INTRODUCTION Relative value units (RVUs) were developed as a quantifier of requisite training, knowledge, and technical expertise for performing various procedures. In select procedures, increasing RVUs have been shown to substitute well for increasing surgical complexity and have been linked to greater risk of complications. The relationship of RVU to outcomes has yet to be examined in the pla...

the objective of this review to be submitted in two independent parts, for steel frames and for rc frames, is to compare their structural performance with respect to the proposed n2-method, and so also of the consequent convenience of using pushover methodology for the seismic analysis of these structures. a preliminary investigation is presented on a pushover analysis used for the seismic perf...

the present study sets out to integrate the performance-based seismic design approach with the connection topology optimization method. performance-based connection topology optimization concept aims to simultaneously optimize the size of members and the type of connections with respect to the framework of performance-based seismic design. this new optimization concept is carried out for unbrac...

The increasing interest in telecommunication systems and the wide spreading of computer networks within commercial and scientific field, are going in the direction of a deep integration of phone and data systems into a single network infrastructure. We are particular interested in security issues that arise in such context, thinking, for example, about authentication and billing problems. The a...

performance optimization of chisel tine was proposed by using a chisel plow with adjustable rake angle. effective treatments consisted of soil moisture at 0.5, 0.7 and 0.9 of plastic limit (pl), three rake angle of 30, 40 and 50 degree and speeds of to 3, 5 and 7 km h-1. the measured parameters included draft, soil disturbance area, soil upheaving area, clod mean weight diameter (mwd), specific...

the present study is concerned with the simultaneous optimization of the size of components and the arrangement of connections for performance-based seismic design of low-rise spsws. design variables include the size of beams and columns, the thickness of the infill panels, the type of each beam-to-column connection and the type of each infill-to-boundary frame connection. the objective functio...