Assessment of Shear Forces on Bridge Abutments: Simplified Method

The conventional application of reduction factors to response spectrum analysis results is inappropriate for the abutment shear forces, which are based on elastic action. On the other hand, adopting the unreduced values from the elastic dynamic analysis does not achieve equilibrium among the abutment shear forces, deck inertia forces, and reduced pier forces. A simplified method is here proposed for the assessment of the shear on the abutments, documented by comparison with response spectrum and time history nonlinear analyses for several bridge configurations. For the analyzed configuration of the bridge with an internal movement joint, the response spectrum analysis underestimates the shear on the abutment for low values of the abutment flexibility and overestimates it when the stiffness of the abutments becomes higher than that of the piers. In all the case studies analyzed, the proposed method approximates the time history results better than the response spectrum.     

Constructing a short form of the Smoking Consequences Questionnaire with adolescents and young adults.

The goal of the present studies was to construct and validate a short form of the 50-item Smoking Consequences Questionnaire (SCQ; T. H. Brandon & T. B. Baker, 1991), a measure of smoking outcome expectancies. In Study 1, a 21-item short form (S-SCQ) was derived from a sample of 107 young adults previously treated for substance abuse. In Study 2, the measure was cross-validated on 125 adolescents in treatment for substance abuse. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed good model fit and factorial invariance for the 4 S-SCQ subscales across both samples. Validation analyses on each sample found that subscale scores generally correlated significantly with smoking-related variables. The present studies provide initial evidence for the utility of the S-SCQ when used with young adults and adolescents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexically scoped distribution: what you see is what you get

We define a lexically scoped, asynchronous and distributed π-calculus, with local communication and process migration. This calculus adopts the network-awareness principle for distributed programming and follows a simple model of distribution for mobile calculi: a lexical scope discipline combines static scoping with dynamic linking, associating channels to a fixed site throughout computation. This discipline provides for both remote invocation and process migration. A simple type system is a straightforward extension of that of the π-calculus, adapted to take into account the lexical scope of channels. An equivalence law captures the essence of this model: a process behavior depends on the channels it uses, not on where it runs.     

Metal fusion by laser radiation action in an oxidizing medium

Results are presented from a calculation of fusion of a massive zirconium plate under the action of laser radiation with consideration of simultaneous surface oxidation.Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 61, No. 1, pp. 11–14, July, 1991.