Target reliability levels in Eurocodes and ISO standards

TARGET RELIABILITY LEVELS IN EUROCODES AND ISO STANDARDS. M. HOLICKÝ, J. MARKOVÁ, M. SÝKORA (Czech Technical University, Prague, Klokner Institute)The target reliability levels recommended in national and international documents vary within a broad range, while the reference to relevant costs and failure consequences is vague only. In some documents the target reliability index is indicated for one or two reference periods (1 year, 50 years or life-time) without providing appropriate links to the design working life. This contribution attempts to clarify the relationship between the target reliability levels, costs of safety measures, failure consequences, reference periods and the design working life. For ultimate limit states of common buildings and bridges (RC2), it is recommended to consider reliability index of 3.8 for a reference period equal to the design working life (50 years for buildings, 100 for bridges).= Рассматриваются условные уровни надежности, рекомендованные в национальных и международных документах. Показано, что эти уровни варьируются в широком диапазоне, в то время как ссылки на соответствующие затраты и последовательность отказов недостаточно изучена. В некоторых документах индекс целевой надежности определяется для одного или двух базовых периодов (1 год, 50 лет или в течение всего жизненного цикла) без предоставления соответствующих ссылок на проекты. В данной работе делается попытка прояснить отношения между уровнями целевой надежности, затратами на обеспечение безопасности, последовательностью отказов, базовыми периодами и сроком эксплуатации. Для предельных уровней состояния общественных зданий и мостов (RC2) рекомендовано использовать целевой индекс 3.8 для периода, равного проектному сроку службы: 50 лет – для зданий,100 лет – для мостов

EAHP European Statements baseline survey 2015

Objectives The 2015 EAHP European Statements survey was related to sections 2, 5 and 6 of the European Statements of Hospital Pharmacy (Statements). In addition to collection of statistical data about the level of implementation of the Statements, it was also intended to identify important barriers to their implementation. Methods The online questionnaire was sent to all hospital pharmacies in EAHP member countries. Data were analysed by researchers from Keele University School of Pharmacy, UK and the EAHP Survey Group. Results There were a total of 949 responses (response rate 18%). In the first part of the survey, data was collected on hospital pharmacy setting. While almost half of hospital pharmacies served over 500 beds, 80% of hospital pharmacies had 10 or less pharmacists. In section B, we gathered evidence about the degree of implementation of sections 2, 5 and 6 of the Statements and the main barriers to and drivers of implementation. Five questions with the lowest implementation level were then further analysed. Only five countries had 50% or more of hospital pharmacies reporting that the hospital pharmacists routinely publish hospital pharmacy practice research. 67% of participants stated that they had contingency plans for medicines shortages. The majority of countries (n=20) have less than half of respondents using computerised decision support to reduce the risk of medication errors. When asked if an audit had been undertaken in the past 3 years to identify priorities in medicines use processes, the mean percentage of positive responses for a country was 58%. Conclusions EAHP has gained an informative overview of the implementation level as well as the barriers to and drivers of implementation in sections 2, 5 and 6. This is essential to inform the plans for EAHP to best support their implementation

Light-Induced Nanosecond Relaxation Dynamics of Rhenium-Labeled Pseudomonas aeruginosa Azurins.

Time-resolved phosphorescence spectra of Re(CO)3(dmp)+ and Re(CO)3(phen)+ chromophores (dmp = 4,7-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthroline, phen = 1,10-phenanthroline) bound to surface histidines (H83, H124, and H126) of Pseudomonas aeruginosa azurin mutants exhibit dynamic band maxima shifts to lower wavenumbers following 3-exponential kinetics with 1-5 and 20-100 ns major phases and a 1.1-2.5 μs minor (5-16%) phase. Observation of slow relaxation components was made possible by using an organometallic Re chromophore as a probe whose long phosphorescence lifetime extends the observation window up to ∼3 μs. Integrated emission-band areas also decay with 2- or 3-exponential kinetics; the faster decay phase(s) is relaxation-related, whereas the slowest one [360-680 ns (dmp); 90-140 ns (phen)] arises mainly from population decay. As a result of shifting bands, the emission intensity decay kinetics depend on the detection wavelength. Detailed kinetics analyses and comparisons with band-shift dynamics are needed to disentangle relaxation and population decay kinetics if they occur on comparable timescales. The dynamic phosphorescence Stokes shift in Re-azurins is caused by relaxation motions of the solvent, the protein, and solvated amino acid side chains at the Re binding site in response to chromophore electronic excitation. Comparing relaxation and decay kinetics of Re(dmp)124K122Cu II and Re(dmp)124W122Cu II suggests that electron transfer (ET) and relaxation motions in the W122 mutant are coupled. It follows that nanosecond and faster photo-induced ET steps in azurins (and likely other redox proteins) occur from unrelaxed systems; importantly, these reactions can be driven (or hindered) by structural and solvational dynamics

Target reliability levels in Eurocodes and ISO standards

TARGET RELIABILITY LEVELS IN EUROCODES AND ISO STANDARDS. M. HOLICKÝ, J. MARKOVÁ, M. SÝKORA (Czech Technical University, Prague, Klokner Institute)The target reliability levels recommended in national and international documents vary within a broad range, while the reference to relevant costs and failure consequences is vague only. In some documents the target reliability index is indicated for one or two reference periods (1 year, 50 years or life-time) without providing appropriate links to the design working life. This contribution attempts to clarify the relationship between the target reliability levels, costs of safety measures, failure consequences, reference periods and the design working life. For ultimate limit states of common buildings and bridges (RC2), it is recommended to consider reliability index of 3.8 for a reference period equal to the design working life (50 years for buildings, 100 for bridges).= Рассматриваются условные уровни надежности, рекомендованные в национальных и международных документах. Показано, что эти уровни варьируются в широком диапазоне, в то время как ссылки на соответствующие затраты и последовательность отказов недостаточно изучена. В некоторых документах индекс целевой надежности определяется для одного или двух базовых периодов (1 год, 50 лет или в течение всего жизненного цикла) без предоставления соответствующих ссылок на проекты. В данной работе делается попытка прояснить отношения между уровнями целевой надежности, затратами на обеспечение безопасности, последовательностью отказов, базовыми периодами и сроком эксплуатации. Для предельных уровней состояния общественных зданий и мостов (RC2) рекомендовано использовать целевой индекс 3.8 для периода, равного проектному сроку службы: 50 лет – для зданий,100 лет – для мостов

Analysis of coupled heat and moisture transfer in masonry structures

Evaluation of effective or macroscopic coefficients of thermal conductivity under coupled heat and moisture transfer is presented. The paper first gives a detailed summary on the solution of a simple steady state heat conduction problem with an emphasis on various types of boundary conditions applied to the representative volume element -- a periodic unit cell. Since the results essentially suggest no superiority of any type of boundary conditions, the paper proceeds with the coupled nonlinear heat and moisture problem subjecting the selected representative volume element to the prescribed macroscopically uniform heat flux. This allows for a direct use of the academic or commercially available codes. Here, the presented results are derived with the help of the SIFEL (SIimple Finite Elements) system.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figure

Relaxation Dynamics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Re^I(C)O_3(α-diimine)(HisX)^+ (X=83, 107, 109, 124, 126)Cu-^(II) Azurins

Photoinduced relaxation processes of five structurally characterized Pseudomonas aeruginosa Re^I(CO)_3(α-diimine)(HisX) (X = 83, 107, 109, 124, 126)Cu^(II) azurins have been investigated by time-resolved (ps−ns) IR spectroscopy and emission spectroscopy. Crystal structures reveal the presence of Re-azurin dimers and trimers that in two cases (X = 107, 124) involve van der Waals interactions between interdigitated diimine aromatic rings. Time-dependent emission anisotropy measurements confirm that the proteins aggregate in mM solutions (D2O, KPi buffer, pD = 7.1). Excited-state DFT calculations show that extensive charge redistribution in the ReI(CO)_3 → diimine ^3MLCT state occurs: excitation of this ^3MLCT state triggers several relaxation processes in Re-azurins whose kinetics strongly depend on the location of the metallolabel on the protein surface. Relaxation is manifested by dynamic blue shifts of excited-state ν(CO) IR bands that occur with triexponential kinetics: intramolecular vibrational redistribution together with vibrational and solvent relaxation give rise to subps, 2, and 8−20 ps components, while the ~10^2 ps kinetics are attributed to displacement (reorientation) of the Re^I(CO)_3(phen)(im) unit relative to the peptide chain, which optimizes Coulombic interactions of the Re^I excited-state electron density with solvated peptide groups. Evidence also suggests that additional segmental movements of Re-bearing β-strands occur without perturbing the reaction field or interactions with the peptide. Our work demonstrates that time-resolved IR spectroscopy and emission anisotropy of Re^I carbonyl−diimine complexes are powerful probes of molecular dynamics at or around the surfaces of proteins and protein−protein interfacial regions

The African Swine Fever Virus Transcriptome

African swine fever virus (ASFV) causes hemorrhagic fever in domestic pigs, presenting the biggest global threat to animal farming in recorded history. Despite the importance of ASFV, little is known about the mechanisms and regulation of ASFV transcription. Using RNA sequencing methods, we have determined total RNA abundance, transcription start sites, and transcription termination sites at single-nucleotide resolution. This allowed us to characterize DNA consensus motifs of early and late ASFV core promoters, as well as a polythymidylate sequence determinant for transcription termination. Our results demonstrate that ASFV utilizes alternative transcription start sites between early and late stages of infection and that ASFV RNA polymerase (RNAP) undergoes promoter-proximal transcript slippage at 5= ends of transcription units, adding quasitemplated AU- and AUAU-5= extensions to mRNAs. Here, we present the first much-needed genome-wide transcriptome study that provides unique insight into ASFV transcription and serves as a resource to aid future functional analyses of ASFV genes which are essential to combat this devastating disease

On embeddings in cycles

We prove several exact results for the dilation of well-known interconnection networks in cycles, namely : ${\rm dil}(T_{t,r},C_{(t^{r-1}-1)/(r-1)})=\lceil t(t^{r-1}-1)/(2(r-1)(t-1))\rceil,$ for complete $r$-level $t$-ary trees, ${\rm dil}(Q_n,C_{2^n}) =\sum_{k=0}^{n-1}{k\choose \lfloor \frac{k}{2}\rfloor },$ for $n$-dimensional hypercubes, ${\rm dil}(P_n\times P_n\times P_n,C_{n^3})= \lfloor 3n^2/4+n/2\rfloor,$ for 3-dimensional meshes (where $P_n$ is an $n$-vertex path) and ${\rm dil}(P_m\times P_n,C_{mn})= {\rm dil}(C_m\times P_n,C_{mn})={\rm dil}(C_m\times C_n,C_{mn})=\min\{m,n\},$ for 2-dimensional ordinary, cylindrical and toroidal meshes, respectively. The last results solve three remaining open problems of the type $"{\rm dil}(X\times Y, Z)=?"$, where $X,\ Y$ and $Z$ are paths or cycles. The previously known dilations are: ${\rm dil}(P_m\times P_n,P_{mn})= \min \{m,n\}$, ${\rm dil}(C_m\times P_n,P_{mn})=\min \{m,2n\}$ and ${\rm dil}(C_m\times C_n,P_{mn}) =2\min \{m,n\}$, if $m\neq n$, otherwise ${\rm dil}(C_n\times C_n)=2n-1$ . The proofs of the above stated results are based on the following technique. We find a suficient condition for a graph $G$ which assures the equality ${\rm dil}(G,C_n)={\rm dil}(G,P_n)$. We prove that trees, X-trees, meshes, hypercubes, pyramides and tree of meshes satisfy the condition. Using known optimal dilations of complete trees, hypercubes and 2- and 3-dimensional meshes in path we get the above exact result