We found that both concrete and abstract categories are strongly grounded in multi-dimensional sensorimotor experience. Both domains were dominated by vision and, to a lesser extent, head movements, but concrete categories were more grounded in touch and hand–arm action, while abstract categories were more grounded in hearing and interoception. Importantly, this pattern of grounding was not uniform, and subdomains of concrete  and abstract  categories were grounded in different profiles of sensorimotor experience. Overall, these findings suggest that the distinction between abstract and concrete categories is not as clearcut as ontological assumptions might suggest, and that the strength and diversity of sensorimotor grounding in abstract categories must not be underestimated.Semantic categories, and the concepts belonging to them, have commonly been defined by their relative concreteness, that is, their reliance on perception. However, sensorimotor grounding must be regarded as going beyond the basic five senses and incorporate a multi-dimensional variety of perceptual and action experience. We present a series of exploratory analyses examining the sensorimotor grounding of participant-produced member concepts for 117 categories, spanning concrete (e.g. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences’. In particular, little is known about the specifics of how abstract categories are grounded in perceptual and action experience, and how their grounding compares with that of concrete categories. Our use of the term ‘grounding’ in the present paper relates to the classic sense of the symbol grounding problem )et al.  found thParticular types of sensorimotor experience have also been associated with certain subdomains of abstract concepts. Interoceptive experience (i.e. sensations inside the body) is more strongly rated for abstract concepts than concrete and dominates emotion concepts . Facial  (a)Despite the evidence summarized above, many questions remain regarding the grounding of semantic categories from both conceptual domains. First, are categories of abstract and concrete concepts grounded to the same extent? Second, are concrete and abstract categories equally grounded in all sensorimotor dimensions, or does the type of grounding differ between the two domains? Concrete concepts have often been regarded as strongly grounded in vision and touch, but considering multiple dimensions of perception and action is important to fully understand their representation. Moreover, as noted above, the manner of grounding may differ between subdomains, particularly because the abstract domain is arguably more complex and heterogeneous than concrete e.g. ,50). Thi. Thi50])how the perception and action systems provide distributed grounding for words.In a series of exploratory studies, we therefore examined the multi-dimensional sensorimotor grounding of concrete and abstract categories generated from a large set of category production norms. Studying semantic categories via tasks such as category production  provides a valuable source of information regarding the organization and representation of conceptual knowledge and—because category members are freely produced by participants—does so with a higher degree of ecological validity than when researchers pre-select category members for analysis. While the majority of such research has focused on concrete categories (e.g. ), recentOur first aim was to compare the overall grounding of concrete and abstract categories (i.e. are they grounded in sensorimotor experience to the same extent? Study 1). Second, we compared the specific types of perceptual and action experience that are present across the two domains, and particularly for subdomains of both concrete and abstract categories (Study 2). Finally, we examined the diffuseness of concrete and abstract categories . To this end, we analysed sets of member concepts spontaneously produced by participants for 117 concrete and abstract categories , using r. 2In our first study, we investigated whether concrete and abstract categories were grounded in sensorimotor experience to a similar extent, by examining how strongly their member concepts were experienced via perception and action. (a) (i)1 The 117 categories covered a range of taxonomic levels and category types , including many categories frequently studied in the categorization literature  as well as more novel abstract categories , thus providing a large range of categories for comparison. The member concepts of each category in the norms were acquired from a sample of 60 UK-based native speakers of English who completed a computer-based category production  task. Each participant completed the task for 39 categories, and verbally named as many category members as possible within 60 s per category. Idiosyncratic responses (i.e. category members produced by only one participant) were excluded, and responses with the same core referent were grouped under the most frequently produced label . The full dataset comprised 2445 category–member items ; see [unit of time–seconds; religion–Catholicism) and 1298 concrete category members .We analysed a set of category production norms  that comat); see  for fullet al.'s Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms [et al. [et al.'s sensorimotor strength ratings were produced for American English, but our items from the Banks & Connell category production norms were for British English, we matched each item to its equivalent American English term where necessary to extract ratings. For example, we matched equivalent spellings (e.g. item theatre → ratings for theater) and dialectal terms . Plural items were also matched to singular equivalents (e.g. oranges → orange), abbreviated items were matched to their full version (e.g. sci-fi → science fiction) and quantifiers were ignored (e.g. one-eighth → eighth). Polysemous items were matched to their category-specific sense if that term was available in the sensorimotor norms, . All matched terms are listed in the data file [To represent sensorimotor grounding, we used Lynott or Norms , where e [et al.  found toata file . (ii)We explored the relative strength of sensorimotor grounding of abstract and concrete categories in two ways, first at a domain level by comparing sensorimotor strength of all items , and then at a category level by calculating mean sensorimotor strength per category and ranking categories from weakest to strongest, observing where in the rank order abstract versus concrete categories occurred. (b)nanosecond as a unit of time, hydrogen as a chemical element) and strongly  grounded. On average, however, abstract categories had slightly lower sensorimotor strength  than concrete categories , a difference of approximately 4.0% on the composite sensorimotor strength scale.Both abstract and concrete domains were strongly grounded in sensorimotor experience , with vegreen vegetable, fruit; mean rating > 6) and the weakest were abstract . Nonetheless, the distinction between concrete and abstract categories was not as clear as might be expected  and were comparable in their mean sensorimotor strength to common concrete categories . Similarly, many concrete categories were ranked low for their relatively modest sensorimotor strength  and were comparable to several clearly abstract categories .When examining mean sensorimotor strength per category, the most strongly grounded categories were concrete . Howeve. 3how they are grounded—that is, whether the overall domains are grounded via different perceptual modalities and/or different action effectors, and whether different subdomains of abstract and concrete categories have distinctive sensorimotor grounding.Study 1 found that many abstract and concrete categories have equivalent strength of sensorimotor grounding. We next explored whether they differ in  (a) (i)et al.'s [All items were the same as in Study 1. Rather than a single composite rating of sensorimotor strength to summarize grounding per item, we took Lynott et al.'s  ratings  (ii)food to cover anything that is taken into the body for ingestion  and relabelled it as ingestible/non-ingestible for clarity. Note that while many of these subdomains largely overlap, they differ in the characterization of certain categories . For abstract categories, we explored high-level subdomains that have been proposed in the literature to have different representational structure: internally focused (i.e. relating to inner human experiences and characteristics) versus externally focused categories (i.e. relating to experiences or entities outside the self), and social  versus non-social categories [furniture in the inanimate subdomain; emotion in the internal subdomain), calculated the mean rating per dimension of all items within each subdomain and examined differences in how each subdomain was grounded compared with its counterpart . We selected the subdomains that showed the most distinctive differences in sensorimotor grounding and then examined further nesting within each of these subdomains.We first explored broad differences at the domain level, comparing how abstract and concrete categories were grounded in each of the 11 sensorimotor dimensions. Our second exploratory goal was to examine subdomains of concrete and abstract categories, to establish whether different categorical types were differently grounded in perceptual and/or action experience. For concrete categories, we explored several candidate subdomains established in the neuropsychological literature Abstract and concrete category members share some similarities in how they are grounded : both doemotion, personal quality, symptom of illness, injury and psychological illness) were most strongly grounded in interoception and head action, and it was the only abstract (or concrete) subdomain not dominated by visual experience. While some individual categories or member concepts in this subdomain were grounded in additional dimensions (e.g. injury is grounded in haptic and hand–arm action), the profile of internally focused categories remained evident throughout.Figures prime number, geometric shape, science, month and unit of weight) followed the same pattern of grounding that exemplifies external categories as a whole, with some individual categories also introducing additional dimensions . Social categories  generally showed stronger visual and head action grounding than the non-social subdomain, and were also strongly grounded in hearing and to some extent in mouth action. Again, some individual social categories were grounded in additional dimensions, such as sport's use of hand–arm, foot–leg and torso action, which was largely responsible for the presence of these latter dimensions in the abstract domain as a whole.By contrast, external categories were most strongly grounded in vision and head action, with negligible grounding in interoception, and both social and non-social subdomains fitted within this profile. Non-social categories  and things that cannot, which produced larger distinctions than any other candidate subdomains  were additionally grounded in interoception, but otherwise followed the pattern of the subdomain. On the other hand, non-ingestible categories resembled the overall profile of concrete categories in being dominated by vision and head action, with a moderate grounding in haptic and hand–arm action that was stronger than that exhibited by ingestible categories, and a notable absence of grounding in taste or interoception.For concrete categories, all subdomains were dominated by grounding in vision and a consistent, moderate presence of head action. The most striking differences in grounding appeared between things that can be ingested . Ingestanimal, bird, snake and insect) were dominated by auditory grounding in addition to the ubiquitous visual and head action grounding and had a markedly weaker presence of touch and hand–arm action. By contrast, inanimate categories followed the pattern of the non-ingestible domain and further subdivided into natural/artefact subdomains. Natural categories  were overall dominated simply by visual and head action grounding, with a weaker presence of touch and hand–arm action than the inanimate subdomain as a whole. Some individual natural categories were also grounded in additional sensorimotor dimensions  but never as the dominant means of grounding. Artefact categories , however, generally followed the overall profile of the inanimate subdomain but with stronger grounding in touch and hand–arm action in addition to vision and head action. Again, while some individual categories or member concepts within the artefact subdomain featured additional grounding in other sensorimotor dimensions , the characteristic profile of the subdomain was generally present throughout.Examining non-ingestible categories more closely showed a clear distinction between animate and inanimate subdomains. Animate categories  represent another ambiguous case, in that they are technically artefacts and are sometimes impaired or preserved as such . In ourch (e.g. ), but ofch (e.g. ). We fouOverall, the distinct patterns we observed in these analyses support previous findings that abstract and concrete categorical domains are both strongly grounded in sensorimotor experience ,37, but—. 4types of sensorimotor experience. However, one other important difference may exist between the domains regarding the extent to which sensorimotor grounding contributes to the ability of member concepts to cohere as a category, as previous work has proposed that the members of concrete categories appear to share more overlapping perceptual information than do the members of abstract categories [Studies 1 and 2 showed that abstract and concrete categories differ little in terms of the strength of their grounding, although they are grounded in very different tegories . That is (a) (i)All material was the same as in Study 2, where each category member was represented as an 11-dimensional vector of sensorimotor experience. (ii)animal, we calculated the distance between cat and all other members of that category  and then did the same for all other category members . Specifically, we calculated the sensorimotor distance between category members as the Minkowski-3 distance between their vectors [To examine the diffuseness of categories, we used a measure of sensorimotor distance between all the members that composed each category. For example, for the category  vectors , and theOur exploratory goal in this study was to examine whether abstract and concrete categories differed in their level of diffuseness by comparing the distribution of mean sensorimotor distance per category in each domain. (b)M = 2.25, s.d. = 0.56) were very slightly more diffuse than abstract categories , that is, within concrete categories, member concepts overlapped slightly less in sensorimotor experience than did the member concepts of abstract categories. In terms of sensorimotor grounding, the most diffuse categories were found in both domains (e.g. art form and weather). One particular concrete category, part of the body, was an outlier in its diffuse grounding, whereby its member concepts tended to be dominated by different sensorimotor dimensions (religion and gemstone), although the absolute lowest-scoring categories were predominantly abstract . The members of such non-diffuse categories tended to be grounded in the same sensorimotor dimensions and to similar extents, as illustrated in religion.Most categories were not very diffuse in their grounding, and mean sensorimotor distance between category members differed very little between the two domains . Indeed,mensions . Many ofart form occupies the result role in an act of creation by an artist . However, many non-diffuse categories could also be considered rule-based or relational (e.g. prime number and human dwelling), so it is not the case that rules or relations replace sensorimotor grounding as a means of category coherence. Nonetheless, it is possible that rules or relational connections, perhaps expressed by language , help cmore diffuse  than concrete categories. However, it should be noted that their proposal was primarily based on counting discrete features in artificial categories and hence may not generalize well to the continuous measures of sensorimotor grounding in real-world semantic categories that we examined here.Overall, abstract and concrete categories are about as diffuse as each other in their sensorimotor grounding, that is, categories in each domain are composed of member concepts that generally overlap to the same extent in their strength of grounding in various perceptual modalities and/or action effectors. As a result, sensorimotor grounding is approximately equally important to category coherence in both domains. This pattern is not consistent with Kloos & Sloutsky's  suggesti. 5In three studies exploring the multi-dimensional sensorimotor grounding of abstract and concrete categories, we found many similarities between the two domains. Categories from both domains were strongly grounded in multiple dimensions of perceptual and action experience, with many categories and their member concepts having equivalent strength of sensorimotor experience. Both concrete and abstract categories were most strongly grounded in vision and had a moderate but consistent grounding in head action. Indeed, abstract and concrete categories were equally diffuse in their grounding, whereby category members overlapped with each other's sensorimotor experience to a similar extent, indicating that sensorimotor grounding was equally important to category coherence in both domains. Overall, we found that abstract and concrete categorical domains were more similar than might be predicted by theories stating that sensorimotor experience is more important to concrete concepts ,33,34.type of grounding typically involved in a domain.The most notable differences we observed were in the relative importance of different sensorimotor dimensions to each domain. Haptic experience and hand–arm movements, and to some extent smell and taste, were far more strongly rated in concrete categories than abstract, while interoception, hearing and to some extent head movements, were more strongly rated in abstract categories. This pattern supports and extends findings from the existing literature regarding the sensorimotor basis of abstract concepts ,45, but Importantly, our analyses also identified grounding differences in subdomains of both abstract and concrete categories. Supporting theoretical distinctions between subdomains already suggested by the literature e.g. ,47,57), ,57, 47,5The present findings overall indicate that the concrete–abstract dichotomy is not the optimal way to understand grounding of semantic categories or conceptual representation in general, an argument that has been put forward by several researchers in recent years ,45,57. I


This paper examines the effects of different loading patterns on the static characteristics of continuous concrete beams reinforced with external prestressed carbon fiber-reinforced polymer tendons (EPCFRPT) and qualitatively analyzes the results for two continuous concrete beams: SB-1 under symmetrical loading, and SB-2 under asymmetrical loading. Then, a finite element analysis model is introduced and calibrated by tests conducted at Southeast University and data collected from a literature review. Based on the FEA model, the initial prestress, cross-section area, and eccentricity of CFRP tendons as well as the steel reinforcement configuration were selected by a parametric study. The results indicated that the initial prestress and tendon cross-section area had the most influence on the tendon stress increment and the secondary bending moment of the middle support, while the reinforcement distribution and eccentricity of the tendons had little effect. The secondary bending moment had a linear positive correlation with the stress increment of tendons. These results allow a simplified equation for calculating the external load bending moment amplitude coefficient at ultimate to be proposed. External prestress technology has been widely used in concrete structures, and is the most effective method for reinforcing existing structures ,2. SteelThe internal force redistribution of external prestressed concrete continuous beams is the result of external load bending moment redistribution in combination with secondary bending moment changes ,7,8. TheThe analysis of external non-bonded prestressed concrete continuous beams is much more complicated compared with external bonded prestressed concrete continuous beams . AllouchThe object of this article is to study the effect of external prestressed tendons on the static behavior of continuous beams, and especially on the redistribution of bending moments, which is one of the key problems when using external prestressed CFRP-reinforced concrete continuous beams. To this end, we highlight the deformation characteristics, ultimate load, and stress redistribution of continuous beams with external prestressed CFRP tendons under symmetrical and asymmetrical loading.Two prototype two-span continuous concrete T-beams with cross-sections and tendon layouts are shown in The total length of each beam was 6.7 m, of which each span was 3.2 m. Each beam was 200 mm high and the span-to-depth ration was 16. Two deformed steel beams  . The tes2, Al2O3, and Fe2O3 with mass percentages of 62%, 21%, 5%, and 3%, respectively, tested following Chinese code GB175-2007 [Commercial concrete was used in the tests. In accordance with reports from concrete suppliers, the concrete mix ratio was cement:medium sand:gravel:water at 1:1.07:2.18:0.43 by weight. River sand was used. The amounts of the different ingredients in the concrete are shown in 175-2007 . When po6 (2016) . The conTest beam SB-1 was in asymmetrical loading mode, with the two spans synchronously loaded to nt meter .The final failure modes of continuous beams SB1 and SB2 are both flexural failure. The distribution of concrete cracks are shown in SB-1 Failure: before the loading reaches 40 kN, the beam is in the elastic stage. When the load reaches 40 kN, the concrete at the lower edge of the BC span control section and the upper edge of the middle support section simultaneous cracked in tension, and the beam enters the nonlinear stage. Subsequently, the load on the AB span remains unchanged, the BC span continues to be loaded, the deflection growth rate of the BC span beam body is accelerated, and the growth rate of the external prestress CFRP reinforcement stress is accelerated. When the BC span is loaded to 98 kN, the BC span control section and the tensile reinforcement of the middle support section yield at the same time, then the BC span deflection and the external CFRP reinforcement stress enter a stage of rapid growth. When the load reaches 114 kN, the concrete in the upper edge compression zone on the inner side of the BC span control section is crushed, and the continuous beam losses its carrying capacity.SB-2 Failure. Before the load reaches 45 kN, the beam is in the elastic stage. When the load reaches 45 kN, the lower edge of the AB and the BC span control section, as well as the upper edge of the middle support section, simultaneously crack due to tension stress. The beam then enters the nonlinear stage. As the two spans continue to be loaded synchronously, the growth rate of the deflection of the continuous beam and the stress of the external prestressed CFRP bars both accelerate. When the load reaches 80 kN, the tensile reinforcement of the middle support section yields, and there is a significant moment redistribution phenomenon. As loading continues to 105 kN, the tensile reinforcement of the AB span and BC span control section yields, then the mid-span deflection and external CFRP reinforcement stress enters a stage of rapid growth. When the load reaches 127 kN, the concrete in the compression zone on the inner side of the AB span control section is crushed, and the continuous beam loses its bearing capacity.However, several differences are apparent between the different load–deformation curves. First, the tensile steel rods at the V and III sections of SB-1  yielded Thus, for a two-span continuous beam, the ultimate load under symmetrical loading (SB-2) was higher than that under asymmetrical loading (SB-1). During symmetrical loading of SB-2, the tensile steel rods at the mid-support section (section III) yielded before the tensile steel rods at the mid-section of each span (sections IV and V). Conversely, during asymmetrical loading of SB-1, the tensile steel rods at the mid-support section (section III) and the mid-section of the BC span (section V) yielded almost simultaneously.The load–displacement curve of the external CFRP-reinforced concrete continuous beam in this paper is similar to the load–deflection curve of the external prestressed steel cable continuous beam obtained by Tan . The dirIn addition to satisfying the conditions of static balance, statically indeterminate concrete structures need to satisfy the conditions of deformation coordination in order to obtain structural response under load. For statically indeterminate concrete structures, the relationship among the internal forces in different sections does not follow a linear elastic state owing to the inelastic properties of such structures after they crack. This phenomenon is called internal force redistribution, and is usually reflected in the moment redistribution. Many approaches have been proposed that consider internal force redistribution. One of these is the method of the coefficient of moment redistribution, which modulates the value of the moment calculated by the elastic theoretical method to ensure that it is close to the actual forces of the structure. In this paper, this method is applied to analyze the effects of different loading patterns on the internal force redistribution of SB-1 and SB-2. The moment redistribution coefficient, function (3)β=Me−The two-span continuous beams are statically indeterminate structures, and as such two necessary conditions are needed to determine the internal structural force, namely, the static equilibrium condition and the coordinated deformation conditions. Loading only on one span will result in distinctly different mechanical properties in the structure compared to loading both spans.In recent years, main bridges and the approach spans of bridges have failed due to vehicle overloading, even just a few years after the structures were built . VehicleIn this paper, the finite element analysis of concrete continuous beams with external prestressed tendons was carried out using the Opensees platform. The OpenSees platform, developed by the University of California, Berkeley, is an open source software framework originally used to develop applications to simulate the performance of structures and geotechnical systems during earthquakes. Today, it is widely used in civil engineering structural modeling for static linear elasticity analysis, static nonlinearity analysis, modal analysis, and dynamic nonlinear analysis. Opensees software has a rich database with high applicability and flexibility, and was able to fully complete the static nonlinear analysis tasks described herein.For the finite element model we adopted a two-dimensional three-degrees-of-freedom system, and the analysis plane was an X–Y plane. The model nodes were set along the beam length every 100 mm, and there were 65 nodes in total. Node 1 was a fixed hinge support constraining the x and y directions, while nodes 33 and 65 were rotating hinge supports, constraining the x-direction and applying load by displacement control. The finite element model unit nodes are shown in The model was divided into two parts: the reinforced concrete beam and the prestressed tendon. The reinforced concrete beams were simulated with the displacement-based beam–column unit (dispBeamColumn), while the prestressed tendons were simulated by truss elements (truss). The prestressed steel bars of unbonded prestressed continuous beams and surrounding concrete could be relatively slipped. The elastic beam element unit (elasticBeamColumn) with sufficient rigidity was used for the connection. The relative sliding between the reinforcement material and the concrete was realized with the equalDOF command. The beam–column unit characteristics were determined by the fiber cross-section. The constitutive model of the concrete adopted Concrete01, and the constitutive model of the prestressed tendon adopted Steel02. The Newton line search algorithm was used to solve the calculation .Many factors affect external prestressed concrete continuous beam performance ,31. To fTwelve rectangular cross-section simulated beams were designed. The parameters of the simulated beams are shown in The load–stress increment curves of the external prestressed tendon under different values of prestress, prestressed tendon area, eccentricity, and steel bar cross-sectional area is shown in The initial prestress value had the greatest influence on the external prestressed CFRP tendon stress increment, followed by the CFRP tendon elastic modulus and the cross-sectional area. The cross-sectional area of the steel bar and the eccentricity of the external prestressed tendons had little effect on the stress increment of the external prestressed tendons when maintaining a constant reinforcement ratio. When the elastic modulus of the steel strand and the external prestressed CFRP tendon were the same, the stress increment of the external prestressed tendon barely changed.Concerning the influence of the initial value prestress and the tendon cross-sectional area, the critical point  of each stage significantly improved as either the initial prestress or the tendon cross-sectional area increased. In the final failure, the effect of the tendon cross-sectional area on the external prestress increment was consistent with the same critical points, and was inversely affected by the initial prestress, that is, the initial prestress increment decreased when the initial prestress value increased.The relationship of the prestress secondary bending moment and the external load under different factors is shown in The moment modulation coefficient of the bearing section at the ultimate state is shown in The total bending moment amplitude modulation factor of the bearing section of the external CFRP-reinforced concrete continuous beam under the ultimate bearing capacity state can be obtained from Equation . HoweverThe external load moment amplitude modulation factor can be calculated as follows:The reinforcement coefficient  is definThe relationship between the external load bending moment amplitude modulation coefficient and the comprehensive reinforcement index of the middle bearing section can be obtained by data fitting; the equation is as follows:Based on the assumption that the secondary bending moment of the middle support section has a linear relationship with the stress increment of the external CFRP reinforcement, the secondary bending moment can be calculated using the following formula:By combining Equations , 6), an, an6), aThe SB-2 results and the test results from  were selThrough the finite element analysis, the influence of different factors on the load–stress curve was determined and their specific laws of influence identified. This provides a theoretical numerical analysis basis for the design of external prestressed CFRP-reinforced concrete continuous beam structural parameters based on actual engineering conditions and design goals.FEA combined with testing was used to study the static behavior of external prestressed CFRP tendon continuous beams. The simulation parameters included the distribution of reinforcements, initial prestress value, section area, and eccentricity of external CFRP tendons. The main conclusions are listed below.The final failure modes of continuous beams SB1 and SB2 are both flexural failure. The crushed concrete in the compression zone causes the continuous beam to lose its bearing capacity.The external prestressed tendon stress increment displays a three-stage development law as external loading increases. The initial prestress value has the greatest influence on the CFRP prestress increment, followed by the elastic modulus and cross-sectional area of the external prestressed tendon. The cross-sectional area of the reinforcements and the eccentricity of the external prestressed tendon has little effect on the stress increment when preserving the same reinforcement ratio. When the elastic modulus of the steel strand and the external prestressed tendon are the same, the external prestressed tendon stress increment hardly changes.The critical point  of each stage significantly improves as the initial prestress value or the tendon cross-sectional area increases. The load at the critical point of each stage is almost the same as the tendon elastic modulus increases. However, the prestress increment of the tendon increases rapidly, showing the opposite influence of the initial prestress and tendon cross-sectional area. The larger the tendon elastic modulus, the larger the external prestress increment during tendon fracture.There is a linear relationship between the secondary bending moment and the tendon stress increment. The distribution of the reinforcements and the eccentricity of the tendons has a large influence on the amplitude and sensitivity of the bending moment. The comprehensive bending moment modulation was between 10% and 24%, and the secondary bending moment modulation accounted for 15.8% and 28.9%.Increasing the axial force of the external prestress tendons or reducing the eccentricity and/or number of tensile reinforcements could reduce the modulation coefficient of the total bending moment and the external load bending moment.We propose a simplified equation for calculating the external load bending moment amplitude coefficient at ultimate. The proposed equation exhibits a quite good fit to test results.


Triticum aestivum L.). To investigate quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with SC and SL, a recombinant inbred lines (RIL) population derived from the cross of Bailangmai  and Chuanyu 20  was employed in six environments. Three genomic regions responsible for SC and SL traits were identified on chromosomes 2A and 2D using bulked segregant exome sequencing (BSE-Seq). By constructing genetic maps, six major QTL were repeatedly detected in more than four environments and the best linear unbiased estimation (BLUE) datasets, explaining 7.00–28.56% of the phenotypic variation and the logarithm of the odd (LOD) score varying from 2.50 to 13.22. They were co-located on three loci, designed as QSc/Sl.cib-2AS, QSc/Sl.cib-2AL, and QSc/Sl.cib-2D, respectively. Based on the flanking markers, their interactions and effects on the corresponding trait and other agronomic traits were also analyzed. Comparison analysis showed that QSc/Sl.cib-2AS and QSc/Sl.cib-2AL were possibly two novel loci for SC and SL. QSc/Sl.cib-2AS and QSc/Sl.cib-2D showed pleiotropic effects on plant height and grain morphology, while QSc/Sl.cib-2AL showed effects on spikelet number per spike (SNS) and grain width (GW). Based on the gene annotation, orthologous search, and spatiotemporal expression patterns of genes, TraesCS2A03G0410600 and TraesCS2A03G0422300 for QSc/Sl.cib-2AS, and TraesCS2D03G1129300 and TraesCS2D03G1131500 for QSc/Sl.cib-2D were considered as potential candidate genes, respectively. These results will be useful for fine mapping and developing new varieties with high yield in the future.Spike compactness (SC) and length (SL) are the components of spike morphology and are strongly related to grain yield in wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.), one of the most widely planted food crops, provides approximately 20% of the dietary calories in food products consumed worldwide. To satisfy the demand of the rapidly expanding global population, wheat production needs annual growth of approximately 2% during the next three decades, but the actual growth rates are generally not more than 1% each year (Hexaploidy wheat (ach year . Therefoach year . The spiach year . The morach year . Therefoach year .Compactum (C), Sphaerococcum (S), and Q , photoperiod , and earliness per se (Eps), control life-cycle duration which affects the SC and SL in wheat  may have functions in the initiation of spikelet meristem in wheat , and Q . The C ger spike . The S gl grains . The Q ging date . Meanwhiin wheat . Vrn andity time . The eart number . Howeverin wheat . Furtherin wheat . Moreoveat  over the past decades . HoweverIn the present study, a recombinant inbred lines (RIL) population obtained by the crossing of Bailangmai (BLM) and Chuanyu 20 (CY20) was utilized for the dissection of the genetic determinants of SC and SL. The exome capture sequencing of bulked segregant analysis (BSE-Seq) was used to identify the genomic regions that are responsible for the two traits and polymorphic SNPs and InDels for marker development, which was further used to construct the genetic map. Herein, the objectives of this study were to: (i) phenotypically evaluate the performance of SC and SL in the BC20 population in multiple environments; (ii) dissect the genomic regions controlling SC and SL by BSE-Seq; (iii) identify stable and major QTL, and analyze their effects and interactions; and (iv) predict candidate genes for gene cloning.10) population with 182 lines was developed from an F2 population derived from the cross of Bailangmai × Chuanyu 20  by the single-seed descent method. BLM is a Tibet landrace that can resist extreme stress conditions, such as cold and drought, and shows strong tillering capacity. CY20 is an improved variety with high yield.A RIL , including Shuangliu  in 2019–2020 (E1), Shifang  in 2019–2020 (E2), Shifang in 2018–2019 (E3), Shuangliu in 2018–2019 (E4), Shuangliu in 2017–2018 (E5), and Shifang in 2017–2018 (E6). A randomized complete block design was adopted for all of the trials. Each line was represented by a single 1-m row plot with a sowing rate of 11 seeds and a spacing of 20 cm between the rows. Two replicates were used in this study. Field management was performed according to the local standard practices for wheat production.After harvesting the whole plants at maturity, eight representative plants of each line and parents were selected randomly to measure the phenotype of agronomic traits, including plant height (PHT), productive tiller number (PTN), spike length (SL), spikelet number per spike (SNS), spike compactness (SC), grain number per spike (GNS), 1,000-grain weight (TGW), grain length (GL), grain width (GW) and grain roundness (GR). PHT was measured from the plant base to the tip of the main spike excluding the awns. SL was the length from the base of the stalk to the top of the main spike excluding the awns. SNS was determined by counting the number of spikelets in the main spike. SC was calculated by dividing SNS by SL. The traits of grains were evaluated by using the software SC-G .t-test (P < 0.05) for evaluating the significance of difference were performed using the software SPSS 20 . The best linear unbiased evaluation (BLUE), combined QTL detection and effect analyses were performed using QTL IciMapping 4.21. The broad-sense hereditary capacity (H2) of each trait was estimated according to the method described by Basic statistical analyses, frequency distribution, Pearson’s correlations analyses among different traits, and Student’s 2).The genomic DNA of each line and the parents was isolated from 14-day-old seedlings using the modified cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) method, followed by RNase-A digestion. The integrity of DNA was checked and confirmed on the agarose gels, and the concentration of DNA was calculated using a spectrophotometer. Based on the phenotypic values obtained in six environments and the BLUE datasets, all the lines in each environment were arranged in order from small to large separately. The lines within two tails (20%) in the BLUE datasets and simultaneously in at least five of the six environments were selected to bulk pools. The genomic DNA was bulked into four extreme pools by collecting equal quantities (1 μg) of DNA from 30 individuals with extremely high SC value (SC-H), low SC value (SC-L), high SL value (SL-H), and low SL (SL-L) value in the BC20 population, respectively. Preparation and resequencing of six DNA libraries from BLM, CY20, SC-H, SC-L, SL-H, and SL-L pools were conducted by Bioacme Biotechnology Co., Ltd. .Axiom3 and Galaxy4, respectively. In the primer designing of KASP markers, the FAM and HEX probe sequences were added to the 5′ terminal of the primers. The KASP assays were performed in QuantStudio™ 3 Real-Time PCR System designed by Thermo Fisher Scientific with the reaction mixture containing 5 μl of 2 × master mix, 0.8 μl of primer mix, 3 μl of ddH2O, and 2 μl of DNA template (50–100 ng/μl). Touchdown PCR conditions were hot-start activation at 95°C for 15 min, followed by a touchdown phase of 10 cycles , and finally 26 cycles of regular PCR . The final fluorescence was read at 35°C for 30 s. If the clustering was not significant, more cycling and resting steps were required at the following conditions: 94°C for 20 s, followed by 55°C for 40 s (2–5 cycles per step).Based on the BSE-Seq analysis and wheat 660K SNP assay, SNPs and InDels in the target genomic regions between BLM and CY20 were screened to design Kompetitive Allele-specific PCR (KASP) markers and simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers using the online websites of Triticeae Multi-omics Center2O. The conditions followed for SSR PCR were similar to those followed for PCR. Polyacrylamide gel (8%) electrophoresis was used for separating the amplification products.The regular PCR for SSR primers was conducted in a 20 μl reaction volume consisting of 10 μl of 2 × Taq Master Mix, 1 μl of primer mixture (10 μM), 0.5 μl of DNA template (∼100 ng/μl), and 8.5 μl of ddHP < 0.05). The missing phenotype was represented as −100 in the QTL analysis  . Genes b TBtools . MeanwhiH2) of SC and SL was 93.46% and 93.49%, and the coefficient of variation was 13.89–16.47% and 14.53–17.81% for SC and SL, respectively. These results indicated that both SC and SL were environmentally stable and mostly controlled by genetic factors (H2) estimates for other agronomic traits, such as PHT, PTN, SNS, GNS, TGW, GL, GW, and GR, showed typical normal distribution and obvious bidirectional transgressive segregation appearance in the BLUE datasets, which was similar to those observed for SC and SL (r) value of 0.55–0.92 and 0.64–0.89 for SC and SL, respectively  and GW (r = −0.25) at a significance level of P < 0.01. However, no significant correlation was observed between SC, SL and GNS, GL/GW, GL, GR, and between SL and TGW, GW  analysis was performed to identify the genomic regions for SC and SL, and the results were compared with the Chinese Spring (CS) reference genome v1.0 by IWGSC. Then, we invented the final physical regions from CS RefSeq v1.0 into CS RefSeq v2.1.The total number of clean reads after filtering was 795,072,196, and the number of clean bases obtained from a total of six pools was 112.00 Gb, with clean reads ranging from 83,760,834 to 161,211,222 for a single pool, which indicated that the sequencing data were available for the subsequent analysis. At least 99.78% of the captured sequence fragments could be aligned to the CS RefSeq v1.0 by IWGSC, and the mean sequencing depth varied from 28.19 to 61.75×, with the exome region occupying more than 77.43% in each pool. These results indicated that the BSE-Seq assays among the pools were efficient in the present study. After SNP/InDel calling with BCFtools, a total of 3,980,637 SNPs and 231,018 InDels were obtained within all the six pools, of which 4,425,722 SNPs and 199,018 InDels were inconsistent with the reference sequence .The genomic regions for SC were discovered on the chromosomes 2A and 2D based on the ED and SNP-index methods . In addiTo confirm the preliminarily identified genomic regions responsible for SC and SL, SNPs and InDels in the target regions were converted into KASP and SSR markers to construct the genetic map. In total, 40 KASP markers and two SSR markers were used for the construction of the genetic maps by genotyping 182 lines of the BC20 population . The resQSc.cib-2AS, QSc.cib-2AL, and QSc.cib-2D, were detected for SC. QSc.cib-2AS was detected in all the environments and the BLUE dataset showed the LOD values ranging from 2.58 to 5.34 and explained 7.00–13.24% of the phenotypic variance. QSc.cib-2AL was also detected in the six environments and the BLUE dataset and explained 9.32–15.26% of the phenotypic variance, together with the LOD values ranging from 3.56 to 6.71. QSc.cib-2D was detected in the BLUE dataset and five environments with LOD values in the range of 7.61–13.22, which explained 18.44–28.56% of the phenotypic variance. All the favorable alleles of the three loci were contributed by BLM  ranging from 11.36% to 22.26% and the LOD values varying from 4.51 to 9.95. CY20 contributed all the favorable alleles of the three loci.Three QTL, QPht.cib-2AS and QPht.cib-2AL were detected in at least three environments and explained 7.06–10.16% and 8.29–10.80% of the phenotypic variance, respectively.Moreover, several QTL for PHT, TGW, and GL were detected on chromosome 2A . Among tQSl.cib-2AS and QSc.cib-2AS on the chromosome arm 2AS showed different genetic positions, analyses of the corresponding physical locations revealed that the genomic region of QSc.cib-2AS contained the region of QSl.cib-2AS. Moreover, two QTL QSl.cib-2AL and QSc.cib-2AL on chromosome arm 2AL shared the same flanking marker Kasp_2A-991. In addition, the two QTL (QSl.cib-2D and QSc.cib-2D) on chromosome 2D had the same flanking markers of KASP_A014486 and KASP_A014484 with identical genetic intervals and physical regions  in SC and SL were detected between the two groups among all the environments and the BLUE datasets. For QSc/Sl.cib-2AL, significant differences  in SL were detected between the two groups, and no significant difference in SL was observed in E5, with the spike length increased by 4.97% of the group of lines with homozygous alleles from BLM; however, strong differences (P < 0.001) in SC were detected in all the environments and the BLUE dataset . The lines with homozygous alleles of BLM at two of the three loci, for example group E and F, significantly reduced SL by 9.14% and 20.6%, respectively, and simultaneously group E significantly increased SC by 11.24%. Interestingly, the combination of lines with alleles from BLM at all three loci contributed to a 21.22% decline in SL and a 28.76% increase in SC with P < 0.001, which were higher than the combination lines with one or two loci from BLM  and GL (P < 0.05) when compared to the lines carrying the alleles from CY20  when compared to the lines carrying the alleles from CY20  and a strong increase in GLW (P < 0.05) and GL (P < 0.01). No significant effects were observed on the traits of PTN, GNS, and TGW between the two groups in the BC20 population  effect on reducing the spikelet number but had no effect on the plant height, which was different to QSc/Sl.cib-2AS and QSc/Sl.cib-2AD.Thus, osome 2A . There wosome 2A   may be incomplete and unreliable for QTL mapping and potential gene prediction for SC and SL, and have no influence on the results of SC and SL interactions and effects on the corresponding trait and other agronomic traits -like ethylene-responsive transcription factor that was reported to be the key factors in inflorescence branching and rice domestication (Q (AP2L5), belonging to the AP2-like protein family, and its related paralog AP2L2 were reported to play critical and redundant roles in the specification of axillary floral meristems and lemma identity in wheat (TraesCS2D03G1131500 was annotated to the Jasmonic acid (JA) signaling repressor to regulate spikelet development  can be found in the article/QY performed all the experiments and subsequent analysis of all the available data including phenotyping and population genotyping, and wrote the manuscript. TW, PG, and BF designed the experiments, guided the entire study, and revised the manuscript. ZX constructed the mapping population and assisted in field trials. XF helped in ordering the reagents. TW and BF held primary responsibility for the final content. All authors read and reviewed the manuscript.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.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


Background: Tracking antibiotic use is a core element of antimicrobial stewardship. We developed a set of metrics based on electronic health record data to support an outpatient stewardship initiative to improve management of urinary tract infections (UTIs) in Veterans’ Affairs (VA) emergency departments (EDs) and primary care clinics. Because UTI diagnostic codes only capture a portion of genitourinary (GU)-related antibiotic use, a tier-based approach was used to evaluate practices. Methods: Metrics were developed to target practices related to antibiotic prescribing and diagnostic testing (Table Results: Metrics were calculated quarterly for 18 VA medical centers, including affiliated clinics, in a western VA network, from July 2018 to June 2020 (Table Conclusions: Stewardship metrics for suspected or documented UTIs can identify opportunities for practice improvement. Broadly capturing GU conditions in addition to UTIs may enhance utility for performance feedback. Antibiotic prescribing for tier 3 GU conditions is analogous to unnecessary antibiotic use for acute, uncomplicated bronchitis and upper respiratory tract infections.ng Table . GU condFunding: NoneDisclosures: None


Aim: “Antimicrobial stewardship” (AMS) is defined as a healthcare-system-wide approach to promoting and monitoring the judicious use of antimicrobials to preserve their future effectiveness. Therefore, we structured an observational study to monitor the hospital trend of antibiotic consumption and related expenditure before the COVID-19 pandemic and to evaluate how much AMS could affect this trend. Methods: The research covered the antibiotic prescriptions at the University Hospital (U.H.) “San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi d’Aragona”, Salerno, Italy, comparing data on the therapies prescribed from 1 January to 31 December 2017  with those collected during the same period in 2019 . Results: Unlike national data, our results highlighted a decreasing trend in the consumption of antibiotics that did not concern only carbapenems and fluoroquinolones, but also the third-generation cephalosporins. Noteworthily, there was also a reduction in 2019 compared with 2017 in the consumption of colistin, an antibiotic towards which an increase in bacterial resistance in animals has been found nationally. In agreement with the national data, our research confirms a trend of an increase (+3.7%) in the total antibiotic consumption corresponding to more than 26% and 29% reductions in the total and therapy per-day costs, respectively. Conclusions: The results show a positive impact of the AMS at the University Hospital “San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi d’Aragona”. In fIn 2014, a cost of approximately EUR 320 million was attributed to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Italy, and AMR costs are projected to reach EUR 2 billion by 2050 in the absence of specific interventions .According to the Eurobarometer, Italians are the least aware of this enormous social and healthcare burden and they often ignore the fact that the overuse of the available antibiotics can render them ineffective . A 2019 The hospital setting represents an area where specific interventions are urgently needed. Interventions to limit the inappropriate use of antibiotics and healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) include drug-consumption monitoring, vaccine use and the improvement of healthcare professionals’ awareness in these fields ,21,22.Therefore, it is necessary to screen the hospital consumption of antibiotics to counteract antibiotic resistance, reduce adverse reactions related to their use and limit the lengths of stay.Based on these considerations, we performed an observational study to monitor the hospital trend of antibiotic consumption and related expenditure, and to evaluate the impact of the AMS established at the University Hospital “San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi d’Aragona (U.H. Ruggi).The research covered the antibiotic prescriptions at U.H. Ruggi, Salerno, Italy.n = 27,384 patients) were compared with those collected during the same period in 2019 .Data on the antibiotics prescribed from 1 January to 31 December 2017  and the purchase of equipment for sanitizing environments, such as ozonators, which were very useful even during the COVID-19 pandemic that broke out in early 2020. Prospective audits on antibiotic use were conducted 2 times a month, encouraging direct interaction and feedback among the prescribers. The audits foresaw the evaluation of the routine clinical practice, literature revision and EMA/AIFA note acquisition, leading to an update and modification of the in-hospital guidelines where appropriate.Regular meetings were held, and monographs focusing on the management of resistant bacteria, especially those resistant to third-generation cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones and carbapenems, were published.A specific control measure was the introduction of a justified request form for antibiotic prescriptions, considered an essential component in the management of AMR ,23. Other interventions included receiving updated guidelines on antibiotic prophylaxis, empirical de-escalation therapy based on the results of the crop test response, and promoting a switch from intravenous to oral drug administration.The study obtained the approval of the Ethics Committee Campania Sud-Naples, Italy (N. 0098507—May 2021).In 2019 and 2017, the following outcome parameters were analyzed: the types of consumed antibiotics and related expenditure; diagnosis-related group (DRG) weight means, which are numbers that reflect relative resource consumption as measured by the relative hospital’s charges ,25 and rThe antibiotics were classified using the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System (ATC) . ConsumpThe analysis of the data obtained from the current information flows was carried out using the MariaDB database, queried using Structured Query Language (SQL), a standardized database language based on a relational model.The MariaDB is an open-source “Relational Database Management System” (MDBMS) based on a relational model, i.e., based on tables and relationships and compatible drop-in replacements for the widely used MySQL database technology.The U.H. Ruggi includes 74 operating units with 850 beds in total. The comparative analysis of the 2019 data versus those collected in 2017 showed an overall increase of over 3% in the annual DDD consumption of antibiotics, with an increase of over 4% in DDD/100 bed-days, while reductions higher than 26% and 29% in the total and average costs of therapy per day were observed, respectively . The incThe data analysis shows that ceftriaxone was the most used antibiotic during the two years considered, although a slight decrease in its consumption was observed in 2019 versus 2017 . p < 0.05) reduction of more than 25% was observed in the consumption of fluoroquinolones (DDD) in 2019 compared to 2017  was observed in 2019 vs. 2017  and a reduction in the Reserve one  in 2019 versus 2017 were found  of the total DDD consumed in alignment with the WHO AWaRe classification, a statistically significantly increased (+8.9%) consumption of the Access and Watch (+1.5%) group of antibiotics , reduced consumption of carbapenems, antibiotics towards which Enterobacteria have manifested an abnormal progression of resistance, was recorded. This suggests a more targeted use of this antibiotic class with microbiological support. There was also a reduction (more than 25%) in the consumption of fluoroquinolones, even though, in the Campania region, there is a consumption above the European average. It should be noted that the Italian 2017–2020 PNCAR envisaged, as a process indicator, a reduction in their consumption of at least 10% by 2020, which was largely achieved and exceeded in the University Hospital in 2019.In our study, unlike national data, the decreasing trend in the consumption of antibiotics did not concern only carbapenems and fluoroquinolones, but also the third-generation cephalosporins, for which a reduction in consumption equal to −5.4% was found.Noteworthily, there was also a reduction in 2019 versus 2017 in the consumption of colistin, an antibiotic towards which an increase in AMR has been found in animals. It should be noted that colistin is considered the last bulwark against bacteria.The reduction in the annual consumption for 2019 versus 2017 of fluoroquinolones, carbapenems, colistin and lincosamides was observed in most of the hospital wards considered and reputed strategic by the National Italian PNCAR for the control of AMR. A reduction was observed in urology, cardiac surgery and emergency medicine wards for the third-generation cephalosporins and in resuscitation, obstetrics and gynecology, and cardiac surgery wards for macrolides.The positive impact of the AMS program implemented in the U.H. Ruggi, which included prospective audits on antibiotic use, is also confirmed by data on the consumption of antibiotics classified as Access, Watch and Reserve. Indeed, we found that the percentual distribution of the antibiotics in 2019 showed a decrease in both the Watch and Reserve categories in favor of the Access one.Concerning the antibiotics belonging to the Access category, it should be noted that, in 2019 compared to 2017, there was a large increase in the use of cefazolin, which is the drug of choice for surgical prophylaxis in monotherapy or in association with metronidazole such as in the management of intra-abdominal infections.Moreover, when comparing the 2019 to 2017 data, an increase in the consumption  of Access antibiotics that should always be used as first-line treatments for a wide range of common infections was observed, and a reduction  in Reserve antibiotics , used asThe promotion of a constant dialog between healthcare professionals, the introduction of a justified nominative request form for antibiotic prescriptions, and the receipt of the updated guidelines on antibiotic prophylaxis undoubtedly helped to reduce the inappropriate use of antibiotics. The interventions adopted as part of the AMS have proved to be particularly useful to promote more rational use of fluoroquinolones, carbapenems and third-generation cephalosporins, whose effectiveness is threatened by the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria ,35,36.The major limitation of this study is that the results regard only one hospital center. However, at the same time, a careful analysis was conducted using a large amount of data. Another major limitation is the lack of information on the type and severity of the disease responsible for the antibiotic prescription, which allows only hypothesizing regarding the effect of the AMS intervention. Therefore, further studies are necessary to better clarify this issue.The war against antimicrobial resistance should aim to discover and make available new antimicrobials and alternative treatments ,37,38,39Increasing the awareness of AMR, together with specific interventions, will allow us to better combat antibiotic resistance in the future.


Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) is a severe infection that requires fast and accurate antibiotic therapy to improve the patient outcome. Direct bacterial identification using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry from ascitic fluid inoculated in blood culture bottles (BCBs) could therefore improve patients’ management. We evaluated the impact of the implementation of this method for the treatment of patients. Our identification protocol was performed on 136 positive BCBs collected from 61 patients between December 2018 and December 2020. The therapeutic impact of our protocol was evaluated using a before (2015–2016) and after (2019–2020) case–control study in two populations of 41 patients diagnosed with SBP and treated with antibiotics. The decrease in time to first identification and the optimization of antibiotic therapy following communication of the identification result were evaluated. Our protocol allowed us to identify 78% of bacteria in ascitic fluids. The transmission of the direct identification allowed the introduction or adaption of the antibiotic therapy early in 37% of SBP, with a mean decrease in time to first antibiotic change of 17 h. Our direct identification protocol for positive inoculated ascitic fluids is fast, reliable and inexpensive. Its routine integration into a microbiology laboratory allows the early introduction of appropriate antibiotic therapy and improves the management of patients with SBP. Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) is a common and life-threatening bacterial infection in patients with cirrhosis, associated with significant morbidity and mortality ,2,3,4. SIn this study, we first evaluated the performance of our direct MALDI-TOF identification protocol, previously validated for blood culture samples, for ascitic fluids inoculated in BCBs . Then, f® FA Plus and one anaerobic, BacT/ALERT® FN Plus) respectively sampled from 61 different patients, were detected positive by automated device BacT/ALERT 3D . All bottles were incubated for up to 5 days at 37 °C until they were flagged as positive. Every positive BCB was Gram stained using the PREVI® Color automated Gram staining system , and agar plates were inoculated  depending on the results of the Gram staining. In addition, when the Gram-stained smear showed Gram-positive cocci in pairs and chains, an optochin disk was added to the chocolate agar plate to differentiate Streptococcus pneumoniae from other streptococci. Bacterial identification was peformed by MALDI-TOF MS directly on BCB positive samples using our 5 min in-house extraction method previously validated for bacterial identification on blood culture samples  [3) and red blood cell count (RBC) (cell/mm3) were performed on the fluids. Samples were seeded on agar plates , Oxoid Thermo Fisher Scientific, Dardilly, France) and in Schaedler broth medium and incubated under appropriate atmosphere conditions as recommended by the Société Française de Microbiologie and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.A prospective study was conducted at our 24/7 laboratory of bacteriology at Nice Teaching Hospital (1700-bed tertiary care centre) from December 2018 to December 2020. During this two-year period, a total of 136 ascitic fluids incubated in BCBs  with the MALDI Biotyper 3.1 software and Bruker database 5989. The process of identification was performed as previously described [Direct bacterial identifications (Day0) were considered valid to the species level when they were the same as those obtained by the conventional method with a log (score) ≥1.5 and three-times repeatable on at least one of the two spots. This protocol was extensively validated in our previous study . For polTo assess the reliability of our identification protocol  for ascitic fluids, the number of correct identifications at Day0 with an equal or higher score than the threshold were divided by the total number of bacteria. Polymicrobial cultures were analysed separately according to the same criteria.For each patient included in the study, age, sex, clinical diagnosis, patient outcome and antibiotic regimen were collected from the patients’ medical files. Time of bacterial growth in BCBs and type of bacteria isolated in culture were also collected from the Laboratory Information System (LIS). Regarding the antibiotic treatment, the following data were extracted from the hospital prescription software: the empirical therapy prescribed and the first change in antibiotic therapy, the time to first change in antibiotic therapy occurring after communication of the first microbiological result. Changes included: antibiotic initiation or, in any case of empirical therapy, addition of a new drug, and switch to a different treatment regimen .To evaluate the real impact of our direct identification protocol on the time to first change in antibiotic, we performed a two-years before (2015–2016)-and-after (2019–2020) comparative study in two groups of patients diagnosed with SBP and treated by antibiotics (41 patients). Patients diagnosed with bacterascites were not treated with antibiotics and therefore not included in the comparison (20 patients). Since our laboratory was not open 24/7 during the before period (2015–2016), we performed a comparative analysis including only BCBs that flagged positive from 8.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. in the “before” or “after” period. We compared the mean time to first antibiotic change in the two populations. In order to calculate the time to first antibiotic change for each patient provided by our technique, we automatically extracted from our LIS, (i) for the “after” period: the time of identification directly performed on BCBs (corresponding to the delay between the time when the BCB was incubated in the device and the time of direct identification at Day0); (ii) for the “before” period: the time of Gram staining directly from BCBs as well as the time of bacterial identification of colonies for the “before” period . The perp < 0.0001, * p < 0.05, ns: non-significant). We used the unpaired Student’s t-test to compare the quantitative variables from the two populations (age and mean time to first change in antibiotics), and the chi-square test and Fischer test to compare the categorical variables (sex ratio and % of antibiotic change).Data were analyzed with Prism 7.0 (GraphPad Software) by unpaired Student’s t-test, chi-square test and Fischer test  of the polymicrobial samples. Moreover, we identified two out of the two species isolated in culture in 3/18 (17%) of the polymicrobial specimens. The antibiotic course of patients diagnosed with polymicrobial SBP are presented in One hundred and thirty six BCBs inoculated with ascitic fluids in which bacteria were identified by the conventional method on Day1 were included in the study and analysed. A total of 118 (87%) were monomicrobial and 18 (13%) were polymicrobial. A total of 156 isolates belonging to 35 bacterial species were identified by MALDI-TOF MS on Day1 . Using o® device, 41 were diagnosed with SBP and 20 of them had asymptomatic bacterascites. The twenty patients diagnosed with bacterascites were not included in the comparative analysis as they did not receive any antibiotic treatment. The comparative analysis between two populations of 41 patients treated for SBP before (2015–2016) and after (2019–2020) the implementation of our direct identification method in the workflow of our laboratory, showed promising results. Interestingly, this comparison yielded a significant decrease in the mean time to first change between antibiotics from 41.3 h to 24.3 h (p < 0.0001 (****)). Of note, the percentage change in antibiotic regimen following the communication of the first microbiological result at Day0 was 15% (6/41) and 37% (15/41) for “before” and “after” direct identification implementation in our laboratory, respectively (p = 0.02 (*)) (Among the 61 patients for whom a BCB inoculated with ascitic fluid was detected positive by the BacT/ALERT.02 (*)) .During the “after” period of the study (2019–2020), a total of 15 out of 41 patients benefited from an early adaptation of their antibiotic regimen following the direct bacterial identification at Day0. The communication of the result of the bacterial identification at Day0 allowed either the adaptation of the empirical antibiotic therapy active against the identified bacteria for 60% of these patients (9/15), or the de-escalation of the antibiotic regimen (6/15) . For 8 oIn this study, we validated an in-house method of direct bacterial identification by MALDI-TOF MS on ascitic fluids. Indeed, our fast and cost-effective protocol allows a decrease of 17 h in mean time to first antibiotic change, allows the early introduction of appropriate antibiotic therapy and can improve the management of patients diagnosed with SBP.MALDI-TOF MS is known to be a reliable technique for identifying bacteria from plate cultures using pathogen protein profiles ,14. In tEnterobacteriaceae and 84% of enterococci, which are the two most frequently encountered species in ascitic fluid infections. Remarkably, at least one bacterial species was identified to the species level at Day0 in 100% (18/18) of the polymicrobial samples in culture. We also identified two out of two species isolated in culture in 3/18 (17%) of the polymicrobial specimens. This last point is of major importance for the early adaptation of the antibiotic regimen and for prognosis of patients infected with at least two bacterial species. Our protocol might be not fully reliable for polymicrobial infections as it misses at least one type of bacteria in the majority of polymicrobial samples. In our study, exclusive of S. mitis group identification that is known to be difficult by MALDI-TOF MS as shown in other studies [The first aim of our study was to evaluate our in-house direct identification protocol previously used on BCBs for blood culture samples on ascitic fluids. Interestingly, using the same threshold (log(score) ≥1.5 and three-times repeatable, which allowed 80% of correct identification at Day0) as for blood culture samples, we were able to correctly identify 78% 121/156) of bacteria to the species level for ascitic fluids. To the best of our knowledge, though several authors have attempted to use direct proteomics methods on articular fluids inoculated in BCBs ,20, this studies ,10,11,121/156 of p < 0.0001 (****)) after the implementation of the method and the percentage of antibiotic adaptation at Day0 increased significantly )  the change in antibiotic regimen consisted of a rapid de-escalation that could prevent gut microbiome disturbance and secondary emergence of multi-drug resistance in the digestive tract. This is a crucial point, as late recurrences of SBP caused by resistant bacteria in cirrhotic patients worsen the patients’ prognosis and increases mortality [The before-and-after comparative study in two populations of 41 patients was performed to assess the real impact of our direct MALDI-TOF identification method on the decrease in time to first antibiotic change in clinical practice for the management of patients diagnosed with SBP. This analysis showed that the time to first change between antibiotics was significantly shortened ) . These portality . FinallyIn conclusion, our direct identification protocol for positive BCBs inoculated with ascitic fluids is fast (10 min), reliable for monomicrobial infections and inexpensive (EUR 0.4 per test). Its routine integration into a microbiology laboratory allows the early introduction of appropriate antibiotic therapy and can improve the management of patients with SBP. Our protocol might not be fully reliable for polymicrobial infections as it misses at least one bacteria in the majority of polymicrobial samples. Further studies with a larger sample size, including polymicrobial samples, and a longer follow-up period will be of major interest to reinforce our findings.


Social media has provided a citizen voice, giving rise to grassroots collective action, where users deploy a concerted effort to disseminate online narratives and even carry out offline protests. Sometimes these collective action are aided by inorganic synchronization, which arise from bot actors. It is thus important to identify the synchronicity of emerging discourse on social media and the indications of organic/inorganic activity within the conversations. This provides a way of profiling an event for possibility of offline protests and violence. In this study, we build on past definitions of synchronous activity on social media— simultaneous user action–and develop a Combined Synchronization Index (CSI) which adopts a hierarchical approach in measuring user synchronicity. We apply this index on six political and social activism events on Twitter and analyzed three action types: synchronicity by hashtag, URL and @mentions.The CSI provides an overall quantification of synchronization across all action types within an event, which allows ranking of a spectrum of synchronicity across the six events. Human users have higher synchronous scores than bot users in most events; and bots and humans exhibits the most synchronized activities across all events as compared to other pairs . We further rely on the harmony and dissonance of CSI-Network scores with network centrality metrics to observe the presence of organic/inorganic synchronization. We hope this work aids in investigating synchronized action within social media in a collective manner. Social media has facilitated mainstream audiences to have a voice in political and social issues. The construction of citizen voice in these discussions has been established as civic values  to characterize the degree of synchronization between users that tweeted within an event. The discussion surrounding each event is a sub-component or subset derivation of the event’s entire social network. We propose the Combined Synchronization Index, a hierarchical index, which begins with CSI-UserPair, then aggregating the values to obtain CSI-User for each user, and finally a singular value for CSI-Network.points.CSI-UserPair quantifies the extent of synchronization between a pair of two users. For each user, the CSI-UserPair values for that user represents the other users he synchronizes with. CSI-User is an aggregated weighted average function, which puts higher weight on the values of user pairs that synchronize more frequently with each other. Finally, the CSI-User values are averaged out to obtain a CSI-Network value, which quantifies the extent of synchronicity for the slice of social network obtained during the event data collection. The concept of the Combined Synchronization Index is illustrated in Fig. u and v synchronize with each other, expressing the same semantic or social information in their tweets. Before calculating CSI-UserPair values, we first find users that synchronize with each other. In this work, we define synchronization between two users when they perform an action on social media at the similar point in time , is stored for the subsequent calculation of CSI-User. We normalize this count along the axis of each action, before collectively examined to generate CSI-UserPair data. The sets of user pairs are collectively examined to generate CSI-UserPair data. Where there are the same user pairs between these sets, the counts are summed together. To account for duplicate user pair counts across action types a| that the user pair are found in synchrony is subtracted from the normalized summation. Then, to scale the user pair value according to the extent of synchronization, |a| is multiplied to the final value. The calculation of CSI-UserPair is represented in Eq. a.With this formulation, we obtain user pairs with a count of the number of times they synchronize with each other on each specific action, returning three sets of user pairs. This count, mentclass2pt{minimu is part of, weighted by the frequency of synchronicity of the paired user v. Intuitively, if users u and v synchronize with each other a lot, their CSI-UserPair value should contribute a higher weight to the synchronicity measure of user u. CSI-User provides a quantitative way to rank users according to their scale of synchronization with respect to other users in the network. The calculation of CSI-User is represented in Eq. The CSI-User value is a representation of the degree of synchronization a user partakes in within a network. It is a summation of CSI-UserPair values that a user A network can be characterized by CSI-Network, calculated by averaging the CSI-User values. This reveals the average amount of synchronization between users surrounding an event. The calculation of CSI-Network is revealed in Eq. We measured user synchronicity across six Twitter datasets. We focused on social activism and political events, selecting for discourse that has a strong stance, in which synchronization may be used to champion the cause. With these parameters, we examine four social activism events: (1) Black Panther movie release in 2018; (2) Charlie Hebdo shooting anniversary in 2020; (3) ReOpen America protests in 2020; (4) COVID Vaccine Release in 2021. We also examine two political events: (1) US Election Primaries in 2020, and (2) Capitol Riots in 2021.We used the Twitter V1 API for data collection, using the API’s streaming endpoint to collect defined hashtags across a specified time frame. We filtered for Tweets in the English language to facilitate downstream analysis. To reduce noise, we analyze only tweets that are deliberately written by a Twitter user. To do so, we filtered the initial set of collected tweets to retain only the original tweets, i.e. tweets that are not retweets, quote tweets or replies. In total, the datasets had about 1.8 million unique users and 4.3 million original tweets. A summary of the data collection parameters and its corresponding statistics is reflected in Table Black Panther movie release 2018 follows responses that promoted Black power to Marvel Studio’s Black Panther movie.Charlie Hebdo shooting 2020 follows the discourse when suspects involved in the Charlie Hebdo shooting were tried in France. The shooting was a militant terrorist attack in Paris in 2015.ReOpen America protests 2020 were launched across the United States against government-imposed lockdown measures in order to curb the global COVID-19 pandemic.COVID Vaccine Release 2021 is a pivotal event in the global COVID-19 pandemic, as it meant that there is hope of a societal and economic recovery.US Election Primaries 2020 follows the discourse of the Primaries of the US 2020 Elections. This election ended with Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.Capitol Riots 2021 happened on the 6th January 2021, where a mob stormed the US Capitol Building, claiming electoral fraud and that the Democrats stole the elections.For each of the six event networks, we first calculated the hierarchies of CSI – CSI-UserPair, CSI-User and CSI-Network. We used the information to construct Synchronized Network Graphs to aid in our analysis and provide a means for visual examination. Finally, we performed analysis of inorganic vs. organic synchronization within the networks by overlaying bot detection analysis. These three steps are described in detail in this section.From the raw Twitter data for each of the six events, we first find synchronous users by identifying users who perform the same action within a five-minute time window. We use the synchronous user data to calculate CSI-UserPair values for each unique user pair within the network. We next use the CSI-UserPair data to calculate CSI-User for each unique user in the dataset, before averaging the CSI-User values to obtain CSI-Network.We use three action types in the event calculation: hashtags, URLs and @mentions. Using multiple action types provides a view of different groups that synchronize across different dimensions, resulting in a more holistic quantification of the combined synchronization that is happening within the network.We also evaluate the CSI-Network using only one action type, i.e. CSI-Network formulated from hashtag action type, CSI-Network formulated from URL action type etc. Comparing CSI-Network formulated from singular action types against multiple action types reveals the advantage of combining networks. The sequence of steps taken for the construction of a single action type is the same as for multiple action types, except that we evaluate the CSI-UserPair, CSI-User and CSI-Network separately for each action type, resulting in three CSI-Network values, one for each action type.i and j. The weight of the edge, From the CSI-UserPair data, we generate synchronized network models. We construct a weighted, undirected user-user synchronization network We define inorganic synchronization as that stemming from inauthentic bot users; and organic from human users. Inorganic synchronization can serve to amplify certain themes in the discourse. Bots can also team up with each other to change and influence the viewpoints of human users. Organic synchronization can be worrying because human users that agree with each other on harmful trends such as #stopthesteal can possibly spillover into real-world protests when the narrative is echoed frequent enough.We use the BotHunter algorithm to differentiate the authenticity of a user. The algorithm uses a random forest model with posts and user metadata features for user classification. It returns a bot likelihood score, which we deem users with bot likelihoods above 0.70 as a bots and humans otherwise  across the six events. These results are presented in terms of the results and analysis of synchronization across user pairs, users and networks. We also further evaluated centrality features of each step of the hierarchy, providing insights to trends between user network centrality values and their likelihood to synchronize.User pairs were examined for their synchronization across three action types: URLs, hashtags and @mentions. Across all events, an average of approximately 89% of the users coordinate across only one action type, Table . This leWe perform a deeper examination of the differences between the users that synchronize across the number of action types. This examination is done with network centrality measures, which characterize the users’ positions in the social network graph. In performing this calculation, the original user-to-user all-communication graph was used, which provides information about the users’ positions with respect to all the interactions they performed during the event.The results of the number of action types a user perform against its centrality measures are plotted in Fig. Using information about whether a user is bot or human, we characterized the user pairs into Bot-Bot, Human-Human and Bot-Human synchronization pairs. The full statistics of the average CSI-UserPair for each network is displayed in Table Across all events, we consistently observe that the average CSI-UserPair is highest in the bot-human pair, in which one user is a bot and one user is a human. This indicates that the bots are successful within the network, given that they are designed to engage with humans .Table The global clustering coefficient scores for the resultant networks, though, tell a different story. For many events, a low CSI-Network score corresponds to a low global clustering coefficient score, which reflects that the resultant networks does not form clusters very well. Indeed, if we were to examine the Black Panther event, it has both a low CSI-Network and global clustering coefficient score, which corresponds a rather disjointed network with few clusters, which is visualized in Fig. We then investigate the resultant synchronized networks in terms of the partition of bot/human classes. Table For example, the global clustering coefficient of the network formed for Capitol Riots 2021 is 0.783, which is extremely high. In contrast, its CSI-Network is 9.05, which is on the lower end of the spectrum. However, when we examine the clustering coefficients of bot and human partitions separately, we see that that bot partition has a clustering coefficient of 0.785, while the human users have a clustering coefficient of 0.245. Therefore, during the Capitol Riots event, the bots were actively synchronizing with each other, resulting in high clustering formations in the resultant synchronized network graphs. In contrast, human users synchronize lesser in all multiple dimensions, resulting in the lower CSI-Network scores formulation.Through using a combination of CSI-Network score, overall global clustering coefficients and clustering coefficients of network partitions, we can deduce whether online synchronization that happens during an event is largely organic or inorganic. This harmony, and lack of, between CSI-network scores and network centrality metrics can be harnessed to observe the presence of organic/inorganic synchronization. This observation provides us information where bots or humans are more engaged in synchronization during an event. Hopefully, this information can potentially aid analysts in preparing for the possibility of offline violence.In all the above analyses, we looked at the construction of CSI-Network values using multiple action types – hashtags, mentions and URLs. Using multiple action types balances out any distortions in the synchronization index due to skews in the action types taken by users. Table We generally observe that CSI-Network using Mentions, CSI-Network (Mentions), are the lowest, suggesting that users typically do not @mention other users within an original tweet. We observe a higher value in two cases – Black Panther 2018 and CharlieHebdo shooting 2020 – possibly indicating users are tagging other users to bring attention to the event.CSI-Network constructed using Hashtags, CSI-Network (Hashtag), have the highest value among the three action types. Users typically suffix their tweet texts with hashtags, sometimes using multiple hashtags, thus allowing a wider surface area to be detected by the synchronization calculation. Events that are larger in scope like ReOpen America garner larger attention and have more commonly used hashtags and thus have higher synchronization values. The high values of synchronization among CSI-Network for URLs, CSI-Network (URLs), indicates that URLs are a commonly used artifact to coordinate information sharing among users.These individual CSI-Network values, however, are not representative of the full nature of synchronization across the event. If one were to only examine the CSI-Network (Hashtag) value of 23.29 for the Black Panther 2018 event, one might conclude that the user synchronization within that event is way more than that of the CharlieHebdo shooting 2020 event (CSI-Network (Hashtag) = 2.06). However, if one compared the CSI-Network (Mentions) of both events, the conclusion would be the opposite, i.e. CharlieHebdo shooting is more coordinated than BlackPanther event. Thus, multiple action types must be considered to smoothen out excessive synchronization in one dimension by single users. In a combination of action types, users that participate in synchronization across multiple action types are given higher weights. The CSI-Network thus reflects the proportion of users that synchronize in multiple dimensions, possibly deliberately coordinating in the message spread. This aids in identifying users that are truly coordinating: synchronizing in high frequencies across multiple dimensions.both the same hashtag and URL within the specified time period.Several limitations nuance our conclusions from this work. In terms of data collection, the Twitter API retrieval technique used returns only a 1% sample of Tweets. Our datasets are curated by a sampling of the Twitter platform via selected keywords and timeframe, and so only show a subset of the full interactions. There may be synchronizing users that are not captured in the datasets. Further work on understanding synchronization across languages other than English is also required, in order to better map out the synchronization behavior of users across different languages. Additionally, our operationalization of synchronization only considers actions in isolation, i.e. creating posts with the same hashtag or the same URL. It could be expanded to investigate hierarchies of actions, i.e. creating posts with Future work involves expanding the CSI to factor in user synchronization across moving time windows. This provides a way to perform effective comparisons of user synchronization and the nature of synchronization across different time periods. The nature of our dataset collection are across short time spans of weeks, and further collection work will be required to expand the dataset into months for longitudinal time series analysis. This will provide a view of the evolution of the online discourse across time. Further, this provides insight on whether inauthentic bot users are artificially driving the change, or whether it is an organic movement that should be closely monitored. Another direction of research is to look at synchronization of post artifacts, i.e. hashtags, URLs, across platforms. While there are preliminary studies on cross-platform URL synchronization, the studies primarily examined which URLs are most shared among a users of the multiple platforms, rather than quantifying whether the users are coordinating their sharing of URLs within and across platforms  to quantify the degree of synchronization within social network discourse. This tool serves as a qualitative, network-centric method that abstracts the inter-dimensional perspective of synchronization across key social media post artifacts: @-mentions, hashtags and URLs. There are no significant differences between the CSI scores of all three hierarchies of political and social activism events, hence the CSI formulation can be said to be generalizable within this scope. The CSI is a three-tiered hierarchy index which characterizes the synchronization between user pairs (CSI-UserPair), the participation of a user in concurrence with other users (CSI-User), and the overall user synchronization within a network of conversation derived from an event (CSI-Event).In this work, six political and social activism events were analyzed and characterized using the Combined Synchronization Index. These event types are chosen as they are of huge impact and have the potential to turn into offline protests and riots. The CSI separates the events in accordance to their level of synchronicity, and further analyzes the user interactions within the event. We observe that in a top-down view of the events, there is a dominant user type (i.e. bot or human) that participate in synchronous activities. Human users have a higher CSI-User score, indicating that they have a higher participation of synchronization with original posts than bots. The trend of bot-human pairs having the highest synchronization index across all events is concerning as it reveals that bots do have an effect on human users, and can possibly manipulate their opinions.Limitations aside, socio-technical systems can benefit from the quantification of synchronization between users within events. Understanding the degree of synchronization and which user class types participate in synchronizing actions within each event can aid in predicting the intensity of the discussion surrounding the event. This index serves as a general way to quantify synchronization across different dimensions: posting with the same hashtag, posting with the same URL, or even posting with the same hashtag and URL; allowing for comparison of overall event synchronization statistics instead of singular ones. We hope this work can serve as a jumping point for further investigation into synchronized and coordinated efforts on social media platforms.