People suffering from dementia often have problems with way finding and feel restless. In this paper we present an interactive wall developed for decreasing the amount of wandering behaviour of people suffering from dementia. The installation aims at making these people feel more at home in the nursing homes by guiding them with a motion triggered audio path. This leads them to a wall with large windows displaying images and short movie tracks from their hometown. The results of an observation study show that the interactive wall succeeds in attracting people and thus reducing the wandering behaviour. Remarks of the elderly as well as their family and caretakers support this conclusion.
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This commentary summarizes the conference held in Bethlehem from 30 April-1 May 2010 entitled 'Sumud and the Wall Conference'. It further explores the relationship between the (colonization of) life worlds of the Palestinian people and the tensions between life worlds and political systems. Finally it moves on to link the relevance of this to tourism and tourism development in Palestine.
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The seismic assessment of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings with cavity walls is of high relevance in regions such as in Central and Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand and China because of the characteristics of the masonry building stock. A cavity wall consists of two separate parallel walls usually connected by metal ties. Cavity walls are particularly vulnerable to earthquakes, as the out-of-plane capacity of each individual leaf is significantly smaller than the one of an equivalent solid wall. This paper presents the results of an experimental campaign conducted by the authors on metal wall tie connections and proposes a mechanical model to predict the cyclic behaviour of these connections. The model has been calibrated by us- ing the experimental results in terms of observed failure modes and force-displacement responses. Results are also presented in statistical format.
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Workers are an important factor in the implementation of a construction project. Applying ergonomic postures for workers in the projects is necessary to minimize the risk of work accidents and the risk of experiencing musculoskeletal disorders (MsDs). The use of lightweight brick for wall construction is relatively new and is in great demand by construction industries in Indonesia. During wall construction, workers do repetitive activities such as bending, kneeling, holding tools, or tilting the body. These activities potentially increase the risk of injury and musculoskeletal disorders. This study aims to assess the work posture of workers on the wall construction using lightweight brick and to analyze the high-risk activities. The wall construction work assessment included five stages of activities, (1) material transfer, (2) practical columns making and installation, (3) lightweight brick adhesive dough-making process, (4) lightweight bricks laying, and (5) lightweight brick plaster. The Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) method was used to evaluate the working posture. This method was developed to investigate the risk of abnormalities that workers will potentially experience. Based on the RULA employee assessment worksheet, the research results showed that 69% of workers have a high-risk level of work posture and 31% have low-risk levels of work posture. There are three activities with a high-risk level, namely, material transfer, lightweight brick laying, and lightweight brick plaster. At the same time, practical column making and installation work and lightweight brick adhesive dough-making processes are at a low-risk level. According to the RULA risk level, action is required to investigate and immediately improve activities with a high-risk level. If workers continue to work with the same posture, they will be at risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders related to the neck, trunk, and wrists in the near future. Correcting the worker’s posture can be done by improving work position, process, and workplace layout.
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The seismic assessment of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings with cavity walls is a relevant issue in many countries, such as in Central and Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, China and several other countries. A cavity wall consists of two separate parallel masonry walls (called leaves) connected by metal ties: an inner loadbearing wall and an outer veneer having mostly aesthetic and insulating functions. Cavity walls are particularly vulnerable structural elements. If the two leaves of the cavity wall are not properly connected, their out-of-plane strength may be significantly smaller than that of an equivalent solid wall with the same thickness.The research presented in this paper focuses on a mechanical model developed to predict the failure mode and the strength capacity of metal tie connections in masonry cavity walls. The model considers six possible failures, namely tie failure, cone break-out failure, pull-out failure, buckling failure, piercing failure and punching failure. Tie failure is a predictable quantity when the possible failure modes can be captured. The mechanical model for the ties has been validated against the outcomes of an experimental campaign conducted earlier by the authors. The mechanical model is able to capture the mean peak force and the failure mode obtained from the tests. The mechanical model can be easily adopted by practising engineers who aim to model the wall ties accurately in order to assess the strength and behaviour of the structures against earthquakes. Furthermore, the proposed mechanical model is used to extrapolate the experimental results to untested configurations, by performing parametric analyses on key parameters including a higher strength mortar of the calcium silicate brick masonry, a different cavity depth, a different tie embedment depth, and solid versus perforated clay bricks.
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The assessment of the out-of-plane response of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings with cavity walls has been a popular topic in regions such as Central and Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, China and several other countries.Cavity walls are particularly vulnerable as the out-of-plane capacity of each individual leaf is significantly smaller than the one of a solid wall. In the Netherlands, cavity walls are characterized by an inner load-bearing leaf of calcium silicate bricks, and by an outer veneer of clay bricks that has only aesthetic and insulation functions. The two leaves are typically connected by means of metallic ties. This paper utilizes the results of an experimental campaign conducted by the authors to calibrate a hysteretic model that represents the axial cyclic response of cavity wall tie connections. The proposednumerical model uses zero-length elements implemented in OpenSees with the Pinching4 constitutive model to account for the compression-tension cyclic behaviour of the ties. The numerical model is able to capture important aspects of the tie response such as the strength degradation, the unloading stiffness degradation and the pinching behaviour. The numerical modelling approach in this paper can be easily adopted by practitioner engineers who aim to model the wall ties more accurately when assessing the structures against earthquakes.
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Objective: In myocardial perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), abdominal activity often interferes with the evaluation of perfusion in the inferior wall, especially after pharmacological stress. In this randomized study, we examined the effect of carbonated water intake versus still water intake on the quality of images obtained during myocardial perfusion images (MPI) studies. Methods: A total of 467 MIBI studies were randomized into a carbonated water group and a water group. The presence of intestinal activity adjacent to the inferior wall was evaluated by two observers. Furthermore, a semiquantitative analysis was performed in the adenosine subgroup,using a count ratio of the inferior myocardial wall and adjacent abdominal activity. Results: The need for repeated SPECT in the adenosine studies was 5.3 % in the carbonated water group versus 19.4 % in the still water group (p = 0.019). The inferior wall-to-abdomen count ratio was significantly higher in the carbonated water group compared to the still water group (2.11 ± 1.00 vs. 1.72 ± 0.73, p\0.001). The effect of carbonated water during rest and after exercise was not significant. Conclusions: This randomized study showed that carbonated water significantly reduced the interference of extra-cardiac activity in adenosine SPECT MPI. Keywords: Extra-cardiac radioactivity, Myocardial SPECT, Image quality enhancement, Carbonated water
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In this paper, I explored how to research a sensitive topic such as gossip in organizations and used a narrative approach to illustrate the methodological and ethical issues that come up when considering a variety of research methods. I first attempted to conduct an ethnographic research on a project group from a Dutch university undergoing a major change. At the very beginning of the project, as a participant observer, I struggled to remain an outsider, or a “fly on the wall.” But as issues of power came into play and access became increasingly problematic, I moved towards the role of an “observing participant.” Therefore, in order to research gossip and some of the hidden dimensions of organizational life, I turned to auto- and self-ethnography as a way to regain access and greater authenticity. While following this route presented its share of ethical and methodological issues, it also provided valuable insights that could be of value to researchers attempting to study sensitive topics such as gossip in organizations. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol23/iss7/18 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominiquedarmon/
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This paper aims to analyze the behavior of experimentally tested unreinforced masonry walls subjected to in-plane loading. Monotonic load analyses are conducted using FEM and AEM modeling approaches. The models presented here are based on the assumption of both unit and mortar joints modeled as solid elements, which behave nonlinearly. Therefore, the damages occur along the mortar and brick in the analyses. The FEM analysis is carried out by using LS-DYNA, and the AEM analysis is carried out by using ELS (Extreme Loading for Structures). Experimental studies of a masonry wall in-plane loading conditions are used for verification against numerical models. Analysis of the tests performed on masonry shear walls by Raijmakers and Vermeltfoort [1] within the CUR [2] project is carried out. The presented analyses methods can be applied to other unit and mortar compositions. Computational results from this study provide a monotonic load-deformation curve, which then is compared to the envelope of the horizontal load-deformation curves that are experimentally obtained. The agreement of each method with the experimental results, in terms of strength, stiffness and ductility, as well as the predicted damage mechanisms, are discussed.
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In recent years, the number of human-induced earthquakes in Groningen, a large gas field in the north of the Netherlands, has increased. The majority of the buildings are built by using unreinforced masonry (URM), most of which consists of cavity (i.e. two-leaf) walls, and were not designed to withstand earthquakes. Efforts to define, test and standardize the metal ties, which do play an important role, are valuable also from the wider construction industry point of view. The presented study exhibits findings on the behavior of the metal tie connections between the masonry leaves often used in Dutch construction practice, but also elsewhere around the world. An experimental campaign has been carried out at Delft University of Technology to provide a complete characterization of the axial behavior of traditional connections in cavity walls. A large number of variations was considered in this research: two embedment lengths, four pre-compression levels, two different tie geometries, and five different testing protocols, including monotonic and cyclic loading. The experimental results showed that the capacity of the connection was strongly influenced by the embedment length and the geometry of the tie, whereas the applied pre-compression and the loading rate did not have a significant influence.
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