Internal Erosion in Earthdams, Dikes and Levees

The volume contains the contributions to the 26th Annual Meeting of the European Working Group on Internal Erosion in Embankment Dams, Levees and Dikes, and their Foundations (EWG-IE), held at Politecnico di Milano, in Milano, Italy, from September 10 to 13, 2018. The European Working Group was set up in 1993 to focus on the vulnerability of dams to internal erosion. After an inaugural workshop on definitions and needs, the Group has regularly organized Annual Meetings to share knowledge and address emerging issues on soil internal erosion in water retaining structures. Over the years, the Meetings have seen the participation of university researchers, scientists and engineers from agencies, industries, and public bodies, from Europe and overseas. Following the last successful event in Delft in September 2017, the objective of the meeting in Milano was to serve as a fertile discussion platform, strengthening sound knowledge as well as introducing novel ideas, in the thematic areas in line with the traditional aims of EWG-IE. More than 100 authors, coming from academic institutions, private and public bodies, in European and overseas countries, contributed to the peer-reviewed papers included in the volume. These are grouped into four sections, namely • Laboratory techniques and findings; • From modeling to design criteria; • Prevention measures and field assessment; • Open issues for discussion and contribution. We gratefully acknowledge the careful reviewing work by the members of the Scientific Committee, the technical and administrative support by Federica Aggio and Silvia Spada of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the skills, patience and care of Marco Caruso who took charge of the editing process, and the support of Politecnico di Milano in providing the facilities for the organization of the meeting. Finally, we are very glad to have hosted the contributors in Milano, a city that was able to evolve and expand its horizons, from the Celtic origin to the twenty-first century, to become a center where dynamism and creativity still coexist with the quietness of old hidden corners. Cristina Jommi, Donatella Sterpi Chairpersons of 26th Annual Meetin

evaluation of upper limb sense of position in healthy individuals and patients after stroke

The aims of this study were to develop and evaluate reliability of a quantitative assessment tool for upper limb sense of position on the horizontal plane. We evaluated 15 healthy individuals (controls) and 9 stroke patients. A robotic device passively moved one arm of the blindfolded participant who had to actively move his/her opposite hand to the mirror location in the workspace. Upper-limb's position was evaluated by a digital camera. The position of the passive hand was compared with the active hand's 'mirror' position. Performance metrics were then computed to measure the mean absolute errors, error variability, spatial contraction/expansion, and systematic shifts. No significant differences were observed between dominant and non-dominant active arms of controls. All performance parameters of the post-stroke group differed significantly from those of controls. This tool can provide a quantitative measure of upper limb sense of position, therefore allowing detection of changes due to rehabilitation

Numerical analysis of laboratory tests on a model tunnel

The localization of strains is considered here with reference to the numerical analysis of the stability of a shallow tunnel. A finite element approach is adopted to this purpose that takes into account both "structural" and "constitutive" aspects of the phenomenon. The first aspect is introduced through a criterion for detecting the onset of localization, the second one by a procedure which governs the subsequent progressive loss of the mechanical resistance with increasing shear deformation. The numerical model is applied to the simulation of a series of plane strain laboratory tests on the small scale model of a shallow tunnel. By comparing ex- perimental and numerical results some conclusions are drawn on the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Laboratory model tests and numerical analysis of shallow tunnels

The stress analysis of shallow tunnels in weak rocks, or "hard" soils, may present some difficulties caused by its three dimensional nature and by the particular mechanical behaviour of these materials, which show a reduction of stiffness and shear strength with increasing shear deformation. This problem is here approached, with particular reference to the stability of the tunnel face, from both numerical and experimental view points. The experimental part of this study consists of a series of tests on a 3D, reduced scale, 1g model that led to a quantitative evaluation of the displacements induced by the excavation. The problem was then analyzed through 2D and 3D finite element analyses, accounting also for "softening" material behaviour. The comparison between experimental and numerical results permits to draw some conclusion on the effectiveness of the adopted numerical models in the analysis of tunnels

Feed-forward Support Vector Machine without Multipliers

In this letter, we propose a coordinate rotation digital computer (CORDIC)-like algorithm for computing the feed-forward phase of a support vector machine (SVM) in fixed-point arithmetic, using only shift and add operations and avoiding resource-consuming multiplications. This result is obtained thanks to a hardware-friendly kernel, which greatly simplifies the SVM feed-forward phase computation and, at the same time, maintains good classification performance respect to the conventional Gaussian kerne

Encephalitis and myocarditis in a child with acute lymphoblastic leukemia: Role of coxsackievirus B5?

Enteroviruses are common causes of viral encephalitis in childhood and the most common cause of myocarditis. The prognosis is good with exception of the immunocompromised children who are at higher risk with increased mortality. A case of a 7-year-old boy with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and coxsackievirus B5-associated encephalitis and myocarditis is described. The boy was in complete remission and coxsackievirus B5 infection occurred 22 months after the beginning of chemotherapy. The clinical manifestations were fever seizures, and altered consciousness. He underwent only supportive treatment. He had an excellent outcome; 2 years later he is still in complete remission with normal electroencephalogram and normal cardiac function