Rapid Bridge Replacement under Emergency Situation: Case Study

The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, and subsequent potential threats to the United States transportation systems have presented an urgent need to elevate the security of the transportation infrastructure and to develop emergency response plans to quickly react to the possible consequences of an extreme event. Highway bridges, as critical components of the nation’s transportation network, have been brought to closer attention by government agencies. A research project was conducted to identify strategies and technologies to restore the use of a damaged bridge quickly. One of the tasks associated with the research was to perform several case studies of previous bridge replacements following extreme events. These events include explosion and fire caused by vehicle impact, vessel collision with a bridge, and damage caused by flood and earthquake. By studying the cases, the research team seeks to identify and expand on lessons learned and address which actions did and did not work well given the circumstances of the incident. These lessons have great value to the people who need to develop and implement an emergency response plan

Rapid Bridge Replacement under Emergency Situation: Case Study

The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, and subsequent potential threats to the United States transportation systems have presented an urgent need to elevate the security of the transportation infrastructure and to develop emergency response plans to quickly react to the possible consequences of an extreme event. Highway bridges, as critical components of the nation’s transportation network, have been brought to closer attention by government agencies. A research project was conducted to identify strategies and technologies to restore the use of a damaged bridge quickly. One of the tasks associated with the research was to perform several case studies of previous bridge replacements following extreme events. These events include explosion and fire caused by vehicle impact, vessel collision with a bridge, and damage caused by flood and earthquake. By studying the cases, the research team seeks to identify and expand on lessons learned and address which actions did and did not work well given the circumstances of the incident. These lessons have great value to the people who need to develop and implement an emergency response plan

Lessons Learned from an Emergency Bridge Replacement Project

The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, and subsequent potential threats to U.S. transportation systems have presented an urgent need to develop emergency response plans to quickly react to the possible consequences of extreme events. Extreme events include terrorist attack as well as man-made and natural disasters such as explosions, fires, floods, and earthquakes. The objective of this research was to identify strategies and technologies to quickly restore the use of highway bridges, a critical component of the nation’s transportation network, in case they are damaged or destroyed by extreme events. One of the tasks associated with this research was to conduct case studies of previous bridge replacements following extreme events. By studying these cases, the research team sought to identify and expand on lessons learned, address which actions did and did not work well given the circumstances of the incident, and incorporate lessons into the emergency response plan for highway bridges. This paper presents the findings from one of the case studies, the I-40 Webbers Falls Bridge in Oklahoma

Lessons Learned from an Emergency Bridge Replacement Project

The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, and subsequent potential threats to U.S. transportation systems have presented an urgent need to develop emergency response plans to quickly react to the possible consequences of extreme events. Extreme events include terrorist attack as well as man-made and natural disasters such as explosions, fires, floods, and earthquakes. The objective of this research was to identify strategies and technologies to quickly restore the use of highway bridges, a critical component of the nation’s transportation network, in case they are damaged or destroyed by extreme events. One of the tasks associated with this research was to conduct case studies of previous bridge replacements following extreme events. By studying these cases, the research team sought to identify and expand on lessons learned, address which actions did and did not work well given the circumstances of the incident, and incorporate lessons into the emergency response plan for highway bridges. This paper presents the findings from one of the case studies, the I-40 Webbers Falls Bridge in Oklahoma

'To live and die [for] Dixie': Irish civilians and the Confederate States of America

Around 20,000 Irishmen served in the Confederate army in the Civil War. As a result, they left behind, in various Southern towns and cities, large numbers of friends, family, and community leaders. As with native-born Confederates, Irish civilian support was crucial to Irish participation in the Confederate military effort. Also, Irish civilians served in various supporting roles: in factories and hospitals, on railroads and diplomatic missions, and as boosters for the cause. They also, however, suffered in bombardments, sieges, and the blockade. Usually poorer than their native neighbours, they could not afford to become 'refugees' and move away from the centres of conflict. This essay, based on research from manuscript collections, contemporary newspapers, British Consular records, and Federal military records, will examine the role of Irish civilians in the Confederacy, and assess the role this activity had on their integration into Southern communities. It will also look at Irish civilians in the defeat of the Confederacy, particularly when they came under Union occupation. Initial research shows that Irish civilians were not as upset as other whites in the South about Union victory. They welcomed a return to normalcy, and often 'collaborated' with Union authorities. Also, Irish desertion rates in the Confederate army were particularly high, and I will attempt to gauge whether Irish civilians played a role in this. All of the research in this paper will thus be put in the context of the Drew Gilpin Faust/Gary Gallagher debate on the influence of the Confederate homefront on military performance. By studying the Irish civilian experience one can assess how strong the Confederate national experiment was. Was it a nation without a nationalism

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

Search for Pair Production of Third-Generation Leptoquarks and Top Squarks in pp Collisions at √s=7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for the pair production of third-generation scalar and vector leptoquarks, as well as for top squarks in R-parity-violating supersymmetric models. In either scenario, the new, heavy particle decays into a τ lepton and a b quark. The search is based on a data sample of pp collisions at √s=7  TeV, which is collected by the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8  fb[superscript -1]. The number of observed events is found to be in agreement with the standard model prediction, and exclusion limits on mass parameters are obtained at the 95% confidence level. Vector leptoquarks with masses below 760 GeV are excluded and, if the branching fraction of the scalar leptoquark decay to a τ lepton and a b quark is assumed to be unity, third-generation scalar leptoquarks with masses below 525 GeV are ruled out. Top squarks with masses below 453 GeV are excluded for a typical benchmark scenario, and limits on the coupling between the top squark, τ lepton, and b quark, λ333′ are obtained. These results are the most stringent for these scenarios to date

Measurement of the underlying event activity in pp collisions at √s = 0.9 and 7 TeV with the novel jet-area/median approach

Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.-- Chatrchyan, S. et al.The first measurement of the charged component of the underlying event using the novel >jet-area/median> approach is presented for proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 0.9 and 7 TeV. The data were recorded in 2010 with the CMS experiment at the LHC. A new observable, sensitive to soft particle production, is introduced and investigated inclusively and as a function of the event scale defined by the transverse momentum of the leading jet. Various phenomenological models are compared to data, with and without corrections for detector effects. None of the examined models describe the data satisfactorily. © 2012 SISSA.Acknowledge support from BMWF and FWF (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); MoER, SF0690030s09 and ERDF (Estonia); Academy of Finland, MEC, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France);BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF and WCU (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); MSI (New Zealand); PAEC (Pakistan); MSHE and NSC (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MON, RosAtom, RAS and RFBR (Russia); MSTD (Serbia); SEIDI and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); ThEP, IPST and NECTEC (Thailand); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); NASU (Ukraine); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Austrian Science Fund (FWF); the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l’Industrie et dans l’Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWTBelgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); and the HOMING PLUS program of Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund.Peer Reviewe

Measurement of the prompt J/psi and psi(2S) polarizations in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The polarizations of prompt J/psi and psi(2S) mesons are measured in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using a dimuon data sample collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 inverse femtobarns. The prompt J/psi and psi(2S) polarization parameters lambda[theta], lambda[phi], and lambda[theta, phi], as well as the frame-invariant quantity lambda(tilde), are measured from the dimuon decay angular distributions in three different polarization frames. The J/psi results are obtained in the transverse momentum range 14 < pt < 70 GeV, in the rapidity intervals abs(y) < 0.6 and 0.6 < abs(y) < 1.2. The corresponding psi(2S) results cover 14 < pt < 50 GeV and include a third rapidity bin, 1.2 < abs(y) < 1.5. No evidence of large transverse or longitudinal polarizations is seen in these kinematic regions, which extend much beyond those previously explored

Measurement of the sum ofWW and WZ production with W+dijet events in pp collisions at √ s = 7 TeV

A measurement of the inclusive WW+WZ diboson production cross section in proton–proton collisions is reported, based on events containing a leptonically decaying √W boson and exactly two jets. The data sample, collected at s = 7 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb−1. The measured value of the sum of the inclusive WW and WZ cross sections is σ(pp → WW + WZ) = 68.9 ± 8.7 (stat.) ± 9.7 (syst.) ± 1.5 (lum.) pb, consistent with the standard model prediction of 65.6±2.2 pb. This is the first measurement of WW+WZ production in pp collisions using this signature. No evidence for anomalous triple gauge couplings is found and upper limits are set on their magnitudes