Generalized Constitutive Model for Stabilized Quick Clay

An experimentally-based two yield surface constitutive model for cemented quick clay has been developed at NTNU, Norway, to reproduce the mechanical behavior of the stabilized quick clay in the triaxial p’-q stress space. The model takes into account the actual mechanical properties of the stabilized material, such as “attraction”, friction angle and destructuration. A further attempt has been made to extend the formulation into the full stress space, based on the Hardening Soil Model, the SClay Model, the Koiter Rule and two Mapping Rules. A generalized 3D-constitutive model for stabilized quick clay has been formulated. This paper discusses the formulation process and presents the resulting generalized model.Keywords: Constitutive model, Quick clay, Destructuration, Hardening rule, Yield surfac

Instability in Soft Sensitive Clays

Soft sensitive clays like quick clays are well known in Scandinavia and in some regions in Canada. The salt pore water of these marine clays has been leached out since last glaciations and left a brittle mineral structure. Slides in quick clays can be extremely disastrous, as in Verdal, Norway in 1893 or Rissa in 1978. The slides may be initiated by local overloading, river erosion or similar and can escalate in size in a retrogressive manner in which large volumes of clay finally may liquefy. Norwegian quick clay has a very low permeability and hence pore water pressure becomes a crucial parameter that can affect the stability of material. Failure in quick clay (with a post-peak strain softening behavior) is often associated with the development of shear bands, i.e. narrow zones of localized deformation, and the failure loads depend on the thickness of these shear bands. Plane strain compression tests were performed, at laboratory 3S, Grenoble France, to observe the formation and propagation of shear bands during undrained shearing. Biaxial plane strain tests were performed in quick clay having different sensitivity and local pore pressure variation throughout the test was monitored. Image analysis is done to detect shear band thickness and mode of failure. Further, usefulness of shear band analyses in landslide calculation using finite elements and consequence of such failure is also discussed numerically. A stability analysis of a quick clay slope is made to illustrate the progressive failure mechanism

Personalized smart environments to increase inclusion of people with Down's Syndrome

Most people with Downs Syndrome (DS) experience low integration with society. Recent research and new opportunities for their integration in mainstream education and work provided numerous cases where levels of achievement exceeded the (limiting) expectations. This paper describes a project, POSEIDON, aiming at developing a technological infrastructure which can foster a growing number of services developed to support people with DS. People with DS have their own strengths, preferences and needs so POSEIDON will focus on using their strengths to provide support for their needs whilst allowing each individual to personalize the solution based on their preferences. This project is user-centred from its inception and will give all main stakeholders ample opportunities to shape the output of the project, which will ensure a final outcome which is of practical usefulness and interest to the intended users

Stability assessment of a tailings storage facility using a non-local constitutive model accounting for anisotropic strain-softening

Recent failures of upstream-raised tailings storage facilities (TSF) raised con-cerns on the future use of these dams. While being cost-effective, they entail higher risks than conventional dams, as stability largely relies on the strength of tailings, which are loose and normally-consolidated materials that may exhibit strain-softening during un-drained loading. Current design practice involves limit equilibrium analyses adopting a fully-softened shear strength; while being conservative, this practice neglects the work input required to start the softening process that leads to progressive failure. This paper describes the calibration and application of the NGI-ADPSoft constitutive model to evaluate the potential of static liquefaction of an upstream-raised TSF and provides an indirect measure of resilience. The constitutive model incorporates undrained shear strength anisotropy and a mesh-independent anisotropic post-peak strain softening. The calibration is performed using laboratory testing, including anisotropically-consolidated triaxial compression tests and direct simple shear tests. The peak and residual undrained shear strengths are validated by statistical interpretation of the available CPTu data. It is shown that this numerical exercise is useful to verify the robustness of the TSF design.Comment: NGI-ADPSoft, Plaxis 2D, Strain-softening, Tailings, Static Liquefactio

Curriculum factors influencing knowledge of communication skills among medical students

Background Communication training builds on the assumption that understanding of the concepts related to professional communication facilitates the training. We know little about whether students' knowledge of clinical communication skills is affected by their attendance of communication training courses, or to what degree other elements of the clinical training or curriculum design also play a role. The aim of this study was to determine which elements of the curriculum influence acquisition of knowledge regarding clinical communication skills by medical students. Methods The study design was a cross-sectional survey performed in the four Norwegian medical schools with different curricula, spring 2003. A self-administered questionnaire regarding knowledge of communication skills (an abridged version of van Dalen's paper-and-pencil test) was sent to all students attending the four medical schools. A total of 1801 (59%) students responded with complete questionnaires. Results At the end of the 1st year of study, the score on the knowledge test was higher in students at the two schools running communication courses and providing early patient contact (mean 81%) than in the other two medical schools (mean 69–75%, P ≤ 0.001), with students studying a traditional curriculum scoring the lowest. Their scores increased sharply towards the end of the 3rd year, during which they had been subjected to extensive patient contact and had participated in an intensive communication course (77% vs. 72% the previous year, P ≤ 0.01). All students scored generally lower in academic years in which there was no communication training. However, at the end of the final year the difference between the schools was only 5% (81% vs. 86%, P ≤ 0.001). Conclusion The acquisition of knowledge regarding communication skills by medical students may be optimised when the training is given together with extensive supervised patient contact, especially if this teaching takes place in the initial years of the curriculum

Georges Perec’s experimental fieldwork; Perecquian fieldwork

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis paper traces key themes in contemporary experimental fieldwork – explorations of ordinary places by artists, writers, activists, enthusiasts, students and researchers – to the works of Georges Perec. Preoccupations of this work – including playfulness, attention to the ordinary, and writing as a fieldwork practice – are all anticipated and elaborated in Perec’s oeuvre, where they converge around an ‘essayistic’ approach. Exhibiting these traits, some contemporary fieldwork is more convincingly Perecquian than psychogeographical or Situationist, despite the tendency to identify it with the latter. Through Perec, it is therefore possible to bring contemporary experimental fieldwork into focus, identifying a coherence and sense of project within it, while speaking to the question of what it means and could mean to conduct fieldwork experimentally. Particular attention is paid in this paper to Perec’s most accomplished and sustained field texts, both of which have been translated into English: An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (2010, from 1975 original in French) and Species of Spaces (1999/1974)

Observed communication skills: how do they relate to the consultation content? A nation-wide study of graduate medical students seeing a standardized patient for a first-time consultation in a general practice setting

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In this study, we wanted to investigate the relationship between background variables, communication skills, and the bio-psychosocial content of a medical consultation in a general practice setting with a standardized patient.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Final-year medical school students (N = 111) carried out a consultation with an actor playing the role of a patient with a specific somatic complaint, psychosocial stressors, and concerns about cancer. Based on videotapes, communication skills and consultation content were scored separately.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The mean level of overall communication skills had a significant impact upon the counts of psychosocial issues, the patient's concerns about cancer, and the information and planning parts of the consultation content being addressed. Gender and age had no influence upon the relationship between communication skills and consultation content.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Communication skills seem to be important for final-year students' competence in addressing sensitive psychosocial issues and patients' concerns as well as informing and planning with patients being representative for a fairly complex case in general practice. This result should be considered in the design and incorporation of communication skills training as part of the curriculum of medical schools.</p

Dengue Virus Infection of the Aedes aegypti Salivary Gland and Chemosensory Apparatus Induces Genes that Modulate Infection and Blood-Feeding Behavior

The female Aedes aegypti salivary gland plays a pivotal role in bloodmeal acquisition and reproduction, and thereby dengue virus (DENV) transmission. It produces numerous immune factors, as well as immune-modulatory, vasodilatory, and anti-coagulant molecules that facilitate blood-feeding. To assess the impact of DENV infection on salivary gland physiology and function, we performed a comparative genome-wide microarray analysis of the naïve and DENV infection-responsive A. aegypti salivary gland transcriptomes. DENV infection resulted in the regulation of 147 transcripts that represented a variety of functional classes, including several that are essential for virus transmission, such as immunity, blood-feeding, and host-seeking. RNAi-mediated gene silencing of three DENV infection-responsive genes - a cathepsin B, a putative cystatin, and a hypothetical ankyrin repeat-containing protein - significantly modulated DENV replication in the salivary gland. Furthermore, silencing of two DENV infection-responsive odorant-binding protein genes (OBPs) resulted in an overall compromise in blood acquisition from a single host by increasing the time for initiation of probing and the probing time before a successful bloodmeal. We also show that DENV established an extensive infection in the mosquito's main olfactory organs, the antennae, which resulted in changes of the transcript abundance of key host-seeking genes. DENV infection, however, did not significantly impact probing initiation or probing times in our laboratory infection system. Here we show for the first time that the mosquito salivary gland mounts responses to suppress DENV which, in turn, modulates the expression of chemosensory-related genes that regulate feeding behavior. These reciprocal interactions may have the potential to affect DENV transmission between humans