Maintaining natural movement of animals that live in the tropical rainforest canopy in South America is important for the health of the ecosystem. As development […]

The post Tremie Gregory uses camera traps to study “bridges” in the rainforest canopy appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Internet and phone connections are essential for effective communicators and for success in business. New results from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama show […]

The post Ant bridges connect tropical tree crowns appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Full Text:

Bridges make travel faster and more convenient, but, in an earthquake, these structures are subject to forces that can cause extensive damage and make them unsafe. Now civil and environmental engineer Petros Sideris of Texas A&M University is leading a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research project to investigate the performance of hybrid sliding-rocking (HSR) columns. HSR columns provide the same support as conventional bridge infrastructure columns but are more earthquake-resistant. HSR columns are a series of individual concrete segments held together by steel cables that allow for controlled sliding and rocking. This allows the columns to shift without damage, while post-tensioning strands ensure that at the end of an earthquake the columns are pushed back to their original position. Conventional bridges are cast-in-place monolithic concrete elements that are strong but inflexible. Structural damage in these bridge columns, typically caused by a natural disaster, often forces a bridge to close until repairs are completed. But bridges with HSR columns can withstand large earthquakes with minimal damage and require minor repairs, likely without bridge closures. Such infrastructure helps with post-disaster response and recovery and can save thousands in taxpayer dollars. In an earthquake, HSR columns provide "multiple advantages to the public," Sideris said. "By preventing bridge damage, we can maintain access to affected areas immediately after an event for response teams to be easily deployed, and help affected communities recover faster. In mitigating losses related to post-event bridge repairs and bridge closures, more funds can be potentially directed to supporting the recovery of the affected communities." According to Joy Pauschke, NSF program director for natural hazards engineering, "NSF invests in fundamental engineering research so that, in the future, the nation's infrastructure can be more resilient to earthquakes, hurricanes, and other forces of nature."

Image credit: Texas A&M University

New sensors to monitor storm surge on bridges

New sensors to monitor storm surge on bridges

Full Text:

Bridges make travel faster and more convenient, but, in an earthquake, these structures are subject to forces that can cause extensive damage and make them unsafe. Now civil and environmental engineer Petros Sideris of Texas A&M University is leading a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research project to investigate the performance of hybrid sliding-rocking (HSR) columns. HSR columns provide the same support as conventional bridge infrastructure columns but are more earthquake-resistant. HSR columns are a series of individual concrete segments held together by steel cables that allow for controlled sliding and rocking. This allows the columns to shift without damage, while post-tensioning strands ensure that at the end of an earthquake the columns are pushed back to their original position. Conventional bridges are cast-in-place monolithic concrete elements that are strong but inflexible. Structural damage in these bridge columns, typically caused by a natural disaster, often forces a bridge to close until repairs are completed. But bridges with HSR columns can withstand large earthquakes with minimal damage and require minor repairs, likely without bridge closures. Such infrastructure helps with post-disaster response and recovery and can save thousands in taxpayer dollars. In an earthquake, HSR columns provide "multiple advantages to the public," Sideris said. "By preventing bridge damage, we can maintain access to affected areas immediately after an event for response teams to be easily deployed, and help affected communities recover faster. In mitigating losses related to post-event bridge repairs and bridge closures, more funds can be potentially directed to supporting the recovery of the affected communities." According to Joy Pauschke, NSF program director for natural hazards engineering, "NSF invests in fundamental engineering research so that, in the future, the nation's infrastructure can be more resilient to earthquakes, hurricanes, and other forces of nature."

Image credit: Texas A&M University

The gridlock-relieving rapid transit project across Lake Washington is a world's first.

Multitasking infrastructure on the Canary Islands could power as many as 500 homes.

From Vietnam to London to rural Boone County, Iowa, these fancy footbridges are a feast for the eyes.

The world's natural rubber comes from Southeast Asia, but the company is using an unassuming Texas bush to make its rubber all-American.

Plan your next holiday tour to the fascinating place Berlin. In winter 7 Christmas Markets are out in full force.

A power converter includes an active front end (AFE) that is coupled by a dc link stage to a plurality of H-bridge inverters. One or more multi-phase electro-magnetic energy conversion devices, such as transformers or electric machines, with open windings that are connected to only the AFE or only the H-bridge inverters or to both the AFE and H-bridge inverters, provide a regenerative or partial regenerative power converter.

The present invention relates to methods for forming dicarba bridges in organic compounds. This involves the use of a pair of complementary metathesisable groups on the organic compound, and subjecting the compound to cross-metathesis under microwave radiation conditions. In an alternative, the compounds contain a turn-inducing group between the pair of cross-metathesisable groups to facilitate the cross-metathesis.

COMEDIAN Kerry Bridges has shown his support for the national Clap for Carers event.

The remote-control device for real-time video transport is the size of a Kleenex box, completely silent, and requires no onsite configuration.

Leon Bridges explains how hearing Gary Clark Jr's "Bright Lights" changed everything for him. Then Cory Reinisch and Dustin Meyer from Harvest Thieves talk about the power of Uncle Tupelo, Led Zeppelin and the Weary Boys.

We’ve taken two previously-aired interviews from Leon Bridges and Gary Clark Jr. and put them together to draw a direct line of influence from one artist to another. Leon Bridges explains how hearing a Gary Clark Jr. song inspired him to pursue music, and then Gary Clark Jr. describes the impact of Tupac's "Krazy." Expect an “epic flow chart of inspiration” sometime in the future.

Last month’s emergency shutdown of the West Seattle Bridge has prompted Seattle City Council member Alex Pedersen to request an audit of the city’s 124 bridges, he said Thursday. Pedersen, who chairs the council’s Transportation and Utilities Committee, said City Auditor David G. Jones will compile data about maintenance spending and comparisons to peer cities. […]

Could it be all the smack talk between Seattle and San Francisco football fans has spread to our bridges? If you believe in the Twittersphere, then yes. The Bay Bridge tweeted that it’s happy the Seahawks vaunted fans will be on hand to console the team when it loses on Sunday. Ouch! The 520 suggested […]

The accelerating melt is a global concern: Permafrost, which mostly lies in the northern reaches of the planet, is a vast carbon storehouse of frozen plants and animals that release greenhouse gases as they warm and decompose.

A conversation with CT editor Katelyn Beaty about blogging, books, and what's next.

Fifteen months ago, this blog began with a conversation with Katelyn Beaty about my hopes and dreams for Thin Places. As I conclude this blog, we thought it fitting to have a concluding conversation as well. Katelyn and I had a chance to talk about the most exciting and most challenging aspects of writing in this space and genre, and we also had a chance to talk about the future:

If you’d like to stay current with what I’m thinking about, where I’m speaking, and what I’m reading, you can continue to follow me on Facebook and Twitter or subscribe to my monthly newsletter.

Continue reading...

Dr. Brian Bridges and John King Jr. explore student debt.

Diabetic retinopathy is a potentially blinding eye disease that threatens the vision of a ninth of diabetic patients. Progression of the disease has long been attributed to an initial dropout of pericytes that enwrap the retinal microvasculature. Revealed through retinal vascular digests, a subsequent increase in basement membrane bridges is observed. Using cell-specific markers, we demonstrate that pericytes rather than endothelial cells colocalize with these bridges. We show that the density of bridges transiently increases with elevation of Ang-2, PDGF-BB, and blood sugar, is rapidly reversed on a time scale of days, and often associated with a pericyte cell body located off-vessel. Cell-specific knockout of KLF4 in pericytes fully replicates this phenotype. In vivo imaging of limbal vessels demonstrates pericyte migration off-vessel, with rapid pericyte filopodial-like process formation between adjacent vessels. Accounting for off-vessel and on-vessel pericytes, we observe no pericyte loss relative to non-diabetic control retina. These findings reveal the possibility that pericyte perturbations in location and process formation may play a role in the development of pathological vascular remodeling in diabetic retinopathy.

Pavel Chigansky, Marina Kleptsyna, Dmytro Marushkevych.

Source: Bernoulli, Volume 26, Number 3, 1706--1726.

Abstract:
Spectral decomposition of the covariance operator is one of the main building blocks in the theory and applications of Gaussian processes. Unfortunately, it is notoriously hard to derive in a closed form. In this paper, we consider the eigenproblem for Gaussian bridges. Given a base process, its bridge is obtained by conditioning the trajectories to start and terminate at the given points. What can be said about the spectrum of a bridge, given the spectrum of its base process? We show how this question can be answered asymptotically for a family of processes, including the fractional Brownian motion.

Building Bridges—a name well suited for the ministry at the integration centre in the Linz area — seeks to connect Austrians, immigrants, Christians and Muslims.

OM Austria has worked with immigrants for 10 years in the "Building Bridges" Team. In 2016, the team will begin working with refugees in Graz.

The OM Austria Building Bridges team gains valuable experience during a short term trip to Turkey.

Short-termer Elizabeth from the USA shares some of her experiences working with the Building Bridges Team in Linz, Austria for a month.

Clachan Bridge

Newark --

Location: Chapman Road (Bridges over I-95 southbound and northbound) between Regal Boulevard and Alexis Drive , Newark.

Times and Dates: 6:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, pending weather.

April 20, 2020 through December 2021

Traffic Information: DelDOT announces to motorists that preliminary construction will begin on Monday, April 13, 2020, with the replacement of the bridges on Chapman Road. [More]

Enemies of the U.S. Army are now deliberately hiding targets behind mountain ridges, under bridges, in rocky crevices and other locations intended to elude state-of-the art GPS-guided artillery round attacks -- complicating U.S. efforts to pinpoint and destroy targets

Bridgestone Corporation has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $28 million criminal fine for its role in conspiracies to rig bids and to make corrupt payments to foreign government officials in Latin America related to the sale of marine hose and other industrial products manufactured by the company and sold throughout the world.

Bridgestone Corp., a Tokyo, Japan-based company, has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $425 million criminal fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices of automotive anti-vibration rubber parts installed in cars sold in the United States and elsewhere.

A Cleveland federal grand jury returned an indictment against one current executive and two former executives of Bridgestone Corp. for their roles in an international conspiracy to fix prices of automotive anti-vibration rubber parts sold in the United States and elsewhere.

A former Bridgestone Corp. executive has agreed to plead guilty and to serve 18 months in a U.S. prison for his role in an international conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids of automotive anti-vibration rubber parts sold in the United States and elsewhere.

Mar 24, 2020

The Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative (MEI) is tackling changes in the Middle East with a multi-pronged approach. By bringing together the world’s top academic and policy experts to debate issues at the core of the transformation, and by providing a range of on-campus, field experiences, and other opportunities for students and research fellows, MEI is helping develop the next generation of Middle East leaders and scholars and providing policy-relevant research on challenges facing the region today.

Believe it or not, these folded works of wonder are created from a single sheet of paper -- no cuts, no glue.

Because bridges are for people.

Building Bridges for Asthma Care is a GSK-funded school-based collaboration that addresses the risk of asthma-related absenteeism and its impact on academic achievement for inner city students.

Finally, city's old and dangerous road overbridges got the much-needed attention, thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown. Central Railway and Western Railway turned the restriction on public's movement to its advantage by fixing the bridges along their respective lines.

While CR completed work on Byculla road bridge, National Highway bridge at Kasara and the busy road overbridge at Kopar, WR fixed a bridge crossing the lines at Dharavi and the one in Andheri is near-completion.

26 days to fix Byulla bridge
The old Byculla road overbridge was patched up with 70 bracket fixtures over the past 26 days at a cost of R13.811 lakh; the complete project was worth R1.13 crore. "Without lockdown, it would have taken more than two months to finish the work," a senior official pointed out.

CR fixed the bridge near Umbermali station with the help of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) in the last four days of April

"On Western Railway, work on strengthening the important Dharavi bridge girders was completed during the lockdown. In addition, one span of Andheri pipeline bridge was strengthened," WR's chief spokesperson Ravinder Bhakar said.

CR takes NHAI help
Another important work on CR was to patch up the road overbridge near Umbermali in Kasara, which had been declared dangerous in the IIT-Bombay survey. The bridge was fixed in the last four days of April, taking advantage of the lockdown and with assistance from the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).

The bridge near Umbermali station of Mumbai suburban railway was taken up for repairs following the joint recommendation of the IIT-B and the railways. CR sought the NHAI's assistance since the bridge passes under the Mumbai-Agra National Highway near Shirol village, over the rail lines between Umbermali and Kasara stations. The work involved repair of the slab upgrade, removing and relaying concrete, dismantling of about two metres of parapet wall and recasting it firmly.

Work sans disruption
An official involved in the upgrade said the work was completed in just a few days and involved no train cancellations. "We called 15 labourers from the NHAI and seven from the railways, and all the problems raised in the IIT survey were resolved," he added.

Additionally, the dismantling and upgrade work of road overbridge at Kopar has also been taken up in co-ordination with Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation. Had there been no lockdown, the work would have required a block leading to disruption in services of numerous local and outstation trains.

"Initially, it was decided to use diamond cutters that would have required 45 days with two hours of daily blocks at night. Now, during the lockdown, it's being done with concrete breaker, in day time. Work started on April 17," an official said. "The lockdown has given us an opportunity to renew and pump energy into the old infrastructure," CR's chief public relations officer Shivaji Sutar said.

In 2019, CR and WR had identified weak and corrosive bridges along the lines with the help of IIT-B teams. The joint safety audit has being conducted of all the 445 road overbridges and foot overbridges in Mumbai in order to ensure commuters' safety.

Catch up on all the latest Mumbai news, crime news, current affairs, and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates.

Mid-Day is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@middayinfomedialtd) and stay updated with the latest news

The 43-year-old country star showed his softer side Monday on The Voice as he recalled the humble beginnings of his career after a contestant performed his signature song, Ol' Red.

According to the New York Times, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have featured in nine of the 10 most popular Instagram posts, across both their own and William and Kate's Instagram accounts.