No description available.

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The effect of door and window openings on long timber framed shear walls was the subject of this thesis. Four different wall configurations containing various openings and one control wall with no openings were tested to examine ultimate load capacity and stiffness. All walls were forty feet in length and contained tie-down anchorage at the extreme ends of the wall only. Two replications of the five wall configurations were built. Each of the five wall configurations was tested using a: 1) monotonic displacement pattern and 2) sequential phased displacement pattern. A better understanding of the effect of monotonic and cyclic loading (and the relationship between the two loading types) on ultimate load capacity and stiffness for a given wall configuration were examined. To efficiently design shear walls, the effect of openings on shear wall performance must be known. This thesis adds to previous work on shear walls with openings to provide valuable information for future use. Results from this investigation are intended to provide useful information regarding performance of long shear walls with openings. Data concerning capacity, drift, elastic stiffness, and ductility are presented. Two methods of capacity prediction of shear walls with openings are examined. Sugiyama (1994) provided an empirical equation for prediction of load resistance that has been applied to capacity and is the basis for the perforated shear wall method. This thesis further validates his work to full scale long shear walls. A new method for capacity prediction was developed by the author and is also presented. / Master of Science

Two separate experiments were designed to measure urinary cyclic AMP and renal papillary cyclic AMP, respectively, Results suggest that urinary cyclic AMP excretion rate is unchanged and cannot be used as an index of tubular sensitivity to either vasopressin or fluoride. However, renal papillary tissue cyclic AMP increased significantly (p<0.05) at plasma fluoride concentrations which result in polyuric renal failure. Further, it appears that fluoride independently stimulates cyclic AMP in the papilla, demonstrated by the additive effect with vasopressin. It was postulated that the defect in water reabsorption induced by fluoride must be at a step subsequent to the generation of cyclic AMP, because one would expect to see an antidiuresis, not a diuresis with increased tissue cyclic AMP.

One of the main focus of research on multi-agent systems is that of coordination in a group of agents to solve problems that are beyond the capability of a single agent. Each agent in the multi-agent system has limited capacity and/or knowledge which makes coordination a challenging task. Applications of multi-agent systems in space and ocean exploration, military surveillance and rescue missions, require the agents to achieve some consensus in their motion. The consensus has to be achieved and maintained without a centralized controller. Multi-agent system research borrows ideas from the biological world where such motion consensus strategies can be found in the flocking of birds, schooling of fishes, and colony of ants. One such classes of strategies are the cyclic pursuit strategies which mimic the behavior of dogs, birds, ants, or beetles, where one agent pursues another in a cyclic manner, and are commonly referred to as the `bugs' problem, In the literature, cyclic pursuit laws have been applied to a swarm of homogenous agents, where there exists a predefined cyclic connection between agents and each agent follows its predecessor. At equilibrium, the agents reach consensus in relative positions. Equilibrium formation, convergence, rate of convergence, and stability are some of the aspects that have been studied under cyclic pursuit. In this thesis, the notion of cyclic pursuit has been generalized. In cyclic pursuit, usually agents are homogenous in the sense of having identical speeds and controller gains where an agent has an unique predecessor whom it follows. This is defined as the basic cyclic pursuit (BCP) and the sequence of connection among the agents is defined as the Pursuit sequence (PS). We first generalize this system by assuming heterogeneous speed and controller gains. Then, we consider a strategy where an agent can follow a weighted centroid of a group of other agents instead of a single agent. This is called centroidal cyclic pursuit (CCP). In CCP, the set of weights used by the agents are assumed to be the same. We generalize this further by considering the set of weights adopted by each agent to be different. This defines a generalized centroidal cyclic pursuit (GCCP). The behavior of the agents under BCP, CCP and GCCP are studied in this thesis. We show that a group of holonomic agents, under the cyclic pursuit laws ¡ BCP, CCP and GCCP ¡ can be represented as a linear system. The stability of this system is shown to depend on the gains of the agents. A stable system leads to a rendezvous of the agents. The point of rendezvous, also called the reachable point, is a function of the gains. In this thesis, the conditions for stability of the heterogeneous system of agents in cyclic pursuit are obtained. Also, the reachable point is obtained as a function of the controller gains. The reachable set, which is a region in space where rendezvous can occur, given the initial positions of the agents, are determined and a procedure is proposed for calculating the gains of the agents for rendezvous to occur at any desired point within the reachable set. Invariance properties of stability, reachable point and reachable set, with respect to the pursuit sequence and the weights are shown to exist for these linear cyclic pursuit laws. When the linear system is unstable, the agents are shown to exhibit directed motion. We obtain the conditions under which such directed motion is possible. The straight line asymptote to which the agents converge is characterized by the gains and the pursuit sequence of the agents. The straight lines asymptote always passes through a point, called the asymptote point, for given initial positions and gains of the agents. This invariance property of the asymptote point with respect to the pursuit sequence and the weights are proved. For non-homonymic agents, cyclic pursuit strategies give rise to a system of nonlinear state equations. It is shown that the system at equilibrium converges to a rigid polygonal formation that rotates in space. The agents move in concentric circles at equilibrium. The formation at equilibrium and the conditions for equilibrium are obtained for heterogeneous speeds and controller gains. The application of cyclic pursuit strategies to autonomous vehicles requires the satisfaction of some realistic restrictions like maximum speed limits, maximum latex limits, etc. The performances of the strategies with these limitations are discussed. It is also observed that the cyclic pursuit strategies can also be used to model some behavior of biological organisms such as schools of fishes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-101).

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1955 G35 / Master of Science

No description available.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Chemistry / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy