The first stage of any major civil engineering project generally involves some form of preliminary reconnaissance study of project sites followed by detailed geotechnical investigation. Primary aim of this study is to collect data concerning physical characteristics of terrain and ground conditions in order to assess their likely influence on the overall design and performance of infrastructure...

In this paper we investigate whether unsupervised models can be used to induce conventional aspects of rhetorical language in scientific writing. We rely on the intuition that the rhetorical language used in a document is general in nature and independent of the document’s topic. We describe a Bayesian latent-variable model that implements this intuition. In two empirical evaluations based on t...

We explore the potential effects of magmatic assimilation on mineral growth and mineral zoning in an alkali olivine basaltic magma using both equilibrium thermodynamics and kinetics. The equilibrium-model calculations simulate fractional crystallization alone (closed system) and coupled assimilation fractional crystallization (AFC) (open system); the models predict the assemblages ofmagmatig mi...

Transport modelling and in particular transport assignment is a wellknown bottleneck in computation cost and time for urban system models. The use of Transport Analysis Zones (TAZ) implies a trade-off between computation time and accuracy: practical computational constraints can lead to concessions to zone size with severe repercussions for the quality of the transport representation in urban m...

Rover-mounted geotechnical systems are of paramount importance to lunar trafficability assessment, construction, and excavation/mining toward establishing permanent human presence on the Moon. These tools can also be used to determine density, when the regolith is used as radiation shield, for example. Two popular insitu devices for establishing geotechnical properties of soil are the Static Co...

In application to numerical analysis of geotechnical problems, the limit-state surface is usually not known in any closed form. The probability of failure can be assessed via the so-called reliability index. A minimization problem can naturally be formed with an implicit equality constraint defined as the limit-state function and optimization methods can be used for such problems. In this paper...

Understanding and assessing the spatial extent of liquefaction hazard requires the spatial dependence of geotechnical properties to be taken into account. In this work, novel multiscale random field models will be developed to characterize and quantify spatial variability of geotechnical parameters across scales. Such models will then be integrated with a simplified procedure for the probabilis...

Dam monitoring relies on the long-term measurement of small structural motions at regular intervals. Traditional surveying techniques and geotechnical instrumentation can effectively monitor oneor twodimensional modes of motion. However, spatial distribution of geotechnical instrumentation is usually limited to the locations that the instruments can be installed during dam construction, whilst ...

As physical modeling sees increasing use in geotechnical engineering education, there is a need for a strategic approach for integrating this powerful simulation technique into courses in a way that ensures the greatest benefit for students. For this reason, a learning theory approach, which recognizes the natural learning cycle of students, has been developed. The approach is based on a modifi...

John S. McCartney received BSCE and MSCE degrees from the University of Colorado Boulder and a PhD degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. McCartney’s research interests include unsaturated soil mechanics, geosynthetics, and thermally active geotechnical systems. He has received several research awards, including the NSF Faculty Early Development (CAREER) Award i...