A large gap exists between eligibility and the frequency with which consent encounters occur in intensive care unit research. Recruitment is susceptible to design and procedural inefficiencies that hinder recruitment and to personnel availability, given the need to interact with SDMs. Current enrollment practices may underrepresent potential study populations.

SUMMARY In this study, shaking‐table experiments were conducted with a novel seismic isolation system (Geotechnical Seismic Isolation, GSI) to validate its dynamic performance during earthquakes. This isolation technique uses shredded rubber–soil mixtures to reduce the structural response to earthquakes, and thus may not only provide economical structural safety for buildings in less‐developed regions, but could also consume a large amount of waste tires worldwide. The present experimental results show that the GSI system has potential to significantly mitigate seismic hazards. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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SUMMARYThis work introduces an innovative seismic isolation system named the convex friction system (CFS). This newly introduced isolation system has a sliding concavity with a circular cone-type surface, and exhibits some distinct features compared to conventional isolation techniques, such as increased uplift stability, improved self-centring capacity, and resonance dodge when subjected to near-fault earthquakes. A series of comprehensive analytical and numerical investigations are performed to verify these features of the CFS. First, the force-displacement relation of the CFS is established to describe the underlying philosophy of the system. The analytical model is then incorporated into numerical simulations to evaluate the seismic isolation performance of the CFS. Various ground accelerations, such as near-fault shakings, are included in these numerical calculations. Furthermore, the numerical results are rigorously investigated to illustrate the feasibility of the CFS. Finally, the limitations of the CFS study are discussed, and conclusions are drawn. The analytical and numerical results show that the CFS performs well in seismic isolation applications. The structural response can be reduced by approximately 30% with the CFS when compared to that with the Curved Surface Slider (CSS) with a spherical-surface concavity for some near-fault earthquakes, which verifies the aforementioned advantages of the CFS.