During strong earthquake excitations, base-isolated buildings may collide, either with the surrounding moat wall or with adjacent buildings if the available clearance is exceeded. This undesirable possibility has been recently investigated by several researchers, adopting various types of force-based impact models. Evidently, an important issue that arises regarding such numerical studies is th...

Denise-Penelope N. Kontoni 1,* and Ahmed Abdelraheem Farghaly 2,* 1 Department of Civil Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Western Greece, GR-26334 Patras, Greece 2 Department of Civil and Architectural Constructions, Faculty of Industrial Education, Sohag University Sohag 82524, Egypt * Correspondence: [email protected] (D.-P.N.K.); [email protected] (A.A.F.); Tel...

weight at the end of a string can take any of an infinite number of closed paths through phase space, depending on the height from which it is released. Biological systems (and clock pendulums), in contrast, tend to have not only a characteristic period hut also a characteristic amplitude. They trace a particular path through phase space, and if some perturbation jolts them out of their accusto...

A pounding heart is a common symptom people experience when confronting moral dilemmas. The authors conducted 4 experiments using a false feedback paradigm to explore whether and when listening to a fast (vs. normal) heartbeat sound shaped ethical behavior. Study 1 found that perceived fast heartbeat increased volunteering for a just cause. Study 2 extended this effect to moral transgressions a...

How to create effective body animations for virtual agents with emotions remains the state of the art for human animators and a great challenge for computer scientists. In this paper, we propose to use a model of hierarchal parameters to represent body animations: emotional, style, motion, and procedural parameters. Based on this model, we have created motions for a virtual character with gener...

Description and Constituents Piper methysticum (kava kava) is a perennial plant native to the Pacific Island region, and has been used ceremonially for thousands of years. Traditionally, a beverage is prepared, then drunk before the evening meal. Indigenous methods of mastication of the kava root have given way to grinding or pounding the plant substance, which is then mixed with water or cocon...

A 25 YO woman presents to the clinic complaining that over the past few months she has difficulty performing many physical tasks due to severe muscle weakness, and frequently feels "hot and sweaty", even when the weather is cool. She also says she can feel her heart pounding all the time and has developed tremors and difficulty swallowing. Physical examination reveals a BP of 180/90, a pulse of...