A major thrust-fault earthquake of MW=7.0 occurred on 23 October 2011 at 10:41:21 UTC in the eastern Anatolian region of Turkey, severely affecting the nearby towns of Van and Erci?. In this study, a ...few strong-motion records from the epicentral area are analyzed in order to investigate the characteristics of the ground motions. Also reported are the post-earthquake field observations for various types of structures, such as buildings, bridges, historical structures, tunnels, and dams within the vicinity of the fault plane. The spatial distribution of damage indicates a noticeable hanging-wall effect. The special-type structures are observed to experience far less damage, as opposed to the building structures in the region pointing to the need for strict compliance to seismic building code and the corresponding construction requirements.
In many tunnel designs, lining cross section is selected based on construction requirements rather than design loads. A constant cross section is typically used along a tunnel especially for tunnels ...constructed by tunnel boring machines (TBMs). Factor of safety against failure is typically high at shallow depth regions of alignment. Minor repairable damage is targeted at rare events such as earthquakes, train derailments, explosions, and long-duration fires, and a reduction to service load factor of safety is applied in these types of events. The focus of this paper is to analytically investigate structural fire safety of circular tunnel linings in terms of reduction in service load safety due to time- and temperature-dependent material degradation and increase in load demand in a tunnel fire, and to develop recommendations for preliminary assessment of structural fire endurance of circular tunnel linings. Analytical methods accounting for thermal nonlinearity, material degradation, tunnel lining-ground interaction, and fire time stages are available to assess the structural fire safety of the concrete tunnel linings. Results of hydrocarbon fire tests of tunnel segments can be estimated by available analytical methods. TBM tunnels at soft soil can have a better fire performance compared to the ones located at stiff conditions with similar initial loading.
Bone health management of breast cancer runs through the whole cycle of patient treatment. During the process of adjuvant treatment for early breast cancer, clinicians should be pay attention to the ...prevention of bone loss caused by treatment. Adjuvant use of bone-modifying agents can help improve the prognosis of some patients, and patients with bone metastases should be given multidisciplinary comprehensive treatment and use bone-modifying agents to prevent the occurrence bone related adverse events. Therefore, no matter for the treatment of early or advanced breast cancer, it is necessary to manage bone health, formulate appropriate treatment strategies, and deal with adverse events of drugs. Good bone health management will help improve the quality of life and survival of patients. The breast cancer expert committee of the National Cancer Quality Control Center organized relevant experts to deeply explore the full cycle management of bone health in breast cancer based on Evidence-based medicine evidence.
Tunnel liners can suffer significant structural damage when exposed to long duration fires. The resulting damage to the tunnel liner can produce casualties, major service disruptions, and financial ...loss. Structural fire performance studies have generally focused on buildings exposed to standard fires. Tunnel fires typically have high temperatures and heat release rates compared to building fires. In this paper, an analytical method is provided for assessing the structural fire performance of concrete or the shotcrete tunnel liners, by comparing the structural demand and the capacity of the liners in the time domain. The suggested analysis is a combination of a heat transfer analysis and a nonlinear structural analysis that involves such factors as type of fire, concrete mix design, temperature-induced material degradation, and ground–tunnel liner interaction. A case study is provided. Techniques to minimize fire damage are recommended, and practical methods are suggested for repairing the fire-damaged concrete.
Abstract Background Turkey is one of the worst countries in the European region for the number of deceased organ donors (3.6) per million people. The aim of this study was to evaluate the location of ...nurses who have been attached to the National Coordination System as coordinators to increase this number. Methods We chose 4 regional coordination centers in which the most brain death cases were reported: Istanbul, Izmir, Antalya, and Ankara. Coordinators were classified according to their occupations. We evaluated the numbers of brain deaths and of donors from 2006 to 2009 in hospitals that have coordinators. Results The centers that have only nurse organ transplantation coordinators reported 60.3 (total n = 138) of the brain deaths in 2007, 54.8% (n = 97) in 2008, and 47.5% (n = 152) in 2009 in the Istanbul region; 8.4% (n = 131) in 2007, 25% (n = 164) in 2008, and 20% (n = 169) in 2009 in the Izmir region; 42.6% (n = 61) in 2007, 42.6% (n = 56) in 2008, and 32.4% (n = 111) in 2009 in the Antalya region; and 54% (n = 120) in 2007, 45.2% (n = 104) in 2008, and 41.8% (n = 122) in 2009 in the Ankara region. Conclusion Brain death numbers have increased in all regions after the nurses started to work as coordinators. Still many potential donor center have no transplantation coordinator.
Safety of a highway infrastructure system depends very much on the proper maintenance of bridges. The level of required maintenance is, typically, determined through a series of regular field ...inspections with the guidance of safety–economy trade-off. In Turkey, bridge maintenance, repair, and rehabilitation are currently performed on an as-needed basis. Time-dependent reliability analysis cannot be utilized for Turkish bridges for the time being since the majority of the bridges are either not regularly inspected or not inspected at all. The purpose of this paper is to propose a simple method to assess the remaining service life of a bridge by defining a relationship between its current condition rating and its age by evaluating a set of bridges at different ages. In a case study, 28 bridges were inspected for the first time to assess the average life expectancy. The average life of a bridge was predicted to be
80
years
, and for this set of bridges, the main body components were found to deteriorate more than earth retaining and serviceability components.
River bridges and related infrastructural elements need to be monitored and inspected periodically for deterioration and loss of function due to aging, adverse hydraulic conditions, and chemical ...attacks. Necessary protective works and related actions should then be implemented to increase safety. Types of items to be inspected would be categorized as structural, geotechnical, hydraulic, and structural material conditions. Requirements for periodic inspections and the ways of handling these activities were discussed within the framework of the aforementioned aspects. Since each bridge authority has its own inspection grading system according to variations in local conditions and the socioeconomic status of the country, a common core methodology should be implemented such that comparisons with different case studies are meaningful. The aim of this study is the renovation of the current inspection system in Turkey, in order to implement it primarily for saving human life, as well as promoting Turkey’s economy, labor, and manpower. An algorithm, based on evaluating components of the main body, earth-retaining facilities, and serviceability, as well as hydraulic aspects, is proposed. This renovation enables the identification of rank-based prioritization of events. The evaluation and interpretation steps were displayed with the help of a case study.
Collagen is a very popular natural biomaterial due to its high biocompatibility and bioactivity. Electrospinning is currently the only technique that allows the fabrication of continuous fibers with ...diameters down to a few nanometers. In order to regenerate collagen in the forms of nanofibers, it is necessary to dissolve it in suitable solvents. The solvents and electrospinning process cause unfolding of collagen nanofibers. It is proposed that acidic solvents preserve better the natural structure of collagen fibers. In this paper, the structures of collagen nanofibers were examined by using circular dichroism (CD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) methods in order to test this hypothesis. The increase in PP-II fraction, representing the triple helix structure in collagen, that was observed in CD analysis of HAc derived collagen nanofibers, for the first time was successfully confirmed and illustrated by using SEM and TEM methods. Furthermore, CD revealed the mostly detrimental effect of stabilization conditions such as heat, vacuum and UV treatment on the secondary structure of the collagen nanofibers.
•The partially preserved triple helix structure in HAc derived collagen nanofibers was observed.•The partial preservation of the native structure does not effect that much the overall fiber properties.•Cd results revealed that the crosslinking methods are mostly detrimental to the native structure of collagen.
