A standardized, perceptually based description of hoarseness is of importance for clinical purposes (e.g. therapy evaluation) as well as in research on voice disorders. The reliability and relevance of perceptual parameters are investigated. The GRBAS scale parameters quite well fit the criteria: low intrajudge and interjudge variance but high intervoice variance. The best correlation between judges (0.7) is found for the overall grade of severity. Impressions of the asthenicstrained voice quality are less consistent, but still show a significant interjudge correlation. The overall grade of severity seems to be mainly determined by the component breathiness. Roughness and breathiness are negatively correlated with each other. Tonus is correlated neither with roughness nor breathiness. The GRBAS profiles significantly differ between the different pathological groups.
<p>The design of the recently constructed Tran Thi Ly Bridge in Da Nang city, Vietnam called for extraordinarily large bearings to support the bridge’s pylon. Of the four bearings which fulfil this role, two must each resist a vertical force of 250,000 kN, or 3.5 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower’s metal structure, while allowing longitudinal sliding movements and resisting transverse forces. In order to address this great challenge, spherical bearings featuring a special high-grade</p><p>sliding material (as an alternative to the typically used PTFE) were proposed. This solution enabled the size of the bearings to be minimised; although they still have a diameter of almost 3 metres, they are considerably smaller than they would have been had another type of bearing, or PTFE sliding material, been used. This paper describes the challenge, the features and advantages of the selected solution, and the bridge construction benefits offered by these truly exceptional bearings.</p>
<p>Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems can serve many purposes, by efficiently and reliably providing great quantities of data in relation to any variable of a structure’s condition or performance. One such purpose is the provision of the detailed information that may be required in assessing a bridge’s condition or structural performance, supplementing the more limited knowledge that can be obtained from traditional inspection methods alone. Examples of the use of SHM systems for this purpose are presented, demonstrating how this approach can enable a detailed understanding of a structure’s performance to be developed – for instance, in providing the data required by advanced structural models, and confirming hypotheses relating to the suspected condition and its causes. Thanks to the in-depth understanding of the structure’s performance that can be achieved, such systems not only offer an attractive means of completing a bridge inspection, but can further help the service life of a structure to be lengthened and its life-cycle costs to be reduced.</p>
<p>As the expectations of populations all around the world continue to increase in relation to the resilience of their bridges and buildings to hazards such as seismic events, the need for appropriate solutions – which can be applied both to new structures and to existing ones – grows accordingly. A wide range of solutions is available, such as shock absorbers and shock transmission units which can be used to dampen or optimally transmit forces that would otherwise damage a structure, and seismic isolators which can protect buildings and bridges from destructive ground motions. Expansion joints can be equipped with features that protect a bridge, at its key movement nodes, from damage due to larger-than-expected movements, and structural health monitoring (SHM) can be used to enable hazards to be identified and to provide immediate notification of any event that might make a structure unsafe. Various such methods of enhancing resilience of structures to seismic and other hazards are described.</p>
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