Jacketing of reinforced concrete columns is a common and useful strengthening method. This method substantially improves mechanical properties of the column, such as flexural strength as well as shear and ductility. In this paper, the behavior of confined reinforced concrete columns are investigated. The results indicate that the method is more effective for slender columns in the region of the...

Thirty patients were discharged from hospital after treatment with arterial counterpulsation for acute severe heart failure complicating myocardial infarction. Seventeen patients had been in cardiogenic shock--13 with power failure alone, and 4 with a mechanical complication which required corrective surgery. Thirteen patients were in impending or 'preshock'. The follow-up period after infarcti...

BACKGROUND Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a monogenetic autosomal recessive multi-organ disease affecting approximately 50,000 patients worldwide. Overall median survival is continually increasing but pulmonary disease remains the most common cause of death. Guidelines have been published in relation to the outpatient maintenance of lung health for CF patients and treatment of acute lung exacerbations...

The timing of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) initiation and its outcome in the management of respiratory and cardiac failure have received considerable attention, but very little attention has been given to mechanical ventilation during ECMO. Mechanical ventilation settings in non-ECMO studies have been shown to have an effect on survival and may also have contributed to a treatment...

Mechanical failure of soft tissues is characteristic of life-threatening diseases, including capillary stress failure, pulmonary emphysema, and vessel wall aneurysms. Failure occurs when mechanical forces are sufficiently high to rupture the enzymatically weakened extracellular matrix (ECM). Elastin, an important structural ECM protein, is known to stretch beyond 200% strain before failing. How...

About 20% to 30% of patients are difficult to wean from invasive mechanical ventilation. The pathophysiology of difficult weaning is complex. Accordingly, determining the reason for difficult weaning and subsequently developing a treatment strategy require a dedicated clinician with in-depth knowledge of the pathophysiology of weaning failure. This review presents a structural framework ('ABCDE...

In this study a modified entropy-based measure is presented for evaluating the serviceability level of water distribution networks in which the hydraulic uncertainties (flow rates in pipes) as well as the uncertainties due to mechanical parameters (failure probabilities of links) are considered simultaneously. In the proposed entropy calculation method, the connectivity order of the network dem...