Type Of Scheme Research Articles

William Sheldon, Aldous Huxley, and the Dartington connection: Body typing schemes offer a new path to a utopian future

When George Bernard Shaw described Dartington Hall as a ‘salon in the countryside’, he was referring to the maelstrom of ideas, conversations, and experimentation around psychology, mysticism, and spirituality within the estate's larger ethos of community living and rural reform. Disenchanted with the effects of industrialization and the ravages of the First World War, American railway heiress Dorothy Whitney Elmhirst and her second husband, Leonard Elmhirst, purchased the extensive Devonshire estate in 1925 and began to encourage regular visits and social and spiritual advice from prominent British interwar intellectuals such as Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard. As the estate's activities expanded during the 1930s, Dorothy enlisted the help of visiting American constitutional psychologist William Sheldon to assess and advise upon the well-being of children attending Dartington's experimental school. Sheldon's ‘Promethean Psychology’ and ‘Somatotyping’ body classification system offered the Dartington group, a social, spiritual, and ‘scientific’ alternative to Freudian understandings of the mind. Visitors such as Huxley, decades later, relied on Sheldon's somatotyping system to fashion a utopian education in Pala (in his last novel, Island) where the population might live in nonmaterialistic cooperative harmony. Dartington's attraction to the use of Sheldon's Promethean psychology in supporting a utopian view of progressive education was as short-lived as were Pala's utopian ambitions decades later. In years to come, however, elements of Sheldon's views continued to find an audience among physical educators and sports scientists, who saw in somatotypes a useful guide for assessing talent identification and future sporting success.

Development of molecular assays for the analysis of genetic relationships of Mycoplasma iowae

Mycoplasma iowae is a worldwide spread and economically important avian pathogen that mostly infects turkeys. Currently, multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) serves as the gold standard method for strain identification in M. iowae. However, additional robust genotyping methods are required to effectively monitor M. iowae infections and conduct epidemiological investigations. The first aim of this study was to develop genotyping assays with high resolution, that specifically target M. iowae, namely a multiple-locus variable number of tandem-repeats analysis (MLVA) and a core genome multi-locus sequence typing (cgMLST) schema. The second aim was the determination of relationships among a diverse selection of M. iowae strains and clinical isolates with a previous and the newly developed assays. The MLVA was designed based on the analyses of tandem-repeat (TR) regions in the six serotype reference strains (I, J, K, N, Q and R). The cgMLST schema was developed based on the coding sequences (CDSs) common in 95% of the examined 99 isolates. The samples were submitted for a previously published MLST assay for comparison with the developed methods. Out of 94 TR regions identified, 17 alleles were selected for further evaluation by PCR. Finally, seven alleles were chosen to establish the MLVA assay. Additionally, whole genome sequence analyses identified a total of 676 CDSs shared by 95% of the isolates, all of which were included into the developed cgMLST schema. The MLVA discriminated 19 distinct genotypes (GT), while with the cgMLST assay 79 sequence types (ST) could be determined with Simpson’s diversity indices of 0.810 (MLVA) and 0.989 (cgMLST). The applied assays consistently identified the same main clusters among the diverse selection of isolates, thereby demonstrating their suitability for various genetic analyses and their ability to yield congruent results.

Genomic profiling of extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli from Pets in the United Arab Emirates: Unveiling colistin resistance mediated by mcr-1.1 and its probable transmission from chicken meat – A One Health perspective

BackgroundThe United Arab Emirates (UAE) has witnessed rapid urbanization and a surge in pet ownership, sparking concerns about the possible transfer of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from pets to humans and the environment. This study delves into the whole-genome sequencing analysis of ESBL-producing E. coli strains from healthy cats and dogs in the UAE, which exhibit multidrug resistance (MDR). Additionally, it provides a genomic exploration of the mobile colistin resistance gene mcr-1.1, marking the first instance of its detection in Middle Eastern pets. MethodsWe investigate 17 ESBL-producing E. coli strains from healthy UAE pets using WGS and bioinformatics analysis to identify genes encoding virulence factors, assign diverse typing schemes to the isolates, and scrutinize the presence of AMR genes. Furthermore, we characterized plasmid contigs housing the mcr-1.1 gene and conducted phylogenomic analysis to evaluate their relatedness to previously identified UAE isolates. ResultsOur study unveiled a variety of virulence factor-encoding genes within the isolates, with fimH emerging as the most prevalent. Regarding β-lactamase resistance genes, the blaCTX group 1 gene family predominated, with CTX-M-15 found in 52.9% (9/17) of the isolates, followed by CTX-M-55 in 29.4% (5/17). These isolates were categorized into multiple sequence types (STs), with the epidemic ST131 being the most frequent. The presence of the mcr-1.1 gene, linked to colistin resistance, was confirmed in two isolates. These isolates belonged to ST1011 and displayed distinct profiles of β-lactamase resistance genes. Phylogenomic analysis revealed close connections between the isolates and those from chicken meat in the UAE. ConclusionOur study underscores the presence of MDR ESBL-producing E. coli in UAE pets. The identification of mcr-1.1-carrying isolates warrants the urgency of comprehensive AMR surveillance and highlights the role of companion animals in AMR epidemiology. These findings underscore the significance of adopting a One Health approach to mitigate AMR transmission risks effectively.

Core-genome multilocus sequence typing and core-SNP analysis of Clostridium neonatale strains isolated in different spatio-temporal settings.

Clostridium neonatale was described as a new species within the Clostridium genus cluster I sensu stricto. It was recovered from the gut microbiota of infants and has been associated with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a severe gastrointestinal disease affecting preterm neonates. In the absence of molecular typing methods, we developed a core (cg)-genome multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme based on 48 newly sequenced and 12 publicly available genomes of C. neonatale. Using the ChewBBACA algorithm, a stable MLST scheme consisting of 2,350 target genes (with genomes having ≥95% cgMLST targets) is proposed. The strains are distributed among five clades, and while some are clonality related within clades, the C. neonatale strain distribution is independent of geographic or temporal clustering. When considering strains isolated from patients with and without NEC, there were no observable differences in clustering. When compared to a core-single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis approach (31,248 positions), we showed that both cgMLST and cgSNP have comparable genetic discrimination of strains. In this study, we validated the use of cgMLST and cgSNP-based typing methods for the genetic comparison of clinical isolates of C. neonatale, which will allow for future surveillance and epidemiological clinical investigations of this potential opportunistic pathogen.IMPORTANCEClostridium neonatale has been isolated from the fecal samples of asymptomatic neonates and cases of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Taking advantage of a large collection of independent strains isolated from different spatio-temporal settings, we developed and established a cgMLST scheme for the molecular typing of C. neonatale. Both the cgMLST and cgSNP methods demonstrate comparable discrimination power. Results indicate geographic- and temporal- independent clustering of C. neonatale NEC-associated strains. No specific cgMLST clade of C. neonatale was genetically associated with NEC.

Evolving the Era of 5D Ultrasound? A Systematic Literature Review on the Applications for Artificial Intelligence Ultrasound Imaging in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has gained prominence in medical imaging, particularly in obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), where ultrasound (US) is the preferred method. It is considered cost effective and easily accessible but is time consuming and hindered by the need for specialized training. To overcome these limitations, AI models have been proposed for automated plane acquisition, anatomical measurements, and pathology detection. This study aims to overview recent literature on AI applications in OB/GYN US imaging, highlighting their benefits and limitations. For the methodology, a systematic literature search was performed in the PubMed and Cochrane Library databases. Matching abstracts were screened based on the PICOS (Participants, Intervention or Exposure, Comparison, Outcome, Study type) scheme. Articles with full text copies were distributed to the sections of OB/GYN and their research topics. As a result, this review includes 189 articles published from 1994 to 2023. Among these, 148 focus on obstetrics and 41 on gynecology. AI-assisted US applications span fetal biometry, echocardiography, or neurosonography, as well as the identification of adnexal and breast masses, and assessment of the endometrium and pelvic floor. To conclude, the applications for AI-assisted US in OB/GYN are abundant, especially in the subspecialty of obstetrics. However, while most studies focus on common application fields such as fetal biometry, this review outlines emerging and still experimental fields to promote further research.

KC-GEE: knowledge-based conditioning for generative event extraction

AbstractEvent extraction is an important, but challenging task. Many existing techniques decompose it into event and argument detection/classification subtasks, which are complex structured prediction problems. Generation-based extraction techniques lessen the complexity of the problem formulation and are able to leverage the reasoning capabilities of large pretrained language models. However, they still suffer from poor zero-shot generalizability and are ineffective in handling long contexts such as documents. We propose a generative event extraction model, KC-GEE, that addresses these limitations. A key contribution of KC-GEE is a novel knowledge-based conditioning technique that injects the schema of candidate event types as the prefix into each layer of an encoder-decoder language model. This enables effective zero-shot learning and improves supervised learning. Our experiments on two benchmark datasets demonstrate the strong performance of our KC-GEE model. It achieves particularly strong results in the challenging document-level extraction task and in the zero-shot learning setting, outperforming state-of-the-art models by up to 5.4 absolute F1 points.

Motivic Atiyah-Segal Completion Theorem

Abstract Let $T$ be a torus, $X$ a smooth separated scheme of finite type equipped with a $T$-action, and $[X/T]$ the associated quotient stack. Given any localizing ${\mathbb {A}}^{1}$-homotopy invariant of dg categories $E$ (homotopy $K$-theory, algebraic $K$-theory with coefficients, étale $K$-theory with coefficients, $l$-adic algebraic $K$-theory, $l$-adic étale $K$-theory, semi-topological $K$-theory, topological $K$-theory, periodic cyclic homology, etc), we prove that the derived completion of $E([X/T])$ at the augmentation ideal $I$ of the representation ring $R(T)$ of $T$ agrees with the classical Borel construction associated to the $T$-action on $X$. Moreover, for certain localizing ${\mathbb {A}}^{1}$-homotopy invariants, we extend this result to the case of a linearly reductive group scheme $G$. As a first application, we obtain an alternative proof of Krishna’s completion theorem in algebraic $K$-theory, of Thomason’s completion theorem in étale $K$-theory with coefficients, and also of Atiyah-Segal’s completion theorem in topological $K$-theory (for those topological $M$-spaces $X^{\textrm {an}}$ arising from analytification; $M$ is a(ny) maximal compact Lie subgroup of $G^{\textrm {an}}$). These alternative proofs lead to a spectral enrichment of the corresponding completion theorems and also to the following improvements: in the case of Thomason’s completion theorem the base field $k$ no longer needs to be separably closed, and in the case of Atiyah-Segal’s completion theorem the topological $M$-space $X^{\textrm {an}}$ no longer needs to be compact and the $M$-equivariant topological $K$-theory groups of $X^{\textrm {an}}$ no longer need to be finitely generated over the representation ring $R(M)$. As a second application, we obtain new completion theorems in $l$-adic étale $K$-theory, in semi-topological $K$-theory and also in periodic cyclic homology. As a third application, we obtain a description of the different equivariant cohomology groups in the literature (motivic, $l$-adic, morphic, Betti, de Rham, etc) in terms of derived completion. Finally, in two appendixes of independent interest, we extend a result of Weibel on homotopy $K$-theory from the realm of schemes to the broad setting of quotient stacks and establish some useful properties of semi-topological $K$-theory.

The Molecular Genetic Epidemiology and Antimicrobial Resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae Strains Obtained from Clinical Isolates in Central Panama.

We aim to analyze Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolates in central Panama, characterize the associated gonococcal antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and conduct molecular epidemiology and genetic typing. We conducted a retrospective study based on N. gonorrhoeae hospital isolates collected between 2013 and 2018. AMR was determined using dilution agar and Etest®. Molecular typing was conducted using the Multilocus Sequence Typing (ST) scheme. The isolates analyzed (n = 30) showed resistance to penicillin (38%), tetracycline (40%), and ciprofloxacin (30%), and sensitivity to extended-spectrum cephalosporins and azithromycin. We identified 11 STs, the most frequent of which was ST1901 among the strains with decreased sensitivity and resistance to three types of antibiotics. We identified eight variations for the penA gene, all non-mosaic, with type II LVG as the most frequent (50%). To the best of our knowledge, we conducted the first Central American genomic study that analyzes a collection of gonococcal isolates, which represents a benchmark for future epidemiological and molecular genetic studies. The high prevalence of ciprofloxacin, tetracycline, and penicillin resistance, in addition to the identification of the worldwide spread of multidrug-resistant clone ST1901, should prompt the continuous and reinforced surveillance of AMR, including the molecular epidemiology of N. gonorrhoeae in Panama.

A core-genome multilocus sequence typing scheme for the detection of genetically related Streptococcus pyogenes clusters.

The recently observed increase in invasive Streptococcus pyogenes infections causes concern in Europe. However, conventional molecular typing methods lack discriminatory power to aid investigations of outbreaks caused by S. pyogenes. Therefore, there is an urgent need for high-resolution molecular typing methods to assess genetic relatedness between S. pyogenes isolates. In the current study, we aimed to develop a novel high-resolution core-genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) scheme for S. pyogenes and compared its discriminatory power to conventional molecular typing methods. The cgMLST scheme was designed with the commercial Ridom SeqSphere+ software package. To define a cluster threshold, the scheme was evaluated using publicly available data from nine defined S. pyogenes outbreaks in the United Kingdom. The cgMLST scheme was then applied to 23 isolates from a suspected S. pyogenes outbreak and 117 S. pyogenes surveillance isolates both from the Netherlands. MLST and emm-typing results were used for comparison to cgMLST results. The allelic differences between isolates from defined outbreaks ranged between 6 and 31 for isolates with the same emm-type, resulting in a proposed cluster threshold of <5 allelic differences out of 1,095 target loci. Seven out of twenty-three (30%) isolates from the suspected outbreak had an allelic difference of <2, thereby identifying a potential cluster that could not be linked to other isolates. The proposed cgMLST scheme shows a higher discriminatory ability when compared to conventional typing methods. The rapid and simple analysis workflow allows for extended detection of clusters of potential outbreak isolates and surveillance and may facilitate the sharing of sequencing results between (inter)national laboratories.

Advances in immunotyping of colorectal cancer.

Immunotherapy has transformed treatment for various types of malignancy. However, the benefit of immunotherapy is limited to a minority of patients with mismatch-repair-deficient (dMMR) and microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) (dMMR-MSI-H) colorectal cancer (CRC). Understanding the complexity and heterogeneity of the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) and identifying immune-related CRC subtypes will improve antitumor immunotherapy. Here, we review the current status of immunotherapy and typing schemes for CRC. Immune subtypes have been identified based on TIME and prognostic gene signatures that can both partially explain clinical responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors and the prognosis of patients with CRC. Identifying immune subtypes will improve understanding of complex CRC tumor heterogeneity and refine current immunotherapeutic strategies.

Tate Duality in Positive Dimension over Function Fields

We extend the classical duality results of Poitou and Tate for finite discrete Galois modules over local and global fields (local duality, nine-term exact sequence, etc.) to all affine commutative group schemes of finite type, building on the recent work of Česnavičius (“Poitou-Tate without restrictions on the order,” 2015) extending these results to all finite commutative group schemes. We concentrate mainly on the more difficult function field setting, giving some remarks about the number field case along the way.

Vaccination of poultry against highly pathogenic avian influenza - part 1. Available vaccines and vaccination strategies.

Several vaccines have been developed against highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), mostly inactivated whole-virus vaccines for chickens. In the EU, one vaccine is authorised in chickens but is not fully efficacious to stop transmission, highlighting the need for vaccines tailored to diverse poultry species and production types. Off-label use of vaccines is possible, but effectiveness varies. Vaccines are usually injectable, a time-consuming process. Mass-application vaccines outside hatcheries remain rare. First vaccination varies from in-ovo to 6 weeks of age. Data about immunity onset and duration in the target species are often unavailable, despite being key for effective planning. Minimising antigenic distance between vaccines and field strains is essential, requiring rapid updates of vaccines to match circulating strains. Generating harmonised vaccine efficacy data showing vaccine ability to reduce transmission is crucial and this ability should be also assessed in field trials. Planning vaccination requires selecting the most adequate vaccine type and vaccination scheme. Emergency protective vaccination is limited to vaccines that are not restricted by species, age or pre-existing vector-immunity, while preventive vaccination should prioritise achieving the highest protection, especially for the most susceptible species in high-risk transmission areas. Model simulations in France, Italy and The Netherlands revealed that (i) duck and turkey farms are more infectious than chickens, (ii) depopulating infected farms only showed limitations in controlling disease spread, while 1-km ring-culling performed better than or similar to emergency preventive ring-vaccination scenarios, although with the highest number of depopulated farms, (iii) preventive vaccination of the most susceptible species in high-risk transmission areas was the best option to minimise the outbreaks' number and duration, (iv) during outbreaks in such areas, emergency protective vaccination in a 3-km radius was more effective than 1- and 10-km radius. Vaccine efficacy should be monitored and complement other surveillance and preventive efforts.

HRM Accuracy and Limitations as a Species Typing Tool for Leishmania Parasites.

High Resolution Melting Analysis (HRM) has been pointed out as a suitable alternative method to detect and identify Leishmania species. Herein, we aimed to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and limitations of a HSP70-HRM protocol both as a diagnostic scheme applied in clinical samples and as a species typing tool for laboratory research and reference services. Our data reveal the pronounced species-typing potential of the HSP70-HRM in DNA from cultured parasites. For clinical samples, however, we advise caution due to parasite load-dependent accuracy. In light of these findings and considering the importance of parasite load determination for clinical and research purposes, we recommend the integration of the presented typing scheme and the previously published Leishmania quantifying approach as combined tools for clinicians, surveillance, and research.

Numerical analysis of the SAV scheme for the EMAC formulation of the time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations

In this work, motivated by the scalar auxiliary variable (SAV) method, we construct the first-order implicit–explicit type scheme for the EMAC formulation of the time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations. This scheme is linear and only requires solving a series of Stokes type equations with constant coefficients at each time step. What is more, the stability is given out without any condition on the time step, where the Gronwall’s constant does not dependent on the Reynolds number. Especially, this scheme also conserves momentum and angular momentum in the fully discrete case with only weakly enforced divergence constraint. Furthermore, we give out the priori error estimates for the velocity. Finally, we carry out several numerical tests to confirm the theoretical results and the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Phenotypic and genotypic characterization of Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolates from Yaoundé, Cameroon, 2019 to 2020.

This study investigated antimicrobial resistance (AMR) phenotypes and genotypes exhibited by Neisseria gonorrhoeae from Yaoundé, Cameroon. AMR to tetracycline, penicillin and ciprofloxacin was observed although none of the isolates had reduced susceptibility to azithromycin, cefixime or ceftriaxone. Whole genome sequence (WGS) data were obtained and, using a threshold of 300 or fewer locus differences in the N. gonorrhoeae core gene multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) scheme, four distinct core genome lineages were identified. Publicly available WGS data from 1355 gonococci belonging to these four lineages were retrieved from the PubMLST database, allowing the Cameroonian isolates to be examined in the context of existing data and compared with related gonococci. Examination of AMR genotypes in this dataset found an association between the core genome and AMR with, for example, isolates belonging to the core genome group, Ng_cgc_300 : 21, possessing GyrA and ParC alleles with amino acid substitutions conferring high-level resistance to ciprofloxacin while lineages Ng_cgc_300 : 41 and Ng_cgc_300 : 243 were predicted to be susceptible to several antimicrobials. A core genome lineage, Ng_cgc_300 : 498, was observed which largely consisted of gonococci originating from Africa. Analyses from this study demonstrate the advantages of using the N. gonorrhoeae cgMLST scheme to find related gonococci to carry out genomic analyses that enhance our understanding of the population biology of this important pathogen.

DEVELOPMENT AND PILOT VALIDATION OF A NOVEL PCR-BASED REPLICON TYPING SCHEME FOR PLASMID FAMILIES ASSOCIATED WITH ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE IN PSEUDOMONAS SPP.

Background. Pseudomonas species are ubiquitous environmental Gram-negative bacteria increasingly associated with difficult to treat healthcare-associated infections. Along with their substantial intrinsic antimicrobial resistance, the ability to acquire additional resistance and pathogenicity determinants contributes to increased morbidity and mortality. Plasmids represent the major vehicles of gene transfer among hospital strains. Accumulation and dissemination of resistance genes through horizontal gene transfer is exceptionally problematic since it leads to the emergence of multi-resistant and stable phenotypes highlighting the importance of novel tools for studying plasmid epidemiology. Materials and Methods. In this study we introduce a novel PCR-based replicon typing (PBRT) scheme for differentiation of various Pseudomonas spp. plasmid families requiring only two multiplex PCR (mPCR) assays. mPCR 1 is composed of previously published primer sets for IncP-1, IncP-7, IncP-9, IncQ, A/C, N, W, IncU. Primers for multiplex PCR 2 were designed after an in-depth in-silico bioinformatic analysis of the repA gene of more than 50 reference IncP-2, IncP-6, IncP-10, pKLC102-like and pMOS94-like plasmids some of which studied for the first time as a group. Results. The scheme was tested on a set of 90 previously genotyped multi-resistant clinical Pseudomonas spp. isolates. The detection rate of the target plasmid families was low in our strain collection. Replicons were registered in only 3/90 isolates from the IncP-7 (n=1), IncP-10 (n=1), and pMOS94-like (n=1) families. This pilot study demonstrates a novel PBRT scheme applicable to Pseudomonas spp. targeting plasmids of incompatibility groups known to harbour genes associated with antibiotic resistance.

Characterization Integrons and Gene Cassettes in Trimethoprim/Sulfamethoxazole-resistant Stenotrophomonas maltophilia

Background: Integrons in Stenotrophomonas maltophilia are the major mechanism for trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) resistance. Molecular epidemiology of S. maltophilia with integrons has not been studied till now, and gene cassettes of the integron in S. maltophilia may change with time. Aim: Molecular typing and interrelatedness between TMP/SMX-resistant S. maltophilia (TSRSM) isolates in a hospital in 2017 were analyzed and gene context of cassettes in integrons was studied. Methods: Molecular typing was determined through a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme, while pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was used for relatedness analysis of TSRSM with integrons. Mapping of gene cassettes in the integron was also performed through sequencing. Results: From 214 S. maltophilia isolates collected in 2017, 34 of them (15.9%) were TSRSM. A total of 20 (58.8%) from 34 TSRSM isolates harboring the class 1 integron were analyzed. The MLST analysis revealed 11 different sequence types, 5 out of which were novel STs (ST 830, ST 833, ST 836, ST 837, and ST 839), suggesting a wide genetic diversity. There were two clones with intrahospital dissemination between different hospital settings, according to PFGE. Mapping of gene cassettes of the integron revealed four novel combinations of multiresistance genes (aacA4-aadA5, aacA7-catB, cmlA10-aadA2, and aacA4-aphA15-catB3), indicating the continued evolutionary change of the gene cassettes. Conclusion: Evidence of clonal transmission within the hospital and continuous change of multiresistant gene combinations in the cassettes of the integron showed that S. maltophilia with resistance integrons may play a role in the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

Численная идентификация показателей коррозии при оценке технического состояния оборудования

The method is presented in the article concerning numerical identification of corrosion and corrosion resistance of metals, which serves to determine the degree of hazard of the corrosive state of technical devices of hazardous production facilities. Currently, the causes of metal failure are determined by metallography, radiography, ultrasonic, color, magnetic particle inspection or sample testing. Risk of the development of corrosion processes, depending on the type of corrosion, the characteristics of its shape, the depth of corrosion damage and the area of the affected surfaces, is determined visually or by the instrumental detection methods. Numerical identification of the indicators of corrosion and corrosion resistance of metals, proposed in the work, is carried out taking into account the location of the corrosion process, the form of corrosion damage, the size, unevenness and depth of penetration of various types of corrosion, the degree of damage to the surface by uniform and local corrosion (spots, ulcers, pitting). At the same time, according to the initial size of surface and deep corrosion, the actual size of the corrosion wear of a structural element is determined, and according to the scheme of a typical type and characteristic of the form of corrosion damage, the type of corrosion is determined. Further, taking into account the corrosion hazard score in accordance with the scale of corrosion resistance, a numerical indicator of corrosion and corrosion resistance of the structural metal is determined. Studies showed that the numerical identification of the indicators of corrosion and corrosion resistance of metals makes it possible to match the type of corrosion and the characteristics of the form of corrosion damage with the corrosion coefficient depending on the scheme of a typical type of corrosion damage. In addition, numerical identification shows the extent of damage to the surface by uniform and localized corrosion, including spots, pitting and other types of corrosion. Thus, it is applicable to determine the degree of corrosion hazard in assessing the technical condition and establishing the service life at any stage of the life cycle of equipment in hazardous industries.

Cyclic Stress–Strain Behavior and Model for FRP-Confined Engineered Cementitious Composite

A fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) confined engineered cementitious composite (ECC) column as a new high-performance composite member achieves significant ductility. Understanding its cyclic behavior is necessary to guide seismic design. This paper presents an experimental study on the compressive behavior of large rupture strain (LRS) FRP and traditional glass FRP (GFRP) jacketed ECC cylinders subjected to full and partial cyclic loadings. Effects of FRP confinement level, FRP type, and loading scheme on the failure pattern, stress–strain relationship, ultimate condition, plastic strain, and stress deterioration ratio were examined. Existing equations for plastic strain and stress deterioration ratio of the envelope and internal cycles were evaluated. Based on the experimental results, new calculation formulas were derived for the plastic strain and stress deterioration ratio. A threshold involving partial unloading/reloading factors was determined to define the effective cycles. In addition, a cyclic model composed of a monotonic envelope model and an unloading/reloading model was developed for estimating the stress–strain hysteresis loops of both GFRP- and LRS FRP-confined ECC cylinders.

Space-Time Patterns of Poultry Pathogens in the USA: A Case Study of Ornithobacterium rhinotracheale and Pasteurella multocida in Turkey Populations.

Respiratory infections caused by Ornithobacterium rhinotrachealis (ORT) and Pasteurella multocida (PM) bacteria are significant threats to the poultry industry by causing economic losses and welfare issues. Due to characterization difficulties and underutilization of epidemiological tools, description of the spatio-temporal spread of these diseases in the field is limited. The objectives of this retrospective observational cross-sectional study were to (a) investigate the existence of space-time clusters (hotspots); and (b) investigate the association between genetic similarity and spatial proximity for both pathogens using molecular typing and a recently developed Core-Genome Multilocus Sequencing Typing (cgMLST) scheme. ORT (n = 103) and PM (n = 69) isolates from confirmed disease outbreaks from one commercial company between 2013 and 2021 were obtained from a veterinary diagnostic laboratory, characterized using a cgMLST scheme and visualized using a minimum spanning tree. Spatio-temporal cluster analysis using SaTScanTM and a Spearman's rank correlation were performed to investigate clustering and any association between allelic diversity and geospatial distance. The cgMLST sequencing revealed three allelic clusters for ORT and thirteen clusters for PM. The spatio-temporal analysis revealed two significant clusters for PM, one with a 259.3 km cluster containing six cases between May and July 2018 and a 9 km cluster containing five cases between February 2019 and February 2021. No spatio-temporal clusters were found for ORT. A weak negative correlation between allelic diversity and geospatial distance was observed for ORT (r = -0.04, p < 0.01) and a weak positive correlation was observed for PM (r = 0.11, p < 0.01). This study revealed regional spatio-temporal clusters for PM in commercial turkey sites between 2018 and 2021 and provided additional insight into bacterial strain subgroups and the geographical spread of ORT and PM over time.