Geogrid Reinforced Brick Buildings for Earthquake Disaster Mitigations

In the event of a severe earthquake, the walls of brick buildings experience in-plane shear and out-of-plane bending, leading to diagonal crack and corner failure respectively. In this study, an experimental investigation was carried to observe the above damages on brick masonry buildings reinforced with geogrid embedded in bed joint mortar of the walls. It was observed that the geogrid reinforced brick panels showed better shear strength, lateral strength, ductility, etc. A qualitative comparison was made using a sinusoidal shake table test on a one-fourth single-room building model consisting of two sets of corner walls with and without geogrid reinforcement. It was observed that the corner wall without reinforcement showed crack initiation at 0.45g and complete collapse with over toppling of the transverse wall at 0.90g, while no sign of damages for the corner walls strengthened with geogrid reinforcement for any level of shaking.

Polariton condensation in an organic microcavity utilising a hybrid metal-DBR mirror

We have developed a simplified approach to fabricate high-reflectivity mirrors suitable for applications in a strongly-coupled organic-semiconductor microcavity. Such mirrors are based on a small number of quarter-wave dielectric pairs deposited on top of a thick silver film that combine high reflectivity and broad reflectivity bandwidth. Using this approach, we construct a microcavity containing the molecular dye BODIPY-Br in which the bottom cavity mirror is composed of a silver layer coated by a SiO2 and a Nb2O5 film, and show that this cavity undergoes polariton condensation at a similar threshold to that of a control cavity whose bottom mirror consists of ten quarter-wave dielectric pairs. We observe, however, that the roughness of the hybrid mirror—caused by limited adhesion between the silver and the dielectric pair—apparently prevents complete collapse of the population to the ground polariton state above the condensation threshold.

A Giant Pulmonary Hydatid Cyst in a 13-Year-Old Child: A Case Report

: Hydatid disease has been introduced as a crucial health issue in the Eastern Mediterranean by the World Health Organization. Surgery is the standard gold treatment for hydatid disease. Here, we reported a case of a large hydatid cyst involving the lung in a 13-year-old girl complaining of shortness of breath and cough for 8 months. Early symptoms include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. After admission, computed tomography verified giant lung hydatid cysts. Complete collapse of the right lung and progressive respiratory distress of the patient were treated with thoracotomy considering the size of the hydatid cyst in the lung. It should be noted that in such patients, the preservation of lung tissue function is very significant, and also, the less part of the lung is removed after surgery, the fewer complications the patient will suffer.

Addressing the COVID-19 emergency during the ongoing political and economic crisis in Fragile Lebanon: a call to action

This Letter to the Editor aims to reflect on the current challenges to increase the coverage of COVID-19 vaccination in the fragile and conflict-affected setting of Lebanon, which is currently experiencing one of the biggest economic crises globally as well as a recent surge in COVID-19 cases. Addressing the supply- and demand-related factors affecting vaccination would increase COVID-19 vaccine coverage and prevent the complete collapse of an already overwhelmed Lebanese health care system.

Another thermophilic "Miocene survivor" from the Italian Pliocene: A geologically young occurrence of the pelagic eagle ray Aetobatus in the Euro-Mediterranean region

Aetobatus (Myliobatiformes: Aetobatidae) is a living genus of eagle rays that occurs in shallow-marine, tropical and subtropical environments of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Nowadays, Aetobatus does not inhabit the cool- to warm-temperate European and Mediterranean waters, though it is known from this broad region by virtue of several fossil teeth ranging chronostratigraphically from the lower Palaeogene to the upper Neogene. The present paper reports on a fossil aetobatid tooth discovered in mid-Pliocene (upper Zanclean to lower Piacenzian, 3.82-3.19 Ma) marine deposits exposed in the vicinities of Certaldo (Tuscany, Italy) and identified as belonging to †Aetobatus cf. cappettai. This specimen comprises the youngest occurrence of Aetobatus along the coasts of mainland Europe; furthermore, together with previous finds from roughly coeval deposits of Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain), it represents the most recent record of this genus in the whole Euro-Mediterranean region. In light of the environmental preferences of extant Aetobatus spp., our discovery suggests palaeoenvironmental conditions favourable to the persistence of tropical/subtropical taxa of "Miocene survivors" along the Pliocene coasts of Tuscany. In addition, it raises the question of whether or not the Messinian Salinity Crisis really resulted in the complete collapse of the Mediterranean marine biota and in the subsequent recolonisation of the Mediterranean Basin from the adjoining Atlantic waters and/or scattered marginal intrabasinal refugia at the beginning of the Pliocene. The possibility of Aetobatus recolonising the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal in the near future is discussed.

ANALYSIS AND COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF SOFTWARE PENETRATION TESTING METHODS

Information security is one of the most important components in any organization. The disclosure of this information can lead not only to material losses, but also to the loss of the reputation and image of the company, which ultimately, in some cases, can lead to its complete collapse. Therefore, in order to avoid these consequences, it is necessary to analyze the security and reliability of information processing systems. One of the most effective ways to do this is through the use of "penetration testing" methods. The results obtained. The section provides software vulnerabilities analysis. The most frequently used types of attacks and intrusions by cyber intruders are highlighted. In contrast to this, methods comparative analysis for identifying software vulnerabilities was carried out. It is concluded that it is advisable to improve the methods for identifying vulnerabilities through the recommendations complex use taking into account the existing security risks of software tools, the features of modern methodologies and software development tools, as well as the modern software penetration testing methods capabilities.

Lack Of Proper Evaluation And Performance In Promoting Staff Of Borno State Civil Service Commission

This study examines the lack of proper evaluation and performance in promoting staff of Borno state civil service commission , It is indeed clear that the effects of civil service commission in appraisal of the performance of employees in relation to promotion. Similarly, evaluation of staff promotion is a critical factor in economic and social development for it to determine the standard of the organisation. Being an employee, certain variables are expected by the individual from the organisation as rewards. It is a well-known fact that three has been a very serious decline and in some instance complete collapse of the public sector in Borno state over the years as a result of insurgency. In spite of huge financial commitments put in place by the government as payment of remuneration and other fringe benefits, the public sector in the state is either decline or in most cases embarrassingly inefficient and in effective, thought many factors contributed to this unfortunate issues of lack of proper evaluation of staff promotion in Borno state civil service commission.

Network isolators inhibit failure spreading in complex networks

In our daily lives, we rely on the proper functioning of supply networks, from power grids to water transmission systems. A single failure in these critical infrastructures can lead to a complete collapse through a cascading failure mechanism. Counteracting strategies are thus heavily sought after. In this article, we introduce a general framework to analyse the spreading of failures in complex networks and demostrate that not only decreasing but also increasing the connectivity of the network can be an effective method to contain damages. We rigorously prove the existence of certain subgraphs, called network isolators, that can completely inhibit any failure spreading, and we show how to create such isolators in synthetic and real-world networks. The addition of selected links can thus prevent large scale outages as demonstrated for power transmission grids.

Ampelomyces strains isolated from diverse powdery mildew hosts in Japan: Their phylogeny and mycoparasitic activity, including timing and quantifying mycoparasitism of Pseudoidium neolycopersici on tomato

A total of 26 Ampelomyces strains were isolated from mycelia of six different powdery mildew species that naturally infected their host plants in Japan. These were characterized based on morphological characteristics and sequences of ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (rDNA-ITS) regions and actin gene (ACT) fragments. Collected strains represented six different genotypes and were accommodated in three different clades of the genus Ampelomyces. Morphology of the strains agreed with that of other Ampelomyces strains, but none of the examined characters were associated with any groups identified in the genetic analysis. Five powdery mildew species were inoculated with eight selected Ampelomyces strains to study their mycoparasitic activity. In the inoculation experiments, all Ampelomyces strains successfully infected all tested powdery mildew species, and showed no significant differences in their mycoparasitic activity as determined by the number of Ampelomyces pycnidia developed in powdery mildew colonies. The mycoparasitic interaction between the eight selected Ampelomyces strains and the tomato powdery mildew fungus (Pseudoidium neolycopersici strain KTP-03) was studied experimentally in the laboratory using digital microscopic technologies. It was documented that the spores of the mycoparasites germinated on tomato leaves and their hyphae penetrated the hyphae of Ps. neolycopersici. Ampelomyces hyphae continued their growth internally, which initiated the atrophy of the powdery mildew conidiophores 5 days post inoculation (dpi); caused atrophy 6 dpi; and complete collapse of the parasitized conidiphores 7 dpi. Ampelomyces strains produced new intracellular pycnidia in Ps. neolycopersici conidiophores ca. 8–10 dpi, when Ps. neolycopersici hyphae were successfully destroyed by the mycoparasitic strain. Mature pycnidia released spores ca. 10–14 dpi, which became the sources of subsequent infections of the intact powdery mildew hyphae. Mature pycnidia contained each ca. 200 to 1,500 spores depending on the mycohost species and Ampelomyces strain. This is the first detailed analysis of Ampelomyces strains isolated in Japan, and the first timing and quantification of mycoparasitism of Ps. neolycopersici on tomato by phylogenetically diverse Ampelomyces strains using digital microscopic technologies. The developed model system is useful for future biocontrol and ecological studies on Ampelomyces mycoparasites.

Structural resolution of switchable states of a de novo peptide assembly

De novo protein design is advancing rapidly. However, most designs are for single states. Here we report a de novo designed peptide that forms multiple α-helical-bundle states that are accessible and interconvertible under the same conditions. Usually in such designs amphipathic α helices associate to form compact structures with consolidated hydrophobic cores. However, recent rational and computational designs have delivered open α-helical barrels with functionalisable cavities. By placing glycine judiciously in the helical interfaces of an α-helical barrel, we obtain both open and compact states in a single protein crystal. Molecular dynamics simulations indicate a free-energy landscape with multiple and interconverting states. Together, these findings suggest a frustrated system in which steric interactions that maintain the open barrel and the hydrophobic effect that drives complete collapse are traded-off. Indeed, addition of a hydrophobic co-solvent that can bind within the barrel affects the switch between the states both in silico and experimentally.