Lateral Resistance of Pipe Piles Adjacent to a 15-FT High MSE Wall

14-8434A 15-foot tall Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) retaining wall was constructed, and piles were driven at various distances behind the wall. Lateral pile load tests were conducted in the direction of the wall, and the performance of the pile, wall, and reinforcement were measured. The piles were 12.75-inch diameter pipe piles, and one half of the wall was reinforced with welded wire grid reinforcement while the other half had ribbed strip reinforcements. For each reinforcement type, tests were performed on four piles located at nominal distances of 5, 4, 3 and 2 pile diameters from the back of the wall to the center of the pile. The objective of the testing was to characterize the relationship between the lateral pile resistance and the distance of the pile behind the back face of the MSE wall. Based on the measured load-displacement curves from the tests, the lateral resistance of the piles decreased as the spacing behind the wall decreased. The results of the tests have been matched with the computer program LPILE using p-multipliers to reduce the lateral resistance for piles closer to the wall. A best-fit line was developed showing the variation of p-multiplier with normalized pile spacing behind the wall, including data from previous studies. The best-fit curve suggests that a p-multiplier of 1 (no reduction in lateral resistance) can be used when the normalized distance from the back face of the wall to the center of the pile is at least 4 pile diameters and the p-multiplier decreases relatively linearly for smaller spacings

A First in Human Clinical Trial Assessing the Safety and Immunogenicity of Two Intradermally Delivered Enterotoxigenic <i>Escherichia coli</i> CFA/I Fimbrial Tip Adhesin Antigens with and without Heat-Labile Enterotoxin with Mutation LT(R192G)

Introduction: Enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) is a leading cause of diarrhea in travelers as well as for children living in low- to middle-income countries. ETEC adhere to intestinal epithelium via colonization factors (CFs). CFA/I, a common CF, is composed of a polymeric stalk and a tip-localized minor adhesive subunit, CfaE. Vaccine delivery by the transcutaneous immunization of dscCfaE was safe but was poorly immunogenic in a phase 1 trial when administered to volunteers with LTR(192G) and mLT. To potentially enhance the immunogenicity of CfaE while still delivering via a cutaneous route, we evaluated the safety and immunogenicity of two CfaE constructs administered intradermally (ID) with or without mLT. Methods: CfaE was evaluated as a donor strand-complemented construct (dscCfaE) and as a chimeric construct (Chimera) in which dscCfaE replaces the A1 domain of the cholera toxin A subunit and assembles non-covalently with the pentamer of heat-labile toxin B (LTB). Subjects received three ID vaccinations three weeks apart with either dscCfaE (1, 5, and 25 µg) or Chimera (2.6 and 12.9 µg) with and without 0.1 µg of mLT. Subjects were monitored for local and systemic adverse events. Immunogenicity was evaluated by serum and antibody-secreting cell (ASC) responses. Results. The vaccine was well-tolerated with predominantly mild and moderate local vaccine site reactions characterized by erythema, induration and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. High rates of serologic and ASC responses were seen across study groups with the most robust responses observed in subjects receiving 25 µg of dscCfaE with 0.1 mcg of LT(R192G). Conclusion: Both ETEC adhesin vaccine prototypes were safe and immunogenic when co-administered with mLT by the ID route. The observed immune responses induced with the high dose of dscCfaE and mLT warrant further assessment in a controlled human infection model

Lateral Resistance of Abutment Piles Behind Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) Walls: Final Summary Report #1 for Study TPF-5(272)

14-8434TPF-5(272)A full-scale mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall was constructed and 24 lateral load tests were conducted on piles spaced at distances of about 2 to 5 pile diameters (D) from the back face of the wall to the center of the pile. Sixteen of the tests involved pipe piles, four tests involved H-piles, and four tests involved square piles. Lateral resistance decreased significantly when piles were located closer than about 4D from the wall. P-multipliers were developed to account for the reduction in lateral soil resistance as a function of normalized distance behind the wall using results from these tests and eight previous full-scale tests. P-multipliers were approximately one for piles located further than about 4D from the wall, while p-multipliers decreased linearly as distance to the wall decreased. P-multipliers were not significantly affected by differences in reinforcement length to height (L/H) ratio, reinforcing type, or pile shape, but provided a reasonable means for estimating reduced lateral pile resistance. Measured tensile force in the reinforcements tended to reach a peak near the location of the pile rather than at the wall face, indicating that the reinforcements were anchoring the wall against lateral movement. Multi-linear regression equations were developed to predict maximum tensile force in the reinforcements. Tensile force tended to increase as pile head load and vertical stress increased, and it tended to decrease with increases in transverse distance from the load point and normalized distance from the wall. This is the Final Summary Report #1 for pooled fund study TPF-5(272), \u201cEvaluation of Lateral Pile Resistance Near MSE Walls at a Dedicated Wall Site.\u201d Details of the research described in this report are available in three research final reports published by the Utah Department of Transportation, as prepared by Rollins et al. (2018a), Rollins et al. (2018b), and Rollins and Luna (2018), along with corresponding university theses

MERGERS AND PROFITABILITY:A MANAGERIAL SUCCESS STORY?

Since 1983 expenditure on acquisitions in the UK has more than doubled in real terms, despite the fact that the consensus of opinion in the academic literature is that acquisitions are not, on average, performance enhancing for the acquiring firm. Such literature, however, relates mainly to the acquisition of large, public companies. Drawing on survey evidence from 146 of the UK's top 500 companies, this article reports the results from a survey which encompasses all takeovers. The study revealed that is the expected reward of increased profitabililty which is used in ex‐post evaluation. The major finding of the study is, however, that managers firmly perceive that their takeover activity has been performance enhancing for their company. The evidence presented does suggest that the integration of small acquisitions into an existing organizational structure may be achieved without severe problems of loss of control, and the subsequent decline in performance which beset large acquisition