WOODEN STRUCTURES

The NMIT Arts & Media Building in Nelson, New Zealand is the first in a new generation of multi-storey timber structures. It employs a number of innovative timber technologies including an advanced damage avoidance earthquake design that is a world first for a timber building. Aurecon structural engineers are the first to use this revolutionary Pres-Lam technology developed at the University of Canterbury

What Does Tolerance Mean for Animal Disease Dynamics When Pathology Enhances Transmission?

Host competence, or how well an individual transmits pathogens, varies substantially within and among animal populations. As this variation can alter the course of epidemics and epizootics, revealing its underlying causes will help predict and control the spread of disease. One host trait that could drive heterogeneity in competence is host tolerance, which minimizes fitness losses during infection without decreasing pathogen load. In many cases, tolerance should increase competence by extending infectious periods and enabling behaviors that facilitate contact among hosts. However, we argue that the links between tolerance and competence are more varied. Specifically, the different physiological and behavioral mechanisms by which hosts achieve tolerance should have a range of effects on competence, enhancing the ability to transmit pathogens in some circumstances and impeding it in others. Because tissue-based pathology (damage) that reduces host fitness is often critical for pathogen transmission, we focus on two mechanisms that can underlie tolerance at the tissue level: damage-avoidance and damage-repair. As damage-avoidance reduces transmission-enhancing pathology, this mechanism is likely to decrease host competence and pathogen transmission. In contrast, damage-repair does not prevent transmission-relevant pathology from occurring. Rather, damage-repair provides new, healthy tissues that pathogens can exploit, likely extending the infectious period and increasing host competence. We explore these concepts through graphical models and present three disease systems in which damage-avoidance and damage-repair alter host competence in the predicted directions. Finally, we suggest that by incorporating these links, future theoretical studies could provide new insights into infectious disease dynamics and host–pathogen coevolution.

Damage Avoidance Self-Centering Steel Moment Resisting Frames (MRFs) Using Innovative Resilient Slip Friction Joints (RSFJs)

Higher seismic performance can be achieved by localizing the inelastic deformation in the connections (fuses) and minimizing the residual drift that are often a determining factor in whether a structure can be repaired or re-occupied after an earthquake. This paper introduces the self-centering damage avoidance steel Moment Resisting Frames (MRFs) using innovative Resilient Slip Friction Joints (RSFJs). The RSFJ provides self-centering and energy dissipation in one compact package requiring no post-event maintenance. In this concept, the beam is connected to the column through a pinned joint at the top, an RSFJ at the bottom and a slotted web plate for transferring the shear forces, when required. The RSFJ allows for gap opening in the connection upon loading and then re-centers the system when unloading. Furthermore, a secondary fuse within the RSFJ is considered to keep maintaining a ductile behavior in the system in case of an earthquake larger than the design earthquake. The conducted experimental tests confirmed the outcomes of this study.