Because of difficulty in inspection and retrofit of foundation in comparison with other elements, the common design philosophy is to avoid any nonlinear deformation in the foundation. This paper shows that by employing controlled foundation nonlinearity, in predetermined sections with arrangements for inspection and retrofit, it is possible to reduce seismic demand on superstructure. Localizing...

abstract background: regarding the diagnostic errors of the classic criteria including serum ascites albumin gradient (saag), total protein concentration and the adapted light et al’s criteria in distinguishing transudate versus exudates, we evaluated the ascitic fluid to serum bilirubin ratio as a new criteria in this regard. we also evaluated whether the combination of bilirubin ratio with ea...

The use of intelligent nanocomposites in sensing and actuation applications has become quite common over the past decade. In this article, electro-thermo-mechanical nonlinear dynamic buckling of an orthotropic piezoelectric nanocomposite (PNC) cylindrical shell conveying viscous fluid is investigated. The composite cylindrical shell is made from Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) and reinforced by ...

Various studies have demonstrated that the foundation species genetic diversity can have direct effects that extend beyond the individual or population level, affecting the dependent communities. Additionally, these effects may be indirectly extended to higher trophic levels throughout the entire community. Quercus castanea is an oak species with characteristics of foundation species beyond pre...

A new learning strategy is proposed for training of radial basis functions (RBF) network. We apply two different local optimization methods to update the output weights in training process, the gradient method and a combination of the gradient and Newton methods. Numerical results obtained in solving nonlinear integral equations show the excellent performance of the combined gradient method in ...

ground differential movements due to faulting have been observed to cause damage to engineered structures and facilities. although surface fault rupture is not a new problem, there are only a few building codes in the world containing some type of provisions for reducing the risks. fault setbacks or avoidance of construction in the proximity to seismically active faults, are usually supposed as...