Texas A&M University

Due to its vulnerability to hurricanes, Galveston Island, TX, USA, is exploring the implementation of a coastal surge barrier (also referred to as the ‘Ike Dike’) for protection from severe flood events. This research evaluates the predicted effects that the coastal spine will have across four different storm scenarios, including a Hurricane Ike scenario and 10-year, 100-year, and 500-year storm events with and without a 2.4 ft. sea level rise (SLR). To achieve this, we develop a 1:1 ratio, 3-dimensional urban model and ran real-time flood projections using ADCIRC model data with and without the coastal barrier in place. Findings show that inundated area and property damages due to flooding will both significantly decrease if the coastal spine is implemented, with a 36% decrease in the inundated area and $4 billion less in property damage across all storm scenarios, on average. When including SLR, the amount of protection of the Ike Dike diminishes due to flooding from the bay side of the island. While the Ike Dike does appear to offer substantial protection from flooding in the short term, integrating the coastal barrier with other non-structural mechanisms would facilitate more long-term protection when considering SLR.

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) is one of the key technologies that will determine how humans address global climate change. For captured CO2, in order to avoid the complications associated with two-phase flow, most carbon steel pipelines are operated in the supercritical state on a large scale. A pipeline has clear Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC) sensitivity under the action of stress and corrosion medium, which will generally cause serious consequences. In this study, X70 steel was selected to simulate an environment in the process of supercritical CO2 transportation by using high-temperature high-pressure Slow Strain Rate Tensile (SSRT) tests and high-temperature high-pressure electrochemical test devices, with different O2 and SO2 contents. Studies have shown that 200 ppm SO2 shows a clear SCC sensitivity tendency, which is obvious when the SO2 content reaches 600 ppm. The SCC sensitivity increases with the increase of SO2 concentration, but the increase amplitude decreases. With the help of advanced microscopic characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), through the analysis of fracture and side morphology, the stress corrosion mechanism of a supercritical CO2 pipeline containing SO2 and O2 impurities was obtained by hydrogen embrittlement fracture characteristics. With the increase of SO2 content, the content of Fe element decreases and the corrosion increases, demonstrating that SO2 plays a leading role in electrochemical corrosion. This study further strengthens the theoretical basis of stress corrosion of supercritical CO2 pipelines, plays an important role in preventing leakage of supercritical CO2 pipelines, and will provide guidance for the industrial application of CCUS.

Multi-robot motion planning (MRMP) is the problem of finding collision-free paths for a set of robots in a continuous state space. The difficulty of MRMP increases with the number of robots and is exacerbated in environments with narrow passages that robots must pass through, like warehouse aisles where coordination between robots is required. In single-robot settings, topology-guided motion planning methods have shown improved performance in these constricted environments. In this work, we extend an existing topology-guided single-robot motion planning method to the multi-robot domain to leverage the improved efficiency provided by topological guidance. We demonstrate our method's ability to efficiently plan paths in complex environments with many narrow passages, scaling to robot teams of size up to 25 times larger than existing methods in this class of problems. By leveraging knowledge of the topology of the environment, we also find higher-quality solutions than other methods.

Evaluation of acrosome function in stallion sperm is mostly based on the use of inducers of acrosomal exocytosis (AE), such as the calcium ionophore A23187 or progesterone. Recently, it has been reported that incubation of stallion sperm under presumed capacitating conditions (i.e., medium formulated with calcium, bicarbonate, and bovine serum albumin) using a lactate-only containing medium (Lac-MW) results in a high rate of spontaneous AE in viable sperm (AE/Viable). In the current study, we developed an alternative assay of acrosome function for stallion sperm following the incubation of sperm in a medium formulated only with lactate as an energy substrate (Lac-MW). In Experiment 1, freshly ejaculated stallion sperm was incubated with 10 μM A23187, Lac-MW, or Control, for up to 6 h under capacitating conditions. The percentages of motile sperm, viable sperm, total AE (Total AE), and AE in viable sperm (AE/Viable) were compared among treatment groups. Incubation in Lac-MW, but not with Control or A23187, resulted in a time-dependent increase in the percentage of AE/Viable, as determined by flow cytometry, particularly at 4 and 6 h of incubation (P < 0.05). In Experiment 2, freshly ejaculated sperm was incubated in Lac-MW for up to 6 h, and the occurrence of protein tyrosine phosphorylation and AE/Viable were determined. At 4h and 6h of incubation in Lac-MW, ∼40% of the sperm displayed a protein tyrosine phosphorylation immunofluorescence pattern that coincides with that recently associated with stallion sperm capacitation (i.e., immunofluorescence signal at the acrosome and midpiece). In Experiment 3, the rate of AE/Viable sperm was compared among freshly ejaculated, cool-stored, and frozen/thawed stallion sperm. Except at 2h incubation in Lac-MW, differences in mean AE/Viable among fresh, cool-stored, and frozen/thawed sperm were not observed (P > 0.05). In Experiment 4, the relationship between Total AE (A23187), or AE/Viable (Lac-MW), and in vivo fertility of 5 stallions was determined. A linear relationship was observed between mean AE/Viable and the per-cycle (r = 0.93; P < 0.05) and seasonal (r = 0.66; P < 0.05) pregnancy rates of five stallions used for artificial insemination with cool-stored semen. In Experiment 5, frozen/thawed sperm from subfertile Thoroughbred (TB) stallions, known to carry the susceptibility genotype for Impaired Acrosomal Exocytosis (IAE; FKBP6 A/A-A/A) was evaluated following incubation in Lac-MW. Sperm from subfertile TB stallions with IAE had lower mean AE/Viable, at both 4h and 6h incubation in Lac-MW, when compared to that of fertile control stallions (P < 0.05). Overall, the Lac-MW model validated in the current study may be a useful complementary assay to evaluate the ability of stallion sperm to physiologically undergo AE and to study stallion fertility potential. This acrosome function assay can be used to evaluate fresh, cool-stored, or frozen/thawed stallion sperm, and describes a strong linear relationship with in vivo-fertility of stallions used in artificial insemination programs.

Recent years have witnessed the rapid development of concept map generation techniques due to their advantages in providing well-structured summarization of knowledge from free texts. Traditional unsupervised methods do not generate task-oriented concept maps, whereas deep generative models require large amounts of training data. In this work, we present GT-D2G (Graph Translation-based Document To Graph), an automatic concept map generation framework that leverages generalized NLP pipelines to derive semantic-rich initial graphs, and translates them into more concise structures under the weak supervision of downstream task labels. The concept maps generated by GT-D2G can provide interpretable summarization of structured knowledge for the input texts, which are demonstrated through human evaluation and case studies on three real-world corpora. Further experiments on the downstream task of document classification show that GT-D2G beats other concept map generation methods. Moreover, we specifically validate the labeling efficiency of GT-D2G in the label-efficient learning setting and the flexibility of generated graph sizes in controlled hyper-parameter studies.

Graph neural networks (GNNs) have shown great success in detecting intellectual property (IP) piracy and hardware Trojans (HTs). However, the machine learning community has demonstrated that GNNs are susceptible to data poisoning attacks, which result in GNNs performing abnormally on graphs with pre-defined backdoor triggers (realized using crafted subgraphs). Thus, it is imperative to ensure that the adoption of GNNs should not introduce security vulnerabilities in critical security frameworks. Existing backdoor attacks on GNNs generate random subgraphs with specific sizes/densities to act as backdoor triggers. However, for Boolean circuits, backdoor triggers cannot be randomized since the added structures should not affect the functionality of a design. We explore this threat and develop PoisonedGNN as the first backdoor attack on GNNs in the context of hardware design. We design and inject backdoor triggers into the register-transfer- or the gate-level representation of a given design without affecting the functionality to evade some GNN-based detection procedures. To demonstrate the effectiveness of PoisonedGNN , we consider two case studies: (i) Hiding HTs and (ii) IP piracy. Our experiments on TrustHub datasets demonstrate that PoisonedGNN can hide HTs and IP piracy from advanced GNN-based detection platforms with an attack success rate of up to $100\%$ .

Optical camera communication (OCC) has been widely employed in various applications as a flexible and cost-effective means of communication both on land and underwater. However, the performance of the OCC system through the water-air interface has not been thoroughly investigated. In this paper, we explore the performance of the OCC system in a water-air environment and propose a bubble-wave-mitigation algorithm to pre-process the captured frames of received video. Moreover, we propose a transformer-based neural network to demodulate the transmitted signal, mitigating the deterioration in transmission performance caused by inter-symbol interference (ISI). The experimental results demonstrate that a robust transmission can be achieved in the water-air environment by applying our proposed algorithms and neural network demodulator.

Digital libraries have focused on change to images from the perspectives of prevention and reversal. Since change is a required component of scholarship, we seek to adding the modeling of change to support its characterization. In this paper we discuss change to images in traditional media and propose a formal model of that change. The subject calls for a kaleidoscopic approach as tracking changes in images is an interesting exercise in storytelling, both when one looks at deliberately changing them with a purpose and at tracking past changes.

Smooth minimal surfaces of general type with K2=1$K^2=1$, pg=2$p_g=2$, and q=0$q=0$ constitute a fundamental example in the geography of algebraic surfaces, and the 28‐dimensional moduli space M$\mathbf {M}$ of their canonical models admits a modular compactification M¯$\overline{\mathbf {M}}$ via the minimal model program. We describe eight new irreducible boundary divisors in such compactification parameterizing reducible stable surfaces. Additionally, we study the relation with the GIT compactification of M$\mathbf {M}$ and the Hodge theory of the degenerate surfaces that the eight divisors parameterize.

Correction for ‘Magnetic coupling between Fe(NO) spin probe ligands through diamagnetic NiII, PdII and PtII tetrathiolate bridges’ by Manuel Quiroz et al., Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 9167–9174, https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC01546G.

In the absence of consistent meteorological data on Mars, the morphology of dunes can be employed to study its atmosphere. Specifically, barchan dunes, which form under approximately unimodal winds, are reliable proxies for the dominant wind directions. Here, we characterize near‐surface winds on Mars from the morphology of >700,000 barchans mapped globally on the planet by a convolutional neural network. Barchan migration is predominantly aligned with known southern‐summer atmospheric circulation patterns—northerly at mid‐latitudes and cyclonic near the north pole—with the addition of an anti‐cyclonic north‐polar component that likely originates from winds emerging from the ice cap. Locally, migration directions deviate from regional trends in areas with high topographic roughness. Notably, obstacles <100 km such as impact craters are efficient at deflecting surface winds. Our database, which provides insights into planetary‐scale aeolian processes on modern‐day Mars, can be used to constrain global circulation models to assist with predictions for future missions.

ABSTRACTObjectives: Black mothers experience markedly disproportionate maternal morbidity and mortality in the United States, with racism often cited as the root cause manifesting through several pathways. The study examined how Black mothers perceived provider communication, support needs, and overall experiences in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Design: This study used grounded theory embedded in the Blackfeminist theoretical (BFT) framework to generate new ideas grounded in the data. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews using videoconferencing, with questions related to the mother’s overall NICU experiences, communication within the NICU, and perceived support needs. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: Twelve mothers participated in the study; most were married (n= 10), had a cesarean birth, had previous pregnancy complications (e.g., diabetes, hypertension), had attained a graduate degree or more (n= 9), earned an annual household income of $75,000 or more, and were between 35–44 years of age (n= 7). Three broad domains with several accompanying themes and sub-themes were identified, explicating the experiences in the NICU. Specifically, factors influencing NICU hospitalization for mothers included maternal care/nursing experiences, interactions in the NICU, and the perceived support need that might attenuate negative care and birthing experiences. Conclusion: The study adds to the growing literature championing Black maternal health equity and multilevel quality improvement strategies to foster equitable maternal health. Our study reinforces the need for racially congruent interventions and policy reformations to protect Black birthing people regardless of socioeconomic factors and social class using life course, holistic approaches, and intersectionality mindset. Importantly, using the BFT, this study calls for culturally sensitive research to capture the nuances associated with the multiplicity of experiences of Black people.

OBJECTIVE To conduct a retrospective multi-institutional study reporting short- and long-term outcomes of adrenalectomy in patients presenting with acute hemorrhage secondary to spontaneous adrenal rupture. ANIMALS 59 dogs and 3 cats. METHODS Medical records of dogs and cats undergoing adrenalectomy between 2000 and 2021 for ruptured adrenal masses were reviewed. Data collected included clinical presentation, preoperative diagnostics, surgical report, anesthesia and hospitalization findings, histopathology, adjuvant treatments, and long-term outcome (recurrence, metastasis, and survival). RESULTS Median time from hospital admission to surgery was 3 days, with 34% of surgeries being performed emergently (within 1 day of presentation). Need for intraoperative blood transfusion was significantly associated with emergent surgery and presence of active intraoperative hemorrhage. The short-term (≤ 14 days) complication and mortality rates were 42% and 21%, respectively. Negative prognostic factors for short-term survival included emergent surgery, intraoperative hypotension, and performing additional surgical procedures. Diagnoses included adrenocortical neoplasia (malignant [41%], benign [12%], and undetermined [5%]), pheochromocytoma (38%), a single case of adrenal fibrosis and hemorrhage (2%), and a single case of hemangiosarcoma (2%). Local recurrence and metastasis of adrenocortical carcinoma were confirmed in 1 and 3 cases, respectively. Overall median survival time was 574 days and 900 days when short-term mortality was censored. No significant relationship was found between histopathological diagnosis and survival. CLINICAL RELEVANCE Adrenalectomy for ruptured adrenal gland masses was associated with similar short- and long-term outcomes as compared with previously reported nonruptured cases. If hemodynamic stability can be achieved, delaying surgery and limiting additional procedures appear indicated to optimize short-term survival.

Accurate, timely, and accessible meteorological and soil moisture measurements are essential for a number of applications including weather forecasting, agricultural decision making, and flood and drought prediction. Such data are becoming increasingly available globally, but the large number of networks and various data reporting formats often make utilization of such data difficult. The TexMesonet is a “network of networks” developed within the state of Texas to collect, process, and make public data collected from more than 1,700 monitoring stations throughout the state. This paper describes the TexMesonet, with special attention paid to monitoring sites installed and managed by the Texas Water Development Board. It also provides a case study exemplifying how these data may be used and gives recommendations for future data applications.

Often workers find it difficult to clean the places where heavy objects are dumped. In the present situation, many dump yards are found with heavy material which humans cannot lift, in such scenarios these robotic arms can be used to clean up the place. These robotic arms are controlled by humans sitting in a central hub station manually. A manual operator in the central hub can view the place through the camera fixed to robotic arm, which helps them to control the arm. With this method, there is no need to go to each place to clean it. From the central station, we can clean up the city. UART communication protocol is used to establish communication between the central hub and robotic arms. By using this protocol wireless communication can be established, where the central hub acts as a server and the robotic arm acts as a client. These robotic arms can be further updated and used for cleaning sewage blocks and underground drainage pipes. As robotic arms can work well under extreme conditions, it helps in reducing manpower and ensures the safety gear of workers.

This paper discusses using housing density infill as a strategy for equality. With an estimated population of nearly 12 million people, Sao Paulo, located in southwest Brazil, is one of the urban scenarios that exemplify the accelerated urbanization experienced in Latin American cities in the 1950s and 1960s. This condition helped shape cities where segregation and juxtaposition act not as opposite poles but as phenomena that entangles themselves in any space deemed urban. Paulista Avenue, one of the most iconic places in São Paulo, served as the ground for undergraduate architecture students to develop possibilities of urban density as a new ground for housing. The infill is usually seen as an empty area; however, in this vertical architecture and urban design studio, the infill was the site. The hypotheses were: if existent density and context are the hard edges of the current urban scenarios, how is the infill appropriated toward a healthy and more equitable future for cities? How can new urbanities develop on top of one another through commonality without neglecting each other or its inhabitants? The project methodology focused on theoretical and speculative phases. First, the students had a research seminar exploring relevant concepts situated at the base of the studio’s design philosophy, such as enablement, flexibility, open building, and self-help. Second, these elements of participation applied to housing production helped establish the stance of their projects related to density and user participation. Provocative housing scenarios surrounded by public space and contrasting cultures were developed in the study, targeting the United Nations New Urban Agenda (UNITED NATION (2017) New Urban Agenda. English) and Sustainable Development Goals as a contribution to how contemporary citizen architects enhance the resilience of cities through architecture. By positioning density as a pathway toward housing equality, design becomes more than an attribute; it becomes an active verb. Thus, housing becomes more than a shortage; it becomes the city’s embodiment of democracy.

Atmospheric aerosol and chemistry modules are key elements in Earth system models (ESMs), as they predict air pollutants concentrations and properties that can impact human health, weather and climate. The current uncertainty in climate projections is partly due to the inaccurate representation of aerosol direct and indirect forcing. Aerosol/chemistry parameterizations used within ESMs and other atmospheric models span large structural and parameter uncertainties which are difficult to assess independently of their host models. Moreover, there is a strong need for a standardized interface between aerosol/chemistry modules and the host model to facilitate portability of aerosol/chemistry parameterizations from one model to another, allowing not only a comparison between different parameterizations within the same modeling framework, but also quantifying the impact of different model frameworks on aerosol/chemistry predictions. To address this need, we have initiated a new community effort to coordinate the construction of a GeneralIzed Aerosol/chemistry iNTerface (GIANT) for use across weather and climate models. We aim to organize a series of community workshops and Hack-a-thons to design and build GIANT which will serve as the interface between a range of aerosol/chemistry modules and the physics and dynamics components of atmospheric host models. GIANT will leverage ongoing efforts at the U.S. modeling centers focused on building next-generation ESMs and the international AeroCom initiative to implement this common aerosol/chemistry interface. GIANT will create transformative opportunities for scientists and students to conduct innovative research to better characterize structural and parametric uncertainties in aerosol/chemistry modules, and to develop a common set of aerosol/chemistry parameterizations.

Multidrug-resistant bacteria are one of the most serious threats to infection control. Few new antibiotics have been developed; however, the lack of an effective new mechanism of their action has worsened the situation. Photodynamic inactivation (PDI) can break antimicrobial resistance, since it potentiates the effect of antibiotics, and induces oxidative stress in microorganisms through the interaction of light with a photosensitizer. This paper addresses the application of PDI for increasing bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics and helping in bacterial persistence and virulence. The effect of photodynamic action on resistant bacteria collected from patients and bacteria cells with induced resistance in the laboratory was investigated. Staphylococcus aureus resistance breakdown levels for each antibiotic (amoxicillin, erythromycin, and gentamicin) from the photodynamic effect (10 µM curcumin, 10 J/cm ² ) and its maintenance in descendant microorganisms were demonstrated within five cycles after PDI application. PDI showed an innovative feature for modifying the degree of bacterial sensitivity to antibiotics according to dosages, thus reducing resistance and persistence of microorganisms from standard and clinical strains. We hypothesize a reduction in the degree of antimicrobial resistance through photooxidative action combats antibiotic failures.

Data from a national survey of 348 U.S. sports field managers were used to examine the effects of participation in Cooperative Extension events on the adoption of turfgrass weed management practices. Of the respondents, 94% attended at least one event in the previous three years. Of this 94%, 97% reported adopting at least one practice as a result of knowledge gained at an Extension turfgrass event. Half of the respondents adopted four or more practices; a third adopted five or more practices. Non-chemical, cultural practices were the most-adopted practices (65% of respondents). Multiple regression analysis was used to examine factors explaining practice adoption and Extension event attendance. Compared to attending one event, attending three events increased total adoption by an average of one practice. Attending four or more events increased total adoption by two practices. Attending four or more events (compared to one event) increased the odds of adopting six individual practices by 3- to 6-fold, depending on the practice. This suggests practice adoption could be enhanced by encouraging repeat attendance among past Extension event attendees. Manager experience was a statistically significant predictor of the number of Extension events attended, but a poor direct predictor of practice adoption. Experience does not appear to increase adoption directly, but indirectly, via its impact on Extension event attendance. In addition to questions about weed management generally, the survey asked questions about annual bluegrass management, specifically. Respondents were asked to rank seven sources of information for their helpfulness in managing annual bluegrass. There was no single dominant information source, but Extension was ranked as the most helpful more than any other source (by 22% of the respondents) and was ranked among the top three by 53%, closely behind field representative/local distributor sources at 54%.