Continuous Deterioration Research Articles

Effect of concrete strength and tensile steel reinforcement on RC beams externally bonded with fiber reinforced polymer composites: A finite element study

Due to the continual deterioration of concrete infrastructures, the construction industry faces challenges in terms of their serviceability, structural strength, and durability. Therefore, efficient rehabilitation strategies are required to enhance their performance. Externally bonding fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) have evolved as a simple and convenient retrofit technique when compared to conventional techniques of strengthening. FRPs can be powerful toolsfor strengthening concrete structural members in shear and flexure because of their exceptional mechanical characteristics. Flexural strengthening is generally achieved by externally bonding FRP strips or laminates in the soffit side of beams, resulting in improved ultimate strength and bending capacity. This study aims to conduct a numerical parametric investigation on reinforced concrete (RC) beam specimens flexurally strengthened by externally bonding FRP. Three-dimensional finite element models of four RC beams strengthened with FRP and with different concrete compressive strength and flexural steel reinforcement were developed to predict their load capacity. Models were developed and simulated using finite element software called ABAQUS. The beam behavior was evaluated with the help of different material models available in the ABAQUS library. Study considerations included concrete damage plasticity, Hashin's damage in CFRP, and perfect bonding between CFRP and concrete interfaces. The parametric study included two groups of beams: one with varying concrete compressive strength (i.e., 25 MPa and 50 MPa) and the other with varying tensile steel reinforcement (5#14 mm diameter bars and 2# 22 mm diameter bars). The ABAQUS results were verified using experimental data from the previousliteratures.The computed numerical resultsand experimental results demonstrated reasonable accuracy for load–displacement curves and ultimate load capacity. It was found that the ultimate load increased significantly in high-strength (M50) beams with a higher number and smaller diameter (5#14 mm) tensile bars. In conclusion, RC beams with more compressive strength and tensile steel reinforcement boost the effectiveness of the external bonding technique.

Awareness Assessment Study and Ways to Deepen the Knowledge and Practice of the Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were formed to continually improve the quality of life enjoyed by humanity, stabilize progress made in sustainable development advancements and prevent the continued deterioration of natural life support systems. The study looked at the level of awareness/understanding, knowledge acquired by the generality of people, and perceived importance attached to the various SDGs by stakeholder groups sampled in Port Harcourt metropolis. We administered a questionnaire to a total of three-hundred persons, and our findings show gaps between what they have heard about SDGs and what SDGs entail. Based on this evident gap, we proposed nine recommendations that can deepen the knowledge and practice of SDGs, some of which are: the establishment of sustainable development and climate change clubs in secondary schools, enhancing awareness/knowledge and practices of SDGs and their targets through facilitative workshops, expanding the sustainability pillars to six by including performance as the sixth pillar and sub-dividing them into three functional groups. Also, expounding how interrelated and interlinked the SDGs are towards marrying the need for a holistic approach and focusing on the priority SDG needs of each locality, the enactment of enabling laws, enhancing the SDG Week concept, and the intensification of stakeholder education was mentioned.

First Report of Leaf Spot and Blight on Crown Daisy Caused by Cercospora apii in China.

Crown daisy (Glebionis coronaria L.), also known as chrysanthemum greens, is a popular vegetable in Asia, especially in China. The leaves have been used in folk medicine as a tonic for the liver, blood, intestines and to control anemia and high blood pressure. In November 2020, severe leaf spot and blight was observed with 80% to 95% incidence on crown daisy growing in greenhouses in Fengxian, Shanghai, China(121°22'E, 30°53'N). Irregular rounded spots appeared with a light gray center and water-soaked margins. Round lesions enlarged and merged with age, followed by the development of a necrotic area resulting in the typical "frog-eye" and causing a continuous deterioration of crown daisy. Diseased leaves were washed in running water for 30 min. Small fragments (5 × 5 mm) taken from the margin of lesions were disinfected with 1% NaClO for 3 min, rinsed three times with sterile water, cultured on potato sucrose agar (PSA) augmented with 50 mg streptomycin/liter at 26 oC,and incubated in the dark. Colonies had identical morphology, and TH11290202 was selected and deposited in the plant pathology lab of Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Mycelium was initially cottony and white and became appressed to the medium and dark brown with time. Conidia did not form on any media, including PSA, PDA, V8 agar (V8A), maize leaf carbonate agar (MLPCA), pepper leaf carbonate agar (PLPCA), etc. To confirm the identity of the pathogen, genomic DNA was extracted from TH11290202 with the cetyltrimethylammonium ammonium bromide (CTAB) method from the mycelia. Five loci were PCR amplified, namely, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS), translation elongation factor (TEF), calmodulin (cmdA), histone (H3) and actin (ACT), using primers ITS1/ITS4 (White et al. 1990), EF1-728F/EF1-986R (Jaklitsch et al. 2005), CAL-F/CAL-R (O'Donnell et al. 2000), cylh3f/cylh3r (Glass and Donaldson 1995), and ACT-512F/ACT-783R (Carbone and Kohn 1999), respectively. The resulting sequences were deposited in GenBank (MW819910, MW981277, MW981278, ON798723, and MW981279). Analysis of the ITS, TEF, cmdA, H3 and ACT gene sequences of isolate TH11290202 revealed that it was a member of the genus Cercospora, sharing 99.79%, 99.66%, 98.10% 99.74% and 100% sequence similarity with type strain of Cercospora apii CBS 116455. A multilocus phylogenetic analysis was performed using sequences from other closely related taxa obtained from GenBank. Based on morphological and molecular characteristics, TH11290202 was identified as C. apii (Crous and Braun 2003; Groenewald et al. 2006; Milosavljević et al. 2014). To confirm pathogenicity, Koch's postulates were fulfilled on 30 mature plants, which were maintained in a growth chamber (at 26 °C, relative humidity 90%, 12/12 h light/dark). Surface-sterilized leaves were sprayed with a mycelial suspension. Brown lesions were formed 7 days after inoculation on 15 plants, whereas the noninoculated controls remained asymptomatic on the other 15 plants. To our knowledge, this is the first report of C. apii causing leaf spot and blight on G. coronaria in China and will provide useful information for developing effective control strategies.

Neurological manifestations of long COVID: clinical aspects and impact on quality of life

Recent studies indicate an extremely high prevalence of long-term neurological manifestations among COVID-19 survivors, with nearly a third of patients diagnosed with neurological or psychiatric disorders in the first 6 months after acute COVID-19. Unlike the acute neurological manifestations of COVID-19, the pathophysiological mechanisms of long COVID-19 remain poorly understood. Several studies have concluded that both the CNS and the PNS are involved in patients with long COVID. The most common neurological symptoms were fatigue, memory/attention deficits, sleep disturbances, and myalgias, with each symptom occurring in one third of patients with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. The impact of COVID-19 on patients, regardless of severity, extends beyond hospitalization for severe cases to continued deterioration in quality of life, mental health, and employment problems. Doctors' awareness of this condition, strict control of metabolic changes and risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, and effective and safe treatment of identified disorders are the main tasks in the management of patients with this pathology.

The impact of digital economy on environmental quality: Evidence from China

With the rapid development of new generation of information technology and the continuous deterioration of ecological environment, the environmental effect of digital economy has begun to receive attention. Based on panel data from 30 provinces in China during the period of 2014–2020, this study investigates the impact and mechanisms of digital economy on environmental quality using the fixed effect model and moderating effect model. The results show that the digital economy can significantly inhibit environmental pollution. The inhibitory effect of digital economy shows obvious regional heterogeneity, which is the strongest in the west, followed by the east, and the weakest in the center. The economic development level and income distribution inequality play positive and negative roles in regulating the negative linkage between digital economy and environmental pollution, respectively. The government should implement a differentiated strategy to promote the comprehensive development of digital economy and maximize its environmental effects, accelerate the integrated development of urban and rural economies through inclusive growth, and optimize the moderating effect of economic development level and income distribution inequality.

Fluorophore molecule loaded in Tb-MOF for dual-channel fluorescence chemosensor for consecutive visual detection of bacterial spores and dichromate anion

Developing multifunctional luminescent switches for detecting various poisons are urgent given the continuous deterioration of the environment. Herein, a new porous fluorescent metal–organic framework [Tb2(TPTC)(DMA)4(NO3)2]n(HPU-25) was initially designed. Then, fluorophore molecule tris(2,2′-bipyridine) dichlororuthenium(II) hexahydrate (Ru(bpy)32+) was loaded onto HPU-25 by a simple post-synthesis strategy to prepare a new ratio fluorescence sensor Ru(II)@HPU-25. As a sensor, it can detect 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylic acid (DPA) content in real-time, with high sensitivity and selectivity, without being disturbed by probe concentration and environment. Evident changes in fluorescence color and intensity are observed in distinguishing DPA contents. In addition, after detecting DPA, it can be used for consecutive visual detection of dichromate anion (Cr2O72−) in water. This multifunctional fluorescence sensor could make up for the defects of single fluorescence and single function of the traditional fluorescence sensor by using the dual strategies of ratio sensing and cascade sensing. Interestingly, DPA and Cr2O72− in samples can be visually detected rapidly in real-time through the chroma acquisition APP on smartphone. More importantly, we also designed the combination of two logic gate operations for sensing the two targets. In the poison detection in daily life, these intelligent applications of fluorescence sensors have a broad development space.

Revisiting the Green Growth Effect of Foreign Direct Investment from the Perspective of Environmental Regulation: Evidence from China.

The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) has both advanced China's economic development process and influenced the ecological quality of China's regions. Under the deepening of economic globalization and the continuous deterioration in environmental quality, the correlation mechanism between foreign direct investment, environmental regulation, and economic growth is becoming increasingly complex. Therefore, based on the slacks-based measure (SBM) model and the Global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index, this study measured the level of green economic growth using data from 30 provinces and cities from 2004-2019 and constructed a panel fixed-effect regression model to study the effect of foreign direct investment on green economic growth in China. The study found that foreign direct investment significantly promoted green economic growth in China, foreign direct investment promoted green economic growth through independent innovation and inhibited green economic growth through imitation innovation, and environmental regulation moderated the impact of foreign direct investment on green economic growth. This paper incorporated foreign direct investment, heterogeneous technological innovation, green economic growth, and environmental regulation into the research framework, and thereby further enriched and improved the research on the theoretical mechanism of green economic growth. The research conclusion clarified the influence mechanism of foreign capital on the quality of China's economic development, which was conducive to the formulation of more reasonable policies for attracting investments and to the promotion of the formation of a positive interaction mechanism between environmental regulation and foreign direct investment, which is of great practical significance for China's economy to achieve sustainable development.

CRISPRa-mediated transcriptional activation of the SlPR-1 gene in edited tomato plants

With the continuous deterioration of arable land due to an ever-growing population, improvement of crops and crop protection have a fundamental role in maintaining and increasing crop productivity. Alternatives to the use of pesticides encompass the use of biological control agents, generation of new resistant crop cultivars, the application of plant activator agrochemicals to enhance plant defenses, and the use of gene editing techniques, like the CRISPR-Cas system. Here, we test the hypothesis that epigenome editing, via CRISPR activation (CRISPRa), activate tomato plant defense genes to confer resistance against pathogen attack. We provide evidence that edited tomato plants for the PATHOGENESIS-RELATED GENE 1 gene (SlPR-1) show enhanced disease resistance to Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis infection. Resistance was assessed by evaluating disease progression and symptom appearance, pathogen accumulation, and changes in SlPR-1 gene expression at different time points. We determined that CRISPRa-edited plants develop enhanced disease-resistant to the pathogen without altering their agronomic characteristics and, above all, preventing the advancement of disease symptoms, stem canker, and plant death.

Drivers of 2015–2021 trends in cold winter surface PM2.5 in the Harbin-Changchun megalopolis in China: Meteorology vs. anthropogenic emission

Harbin-Changchun megalopolis (HCM) is a typical representative of the cold urban agglomeration region in China. Although the average annual PM2.5 concentration has experienced an evolutionary process continuous deterioration to gradual improvement in the past decade, but severe haze episodes still occur during cold winter periods. WRF-CMAQ model and observed dataset of surface PM2.5 concentration were conducted in this study to identify the drivers of 2015–2021 trends in cold winter surface PM2.5 in the HCM by separating contributions from anthropogenic emissions and meteorology changes. Meteorological condition change was the dominant driver of 2015–2021 trends in cold winter surface PM2.5 in the HCM. The years with most unfavorable, typical, and most favorable meteorological conditions for PM2.5 concentration reduction during January from 2015 to 2021 for the whole HCM region were 2020, 2017, and 2018, respectively. The major controlling meteorological factors that affect the surface PM2.5 concentration change were relative humidity, maximum wind direction and speed in cold winter in the HCM. In addition, we found that the emission cut policy began to play a practical role in the air quality improvement in the HCM from year of 2018. The emission reduction during the 2017–2021 resulted in an approximately 19% (15.7 μg/m3) decrease of PM2.5 concentrations in January. Furthermore, sensitivity experiments demonstrated that residential emission cut was the key measures for future air quality improvement in cold winter in the HCM.

Plateau Lake Water Quality and Eutrophication: Status and Challenges

The continuous and widespread deterioration of lake water quality and eutrophication is not only a local problem, but also a global phenomenon [...]

Contribution of data-driven methods to risk reduction and climate change adaptation in Hungary and beyond

Among a series of tangible phenomena related to climate change and ecosystem degradation, the severe drought damage that occurred in 2022 urges in particular a thoughtful and long-term concept to tackle and mitigate the effects of similar events. To develop this concept, in addition to taking stock of scientific results so far, it is crucial to establish the basis for mutually supportive cooperation between the sectors concerned, including agriculture, water management, and nature conservation. As confirmed by scientific knowledge, the continuous deterioration of the landscape's water retention and evapotranspiration capacity is associated with weakening the climate regulating function and the degradation of agricultural production conditions. Accordingly, the task is not to find new resources and interventions ensuring the continuation of current landscape use; the real goal is to find the landscape use (farming methods and water use) that will ensure sustainable human livelihoods and environmental conditions. All the tools and knowledge are available for the first steps and subsequent ongoing monitoring and refinement of a precautionary and prevention-based approach to support all levels of ecosystem services. With continuous professional dialogue and implementation of established and new methods, several goals can be achieved simultaneously, such as the integration of economic trends into the approach, the revitalization of Hungarian landscape culture, and hence the preservation of the rural workforce.

A Comparative Study of Preventive Maintenance Thresholds for Deteriorating Systems

Degradation of engineering systems is a phenomenon that affects the reliability and the lifetime of systems. Maintenance of deteriorating systems has been widely studied over the past 50 years. Numerous maintenance models have been proposed in the literature to manage degradation. In this paper, we focus on a condition-based maintenance strategy for those systems suffering a continuous deterioration process. We propose the use of a non-constant maintenance threshold to determine when a preventive action is required. The main goal is to analyse the effect of non-constant threshold in the long-term maintenance cost rate. We demonstrate numerically the convergence of the long run cost rate and some statistical properties of the proposed model. We compare the use of a constant threshold with a non-constant threshold through two different simulated case studies. The simulations provide some statistical results that reveals interesting advantages and drawbacks of using a non-constant threshold.

东北虎豹国家公园生态环境质量动态评价及其气候响应

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 东北虎豹国家公园生态环境质量动态评价及其气候响应 DOI: 10.5846/stxb202204130981 作者: 作者单位: 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 吉林省科技发展项目（20210203152SF）；中国气象局创新发展专项（CXFZ2021J076） Dynamic evaluation of ecological environment quality and climate response in Northeastern China Tiger and Leopard National Park Author: Affiliation: Fund Project: 省、部研究计划基金 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:人类活动及气候变化对东北虎豹国家公园生态环境产生深刻的影响，探究该地区生态环境质量的时空演变规律对园区可持续发展具有重要意义。在原有遥感生态指数基础上，选用增强型植被指数代替原绿度指标中的归一化植被指数，构建2001-2020年植被生长季遥感生态指数，探讨园区内核心保护区、虎豹潜在栖息地及主要人口聚集区三大管控区生态环境质量时空变化特征，并基于像元尺度分析其对气候因素的响应。结果表明：（1）近20年虎豹公园生态环境质量呈波动微弱下降趋势，2015年后生态环境质量逐步提升，2020年达到良好水平；（2）园区内各管控区生态环境质量具有明显的空间分异性，东部核心保护区中部及虎豹潜在栖息地中部以南地区生态环境质量较好，主要人口聚集区相对较差。（3）近20年虎豹公园生态环境质量稳定性较差。未来生态环境质量变化趋势为上升的面积占60.86%，表明未来生态环境趋势总体向好，但局部地区仍存在持续恶化态势。（4）虎豹公园生态环境质量主要受降水的影响，与降水呈显著正相关关系，与气温及日照的相关性较弱。 Abstract:Human activities and climate change have a profound impact on the ecological environment of the Northeastern China Tiger and Leopard National Park (NCTL-NP), and exploring the temporal and spatial evolution of the ecological environment quality in this area is of great significance for the sustainable development of the park. In this paper,we selected the enhanced vegetation index (EVI) to replace the NDVI in the original greenness index, and constructed the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) for the vegetation growing season from 2001 to 2020 based on the original remote sensing ecological index. Then, we analyzed the temporal and spatial variation characteristics of the ecological environment quality and their responses to climatic factors in the three major control areas of potential habitats and main population agglomeration areas based on the pixel scale. The results show that:(1) The ecological environment quality of NCTL-NP has shown a fluctuating and weak downward trend in the past 20 years. After 2015, the ecological environment quality has gradually improved and reached a good level in 2020; (2) The ecological environment quality of each control area in the park has obvious spatial heterogeneity, the quality of the ecological environment in the central part of the eastern core reserve and the southern part of the potential habitat of tigers and leopards is relatively good, while the main population agglomeration areas are relatively poor. (3) In the past 20 years, the ecological environment quality of NCTL-NP has been extremely unstable.The area with an upward trend in the quality of the ecological environment in the future accounted for 60.86%, indicating that the trend of the ecological environment in the future is generally good, but there is still a continuous deterioration trend in some areas. (4) The ecological environment quality of NCTL-NP is mainly affected by precipitation, which has a significant positive correlation with precipitation, and a weak correlation with temperature and sunshine. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

THE ROLE AND PLACE OF INFORMATION SECURITY IN THE OVERALL SYSTEM OF THE STATE'S NATIONAL SECURITY

Introduction. The state's information policy is an important component of the state's foreign and domestic policy and includes all spheres of society. The rapid development of the information sphere causes the appearance of fundamentally new threats to the interests of the individual, society, the state and its national security. The fact that the information component is a stable object of manipulation in the conditions of hybrid war adds to the acuteness of the problem. Since the difficult political situation in which Ukraine has been in recent years, the continuous deterioration of the state's reputation on the international arena is caused by a number of factors, among which the inadequate state of the information security system is a significant factor. In Ukraine, there is an objective need for state-legal regulation of scientific, technical and information activities, which would correspond to the realities of the modern world and the level of development of information technologies, the norms of international law, but at the same time effectively protect Ukraine's own national interests. Short list of main results. Summary of main results. The article examines the issue of information security as a component of the state's national security. The information security of the state is defined by the degree of its protection and the stability of the main spheres of life in relation to dangerous, destabilizing and destructive informational influences affecting the interests of the state both at the level of implementation and extraction of information. Internal and external information threats to Ukraine's national security and ways to ensure the country's information security are identified. In today's conditions, the informational component of the state's national security plays an extremely important role due to the risks and threats present in it, which include cyberterrorism, cybercrime, aggressive propaganda, the spread of anti-constitutional and anti-state slogans, limiting public access to public information, etc. Attention is focused on the fact that the state information policy should reflect the urgent problems that have arisen in the information field. Effective implementation of strategic priorities, fundamental principles and tasks of the state policy of information security requires improvement of legal and organizational mechanisms of information security management. Conclusions. The article proposes to consider information security as a necessary component of the state's national security, as well as a global problem of information protection, information space, information state sovereignty and information support for state decision-making.

402: FATAL TICK BITE

Introduction: As of 2022, there has been no fatality reported in NJ from severe Babesiosis. We present a case of Babesiosis with rapid clinical deterioration to shock and death in an immunocompetent patient despite early recognition and proper recommended treatment through multidisciplinary approach. Description: 48-year-old obese male with Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension presented to emergency department two weeks after hiking, with epigastric, non-radiating pain associated with fevers, headache, worsening fatigue, poor intake, and watery diarrhea for a week. Patient was febrile, tachypneic, hypoxic, and jaundiced. Initial bloodwork reflected leukocytosis, anemia, elevated reticulocyte count, thrombocytopenia, elevated indirect bilirubinemia, acute kidney Injury and lactic acidosis. Chest radiograph with bilateral lower lobe infiltrates. Babesia microti IgG and IgM were detected with intra and extra cellular paracitemia of 9.9%. Patient was admitted to intensive care unit for Acute respiratory, renal and liver failure. Initially started on Intravenous Azithromycin, Atovaquone and later Doxycycline and Zosyn were added given continued deterioration. Patient required mechanical ventilation and hemodialysis, steroids, Intravenous immunoglobulin. Red blood exchange therapy was completed within 12 hours of admission given high parasitemia. Despite aggressive measures during ICU stay, patient declined and expired 72 hours into hospital course. Discussion: Babesia are intraerythrocytic protozoan parasites of animals and humans, a disease transmitted by infected tick, Ixodes scapularis, which also transmits other causative agents of Lyme Disease. Babesiosis can range from mild to severe disease and death. Severity depends on babesia species, age, host immune status, route of transmission, and parasitemia level. Incidence is highest in summer months, middle-aged patients. Fatality rate reported at 3-9% in hospitalized patients, 20% among immunosuppressed or disease acquisition via blood transfusion. Clinicians need to be aware of the risk of fulminant illness when practicing in known endemic regions. It is important to keep zoonotic infections as part of differential in patient presenting with multi organ failure.

Bezpečnostná a obranná politika Európskej únie v kontexte konfliktu na Ukrajine

The security and defence policy of the European Union, which is an integral part of its foreign and security policy, currently, in a time of continuous deterioration of the security environment, security situation, and increasing tension in relations between states, especially between great powers, not only because of Russian aggression in Ukraine, represents one of the most important policies of the Union. And although some progress has been made in recent years, some initiatives have been launched and several projects are already being implemented, it is still struggling with a number of problems. Also due to insufficient support on several levels. However, the Russian attack on Ukraine was a wake-up call for most Europeans, revealing large gaps in European defence capabilities and capacities and the ability to conduct a major military operation autonomously. That is also why the author in his article, using relevant methods of interdisciplinary scientific research, deals with the issue of European security and defence in connection with the current development in the context of the conflict in Ukraine and the possible impact on its development in the future, especially from the point of view of the potential deepening of security and defence integration of European Union member states.

Prehospital Ultra-Early Neurological Deterioration in Intracerebral Hemorrhage: Definition, Prevalence, and Association with Outcomes

Introduction: The objective of this study was to define prehospital ultra-early neurological deterioration (UND) and to investigate the association with functional outcomes in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study of consecutive acute ICH patients. The stroke severity at onset and hospital admission was assessed using the Chongqing Stroke Scale (CQSS), and prehospital UND was defined as a CQSS increase of ≥2 points between symptoms onset and admission. Early neurological deterioration (END) was defined as the increase of ≥4 points in NIHSS score within the first 24 h after admission. Poor outcome was defined as a modified Rankin Scale (mRS) of 4–6 at 3 months. Results: Prehospital UND occurred in 29 of 169 patients (17.2%). Patients with prehospital UND had a median admission NIHSS score of 17.0 as opposed to those without prehospital UND with a median NIHSS score of 8.5. There were three patterns of neurological deterioration: prehospital UND only in 21 of 169 patients (12.4%), END but without prehospital UND in 20 of 169 patients (11.8%), and continuous neurological deterioration in both phases in 8 patients (4.7%). Prehospital UND was associated with worse 3-month outcomes (median mRS score, 4.0 vs. 2.0, p = 0.002). After adjusting for age, time from onset to admission, END, and systolic blood pressure, prehospital UND was an independent predictor of poor outcome (odds ratio [OR] 3.27, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.26–8.48, p = 0.015). Conclusion: Prehospital UND occurs in approximately 1 in 7 patients between symptom onset and admission and is associated with poor functional outcome in patients with ICH. Further research is needed to investigate the prehospital UND in the prehospital phase in the triage of patients with ICH.

Power Despite Precarity: Strategies for the Contingent Faculty Movement in Higher Education

Power Despite Precarity: Strategies for the Contingent Faculty Movement in Higher Education

Physiological basis and differentially expressed genes in the salt tolerance mechanism of Thalassia hemprichii.

Seagrass plays a vital role in the stability of marine ecology. The human development of marine resources has greatly affected the survival of seagrass. Seawater salinity is one of the important factors affecting its survival. Seagrass can survive in high saline environments for a long time and has evolved a variety of effective tolerance mechanisms. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying salinity tolerance by seagrass. Thalassia hemprichii is a seagrass species with a global distribution. It is also an ecologically important plant species in coastal waters. Nevertheless, the continuous environmental deterioration has gradually reduced the ecological niche of seagrasses. In this study, experiments were conducted to examine the effects of salinity changes on T. hemprichii. The result showed that the optimal salinity for T. hemprichii is 25 to 35 PSU. Although it can survive under high and low salinity, high mortality rates are common in such environments. Further analyses revealed that high salinity induces growth and developmental retardation in T. hemprichii and further causes yellowing. The parenchyma cells in T. hemprichii also collapse, the structure changes, soluble sugar accumulates rapidly, soluble proteins accumulate rapidly, the malondialdehyde (MDA) content reduces, and lipid peroxidation reduces in plant membranes. The molecular mechanisms of salt tolerance differ significantly between marine and terrestrial plants. We found 319 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). These genes regulate transport and metabolism, promoting environmental adaptation. The expression of these genes changed rapidly upon exposure of T. hemprichii to salinity stress for three hours. This is the first report on the physiological and biochemical changes and gene expression regulation of T. hemprichii under different salinity conditions. The findings of this study well deepen our understanding of T. hemprichii adaptations to changes in the shoal living environment.

Detection of River Floating Garbage Based on Improved YOLOv5

The random dumping of garbage in rivers has led to the continuous deterioration of water quality and affected people’s living environment. The accuracy of detection of garbage floating in rivers is greatly affected by factors such as floating speed, night/daytime natural light, viewing angle and position, etc. This paper proposes a novel detection model, called YOLOv5_CBS, for the detection of garbage objects floating in rivers, based on improvements of the YOLOv5 model. Firstly, a coordinate attention (CA) mechanism is added to the original C3 module (without compressing the number of channels in the bottleneck), forming a new C3-CA-Uncompress Bottleneck (CCUB) module for improving the size of the receptive field and allowing the model to pay more attention to important parts of the processed images. Then, the Path Aggregation Network (PAN) in YOLOv5 is replaced with a Bidirectional Feature Pyramid Network (BiFPN), as proposed by other researchers, to enhance the depth of information mining and improve the feature extraction capability and detection performance of the model. In addition, the Complete Intersection over Union (CIoU) loss function, which was originally used in YOLOv5 for the calculation of location score of the compound loss, is replaced with the SCYLLA-IoU (SIoU) loss function, so as to speed up the model convergence and improve its regression precision. The results, obtained through experiments conducted on two datasets, demonstrate that the proposed YOLOv5_CBS model outperforms the original YOLOv5 model, along with three other state-of-the-art models (Faster R-CNN, YOLOv3, and YOLOv4), when used for river floating garbage objects detection, in terms of the recall, average precision, and F1 score achieved by reaching respective values of 0.885, 90.85%, and 0.8669 on the private dataset, and 0.865, 92.18%, and 0.9006 on the Flow-Img public dataset.