The Northern Novel of Manners: Wuthering Heights & The Invention of a Genre

At the outset of the Victorian Era, a young poet from the north of England composed a provocative and lapidary work of fiction, outfitted with the tempestuousness hinted at in its title. This poet was Emily Brontë; her 1847 masterpiece Wuthering Heights—the only novel she wrote before her death in 1848—is an atmospheric recalibration of ethnic, gender, and social identities in a remote corner of Yorkshire, as well as an extended meditation on unchecked passions. I contend that Wuthering Heights is a revolutionary recasting of the novel of manners, when the genre was nascent and hitherto largely a literary commodity of the south of England. It was Brontë’s innovation to develop a northern novel of manners, in which she envisions characters who are not rejecting social norms so much as instituting new, heretical ones to suit their own claustrophobic context

Drawing attention to a neglected injecting-related harm: A systematic review of AA-amyloidosis among people who inject drugs.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Chronic skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) among people who inject drugs (PWID) can lead to AA-amyloidosis: a serious, yet neglected, multi-organ disease. We aim to synthesise findings on the epidemiology, risk factors, clinical outcomes, screening recommendations, and challenges to treatment for AA-amyloidosis among PWID. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). We searched the following bibliographic databases in July 2017: CINAHL Plus, Embase, Global Health, MEDLINE, PsycEXTRA, PsycINFO, and SCOPUS. Studies were included if they investigated AA-amyloidosis in PWID. Studies were not restricted to location, study type, year, or language of publication. Study heterogeneity precluded meta-analysis (I2: 86%); we present a narrative review of the literature. RESULTS: Thirty-seven papers from eight countries met inclusion criteria. A total of 781 PWID are reported on, of whom 177 had AA-amyloidosis. Where disease causality is established, it is attributed to chronic inflammation caused by injecting-related SSTIs. Most (88.7%) PWID with AA-amyloidosis had SSTIs. Proportions of PWID with AA amyloidosis at post-mortem range from 1.6% (Germany) to 22.5% (Serbia). Biopsy studies report from 5.26% (Portugal) to 50% (Germany) of AA-amyloidosis in PWID with suspected or known kidney disease. Following diagnosis, the typical trajectory for PWID with AA-amyloidosis was rapid deterioration of renal function requiring haemodialysis (32.8%). Treatment difficulties, end-stage renal failure (40%), and premature death from sepsis (33%) were observed. Good outcomes, including reversibility of AA-amyloidosis are attributed to rapid treatment of the underlining inflammation and injecting cessation. Notably, given the population in question, no studies were published in addiction or harm reduction journals; most (92%) appear in specialist nephrology and medical journals. CONCLUSION: There is strong evidence of an association between skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) and AA-amyloidosis. Among people who inject drugs, injecting-related SSTIs are a significant cause of morbidity and premature mortality and there is evidence of increasing SSTI prevalence. Limitations in the literature make it difficult to estimate AA-amyloidosis prevalence among people who inject drugs

Progressive collapse: comparison of main standards, formulation and validation of new computational procedures

Throughout recent history, famous records of building failures may be found, unfortunately accompanied by great human loss and major economic consequences. One of the mechanisms of failure is referred to as ‘progressive collapse’: one or several structural members suddenly fail, whatever the cause (accident or attack). The building then collapses progressively, every load redistribution causing the failure of other structural elements, until the complete failure of the building or of a major part of it. The civil engineering community’s attention to this type of event was first drawn by the progressive collapse of the building called Ronan Point, following a gas explosion in one of the last floors. Different simplified procedures for simulating the effects of progressive collapse can now be found in the literature, some of them described in detail. However, no extensive study can be found, in which these procedures are compared to more complete approaches for progressive collapse simulation, aiming at the comparison of the assumptions underlying them. To further contribute to the elaboration of design codes for progressive collapse, such a study would therefore be of great interest for practitioners.All parties involved with the subject of progressive collapse are currently attempting to bridge the gap between the work done on the research front on the one hand, what can be considered as a fitting numerical model for regular industrial use on the other, and finally, the normalisation committees. The present research work aims at providing insight as to how the gaps between these poles may be reduced. The approach consists in studying the various hypotheses one by one, and gradually adding complexities to the numerical model, if they prove to be warranted by the need for sufficient accuracy. One of the contributions of the present work stems from this approach, in that it provides insight regarding the validity of the various simplifying assumptions. It also leads to the development of procedures which are kept as simple as possible, in an attempt to design them as best as possible for regular industrial use.The objective of simplifying assumptions validation is pursued in Chapter 2. This chapter consists of the text of a paper entitled “Comparison and study of different progressive collapse simulation techniques for RC structures”, in which the main simplifying assumptions of the progressive collapse guidelines are detailed and assessed. The DoD [1] and GSA [2] static linear and non-linear procedures are investigated, and compared to more complete approaches in order to assess their validity.In the next two chapters, two new procedures for design against progressive collapse are developed. They are based on quasi-static computations, their main objective being to account accurately for dynamic inertial effects. The first of these chapters consists in the text of a paper entitled “A new pushover analysis procedure for structural progressive collapse based on a kinetic energy criterion”, in which energetic considerations allow for the development of a static equivalent pushover procedure. The second chapter consists of the text of a paper entitled “A new pushover analysis procedure for structural progressive collapse based on optimised load amplification factors”, which uses load amplification factors resulting from optimisation procedures in order to account for dynamic inertial effects. The contributions of these two papers lie in the fact that they offer an improved accuracy on the results, when compared with other procedure available in the literature, which follow the same general principles. The two proposed procedures are thoroughly validated by systematic comparisons with results obtained with the more costly dynamic non-linear computations.Finally, an additional chapter focuses on the various approaches that can be adopted for the simulation of reinforced concrete beams and columns. Because a rather simple model for reinforced concrete is used in Chapter 2, the bulk of this chapter consists in the implementation of a more complex fibre-based non-linear beam element. Comparisons performed with this model provide insight to the limitations of the simpler model, which is based on the use of lumped plastic hinges, but show this simpler model to be valid for the purposes of the present work.Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieurinfo:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe

Etude de l'effet voûte dans une dalle en béton de fibres

Note de calculs à destination du bureau de contrôle SECO, Analyse de contraintes par éléments finis à l’aide du logiciel SAMCEF.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Analysis of the progressive collapse of 2D frames using plastic hinge finite elements

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Dynamic inertial effects during structural progressive collapse in RC structures

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Identification of progressive collapse pushover loads based on a kinetic energy criterion

The progressive collapse phenomenon is generally regarded as dynamic. Due to the impracticality of nonlinear dynamic computations for practitioners, an interest arises for the development of equivalent static pushover procedures. The present paper proposes a methodology to identify such a procedure for sudden column removals, using energetic evaluations to determine the pushover loads to apply. In a dynamic context, equality between the cumulated external and internal works indicates a vanishing kinetic energy. If such a state is reached, the structure is sometimes assumed able to withstand the column removal. Approximations of these works can be estimated using a static computation, leading to an estimate of the displacements at the zero kinetic energy configuration. In comparison with other available procedures based on such criteria, the present contribution identifies loading patterns to associate with the zero-kinetic energy criterion to avoid a single-degree-of-freedom idealisation. A parametric study over a family of regular steel structures of varying sizes uses non-linear dynamic computations to assess the proposed pushover loading pattern for the cases of central and lateral ground floor column failure. The identified quasi-static loading schemes are shown to allow detecting nearly all dynamically detected plastic hinges, so that the various beams are provided with sufficient resistance during the design process. A proper accuracy is obtained for the plastic rotations of the most plastified hinges almost independently of the design parameters (loads, geometry, robustness), indicating that the methodology could be extended to provide estimates of the required ductility for the beams, columns, and beam-column connections.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Progressive collapse simulation in RC structures

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Comparison and study of different progressive collapse simulation techniques for RC structures

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe