Ground Deformations Observed After 23.10.2011 M\u3csub\u3ew\u3c/sub\u3e 7.2 VAN Earthquake (Turkey)

A destructive earthquake with a moment magnitude of 7.2 occurred in the north of the Van province (Turkey) on 23rd October 2011 at 13:41 local time and caused approximately 600 deaths and more than 4000 injuries. Many damaging aftershocks were recorded for more than a month after the main shock including a triggered earthquake (Mw 5.6) located in the southern district of Van, namely Edremit, on November 9th, 2011 which caused additional damage and casualties. After the Mw 7.2 Van earthquake, earthquake-induced ground deformations such as liquefaction and lateral spreading were extensively observed around the shores of Lake Van and in the floodplains of rivers. The Karasu River floodplain, which is one of the major streams in the region, severely suffered from liquefaction and lateral spreading. In this study, a brief overview of the Mw 7.2 Van earthquake as well as earthquake-induced ground deformations is presented. Then, the results of field reconnaissance on liquefaction and lateral spreading features observed in the Karasu River floodplain are explained. Furthermore, subsurface characteristics of liquefied layers are documented considering the data obtained from a borehole drilled just on top of the sand boil after the earthquake. The borehole data indicate that the liquefaction occurred in a sandy zone with very shallow groundwater level in the Karasu River floodplain

Parents' Views on Child Welfare's Response to Addiction

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://alliance1.metapress.com/home/main.mpx.The helping system often responds to parents recovering from addiction in a way that reinforces their powerlessness and may perpetuate their addiction. This study identified worker and agency qualities that contribute to parents' recovery and family reunification. The authors conducted a qualitative study of successful clients of the child welfare system who regained their children after recovering from addiction. These parents describe the importance of workers' understanding the context of addiction from the parent's perspective

Global pandemic and business performance: impacts and responses

The COVID-19 pandemic is anticipated to continue to the year 2022 and could lead to several business failures if entrepreneurs do not respond adequately. Thus, the purpose of this study is to introduce a framework that captures the impacts and potential responses to the ongoing pandemic. To do that, we conducted telephone interviews with ten entrepreneurs who operate enterprises within Nigeria. Data collected for analysis were transcribed, chronologically arranged, coded, and thematically analyzed using NVivo. Our findings revealed that, during the pandemic, businesses experienced limited opening hours, a decline in their clients' patronage, lower turnover, and employee demotivation. In response, business owners should consider re-strategizing their business activities, maintaining connections with clients, and exploiting available support measures. Our findings have profound theoretical and practical implications. For entrepreneurs and policymakers, they offer insights into the form of challenges confronting businesses during a pandemic. It also provides response activities that entrepreneurs could adopt to mitigate the impact of an epidemic on their enterprises’ performance. For the field of entrepreneurship, it advances the need to integrate public health (health-related issues) into entrepreneurship study and consider its multiple levels of influence on the performance of businesses

Parametric Modelling of Impact of Unemployment on Economic Growth in Nigeria

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between unemployment figures in Nigeria and gross domestic product using curve fitting regression model. The following models of regression analysis were examined to determine the most suitable one to the data collected: linear, quadratic, cubic, exponential, inverse and logarithmic. Our findings revealed that the pattern of relationship between gross domestic product and unemployment is significant in all the models considered. This implies that there is significant relationship (negative or positive) between unemployment and gross domestic prodution (GDP) in the country. Also, the best model that fits the data in terms of the relationship between the two variables is the linear model because the quadratic variable is not significant in the quadratic model. The order of the next models are logarithmic, inverse and exponential models; the cubic variable and the quadratic variable are not also significant in the cubic model. Keywords: Unemployment, Domestic, linear, inverse, logarithmic, exponentia

Products, coproducts and singular value decomposition

Products and coproducts may be recognized as morphisms in a monoidal tensor category of vector spaces. To gain invariant data of these morphisms, we can use singular value decomposition which attaches singular values, ie generalized eigenvalues, to these maps. We show, for the case of Grassmann and Clifford products, that twist maps significantly alter these data reducing degeneracies. Since non group like coproducts give rise to non classical behavior of the algebra of functions, ie make them noncommutative, we hope to be able to learn more about such geometries. Remarkably the coproduct for positive singular values of eigenvectors in $A$ yields directly corresponding eigenvectors in A\otimes A.Comment: 17 pages, three eps-figure

Reliability Evaluation of Compaction Water Content of Plantain Peel Ash Treated Lateritic Soil

A first-order reliability method (FORM)was employed to assess the compaction water content, CWC (i.e optimum moisture content) of residual lateritic soil mixed with plantain peel ash (PPA) and compacted with British Standard Light (BSL)and British Standard Heavy (BSH)energies, for flexible pavement applications. A Multi-linear regression model was generated from values obtained via laboratory tests using Mini-tab R15 software, which served as a performance function that was applied for the analysis. Using the regression models for CWC, established distributions for the relevant soil factors, safety index (SI) was computed using CWC as a dependent factor and the soil factors Plantain Peel Ash (PPA); Plasticity Index (PI); Percentage File (PF); Specific Gravity (Gs) and Compactive Effort (CE)as self-determining factors). The results revealed that the safety index is sensitive to changeability in the soil factors. Outcome from the analysis show that Gs and CE are greatly affected by alteration in the coefficient of variation (COV), and so it is essential to control Gs and CE in lateritic soil–PPA mixes in road pavements. From the safety index values it reveals that PPA content has a minimal consequence as its value virtually remained constant at all COV used. Stochastically, lateritic soil mixed with PPA produces an acceptable safety index value of 1.0, as mentioned by the Nordic Committee on Building Regulation (NCBR) at 10% COV for BSH of compaction water content only. Therefore a more effective additive such as cement, lime, or bitumen is recommended for modeling CWC of lateritic soil-PPA mixes for road pavement at 10–100% series of COV. Keywords: Coefficient of variation; compaction water content; lateritic soil; plantain peel ash; reliability inde

Semi-invariants of symmetric quivers of finite type

Let $(Q,\sigma)$ be a symmetric quiver, where $Q=(Q_0,Q_1)$ is a finite quiver without oriented cycles and $\sigma$ is a contravariant involution on $Q_0\sqcup Q_1$. The involution allows us to define a nondegenerate bilinear form on a representation $V$ of $Q$. We shall call the representation orthogonal if is symmetric and symplectic if $$ is skew-symmetric. Moreover we can define an action of products of classical groups on the space of orthogonal representations and on the space of symplectic representations. For symmetric quivers of finite type, we prove that the rings of semi-invariants for this action are spanned by the semi-invariants of determinantal type $c^V$ and, in the case when matrix defining $c^V$ is skew-symmetric, by the Pfaffians $pf^V$

Exploring the SO(32) Heterotic String

We give a complete classification of Z_N orbifold compactification of the heterotic SO(32) string theory and show its potential for realistic model building. The appearance of spinor representations of SO(2n) groups is analyzed in detail. We conclude that the heterotic SO(32) string constitutes an interesting part of the string landscape both in view of model constructions and the question of heterotic-type I duality.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figure

Interaction between NTF2 and xFxFG-containing nucleoporins is required to mediate nuclear import of RanGDP.

Nuclear transport factor 2 (NTF2) is a small, homodimeric protein that binds to both RanGDP and xFxFG repeat-containing nucleoporins, such as yeast Nsp1p and vertebrate p62. NTF2 is required for efficient nuclear protein import and has been shown to mediate the nuclear import of RanGDP. We have used the crystal structures of rat NTF2 and its complex with RanGDP to design a mutant, W7A-NTF2, in which the affinity for xFxFG-repeat nucleoporins is reduced while wild-type binding to RanGDP is retained. The 2.5 Å resolution crystal structure of W7A-NTF2 is virtually superimposable upon the wild-type protein structure, indicating that the mutation had not introduced a more general conformational change. Therefore, our data suggest that the exposed side-chain of residue 7 is crucial to the interaction between NTF2 and xFxFG repeat-containing nucleoporins. Consistent with its reduced affinity for xFxFG nucleoporins, fluorescently labelled W7A-NTF2 binds less strongly to the nuclear envelope of permeabilized cultured cells than wild-type NTF2 and, when microinjected into Xenopus oocytes, colloidal gold coated with W7A-NTF2 binds less strongly to the central channel of nuclear pore complexes than wild-type NTF2-coated gold. Significantly, W7A-NTF2 only weakly stimulated the nuclear import of fluorescein-labelled RanGDP, providing direct evidence that an interaction between NTF2 and xFxFG repeat-containing nucleoporins is required to mediate the nuclear import of RanGDP

A CFD-based design methodology for hydraulic turbines applied to a case study in Turkey

Paper presented to the 10th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Florida, 14-16 July 2014.Hydraulic turbines are turbo machines which produce electricity from hydraulic energy. Francis type turbines are the most common one in use today. The design of these turbines requires high engineering effort since each turbine is tailor made due to different head and discharge values. Therefore each component of the turbine is designed specifically. During the last decades, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become very useful tool to predict hydraulic machinery performance and save time and money for designers. This paper describes a design methodology to optimize a Francis turbine by integrating theoretical and experimental fundamentals of hydraulic machines and commercial CFD codes.dc201