Geometrical effects of a subducted seamount on stopping megathrust ruptures

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 40 (2013): 2011–2016, doi:10.1002/grl.50509.We have numerically simulated dynamic ruptures along a “slip-weakening” megathrust fault with a subducted seamount of realistic geometry, demonstrating that seamounts can act as a barrier to earthquake ruptures. Such barrier effect is calculated to be stronger for increased seamount normal stress relative to the ambient level, for larger seamount height-to-width ratio, and for shorter seamount-to-nucleation distance. As the seamount height increases from 0 to 40% of its basal width, the required increase in the effective normal stress on the seamount to stop ruptures drops by as much as ~20%. We further demonstrate that when a seamount is subducted adjacent to the earthquake nucleation zone, coseismic ruptures can be stopped even if the seamount has a lower effective normal stress than the ambient level. These results indicate that subducted seamounts may stop earthquake ruptures for a wide range of seamount normal stress conditions, including the case of the thrust fault being lubricated by seamount-top fluid-rich sediments, as suggested from observations in the Japan and Sunda Trenches.This work was supported by NSF grant EAR-1015221 and WHOI Deep Ocean Exploration Institute awards 27071150 and 25051162

Villából kórházat? A József Attiláról elnevezett kórház története

<p>Preoperative difficulty, expected and actual postoperative improvement on the Catquest-9SF items by functional characteristics (N = 174)^{<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0169844#t004fn001" target="_blank">*</a>}.</p

Research on Repatriates’ Incentive Mechanism: Based on Knowledge Transfer Perspective

Repatriates’ experience and knowledge is important competition advantage for the parent company in international business. This paper discussed repatriates’ incentive mechanism based on the perspective of knowledge transfer, established theoretic model of repatriates’ knowledge transfer incentive mechanism, and pointed out that knowledge transfer was a process of repeated game between the parent company and the repatriates, the establishing of knowledge transfer incentive mechanism was trying to reach the equilibrium of the game, it provided theoretic basis for promoting repatriates’ knowledge transfer effectivel

The influence of users' Dark Triad on knowledge contribution behaviour on social Q&A sites

The users' knowledge contribution behavior is the driving force for the sustainable development of the social Q&A sites. This kind of user behavior is affected by various factors, among which users' personality traits are the prominent ones. The dark triad is a theory on the dark side of personality. This article explores the influence and mechanism of users' dark triad on their knowledge contribution in social Q&A sites. A questionnaire survey was conducted on 301 users with experience in social Q&A sites. The survey data were then analyzed by hierarchical regression and Bootstrap analysis. The dark triad significantly affects knowledge contribution on social Q & A sites. Online self-disclosure plays a completely mediating role in the relationship between the dark triad and knowledge contribution. The relational psychological contract has a moderating role between online self-disclosure and knowledge contribution. This study argues that the dark triad has a positive effect on knowledge contribution behavior in socialized Q&A communities by constructing a model of mediated effects that are moderated. The dark triad shows its altruistic side in the context of social Q&A sites. The role of the dark triad in different knowledge-intensive contexts should be viewed dialectically in future research. Based on these findings, we put forward some suggestions for encouraging users' knowledge contribution behavior in the social media context.Peer Reviewe

Comparison of green building policies and regulations between central and local governments of China: Analysis based on text similarity

The development of green buildings, as the focus of the construction field, is an inevitable choice to achieve the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutralization. From the perspective of text similarity, this paper conducts a comparative study on the 14th Five-Year Plan for Building Energy Conservation and Green Building Development issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the PRC in 2022 and sixteen local regulations on green buildings at provincial levels. The results show that: First, promoting energy-saving and green transformation of existing public buildings, promoting new green construction methods, strengthening green building management system construction and other contents, have the highest similarity value, indicating that these three contents have the highest overall notices in the legislation formulation level of green buildings in different regions; Second, the legal texts formulated by Tianjin and Shanghai are more in line with the requirements of the 14th Five-Year Plan than those of other provinces, showing the forward-looking nature of local legislation; Lastly, through data analysis, it is found that the average similarities of the three deployments of green buildings have small differences, but there are large differences between regions. Jiangxi, Qinghai and Guangdong have some outstanding contents, forming regional characteristics according to local conditions, showing the differences of local legal texts. Since the Plan is the latest national guidance, it requires local regulations to refine and implement the contents of the Plan. Based on the comprehensive comparative analysis of the text, it is recommended that all localities should check and fill gaps according to the Plan, improve the key task systems, and use local standards to build legal guarantee tailored to local conditions

Effects of subducted seamounts on megathrust earthquake nucleation and rupture propagation

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 39 (2012): L24302, doi:10.1029/2012GL053892.Subducted seamounts have been linked to interplate earthquakes, but their specific effects on earthquake mechanism remain controversial. A key question is under what conditions a subducted seamount will generate or stop megathrust earthquakes. Here we show results from numerical experiments in the framework of rate- and state-dependent friction law in which a seamount is characterized as a patch of elevated effective normal stress on the thrust interface. We find that whether subducted seamounts generate or impede megathrust earthquakes depends critically on their relative locations to the earthquake nucleation zone defined by depth-variable friction parameters. A seamount may act as a rupture barrier and such barrier effect is most prominent when the seamount sits at an intermediate range of the seamount-to-trench distances (20–100% of the nucleation-zone-to-trench distance). Moreover, we observe that seamount-induced barriers can turn into asperities on which megathrust earthquakes can nucleate at shallow depths and rupture the entire seismogenic zone. These results suggest that a strong barrier patch may not necessarily reduce the maximum size of earthquakes. Instead, the barrier could experience large coseismic slip when it is ruptured.This work is supported by the NSF Grant EAR-1015221 and WHOI Deep Ocean Exploration Institute awards 27071150 and 25051162.2013-06-1

Facile Fabrication of Sandwich Structural Membrane With a Hydrogel Nanofibrous Mat as Inner Layer for Wound Dressing Application

A common problem existing in wound dressing is to integrate the properties of against water erosion while maintaining a high water-uptake capacity. To tackle this issue, we imbedded one layer of hydrogel nanofibrous mat into two hydrophobic nanofibrous mats, thereafter, the sandwich structural membrane (SSM) was obtained. Particularly, SSM is composed of three individual nanofibrous layers which were fabricated through sequential electrospinning technology, including two polyurethane/antibacterial agent layers, and one middle gelatin/rutin layer. The obtained SSM is characterized in terms of morphology, component, mechanical, and functional performance. In addition to the satisfactory antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, and antioxidant property upon scavenging DPPH free radicals, the obtained SSM also shows a desirable thermally regulated water vapor transmission rate. More importantly, such SSM can be mechanically stable and keep its intact morphology without appearance damage while showing a high water-absorption ratio. Therefore, the prepared sandwich structural membrane with hydrogel nanofibrous mat as inner layer can be expected as a novel wound dressing

Eye movements as predictor of cognitive improvement after cognitive remediation therapy in patients with schizophrenia

AimBaseline cognitive functions of patients predicted the efficacy of cognitive remediation therapy (CRT), but results are mixed. Eye movement is a more objective and advanced assessment of cognitive functions than neuropsychological testing. We aimed to investigate the applicability of eye movements in predicting cognitive improvement after patients with schizophrenia were treated with CRT.MethodsWe recruited 79 patients with schizophrenia to complete 8 weeks of CRT and assessed their cognitive improvement outcomes. Eye movements were assessed by prosaccades, antisaccades, and free-viewing tasks at baseline, and neuropsychological tests in four cognitive domains were assessed before and after treatment to calculate treatment outcomes. Predictors of demographic information, clinical characteristics, and eye movement measures at baseline on cognitive improvement outcomes were analyzed using logistic regression analysis. We further compared the predictive performance between eye movement measurements and neuropsychological test regarding the effect of CRT on cognitive improvement, and explored factors that could be affect the treatment outcomes in different cognitive domains.ResultsAs operationally defined, 33 patients showed improved in cognition (improved group) and 46 patients did not (non-improved group) after CRT. Patients with schizophrenia being employed, lower directional error rate in antisaccade task, and lower the gap effect (i.e., the difference in saccadic latency between the gap condition and overlap condition) in prosaccade task at baseline predicted cognitive improvement in CRT. However, performance in the free-viewing task not associated with cognitive improvement in patients in CRT. Our results show that eye-movement prediction model predicted the effect of CRT on cognitive improvement in patients with schizophrenia better than neuropsychological prediction model in CRT. In addition, baseline eye-movements, cognitive reserve, antipsychotic medication dose, anticholinergic cognitive burden change, and number of training sessions were associated with improvements in four cognitive domains.ConclusionEye movements as a non-invasiveness, objective, and sensitive method of evaluating cognitive function, and combined saccadic measurements in pro- and anti-saccades tasks could be more beneficial than free-viewing task in predicting the effect of CRT on cognitive improvement in patients with schizophrenia

Reactive Oxygen Species and Gibberellin Acid Mutual Induction to Regulate Tobacco Seed Germination

Seed germination is a complex process controlled by various mechanisms. To examine the potential contribution of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and gibberellin acid (GA) in regulating seed germination, diphenylene iodonium chloride (DPI) and uniconazole (Uni), as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and GA synthesis inhibitor, respectively, were exogenously applied on tobacco seeds using the seed priming method. Seed priming with DPI or Uni decreased germination percentage as compared with priming with H2O, especially the DPI + Uni combination. H2O2 and GA completely reversed the inhibition caused by DPI or Uni. The germination percentages with H2O2 + Uni and GA + DPI combinations kept the same level as with H2O. Meanwhile, GA or H2O2 increased GA content and deceased ABA content through corresponding gene expressions involving homeostasis and signal transduction. In addition, the activation of storage reserve mobilization and the enhancement of soluble sugar content and isocitrate lyase (ICL) activity were also induced by GA or H2O2. These results strongly suggested that H2O2 and GA were essential for tobacco seed germination and by downregulating the ABA/GA ratio and inducing reserve composition mobilization mutually promoted seed germination. Meanwhile, ICL activity was jointly enhanced by a lower ABA/GA ratio and a higher ROS concentration

Development of a New Robotic Ankle Rehabilitation Platform for Hemiplegic Patients after Stroke

A large amount of hemiplegic survivors are suffering from motor impairment. Ankle rehabilitation exercises act an important role in recovering patients’ walking ability after stroke. Currently, patients mainly perform ankle exercise to reobtain range of motion (ROM) and strength of the ankle joint under a therapist’s assistance by manual operation. However, therapists suffer from high work intensity, and most of the existed rehabilitation devices focus on ankle functional training and ignore the importance of neurological rehabilitation in the early hemiplegic stage. In this paper, a new robotic ankle rehabilitation platform (RARP) is proposed to assist patients in executing ankle exercise. The robotic platform consists of two three-DOF symmetric layer-stacking mechanisms, which can execute ankle internal/external rotation, dorsiflexion/plantarflexion, and inversion/eversion exercise while the rotation center of the distal zone of the robotic platform always coincides with patients’ ankle pivot center. Three exercise modes including constant-speed exercise, constant torque-impedance exercise, and awareness exercise are developed to execute ankle training corresponding to different rehabilitation stages. Experiments corresponding to these three ankle exercise modes are performed, the result demonstrated that the RARP is capable of executing ankle rehabilitation, and the novel awareness exercise mode motivates patients to proactively participate in ankle training