Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of wind variability on topographic waves: Lake Kinneret case

[1] We studied the winter wind driven circulation in Lake Kinneret (northern Israel) using state of the art atmospheric (Regional Atmosphere Modeling System (RAMS)) and oceanic (Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS)) general circulation models. During winter the lake is completely mixed and mainly forced by the passage of synoptic weather systems. The lake's dynamic response was identified using various wind regimes. The response of the lake to a uniform wind stress resulted in the formation of a double-gyre circulation pattern. After removal of the wind stress, the double-gyre pattern slowly rotated cyclonically (with a time period of several days) around the lake perimeter, consistent with the pattern of the lowest-mode basin-scale topographic (vorticity) wave. The use of RAMS-simulated wind fields resulted in a less symmetric structure of the double-gyre pattern due to the presence of a curl in the wind field. Using various wind regimes to force the lake indicated that the presence of a positive or negative curl in the wind field might result in a shift in the topographic wave frequency to a higher or lower value, respectively. This result may be easily applied to motions on the geophysical scale. The currents predicted by RAMS-ROMS agree well with measured data near the center of the lake. Forcing the model with a spatially uniform wind field constructed from a single station resulted in poor agreement with the observed currents, indicating the importance of the wind field spatial pattern.
On the difficulty to detect Mercury's mantle convection from future gravity data

Thermo-chemical evolution and convection models of Mercury suggest that its thin mantle may still exhibit thermal convection. To confirm or disregard this assumption, future gravity and topography data can be in principle used. In the case of present-day mantle convection the dynamic flow in the mantle not only generates a gravity signal possibly detectable above the surface of the planet, but also modifies the observed planetary topography. To estimate the possible amplitudes of these dynamic signatures self- consistently, we have employed a viscous mantle flow model coupled with an overlaying thick elastic lithosphere. For a wide range of present-day elastic thicknesses obtained using a parameterized thermal evolution model and maximal temperature anomalies in the present mantle of Δ T =± 100 K, we find that the dynamic geoid and topography do not exceed significantly ± 10 and ± 250 meters, respectively. Unless the present-day elastic thickness is significantly smaller than the results of thermal- evolution models suggest, we will not be able to distinguish between a convecting or a non-convecting mantle. This is in contrast to earlier findings of Spohn et al. [2001], Breuer et al. [2007] and Redmond and King [2007]. References: Spohn et al. (2001), Planet. Space Sci., 49, 1561--1570. Redmond and King (2007), Phys. Earth Planet. Int., 164, 221--231. Breuer et al. (2007), Space Sci. Rev., 132(2-4), 229--260.
APROSYS European in-depth pedestrian database

The EU FP 6 Integrated Project on Advanced Protection Systems (APROSYS) is exploring the relevance of vehicle pedestrian protection systems in the real world. A pedestrian injury database was compiled of in-depth information to permit reconstructions of the pedestrian/cyclist/vehicle/ground interactions. The database consisted of 63 pedestrians cases and 7 cyclist cases. Results were obtained on: injury risk as related to impact speed; the locations of primary head impacts with vehicles; the proportion and frequency of ground impacts; and the over representation of elderly fatals with Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale (MAIS) 3. It is concluded that (i) the head impact locations for pedestrian protection need to be reviewed to include the windscreen, A pillars and scuttle areas, and (ii) a calibration of MAIS and ISS against fatality/non fatality for a large sample of pedestrians is necessary, with children/adults/elderly (>60 years of age) ranked separately.
Men at Risk; a Qualitative Study on HIV Risk, Gender Identity and Violence among Men Who Have Sex with Men Who Report High Risk Behavior in Kampala, Uganda

In Uganda, men who have sex with men (MSM) are at high risk for HIV. Between May 2008 and February 2009 in Kampala, Uganda, we used respondent driven sampling (RDS) to recruit 295 MSM≥18 years who reported having had sex with another man in the preceding three months. The parent study conducted HIV and STI testing and collected demographic and HIV-related behavioral data through audio computer-assisted self-administered interviews. We conducted a nested qualitative sub-study with 16 men purposively sampled from among the survey participants based on responses to behavioral variables indicating higher risk for HIV infection. Sub-study participants were interviewed face-to-face. Domains of inquiry included sexual orientation, gender identity, condom use, stigma, discrimination, violence and health seeking behavior. Emergent themes included a description of sexual orientation/gender identity categories. All groups of men described conflicting feelings related to their sexual orientation and contextual issues that do not accept same-sex identities or behaviors and non-normative gender presentation. The emerging domains for facilitating condom use included: lack of trust in partner and fear of HIV infection. We discuss themes in the context of social and policy issues surrounding homosexuality and HIV prevention in Uganda that directly affect men's lives, risk and health-promoting behaviors.
Foundations of System-Wide Financial Stress Testing with Heterogeneous Institutions

We propose a structural framework for the development of system-wide financial stress tests with multiple interacting contagion, amplification channels and heterogeneous financial institutions. This framework conceptualises financial systems through the lens of five building blocks: financial institutions, contracts, markets, constraints, and behaviour. Using this framework, we implement a system-wide stress test for the European financial system. We obtain three key findings. First, the financial system may be stable or unstable for a given microprudential stress test outcome, depending on the system’s shock-amplifying tendency. Second, the ‘usability’ of banks’ capital buffers (the willingness of banks to use buffers to absorb losses) is of great consequence to systemic resilience. Third, there is a risk that the size of capital buffers needed to limit systemic risk could be severely underestimated if calibrated in the absence of system-wide approaches.
Recent reforms in the Panchayat system in west Bengal: toward greater participatory governance

The experience of West Bengal under the panchayat system stands in sharp contrast with that of other states and, together with land reform, it has been credited for playing an important role in the impressive economic turnaround of the state since the mid 1980s. West Bengal is the first and the only major state to have had timely panchayat elections on a party basis regularly every five years since 1978. However, despite its pioneering status in terms of reforms of the panchayat system, West Bengal lags behind several other states today in terms of devolution of power, finances and functions to the panchayat. Also, the extent of people's participation in the planning process is significantly less compared to that in Kerala. This paper studies a particular component of a set of recently introduced reforms of the panchayat system in West Bengal that is aimed precisely at addressing this concern - the introduction of mandatory village constituency (gram sansad) meetings.
Helium Isotopic Data for the Ground Waters in the Baikal Rift Zone

Abstract The paper considers regularities of distribution and concentration of total helium and its isotopes in the solute gas in the groundwaters of the Baikal rift zone. The 3He/4He ratios obtained for 31 sites showed geographical variability throughout the Baikal rift zone, a variation according to types of groundwaters (methane, carbon dioxide or nitric hydrotherms, and cold fresh waters) and certain relationship with total concentration of helium. In the south-western termination of the Baikal rift zone, high 3He/4He ratios align along the rift axis in an area where mantleborn helium is brought by ascending flows in hot and cold springs, with its maximum percentage (above 50%) within the Tunka rift basin which is one of few volcanic provinces in the rift. The highest contributions of mantle-born helium are attributed to methane and carbon dioxide hydrotherms, and to cold fresh-water springs at the boundaries of the high 3He/4He area. The groundwaters throughout the rest of the Baikal rift zone contai.
An enhanced model of the contemporary and long‐term (200 ka) sublimation of the massive subsurface ice in Beacon Valley, Antarctica

A massive ice body buried under several decimeters of dry regolith in Beacon Valley, Antarctica, is believed to be more than 1 Ma old and perhaps over 8.1 Ma; however, vapor diffusion models suggest that subsurface ice in this region is not stable under current climate conditions. To better understand the controls on sublimation rates and stability of this massive ice, we have modeled vapor diffusion using 12 years of climate and soil temperature data from 1999 to 2011, including field measurements of episodic snow cover and snowmelt events that have not been represented in previous models of ground ice sublimation. The model is then extended to reconstruct the sublimation history over the last 200 ka using paleotemperatures estimated from ice core data from nearby Taylor Dome and a relationship between atmospheric temperature and humidity derived from our meteorological records. The model quantifies the impact of episodic snow events; they account for a nearly 30% reduction in the massive ice loss. The sublimation rate of ground ice averages 0.11 mm a−1 between 1999 and 2011 in Beacon Valley. Parameterized with past environmental conditions and assuming the same regolith thickness, the modeled sublimation rate of ground ice in Beacon Valley averages 0.09 mm a−1 for the last 200 ka, comparable to the long‐term average rate estimated independently from various studies based on cosmogenic isotopes. This study provides a realistic estimate of the long‐term sublimation history and supports the inference that the buried ice in Beacon Valley is older than 1 Ma.
Time‐dependent friction in rocks

Friction experiments have been conducted on porous sandstone, quartzite, graywacke, and granite in the 20- to 850-bar normal stress range. Sliding on clean rough-ground surfaces is initially stable for this range. However, as powered rock debris accumulates on the slip surface, stick slip becomes the dominant mode of sliding. The coefficient of static friction of surfaces with gouge exhibits a highly time-dependent behavior. Static friction increases with the logarithm of the time that adjacent blocks remain in stationary contact. Over the entire range of normal stresses the static friction for 105-sec intervals between stick-slip events is greater than the static friction for 15-sec intervals by 6 to 10%. This behavior may be significant in understanding the mechanisms of earthquake foreshocks, aftershocks, and fault creep.
Ocean color data assimilation with material conservation forimproving model estimates of air-sea CO2 flux

A nitrogen balancing scheme for ocean color data assimilation in general circulation models is described and its potential for improving air-seaCO2 flux estimates is demonstrated. Given increments for phytoplankton, obtainable from a univariate surface chlorophyll analysis, the scheme determines mixed layer concentration increments for the other nitrogen pools: zooplankton, detritus and dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN). The fraction of the phytoplankton increment to be balanced by changing DIN varies dynamically with the likely contributions of phytoplankton growth and loss errors to the error in the background state. Further increments are applied below the mixed layer wherever positive DIN increments in shallower layers would otherwise cause the creation of unrealistic sub-surface minima. Total nitrogen at each grid point is conserved where possible. The scheme is evaluated by 1-D twin experiments for two contrasting locations in the North Atlantic, in which synthetic chlorophyll observations are assimilated in an attempt to recover known system trajectories generated by perturbing model parameters. Dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and alkalinity tracers, controlled by the nitrogen dynamics, determine the biological modification of sea-water pCO2 at the ocean surface. Assimilation affects DIC and alkalinity directly, the increments being inferred from the nitrogen increments, as well as having a post-analysis effect via the dynamics. It gives major improvements in surface pCO2 at 50N but less improvement at 30N where errors in the phytoplankton nitrogen:chlorophyll ratio cause it to have a detrimental effect in summer. Beneficial effects of nitrogen balancing are demonstrated by comparison with experiments in which only phytoplankton and DIC are updated in the analysis.
NATURAL REGENERATION OF FISH ASSEMBLAGES IN THE PILICA RIVER AFTER A REDUCTION OF POINT‐SOURCE POLLUTION

Electrofishing was conducted along the Pilica River, the biggest West tributary of the Vistula, Poland. This paper presents a comparison between the 1990s (1994–1995, 63 sites) and 2000s (2003–2005, 64 sites), that is, because the water quality started improving after 1989. In the Pilica, there is an increased risk of masking relationships between fish distribution and abiotic factors because a dam without a fish pass was constructed in the middle course of the river in 1973, perhaps resulting in fewer possibilities for potential colonizers reaching river fragments fit for colonization. The main aim of this study was to check if natural fish fauna regeneration took place in the river following a significant sewage input reduction. The fish samples were classified with a Kohonen artificial neural network and assigned to two main clusters (X and Y) and, respectively, two pairs of subclusters (X1, X2; Y1, Y2) of neurons. No species attained its significantly highest biomass and/or frequency (expressed as IndVal) in X2 (in which samples from the 1990s dominated), whereas 21 species did so in Y1 or Y2 (containing almost all of the samples from the 2000s), better testifying to the aquatic environment at the sites where the samples assigned to two latter subclusters come from. Moreover, significantly higher values for Y1 and/or Y2 when compared with X2 were recorded in the richness of the fish species, the total fish biomass and total rheophilic fish biomass. In summary, the positive reaction of ichthyofauna to the improvement of the water quality, stated after 1989, was not recorded during the sampling in 1994–1995, but with a considerable delay in 2003–2005. It should be emphasized that the improvement in fish assemblages was recorded in the Pilica both upstream and downstream from the dam reservoir. A good ecological status was recorded even for some samples from the 1990s. They were collected in the lower river course, where the fish could move freely from the Vistula. This testifies the combined role of the presence of potential colonizers and the functioning ecological corridors for fish assemblages in a river system under human impact. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Rational design of vaccine targets and strategies for HIV: a crossroad of statistical physics, biology, and medicine

Vaccination has saved more lives than any other medical procedure. Pathogens have now evolved that have not succumbed to vaccination using the empirical paradigms pioneered by Pasteur and Jenner. Vaccine design strategies that are based on a mechanistic understanding of the pertinent immunology and virology are required to confront and eliminate these scourges. In this perspective, we describe just a few examples of work aimed to achieve this goal by bringing together approaches from statistical physics with biology and clinical research.
A neutral sheet surface observed on ISEE‐2, IMP‐8, AMPTE/IRM, and INTERBALL Satellites

A neutral sheet model has been developed, with parameters optimized based upon a large number of magnetometer data from the ISEE‐2, IMP‐8, AMPTE/IRM, and INTERBALL satellites. In this model, the equatorial‐neutral sheet is best fitted by a smooth curved surface in the region up to 40 Re, with no slope discontinuities between the neutral sheet and the equatorial plane, or on the flanks of the neutral sheet. The cross‐section of the magnetotail is divided into approximately equal areas above and below the equatorial‐neutral sheet inside the magnetopause of the Sibeck model. An exponential dependence on Xgsm is adopted to express the influence of the tilted equatorial plane on the position of the neutral sheet, since it is found this influence weakens with increasing |Xgsm|.
Comparison of modeled electron densities and electron and ion temperatures with Arecibo observations during undisturbed and geomagnetic storm periods of 7–11 September 2005

[1] The electron density and the electron and ion temperatures measured by the Arecibo radar at 496 km altitude and NmF2 observed by the Puerto Rico ionosonde are compared with those produced by the model of the ionosphere and plasmasphere to study the time-dependent response of the ionosphere to geomagnetic forcing during the undisturbed and geomagnetic storm periods of 7–11 September 2005. The reasonable agreement between the model results and data requires the modified HWM90 wind and the modified NRLMSISE-00 neutral temperature. The pronounced positive daytime storm changes in NmF2 are created by increases in the upward wind-induced plasma drift due to the neutral wind, while the geomagnetic storm decreases in [N2] and [O2] and the enhanced disturbed upward wind-induced plasma drift cause the pronounced positive nighttime disturbances in NmF2. The storm neutral wind-induced plasma drift and neutral composition changes are responsible for the pronounced negative daytime NmF2 disturbances. The F2 layer transport from lower to higher altitudes by the upward wind-induced plasma drift decreases the distance between the hmF2 and our chosen altitude for study of the topside ionosphere. This results in the increase of the electron density at this chosen altitude due to a more weakly reduction in the electron density with altitude. The pronounced postmidnight peaks observed in the topside electron density over Arecibo are provided by these increases in the electron density.
Vaccine conﬁdence among those living with allergy during the COVID pandemic (ACCORD): A scoping review

Background: Reports of allergic reactions to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, coupled with an ‘‘infodemic’’ of misinformation, carry the potential to undermine conﬁdence in the COVID-19 vaccines. However, no attempts have been made to comprehensively synthesize the literature on how allergic disease and fear of allergic reactions to the vaccines contribute to hesitancy. Objectives: Our aim was to review the academic and gray literature on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and allergic reactions. Methods: We searched 4 databases (CINAHL, PsycINFO, MEDLINE, and Embase) using a search strategy developed by content and methodologic experts. No restrictions were applied regarding COVID-19 vaccine type, country of study, or patient age. Eligible articles were restricted to 10 languages. Results: Of the 1385 unique records retrieved from our search, 60 articles (4.3%) were included. Allergic reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine were rare but slightly more common in individuals with a history of allergic disease. A ﬁfth of the studies (13 of 60 [22%]) discussed vaccine hesitancy due to possibility of an allergic reaction. Additionally, the present review identiﬁed research on details of vaccine-related anaphylaxis
Effect of Probiotics on Glycemic Control: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized, Controlled Trials

Background Previous clinical trials indicate that probiotic consumption may improve blood glucose control, however, results from randomized trials on glycemic control have been inconsistent. Objective To investigate the effects of probiotics on glycemic control in a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Data Sources PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Clinicaltrial.gov through October 2014. Data Extraction and Synthesis Two independent reviewers extracted relevant data and assessed study quality and risk of bias. Data were pooled using a random-effects model and expressed as mean differences (MD) with 95% CI. Heterogeneity was assessed (Cochran Q-statistic) and quantified (I 2). Results Seventeen randomized controlled trials were included, in which 17 fasting blood glucose (n = 1105), 11 fasting plasma insulin (n = 788), 8 homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (n = 635) comparisons were reported. Probiotic consumption, compared with placebo, significantly reduced fasting glucose (MD = -0.31 mmol/L; 95% CI 0.56, 0.06; p = 0.02), fasting plasma insulin (MD = -1.29 μU/mL; 95% CI -2.17, -0.41; p = 0.004), and HOMA-IR (MD = 0.48; 95% CI -0.83, -0.13; p = 0.007). Conclusions Probiotic consumption may improve glycemic control modestly. Modification of gut microbiota by probiotic supplementation may be a method for preventing and control hyperglycemia in clinical practice.
Tectonostratigraphic model for the North Croatian and North Bosnian sector of the Miocene Pannonian Basin System

ABSTRACT The formation of the North Croatian Basin, which represents the south‐western marginal part of the Pannonian Basin System and the Central Paratethys Bioprovince, began during Ottnangian time (early Miocene) by continental rifting. The syn‐rift phase lasted until the middle Badenian (middle Miocene), and resulted in the formation of elongated half‐grabens characterized by large sediment thicknesses strongly influenced by tectonics and gradually increasing volcanism. Towards the end of the syn‐rift phase sinistral strike‐slip faulting took place, transverse to oblique to the master faults, which disintegrated the longitudinal structures contemporaneously with volcanic activity. The depositional environments gradually changed from alluvial and lacustrine to marine. The syn‐ to post‐rift boundary was characterized by significant erosion of the uplift fault block footwalls. The post‐rift phase extended from the middle Badenian to the end of the Pontian (latest Miocene). Tectonic influence drastically decreased, volcanism ceased, and subsidence of the basin was controlled predominantly by cooling of the lithosphere. Marine connections gradually decreased, resulting in a transition from marine to brackish, ‘caspi‐brackish’ and finally fluvial‐marsh environments. By the end of the Miocene the basin was finally infilled. The basin evolution was also complicated by an alternation of phases of extension and compression.