In this study we examine the hydrological processes that underpin non‐stationarity in hydrological prediction. This is achieved by analysis of linkages between rainfall, groundwater storage, and ...runoff in Southwest Western Australia (SWWA), a region experiencing stream flow decline since the mid‐1970s. We find a close connection between rainfall and changes in catchment groundwater storage, with increases in storage in years with annual rainfall above a threshold (1050–1400 mm), and declines during low rainfall years. Where groundwater is in contact with the stream bed, runoff, as a proportion of rainfall, is highly correlated with groundwater storage. Recent drought years have reduced groundwater storage and runoff ratio. In the absence of replenishing wetter years, lower runoff ratios are subsequently maintained. Runoff from a given depth of annual rainfall is now far lower than that produced 15 years ago. In this way groundwater storage acts as the catchment's “memory”. This study highlights the importance of catchment groundwater storage that may be used to improve runoff prediction in a drying climate.
Key Points
Groundwater storage is falling rapidly in south‐western Australia
Groundwater storage is a major influence on the volume of runoff produced
Groundwater storage is influenced by rainfall at decadal timescales
With fusion device performance hinging on the edge pedestal pressure, it is imperative to experimentally understand the physical mechanism dictating the pedestal characteristics and to validate and ...improve pedestal predictive models. This Letter reports direct evidence of density and magnetic fluctuations showing the stiff onset of an edge instability leading to the saturation of the pedestal on the Alcator C-Mod tokamak. Edge stability analyses indicate that the pedestal is unstable to both ballooning mode and kinetic ballooning mode in agreement with observations.
Mycoviruses can have a marked effect on natural fungal communities and influence plant health and productivity. However, a comprehensive picture of mycoviral diversity is still lacking. To ...characterize the viromes of five widely dispersed plant-pathogenic fungi, Colletotrichum truncatum, Macrophomina phaseolina, Diaporthe longicolla, Rhizoctonia solani, and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, a high-throughput sequencing-based metatranscriptomic approach was used to detect viral sequences. Total RNA and double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) from mycelia and RNA from samples enriched for virus particles were sequenced. Sequence data were assembled de novo, and contigs with predicted amino acid sequence similarities to viruses in the nonredundant protein database were selected. The analysis identified 72 partial or complete genome segments representing 66 previously undescribed mycoviruses. Using primers specific for each viral contig, at least one fungal isolate was identified that contained each virus. The novel mycoviruses showed affinity with 15 distinct lineages: Barnaviridae, Benyviridae, Chrysoviridae, Endornaviridae, Fusariviridae, Hypoviridae, Mononegavirales, Narnaviridae, Ophioviridae, Ourmiavirus, Partitiviridae, Tombusviridae, Totiviridae, Tymoviridae, and Virgaviridae More than half of the viral sequences were predicted to be members of the Mitovirus genus in the family Narnaviridae, which replicate within mitochondria. Five viral sequences showed strong affinity with three families (Benyviridae, Ophioviridae, and Virgaviridae) that previously contained no mycovirus species. The genomic information provides insight into the diversity and taxonomy of mycoviruses and coevolution of mycoviruses and their fungal hosts.
Plant-pathogenic fungi reduce crop yields, which affects food security worldwide. Plant host resistance is considered a sustainable disease management option but may often be incomplete or lacking for some crops to certain fungal pathogens or strains. In addition, the rising issues of fungicide resistance demand alternative strategies to reduce the negative impacts of fungal pathogens. Those fungus-infecting viruses (mycoviruses) that attenuate fungal virulence may be welcome additions for mitigation of plant diseases. By high-throughput sequencing of the RNAs from 275 isolates of five fungal plant pathogens, 66 previously undescribed mycoviruses were identified. In addition to identifying new potential biological control agents, these results expand the grand view of the diversity of mycoviruses and provide possible insights into the importance of intracellular and extracellular transmission in fungus-virus coevolution.
Unravelling the mechanisms of how antibiotics influence growth performance through changes in gut microbiota can lead to the identification of highly productive microbiota in animal production. Here ...we investigated the effect of zinc bacitracin and avilamycin on growth performance and caecal microbiota in chickens and analysed associations between individual bacteria and growth performance. Two trials were undertaken; each used 96 individually caged 15-day-old Cobb broilers. Trial 1 had a control group (
n =
48) and a zinc bacitracin (50 ppm) treatment group (
n =
48). Trial 2 had a control group (
n =
48) and an avilamycin (15 ppm) treatment group (
n =
48). Chicken growth performance was evaluated over a 10-day period, and caecal microbiota was characterised by sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA gene amplicons. Avilamycin produced no effect on growth performance and exhibited little significant disturbance of the microbiota structure. However, zinc bacitracin reduced the feed conversion ratio (FCR) in treated birds, changed the composition and increased the diversity of their caecal microbiota by reducing dominant species. Avilamycin only produced minor reductions in the abundance of two microbial taxa, whereas zinc bacitracin produced relatively large shifts in a number of taxa, primarily
Lactobacillus
species. Also, a number of phylotypes closely related to lactobacilli species were positively or negatively correlated with FCR values, suggesting contrasting effects of
Lactobacillus
spp. on chicken growth performance. By harnessing such bacteria, it may be possible to develop high-productivity strategies in poultry that rely on the use of probiotics and less on in-feed antibiotics.
•ANN based phase prediction model for tailored hot stamping has been developed.•The ANN model takes into account thermal & mechanical history for doing predictions.•The performance of the model was ...an improvement over most of the existing models.•Advanced statistical techniques were used to make the ANN model robust and reliable.•The model can be used for optimizing critical automotive passenger safety component.
Because of demand for lower emissions and better crashworthiness, the use of hot stamped 22MnB5 boron steel has greatly increased in manufacturing of automobile components. However, for many applications it is required that only certain regions in hot stamped parts are fully hardened whereas other regions need be more ductile. The innovative process of tailored hot stamping does this by controlling the localized microstructures through tailored cooling rates by dividing the tooling into heated and cooled zones. A barrier to optimal application of this technique is the lack of reliable phase distribution prediction model for the process.
We present a novel Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based phase distribution prediction model for tailored hot stamping. The model was developed and validated using data generated from extensive thermo-mechanical physical simulation experiments and instrumented nanoindentation based phase quantification method. Advanced statistical techniques were used for preventing overfitting, for making the optimal use of available experimental data and for quantification of prediction uncertainty. The final predictions made by the ANN model during its independent validation have shown good agreement with the experimentally generated data and have a RMS prediction error of just 7.7%, which is a significant improvement over the existing models.
Diffusing capacity of the lung for nitric oxide (
), otherwise known as the transfer factor, was first measured in 1983. This document standardises the technique and application of single-breath
This ...panel agrees that 1) pulmonary function systems should allow for mixing and measurement of both nitric oxide (NO) and carbon monoxide (CO) gases directly from an inspiratory reservoir just before use, with expired concentrations measured from an alveolar "collection" or continuously sampled
rapid gas analysers; 2) breath-hold time should be 10 s with chemiluminescence NO analysers, or 4-6 s to accommodate the smaller detection range of the NO electrochemical cell; 3) inspired NO and oxygen concentrations should be 40-60 ppm and close to 21%, respectively; 4) the alveolar oxygen tension (
) should be measured by sampling the expired gas; 5) a finite specific conductance in the blood for NO (θNO) should be assumed as 4.5 mL·min
·mmHg
·mL
of blood; 6) the equation for 1/θCO should be (0.0062·
+1.16)·(ideal haemoglobin/measured haemoglobin) based on breath-holding
and adjusted to an average haemoglobin concentration (male 14.6 g·dL
, female 13.4 g·dL
); 7) a membrane diffusing capacity ratio (
/
) should be 1.97, based on tissue diffusivity.
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) possess great potential for use in regenerative medicine. However, their clinical application may be limited by the ability to expand their cell numbers in vitro while ...maintaining their differential potentials and stem cell properties. Thus the aim of this study was to test the effect of a range of medium supplements on MSC self‐renewal and differentiation potential. Cells were cultured until confluent and subcultured continuously until reaching senescence. Medium supplementation with fibroblast growth factor (FGF)‐2, platelet‐derived growth factor (PDGF)‐BB, ascorbic acid (AA), and epidermal growth factor (EGF) both increased proliferation rate and markedly increased number of cell doublings before reaching senescence, with a greater than 1,000‐fold increase in total cell numbers for AA, FGF‐2, and PDGF‐BB compared with control cultures. Long‐term culture was associated with loss of osteogenic/adipocytic differentiation potential, particularly with FGF‐2 supplementation but also with AA, EGF, and PDGF‐BB. In addition FGF‐2 resulted in reduction in expression of CD146 and alkaline phosphatase, but this was partially reversible on removal of the supplement. Cells expressed surface markers including CD146, CD105, CD44, CD90, and CD71 by flow cytometry throughout, and expression of these putative stem cell markers persisted even after loss of differentiation potentials. Overall, medium supplementation with FGF‐2, AA, EGF, and PDGF‐BB greatly enhanced the total in vitro expansion capacity of MSC cultures, although differentiation potentials were lost prior to reaching senescence. Loss of differentiation potential was not reflected by changes in stem cell surface marker expression.
The aim of this study was to test the effect of a range of medium supplements on mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) self‐renewal and differentiation potential. Overall, medium supplementation with fibroblast growth factor‐2, ascorbic acid, epidermal growth factor, and platelet‐derived growth factor‐BB greatly enhanced the total in vitro expansion capacity of MSC cultures, although differentiation potentials were lost prior to reaching senescence despite the persistence of expression of MSC surface markers throughout.
•We study the performance of IsoGeometric Analysis for large strain incompressible plasticity.•High order standard NURBS elements exhibit spurious stresses and F-bar NURBS elements produce good ...results.•Displacements and reaction forces are misleading measures of element performance.•Mesh locking is not a relevant issue for higher order NURBS.
We study the behavior of NURBS-based Isogeometric Analysis on problems of large-deformation plasticity. We evaluate the performance of standard NURBS elements and elements based on the F¯ formulation of Elguedj et al. (2008) 1. Our experience shows that standard measures of evaluation employed in the literature, namely, displacements at selected locations and graphs of reaction forces versus displacements, are often misleading metrics in problems of plasticity. On the other hand, stress distributions, in the form of contour plots, are, in our experience,revealing measure of element performance. We also determine that the concept of “mesh locking”, which has dominated investigations of low-order elements, is not a relevant issue for higher-order NURBS elements for problems of large-deformation plasticity. However, standard higher-order NURBS elements of type Qk, of continuity class Ck-1,k⩾2, typically exhibit spurious stress oscillations, whereas the F¯ elements of type Qk/Qk-1 produce good results in all cases.
Functional lung imaging modalities such as hyperpolarized gas MRI ventilation enable visualization and quantification of regional lung ventilation; however, these techniques require specialized ...equipment and exogenous contrast, limiting clinical adoption. Physiologically-informed techniques to map proton (
H)-MRI ventilation have been proposed. These approaches have demonstrated moderate correlation with hyperpolarized gas MRI. Recently, deep learning (DL) has been used for image synthesis applications, including functional lung image synthesis. Here, we propose a 3D multi-channel convolutional neural network that employs physiologically-informed ventilation mapping and multi-inflation structural
H-MRI to synthesize 3D ventilation surrogates (PhysVENeT). The dataset comprised paired inspiratory and expiratory
H-MRI scans and corresponding hyperpolarized gas MRI scans from 170 participants with various pulmonary pathologies. We performed fivefold cross-validation on 150 of these participants and used 20 participants with a previously unseen pathology (post COVID-19) for external validation. Synthetic ventilation surrogates were evaluated using voxel-wise correlation and structural similarity metrics; the proposed PhysVENeT framework significantly outperformed conventional
H-MRI ventilation mapping and other DL approaches which did not utilize structural imaging and ventilation mapping. PhysVENeT can accurately reflect ventilation defects and exhibits minimal overfitting on external validation data compared to DL approaches that do not integrate physiologically-informed mapping.
Background
A variety of systemic diseases and conditions can affect the course of periodontitis or have a negative impact on the periodontal attachment apparatus. Gingival recessions are highly ...prevalent and often associated with hypersensitivity, the development of caries and non‐carious cervical lesions on the exposed root surface and impaired esthetics. Occlusal forces can result in injury of teeth and periodontal attachment apparatus. Several developmental or acquired conditions associated with teeth or prostheses may predispose to diseases of the periodontium. The aim of this working group was to review and update the 1999 classification with regard to these diseases and conditions, and to develop case definitions and diagnostic considerations.
Methods
Discussions were informed by four reviews on 1) periodontal manifestions of systemic diseases and conditions; 2) mucogingival conditions around natural teeth; 3) traumatic occlusal forces and occlusal trauma; and 4) dental prostheses and tooth related factors. This consensus report is based on the results of these reviews and on expert opinion of the participants.
Results
Key findings included the following: 1) there are mainly rare systemic conditions (such as Papillon‐Lefevre Syndrome, leucocyte adhesion deficiency, and others) with a major effect on the course of periodontitis and more common conditions (such as diabetes mellitus) with variable effects, as well as conditions affecting the periodontal apparatus independently of dental plaque biofilm‐induced inflammation (such as neoplastic diseases); 2) diabetes‐associated periodontitis should not be regarded as a distinct diagnosis, but diabetes should be recognized as an important modifying factor and included in a clinical diagnosis of periodontitis as a descriptor; 3) likewise, tobacco smoking – now considered a dependence to nicotine and a chronic relapsing medical disorder with major adverse effects on the periodontal supporting tissues – is an important modifier to be included in a clinical diagnosis of periodontitis as a descriptor; 4) the importance of the gingival phenotype, encompassing gingival thickness and width in the context of mucogingival conditions, is recognized and a novel classification for gingival recessions is introduced; 5) there is no evidence that traumatic occlusal forces lead to periodontal attachment loss, non‐carious cervical lesions, or gingival recessions; 6) traumatic occlusal forces lead to adaptive mobility in teeth with normal support, whereas they lead to progressive mobility in teeth with reduced support, usually requiring splinting; 7) the term biologic width is replaced by supracrestal tissue attachment consisting of junctional epithelium and supracrestal connective tissue; 8) infringement of restorative margins within the supracrestal connective tissue attachment is associated with inflammation and/or loss of periodontal supporting tissue. However, it is not evident whether the negative effects on the periodontium are caused by dental plaque biofilm, trauma, toxicity of dental materials or a combination of these factors; 9) tooth anatomical factors are related to dental plaque biofilm‐induced gingival inflammation and loss of periodontal supporting tissues.
Conclusion
An updated classification of the periodontal manifestations and conditions affecting the course of periodontitis and the periodontal attachment apparatus, as well as of developmental and acquired conditions, is introduced. Case definitions and diagnostic considerations are also presented.
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