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Environmental contamination with heavy metals is a threat to the organisms due to their toxicity, persistence and bioaccumulation in food chains. The study was aimed to assess cadmium (Cd) effect on calcium (Ca) level in bones of a freshwater fish Channa gachua. 42 fish individuals were kept into six (6) aquaria; labelled aq.0, 1, 2, 3,4 and 5 in the laboratory for treatment. Aq.0 was control group and aq.1, 2,3,4,5 were experimental with treatment solution of Cd 0, 0.1ppm, 0.5ppm, 1ppm, 2.5ppm and 5ppm respectively for three months. After exposure, bones tissue were examined for Cd accumulation and Ca concentration. Highest accumulation of Cd were recorded in aq.5 mean 46.86 ± 0.46 mgkg-1 .and lowest in the control group with mean 0.61 ± 0.06 mgkg-1. The order of Cd bioaccumulation in bones were aq.5 > aq.4 >aq.3 > aq.2 > aq.1 > aq.0. Highest concentration of Ca were noted in aq.0 (Control group) mean 7888.06 ± 4827.22 mgkg-1 and lowest were 1132.36 ± 203.73 mgkg-1 in aq.5 (at 5.0 ppm). Generally a pattern of decreasing Ca level were observed with each rise of Cd bioaccumulation aq.0 > aq.1 > aq.2 > aq.3 > aq.4 > aq.5. Current study indicated that Cd accumulation have substantial effect on Ca level in bones and hence on skeleton system. Strict rules must be implemented by government to control metals pollution and exploitations of biota. Resumo A contaminação ambiental com metais pesados é uma ameaça aos organismos devido à sua toxicidade, persistência e bioacumulação nas cadeias alimentares. O estudo teve como objetivo avaliar o efeito do Cd sobre o nível de Ca em ossos de peixes de água doce Channa gachua. Quarenta e dois indivíduos de peixes foram mantidos em seis aquários; marcado aq. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 e 5 no laboratório para tratamento. Aq. 0 foi o grupo controle e aq. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 foram experimentais com solução de tratamento de Cd 0, 0,1 ppm, 0,5 ppm, 1 ppm, 2,5 ppm e 5 ppm respectivamente por três meses. Após a exposição, o tecido ósseo foi examinado quanto ao acúmulo de Cd e concentração de Ca. O maior acúmulo de Cd foi registrado em aq. 5 com média de 46,86 ± 0,46 mgkg-1 e o menor no grupo controle com média de 0,61 ± 0,06 mgkg-1. A ordem de bioacumulação de Cd nos ossos foi aq. 5 > aq. 4 > aq. 3 > aq. 2 > aq. 1 > aq. 0. A concentração mais alta de Ca foi observada em aq. 0 (grupo controle) média de 7.888,06 ± 4.827,22 mgkg-1 e a mais baixa foi de 1.132,36 ± 203,73 mgkg-1 em aq. 5 (a 5,0 ppm). Geralmente um padrão de diminuição do nível de Ca foi observado com cada aumento da bioacumulação de Cd aq. 0 > aq. 1 > aq. 2 > aq. 3 > aq. 4 > aq. 5. O estudo atual indicou que o acúmulo de Cd tem efeito substancial no nível de Ca nos ossos e, portanto, no sistema esquelético. Regras estritas devem ser implementadas pelo governo para controlar a poluição por metais e a exploração da biota.

In this article, we propose a new technique based on 2-D shifted Legendre poly?nomials through the operational matrix integration method to find the numeri?cal solution of the stochastic heat equation with Neumann boundary conditions. For the proposed technique, the convergence criteria and the error estima?tion are also discussed in detail. This new technique is tested with two exam?ples, and it is observed that this method is very easy to handle such problems as the initial and boundary conditions are taken care of automatically. Also, the time complexity of the proposed approach is discussed and it is proved to be O[k(N + 1)4] where N denotes the degree of the approximate function and k is the number of simulations. This method is very convenient and efficient for solving other partial differential equations.

Twitter can supply useful information on infrastructure impacts to the emergency managers during major disasters, but it is time consuming to filter through many irrelevant tweets. Previous studies have identified the types of messages that can be found on social media during disasters, but few solutions have been proposed to efficiently extract useful ones. We present a framework that can be applied in a timely manner to provide disaster impact information sourced from social media. The framework is tested on a well-studied and data-rich case of Hurricane Harvey. The procedures consist of filtering the raw Twitter data based on keywords, location, and tweet attributes, and then applying the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) to separate the tweets from the disaster affected area into categories (topics) useful to emergency managers. The LDA revealed that out of 24 topics found in the data, nine were directly related to disaster impacts—for example, outages, closures, flooded roads, and damaged infrastructure. Features such as frequent hashtags, mentions, URLs, and useful images were then extracted and analyzed. The relevant tweets, along with useful images, were correlated at the county level with flood depth, distributed disaster aid (damage), and population density. Significant correlations were found between the nine relevant topics and population density but not flood depth and damage, suggesting that more research into the suitability of social media data for disaster impacts modeling is needed. The results from this study provide baseline information for such efforts in the future.

Introduction: In hydrological studies, time series are observed as continuous or discrete. Groundwater level and rainfall can be considered as discrete time series. The most common way to measure the dependence between two variables in a discrete time series is to calculate the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). Pearson correlation test is a parametric test that quantitatively measures the linear relationship between variables. This coefficient is essentially a dimensionless index that describes the relationship between two variables numerically. The groundwater level is more or less influenced by rainfall, and this influence may be delayed for a variety of reasons. The process of comparing two time series in different time steps is called cross-correlation. In the cross-correlation analysis, the time-dependent relationship between the dependent and the independent variables is analyzed by computing the coefficients of cross-correlation for various time lags. Results are plotted on a graph called a cross-correlogram.Mashhad-Chenaran aquifer with an area of about 2527 km2 is the most important aquifer in Khorasan Razavi province. Unfortunately, so far in the Mashhad-Chenaran aquifer, the recharge lag time has not been calculated due to the very complex geological and hydrogeological conditions of the aquifer. In this study, an attempt has been made to calculate the groundwater recharge lag time.Materials and Methods: In this study, 15 years (Sep. 2001 to Sep. 2016) data of monthly depth to water-table and rainfall have been used . There is 74 active observation well in Mashhad-Chenaran aquifer. Out of 74 wells, 31 well were selected based on geological and hydrogeological conditions. To calculate the rainfall at the observation wells, the daily rainfall data from rain gauge and evaporation stations (25 rain gauge stations and 9 evaporator stations) have been used. First, the cumulative daily rainfall at each station for one month (from 15 months to 15 months later) was calculated. Then, a monthly rainfall raster was prepared using ArcGIS.Finally, the rainfall at the observation well was extracted from the raster file.Results and Discussion: The correlation coefficient between the groundwater level and rainfall was calculated for the 31 wells at two confidence levels (α = 0.05 and α = 0.1). The lag time was calculated based on the highest correlation coefficient for the two confidence levels. Results showed that the cross-correlation coefficient varied from at least 0.129 in the Tanglshour-Morgh Pardak observation well (very weak) to 0.495 in the Kalateh Sheikhha observation well (moderate). The coefficients of cross-correlation for various time lags were plotted on the cross-correlogram. In cross-correlogram, the month zero was equivalent to October and the month 11 was equivalent to September of the next year. It was observed that the trend of correlation coefficient followed the two specific patterns. In the first group, the water table usually reacts to rainfall after the second month. Then, the correlation coefficient gradually increased. The correlation coefficient reached its maximum in the fourth and fifth months and then decreased with a gentle slope. From the seventh month to the eleventh month the correlation coefficient has become negative. Although there was a significant relationship during these months, there was no cause-and-effect relationship between changes in the water table and rainfall. In the second group, the relationship between the groundwater level and rainfall was not significant at the 95% confidence level. This group includes Doghai observation wells, Qarachah, Shurcheh, Mochenan, Yekehlengeh, Chamgard, Ghahghahe, Tangleshour - Morgh Pardak, and Shorcheh. Changes in the correlation coefficient of these wells were very irregular and the relationship between rainfall and water table changes was probably influenced by other factors. The map of lag time showed that the spatial variations of the lag time completely followed the pattern of the Iso-depth map. In general, the lag time was a function of the depth to the water-table in the Mashhad-Chenaran aquifer. With increasing water depth, the lag time also increased. A closer look at the map showed that in the northern and southern margins of the first hydrogeological unit, the lag time was more than its center. In the northern and southern hydrogeological units, the lag time showed the greatest compliance with the groundwater depth. The amount of lag time from the northern margin of the aquifer to the south gradually increased and finally reached its maximum value in the Akhlamad, Torqabeh-Shandiz.Conclusion: As discussed previously, the groundwater level was influenced by rainfall, and this influence may be delayed for a variety of reasons. In this study, the groundwater response to rainfall has been estimated from 31 observation wells by cross-correlation method in a period of 15 years (Sep. 2001 to Sep. 2016). The correlation test results showed that after about 2 to 3 months, the effect of rainfall was gradually observed on the groundwater level and the correlation coefficient at the confidence level α = 0.05 and α = 0.1 for 77 % and 97% of wells became meaningful, respectively. The minimum lag time was 2 months and the maximum was 7 months. In general, the estimated lag time was well matched to the groundwater depth and fully followed the Iso-depth map pattern. The amount of groundwater recharge throughout the Mashhad-Chenaran aquifer was mainly controlled by the unsaturated area properties such as thickness, material, etc. Changes in groundwater depth were the major factor affecting the lag time. It seems that with the start of rainfall in late October, groundwater recharge in most wells begin in mid-autumn and continues until late spring. Most of the groundwater recharge takes place in late winter. In summer, rainfall has a very small role in groundwater recharge. In this period, the uncontrolled extraction of water from the aquifer and consequently a sharp and continuous drop in groundwater level plays a major role in water table fluctuations.

Introduction: Today, it is essential to pay attention to the opportunities and threats in health services, especially in hospitals, to identify and evaluate the existing risks and manage them in these centers. Hospital risk management is a program to reduce the occurrence and prevalence of preventable accidents and is of great economic, human and moral importance in the hospital environment. This study aimed to evaluate and prioritize the occupational safety and health risks of the staff of Shahid Sadoughi Hospital in Yazd in 2019 Methods and material: : The present study is descriptive-cross-sectional. In the first step, the main risks in clinical, laboratory, facilities, radiology, and administrative departments were identified. Based on FMEA logic, three severity, probability, and vulnerability indicators were identified for each risk. Then, prioritization criteria were determined, and ANP prioritized the risks. Results: According to infectious disease experts with a risk of 0.86 in the clinical ward, inhalation of Barisek chemical vapor 1.17 in the laboratory, radiation of the device with a risk of 0.64 in imaging, infectious disease with a risk of 0.33 and 1.3 in order of priority The first were in the administrative and facilities department. Conclusion: The results showed that the hospital management should adopt special management programs to control infectious diseases with a staff health approach. Control measures should be set with priority risks. The difference in the obtained risk numbers indicated the different priorities of implementing risk management programs in each ward of Shahid Sadoughi Hospital.

Background: Zataria multiflora Boiss. (Avishan-e Shirazi), as an Iranian endemic plant, belongs to the Lamiaceae family and may be used as a food preservative. This study aimed to detect potential genotoxic effects of Z. multiflora extract. Methods: Hydro-alcoholic extract of Z. multiflora was prepared. Human B lymphocytes were treated with 1% extract within 3 and 24 h. Sterile Phosphate Buffered Saline (PBS) and cisplatin were used as negative and positive controls, respectively. DNA damage profiles were examined using comet assay (Single Cell Gel Electrophoresis). Data were statistically analyzed by SPSS software v. 21. Results: No statistically significant (p=0.071) DNA damage was observed in B lymphocytes treated with either Z. multiflora extract or PBS after 3 and 24 h. However, there was a statistically significant difference (p=0.0001) between DNA damage in B lymphocytes that treated with cisplatin and Z. multiflora after 3 and 24 h. Conclusion: The comet assay used in the current study showed that Z. multiflora had no genotoxic effect.

The cone penetration test (CPT) has been widely used in many geotechnical engineering applications, including soil identification and classification, and evaluation of different soil properties. However, the uncertainties associated with site variation are typical characteristics of subsurface soil conditions that cannot be ignored. Therefore, the effect of site variability on the correlated soil properties from collected field data, such as CPT data, obtained from discrete locations across the site needs to be evaluated. In this study, six well-established spatial interpolation techniques — ordinary kriging (OK), simple kriging (SK), universal kriging (UK), inverse distance weight (IDW), spline, and natural neighbor (NaN) — were investigated to evaluate the best interpolation method for incorporating site variability. Six CPT test sites were used to evaluate the performance of these spatial interpretation methods. For each site, CPT profiles at specified locations were generated using the different interpolation techniques, and the generated CPT profiles were compared with the measured CPT profiles. The best-fit line of measured versus predicted cone tip resistance (qc) values, mean bias factor (λ), coefficient of variation (COV), and root mean square error (RMSE) were calculated for each CPT profile and used as a criteria for evaluating the different spatial interpolation methods. The results of this study demonstrated the ability of these spatial interpolation methods for generating CPT profiles with good accuracy. The slope of best-fit line of measured versus predicted qc ranges from 0.93 to 0.95, the mean of λ ranges from 0.90 to 0.98, and the COV ranges from 0.34 to 0.53. The IDW, OK, and SK showed the best spatial interpolation methods (in order) for four out of the six CPT sites. For site 4, OK, IDW, and SK showed the best spatial interpolation methods (in order); while for site 5, the three best spatial interpolation techniques are SK, IDW, and OK (in order).

The Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, located along the Chenier Plain in Southwest Louisiana, was the location of the sequential landfall of two major hurricanes in the 2020 hurricane season. To protect the rapidly retreating coastline along the Refuge, a system of breakwaters was constructed, which was partially completed by the 2020 hurricane season. Multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary rapid response deployments of wave gauges, piezometers, geotechnical measurements, vegetation sampling, and drone surveys were conducted before and after Hurricanes Laura and Delta along two transects in the Refuge; one protected by a breakwater system and one which was the natural, unprotected shoreline. Geomorphological changes were similar on both transects after Hurricane Laura, while after Delta there was higher inland sediment deposition on the natural shoreline. Floodwaters drained from the transect with breakwater protection more slowly than the natural shoreline, though topography profiles are similar, indicating a potential dampening or complex hydrodynamic interactions between the sediment—wetland—breakwater system. In addition, observations of a fluidized mud deposit in Rollover Bayou in the Refuge are presented and discussed in context of the maintenance of wetland elevation and stability in the sediment starved Chenier Plain.

The Androctonus crassicuda is the most diverse scorpion species in the family of Buthidae, which is endemic to Khuzestan province, Iran. Investigation of the relationship of species by means of a molecular study of specimens is one of the new approaches due to the limitations of the morphological approaches. In the current study, the analysis was based on 32 morphological characteristics of A. crassicuda native to southwest Iran. Moreover, the DNA sequencing of two mitochondrial markers, namely cytochrome oxidase subunit I and 12sRNA loci was performed, and the phylogenetic tree was constructed using maximum likelihood method with 1000 replications using MEGA software (version 7). Based on the results of the phylogenetic tree, A. crassicuda was classified into a monophyletic group. However, the genetic diversity of this species populations was not significant (0.001). The highest and lowest genetic distance of A. crassicuda was compared with the reports obtained in Urmia and west Azerbaijan, Iran. There was a clear divergence between the A. crassicuda isolated from northern and southern areas of Iran. This study showed the importance of geographical and climate features of the region and genetic distance among the populations. The phylogenetic analysis of Androctonus species from other regions showed the highest and lowest genetic distance with A. gonneti (Morocco) and A. amoreuxi (Portugal), respectively. The comparison of the morphological characteristics and morphometric results revealed that metasoma characteristics are important in the identification of A. crassicuda. The results of the analysis of the morphometric values of A. crassicuda were mainly compatible with the phylogenetic trees and supported the traditional morphological classification, thereby presenting a clearly definition of the genera of Androctonus species.

The Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP) is one of the problems of combinatorial optimization belonging to the NP-hard problems’ class and has a wide application in the placement of facilities. Thus far, many efforts have been made to solve this problem and countless algorithms have been developed to achieve the optimal solutions; one of which is the Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm. This paper aims at finding a suitable layout for the facilities of an industrial workshop by using a Developed Simulated Annealing (DSA) method.

The emerging market of cardiac handheld ultrasound (US) is on the rise. Despite the advantages in ease of access and the lower cost, a gap in image quality can still be observed between the echocardiography (echo) data captured by point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) compared to conventional cart-based US, which limits the further adaptation of POCUS. In this work, we aim to present a machine learning solution based on recent advances in adversarial training to investigate the feasibility of translating POCUS echo images to the quality level of high-end cart-based US systems. We propose a constrained cycle-consistent generative adversarial architecture for unpaired translation of cardiac POCUS to cart-based US data. We impose a structured shape-wise regularization via a critic segmentation network to preserve the underlying shape of the heart during quality translation. The proposed deep transfer model is constrained to the anatomy of the left ventricle (LV) in apical two-chamber (AP2) echo views. A total of 1089 echo studies from 841 patients are used in this study. The AP2 frames are captured by POCUS (Philips Lumify and Clarius) and cart-based (Philips iE33 and Vivid E9) US machines. The dataset of quality translation comprises a total of 441 echo studies from 395 patients. Data from both POCUS and cart-based systems of the same patient were available in 122 cases. The deep-quality transfer model is integrated into a pipeline for an automated cardiac evaluation task, namely segmentation of LV in AP2 view. By transferring the low-quality POCUS data to the cart-based US, a significant average improvement of 30% and 34 mm is obtained in the LV segmentation Dice score and Hausdorff distance metrics, respectively. This paper presents the feasibility of a machine learning solution to transform the image quality of POCUS data to that of high-quality high-end cart-based systems. The experiments show that by leveraging the quality translation through the proposed constrained adversarial training, the accuracy of automatic segmentation with POCUS data could be improved.

We develop a novel network to segment water with significant appearance variation in videos. Unlike existing state-of-the-art video segmentation approaches that use a pre-trained feature recognition network and several previous frames to guide segmentation, we accommodate the object’s appearance variation by considering features observed from the current frame. When dealing with segmentation of objects such as water, whose appearance is non-uniform and changing dynamically, our pipeline can produce more reliable and accurate segmentation results than existing algorithms.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of shear strength measurements in wetland soils, which can be used to make inferences of the influence of nutrients and sediments on wetland health. Ecosystem restoration is increasing across the Gulf of Mexico and in other coastal systems, with management questions related to soil strength among the most critical to address for the sustainability of restoration programs. An overview of geotechnical engineering principles is provided as a starting point to understand basic soil mechanics concepts of stress, effective stress, pore-water pressure, unit weight, and shear strength. The review of wetland shear strength measurements focuses on the hand-held vane shear, torvane, cone penetrometer, and wetland soil strength tester. This synthesis shows that vane shear measurements can identify the shear strength trend in horizontal and vertical spaces and may be an indicator of wetland soil strength. However, the significant uncertainty of the vane shear measurements may preclude making conclusions about shear strength values without further testing and calibration of the devices. The torvane results show considerable scatter such that it is not recommended for quantitative shear strength measurements. The cone penetrometer represents a technique that is independent of operators and provides a high density of measurements with depth. It signifies the state-of-practice of wetland shear strength testing and is a reasonable tool to measure spatial and temporal variations in soil strength and other geotechnical properties (e.g., pore-water pressure, soil moisture, resistivity, and temperature) in wetlands. The wetland soil strength tester provides insight into the wetland soil resistance in the first 15 cm, which is the zone where most belowground biomass is present. Recommended future research includes evaluating the uncertainty in all in-situ soil strength testing methods, developing relationships between different field instruments, and establishing consistent statistical methods and field-testing procedures to make inferences and assessments.

Combination of two or three dissimilar scintillator materials as a radiation detector has found major role in environmental radiation monitoring. In this paper, a three-layer Phoswich detector including BC-400, YAG, and CsI was designed to efficiently discriminate gamma-ray in the beta events up to 3.2 MeV using a simple rise-time discrimination method. MCNPX Monte Carlo code was used to obtain interaction probability of beta and gamma-rays as well as optimum thicknesses of the layers in the designing process. The optical transport of the system was simulated by GEANT4. In this regard, the pulses from simultaneous beta-gamma emitter sources were detected and discriminated based on pulse's rise-time so that the minimum number of gamma-ray contaminating events was observed in the beta spectrum. The results showed that using the proposed configuration and the method, output pulses with a rise-time shorter than 9 ns have been successfully detected as a beta particle while those with rising time longer than 15 ns have been identified as gamma-ray events. Overall results revealed that using the proposed system, an individual spectrum of beta particles or gamma-rays can be recorded from a simultaneous beta-gamma emitter source that minimizes contribution of the other radiation.

Charged coupled device (CCD) is an imaging sensor that can be used as a digital radiation position-sensitive detector in space applications, industrial and medical imaging, etc. Commonly, the CCDs used for X-ray imaging are expensive and needed more complicated control, electronic boards. In this work, a simple and low-cost commercial CCD model (TCD1304AP) has been used to implement X-ray imaging. Moreover, a CsI(Tl) scintillation crystal with different thicknesses of 2 and 5 mm has been utilized as an X-ray to light photon converter. The driving and data acquisition boards have been designed in straightforward implementation, which can be easily performed. Also, the appropriate integration times have been set to 10 ms and 420 ms for use in cases with and without scintillation crystals respectively. The results show that this sensor has an admissible response to X-ray imaging. There is about a below 8.3% relative difference between the actual and attained dimensions from images at the direct method. However, this difference increases up to 17.7% for the indirect method due to the optical propagation in the scintillator. Furthermore, the experiment for the determination of the PSF distribution indicates that the spatial resolution of this X-ray imaging is 2% in the direct method and 3% with a 2 mm CsI(Tl) scintillator.

The US Gulf of Mexico coastal region has repeatedly been subjected to major flood events. Local geotechnical site characteristics and geomorphology can change due to sediment transport processes during such events. However, field measurements during extreme conditions are challenging. This paper discusses initial attempts at a combined geotechnical and geophysical site investigation of the uppermost layers of riverbeds following severe flooding events at three different rivers in Texas: the Guadalupe, Brazos, and Colorado Rivers in terms of sediment strength derived from a portable free fall penetrometer, backscatter intensity recorded by a chirp sonar, and soil sample characterization. Results show low strength sediments (50 kPa) and larger grain sizes (d(50) similar to 0.3 mm), sediment strength of the Guadalupe and Colorado Rivers displayed more variations around bridge piers. The spatial variations likely resulted from sediment remobilization processes and local scour under severe hydrodynamic conditions. Both, geotechnical and geophysical results, reflected the observed variations in the riverbed sediments; nonetheless, a quantitative correlation among the rivers was impeded by challenges primarily related to limitations of spatial accuracy and the significant riverbed heterogeneity, as well as shallow water limitations of the chirp sonar. National Science Foundation National Science Foundation (NSF) [CMMI-1822307] Published version The authors would like to acknowledge the National Science Foundation for funding the research and work presented through grant CMMI-1822307. The authors express gratitude to Julie Paprocki, Dennis Kiptoo, Matthew Florence, and Brian Harris for their data collection efforts. The authors would also like to thank Jean-Louis Briaud and Iman Shafii for their assistance with the EFA testing. The authors would also like to thank the reviewers of this article for constructive feedback that contributed to this article.

The movement of water plays a critical role in the mechanical performance and service life of transportation infrastructure, especially for pavement subgrades and highway embankments consisting of high-plasticity, expansive soils that saturate and ultimately lead to infrastructure distress. Shallow slides along highway embankments are ubiquitous across Region 6 because long-term wetting and drying cycles considerably weaken these compacted soils. In the aftermath of heavy rains, pore-water pressures increase to a critical threshold such that a failure occurs. The implications of embankment failures range from repeated maintenance repairs to long-term road closures. A comprehensive approach to model highway embankments comprising of laboratory testing, setup, and field data collection using unmanned aerial vehicles has been proposed in this study., Tran-SET Project: 19GTLSU05

Fire disasters are one of the most common technological disasters in Iran. These disasters have killed many people and resulted in significant economic loss. The "Plasco" building fire in 2017 is one example of these catastrophic disasters, when most of Iran was affected by its tragic news. Regarding the increasing number of risk factors for fire disasters, we aimed to study future scenarios for such disasters in the country. The present study is a futuristic study with an exploratory approach that uses an intuitive logic scenario development approach. We used document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and the Delphi technique to identify driving forces and develop scenario stories, and finally those scenario stories were validated. In the document analysis phase, 22 documents were identified and analysed. After collecting information related to documents and analysing ten interviews, 41 of the driving forces were identified. By drawing the scenario matrix, four alternative scenarios for the future of fire disasters were developed. Two dimensions for scenario development were the correct application of fire prevention laws and access to driving technologies. Policymakers can concentrate on these key factors for best planning in the mitigation of fire disasters. In addition, studying scenarios can help managers and officials to better develop strategic plans for disaster risk reduction.Les incendies catastrophiques sont les désastres technologiques les plus fréquents en Iran. Ils y ont tué de nombreuses personnes et entraîné des pertes économiques significatives. L’incendie du Plasco, en 2017, est un exemple de ce type de catastrophe, qui a affecté la plupart des iraniens. Eût égard à l’augmentation des facteurs de risque, nous avons étudié les scenarii possibles de ce type d’accident en Iran. Il s’agit d’une prospective, explorant divers déroulements considérés comme possibles. Nous avons utilisé les données de la littérature, des entretiens semi- structurés et un consensus selon la méthode Delphi pour identifier les circonstances de survenue et écrire des scenarii, ensuite validés. L’analyse bibliographique a concerné 22 documents, 10 entretiens ont été utilisés, pour identifier 41 phénomènes déclenchants et écrire 4 scenarii. L’application des lois de prévention des incendies et la limitation des facteurs favorisants, sur lesquels le législateur devrait se pencher. Ces scenarii peuvent permettre aux responsables, à leurs niveaux, de développer des plans de prévention des catastrophes liées aux incendies.

Expansive clayey soils undergo significant volumetric changes, and desiccation cracks develop due to wetting and drying cycles. The presence of desiccation cracks changes the soil's hydro-mechanical properties and allows rapid infiltration of rainwater to the underlying deeper layers. The abrupt increase in moisture content and swelling reduces the soil's peak strength to fully softened strength. Consequently, these slopes experience shallow failures that are approximately parallel to the slope surface. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of weathering cycles by studying the failed highway embankment slope located in Denison, Texas. The experimental laboratory studies, including direct shear test, fully softened strength test, soil water characteristic curve, and soil hydraulic conductivity tests, were conducted on samples that were collected from scarp of the failed slope. A comprehensive inverse analysis was conducted using a finite element method-based software package. The analyzed results suggest that the surficial slope failure was attributed to (i) the formation of desiccation cracks, (ii) increase in soil permeability, (iii) reduction in shear strength, and (iv) the formation of the perched water table in the weathered surficial soil during intense rainfall events.

Buthidae family includes scorpions with highly potent venom such as Compsobuthus matthiesseni is important due to the prevalence of scorpion stings in Khuzestan Province, Iran. Morphometric comparison of males and females (n=5 each) showed that the body and carapas of the females were longer and wider (32.57±0.23 mm and 3.75±0.22 mm, respectively) than those of males (28.89±0.25 mm and 3.55±0.12 mm, respectively). From the seven specimens of C. matthiesseni scorpion, 410-bp gene fragments of ribosomal internal transcribed spacer 2 were amplified by polymerase chain reaction. The specimens of CM1 and CM2 (isolated from Baghmalek, Khuzestan) were in the same group with bootstrap values of 87%. Nevertheless, CM4 and CM3 (isolated from Shushtar and Bidroobe, Khuzestan) with bootstrap values of 73% and 62% were separated from the two specimens of Baghmalek, respectively. The two specimens CF3 and CM5 (isolated from Masjed Soleiman, Khuzestan) with bootstrap values of 88% were placed next to each other in a separate group. CF2 was separated from the rest of the specimens with a bootstrap value of 54%. Out of the seven scorpions that were examined, six specimens (CM1, CM2, CM3, CM4, CM5, and CF3) showed the greatest similarity between 1.1% and 4%. However, the genetic distance between CF2 and the rest of the specimens was at the range of 10.8-14.2%. It can be concluded that all C. matthiesseni scorpions from Khuzestan Province belonged to one species; nonetheless, differences were observed within the species, especially in the case of CF2, which might be intraspecies.

This study compares the differences in calculated relief well performance at the Profit Island vicinity levee (PIVL) near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, between the three-dimensional (3D) USGS MOD...

The factor of safety (FS) of levees and floodwalls with relief wells to underseepage is predicated on the blanket thickness and relief well performance. In urban environments with limited r...

Complex subsurface geology of coastal Louisiana, formed under fluvial, deltaic, and sea level influences, increases the uncertainty in design and construction of hard and natural infrastructure. In...

Hydatidosis is an important zoonosis caused by a parasitic tapeworm, namely Echinococcus granulosus. This infection is distributed worldwide and affects the health as well as economic loss in both humans and animals. In most cases, the disease needs chemotherapy with or without surgery. Conventional drugs have some major problems, including drug complications, harmful side effects, and also progressive resistance. According to the importance of biological productions as alternative medicine, a large number of studies confirmed that whole venom and many peptide ingredients of the scorpion venom have various different medical benefits, including antimicrobial properties, due to the mechanism of blocking gated ion channel. In this study, the venom peptides of Mesobuthus eupeus scorpionwere purified using gel filtration chromatography and subsequently ion exchange chromatography, followed by the determination of the molecular weights of the proteins by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) procedure. After collecting the hydatid cysts fluids from the liver of infected sheep, protoscolices were derived, washed, and encountered to the whole venom as well as eight different fractions of toxin 30, 60, 120, and 240 min after the exposure. In the next step, the viability of protoscolices was determined by eosin staining. The obtained results revealed that a venom fraction under 10 kDa killed all protoscolices after 30 min. Moreover, it was found that the scolicidal activity of fractions increases according to the time of exposure. As a result, it can be concluded that M. epeus venom peptides under its LD50 (1/2 LD50) can properly and quickly destroy the protoscolices of hydatid cysts at the level of applied concentrations and such components are good alternatives to treat hydatidosis.

Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is one of the key metrics to assess the heart functionality, and cardiac ultrasound (echo) is a standard imaging modality for EF measurement. There is an emerging interest to exploit the point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) usability due to low cost and ease of access. In this work, we aim to present a computationally efficient mobile application for accurate LVEF estimation. Our proposed mobile application for LVEF estimation runs in real time on Android mobile devices that have either a wired or wireless connection to a cardiac POCUS device. We propose a pipeline for biplane ejection fraction estimation using apical two-chamber (AP2) and apical four-chamber (AP4) echo views. A computationally efficient multi-task deep fully convolutional network is proposed for simultaneous LV segmentation and landmark detection in these views, which is integrated into the LVEF estimation pipeline. An adversarial critic model is used in the training phase to impose a shape prior on the LV segmentation output. The system is evaluated on a dataset of 427 patients. Each patient has a pair of captured AP2 and AP4 echo studies, resulting in a total of more than 40,000 echo frames. The mobile system reaches a noticeably high average Dice score of 92% for LV segmentation, an average Euclidean distance error of 2.85 pixels for the detection of anatomical landmarks used in LVEF calculation, and a median absolute error of 6.2% for LVEF estimation compared to the expert cardiologist’s annotations and measurements. The proposed system runs in real time on mobile devices. The experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed system for automatic LVEF estimation by demonstrating an adequate correlation with the cardiologist’s examination.