A coupled hydrological and hydrodynamic model for flood simulation

This paper presents a new flood modelling tool developed by coupling a full 2D hydrodynamic model with hydrological models. The coupled model overcomes the main limitations of the individual modelling approaches, i.e. high computational costs associated with the hydrodynamic models and less detailed representation of the underlying physical processes related to the hydrological models. When conducting a simulation using the coupled model, the computational domain (e.g. a catchment) is first divided into hydraulic and hydrological zones. In the hydrological zones that have high ground elevations and relatively homogeneous land cover or topographic features, a conceptual lumped model is applied to obtain runoff/net rainfall, which is then routed by a group of pre-acquired ‘unit hydrographs’ to the zone borders. These translated hydrographs will then be used to drive the full 2D hydrodynamic model to predict flood dynamics at high resolution in the hydraulic zones that are featured with complex topographic settings, including roads, buildings, etc. The new coupled flood model is applied to reproduce a major flood event that occurred in Morpeth, northeast England in September 2008. While producing similar results, the new coupled model is shown to be computationally much more efficient than the full hydrodynamic model

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of a novel colchicine-magnolol hybrid for inhibiting the growth of Lewis lung carcinoma in Vitro and in Vivo

Colchicine is a bioactive alkaloid originally from Colchicum autumnale and possesses excellent antiproliferative activity. However, colchicine-associated severe toxicity, gastrointestinal side effects in particular, limits its further therapeutic use. In the current study, we thus designed and synthesized a novel hybrid (CMH) by splicing colchicine and magnolol, a multifunctional polyphenol showing favorable gastrointestinal protection. The antitumor activity of CMH in Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) was then evaluated in vitro and in vivo. Biologically, CMH inhibited the growth of LLC cells with an IC50 of 0.26 μM, 100 times more potently than cisplatin (26.05 μM) did. Meanwhile, the cytotoxicity of CMH was 10-fold lower than that of colchicine in normal human lung cells (BEAS-2B). In C57BL/6 mice xenograft model, CMH (0.5 mg/kg) worked as efficacious as colchicine (0.5 mg/kg) to inhibit tumor growth and 2 times more potently than cisplatin (1 mg/kg). In terms of mortality, 7 out of 10 mice died in colchicine group (0.75 mg/kg), while no death was observed in groups receiving CMH or cisplatin at 0.75 mg/kg. Mechanistic studies using Western blot revealed that CMH dose-dependently suppressed the protein expression of phosphorylated ERK. Molecular docking analysis further indicated that CMH was well fitted in the colchicine binding site of tubulin and formed several hydrogen bonds with tubulin protein. These results enable our novel hybrid CMH as a potential antineoplastic agent with lower toxicity, and provide perquisites for further investigation to confirm the therapeutic potentiality of this novel hybrid

Investigating Flood Impact on Crop Production under a Comprehensive and Spatially Explicit Risk Evaluation Framework

Due to the projected increased frequency of occurrence of extreme flood events, it is becoming increasingly important to pay attention to agricultural flood management. The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin (MLYRB), as one of the most important agricultural areas in the world, frequently suffer from the ravages of long-duration extreme flood events. Comprehensive flood risk evaluation can provide important support for effective management strategies by focusing on the combination of flood hazard and the consequences of flooding in areas exposed to the inundation. Previous satellite-based flood disturbance detection methods intended for use in single-cropping agricultural systems cannot be applied to the MLYRB with multi-cropping practices and long-duration flood events. Additionally, comprehensive agricultural flood risk evaluations traditionally neglect the characteristics of the impact of flooding with strong spatial and temporal variability. Thus, in this research, an integrated disturbance index (IDI) was developed to detect the impact of flood disturbance on crop growth, aiming to acquire a map of crop damage condition for a multi-cropping agricultural system with long-duration flood events that is spatially explicit and has a sufficiently high spatial resolution. A coupled hydrological and 2D hydraulic model parallelized using the GPU approach was employed to simulate flood flows, aiming at deriving sufficient meaningful detail at the local scale in terms of flood inundation patterns and processes over the whole natural watershed. Additionally, a spatial map of the combined effects of flood hazard and the consequences of flooding was used to investigate the relationship between flood characteristics and associated loss extent with the random forest model. The comprehensive evaluation framework was applied for the 2010 flood event in the MLYRB. The evaluation results indicate that the detection results based on IDI are consistent with the governmental statistics, the most hard-hit areas in related reports, and the spatial characteristics of river floods. The coupled hydrological–hydraulic model offers a clear picture of the flood characteristics over the whole basin, while simultaneously ensuring a sufficiently high spatial resolution. Our findings show that flood duration is the most important predictor in predicting crop damage extent

Investigating Flood Impact on Crop Production under a Comprehensive and Spatially Explicit Risk Evaluation Framework

Due to the projected increased frequency of occurrence of extreme flood events, it is becoming increasingly important to pay attention to agricultural flood management. The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin (MLYRB), as one of the most important agricultural areas in the world, frequently suffer from the ravages of long-duration extreme flood events. Comprehensive flood risk evaluation can provide important support for effective management strategies by focusing on the combination of flood hazard and the consequences of flooding in areas exposed to the inundation. Previous satellite-based flood disturbance detection methods intended for use in single-cropping agricultural systems cannot be applied to the MLYRB with multi-cropping practices and long-duration flood events. Additionally, comprehensive agricultural flood risk evaluations traditionally neglect the characteristics of the impact of flooding with strong spatial and temporal variability. Thus, in this research, an integrated disturbance index (IDI) was developed to detect the impact of flood disturbance on crop growth, aiming to acquire a map of crop damage condition for a multi-cropping agricultural system with long-duration flood events that is spatially explicit and has a sufficiently high spatial resolution. A coupled hydrological and 2D hydraulic model parallelized using the GPU approach was employed to simulate flood flows, aiming at deriving sufficient meaningful detail at the local scale in terms of flood inundation patterns and processes over the whole natural watershed. Additionally, a spatial map of the combined effects of flood hazard and the consequences of flooding was used to investigate the relationship between flood characteristics and associated loss extent with the random forest model. The comprehensive evaluation framework was applied for the 2010 flood event in the MLYRB. The evaluation results indicate that the detection results based on IDI are consistent with the governmental statistics, the most hard-hit areas in related reports, and the spatial characteristics of river floods. The coupled hydrological–hydraulic model offers a clear picture of the flood characteristics over the whole basin, while simultaneously ensuring a sufficiently high spatial resolution. Our findings show that flood duration is the most important predictor in predicting crop damage extent

Designing novel synthetic grafts for large bone defects: experimental and numerical studies

Large bone defects, usually associated to victims of natural disasters, wars and severe accidents, represent a major clinical problem. The search for an effective and efficient treatment is a key area of research. Our group is exploring a novel and fully automatic approach to produce synthetic grafts anatomically designed to fit on the defect site and able to promote tissue regeneration