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Military success requires retaining sufficient capable service members, but there is little research on retaining quality personnel. We propose an innovative bonus structure to retain the right quantity and quality of personnel by setting retention bonuses through a menu-of-contracts. The menu provides choices between bonus structures that encourage higher and lower quality personnel to voluntarily select the bonus structure that best reflects their perceived quality. This addresses two essential problems in military personnel research: adverse selection (making inappropriate retention decisions due to hidden quality information) and moral hazard (incentives encouraging personnel to provide less than their best eff ort). A menu-of-contracts can meet the military's retention needs without relying on past performance to measure expected future performance. This retains higher quality personnel, increases morale and improves future retention. It also induces personnel to maximize eff ort throughout their careers as they strive for the highest bonus while maintaining the perception of egalitarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the review and interpretation of data collected on welded steel moment frames (WSMFs) that were damaged in the January 17, 1994, Northridge Earthquake. The study was part of the Phase I, Task 2 SAC Steel Project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The data assessment included 89 WSMFs surveyed by structural engineers, 150 buildings covered under a survey of owners, and ground motion contour maps with the geographic distribution of all WSMF buildings surveyed. Data collected from interviews with the structural engineers familiar with the buildings and their locations were used to independently validate the database and provide guidance on its interpretation. General conclusions on the significant trends in the data are presented, along with suggested future (Phase II) data gathering and statistical analysis.

A comprehensive experimental, analytical, and parametric investigation of the performance of gypsum-roof structures under severe earthquake excitations is presented. Force-deformation hysteresis were obtained from laboratory tests of typical gypsum panels to characterize the cyclic behavior of gypsum. The tests were also used to distinguish two levels of seismic performance: damage control and life safety. A special hysteretic model was developed to model the degrading behavior of the gypsum diaphragm. The model was incorporated into a specialpurpose computer program with the ability to model inelastic in-plane diaphragm flexibility. The program was used to perform complete stiffness-degrading inelastic analysis of typical gypsum-roof structures subjected to a variety of accelerograms. The ensuing parametric study was directed at identifying a damage-based criteria for both the design of new structures and the retrofit of existing structures.