In the springs of 2000, the Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada (FERIC) undertook a series of studies to investigate the potential of using a combination of technologies to extend log hauling operations during the traditional spring break-up period. During spring break-up, thin pavement roads are weakened, resulting in the application of government-imposed load restrictions to preve...

After a 20-year absence, severe cyanobacterial blooms have returned to Lake Erie in the last decade, in spite of negligible change in the annual load of total phosphorus (TP). Medium-spectral Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) imagery was used to quantify intensity of the cyanobacterial bloom for each year from 2002 to 2011. The blooms peaked in August or later, yet correlate to discharge ...

In this work, in order to analyze the load distribution on bolted joints, three different configurations of joints were modeled using the finite element method FEM, varying the joined parts and shim thickness, the intensity of the applied loads and the bolt diameter. All the proposed models are bi-dimensional, modeled with plate elements which present the same inertial moment of the parts in be...

Here, • m > 0 is the mass. • k > 0 is the spring constant and the spring force −ku(t) is modeled to be proportional to u(t) (i.e. Hooke’s law). The minus sign shows that it is always a restoring force which pulls the mass back towards the equilibrium. • γ ≥ 0 is the damping constant. The damping force may come from the medium (e.g. air, water, or honey), the spring or other sources. It has a mi...

The present investigation was carried out to evaluate the effects of environmental factors on reproductive performance of bovine (Bos taurus) during summer, winter and spring for one year. The study was performed on free moving animals under natural condition during the two consecutive estrus periods by visual observation. The duration of estrus, numbers of mounts were observed. There was a sea...

Integrative approaches to studying the coupled dynamics of skeletal muscles with their loads while under neural control have focused largely on questions pertaining to the postural and dynamical stability of animals and humans. Prior studies have focused on how the central nervous system actively modulates muscle mechanical impedance to generate and stabilize motion and posture. However, the qu...

Online games and location-based services now form the potential application domains for the P2P paradigm. In P2P systems, balancing the workload is essential for overall performance. However, existing load balancing techniques for P2P systems were designed for stationary data. They can produce undesirable workload allocations for moving objects that is continuously updated. In this paper, we pr...

In this work, by replacing the traditional solid spokes with colloidal spokes, a vehicle wheel with a built-in suspension structure is proposed. Following the background and description of the wheel system, firstly, a vibration model of the wheel equipped with colloidal spokes is proposed, and based on such model the equivalent damping coefficients and spring constants are identified. Then, a m...

Negative stiffness mechanisms have seen renewed attention in recent years for their ability to reduce the resonance frequency of a structure without impeding their load-bearing ability. Such devices are often described as having quasi-zero stiffness when the negative stiffness is tuned to reduce the overall stiffness of the system as close to zero as possible without creating an instability. Th...

INTRODUCTION The KineSpring implant system has been shown to provide load reductions at the medial compartment of the knee, and has demonstrated clinical success in reducing pain and increasing function in patients with medial knee osteoarthritis. These results depend on the ability of the KineSpring to rotate, lengthen, and shorten to accommodate knee motions, and in response to knee position ...