Elastic seismic design of steel high-rise buildings in regions of strong wind and moderate seismicity

Lateral loading due to wind or earthquake is a major factor that affects the design of high-rise buildings. This paper highlights the problems associated with the seismic design of high-rise buildings in regions of strong wind and moderate seismicity. Seismic response analysis and performance evaluation were conducted for wind-designed concentrically braced steel high-rise buildings in order to check the feasibility of designing them per elastic seismic design criterion (or strength and stiffness solution) in such regions. Review of wind design and pushover analysis results indicated that wind-designed high-rise buildings possess significantly increased elastic seismic capacity due to the overstrength resulting from the wind serviceability criterion. The strength demand-to-capacity study showed that, due to the wind design overstrength, high-rise buildings with a slenderness ratio of larger than four or five can elastically withstand even the maximum considered earthquake (MCE) with the seismic performance level of immediate occupancy under the limited conditions of this study. A step-by-step seismic design procedure per the elastic criterion that is directly usable for practicing design engineers is also recommended.Financial support to this study provided by the Ministry of Construction and Trnasportation of Korea (03 R&D C04-01) is gratefully acknowledged

Transmural Migration of Surgical Sponge Evacuated by Defecation: Mimicking an Intraperitoneal Gossypiboma

The spontaneous defecation of the surpical retained sponge is very rare. Here, we report a case of migrating surgical sponge that was retained in the colon and it was evacuated by defecation

Antitumor activity of sorafenib-incorporated nanoparticles of dextran/poly(dl-lactide-co-glycolide) block copolymer

Sorafenib-incoporated nanoparticles were prepared using a block copolymer that is composed of dextran and poly(DL-lactide-co-glycolide) [DexbLG] for antitumor drug delivery. Sorafenib-incorporated nanoparticles were prepared by a nanoprecipitation-dialysis method. Sorafenib-incorporated DexbLG nanoparticles were uniformly distributed in an aqueous solution regardless of the content of sorafenib. Transmission electron microscopy of the sorafenib-incorporated DexbLG nanoparticles revealed a spherical shape with a diameter < 300 nm. Sorafenib-incorporated DexbLG nanoparticles at a polymer/drug weight ratio of 40:5 showed a relatively uniform size and morphology. Higher initial drug feeding was associated with increased drug content in nanoparticles and in nanoparticle size. A drug release study revealed a decreased drug release rate with increasing drug content. In an in vitro anti-proliferation assay using human cholangiocarcinoma cells, sorafenib-incorporated DexbLG nanoparticles showed a similar antitumor activity as sorafenib. Sorafenib-incorporated DexbLG nanoparticles are promising candidates as vehicles for antitumor drug targeting