Disassembly of the fruit cell wall by the ripening-associated polygalacturonase and expansin influences tomato cracking

Fruit cracking is an important problem in horticultural crop production.Polygalacturonase(SlPG)and expansin(SlEXP1)proteins cooperatively disassemble the polysaccharide network of tomato fruit cell walls during ripening and thereby,enable softening.A Golden 2-like(GLK2)transcription factor,SlGLK2 regulates unripe fruit chloroplast development and results in elevated soluble solids and carotenoids in ripe fruit.To determine whether SlPG,SlEXP1,or SlGLK2 influence the rate of tomato fruit cracking,the incidence of fruit epidermal cracking was compared between wild-type,Ailsa Craig(WT)and fruit with suppressed SlPG and SlEXP1 expression(pg/exp)or expressing a truncated nonfunctional Slglk2(glk2).Treating plants with exogenous ABA increases xylemic flow into fruit.Our results showed that ABA treatment of tomato plants greatly increased cracking of fruit from WT and glk2 mutant,but not from pg/exp genotypes.The pg/exp fruit were firmer,had higher total soluble solids,denser cell walls and thicker cuticles than fruit of the other genotypes.Fruit from the ABA treated pg/exp fruit had cell walls with less water-soluble and more ionically and covalently-bound pectins than fruit from the other lines,demonstrating that ripening-related disassembly of the fruit cell wall,but not elimination of SlGLK2,influences cracking.Cracking incidence was significantly correlated with cell wall and wax thickness,and the content of cell wall protopectin and cellulose,but not with Ca^(2+)content.

Torsional Behavior Design of UHPC Box Beams Based on Thin-Walled Tube Theory

This study proposed a prediction formula for the torsional strength enabling to reflect the tensile strength of ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) beams based upon the thin-walled tube theory. The remarkable ductile behavior of UHPC can also be attributed to the steel fiber reinforcement. This feature must be considered to provide rational explanation of the torsional behavior of UHPC structures. In this study, the proposed torsional design adopts a modified thin-walled tube theory so as to consider the tensile behavior of UHPC. And torsion test was conducted on thin-walled UHPC box beams to validate the proposed formula through comparison of the predicted torsional strength with the experimental results. The comparison of the predicted values of the cracking torque and torsional moment resistance with those observed in the torsional test of UHPC verified the validity of the design method. The contribution of the steel fibers to the torsional strength and cracking load was larger than that of the stirrups, but the stirrups appeared to contribute additionally to the torsional ductility. Accordingly, it is recommended that design should exploit effectively the contribution of the steel fiber rather than arrange a larger number of stirrups in UHPC structures subjected to torsion.

Ultrasound-guided percutaneous drainage of a traumatic abdominal wall hematoma in the emergency department

BACKGROUND:Abdominal wall hematoma is due to trauma,coagulation disorders or anticoagulation therapy complications.METHODS:in this report we present a case of a 44-year-old female who suffered from blunt abdominal trauma and presented to the emergency department with sharp abdominal pain and ecchymosis.FAST and abdominal computerized tomography(CT) revealed an abdominal wall hematoma.Treatment with an ultrasound-guided percutaneous drainage was performed successfully.RESULTS:The patient remained under observation for six hours with serial ultrasound scans,and no signs of hematoma recurrence were present.She was discharged the same day with clinical improvement.CONCLUSION:Complete history investigation and clinical examination help to make a correct diagnosis of abdominal wall hematoma,select a prompt treatment,and reduce complications.

Cracking Patterns of Shear Walls in Reinforced Concrete Structure due to Strong Earthquake Based on Mohr-Coulomb Criterion

A primary goal of seismic design of buildings is to protect people's life safety during strong earthquakes. Fundamentally,to predict the survived space and estimate people escape intervals during structural collapse are very important,which requires to describe the failure process more detailedly not only for structural joints but also for slabs and shear walls. In the present paper,the details of Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion with tension-cutoff together with its expression in failure surface and local coordinate system of reinforced concrete( RC) shear wall are given firstly,and then several typical cracking patterns of RC shear wall,such as tension shear crack and compression shear crack, are analyzed based on Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion with tension-cutoff.

Wall Cracks Detection in Aerial Images Using Improved Mask R-CNN

The present paper proposes a detection method for building exterior wall cracks since manual detection methods have high risk and low efficiency.The proposed method is based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)and computer vision technology.First,a crack dataset of 1920 images was established using UAV to collect the images of a residential building exterior wall under different lighting conditions.Second,the average crack detection precisions of different methods including the Single Shot MultiBox Detector,You Only Look Once v3,You Only Look Once v4,Faster Regional Convolutional Neural Network(R-CNN)and Mask R-CNN methods were compared.Then,the Mask R-CNN method with the best performance and average precision of 0.34 was selected.Finally,based on the characteristics of cracks,the utilization ratio of Mask R-CNN to the underlying features was improved so that the average precision of 0.9 was achieved.It was found that the positioning accuracy and mask coverage rate of the proposed Mask R-CNN method are greatly improved.Also,it will be shown that using UAV is safer than manual detection because manual parameter setting is not required.In addition,the proposed detection method is expected to greatly reduce the cost and risk of manual detection of building exterior wall cracks and realize the efficient identification and accurate labeling of building exterior wall cracks.

Investigation on Cracking of Concrete Shear Wall under Exceeded Temperature Differences Rate

In situ, the changes of temperature, deformation, and stressing of steel bar of C40 reinforced concrete shear wall were measured, respectively. The results are obvious that the temperature change of climate is one of the most effective factors which could lead the concrete shear wall to cracking at earlier age. The temperature differences between inside and outside concrete shear wall are so large that the concrete will gain larger shrinkage. This larger shrinkage which is caused by the temperature reducing ratio will gain the strained action of head, end and reinforced steel bar of concrete shear wall. This action can lead to tensile stress on the surface and inside concrete shear wall. If the tensile stress would exceed the pull strength of concrete, the concrete shear wall would crack and cause deterioration. Thus, the enhancing curing of concrete shear wall in suit at earlier age, and controlling temperature reducing ratio and deform caused by shrinkage, will be available treatments which control occurring and developing of cracking on concrete shear wall.

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF TENSILE CAPACITY OF CONCRETE IN RC SHEAR WALLS AFTER CRACKING

Through the test of 8 RC shear wall specimens and computer analysis ofstrains of steel bars with keyways in the specimens,the authors have studied the remains oftensile stress of concrete between cracks after concrete cracking and put forward a formulato calculate coefficient Ψ,the ununiform distribution factor of steel strain.This coefficientcan be used to modify the calculated steel strain in cracked zone,so as to make the resultsof using finite clement method to analyze shear walls more accurate.

Controlling Methods and Causes of Wall Cracks of Civil and Industrial Construction Projects

Since the reform and opening up,Chinese economy has developed rapidly.Industrial and civil construction projects have made significant progress.That said,it is of great significance to further strengthen the construction management of industrial and civil construction projects for the longterm development of construction industry in China.In terms of reality,one of the common problems in the current industrial and civil construction is wall cracks,which will have an important impact on the appearance of the building and the overall construction quality.Therefore,it is necessary to analyze the reasons and put forward corresponding measures on it.That is how we can continuously improve the construction quality in civil and industrial construction projects,thereby achieving the enhancement of building safety and stability.

Analysis of dynamic stress intensity factors of thick-walled cylinder under internal impulsive pressure

Dynamic stress intensity factors are evaluated for thick-walled cylinder with a radial edge crack under internal impulsive pressure. Firstly, the equation for stress intensity factors under static uniform pressure is used as the reference case, and then the weight function for a thick-walled cylinder containing a radial edge crack can be worked out. Secondly, the dynamic stresses in uncracked thick-walled cylinders are solved under internal impulsive pressure by using mode shape function method. The solution consists of a quasi-static solution satisfying inhomogeneous boundary conditions and a dynamic solution satisfying homogeneous boundary condi- tions, and the history and distribution of dynamic stresses in thick-walled cylinders are derived in terms of Fourier-Bessel series. Finally, the dynamic stress intensity factor equations for thick-walled cylinder containing a radial edge crack sub- jected to internal impulsive pressure are given by dynamic weight function method. The finite element method is utilized to verify the results of numerical examples, showing the validity and feasibility of the proposed method.

Pseudo-dynamic active earth pressure behind retaining wall for cohesive soil backfill

A formula was derived for the computation of seismic active earth pressure behind retaining wall using pseudo-dynamic method.This formula considered the actual dynamic effect with variation of time and propagation of shear and primary wave velocities through the soil backfills.The influence of tension crack in the top portion of the backfill under seismic loading was investigated.The effects of wall friction angle,soil friction angle,horizontal and vertical seismic coefficients on the seismic active force were also explored.The parametric study shows that the total seismic active force increases as horizontal seismic coefficient increases,while it decreases with the increase in vertical seismic coefficient,internal friction angle and unit cohesion.The seismic active force calculated by the proposed method is larger than that calculated by previous theory.

Quantitative crack evaluation in slender reinforced concrete walls with rectangular section

Past earthquakes have shown that cracking affects post-earthquake functionality and accounted for huge repair costs for reinforced concrete(RC)wall buildings,even though the code-compliant seismic design prevents col-lapse.Engineers should know the maximum residual flexural crack width and volume of repair material needed for the flexural cracks to determine the damage degree and the repair cost.This paper presents the experimental campaign on four RC slender walls that investigated the effect of confining reinforcement and thickness of the wall on flexural crack parameters under quasi-static reversed cyclic loading.The width of all flexural cracks was measured when reaching each cycle peak drift and when unloading to zero lateral loads.Crack widths at peak and residual states increased with increasing peak drift.Based on the experimental observations,it was found that the maximum residual crack width is obtained as a simple function of the extreme tension fiber elongation of the wall tensile fiber within±30%error.In addition,this paper outlines methods to calculate the volume of repair material for flexural cracks from the extreme tension fiber elongation of the wall.With the funda-mental rules found from the experiment in this paper,it will become possible to obtain the maximum crack width and the volume of repair material from simple numerical analysis tools such as a multi-spring line element model.

Performance of masonry enclosure walls:lessons learned from recent earthquakes

This paper discusses the issue of performance requirements and construction criteria for masonry enclosure and infill walls. Vertical building enclosures in European countries are very often constituted by non-load-bearing masonry walls, using horizontally perforated clay bricks. These walls are generally supported and confined by a reinforced concrete frame structure of columns and beams/slabs. Since these walls are commonly considered to be nonstructural elements and their influence on the structural response is ignored, their consideration in the design of structures as well as their connection to the adjacent structural elements is frequently negligent or insufficiently detailed. As a consequence, nonstructural elements, as for wall enclosures, are relatively sensitive to drift and acceleration demands when buildings are subjected to seismic actions. Many international standards and technical documents stress the need for design acceptability criteria for nonstructural elements, however they do not specifically indicate how to prevent collapse and severe cracking, and how to enhance the overall stability in the case of moderate to high seismic loading. Furthermore, a review of appropriate measures to improve enclosure wall performance and both in-plane and out-of-plane integrity under seismic actions is addressed.

ABA-Mediated Inhibition of Germination Is Related to the Inhibition of Genes Encoding Cell-Wall Biosynthetic and Architecture： Modifying Enzymes and Structural Proteins in Medicago truncatula Embryo Axis

Radicle emergence and reserves mobilization are two distinct programmes that are thought to control germination. Both programs are influenced by abscissic acid （ABA） but how this hormone controls seed germination is still poorly known. Phenotypic and microscopic observations of the embryo axis of Medicago truncatula during germination in mitotic inhibition condition triggered by 10 μM oryzalin showed that cell division was not required to allow radicle emergence. A suppressive subtractive hybridization showed that more than 10% of up-regulated genes in the embryo axis encoded proteins related to cell-wall biosynthesis. The expression of α-expansins, pectin-esterase, xylogucan-endotransglycosidase, cellulose synthase, and extensins was monitored in the embryo axis of seeds germinated on water, constant and transitory ABA. These genes were overexpressed before completion of germination in the control and strongly inhibited by ABA. The expression was re-established in the ABA transitory-treatment after the seeds were transferred back on water and proceeded to germination. This proves these genes as contributors to the completion of germination and strengthen the idea that cell-wall loosening and remodeling in relation to cell expansion in the embryo axis is a determinant feature in germination. Our results also showed that ABA controls germination through the control of radicle emergence, namely by inhibiting cell-wall loosening and expansion.

Do mannequin chests provide an accurate representation of a human chest for simulated decompression of tension pneumothoraxes?

BACKGROUND:Tension pneumothorax(TPX) is an uncommon but life-threatening condition.It is important that this uncommon presentation,managed by needle decompression,is practised by paramedics using a range of educationally sound and realistic mannequins.The objective of this study is to identify if the chest wall thickness(CWT) of training mannequins used for chest decompression is an anatomically accurate representation of a human chest.METHODS:This is a two-part study.A review of the literature was conducted to identify chest wall thickness in humans and measurement of chest wall thickness on two commonly used mannequins.The literature search was conducted using the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials,MEDLINE,CINAHL,and EMBASE databases from their beginning until the end of May 2012.Key words included chest wall thickness,tension pneumothorax,pneumothorax,thoracostomy,needle thoracostomy,decompression,and needle test.Studies were included if they reported chest wall thickness.RESULTS:For the literature review,4 461 articles were located with 9 meeting the inclusion criteria.Chest wall thickness in adults varied between 1.3 cm and 9.3 cm at the area of the second intercostal space mid clavicular line.The Laerdal? manikin in the area of the second intercostal space mid clavicular line,right side of the chest was 1.1 cm thick with the left 1.5 cm.The MPL manikin in the same area or on the right side of the chest was 1.4 cm thick but on the left 1.0 cm.CONCLUSION:Mannequin chests are not an accurate representation of the human chest when used for decompressing a tension pneumothorax and therefore may not provide a realistic experience.

Shear-resistant behavior of light composite shear wall

Shear test results for a composite wall panel in a light composite structure system are compared with test results for shear walls in Japan.The analysis results show that this kind of composite wall panel works very well,and can be regarded as a solid panel.The composite wall panel with a hidden frame is essential for bringing its effect on shear resistance into full play.Comprehensive analysis of the shear-resistant behavior of the composite wall panel suggests that the shear of the composite shear wall panel can be controlled by the cracking strength of the web shearing diagonal crack.

激光定向能量沉积DD405单晶高温合金的裂纹形成机制研究

采用激光定向能量沉积技术制备了第二代单晶高温合金DD405薄壁结构,通过试验和理论相结合的手段对单晶高温合金在激光定向能量沉积过程中的热裂纹形成机制进行分析和探究。结果表明,热裂纹的形成是由应力集中、液膜稳定性和碳化物析出相3个因素所决定的。由于激光定向能量沉积过程的逐层叠加,残余应力随着沉积高度递增,因此沉积区存在高水平的残余拉应力。沉积区的晶界处会出现显著的应力集中,液膜在两侧拉应力作用下发生撕裂导致裂纹萌生。液膜稳定性与相邻晶粒间的晶界角度密切相关,当大角晶界大于40°时,会在拉应力的驱动下形成热裂纹。MC型碳化物析出相通过“钉扎作用”抑制液相补缩及弱化与基体之间结合强度等作用进一步促进了热裂纹形成。

某高层建筑墙体裂缝成因分析及探讨

为探明高层住宅填充墙裂缝产生的原因,阻止裂缝进一步发展,结合太原市某小区高层住宅房屋,开展裂缝的现场实际分布调查研究,并通过统计学的方法,得出结果:墙体损伤为非承重结构构件(填充墙)损伤,裂缝主要为加气混凝土砌块(填充墙)与混凝土剪力墙(承重墙)之间的竖向裂缝、墙体线管位置裂缝、窗角下裂缝和隔墙(非承重构件)裂缝。这些裂缝对主体结构安全性不造成影响,但局部墙体漏雨以及玻璃崩裂,影响观感,且会对使用功能产生影响。建议对产生裂缝的墙体进行封闭处理,避免漏雨对墙体的侵蚀,进而提出裂缝的预防措施,以此提高工程墙体结构的质量。

沿海地区台风荷载下陶粒加气混凝土砌块填充墙斜裂缝试验研究

为研究沿海地区低抗震设防烈度条件下陶粒加气混凝土砌块填充墙的开裂原因,采用PKPM软件分析了某13层框架结构住宅在台风荷载和6度抗震设防烈度下结构的层间位移,结果表明:在该地区基本风压下,该工程的最大层间位移角与6度抗震设防烈度时基本相当。同时进行了一榀足尺框架模型试验,结果表明,当主体结构还在弹性阶段时,模型的整体刚度就急剧下降,填充墙就已经开裂。当试件的位移角达到1/1 092时,填充墙开裂严重,此时相当于刚度修正后的13层框架住宅案例在1.27kN/m^(2)的风压下的表现。因此按照目前的结构设计参数取值和施工构造措施,沿海地区陶粒加气混凝土砌块填充墙的开裂在所难免。为避免该斜裂缝发生,应在设计和施工阶段采取新的设计方法和构造措施。

水冷壁管接头开裂原因

某电厂发生锅炉水冷壁管开裂现象。采用宏观观察、化学成分分析、金相检验、硬度测试等方法分析了水冷壁管开裂的原因。结果表明:水冷壁管接头对接环焊缝焊接产生了残余应力,材料中存在焊接缺陷,在高温、高压环境下,缺陷逐渐扩展为孔洞,并对其他管壁造成冲蚀破坏,最终导致水冷壁管开裂。

基于石膏板墙基层的砂浆收缩开裂性能研究

通过对干混抹灰砂浆收缩性能的试验,研究基于轻质石膏板墙基层不同标号预拌抹灰砂浆在不同龄期的收缩值影响因素,结合现场试验区域得到的观感数据对比分析,结果表明:①水胶比对砂浆塑性状态有显著的影响,因此不同水胶比条件下的砂浆的塑性收缩及其开裂、空鼓等状况可能存在显著的差别,砂浆标号越高,砂浆早期塑性收缩越快,砂浆越容易引起开裂、空鼓的问题;②轻质石膏板墙基层材料性能与砂浆材料为不同材质,表面张力不同,并且M10砂浆的强度大于轻质空心石膏板墙强度,砂浆收缩过程中易扯裂轻质空心石膏板墙基体。本试验得到水胶比是影响砂浆收缩及其早期塑性开裂主要因素,在轻质石膏板墙基层找平时应采用石膏砂浆进行找平抹灰,可以取得较好效果。