Generalized second law of thermodynamics in modified FRW cosmology with corrected entropy-area relation

Using the corrected entropy-area relation motivated by the loop quantum gravity, we investigate the validity of the generalized second law of thermodynamics in the framework of modified FRW cosmology. We consider a non-flat universe filled with an interacting viscous dark energy with dark matter and radiation. The boundary of the universe is assumed to be the dynamical apparent horizon. We find out that the generalized second law is always satisfied throughout the history of the universe for any spatial curvature regardless of the dark energy model.Comment: 9 pages, accepted for publication in Europhysics Letter

FLOOD SUSCEPTIBILITY MODELLING USING GEOSPATIAL-BASED MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION MAKING IN LARGE SCALE AREAS

Flood is one of the most hazardous natural disasters that cause damages and poses a major threat to human lives and infrastructures worldwide, and its prevention is almost unfeasible. Thus, the detection of flood susceptible areas can be a key to lessen the amount of destruction and mortality. This study aims to implement a framework to identify flood potential zones in an ungauged large-scale area with frequent flood events in recent years. We used two Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approaches combined with geospatial analysis, and remote sensing observations for this susceptibility analysis. Nine geomorphological and environmental factors that have an impact on flood behaviour were selected and used for susceptibility modelling. At first, the criteria’s weights were estimated using two MCDM approaches and based on experts’ knowledge. The resultant weights revealed that Flow Accumulation, Topographic wetness index, and Distance to River were the most influential flood susceptibility criteria. After calculating these weights, the criteria’s layers were aggregated through geospatial analysis, which resulted in generating flood susceptibility map. The area under the curve (AUC) and statistical measures such as the Kappa index were used to evaluate the proposed method's efficiency. The validation results illustrate that hybrid FAHP, with AUC= 96.68 and Kappa = 81.36 performed more efficiently than standard AHP, with AUC= 94.53 and Kappa=76.35. Overlaying these maps with the historical flood inventory dataset revealed that 86.43% of flooded areas were categorized as “high” and “very high”. Therefore, the flood susceptibility maps generated through the proposed approach can help the decision-makers and managers allocate the mitigation equipment and facility in data-scarce and ungauged large-scale areas

IDENTIFYING SUITABLE LOCATIONS FOR MANGROVE PLANTATION USING GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION SYSTEM AND REMOTE SENSING

Mangroves provide numerous environmental benefits, such as carbon sequestration, water purification, climate change mitigation, and flood and Tsunami impact reduction. Despite these unique advantages, mangroves are threatened by the combined adverse impacts of human activities and climate change. Therefore, it is essential to implement reasonable practices to avoid further degradation of mangroves and provide efficient workflows to increase their extent. Accordingly, better plantation policies are principally required for their conservation and rehabilitation. In this study, we desired to detect suitable locations for mangrove plantation in coastal areas of Hormozgan Province, Iran. We considered a relatively new Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique to combine ten criteria derived from remote sensing in a GIS environment. The Best Worst Method (BWM), as an MDCM technique, was implemented to determine the relative importance of each criterion. Afterward, all criteria were aggregated using the Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) method to produce a mangrove plantation suitability map. Statistical measures, including Overall Accuracy (OA = 95%), Kappa Coefficient (KC = 87.9%), and Area Under Curve (AUC = 98.79%), indicated the high applicability of the implemented method for mangrove plantation site allocation. The produced map could give managers a profound insight into finding optimal spots to plant mangroves

IDENTIFYING SUITABLE LOCATIONS FOR MANGROVE PLANTATION USING GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION SYSTEM AND REMOTE SENSING

Mangroves provide numerous environmental benefits, such as carbon sequestration, water purification, climate change mitigation, and flood and Tsunami impact reduction. Despite these unique advantages, mangroves are threatened by the combined adverse impacts of human activities and climate change. Therefore, it is essential to implement reasonable practices to avoid further degradation of mangroves and provide efficient workflows to increase their extent. Accordingly, better plantation policies are principally required for their conservation and rehabilitation. In this study, we desired to detect suitable locations for mangrove plantation in coastal areas of Hormozgan Province, Iran. We considered a relatively new Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique to combine ten criteria derived from remote sensing in a GIS environment. The Best Worst Method (BWM), as an MDCM technique, was implemented to determine the relative importance of each criterion. Afterward, all criteria were aggregated using the Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) method to produce a mangrove plantation suitability map. Statistical measures, including Overall Accuracy (OA = 95%), Kappa Coefficient (KC = 87.9%), and Area Under Curve (AUC = 98.79%), indicated the high applicability of the implemented method for mangrove plantation site allocation. The produced map could give managers a profound insight into finding optimal spots to plant mangroves

Prevalence and risk factors of complication of endotracheal extubation in teaching hospitals affiliated with Jahrom University of medical science

Endotracheal intubation is to maintain a safe open airway to prevent pulmonary aspiration by administrating general anesthesia. Endotracheal tube, as a foreign body, can stimulate the patients’ airway during the emergence from general anesthesia and cause various reactions and complications immediately or within a multi-day delay.The present study intended to determine the prevalence and associated risk factors of the complications of endotracheal extubation (removal of endotracheal tube / ETT) within 24 hrs. since the surgery. To this end, a descriptive research was conducted on 200 adult candidates for elective and emergency surgery of endotracheal intubation by administrating general anesthesia. Data about the intended associated risk factors and complications were respectively collected in operating room (OR) and within 24 hrs. since surgery and were recorded in the questionnaire. The results indicated that the prevalent complications were sore throat (%21), cough (%12.5) and hoarseness (%15.5). There was not any case of dysphagia and bloody sputum (blood-streaked expectorant). Also, there was a significant relationship between sore throat and the type of surgery (P˂0.001). On the other hand, there was not any statistically significant relationship between sore throat and other associated risk factors (sex, age, weight, type of surgery and size of endotracheal tube). Likewise, not any significant relationship was observed between cough, hoarseness and the intended risk factors. To conclude, the present study found that the type of surgery has a significant effect on the incidence of sore throat within 24 hrs. since the surgical operation; thus, raising awareness of these risk factors and taking proper actions, particularly during intubation, can reduce the incidence of complications, in particular sore throat, and improve patients’ satisfaction.Keywords: General Anesthesia; Intubation; Complication

Assessment of Pollution in the Central Soils of Khuzestan Province with Potentially Toxic Elements (PTEs) and their Origins

Introduction In recent years, soil contamination with potentially toxic elements (PTEs) has become a major problem in most parts of the world. PTEs are naturally generated from the pedogenesis in the soil and are formed mainly by rock weathering. Nevertheless, the natural content of metals, i.e., Cr, Zn, Ni, Pb, Cd, used to be low in the soil, but due to anthropogenic activities such as industrial emissions, atmospheric transportation, sewage irrigation, and application of pesticides and fertilizers, there is an increase in the content of PTEs. PTEs in soil are one of the most important environmental pollutants due to their toxicity, durability, easy absorption by plants and long half-life. Therefore, the assessment of soil health is very important for the sustainable development of agriculture and the rehabilitation of soils contaminated with PTEs. The present study was conducted to quantify PTEs pollution for soil environmental assessment using a flexible approach based on multivariate analysis and using pollution indicators in a part of the central lands of Khuzestan province.   Materials and Methods For this purpose, in February 2021, 200 surface soil samples (0-10 cm) were taken using stratified random sampling. The collected soil samples were cleaned by removing plant materials and other pebbles, and air dried, powdered, and sieved by using a 2 mm sieve size. The interest in soil's physical and chemical properties i.e., pH was determined with a digital pH meter. Soil textural particles were measured by the hydrometer method, soil organic carbon (SOC) content was estimated by following Walkley and Black method, bulk density (BD) was measured by the Clod method, and total metal content was determined using the aqua-regia solution digestion method and analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission spectrometry (ICP-OEC). The level of Pb, Ni, Zn, Cr pollution was estimated based on environmental indicators including contamination factor (CF), enrichment factor (EF), geo-accumulation index (Igeo), pollution index of individual metals (PI), and modified pollution index of individual metals (MPI). Multivariate statistical methods including correlation analysis, cluster analysis (CA), and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to find the source of metals in the soil. All statistical methods were performed using SPSS (26 version) software.   Results and Discussion Measurement of soil pH showed that the soil of the studied area tends to alkalinity. Also, the soil texture in this area is loam. The results showed that the SOC in these soil samples is 0.71%, and the range of EC (between 0.18 and 60.5 dS/m) indicates the distribution of saline and non-saline soils in the studied area. The total average concentration of Zn, Ni, Cr, and Pb were 60.26, 50.96, 50.38, and 12.67 mg/kg, respectively. The order of average for heavy metals was Zn> Ni> Cr> Pb. The highest amount of standard deviation and concentration changes were observed in Zn and Pb elements. These two elements also showed a high degree of variation coefficient in the studied area, which can indicate the high impact of human activities on the content of these elements. The results obtained from the application of multivariate statistics showed that there is a positive correlation between the elements such as Zn, Ni, and Pb in the study area, indicating that these metals probably have the same source. Whereas the absence of correlation of Cr with these elements indicates a separate source for this element compared to Pb, Zn, and Ni. There was also a strong relationship among these elements based on the PCA and CA classification. Based on the multivariate statistical analysis the source of pollution for the metals studied was mainly from both anthropogenic and geogenic activities. The results showed that the soil samples taken from the study area are in the low pollution category based on the individual element indices of CF and Igeo, but in the moderate pollution class based on the EF index. In addition, the evaluation based on the cumulative and multi-element indices of PI and MPI showed that 100% of samples have high pollution.   Conclusion The present study concludes that the average values of Zn, Ni, Cr, and Pb were found to be below the guidelines set by the IEPA (Iran Environmental Protection Agency) as well as the Earth's crust values. The results indicate existing relationships among the studied variables, revealing that the heavy metals Zn, Ni, and Zn share the same source in the study area. Additionally, it was observed that the source of Cr is primarily geogenic in nature. These findings highlight the significance of utilizing multivariate statistical methods and pollution indicators in tandem, as they prove to be valuable tools for evaluating and quantitatively determining the potential pollution risk

On thermodynamics second law in the modified Gauss Bonnet gravity

The second law and the generalized second law of thermodynamics in cosmology in the framework of the modified Gauss-Bonnet theory of gravity are investigated. The conditions upon which these laws hold are derived and discussed.Comment: 9pages, typos corrected, references adde