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As a frequent hazard, tropical cyclones have a great impact on the social and economic development of China, which is close to the origin of tropical cyclones in the western Pacific Ocean. The primary objective of this study was to construct a comprehensive risk assessment model for tropical cyclone hazards based on natural influencing factors, informing recommendations for hazard prevention and mitigation in affected regions. This research focused on tropical cyclones that made landfall in mainland China and Hainan from 1949 to 2023, utilizing hazard risk theory and classical extreme value theory. The wind speed and rainfall data during the peak cyclone periods (June to October) from 1997 to 2021 gathered from various meteorological stations, as well as altitude and vegetation cover data, were examined. Hierarchical analysis and ArcGIS spatial analysis methods were employed to study the characteristics of the spatiotemporal distribution of landfalling tropical cyclones and the comprehensive risk of tropical cyclone hazards, and the regions of China were delineated according to these methods. The results showed that, during the period from 1949 to 2023, the overall number of landfalling tropical cyclones decreased in a fluctuating manner, while the intensity of the cyclones increased. Furthermore, severe typhoons tended to occur more frequently in the summer than autumn with time, intensifying the challenge to resist short-term hazards. Moreover, the hazard-causing factors in areas affected by tropical cyclones displayed an increasing trend from north to south and from west to east. In detail, the regions sensitive to natural hazards were primarily located in the central part of Liaoning province, Tianjin, central and eastern Hebei province, Shandong province, eastern Henan province, central and northern Anhui province, Jiangsu province, and Shanghai, which are characterized by flat terrain and relatively low vegetation cover. Overall, the comprehensive risk of tropical cyclone hazards showed a geographical distribution that decreases from south to north and from east to west, with coastal cities in provinces such as Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, and Zhejiang—including Haikou, Zhanjiang, Xiamen, Beihai, and Taizhou—exhibiting the highest levels of risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper presents large‐scale quasi‐static tests conducted to investigate the seismic behavior of slender T‐shaped walls under a high axial compression force ratio of approximately 0.19. Four specimens were designed per various codes and design methods for comparison. All specimens failed in a flexural mode, characterized by the crushing of concrete and buckling or fracture of boundary longitudinal rebars at the web toe. The specimens designed per the US code ACI 318‐19 provisions and designed using displacement‐based method exhibited satisfactory deformation capacity with an ultimate drift exceeding 2.0%, which validates the effectiveness of the provisions and displacement‐based method for T‐shaped walls under high axial force ratios. However, the specimen designed per the Chinese code GB 50011‐2010 experienced a sudden drop in strength after 1.0% drift in flange‐in‐tension loading, indicating insufficient design of the special boundary element at the web toe and the necessity of improvement of the current Chinese code provisions. The flexural strength of the T‐shaped wall specimens can be accurately estimated using cross‐sectional analysis. Analysis of the test data indicated that the effective stiffness of the T‐shaped RC walls with an axial force ratio of no greater than 0.1 was significantly lower than 0.35EcIg, while that of the T‐shaped walls with an axial force ratio of 0.19 reached 0.5–0.7EcIg. Existing equations did not provide accurate estimate of the effective stiffness of T‐shaped walls. The lateral drift limit formulation developed by Segura and Wallace could reasonably estimate the lateral drift capacities for the T‐shaped RC wall specimens under high axial force ratios. Finally, three conceptually different models, namely the MVLEM‐3D, SFI‐MVLEM‐3D, and multi‐layer shear element models were adopted for the simulation of T‐shaped RC walls. All three models reasonably predicted the flexural strength capacity (mostly less than 15% error) and the effective stiffness (13%–43% error) of the T‐shaped walls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occlusive keypoints has been a challenge for human pose estimation, especially the mutual occlusion of human bodies. One possible solution to this problem is to utilize multi-scale features, where small scale features are capable of identifying keypoints, while large-scale features can capture the relationship between keypoints. Feature fusion among multi-scale features allows for the exchange of information between keypoints, facilitating the inference of occluded keypoints based on the identified keypoints. However, it's found that there are invalid features in feature fusion which will interfere valid feature. In this paper, we propose multi-scale feature refined network (MSFRNet) based on HRNet and a new attention module namely multi-resolution attention module (MRAM). The proposed MRAM is designed to strengthen the effective information while suppressing redundant information. It has multiple inputs and outputs and can learn the relationships between keypoints while retaining detailed information. The proposed MSFRNet outperforms HRNet, achieving a 1.4 AP improvement on the COCO dataset with only a marginal computational increase of 0.35 GFLOPs. Additionally, it demonstrates superior performance with a 0.9 AP, 0.7 AP, and 1.8 AP improvement on the MPII, CrowdPose and OCHuman datasets, respectively. Furthermore, compared with the latest attention mechanism PSA, the MSFRNet exhibits lower computational cost while maintaining the same pose-estimation accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experimental testing is a primary approach to understanding the seismic performance of nonstructural elements, the damage to which may claim tremendous loss during earthquakes. This paper proposed a standard dynamic loading protocol for experiments on acceleration-sensitive nonstructural elements. It is described by closed-form equations and matches the floor response spectrum of a specific building. An empirical phase angle is also proposed for bidirectional horizontal loading. The results of a trial shake table test on suspended ceilings show that the proposed protocol provides a promising tool to gain insight into the time-varying nature of the dynamic properties of suspended ceilings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the seismic behavior of a glass curtain wall system under various loading scenarios. Experimental set‐ups and approaches were developed to test full‐scale fully tempered (FT) insulating glass curtain wall systems subjected to three loading protocols: quasi‐static in‐plane loading, dynamic in‐plane loading, and dynamic coupled in‐plane and out‐of‐plane loading. A refined finite element (FE) model was developed to understand the behavior of the system. The average drift associated with glass cracking and fallout was found to be nearly identical for quasi‐static and dynamic in‐plane loading, indicating that in‐plane floor accelerations exerted marginal influence on the failure of the glass curtain walls. Bi‐directional loading led to an approximately 30% decrease in the glass fallout drift compared with in‐plane loading. This is because the out‐of‐plane drift placed an increased stress demand on the glass panel, as indicated by the FE analysis. Both the experimental tests and FE analysis revealed that the ASCE 7–16 formula, which is used to calculate the drift of contact between the glass and frame, is nonconservative as it does not consider the deformation of the surrounding frame and the friction between the gasket and the glass. The failure mechanism of the glass panel was caused by the stress concentrations at the diagonal corners due to glass‐to‐frame contact. The FE analysis indicated that the interactional effect among different glass units was negligible, and the glass panels exhibited a similar stress state regardless of their positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This study aimed to explore the importance of an MRI-based radiomics nomogram in predicting the progression-free survival (PFS) of endometrial cancer. Methods: Based on clinicopathological and radiomic characteristics, we established three models (clinical, radiomics and combined model) and developed a nomogram for the combined model. The Kaplan-Meier method was utilized to evaluate the association between nomogram-based risk scores and PFS. Results: The nomogram had a strong predictive ability in calculating PFS with areas under the curve (ROC) of 0.905 and 0.901 at 1 and 3 years, respectively. The high-risk groups identified by the nomogram-based scores had shorter PFS compared with the low-risk groups. Conclusion: The radiomics nomogram has the potential to serve as a noninvasive imaging biomarker for predicting individual PFS of endometrial cancer.

Introduction: To analyze the influencing factors for progression from newly diagnosed prediabetes (PreDM) to diabetes within 3 years and establish a prediction model to assess the 3-year risk of developing diabetes in patients with PreDM., Methods: Subjects who were diagnosed with new-onset PreDM at the Physical Examination Center of the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University from October 1, 2015 to May 31, 2023 and completed the 3-year follow-up were selected as the study population. Data on gender, age, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, etc. were collected. After 3 years of follow-up, subjects were divided into a diabetes group and a non-diabetes group. Baseline data between the two groups were compared. A prediction model based on logistic regression was established with nomogram drawn. The calibration was also depicted., Results: Comparison between diabetes group and non-diabetes group: Differences in 24 indicators including gender, age, history of hypertension, fatty liver, BMI, waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, HbA1c, etc. were statistically significant between the two groups (P<0.05). Differences in smoking, creatinine and platelet count were not statistically significant between the two groups (P>0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that ageing, elevated BMI, male gender, high fasting blood glucose, increased LDL-C, fatty liver, liver dysfunction were risk factors for progression from PreDM to diabetes within 3 years (P<0.05), while HDL-C was a protective factor (P<0.05). The derived formula was: In(p/1-p)=0.181×age (40-54 years old)/0.973×age (55-74 years old)/1.868×age (≥75 years old)-0.192×gender (male)+0.151×blood glucose-0.538×BMI (24-28)-0.538×BMI (≥28)-0.109×HDL-C+0.021×LDL-C+0.365×fatty liver (yes)+0.444×liver dysfunction (yes)-10.038. The AUC of the model for predicting progression from PreDM to diabetes within 3 years was 0.787, indicating good predictive ability of the model., Conclusions: The risk prediction model for developing diabetes within 3 years in patients with PreDM constructed based on 8 influencing factors including age, BMI, gender, fasting blood glucose, LDL-C, HDL-C, fatty liver and liver dysfunction showed good discrimination and calibration., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Yang, Liu, Du, Zhu, Lu, Wu, Zhang, Ji and Zheng.)

Objective: To investigate the impact of critical care management on patients diagnosed with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) during their stay in intensive care units (ICU)., Methods: A total of 62 ARDS patients admitted to the ICU of our hospital between March 2020 and March 2023 were enrolled as research participants. The patients were randomly assigned to either the research group (n=31) receiving critical care management or the control group (n=31) receiving routine care. Key parameters, including the duration of ICU stay, mean hospital length of stay (HLOS), duration of mechanical ventilation, and the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), were recorded. Additionally, changes in the Self-rating Anxiety/Depression Scale (SAS/SDS), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE), and Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score (CPIS) were assessed before and after the intervention. A self-designed questionnaire was employed to evaluate nursing quality and patient satisfaction., Results: In comparison to the control group, the research group exhibited significantly shorter durations of ICU stay, mean HLOS, and mechanical ventilation, along with a reduced incidence of VAP (P < .05). Moreover, the SAS, SDS, PSQI, APACHE II, and CPIS scores in the research group were lower than those in the control group, while the quality of care and satisfaction scores were notably higher (P < .05)., Conclusions: ICU critical care management demonstrates the potential to enhance the rehabilitation of ARDS patients and decrease the incidence of VAP, suggesting its clinical applicability.