Delayed failure of a deep cutting in lodgement till

Recent research on the delayed failure of cuttings in clay clearly recognises and predicts progressive delayed failure of deep cuttings. This is due to a combination of strain-softening, weathering, dissipation of negative excess pore water pressure generated at the time of excavation, and frequent occurrence of prolonged periods of wet weather. There have been several slope failures of this kind in Northern Ireland. This paper discusses a case study based on a failure of a deep cutting, excavated at a slope of 1 in 2, on the A1 near Dromore (County Down) in Northern Ireland. The cutting was in lodgement till, a stiff, heavily overconsolidated clay. The failure occurred approximately 30 years after the cutting was excavated, following a prolonged period of heavy rainfall. An analysis of the failure, together with laboratory test data on soil samples taken from the site, confirmed that by using long-term soil strength parameters the factor of safety of this slope was unity. The conclusion of the analysis is that slopes excavated in this soil should be designed (and assessed) on long-term strength parameters.

Failure of Local Realism Revealed by Extremely-Coarse-Grained Measurements

We show that failure of local realism can be revealed to observers for whom only extremely-coarse-grained measurements are available. In our instances, Bell's inequality is violated even up to the maximum limit while both the local measurements and the initial local states under scrutiny approach the classical limit. Furthermore, we can observe failure of local realism when an inequality enforced by nonlocal realistic theories is satisfied. This suggests that locality alone may be violated while realism cannot be excluded for specific observables and states. Small-scale experimental demonstration of our examples may be possible in the foreseeable future.

More-than-human histories and the failure of grand state schemes: sylviculture in the New Forest, England

As James Scott’s Seeing Like a State attests, forests played a central role in the rise of the modern state, specifically as test spaces for evolving methods of managing state resources at a distance, and as the location for grand state schemes. Together, such ambitions necessitated both the elimination of local understandings of forest management – to be replaced by centrally controlled scientific precision – and a narrowing of state vision. Forests thus began to be conflated with trees (and their timber) alone. All other aspects of the forest, both human and non-human, were ignored. Through the lens of the 18th and early 19th century New Forest in southern England, this paper examines the impact of government attempts to shift the focus of state forests from being remnant medieval hunting spaces to spaces of income generation through the creation of vast sylvicultural plantations. This state scheme not only reworked the relationship between the metropole and the provinces – something effected through systematic surveys and novel bureaucratic procedures – but also dramatically impacted upon the biophysical and cultural geographies of the forest. By equating forest space with trees alone, the British state failed to legislate for the actions of both local commoners and non-human others in resisting their schemes. Indeed, subsequent oppositions proved not only the tenacity of commoners in protecting their livelihoods but also the destructive power of non-human actants, specifically rabbits and mice. The paper concludes that grand state schemes necessarily fail due to their own internal illogic: the narrowing of state vision creates blind spots in which human and non-human lives assert their own visions.

Boost radiosurgery as a strategy after failure of initial management of pediatric primitive neuroectodermal tumors Clinical article

The aim in this study was to determine the outcomes of boost stereotactic radiosurgery, specifically Gamma Knife surgery (GKS), for recurrent primitive neuroectodermal tumors (PNETs) in children in whom initial multimodality management had failed.

Scaling in the time-dependent failure of a fiber bundle with local load sharing

We study the scaling behaviors of a time-dependent fiber-bundle model with local load sharing. Upon approaching the complete failure of the bundle, the breaking rate of fibers diverges according to r(t)proportional to(T-f-t)(-xi) where T-f is the lifetime of the bundle and xi approximate to 1.0 is a universal scaling exponent. The average lifetime of the bundle [T-f] scales with the system size as N-delta, where delta depends on the distribution of individual fiber as well as the breakdown rule. [S1063-651X(99)13902-3].

Failure of fiber bundles with local load sharing

We develop a recursion-relation approach for calculating the failure probabilities of a fiber bundle with local load sharing. This recursion relation is exact, so it provides a way to test the validity of the various approximate methods. Applying the exact calculation to uniform and Weibull threshold distributions, we find that the most probable failure load coincides with the average strength as the size of the system N --> infinity.