprehensive treatment measures for inside and outside the tunnel are proposed, which are shown to be effective and to be capable of preventing the occurrence of further collapses. After the collapse treatment, the measured maximum settlement of the tunnel vault was 65.1 mm, the maximum horizontal convergence was 25 mm, the maximum surrounding rock pressure was 0.56 MPa, and the maximum stress on the steel arch frame was 54.34 MPa. Compared with the original design plan, the vertical stress, horizontal stress, and shear stress of the surrounding rock obtained from numerical simulation after the collapse treatment were greatly reduced, the reduction rate at the vault reached 50%, and the safety factors of the initial support positions after treatment met the specification requirements. The research results can provide engineering guidance for the design and construction of large-section tunnels crossing deep-loess strata, and they are of important engineering significance.

Development of Generic Immuno-Magnetic Bead-Based Enzyme-Linked Immunoassay for Ustiloxins in Rice Coupled with Enrichment

Ustiloxins are a group of mycotoxins produced by rice false smut pathogen. Previous studies have shown that the false smut balls contain six types of ustiloxins, and these toxins are toxic to living organisms. Thus, immunoassay for on-site monitoring of ustiloxins in rice is urgently required. The current immunoassays are only for detecting single ustiloxin, and they cannot meet the demand for synchronous and rapid detection of the group toxins. Therefore, this study designed and synthesized a generic antigen with ustiloxin G as material based on the common structure of the mycotoxins. Ustiloxin G was conjugated to two carrier proteins including bovine serum albumin (BSA) and ovalbvmin (OVA) by carbon diimide method. The mice were immunized with ustiloxin-G-BSA to generate the antibody serum, which was further purified to obtain the generic antibody against ustiloxins. The conjugated ustiloxin G-OVA and generic antibodies were used for establishing the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for ustiloxin detection and optimizing experiment conditions. The characterization of the antibody showed that the semi-inhibitory concentrations (IC50) of ustiloxin A, B, and G were 0.53, 0.34, and 0.06 µg/mL, respectively, and that their corresponding cross-reactivities were 11.9%, 18.4%, and 100%, respectively. To increase ELISA detection efficiency, generic antibody was combined with magnetic beads to obtain sensitive and class-specific immune-magnetic beads. Based on these immuno-magnetic beads, a high-efficiency enzyme-linked immunoassay method was developed for ustiloxin detection, whose sensitivity to ustiloxin A, B, and G was improved to 0.15 µg/mL, 0.14 µg/mL, and 0.04 µg/mL, respectively. The method accuracy was evaluated by spiking ustiloxin G as standard, and the spiked samples were tested by the immune-magnetic bead-based ELISA. The result showed the ustiloxin G recoveries ranged from 101.9% to 116.4% and were accepted by a standard HPLC method, indicating that our developed method would be promising for on-site monitoring of ustiloxins in rice.

On-Site Biolayer Interferometry-Based Biosensing of Carbamazepine in Whole Blood of Epileptic Patients

On-site monitoring of carbamazepine (CBZ) that allows rapid, sensitive, automatic, and high-throughput detection directly from whole blood is of urgent demand in current clinical practice for precision medicine. Herein, we developed two types (being indirect vs. direct) of fiber-optic biolayer interferometry (FO-BLI) biosensors for on-site CBZ monitoring. The indirect FO-BLI biosensor preincubated samples with monoclonal antibodies towards CBZ (MA-CBZ), and the mixture competes with immobilized CBZ to bind towards MA-CBZ. The direct FO-BLI biosensor used sample CBZ and CBZ-horseradish peroxidase (CBZ-HRP) conjugate to directly compete for binding with immobilized MA-CBZ, followed by a metal precipitate 3,3′-diaminobenzidine to amplify the signals. Indirect FO-BLI detected CBZ within its therapeutic range and was regenerated up to 12 times with negligible baseline drift, but reported results in 25 min. However, Direct FO-BLI achieved CBZ detection in approximately 7.5 min, down to as low as 10 ng/mL, with good accuracy, specificity and negligible matric interference using a high-salt buffer. Validation of Direct FO-BLI using six paired sera and whole blood from epileptic patients showed excellent agreement with ultra-performance liquid chromatography. Being automated and able to achieve high throughput, Direct FO-BLI proved itself to be more effective for integration into the clinic by delivering CBZ values from whole blood within minutes.

Colorimetric Detection of Organophosphate Pesticides Based on Acetylcholinesterase and Cysteamine Capped Gold Nanoparticles as Nanozyme

Organophosphates (OPs) are neurotoxic agents also used as pesticides that can permanently block the active site of the acetylcholinesterase (AChE). A robust and sensitive detection system of OPs utilising the enzyme mimic potential of the cysteamine capped gold nanoparticles (C-AuNPs) was developed. The detection assay was performed by stepwise addition of AChE, parathion ethyl (PE)-a candidate OP, acetylcholine chloride (ACh), C-AuNPs, and 3, 3′, 5, 5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) in the buffer solution. The whole sensing protocol completes in 30–40 min, including both incubations. The Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) results indicated that the NPs are spherical and have an average size of 13.24 nm. The monomers of C-AuNPs exhibited intense catalytic activity (nanozyme) for the oxidization of TMB, revealed by the production of instant blue colour and confirmed by a sharp peak at 652 nm. The proposed biosensor’s detection limit and linear ranges were 5.8 ng·mL−1 and 11.6–92.8 ng·mL−1, respectively, for PE. The results strongly advocate that the suggested facile colorimetric biosensor may provide an excellent platform for on-site monitoring of OPs.