RESEARCH TO FOCUS ON QUAKE-PROOFING BUILDINGS.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. The National Science Foundation is bankrolling a new consortium of earthquake research facilities to find better ways to construct roads, buildings, pipelines and other vital infrastructure to withstand the tremors of The Big One. The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center will consist of dual headquarters on the University of California at Berkeley (body, education) University of California at Berkeley - (UCB) See also Berzerkley, BSD. http://berkeley.edu/. Note to British and Commonwealth readers: that's /berk'lee/, not /bark'lee/ as in British Received Pronunciation. campus and at UC Berkeley's Richmond Field Station. It will include sites on eight other West Coast universities, including UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX , UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. , Stanford, the California Institute of Technology California Institute of Technology, at Pasadena, Calif.; originally for men, became coeducational in 1970; founded 1891 as Throop Polytechnic Institute; called Throop College of Technology, 1913–20. , the University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission and the University of Washington, Seattle. ``Much of the urban landscape of California is smack dab in the middle of earthquake country, riddled with faults,'' warned professor Jack Peter Moehle, director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Center at UC Berkeley. The foundation plans to spend $2 million per year for the next five years on the project. Combined with funds from various other sources, it should have a budget of more than $6 million for its first year. The participating scientists will research new ways to ``dampen'' quake vibrations in buildings using a device that attaches to joints on building frames. The electronic gadgets would contain special fluids that during a quake trigger a magnetic field to change the liquid's chemical properties, making it stiffer. The fluid could then better absorb the quake vibrations. |
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