The base isolation systems are among the passive control devices that have been used over the last three decades to limit the seismic-induced response of structures. In this regard, the Uniform Building Code provisions (UBC) has incorporated a special section for the seismic design of base isolated structures since its 1991 edition. Due to the importance of the behavior of these structures unde...

Estimation of collapse performance is primarily conducted through Collapse Fragility Curves (CFC’s). The EDP-based approach is the main scheme for attaining such curves and employs IDA. Obtaining CFC’s from IDA results is tremendously time consuming and computationally demanding. Introduction of more efficient methods of seismic analysis, can potentially improve this issue. The Endurance Time (...

In this note, we give a proof to the equality in law of a skewed stable variable and a nonlinear transformation of two independent uniform and exponential variables. The lack of an explicit proof of this formula has led to some inaccuracies in the literature. The Chambers et al. (1976) method of computer generation of a skewed stable random variable is based on this equality.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) holds great promise for conservation applications like the monitoring of invasive or imperiled species, yet this emerging technique requires ongoing testing in order to determine the contexts over which it is effective. For example, little research to date has evaluated how seasonality of organism behavior or activity may influence detection probability of eDNA. We appl...

The microbial way of life spans at least 3.8 billion years of evolution. Microbial organisms are pervasive, ubiquitous, and essential components of all ecosystems. The geochemical composition of Earth's biosphere has been molded largely by microbial activities. Yet, despite the predominance of microbes during the course of life's history, general principles and theory of microbial evolution and...