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•Adopted SR to mine the fatigue mechanism based on test data.•Developed a fatigue equation to determine the fatigue life.•Demonstrated the accuracy and reliability of the developed ...fatigue equation.•Data-driven model for determination of fatigue equation.
The fatigue life is one of the essential design indexes of the cement-stabilized cold recycled mixtures (CSCRM) in China. However, it is challenging to determine the fatigue equation of the CSCRM. In this study, the symbolic regression method is adopted to automatically identify a closed-form equation by the data-driven model to establish the fatigue prediction equation with a unified and concise mathematical structure. The developed method was illustrated and compared with the test results. The results show that the developed equation has a satisfactory prediction effect and provides a good and helpful tool to determine the fatigue life for CSCRMs.
While expanding public investment can contribute to fill infrastructure gaps, scaling up too much and too fast often leads to inefficient outcomes. This paper rationalizes this outcome looking at the ...association between cost inflation and public investment in a large sample of road construction projects in developing countries. Consistent with the presence of absorptive capacity constraints, our results show a non-linear U-shaped relationship between public investment and project costs. Unit costs increase once public investment is close to 10% of GDP. This threshold is lower (about 7% of GDP) in countries with low investment efficiency and, in general, the effect of investment scaling up on costs is especially strong during investment booms.
Transmission of Paracoccidioides spp. fungi to humans is usually related to manipulation of soil. Rural workers are the most affected group. We report an outbreak of paracoccidioidomycosis after ...deforestation and massive earth removal during construction of a highway in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Extensive environmental disturbances might be involved in fungal transmission.
Monitoring in highway projects is significant for the safety, efficiency and quality of construction. This paper proposes a detailed method for monitoring soft-soil roadbed and high-slope, and the ...layered settlement gauge and total station are employed to carry out experimental monitoring. The law and stability of soft-soil roadbed settlement and deformation under high-slope are further analyzed. The results show that the cumulative values of roadbed settlement and slope platform deformation in general both increase with the increase of monitoring time. However, near 180 days, an abnormal settlement phenomenon was monitored on both sides of the highway with a maximum value of 9.44 mm. This phenomenon was captured at gauge #1, #3, and #4 on observation stake 3, and exact oppositely, it was also observed at gauge #2 on observation stake 4. Moreover, unusual deformations of the high-slope platforms occurred over a period of 10 to 30 days, and these unusual settlements and deformations are indicative of the highway’s instability. Therefore, the monitoring on soft-soil roadbed settlement and high-slope deformation can provide reference for highway construction.
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