Practical nonlinear analysis of unreinforced concrete tunnel linings

A comprehensive methodology for modelling, analyzing and assessing the structural response of unreinforced concrete tunnel linings is presented. Various modelling techniques are described, considering the plane finite element representation of the lining geometry, material constitutive laws, and boundary and interface conditions. Furthermore, all relevant external loading cases are studied, including gravity, environmental, fire, blast, and seismic loading. Potential pitfalls in the modelling and analysis procedures are identified and properly dealt with. The suggested methodology is finally applied to actual tunnel linings and the interpretation of the analysis results leads to important conclusions regarding the applicability of different analysis methods and the performance of unreinforced concrete linings

Student Expectations Regarding Online Learning: Implications For Distance Learning Programs

What are student expectations in a traditional course versus a distance learning course? The authors analyze student course selection and expected outcomes from data collected in an undergraduate marketing course at a public university in the Northeast. Key findings reveal that students generally have a favorable predisposition towards online coursework despite their beliefs that online courses require more work and have lower learning outcomes. Further, this case study provides an initial step in better understanding student expectations in online courses as well as in the traditional classroom

Focused Deterrence and the Prevention of Violent Gun Injuries: Practice, Theoretical Principles, and Scientific Evidence

Focused deterrence strategies are a relatively new addition to a growing portfolio of evidence-based violent gun injury prevention practices available to policy makers and practitioners. These strategies seek to change offender behavior by understanding the underlying violence-producing dynamics and conditions that sustain recurring violent gun injury problems and by implementing a blended strategy of law enforcement, community mobilization, and social service actions. Consistent with documented public health practice, the focused deterrence approach identifies underlying risk factors and causes of recurring violent gun injury problems, develops tailored responses to these underlying conditions, and measures the impact of implemented interventions. This article reviews the practice, theoretical principles, and evaluation evidence on focused deterrence strategies. Although more rigorous randomized studies are needed, the available empirical evidence suggests that these strategies generate noteworthy gun violence reduction impacts and should be part of a broader portfolio of violence prevention strategies available to policy makers and practitioners

A Lesson Plan for Communicating the Sustainability of an Enterprise

Sustainability is the ability to endure. For any organization or any enterprise, sustainability is the ability to remain productive long term while minimizing waste and creating value. An organization can achieve sustainability if it aligns itself with the product and service needs of its customers and wants and interests of its multiple stakeholders. The enterprise, whether it is an ecological, environmental, human, or service enterprise, must possess five “abilities” to be sustainable: availability; dependability; capability; affordability; and marketability. This paper presents a lesson plan or strategy for how an enterprise should communicate/promote sustainability to its stakeholders based on these five abilities

Can Scalability be a Marketing Liability for Sustainability?

A common principle of modern business marketing is that growth is good. It is usually thought that all businesses should market themselves with the goal of increasing their revenues and gaining market share. Scalability is developing products or services that people want and figuring out how to produce and promote many of them for lower costs while selling more of them (Dudnik 2010). It is the purpose of this paper to show that some businesses, especially small ventures with unique value propositions, should not necessarily seek to grow or scale up. There are numerous examples of new ventures failing for various reasons, and many of these have to do with growth. While new ventures frequently offer creative solutions to market needs, there are also aspects of these businesses that will be crucial to maintain while scaling up. Consequently, some new ventures may succeed based on aspects of the organization that are not feasible to scale, and thus a more conservative growth strategy should be undertaken

Transforming Urban Public Transportation: A Lean Enterprise Approach

Much urban mass transportation is perceived as providing second-rate service, existing for the disenfranchised, and possibly not being safe.  Once, mass transit recognized and filled a need in major urban areas for efficient intra-city transportation, but people’s needs have changed.  The goal of this paper is to characterize the current state of urban mass transportation and develop a practical multi-disciplinary business-oriented approach to reenergize transit and to form the type of mass appeal that cars and passenger airlines have.  Based on a Lean Enterprise Architecture for transforming the public sector, and using global examples, the authors propose a plan of action to improve and change the image of urban mass transportation

A Lesson Plan For Sustainability In Higher Education

Much anxiety surrounds the future of higher education in the United States. With escalating costs, tuition, and class sizes, and the increasing exclusion of many poor and minority students, higher education needs to become more accessible and sustainable. This paper defines five “abilities” for the sustainability of higher education - availability, dependability, capability, affordability, and marketability. The literature indicates that components of each of these abilities are lacking at many institutions. To remedy this problem, the authors developed a framework for sustainability based on these five abilities, and a case study at a public university in the United States was used to validate the framework’s applicability to education

Effect of Sotagliflozin on Total Hospitalizations in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Worsening Heart Failure A Randomized Trial

Background: In the SOLOIST-WHF (Effect of Sotagliflozin on Cardiovascular Events in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Post Worsening Heart Failure) trial, sotagliflozin, a sodium-glucose cotransporter-1 and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor, reduced total occurrences of cardiovascular deaths, hospitalizations for heart failure, and urgent visits for heart failure relative to placebo by 33%. Objective: To determine whether sotagliflozin increased the prespecified efficacy outcome of days alive and out of the hospital (DAOH) in the SOLOIST-WHF trial. Design: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03521934) Setting: 306 sites in 32 countries. Participants: 1222 patients with type 2 diabetes and reduced or preserved ejection fraction who were recently hospitalized for worsening heart failure. Intervention: 200 mg of sotagliflozin once daily (with a possible dose increase to 400 mg) or matching placebo. Measurements: The primary analysis included hospitalizations for any reason on the basis of investigator-reported incidence and duration of admissions after randomization. Days alive and out of the hospital and its converse (days dead and days in the hospital) were analyzed using prespecified Poisson regression models. Results: Although similar proportions of patients in the sotagliflozin and placebo groups were hospitalized at least once (38.5% vs. 41.4%), fewer patients in the sotagliflozin group were hospitalized more than once (16.3% vs. 22.1%). There were 64 and 76 deaths in the sotagliflozin and placebo groups, respectively. The DAOH rate in the sotagliflozin group was 3% higher than in the placebo group (rate ratio [RR], 1.03 [95% CI, 1.00 to 1.06]; P = 0.027). This difference was primarily driven by a reduction in the rate of days dead (RR, 0.71 [CI, 0.52 to 0.99]; P = 0.041) rather than by a reduction in the rate of days hospitalized for any cause. For every 100 days of follow-up, patients in the sotagliflozin group were alive and out of the hospital for 3% or 2.9 more days than those in the placebo group (91.8 vs. 88.9 days); this difference reflected a 2.6-day difference in days dead (6.3 vs. 8.9 days) and a 0.3-day difference in days in the hospital (1.9 vs. 2.2 days). Limitation: Other than heart failure, the primary reason for each hospitalization was unspecified. Conclusion: Sotagliflozin increased DAOH, a metric that may provide an additional patient-centered outcome to capture the totality of disease burden. Future studies are needed to quantify the consequences of increasing DAOH in terms of health economics and patient quality of life.Peer reviewe

Reading the Second Code: Mapping Epigenomes to Understand Plant Growth, Development, and Adaptation to the Environment

We have entered a new era in agricultural and biomedical science made possible by remarkable advances in DNA sequencing technologies. The complete sequence of an individual's set of chromosomes (collectively, its genome) provides a primary genetic code for what makes that individual unique, just as the contents of every personal computer reflect the unique attributes of its owner. But a second code, composed of "epigenetic" layers of information, affects the accessibility of the stored information and the execution of specific tasks. Nature's second code is enigmatic and must be deciphered if we are to fully understand and optimize the genetic potential of crop plants. The goal of the Epigenomics of Plants International Consortium is to crack this second code, and ultimately master its control, to help catalyze a new green revolution