Applied Sciences

Soil shear strength is an important indicator of soil erosion sensitivity and the tillage performance of the cultivated layer. Measuring soil shear strength at a field scale is difficult, time-consuming, and costly. This study proposes a new method to predict soil shear strength parameters (cohesion and internal friction angle) by combining cone penetration test (CPT) data and soil properties. A portable CPT measuring device with two pressure sensors was designed to collect two CPT data in farmland, namely cone tip resistance, and cone side pressure. Direct shear tests were performed in the laboratory to determine the soil shear strength parameters for 83 CPT data collection points. Two easily available soil properties (water content and bulk density) were determined via the oven-drying method. Using the two CPT data and the two soil properties as predictors, three machine learning (ML) models were built for predicting soil cohesion and the internal friction angle, including backpropagation neural network (BPNN), partial least squares regression (PLSR), and support vector regression (SVR). The prediction performance of each model was evaluated using the coefficient of determination (R²), the root-mean-square error (RMSE), and the relative error (RE). The results suggested that among all the evaluated models, the BPNN model was the most suitable prediction model for soil cohesion, and the SVR model performed best in predicting soil internal friction angle. Thus, our findings provide a foundation for the convenient and low-cost measurement of soil shear strength parameters. Full article

The ever-increasing number of hospital Emergency Department (ED) visits pose a challenge to the effective running of health systems in many countries globally and multiple strategies have been adopted over the years to tackle the plight. According to a systematic review of the available literature, of the numerous models of healthcare systems used to address the issue in western countries, the FSED Model has the greatest potential for reducing hospital ED overcrowding as it can reduce the additional load by diverting minor cases, freeing up space for more urgent cases. The aim of the study is to shed light on the Free Standing Emergency Department (FSED) model and compare it with the traditional Hospital Based Emergency Department (HBED) in international contexts. In this study, 23 papers have been collected in a literature review and the main features have been highlighted; 12 case studies have been analyzed from a layout point of view and data have been collected in terms of surfaces, functions, and flow patterns. The percentages of floor areas devoted to each function have been compared to define evolution strategies in the development of emergency healthcare models and analyses. The use of FSED models is an interesting way to face the overcrowding problem and a specific range for functional area layout has been identified. Further studies on its application in different contexts are encouraged. Full article

Concrete pavement proportions are increasing in Korean expressways, resulting in increased maintenance cost. The length of degenerate concrete pavements that have exceeded the design life (20 years) was 1150 km in 2015 and 2605 km in 2020 and is expected to rapidly increase. To extend the service life of concrete pavements, life-cycle cost (LCC) analysis was conducted on asphalt and concrete overlays, based on the different maintenance methods. LCC analysis was performed when the shoulder was used and when it was not used between 6000 and 35,000 AADT traffic according to the two-lane and four-lane traffic. During overlay, one lane was completely blocked, and the value per vehicle was converted into the user cost using the Construction Analysis for Pavement Rehabilitation Strategies software, according to whether the shoulder was used to maintain the number of lanes. In addition, LCC analysis was conducted by examining the construction cost and life-cycle according to each overlay method. When the shoulder was used, the total construction cost decreased, owing to the reduction in user cost, indicating that the implementation of the traffic measure of using the road shoulder improves user satisfaction and cost. The asphalt overlay was observed to be more favorable than concrete overlay in terms of the initial total construction cost. However, under a 20-year cycle, the economic efficiency of concrete overlay was higher than that of asphalt overlay. After repairing the deteriorated target sections of concrete pavements, the overlay method (asphalt or concrete) ought to be selected according to the target service life for beneficial economic effect. Concrete overlay was to obtain about 20% or greater LCC effect compared to asphalt overlay, and at least 5% or more additional LCC effect obtained when the shoulder was used. Full article

In all developing countries, the application of biomedical signals has been growing, and there is a potential interest to apply it to healthcare management systems. However, with the existing infrastructure, the system will not provide high-end support for the transfer of signals by using a communication medium, as biomedical signals need to be classified at appropriate stages. Therefore, this article addresses the issues of physical infrastructure, using Hadoop-based systems where a four-layer model is created. The four-layer model is integrated with Fuzzy Interface System Algorithm (FISA) with low robustness, and data transfers in these layers are carried out with reference health data that are collected at various treatment centers. The performance of this new flanged system model aims to minimize the loss functionalities that are present in biomedical signals, and an activation function is introduced at the middle stages. The effectiveness of the proposed model is simulated by using MATLAB, using a biomedical signal processing toolbox, where the performance of FISA proves to be better in terms of signal strength, distance, and cost. As a comparative outcome, the proposed method overlooks the conventional methods for an average percentage of 78% in real-time conditions. Full article

Sweetener synergy is the phenomenon in which certain combinations of sweeteners work more effectively than the theoretical sum of the effects of each components. It provides benefits in reducing sweetener dosages and improving their sweetness. Many mixtures of sweeteners with synergistic effects have been reported up to now. Both artificial high-intensity sweeteners and natural sweeteners are popularly used in sweetener mixtures for synergism, although the former seem to display more potential to exhibit synergy than the latter. Furthermore, several evaluation methods to investigate sweetener synergy have been applied, which could lead to discrepancies in results. Moreover, structurally dissimilar sweeteners could cooperatively bind at the different sites in the sweet taste receptor T1R2/T1R3 to activate the receptor, and their hydration characters/packing characteristics in solvents could affect their interaction with the receptor, providing the preliminary explanations for the molecular basis of sweetener synergy. In this article, we firstly present a systematic review, analysis and comment on the properties, evaluation methods and molecular mechanisms of sweetener synergy. Secondly, challenges of sweetener synergy in both theory and practice and possible strategies to overcome these limitations are comprehensively discussed. Finally, future perspectives for this important performance in human sweet taste perception are proposed. Full article

Building extraction of remote sensing images is very important for urban planning. In the field of deep learning, in order to extract more detailed building features, more complex convolution operations and larger network models are usually used to segment buildings, resulting in low efficiency of automatic extraction. The existing network is difficult to balance the extraction accuracy and extraction speed. Considering the segmentation accuracy and speed, a Feature Residual Analysis Network (FRA-Net) is proposed to realize fast and accurate building extraction. The whole network includes two stages: encoding and decoding. In the encoding stage, a Separable Residual Module (SRM) is designed to extract feature information and extract building features from remote sensing images, avoiding the use of large convolution kernels to reduce the complexity of the model. In the decoding stage, the SRM is used for information decoding, and a multi-feature attention module is constructed to enhance the effective information. The experimental results on the LandCover dataset and Massachusetts Buildings dataset show that the reasoning speed has been greatly improved without reducing the segmentation accuracy. Full article

Multi-view subspace clustering has drawn significant attention in the pattern recognition and machine learning research community. However, most of the existing multi-view subspace clustering methods are still limited in two aspects. (1) The subspace representation yielded by the self-expression reconstruction model ignores the local structure information of the data. (2) The construction of subspace representation and clustering are used as two individual procedures, which ignores their interactions. To address these problems, we propose a novel multi-view subspace clustering method fusing local and global information for one-step multi-view clustering. Our contribution lies in three aspects. First, we merge the graph learning into the self-expression model to explore the local structure information for constructing the specific subspace representations of different views. Second, we consider the multi-view information fusion by integrating these specific subspace representations into one common subspace representation. Third, we combine the subspace representation learning, multi-view information fusion, and clustering into a joint optimization model to realize the one-step clustering. We also develop an effective optimization algorithm to solve the proposed method. Comprehensive experimental results on nine popular multi-view data sets confirm the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method by comparing it with many state-of-the-art multi-view clustering methods. Full article

People need durable shelters for living safely due to devastation caused by flooding in some areas, and it is not easy to mitigate the frequency and intensity of the flooding. Therefore, in this research, an industrialized building system (IBS) has been proposed as one of the best solutions. However, most of the existing IBSs were not designed and tested for resisting a sudden horizontal impact. Furthermore, the joints of some IBSs would likely be vulnerable to failure when subjected to a horizontal impact. There is a need to develop a bolt-connected IBS that is able to withstand a horizontal impact load. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the performance of steel-bolt-connected IBS frames subjected to the sudden impact of hydrodynamic force. Autodesk computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation was used for optimizing the laboratory experiment. A 1:5-scale IBS frame was designed and tested for the dam-break test using 1 m, 2 m, and 3 m reservoir water levels. The results showed that the bolt connections were very effective and robust in the IBS frame. They also restricted damages from spreading to other structural components due to energy dissipation. The main findings of this study are crucial to improving the current IBS method of construction. Full article

Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) is a lipocalin involved in the immune response and is significantly high in the peritoneal dialytic effluent (PDE) of peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients with inflammation of the peritoneum membrane (peritonitis). The focus of this study was to match two different techniques for peritoneal NGAL evaluation: NGAL point-of-care test-POCT (NGAL Dipstick—NGALds) versus the laboratory-based NGAL assay and with the white cell count in PDE. In this study, we included 30 PD patients: 17 with peritonitis and 13 without. Peritoneal NGAL was tested by a turbidimetric immunoassay and by NGALds. We noticed a good positive linear correlation between the POCT results and the laboratory-based test and between the peritoneal NGALds and white cell count in PDE (both, p < 0.01). NGALds values resulted in being elevated in patients with peritonitis (300 ng/mL, IQR 300–600) in comparison to patients without (100 ng/mL, IQR 50–150) (p < 0.01). Furthermore, the NGALds test was performed in a median time of 20 mins (IQR 18–21) in comparison with the median time of 65 mins (IQR 55–69) necessary for the laboratory-based test (p < 0.01). The results of the NGALds were coherent with the laboratory-based NGAL and with the white cell count in PDE; furthermore, it was a user-friendly method with real-time findings. NGALds could be an extra tool for the diagnosis of peritonitis, helpful at the bedside of the patient, shortening the length of diagnosis, and if the laboratory-based NGAL test is not accessible. Full article

This paper presents the results of a parametric study on the response of unreinforced and retrofitted masonry specimens. The adopted strengthening technique is the steel-reinforced plaster, which is very commonly used but it is not supported by a proper theoretical and experimental characterization in the scientific literature. The aim was to investigate the main parameters that affect the structural performances of the walls. Several numerical models were implemented using the finite element method to analyze the influence of the bricks’ arrangements, the mechanical properties of the mortar joints, the number of connectors, and the mechanical properties and thickness of the plaster coating. A concrete damage plasticity model was adopted to describe the bricks, the mortar joints, and the plaster behaviors. For the unreinforced specimens, the outcomes confirmed that the mortar strength had a significant influence on the performance of the wall, together with the presence of potential weaknesses in the bricks, while the bond effect was negligible. For reinforced walls, the connectors do not have a significant influence on retrofitted wall capacity but may prevent instability if a proper number is considered. Furthermore, the strength of the plaster coating does not affect the collapse load significantly, while increasing the fracture energy, which can be produced, for instance, by using fiber-reinforced concrete, increases the capacity of retrofitted walls, with more limited damage. Finally, an increase in the plaster thickness may be beneficial in terms of collapse load, even though greater thickness may increase the seismic masses significantly. Full article

In this article, we address the problem of detecting anomalies in system log files. Computer systems generate huge numbers of events, which are noted in event log files. While most of them report normal actions, an unusual entry may inform about a failure or malware infection. A human operator may easily miss such an entry; therefore, anomaly detection methods are used for this purpose. In our work, we used an approach known from the natural language processing (NLP) domain, which operates on so-called embeddings, that is vector representations of words or phrases. We describe an improved version of the LogEvent2Vec algorithm, proposed in 2020. In contrast to the original version, we propose a significant shortening of the analysis window, which both increased the accuracy of anomaly detection and made further analysis of suspicious sequences much easier. We experimented with various binary classifiers, such as decision trees or multilayer perceptrons (MLPs), and the Blue Gene/L dataset. We showed that selecting an optimal classifier (in this case, MLP) and a short log sequence gave very good results. The improved version of the algorithm yielded the best F1-score of 0.997, compared to 0.886 in the original version of the algorithm. Full article

Accurate estimation of soil temperature (T_s) at a national scale under different climatic conditions is important for soil–plant–atmosphere interactions. This study estimated daily T_s at the 0 cm depth for 689 meteorological stations in seven different climate zones of China for the period 1966–2015 with the M5P model tree (M5P), random forests (RF), and the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost). The results showed that the XGBoost model (averaged coefficient of determination (R²) = 0.964 and root mean square error (RMSE) = 2.066 °C) overall performed better than the RF (averaged R² = 0.959 and RMSE = 2.130 °C) and M5P (averaged R² = 0.954 and RMSE = 2.280 °C) models for estimating T_s with higher computational efficiency. With the combination of mean air temperature (T_mean) and global solar radiation (R_s) as inputs, the estimating accuracy of the models was considerably high (averaged R² = 0.96–0.97 and RMSE = 1.73–1.99 °C). On the basis of T_mean, adding R_s to the model input had a greater degree of influence on model estimating accuracy than adding other climatic factors to the input. Principal component analysis indicated that soil organic matter, soil water content, T_mean, relative humidity (RH), R_s, and wind speed (U₂) are the main factors that cause errors in estimating T_s, and the total error interpretation rate was 97.9%. Overall, XGBoost would be a suitable algorithm for estimating T_s in different climate zones of China, and the combination of T_mean and R_s as model inputs would be more practical than other input combinations. Full article

Background. Mechanical models of the human ankle complex are used to study the stabilizing role of ligaments. Identification of ligament function may be improved via image-based personalized approach. The aim of this study is to compare the effect of the ligament origin and insertion site definitions obtained with different magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) modalities on the mechanical behaviour of a dynamic model of the ankle complex. Methods. MRI scans, both via 1.5 T and 3.0 T, were performed on a lower-limb specimen, free from anatomical defects, to obtain morphological information on ligament-to-bone attachment sites. This specimen was used previously to develop the dynamic model. A third ligament attachment site mapping scheme was based on anatomical dissection of the scanned specimen. Following morphological comparison of the ligament attachment sites, their effect on the mechanical behaviour of the ankle complex, expressed by three-dimensional load–displacement properties, was assessed through the model. Results. Large differences were observed in the subtalar ligament attachment sites between those obtained through the two MRI scanning modalities. The 3.0 T MRI mapping was more consistent with dissection than the 1.5 T MRI. Load–displacement curves showed similar mechanical behaviours between the three mappings in the frontal plane, but those obtained from the 3.0 T MRI mapping were closer to those obtained from dissection. Conclusions. The state-of-the-art 3.0 T MRI image analysis resulted in more realistic mapping of ligament fibre origin and insertion site definitions; corresponding load–displacement predictions from a subject-specific model of the ankle complex showed a mechanical behaviour more similar to that using direct ligament attachment observations. Full article

In the cooperative searching scenario, most traditional methods are based on the top–down mechanisms. These mechanisms are usually offline and centralized. The characteristics limit the adaptability of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm to the complex mission environments, such as those with inaccurate information of the targets and grids. In order to improve the searching ability of UAV swarm, a novel searching method named emergent search of UAV swarm guided by the target probability map (ESUSTPM) is proposed. ESUSTPM is based on local rules to organize and guide UAV agents to achieve the flocking state, search the mission area and detect the hidden targets concurrently. In ESUSTPM, local rules contain the flocking rules and the guiding rules. The flocking rules are the interactions between the agents, which are designed by a novel constructed function based on two exponential functions in this paper. The new constructed function can better maintain the relatively stable distances between the agents and realize the smooth transition of the positions at the given centers. The local guiding rules based on the target probability information of the nearby grids are firstly designed to realize the multi-function of the swarm, including full area coverage, target detection and reduction in environmental uncertainty (EU). Finally, the simulations verify that ESUSTPM can achieve the full coverage of the mission area while taking into account the target search. The statistical results also indicate that the searching efficiency of the proposed ESUSTPM is higher than the traditional searching algorithms based on the division and allocation of the area or the heuristic algorithms. Full article

In the last ten years, many countries around the world recorded a new disease of the Cucurbitaceae, the agent of which was P. melonis. The ability of P. melonis 502 to form intracellular mycelium in the epidermal and parenchymal tissues of roots was shown. Leading tissues (xylem and phloem) did not colonize, which indicates the impossibility of plant vessel clogging and shows the fungus’s biochemical effects on plants, which causes the process of pathogenesis. P. melonis 502 is able to develop in a wide range of pH values, while the pH-optimum is 8.5. P. melonis 502 is able to adjust the pH of the medium to the optimal value—8.5. We also showed that cellulase enzyme synthesis depends on pH. We studied the exo-, endo- and β-glucasidase activity of P. melonis 502 and found that the highest activity of cellulase enzymes was on a medium whose pH was 8.5. In the process, the total cellulolytic activity was 0.326 U mL⁻¹, exoglucanase activity—0.539 U mL⁻¹, endoglucanase activity—0.950 U mL⁻¹ and β-glucosidase activity—0.795 U mL⁻¹. Full article

To reveal the impact of slope angle change on toppling deformation, this paper takes the dam toppling deformation of Gushui Hydropower Station based at Lancang River as an example, based on which three groups of models with different slope angles are conceptualized and designed. Through the centrifuge test, the evolution of toppling deformation of a counter-tilt layered slope under different slope angles was simulated. The research results show that: (1) The steeper the slope angle, the shorter the cumulative time required for such deformation is, the larger the toppling deformation will be, and it is more likely that multi-stage fracture zones will occur during the toppling process. (2) The toppling deformation process can be summarized as four stages. (3) The toppling deformation mainly occurs above the datum surface of the toppling fracture; the angle between the datum surface and the normal of the layer is between 12° to 16°. This value shall not change as the slope angle changes. (4) The lesser the slope angle is, the more likely the toppling deformed slope will be experience overall slipping instability. while the steeper the slope angle is, the greater the possibility of collapse after the rock mass falls. Full article

It is an undeniable fact that people excessively rely on social media for effective communication. However, there is no appropriate barrier as to who becomes a part of the communication. Therefore, unknown people ruin the fundamental purpose of effective communication with irrelevant—and sometimes aggressive—messages. As its popularity increases, its impact on society also increases, from primarily being positive to negative. Cyber aggression is a negative impact; it is defined as the willful use of information technology to harm, threaten, slander, defame, or harass another person. With increasing volumes of cyber-aggressive messages, tweets, and retweets, there is a rising demand for automated filters to identify and remove these unwanted messages. However, most existing methods only consider NLP-based feature extractors, e.g., TF-IDF, Word2Vec, with a lack of consideration for emotional features, which makes these less effective for cyber aggression detection. In this work, we extracted eight novel emotional features and used a newly designed deep neural network with only three numbers of layers to identify aggressive statements. The proposed DNN model was tested on the Cyber-Troll dataset. The combination of word embedding and eight different emotional features were fed into the DNN for significant improvement in recognition while keeping the DNN design simple and computationally less demanding. When compared with the state-of-the-art models, our proposed model achieves an F1 score of 97%, surpassing the competitors by a significant margin. Full article

A total of 20 Lactobacillus strains isolated from fermented dates were tested for their probiotic potential by comparing their pH stability, resistance to low pH, and ability to tolerate bile salts. Out of 20 strains, 3 strains named as Lactobacillus pentosus KAU001, Lactiplantibacillus pentosus KAU002, and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum KAU003 had a high tolerance of acids and bile salts and the capability to adhere to the intestinal wall. In addition, the three isolates were tested for their anti-oxidation, anti-glucosidase inhibition, cholesterol-lowering, and anti-inflammation properties. Among them, strain KAU001 and KAU002 inhibited α-glucosidase, lowered cholesterol level, inhibited nitric oxide production, and showed a higher anti-oxidative ability that was significantly better than strain KAU003. Both strains also significantly inhibited the release of inflammatory mediators such as TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-10 induced by LPS on RAW 264.7 macrophages (p < 0.001). The results indicated that KAU001 and KAU002 have the highest probiotic potential, potentially modulating metabolic health and reducing pro-inflammatory cytokines in response to allergic reactions. Full article