Samara Alves Stocki, Mísia Beatriz Bueno Alvarenga, Davi de Souza Pinheiro
et al.
Introduction: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARI) became one of the main causes of hospitalization and death among older adults during the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), especially due to the greater severity of infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in this group. With the start of COVID-19 vaccination in Brazil in January 2021, prioritizing older adults, a reduction in severe outcomes was expected. This study aimed to assess the trend in hospital lethality from SARI caused by COVID-19 among Brazilian older adults between 2020 and 2023, and its relationship with vaccination coverage against SARS-CoV-2. Methods: This is a retrospective ecological study that analyzed public data from 2020 to 2023 on hospitalizations for SARI caused by SARS-CoV-2 among older adults (≥60 years). Lethality by age group was calculated and related to vaccination coverage (complete primary series and booster doses) obtained from OpenDataSUS. A descriptive analysis of the annual evolution of lethality and vaccination was performed. Results: In 2020, before vaccination, lethality from COVID-19–related SARI among older adults was 47.2%. In the following year, with the start of immunization, the rate dropped to 35.6%. In 2022 and 2023, with expansion of vaccine schedules and boosters, stabilization was observed between 24% and 26%. Vaccination coverage with complete primary series reached 87% of older adults in 2021, increasing to more than 95% in 2022. The introduction of booster doses coincided with the maintenance of lower levels of lethality, even with circulation of the Delta and Omicron variants. The data suggest an inverse association between vaccination coverage and hospital lethality from SARI among older adults over the years analyzed. Conclusion: COVID-19 vaccination significantly reduced lethality from SARI among older adults in Brazil between 2020 and 2023. The findings confirm its effectiveness against severe forms, even in the face of new variants, especially with the administration of booster doses. High vaccination coverage, together with surveillance and hospital strengthening, contributed to the decline in mortality. Despite the limitations of aggregated data, standardization of SIVEP-Gripe strengthens the analysis. Continued vaccination and surveillance are essential to prevent new outbreaks.
Planetary atmospheres cannot remain hydrostatic at all altitudes because they approach finite density at infinite radius, implying infinite mass. Classical treatments address this in two directions: either retain a hydrostatic structure while allowing particles in the high-velocity tail to decouple and escape in a Jeans-type manner, or promote the gas to a continuum outflow to obtain a transonic Parker-type solution. The usual criterion compares the local mean free path to the sonic point radius. If the mean free path is shorter, the atmosphere is hydrostatic with an imposed Jeans escape flux; if it is longer, the gas is hydrodynamic with Jeans escape neglected. Here, we show that hydrogen-rich atmospheres do not separate cleanly into hydrodynamic and Jeans-escape regimes. At any radius, some particles still collide and behave as a fluid, while others have already experienced their last collision and move collisionlessly on ballistic trajectories. The relative importance of these two behaviors changes smoothly with radius rather than switching at a single boundary. The hydrodynamic channel accelerates and passes through a sonic point, whereas the collisionless channel decelerates under gravity and grows with altitude, removing mass and momentum from the collisional flow. As the collisionless component grows, the bulk flow speed reaches a maximum and then decelerates thereafter, producing profiles similar to Parker breeze solutions even though escape is carried by the collisionless channel. This two-channel framework provides a first step toward a self-consistent treatment that unifies hydrodynamics and kinetics in atmospheric loss models.
The article undertakes an analysis of retirement and disability severance pay as a common benefit available to employees in connection with the termination of their professional activity. This severance pay, regulated by Article 921 of the Labor Code, is a one‑time benefit of a social nature, aimed at facilitating the employee’s adaptation to a new life situation. The article discusses the historical legal background of the severance payment, its evolution and various interpretations of the current legislation, including the issue of the one‑time nature of the benefit and the possibility of its reacquisition in the event of reemployment. Particular attention was paid to the analysis of the case law of the Supreme Court, whose statements often leave a significant deficiency in the arguments presented.
Shaheena Umbreen, Naila Mukhtar, Nidaa Harun
et al.
ABSTRACT Salvadora faces a significant threat of being in decline in semi‐arid regions. This study investigates the distribution status of Salvadora species in semi‐arid habitats, moreover examines how habitat types, climatic conditions and soil variability influence plant's functional traits and distribution. The study was organized in the semi‐arid lowlands of the Sahiwal Division, Pakistan. Field surveys were conducted from 2021 to 2023 across 51 sites comprised of four types of habitats, i.e., archaeological sites, graveyards, roadsides, and railway lines. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) were applied to examine the impact of habitat types and environmental variables on Salvadora distribution. Two species of Salvadora, i.e., Salvadora persica Linn and Salvadora oleoides Decne, were identified taxonomically in the study area. S. persica was found to be more abundant than S. oleoides. These results recommend that S. persica was more dominant in most sites except for Sahiwal, where both species had similar densities. The number of tree trunks, tree height, and leaf size, leaf biomass are some of the dominant traits that were influenced by habitat variability. Other factors like temperature, precipitation, th soil's pH and moisture levels play important roles in species distribution within these habitats. Despite Salvadora notable economic and ecological importance, its ecological situation is critical because of overexploitation, climate change, and habitat destruction. To ensure that Salvadora continues to exist and perform its ecological functions in its natural habitat, protecting and managing strategies need to be planned and enforced.
Abstract The formation, storage, and evolution of granitic magmas are fundamental processes driving the growth of continental crust. While traditionally attributed to crystal fractionation in high‐melt fraction magma chambers, the model invoking low‐melt fraction crystal mushes has gained wide acceptance. However, the chemical and textural impacts of crystal mush rejuvenation remain elusive and the precise petrological record is relatively poorly studied. The rapakivi K‐feldspar identified in the early Eocene monzogranitic porphyry of the Caina intrusive complex, Gangdese batholith, is an ideal candidate for investigating these issues, as feldspar can record clues to magmatic processes. Field survey, optical and mineral flake scanning observations, X‐ray fluorescence analysis, in situ Sr and mineral Sm‐Nd isotopic analyses, TESCAN integrated mineral analysis, electron probe microanalysis, and three‐dimensional crystal shape modeling were performed on the collected samples. K‐feldspars can be divided into three types based on chemical zonation: normal, reverse, and oscillatory zoning crystals. Varying isotopic signatures between the K‐feldspar and associated mantle suggest that the rapakivi texture originated in heterogeneous magmatic pulse recharge. Crystal shape modeling of the plagioclase chadacryst, mantle, and matrix plagioclase, combined with compositions, indicates that mantle plagioclase originated from the quenching of recharge magmas. We propose a model for the formation of rapakivi K‐feldspar and the rejuvenation of crystal mush. Repeated hot magma pulses recharged the mush, triggering magma convection and thermal perturbations. This process enabled the prolonged growth of K‐feldspar megacrysts, which were subsequently capped by plagioclase, resulting in the formation of the rapakivi texture.
Mohammad Erfatpour, Dustin MacLean, Rachid Lahlali
et al.
The ovule is a plant structure that upon fertilization, transforms into a seed. Successful fertilization is required for optimum crop productivity and is strongly affected by environmental conditions including temperature and precipitation. Climate change refers to sustained changes in global or regional climate patterns over an extended period, typically decades to millions of years. These shifts can result from natural processes like volcanic eruptions and solar radiation fluctuations, but in recent times, human activities—especially the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and industrial emissions—have accelerated the pace and scale of climate change. Human-induced climate change impacts the agricultural sector mainly through global warming and altering weather patterns, both of which create conditions that challenge agricultural production and food security. With food demand projected to sharply increase by 2050, urgent action is needed to prevent the worst impacts of climate change on food security and allow time for agricultural production systems to adapt and become more resilient. Gaining insights into the female reproductive part of the flower and seed development under extreme environmental conditions is important to oversee plant evolution, agricultural productivity, and food security in the face of climate change. This review summarizes the current knowledge on plant reproductive development and the effects of temperature and water stress, soil salinity, elevated carbon dioxide, and ozone pollution on the female reproductive structure and development across grain legumes, cereal, oilseed, and horticultural crops. It identifies gaps in existing studies for potential future research and suggests suitable mitigation strategies for sustaining crop productivity in a changing climate.
Nutrition. Foods and food supply, Food processing and manufacture
The failure mechanism of weakly cemented soft rock under water-rock coupling effect is extremely complex. To reveal the tensile failure of red argillaceous siltstone in high humidity environment, five kinds of disc samples with different water contents were obtained through maintenance in constant temperature and humidity oven. The Brazilian test was carried out to reveal the variation characteristics of splitting behavior of rock samples in high humidity environment. Detailed analysis was conducted on the evolution law of stress-strain relationship and mechanical parameters under five different water contents. Combined with the DIC (Digital Image Correlation) investigation, the displacement evolution patterns of samples with different water content and loading stages were analyzed. Results show that he macroscopic mechanical parameters such as tensile strength and elastic modulus of weakly cemented red sandstone samples under water environment are negatively parabolic correlated with the increase of water content. The moisture content has an important influence on the disc splitting failure mode, forming the main fracture along the radial direction of loading, and showing a local crushing area in the loading area, and the crushing area increases with the increase of water content. Microstructural variation of red sandstone under a high humidity environment is the main reason for its deterioration of macroscopic mechanical properties.
Albertina Paula Monteiro, Francisco Barbosa, Amélia Silva
et al.
Based on the legitimacy and stakeholders’ theories, this research aims to analyze the environmental information disclosure of Portuguese companies. Specifically, this study aims to explore the environmental information disclosure level, whether the industry (environmentally sensitive) influences the level of ecological matters disclosure, and whether this impacts the companies' performance/profitability. Using the content analysis technique, we developed two indices to assess the level of environmental disclosures in companies' mandatory and voluntary reporting. In addition, for the relationship between variables analysis, we applied the Process Macro of SPSS software. Study results show that (1) there is a positive evolution in the level of environmental disclosure by Lisbon stock exchange listed companies between the years 2015 and 2017, (2) the industry has no significant relationship with profitability; (3) the environmental disclosure acts as a mediator variable in the relationship between industry and profitability. This research presents differences in the tendency of environmental matters disclosure when prepared under an accounting framework or voluntarily and assesses the mediating role of the environmental disclosure index in the relationship between industry and performance.
The mitochondrial (mt) genome is an important tool when studying the evolution of metazoan animals. The oyster family Gryphaeidae, together with Ostreidae, is one of the two extant taxa of superfamily Ostreoidea. Up until now, the available mitochondrial genomes of oysters were all limited to family Ostreidae. In the present study, the first complete mtDNA of family Gryphaeidae represented by <i>Hyotissa hyotis</i> was sequenced and compared with other available ostreoid mtDNA. The mtDNA of <i>H. hyotis</i> is 22,185 bp in length, encoding 13 protein-coding-genes (PCGs), two ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and 23 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes. Within all the intergenic regions that range from 2 to 1528 bp, two large non-coding regions were identified. The first large non-coding region, located between <i>Cox1</i> and <i>trnA</i>, contains 1528 nucleotides, while the second one is 1191 bp in length and positioned between <i>Cytb</i> and <i>Nad2</i>. The nucleotide composition of the whole mtDNA is A + T biased, accounting for 59.2%, with a negative AT skew value of −0.20 and a positive GC skew value of 0.33. In contrast to the mtDNA of Ostreidae, neither the split of <i>rrnL</i> nor <i>rrnS</i> was detected in that of <i>H. hyotis</i>. The duplication of <i>trnW</i> of <i>H. hyotis</i> was also discovered for the first time within Ostreoidea. The gene order of <i>H. hyotis</i> is quite different from those of ostreids, indicating extensive rearrangements within superfamily Ostreoidea. The reconstructed phylogeny supported <i>H. hyotis</i> as sister to Ostreidae, with the latter clade formed by <i>Ostrea</i> + (<i>Saccostrea</i> + <i>Crassostrea</i>). This study could provide important information for further understanding the mitochondrial evolution of oysters.
Clinical physiology department in well-organized university hospitals has three important roles: 1) it can be considered the best link between the basic sciences that have been taught in the undergraduate curriculum and clinical practice. 2) several techniques are practiced in the clinical physiology department operating in close collaboration with other clinical specialties which are very helpful in providing health care such as Pulmonary Function Test, Electroencephalogram, Nerve Conduction Studies, Auditory Brainstem Response, Electrocardiogram, Exercise-based “stress tests,” etc. 3) it has a strong relation with research disciplines and its participation in this field cannot be neglected. The aim of this viewpoint is to unravel the hidden importance of the clinical physiology department and its utility in both basic sciences and clinical teachings, both for health care and research.
Therefore, assuring clinical physiology as an independent part of the basic sciences physiology department with the decision-maker support could guarantee the survival and continuation of the link between undergraduate teaching and clinical practice. The practical sessions of the undergraduate curriculum should be updated so that students get knowledge of techniques utilized in their clinical careers. This is beyond the conventional theory bases irrelevant teaching curriculum. Recruitment of well-qualified and specialized specialists in clinical physiology techniques, technicians, and nurses who can perform and interpret these tests effectively as well as supplying the unit with modern and sophisticated equipment is of great value. Research funds have to be directed toward clinical physiology that can boost the development of medical evolution ahead.
Abstract Background Deciphering the mechanisms of meiosis has important implications for potential applications in plant breeding programmes and species evolution. However, the process of meiosis is poorly understood in carnation, which is famous for its cut flowers. Results We report that Dianthus caryophyllus parallel spindle 1 (DcPS1) regulates omission of second division like a (OSDLa) during pollen development and 2n gamete production in carnation meiosis. In DcPS1 and OSDLa RNAi lines, an absence of the second meiotic division and the abnormal orientation of spindles at meiosis II might be the main reason for dyad/triad formation, resulting in unreduced gametes. We also found that carnation OSDLa interacted with DcPS1 and DcRAD51D. In the DcPS1 RNAi lines, a decrease in OSDLa and DcRAD51D expression was observed. In the OSDLa RNAi lines, a decrease in DcPS1 and DcRAD51D expression was also observed. We propose that DcPS1 regulates OSDLa expression, allowing entry into meiosis II and the proper orientation of the metaphase II spindle in meiosis II. We also propose that OSDLa regulates DcRAD51D expression, allowing for homologous recombination. Conclusions These results suggest a critical role for DcPS1 and OSDLa in diplogamete production during meiosis and open a new pathway for meiosis-related studies.
Urbanization has induced substantial changes in soil physicochemical characteristic, which plays an important role in regulating soil fauna biodiversity in forests and grasslands. However, less is known about the urbanization effect on soil fauna biodiversity and how soil physicochemical changes mediate this effect. Along an urbanization gradient in the city of Guangzhou, we established four sites with different urbanization intensities, including an urban site, two suburban sites, and a rural site, and then studied their soil physicochemical characteristic and soil fauna biodiversity. The soil physicochemical characteristic dramatically changed along the urbanization gradient. In contrast, the soil fauna biodiversity exhibited a very different pattern. Soil fauna abundance was highest in the suburban sites. Moreover, there were significant changes of Pielou’s evenness and community structure in the suburban sites. Soil fauna biodiversity property in the urban site was similar to that in the rural site, except that the rural site was characterized by Enchytraeidae while the urban site was not characterized by any taxa. Our linear and canonical correspondence analysis models suggested that soil physicochemical characteristic only contributed a little to the variance of soil fauna abundance (19%), taxa number (27%), and community structure (12%). In contrast, soil physicochemical characteristic explained about half of the variance in Shannon’s diversity and Pielou’s evenness. However, with urbanization intensity increasing, soil physicochemical changes could both increase and decrease the diversity and evenness. Thus, our results revealed an inconsistent pattern between soil fauna biodiversity and soil physicochemical characteristic along an urbanization gradient. This study suggested that soil physicochemical change was less important as expected in regulating soil fauna biodiversity pattern under an urbanization context. To elucidate the effect of urbanization on soil fauna biodiversity, further studies should take other urbanization agents into account.
Mukti Chaturvedi, Elena Scutelnicu, Carmen Catalina Rusu
et al.
Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is a fusion manufacturing process in which the heat energy of an electric arc is employed for melting the electrodes and depositing material layers for wall formation or for simultaneously cladding two materials in order to form a composite structure. This directed energy deposition-arc (DED-arc) method is advantageous and efficient as it produces large parts with structural integrity due to the high deposition rates, reduced wastage of raw material, and low consumption of energy in comparison with the conventional joining processes and other additive manufacturing technologies. These features have resulted in a constant and continuous increase in interest in this modern manufacturing technique which demands further studies to promote new industrial applications. The high demand for WAAM in aerospace, automobile, nuclear, moulds, and dies industries demonstrates compatibility and reflects comprehensiveness. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the evolution, development, and state of the art of WAAM for non-ferrous materials. Key research observations and inferences from the literature reports regarding the WAAM applications, methods employed, process parameter control, optimization and process limitations, as well as mechanical and metallurgical behavior of materials have been analyzed and synthetically discussed in this paper. Information concerning constraints and enhancements of the wire arc additive manufacturing processes to be considered in terms of wider industrial applicability is also presented in the last part of this paper.
Francesco Pappalardo, Giulia Russo, Marzio Pennisi
et al.
As of today, 20 disease-modifying drugs (DMDs) have been approved for the treatment of relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS) and, based on their efficacy, they can be grouped into moderate-efficacy DMDs and high-efficacy DMDs. The choice of the drug mostly relies on the judgment and experience of neurologists and the evaluation of the therapeutic response can only be obtained by monitoring the clinical and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) status during follow up. In an era where therapies are focused on personalization, this study aims to develop a modeling infrastructure to predict the evolution of relapsing MS and the response to treatments. We built a computational modeling infrastructure named Universal Immune System Simulator (UISS), which can simulate the main features and dynamics of the immune system activities. We extended UISS to simulate all the underlying MS pathogenesis and its interaction with the host immune system. This simulator is a multi-scale, multi-organ, agent-based simulator with an attached module capable of simulating the dynamics of specific biological pathways at the molecular level. We simulated six MS patients with different relapsing−remitting courses. These patients were characterized based on their age, sex, presence of oligoclonal bands, therapy, and MRI lesion load at the onset. The simulator framework is made freely available and can be used following the links provided in the availability section. Even though the model can be further personalized employing immunological parameters and genetic information, we generated a few simulation scenarios for each patient based on the available data. Among these simulations, it was possible to find the scenarios that realistically matched the real clinical and MRI history. Moreover, for two patients, the simulator anticipated the timing of subsequent relapses, which occurred, suggesting that UISS may have the potential to assist MS specialists in predicting the course of the disease and the response to treatment.
Electrical treeing is the main degradation mechanism in high voltage polymeric insulation, that leads to power system plant failure and the loss of electricity supply. Electrical trees grow under partial discharge (PD) activity, which can be measured and analyzed to understand and characterize electrical tree growth. In this work, PD measurements were analyzed for electrical trees grown in epoxy resin needle-plane samples under very low frequency (VLF, 0.1 Hz) voltage excitation. VLF is interesting as it is used for testing power cables and other high capacitance insulation loads. However, more experience and new methods are needed for PD interpretation. PDs were studied using two tools: pulse sequence analysis (PSA) and nonlinear time series analysis (NLTSA) from dynamic system theory. PSA was treated here as a particular case of NLTSA since their constructions are similar in their mathematical treatment. The experimental results showed that electrical trees grown at VLF had branch-type structure and times to breakdown about fifty times larger than samples aged at industrial frequency. PSA plots were compared with 2D projections of state-space trajectories that represent the dynamics of the nonlinear system (NLTSA approach). In terms of graphical representation, NLTSA 2D projections generated more clusters than the PSA plots, thus, it was interpreted that NLTSA revealed more details about the nonlinear dynamic system associated with electrical tree growth. On the other hand, using the NLTSA approach, the correlation dimension was estimated to characterize the electrical tree growth. The results showed a different evolution obtained for VLF excitation compared to the results reported for test samples aged at industrial frequency in other studies.
Abstract This study investigated the evolution of Typhoon Hato (1713) and analyzed the inner dynamics of its rapid intensification. The moving path of Hato was controlled by the southwestern part of the western Pacific subtropical high which extended westward significantly. Due to a relatively steady leading steering flow, the trajectory of Hato showed a straight ESE to WNW direction, leading to disastrous rainfall in southern Guangdong Province on 23 August before and after the landfall of the typhoon. In addition, Typhoon Hato exhibited a rapid intensification period from 3 to 13 o'clock on 23 August, with central wind speeds increasing from 35 to 48 m/s. This study mainly examined the inner dynamics of the development of Hato, especially its rapid intensification period. The regression analysis results showed that Hato was generated and developed under a TD‐type‐like wave. The coupled convection and vortex provided a favorable environment for the development of Hato. The analysis of the barotropic eddy kinetic energy (EKE) and latent heat flux further demonstrated this scenario. The results showed that the regions with a positive EKE tendency and strong latent heat release were consistent with the reach of and shifted westward with Hato. The EKE conversion was enhanced significantly on 23 August, with a maximum intensity observed over the northern South China Sea and southern Guangdong Province. The mean kinetic energy was largely converted to EKE, which, together with the great latent heat release, led to the rapid intensification of Hato.
Robert J. Asher, Martin R. Smith, Aime Rankin
et al.
Given an evolutionary process, we expect distinct categories of heritable data, sampled in ever larger amounts, to converge on a single tree of historical relationships. We tested this assertion by undertaking phylogenetic analyses of a new morphology-DNA dataset for mammals, focusing on Glires and including the oldest known skeletons of geomyoid and Ischyromys rodents. Our results support geomyoids in the mouse-related clade (Myomorpha) and a ricochetal locomotor pattern for the common ancestor of geomyoid rodents. They also support Ischyromys in the squirrel-related clade (Sciuromorpha) and the evolution of sciurids and Aplodontia from extinct, ‘protrogomorph’-grade rodents. Moreover, ever larger samples of characters from our dataset increased congruence with an independent, well-corroborated tree. Addition of morphology from fossils increased congruence to a greater extent than addition of morphology from extant taxa, consistent with fossils' temporal proximity to the common ancestors of living species, reflecting the historical, phylogenetic signal present in our data, particularly in morphological characters from fossils. Our results support the widely held but poorly tested intuition that fossils resemble the common ancestors shared by living species, and that fossilizable hard tissues (i.e. bones and teeth) help to reconstruct the evolutionary tree of life.
Klimenko Maxim V., Klimenko Vladimir V., Bessarab Fedor S.
et al.
We apply the Entire Atmosphere GLobal (EAGLE) model to investigate the upper atmosphere response to the January 2009 sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event. The model successfully reproduces neutral temperature and total electron content (TEC) observations. Using both model and observational data, we identify a cooling in the tropical lower thermosphere caused by the SSW. This cooling affects the zonal electric field close to the equator, leading to an enhanced vertical plasma drift. We demonstrate that along with a SSW-related wind disturbance, which is the main source to form a dynamo electric field in the ionosphere, perturbations of the ionospheric conductivity also make a significant contribution to the formation of the electric field response to SSW. The post-sunset TEC enhancement and pre-sunrise electron content reduction are revealed as a response to the 2009 SSW. We show that at post-sunset hours the SSW affects low-latitude TEC via a disturbance of the meridional electric field. We also show that the phase change of the semidiurnal migrating solar tide (SW2) in the neutral wind caused by the 2009 SSW at the altitude of the dynamo electric field generation has a crucial importance for the SW2 phase change in the zonal electric field. Such changes lead to the appearance of anomalous diurnal variability of the equatorial electromagnetic plasma drift and subsequent low-latitudinal TEC disturbances in agreement with available observations.
Plain Language Summary – Entire Atmosphere GLobal model (EAGLE) interactively calculates the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and plasmasphere–ionosphere system states and their response to various natural and anthropogenic forcing. In this paper, we study the upper atmosphere response to the major sudden stratospheric warming that occurred in January 2009. Our results agree well with the observed evolution of the neutral temperature in the upper atmosphere and with low-latitude ionospheric disturbances over America. For the first time, we identify an SSW-related cooling in the tropical lower thermosphere that, in turn, could provide additional information for understanding the mechanisms for the generation of electric field disturbances observed at low latitudes. We show that the SSW-related vertical electromagnetic drift due to electric field disturbances is a key mechanism for interpretation of an observed anomalous diurnal development of the equatorial ionization anomaly during the 2009 SSW event. We demonstrate that the link between thermospheric winds and the ionospheric dynamo electric field during the SSW is attained through the modulation of the semidiurnal migrating solar tide.