A growing number of bridge owners and experienced engineers in the United States are seeking to expand and mainstream the use of more rigorous design and evaluation approaches in everyday practice ...for both simple and complex bridges to achieve more economical use of materials, better understand the structural reliability, and ensure the traveling public a quantifiable level of safety and serviceability. To this end, an 11-member team was formed to study European practices. The team visited Finland, Austria, Germany, France, and England in June 2009. Specific topics of interest studied included safety and serviceability (design and construction; operations) and refined analysis (design, construction, and operations). The scan team identified many practices and technologies related to these topics of interest. These practices included (a) widespread use of refined methods of analyzing, designing, and assessing highway structures; (b) use of enhanced refined analysis to assess safety; (c) quality assurance and quality control practices in place; and (d) widespread use of performance-based approaches for durable structures. The scan team is in the process of developing a detailed implementation plan for the recommended initiatives and practices. Included in the plan will be a number of technical presentations and written papers at national meetings and conferences sponsored by FHWA, AASHTO, and other organizations to disseminate information from the scan. Also to be included in the plan are coordination requirements with AASHTO and FHWA to advance these initiatives and practices and to develop new FHWA and AASHTO standards and guidelines governing design and analysis.
Enhancement of bridge security is key to improved homeland security and entails several steps, including on-site assessment, analysis of security components, and implementation of some mitigation ...measures. A review of the nation's current bridge security posture showed a need to develop methods to identify critical bridges as security hazards and to provide engineering standards and guidelines for security design to reduce the vulnerability of bridges to attack. In particular, a need was seen for a simple bridge security checklist to provide on-site assessment of bridge vulnerability and security risk. After the events of September 11, 2001, the New Jersey Department of Transportation asked Rutgers University to develop a checklist to be used by bridge inspectors to provide management with security data for the department's entire bridge inventory. Rutgers developed a concise checklist, which consisted of yes or no questions in three categories: occurrence, vulnerability, and importance. The overall risk of a structure was measured in terms of an equation risk. To improve this tool, a survey was administered to industry subject matter experts across the United States to determine the relative importance of each question. The data from the survey were analyzed with the use of the analytic hierarchy process, and new weights were assigned to each question. This paper provides the results of the survey and discusses the methodology, analysis of the survey results, and implementation of the updated tool.
AbstractWe investigated how different surgical techniques and theuse of adjuvants may influence and even prevent localrecurrences according to the site and radiological grading ofthe tumor. ...Thirty-nine patients with Giant cell tumor (GCT) ofbone were treated between 1975 and 2002. According to the site,age and radiological grading (Campanacci) of the lesion,surgical treatment consisted of marginal, wide or radicalresection of the tumor, curettage with or without adjuvants,filling the cavity with either autologous or homologous graftsor with methylmetacrylate cement. Eight patients (21%) presenteda local recurrence at an interval ranging from 9 months to 13years after primary treatment; 75% of them had been treated withcurettage alone. None of the recurrences occurred in casestreated with curettage and adjuvants. We emphasize the use ofadjuvant therapy as part of the treatment of GCT, but believethat low the risk of recurrence is also related to howthoroughly the tumor is removed, because adjuvants alone cannotprevent recurrence if the tumor has not been adequatelyremoved.
Following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the New Jersey Department of Transportation asked Rutgers University to develop a checklist to be used by bridge inspectors to provide department ...leaders with security data for the entire bridge inventory. Rutgers University quickly developed a concise checklist which could be used for this purpose. The existing tool consists of 37 questions broken down into 3 categories, which are Occurrence (O), Vulnerability (V), and Importance (I). The overall risk of the structure is measured in terms of the equation Risk = O x V x I. While the methodology behind the development of this tool was sound, the weights of the questions were based on academic case studies rather than statistical research. The use of this methodology limits the use of the checklist in real world applications. In order to implement this checklist, there was a need to statistically justify the weights assigned to each question. In order to improve this tool, a survey was administered to industry subject matter experts from across the United States to determine the relative importance of each question within the checklist. The data from the survey was analyzed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and new weights were assigned to each question. There were significant differences found between some of the new and the previously assigned question weights. Some of these differences could be accounted for by examining the practicality versus academic value of certain questions. It was concluded that although the survey was extremely long, the Analytic Hierarchy Process was an effective methodology to use in the assignment of the question weights. Following the completion of the analysis, the bridge security checklist was updated with the new weights, and presented to state leadership for future implementation.
It was the purpose of this study to analyze the behavior of Tutoplast bone allograf to fill cavities produced by the removal of benigning bone tumors of those with local malignancy. X-ray and MR ...images obtained during follow-up demonstrated an increase in the signal in all of the sequences within the graft, indicating complete rehabitation of the grafted area.
Treatment of xanthoma of the Achilles tendon has up until the present been based on partial or total surgical resection of the affected tendon. Because of the different results of surgical treatment ...our study was aimed at using clinical and ultrasound data to reveal the effectiveness of hypocholesteremic medical therapy in 39 cases of tendinous xanthoma.
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