Handbook for the Post-Earthquake Safety Evaluation of Bridges and Roads

It is acknowledged that the most damaging earthquake within the state took place on September 27, 1909 near the Illinois border between Vincennes and Terre Haute. Both nonstructural and structural damage occurred to the buildings in this area, and it was felt strongly in the southwest of Indiana including Indianapolis. Unfortunately, due to the long recurrence interval of strong earthquakes in Mid-America, a large inventory of structures has accumulated without explicit consideration of seismic resistance. Highway bridges are a significant component of this inventory. The seismic vulnerability of highway bridges constructed within the state, especially in southwestern portion of Indiana, presents a problem of serious consequences. The main purpose of this handbook is to provide INDOT personnel of various backgrounds with a rapid and effective methodology for the post-earthquake safety inspection of bridges and roads in Indiana. This methodology is intended to promote and maintain the uniformity of the inspection as much as possible while assessing and rating bridge and road damage. This handbook contains the material necessary for a systematic safety evaluation of bridge structures and roads for a wide range of INDOT personnel. In the handbook, the necessary material is arranged according to two inspection levels. Level 1 inspection consists of the rapid visual evaluation of the bridges and roads in the affected area to establish obviously unsafe structures and roads. The Level 1 section of the handbook is intended for INDOT personnel with a broad range of backgrounds. Level 2 inspection consists of a more in-depth safety evaluation of bridges and roads, as well as temporary repair and long-term monitoring techniques. This segment is designed specifically for INDOT engineers. The Level 2 inspection team will be expected to make a more detailed structural and geotechnical post-earthquake condition assessment of the bridge. The organization and the management of the post-earthquake inspections are under the jurisdiction of INDOT, unless declared a State Disaster by the Governor and taken over by SEMA, and it is outside the scope of this handbook

A remark on elliptic differential equations on manifold

For elliptic boundary value problems of nonlocal type in Euclidean space, the well posedness has been studied by several authors and it has been well understood. On the other hand, such kind of problems on manifolds have not been studied yet. Present article considers differential equations on smooth closed manifolds. It establishes the well posedness of nonlocal boundary value problems of elliptic type, namely Neumann-Bitsadze-Samarskii type nonlocal boundary value problem on manifolds and also DirichletBitsadze-Samarskii type nonlocal boundary value problem on manifolds, in H¨older spaces. In addition, in various H¨older norms, it establishes new coercivity inequalities for solutions of such elliptic nonlocal type boundary value problems on smooth manifolds

Reconstructing aspects of human embryogenesis with pluripotent stem cells.

Understanding human development is of fundamental biological and clinical importance. Despite its significance, mechanisms behind human embryogenesis remain largely unknown. Here, we attempt to model human early embryo development with expanded pluripotent stem cells (EPSCs) in 3-dimensions. We define a protocol that allows us to generate self-organizing cystic structures from human EPSCs that display some hallmarks of human early embryogenesis. These structures mimic polarization and cavitation characteristic of pre-implantation development leading to blastocyst morphology formation and the transition to post-implantation-like organization upon extended culture. Single-cell RNA sequencing of these structures reveals subsets of cells bearing some resemblance to epiblast, hypoblast and trophectoderm lineages. Nevertheless, significant divergences from natural blastocysts persist in some key markers, and signalling pathways point towards ways in which morphology and transcriptional-level cell identities may diverge in stem cell models of the embryo. Thus, this stem cell platform provides insights into the design of stem cell models of embryogenesis

Successful Treatment for Hepatic Encephalopathy Aggravated by Portal Vein Thrombosis with Balloon-Occluded Retrograde Transvenous Obliteration

This report presents the case of a 78-year-old female with hepatic encephalopathy due to an inferior mesenteric venous-inferior vena cava shunt. She developed hepatocellular carcinoma affected by hepatitis C virus-related cirrhosis and underwent posterior sectionectomy. Portal vein thrombosis developed and the portal trunk was narrowed after hepatectomy. Portal vein thrombosis resulted in high portal pressure and increased blood flow in an inferior mesenteric venous-inferior vena cava shunt, and hepatic encephalopathy with hyperammonemia was aggravated. The hepatic encephalopathy aggravated by portal vein thrombosis was successfully treated by balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous obliteration via a right transjugular venous approach without the development of other collateral vessels

Mechanism of cell polarisation and first lineage segregation in the human embryo

The formation of differential cell lineages in the mammalian blastocyst from the totipotent zygote is crucial for implantation and the success of the whole pregnancy. The first lineage segregation generates the polarised trophectoderm (TE) tissue, which forms the placenta, and the apolar inner cell mass (ICM), which mainly gives rise to all foetal tissues and also the yolk sac. The mechanism underlying this cell fate segregation has been extensively studied in the mouse embryo. However, when and how it takes place in the human embryo remains unclear. Here, using time-lapse imaging and 325 surplus human embryos, we provide a detailed characterisation of morphological events and transcription factor expression and localisation to understand how they lead to the first lineage segregation in human embryogenesis. We show that the first lineage segregation of the human embryo is triggered by cell polarisation that occurs at the 8-cell stage in two sequential steps. In the first step, F-actin becomes apically polarised concomitantly with embryo compaction. In the second step, the Par complex becomes polarised to form the apical cellular domain. Mechanistically, we show that activation of Phospholipase C (PLC) triggers actin polarisation and is therefore essential for apical domain formation, as is the case in mouse embryos. Finally, we show that, in contrast to the mouse embryo, the key extra-embryonic determinant GATA3 is expressed not only in extra-embryonic lineage precursors upon blastocyst formation. However, the cell polarity machinery enhances the expression and nuclear accumulation of GATA3. In summary, our results demonstrate for the first time that cell polarisation reinforces the first lineage segregation in the human embryo

Association between a rare SNP in the second intron of human Agouti related protein gene and increased BMI

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The agouti related protein (AGRP) is an endogenous antagonist of the melanocortin 4 receptor and is one of the most potent orexigenic factors. The aim of the present study was to assess the genetic variability of <it>AGRP </it>gene and investigate whether the previously reported SNP rs5030980 and the rs11575892, a SNP that so far has not been studied with respect to obesity is associated with increased body mass index (BMI).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We determined the complete sequence of the <it>AGRP </it>gene and upstream promoter region in 95 patients with severe obesity (BMI > 35 kg/m²). Three polymorphisms were identified: silent mutation c.123G>A (rs34123523) in the second exon, non-synonymous mutation c.199G>A (rs5030980) and c.131-42C>T (rs11575892) located in the second intron. We further screened rs11575892 in a selected group of 1135 and rs5030980 in group of 789 participants from the Genome Database of Latvian Population and Latvian State Research Program Database.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The CT heterozygotes of rs11575892 had significantly higher mean BMI value (p = 0.027). After adjustment for age, gender and other significant non-genetic factors (presence of diseases), the BMI levels remained significantly higher in carriers of the rs11575892 T allele (p = 0.001). The adjusted mean BMI value of CC genotype was 27.92 ± 1.01 kg/m²(mean, SE) as compared to 30.97 ± 1.03 kg/m²for the CT genotype. No association was found between rs5030980 and BMI.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study presents an association of rare allele of <it>AGRP </it>polymorphism in heterozygous state with increased BMI. The possible functional effects of this polymorphism are unclear but may relate to splicing defects.</p