Latest Findings on the Behaviour Factor q for the Seismic Design of URM Buildings

Recent earthquakes as the 2012 Emilia earthquake sequence showed that recently built unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings behaved much better than expected and sustained, despite the maximum PGA values ranged between 0.20 - 0.30g, either minor damage or structural damage that is deemed repairable. Especially low-rise residential and commercial masonry buildings with a code-conforming seismic design and detailing behaved in general very well without substantial damages. The low damage grades of modern masonry buildings that was observed during this earthquake series highlighted again that codified design procedures based on linear analysis can be rather conservative. Although advances in simulation tools make nonlinear calculation methods more readily accessible to designers, linear analyses will still be the standard design method for years to come. The present paper aims to improve the linear seismic design method by providing a proper definition of the q-factor of URM buildings. These q-factors are derived for low-rise URM buildings with rigid diaphragms which represent recent construction practise in low to moderate seismic areas of Italy and Germany. The behaviour factor components for deformation and energy dissipation capacity and for overstrength due to the redistribution of forces are derived by means of pushover analyses. Furthermore, considerations on the behaviour factor component due to other sources of overstrength in masonry buildings are presented. As a result of the investigations, rationally based values of the behaviour factor q to be used in linear analyses in the range of 2.0 to 3.0 are proposed.

African Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the UK

The importance of ethnic minority businesses (EMBs) has been lauded in the entrepreneurship discourse. Building on entrepreneurial orientation theory, this study seeks to understand family influence on the entrepreneurial processes, practices, and decision-making activities in a relatively under-explored social group. The methodological approach in this study involved in-depth interviews with 10 entrepreneurs based in the United Kingdom. This study found strong social identity congruence behaviour of explored entrepreneurs from the point of how their entrepreneurial orientation is family-influence driven. For the entrepreneurs, the family is a central behaviour factor that exerts significantly on their entrepreneurial processes and decision making. As a result, actual judgement and decision making of entrepreneurs may not necessarily be driven by economic logic but largely by family control factors that even exert more significantly on entrepreneurial behaviour. This study contributes to the psychological and family control perspectives on entrepreneurship discourse. This study has two core limitations: it is based on the qualitative approach and explores only one social group. Future research in the form of quantitative studies that also examine other cultural enclaves would therefore help to enhance the causes and effects conclusions suggested in this study.

Seismic Performance Assessment of a Multistorey Building Designed with an Alternative Capacity Design Approach

The actual seismic building codes have a prescriptive nature, and they are principally aimed to guarantee a prescribed life-safety level against a design-level earthquake even if some methods have been proposed to evaluate the seismic performance of a building along its entire service life. Among these, the performance-based seismic design method permits the design of buildings with a more realistic understanding of both risk of life for occupants and economic losses that may occur in future earthquakes. On the other side, the capacity design method, providing criteria to properly spread the inelastic deformation demand between the different structural elements, allows to establish a ductile collapse mechanism avoiding undesired brittle failures. In this context, modern building codes consider the adoption of a single value for the behaviour factor q to be used in the design process. All this should be argued since, especially for buildings characterized by storeys with different uses and occupancy ratios, the adoption of a single value for q could guide the design process to a solution not minimizing the seismic loss. With reference to these aspects, the paper shows the comparison of the seismic responses of a multistorey framed building designed following two different approaches. The first approach, suggested by many international codes, follows the capacity design rules and considers a single value for the behaviour factor valid for the whole building. In this first case, the damage mechanisms could affect, theoretically, every storey of the building. The second approach, proposed here, considers instead the possibility to adopt different behaviour factors to attribute to different storeys. In this way, it is possible to concentrate and localize the most severe earthquake-induced structural damage on (few) storeys, selected by the designers. By means of the seismic performance assessment methodology, the comparison between the two building responses is provided in terms of expected losses during the whole building service life and is reported in terms of both economical loss and human life loss. The results in the paper show that, if different behaviour factors are properly selected for different storeys, the design process can provide a solution characterized by lower values of seismic loss with respect to the case of the design assuming a single-q value.

Evaluating the Behavioral and Developmental Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorder

It is currently impossible to estimate the number of users who are experiencing Mental Depression symptoms. Today's recognition is highly reliant on observation of users' behaviours. This paper suggests a framework for considering behaviour factor relationships and categorising them using association-based classification (CBA).Patient profiles from two Thai emergency clinics were utilized in our trials. Experts requested this data into two groupings: Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). Our discoveries uncover an assortment of charming conduct patterns in individuals with mental imbalance.These findings provide doctors with invaluable knowledge for future research into early autism symptom intervention. Our project aims to develop a data processing method that will aid doctors in diagnosing patients later on.

PERILAKU ORANG TUA DALAM UPAYA PENCARIAN PENGOBATAN PADA BALITA DENGAN PNEUMONIA: A SCOPING REVIEW

Salah satu masalah kesehatan dan merupakan penyebab kesakitan dan kematian tertinggi pada balita di dunia adalah pneumonia. Pada tahun 2015, pneumonia menyumbang hampir seperempat (5,9 juta) kematian anak di seluruh dunia. Tingginya angka kejadian pneumonia pada balita tidak terlepas dari berbagai faktor risiko pneumonia, salah satunya adalah faktor perilaku orang tua dalam upaya pencarian pengobatan. Tujuan umum dari penyusunan review ini adalah untuk mencari dan mengetahui evidence based terkait perilaku orang tua dalam upaya pencarian pengobatan pada balita pneumonia di negara berkembang. Metode penelitian adalah scoping review menggunakan mesin pencarian pada database PubMed dan Science Direct pada 10 tahun terakhir. Hasil dari review ini memunculkan 2 tema yaitu, gambaran dan faktor yang mempengaruhi perilaku orang tua dalam upaya pencarian pengobatan pada balita dengan pneumonia. Kurangnya pemanfaatan fasilitas pelayanan kesehatan oleh orang tua dalam pengobatan menjadi faktor penyebab terjadinya pneumonia berulang serta semakin parahnya pneumonia yang diderita oleh balita.One of the health problems and the highest cause of morbidity and death in toddlers in the world is pneumonia. In 2015, pneumonia accounted for nearly a quarter (5.9 million) of worldwide child deaths. The high incidence of pneumonia in toddlers is inseparable from a variety of pneumonia risk factors, one of the risk factors is the behaviour factor of parents in seeking treatment. The aim of this review is to mapping evidence based on the behaviour of parents to search for the treatment of toddler pneumonia in developing countries. The research method used search engines in the PubMed and Science Direct databases 10 years ago. The results of this review raise two themes i.e. an overview and factors that influence the behaviour of parents in seeking treatment in toddlers with pneumonia. Lack of health care facilities by parents in treatment is a factor causing recurrent pneumonia and the severity of pneumonia suffered by toddlers.

Ethical beliefs and behaviour of university educators: evidence from Russia

PurposeThis exploratory study aims, firstly, to analyse and categorise judgements on ethical behaviour and actual behaviour of university educators. Secondly, the study addresses the impact of demographic data, such as gender, age and role on these issues.Design/methodology/approachWe utilised online survey data from academic employees of four leading universities in Russia, who are involved in teaching activities. In this study, we used correlation, regression and factor analyses.FindingsOur results demonstrate that teaching, while too distressed to be effective, is a common experience among university educators. By contrast, the rarest categories include teaching under the influence of drugs or alcohol. In addition, there is a high congruence between beliefs and respective behaviours. Females are typically more ethical in both judgements and actual behaviour. Factor analysis of behaviours yielded 16 interpretable factors.Practical implicationsFirstly, the salary of the university educators should be adequate and competitive and match with their workload. Secondly, the work of the educators should be given recognition that may become their stimuli for improvement in university teaching. Thirdly, universities should develop ethics centres, which help faculty members and students to take the right decisions in situations involving questionable behaviour in the classroom. Lastly, the development of ethical codes, for faculty members and students, may become their guidance in situations with ethical dilemmas.Originality/valueThis study contributed to the very limited research on the ethical aspects of higher education in Russia.

Behaviour Factor of Ductile Code-Designed Reinforced Concrete Frames

The current generation of seismic design codes is based on a linear elastic force-based approach that includes the nonlinear response of the structure implicitly through a response modification factor (named reduction factor R in American codes or behaviour factor q in European codes). However, the use of a prescribed behaviour factor that is constant for a given structural system may fail in providing structures with the same risk level. In this paper, the behaviour factor of reinforced concrete frame structures is estimated by means of nonlinear static (pushover) and nonlinear incremental dynamic analyses. For this purpose, regular reinforced concrete frames of three, five, seven, and nine storeys designed for high ductility class according to the European and Italian seismic codes are investigated, and realistic input ground motions are selected based on the design spectra. Verified analysis tools and refined structural models are used for nonlinear analysis. Overstrength, redundancy, and ductility response modification factors are estimated, and the effects of some parameters influencing the behaviour factor, including the number of bays and the number of storeys, are evaluated. The results are finally compared with those obtained from a previous paper for steel moment-resisting frames with the same geometry. According to the analysis results, the behaviour factors in the case of pushover analysis are significantly higher than those obtained in the case of nonlinear response history analysis. Thus, according to the pushover analysis, the behaviour factor provided by European and Italian standards seems highly conservative. On the contrary, the more refined nonlinear dynamic analysis shows that the code-prescribed value may be slightly nonconservative for middle-high-rise frame structures due to unfavourable premature collapse mechanisms based on column plastic hinging at the first storey. Thus, some modifications are desirable in local ductility criteria and/or structural detailing of high ductility columns to implicitly ensure that the recommended value of the behaviour factor is conservative.