In-plane response of perforated unreinforced masonry walls under cyclic loading: experimental study

Abstract not available.M.K. Howlader, M.J. Masia, and M.C. Griffit

Digital image correlation for the analysis of in-plane tested unreinforced masonry walls

In the experimental assessment of the in-plane behaviour of unreinforced masonry (URM) walls containing openings, accurate measurement of the deformations occurring in the pier and spandrel substructures is important. Eight full-scale perforated URM walls were tested under in-plane cyclic loading and constant vertical pre-compression load. To measure the deformation of the walls (pier-spandrel substructures) during testing and to capture the full-field cracking of the masonry, a two dimensional (2D) Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique was used in parallel with traditional hard-wired instrumentation (Linear Variable Differential Transformers, commonly referred to as LVDTs for short). This paper describes the detailed procedures of using DIC in large scale masonry wall testing. Firstly, the digital images at the first peak of each displacement amplitude in both push and pull directions for one specimen were analysed using the VIC-2D software to validate the DIC results against the LVDT recorded measurements. After confirming the accuracy of the DIC measurements for the specimen, the pier-spandrel movements and the cracking analyses of all the walls were performed in order to better understand the integrity of these elements during cyclic in-plane loading.M.K. Howlader, M.J. Masia, M.C. Griffit

Engraftment capacity of mesenchymal cells following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in patients receiving reduced-intensity conditioning regimen

The engraftment ability of mesenchymal cells was investigated in 26 patients receiving allogeneic transplantation from HLA-identical siblings with reduced-intensity conditioning (RIC). The stem cell source was bone marrow (BM) in eight patients and G-CSF-mobilized peripheral blood hematopoietic cells in 18 cases. A total of 32 patients engrafted very quickly and the chimerism evaluation (both on myeloid and on lymphoid subsets) showed that they were full donor by day 60. At the time of the study they were in complete hematological remission and displayed a full donor hematopoiesis. Two patients showed early disease progression while one did not engraft. Forty-eight out-marrow samples harvested from the 26 patients generated a marrow stromal layer adequate for the chimerism evaluation. Monocyte-macrophage contamination of marrow stromal layers was always reduced below 2% by repeated trypsinizations and treatment with the leucyl-leucine (leu-leu) methyl ester. The chimerism evaluation was performed by PCR analysis of STRs microsatellites and the amelogenin locus, by using capillary electrophoresis (CE) and by FISH analysis in case of the sex mismatch. In eight patients, a partial donor origin of stromal cells was shown (7 -86% cells of donor). The source of hematopoietic cells was BM in three patients and mobilized peripheral blood in the other five