531 research outputs found
Repair of Distortion-Induced Fatigue Damage in Bridge No. 135-87 (043SB and 044NB) Using Newly-Developed Strengthening Schemes
A steel girder twin bridge structure located near Park City, Kansas has experienced
extensive distortion-induced fatigue cracking in its web gap regions. Due to the bridge’s skewed,
staggered configuration, the majority of these cracks have occurred in the bottom web gap region.
The bridge was previously the subject of a series of detailed finite element analyses that
investigated the effectiveness of several types of retrofits in repairing its distortion-induced fatigue
cracks. One of these retrofits, the “angles-with-plate” retrofit, was developed and tested at the
University of Kansas as a new retrofitting technique aimed at providing a more economical and
easy-to-install distortion-induced fatigue cracking repair. The retrofit is made up of a pair of angles
and a backing plate that connect the cross frame connection plate and girder web in order to stiffen
the web gap region. Results from the finite element analyses determined that the angles-with-plate
retrofit was the most effective and economical choice for repairs in the bridge, and plans were
made for its installation.
To investigate the performance of the angles-with-plate retrofit, two field tests were
performed that monitored behavior of the bridge both before and after the retrofit was installed.
Results from these field tests were compared with results from complementary finite element
analyses to determine the overall effectiveness of the retrofit. In the bottom web gap region, where
cracking is most prevalent in the bridge, the angles-with-plate retrofit was successful at lowering
stress demands that would lead to crack propagation. The same conclusion could not clearly be
made for all cases in the bridge’s less problematic top web gap region, so a secondary set of finite
element analyses was performed to gain a better understanding of what was happening in that
region. Further analyses of the two common types of distortion-induced fatigue cracking
determined that, while not always large, the angles-with-plate retrofit was successful in reducing
stress demands in the top web gap region.
Therefore, it was concluded that the angles-with-plate retrofit was an effective repair for
the problematic bottom web gap regions of the bridge, and if needed, can be used effectively in
the less demanding top web gap region.The Kansas Department of Transportatio
Anomalous roughness with system size dependent local roughness exponent
We note that in a system far from equilibrium the interface roughening may
depend on the system size which plays the role of control parameter. To detect
the size effect on the interface roughness, we study the scaling properties of
rough interfaces formed in paper combustion experiments. Using paper sheets of
different width \lambda L, we found that the turbulent flame fronts display
anomalous multi-scaling characterized by non universal global roughness
exponent \alpha and the system size dependent spectrum of local roughness
exponents,\xi_q, whereas the burning fronts possess conventional multi-affine
scaling. The structure factor of turbulent flame fronts also exhibit
unconventional scaling dependence on \lambda These results are expected to
apply to a broad range of far from equilibrium systems, when the kinetic energy
fluctuations exceed a certain critical value.Comment: 33 pages, 16 figure
Derivation of the freshwater fish fauna of Central America revisited: Myers\u27s hypothesis in the twenty-first century
© The Willi Hennig Society 2014. Although attempts to understand Central American freshwater fish provincialism date to the 1960s, early efforts lacked the wealth of distributional data now available. Biogeographic work on Central American freshwater fishes has been largely descriptive and regional, and lacked a broader synthesis. Here we use parsimony analysis of endemicity (PAE) to elucidate faunistic relationships between major drainages and to delineate areas of endemism. We then perform a Brooks parsimony analysis (BPA) on the resulting areas. The PAE recovered a primary division between four Pacific and six Atlantic slope areas of endemism. In contrast, the BPA recovered two Central American geographic clades, one sharing a history with North America and the other with South America. Fish diversity is uneven across Central America, with greater diversity in areas adjacent to the more species-rich regions of North and South America. In northern and nuclear Central America, the paucity of ostariophysan freshwater fishes such as catfishes and characins (groups that dominate adjacent regions) contrasts with high species richness of poeciliids and cichlids. Results of this study are consistent with Myer\u27s hypothesis that poeciliids and cichlids dispersed to Northern or Nuclear Middle America early in the Cenozoic, long before the Plio-Pleistocene rise of the Isthmus of Panama
Coordinated dispersal and pre-isthmian assembly of the central American ichthyofauna
© The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Society of Systematic Biologists. We document patterns of coordinated dispersal over evolutionary time frames in heroine cichlids and poeciliine live-bearers, the two most species-rich clades of freshwater fishes in the Caribbean basin. Observed dispersal rate (DO) values were estimated from time-calibrated molecular phylogenies in LAGRANGE+, a modified version of the ML-based parametric biogeographic program LAGRANGE. DO is measured in units of wallaces (wa) as the number of biogeographic range-expansion events per million years. DO estimates were generated on a dynamic paleogeographic landscape of five areas over three time intervals from Upper Cretaceous to Recent. Expected dispersal rate (DE) values were generated from alternative paleogeographic models, with dispersal rates proportional to target area and source-river discharge volume, and inversely proportional to paleogeographic distance. Correlations between DO and DE were used to assess the relative contributions of these three biogeographic parameters. DO estimates imply a persistent dispersal corridor across the Eastern (Antillean) margin of the Caribbean plate, under the influence of prevailing and perennial riverine discharge vectors such as the Proto-Orinoco-Amazon river. Ancestral area estimation places the earliest colonizations of the Greater Antilles and Central America during the Paleocene-Eocene (ca. 58-45 Ma), potentially during the existence of an incomplete Paleogene Arc (∼59 Ma) or Lesser Antilles Arc (∼45 Ma), but predating the GAARlandia land bridge (∼34-33 Ma). Paleogeographic distance is the single best predictor of DO. The Western (Central American) platemargin did not serve as a dispersal corridor until the LateNeogene (12-0 Ma), and contributed relatively little to the formation of modern distributions
Toll-like receptor stimulation induces higher TNF-alpha secretion in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with hyper IgE syndrome
Hyper IgE syndromes (HIES) are primary immunodeficiency disorders of unknown pathogenesis. Patients are typically affected with `cold' abscesses of the skin, recurrent cyst-forming pneumonia, chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis and other less frequent features such as progressive skeletal abnormalities. Defective signaling in the Toll-like receptor (TLR) pathways has been suggested as a responsible pathologic mechanism, however, in previous reports, 10 patients revealed no defect in inflammatory cytokine responses to different TLR ligands. Here, we report the increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-alpha and IL-8, following TLR2 and TLR4 stimulation in a larger cohort of 25 additional patients with HIES, and provide a meta-analysis of the TLR data in HIES. Copyright (C) 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel
Occurrence and bioaccumulation of chemical contaminants in lettuce grown in peri-urban horticulture
Peri-urban horticulture performs environmental and socio-economic functions and provides ecological services to nearby urban areas. Nevertheless, industrialization and water pollution have led to an increase in the exposure of peri-urban vegetables to contaminants such as trace elements (TEs) and organic microcontaminants (OMCs). In this study, the occurrence of chemical contaminants (i.e., 16 TEs, 33 OMCs) in soil and lettuce leaves from 4 farm fields in the peri-urban area of the city of Barcelona was assessed. A rural site, outside the peri-urban area of influence, was selected for comparison. The concentration of TEs and OMCs ranged from non-detectable to 803¿mg/kg¿dw and from non-detectable to 397¿µg/kg¿dw respectively in the peri-urban soil, and from 6¿·¿10-5 to 4.91¿mg/kg¿fw and from non-detectable to 193¿µg/kg¿fw respectively in lettuce leaves. Although the concentration of Mo, Ni, Pb, and As in the soil of the peri-urban area exceeded the environmental quality guidelines, their occurrence in lettuce complied with human food standards (except for Pb). The many fungicides (carbendazim, dimetomorph, and methylparaben) and chemicals released by plastic pipelines (tris(1-chloro-2-propyl)phosphate, bisphenol F, and 2-mercaptobenzothiazole) used in agriculture were prevalent in the soil and the edible parts of the lettuce. The occurrence of these chemical pollutants in the peri-urban area did not affect the chlorophyll, lipid, or carbohydrate content of the lettuce leaves. PCA (Principal Component Analysis) showed that soil pollution, fungicide application, and irrigation water quality are the most relevant factors determining the presence of contaminants in crops.Postprint (updated version
The EKiTE network (epidemiology in kidney transplantation - a European validated database): an initiative epidemiological and translational European collaborative research
Background: Kidney transplantation is considered to be the treatment of choice for people with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). However, due to the shortage of available organs and the increase in the ESRD prevalence in Europe, it is essential to improve transplantation outcomes by studying the related prognostic factors. Today, there is no European registry collecting data to perform such clinical epidemiology studies. Main body: Entitled EKiTE, for European cohort for Kidney Transplantation Epidemiology, this prospective and multicentric cohort includes patients from Spanish (Barcelona), Belgian (Leuven), Norwegian (Oslo) and French (Paris Necker, Lyon, Nantes, Nancy, Montpellier, Nice and Paris Saint Louis) transplantation centers and currently contains 13, 394 adult recipients of kidney (only) transplantation from 2005 and updated annually. A large set of parameters collected from transplantation until graft failure or death with numbers of post-transplantation outcomes. The long-term follow-up and the collected data enable a wide range of possible survival and longitudinal analyses. Conclusion: EKiTE is a multicentric cohort aiming to better assess the natural history of the ESRD in European kidney transplant recipients and perform benchmarking of clinical practices. The data are available for clinical epidemiology studies and open for external investigators upon request to the scientific council. Short-term perspectives are to extend EKITE network to other European countries and collect additional parameters in respect of the common thesaurus
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