The mechanism of earthquake energy input to building structures is clarified by considering the surface ground amplification and soil-structure interaction. The earthquake input energies to superstructures, soil-foundation systems and total swaying-rocking system are obtained by taking the corresponding appropriate free bodies into account and defining the energy transfer functions. It has been...

The effects of linear vestibular stimulation on body-rocking behaviors in adults with profound mental retardation were studied. A single-system multiple base-line design across 3 subjects was used. The design included three phases spread over a period of 9 weeks. An interval time sampling procedure was used to collect data. Data from the 3 subjects were graphed and interpreted through visual in...

The large majority of three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules have been determined by X-ray diffraction of crystalline samples. High-resolution structure determination crucially depends on the homogeneity of the protein crystal. Overall 'rocking' motion of molecules in the crystal is expected to influence diffraction quality, and such motion may therefore affect the process of...

We have performed a comparison of magnetoresistance and structure of epitaxial and textured Fe/Cr superlattices grown by molecular-beam epitaxy ~MBE! and magnetron sputtering with either ~110! and ~100! orientations on a variety of substrates. MBE samples grown along the ~100! orientation, exhibit narrower rocking curves ~mosaic spread! and lower saturation resistivities than sputtered samples....

References 1 Deming, J.W. (2002) Psychrophiles and polar regions. Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 5, 301–309 2 Deming, J.W. and Eicken, H. (2004) Life in ice. In Planets and Life: The Emerging Science of Astrobiology (Baross, J.A. and Sullivan, W., eds), Cambridge University Press (in press) 3 Bowman, J.P. et al. (1997) Diversity and association of psychrophilic bacteria in antarctic sea ice. Appl. Envi...

In textbook descriptions of Newton’s cradle, it is generally claimed that displacing one ball will result in a collision that leads to another ball being ejected from the line, with all others remaining motionless. Hermann and Schmälzle, Hinch and Saint-Jean, and others have shown that a realistic description is more subtle. We present a simulation of Newton’s cradle that reproduces the break-u...

Experimental proof is provided of an unconventional seismic design concept, which is based on deliberately underdesigning shallow foundations to promote intense rocking oscillations and thereby to dramatically improve the seismic resilience of structures. Termed rocking isolation, this new seismic design philosophy is investigated through a series of dynamic centrifuge experiments on properly s...

Ancient columns, made with a variety of materials such as marble, granite, stone or masonry are an important part of the European cultural heritage. In particular columns of ancient temples in Greece and Sicily which support only the architrave are characterized by small axial load values. This feature together with the slenderness typical of these structural members clearly highlights as the e...

We present a review, together with new results, of a universal forcing of oscillatory systems, termed 'rocking', which leads to the emergence of a phase bistability and to the kind of pattern formation associated with it, characterized by the presence of phase domains, phase spatial solitons and phase-bistable extended patterns. The effects of rocking are thus similar to those observed in the c...

Controlled rocking of steel braced frames has been proposed for the seismic retrofit of structures. The controlled rocking approach allows a frame to uplift from its support at the base-of-column to foundation interface while displacement-based steel yielding devices are implemented at the base location to control the response. Past studies have focused on analytical investigations of the respo...