Sometimes structural loads are excessively high, and a decision must be made if intervention, either removal of the excess load or strengthening structure, is needed. This issue was addressed previously in retrofitting literature. However, equations for calculation were not presented. article includes based on full probabilistic reliability model failure probability excessive three materials: s...

This essay revisits William Vickrey’s 1968 critique of automobile insurance. Absence of response to his powerful criticisms effectively denied their truth, but economists are now reacting to one of them: charging for insurance as an expense of car ownership fails to internalize the accident costs of using a car. Therefore recent studies recommend converting the premium unit from car-year to odo...

We review some of the recent advances in nonlinear pulsation theory, but also insist on some of the major extant shortcomings.

Despite all the already existing observational data, current models still cannot explain completely the excessive energy output and the time variability of GRB. One of the reasons for this is the lack of a good model of the central engine of GRB. A major problem in the proposed models with a black hole (BH) in the center is that they don’t explain the observed evidences of late time activity of...