Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influenza Outbreak in a Vaccinated Population — USS Ardent, February 2014

On February 10, 2014, the USS Ardent, a U.S. Navy minesweeper, was moored in San Diego, California, while conducting training. Over the course of 3 days, 25 of 102 crew members sought medical care because of influenza-like illness (ILI). Nasal swab specimens were collected from each patient, and initial rapid influenza testing indicated 16 cases of influenza A. Ultimately, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing conducted by the Naval Health Research Center determined that 20 specimens were influenza A, of which 18 were subtype H3N2. Two specimens could not be subtyped. The HA gene sequence of an outbreak isolate was 99% identical to strains circulating during the 2013-14 influenza season and antigenically similar to the H3N2 component of the 2013-14 influenza vaccine. At the time of the outbreak, 99% of the crew had received influenza vaccine. Through the duration of the outbreak, the minesweeper squadron medical officer collaborated with Navy Environmental and Preventive Medicine Unit Five, higher-level Navy authorities, and County of San Diego Public Health Services to implement the outbreak response, which included disseminating outbreak information to surrounding Navy units, disinfecting the ship, sending home infected crew members, identifying family members at high risk, and providing antiviral medications and guidance. No crew member had onset of symptoms >6 days after the first crew member became ill. This outbreak highlights the risk for an H3N2 influenza outbreak among vaccinated and otherwise healthy young persons.
A device for measuring downwearing rates on cohesive shore platforms

The device described in this paper, known as the traversing erosion beam, is believed to be the first to be designed specifically for measuring rates of downwearing of cohesive foreshores, such as clay shore platforms, under high‐energy wave conditions. It is primarily constructed of Flexlink Aluminium Structural System components and consists of a horizontal beam with a main leg and two further support legs. A sliding ‘dolly’ module is moved along the beam at precise intervals using a longitudinal scale as a reference. The topographic profile of the measurement surface is transferred to the dolly by a vertical sliding steel alloy rod, from which the relative height differences are measured by a separate engineer's digital height gauge placed on the dolly. The main leg of the device fits into a marine grade stainless steel box, which is deeply embedded into the foreshore or shore platform to act a permanent datum. The box is robust and can be expected to have a lifetime of at least a year, and possibly even five years or more.
Coherent HF radar backscatter characteristics associated with auroral forms identified by incoherent radar techniques: A comparison of CUTLASS and EISCAT observations

Backscatter from decameter-wavelength field-aligned F region irregularities, as measured by the Cooperative UK Twin Located Auroral Sounding System (CUTLASS) Finland HF coherent radar, is compared with common volume plasma parameters and the electric field deduced by the European Incoherent Scatter (EISCAT) UHF incoherent radar system, for a 12 hour period from June 18 to June 19, 1996. During this interval we find an excellent agreement between irregularity Doppler velocity and bulk ion drift resolved along the CUTLASS beam. Backscatter is found to exist only in regions of nonzero electric field, as the E×B instability growth rate is dependent on E. Following a substorm expansion phase onset, backscatter largely disappears for a period of several hours, thought to be a consequence of nondeviative absorption of the HF radio wave in the D region or a quenching of the F region instability mechanism by enhanced E region Pedersen conductivity. Finally, the presence of auroral arcs within the scatter volume increases the intensity of backscatter returns and introduces a subsidiary peak, displaced from the preexisting peak, in the backscatter spectra; this subsidiary peak results in an increase in the apparent spectral width of the backscatter. We show how this allows the location of precipitation features within the field of view to be determined.
Global and Local: Measuring Geographical Concentration of China's Manufacturing Industries

Based on a county-level Chinese industry survey data set, this article aims to extend the agglomeration literature by applying and comparing selected combination indexes of geographical concentration that incorporate both traditional indexes of inequality and measures of spatial autocorrelation at the global level and by applying and comparing a new measure, the focal location quotient (FLQ), to the local Moran's I, a commonly used local indicator of spatial association, at the county level. At the global level, the results show that the combination indexes used are generally effective for comparing the extent of geographical concentration across industries, and they could serve as useful dependent variables in modeling agglomeration effects across industries. At the local level, specific spatial patterns of production concentrations are identified for textiles, machinery, food manufacturing, and the electronics and telecommunication industries. FLQ tends to generate more generalized patterns than does the local Moran statistic. Mapping the local statistics is useful in supplementing the global measures, and those maps tend to support the results of the global combination indexes.
A linear geospatial streamflow modeling system for data sparse environments

Abstract In many river basins around the world, inaccessibility of flow data is a major obstacle to water resource studies and operational monitoring. This paper describes a geospatial streamflow modeling system which is parameterized with global terrain, soils and land cover data and run operationally with satellite‐derived precipitation and evapotranspiration datasets. Simple linear methods transfer water through the subsurface, overland and river flow phases, and the resulting flows are expressed in terms of standard deviations from mean annual flow. In sample applications, the modeling system was used to simulate flow variations in the Congo, Niger, Nile, Zambezi, Orange and Lake Chad basins between 1998 and 2005, and the resulting flows were compared with mean monthly values from the open‐access Global River Discharge Database. While the uncalibrated model cannot predict the absolute magnitude of flow, it can quantify flow anomalies in terms of relative departures from mean flow. Most of the severe flood events identified in the flow anomalies were independently verified by the Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO) and the Emergency Disaster Database (EM‐DAT). Despite its limitations, the modeling system is valuable for rapid characterization of the relative magnitude of flood hazards and seasonal flow changes in data sparse settings.
Neuquenornis volans, a new Late Cretaceous bird (Enantiornithes: Avisauridae) from Patagonia, Argentina

ABSTRACT A new genus and species of Late Cretaceous (Coniancian–Santonian) birds, Neuquenornis volans, is described. This new taxon is known from a fairly complete, articulated specimen from the Rio Colorado Formation of northwestern Patagonia. Synapomorphies of the humerus, radius, ulna, coracoid, femur, tibiotarsus, tarsometatarsus, and thoracic vertebrae, support its allocation to the Enantiornithes. The tarsometatarsal structure of Neuquenornis refers it to the Late Cretaceous family Avisauridae. The structure of the wing and pectoral girdle of Neuquenornis indicates that it was an active flyer, an aptitude also inferred for the El Brete enantiornithines from the Upper Cretaceous Lecho Formation of northwestern Argentina. The pedal structure of Neuquenornis and Soroavisaurus from El Brete, indicates that avisaurids were capable of perching in trees.
Importance of suspended participates in riverine delivery of bioavailable nitrogen to coastal zones

Total nitrogen (TN) loadings in riverine sediments and their coastal depocenters were compared for 11 river systems worldwide to assess the potential impact of riverine particulates on coastal nitrogen budgets. Strong relationships between sediment specific surface area and TN allow these impacts to be estimated without the intense sampling normally required to achieve such budgets. About half of the systems showed higher nitrogen loadings in the riverine sediments than those from the coastal depocenter. In spite of uncertainties, these comparisons indicate that large, turbid rivers, such as the Amazon, Huanghe, and the Mississippi, deliver sediments that in turn release significant or major fractions of the total riverine nitrogen delivery. Riverine particulates must therefore be considered an essential factor in watershed nutrient loading to coastal ecosystems and may affect delivered nutrient ratios as well as total nutrient loading. The relative importance of particulate versus dissolved delivery has decreased over recent decades in the Mississippi as a result of damming and fertilizer use in the watershed.
An analysis of a 34-year air temperature record from Fossil Bluff (71°S, 68°W), Antarctica

An analysis of a long-term surface air temperature record for Fossil Bluff in the George VI Sound, West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) documents in detail some important aspects of the climate of this area for the first time. The analysis identifies the close dependency of air temperatures on latitude in the WAP but reveals that the strength of this dependency is greatest in winter. This result along with others leads to the Fossil Bluff climate regime being characterized as ‘continental’ rather than ‘maritime’ as found further north. The WAP as a whole displays large interannual temperature variability but this is greatest in Marguerite Bay rather than the Fossil Bluff area. Evidence is also provided for secular climatic change appearing in summer throughout the WAP over the last few decades. The representativeness of existing Antarctic Peninsula annual air temperature climatologies, based mainly on snow temperature measurements, for the winter and summer periods is also noted.
Weak-motion-based attenuation relationships for Israel

SUMMARY We performed a regional study of earthquake ground motion scaling relations to provide the seismic hazard community of Israel with a new attenuation relationship that could be used for the prediction of earthquake-induced ground motion. Strong earthquakes are rather scarce in Israel and the existing collection of records from strong earthquakes is not sufficient to allow the use of traditional regression methods to develop a regional attenuation relationship. We used velocity seismograms from the Israel Seismic Network to estimate the distance and frequency dependence of ground motion in the Israel region from frequent, smaller regional earthquakes. Our analyses included 4814 waveforms recorded by 30 stations of the Israel Seismic Network from 2000 to 2005. We restricted our analysis to 330 events recorded at five or more stations, with duration magnitudes ranging between 1.0 and 5.2. We derived empirical excitation, site and regional attenuation terms by regressing the peak amplitudes of narrowband-filtered seismograms around the shear wave arrivals and the rms Fourier spectral amplitudes taken around the specific sampling frequency. In order to optimize the attenuation parameters in our scaling model, we used a simple grid search. An optimal solution for minimal error between empirical and theoretical attenuation function was found for the quality parameter Q(f) = 298f0.67 and the geometrical spreading g(r) parametrized as a bilinear, piecewise function: r−0.74 for r≤ 60 km and r−0.47 for r > 60 km. The spectral parameters κ of 0.015 s and stress drop increasing from 0.3 to 4 MPa were used to model the excitation spectra. A theoretical modelling effort based on Brune's source spectrum and Random Vibration Theory (RVT) was performed on the attenuation and source parameters estimated in this study. Comparison of the attenuation relationship derived with locally measured ground motions shows excellent agreement with the data in the magnitude range for which we have observations and seems to be adequate for predictions of earthquake ground motion for the Israel region. Comparison of Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) predictions, based on our scaling relationship with those that have been recently used for seismic hazard analysis in Israel shows that our attenuation relationship predicts significantly lower ground motions than other relations.
The generation of equatorial currents

In response to the sudden onset of zonal winds the surface layers of the ocean accelerate in the direction of the wind. Motion is most intense near the equator where a jet forms within a week. The next stage in the evolution of equilibrium conditions is associated with wave fronts, excited initially at the coasts, that propagate across the ocean basin and establish zonal density gradients. Wave modes trapped in and above the strong shallow tropical thermocline because of internal reflection there are responsible for the adjustment of the upper ocean in low latitudes. These thermocline-trapped modes extend over a depth greater than that of the wind-driven surface currents and hence give rise to an undercurrent in the thermocline. This undercurrent is zonal and particularly intense near the equator, where it appears in the wake of an eastward traveling Kelvin or westward traveling Rossby wave after about 1 month. In the case of eastward winds, nonlinearities intensify the eastward equatorial surface jet and weaken the westward undercurrent. In the case of westward winds a different nonlinear mechanisms intensifies the eastward Equatorial Undercurrent and weakens the westward surface flow. In a 5000-km wide basin, equilibrium equatorial currents are established about 150more » days after the onset of the winds. The reponse time of the ocean below a depth of a few hundred meters is much longer. Winds with no spatial and a simple temporal structure generate currents with a complex vertical structure in the deep ocean. Closed current systems are possible in a confined forced region of an unbounded ocean; meridional coasts are not essential for their maintenance. The intensity of equatorial current is sensitive to dissipation parameters. « less
An Overview of Hydrologic Studies at Center for Forested Wetlands Research, USDA Forest Service

Managing forested wetland landscapes for water quality improvement and productivity requires a detailed understanding of functional linkages between ecohydrological processes and management practices. Studies are being conducted at Center for Forested Wetlands Research (CFWR), USDA Forest Service to understand the fundamental hydrologic and biogeochemical processes linking aquatic and terrestrial eco-systems. The first study is based on the long-term experimental watersheds established in 1960s on the USDA Forest Service Santee Experimental Forest, with the purpose of quantifying the soil moisture dynamics, flow regimes, and water chemistry of low gradient forested wetlands in South Carolina. In a cooperative research with North Carolina State University, a long-term study is being conducted at Weyerhaeuser Company’s managed pine forest in Carteret County, North Carolina to quantify the effects of various water and silvicultural management impacts on the hydrology and water quality. A third long-term ecosystem study on MeadWestvaco’s Coosawhatchie River bottomland hardwood site in South Carolina addresses recent public concerns on the need of protection, restoration, and sustainable management of forested wetlands. A fourth study conducted between 1997 and 2000 evaluated the plantations hydrology and water quality of intensively managed Short Rotation Woody Crops on International Paper’s Trice Experimental Forest in the upper coastal plain of SC. A fifth study was recently conducted at MeadWestvaco’s Carolina Bay site also in the SC upper coastal plain to assess the surface water and groundwater interactions between Carolina bays and their surrounding uplands.
Upper mantle compressional velocity structure beneath the northwest Atlantic Ocean

A compressional velocity model for the northwest Atlantic Ocean is derived by modeling waveform and travel time data from long-period and short-period World-Wide Standard Seismograph Network and Canadian network station recordings. A 90-km-thick lid with a velocity of 8.1 km/s at the top gradually increasing to 8.3 km/s at the bottom is obtained by fitting the travel time data of first arrivals and waveform data of almost purely oceanic paths at distances of 8°–20°. Triplication P waveform data constrain the structure below the lid. A distinct but smooth low-velocity zone is located at a depth of 170 km. Combining these results with the shear wave structure derived by Grand and Helmberger (1984a) for the same region, we suggest an olivine-rich mineralogy in the upper 100 km and partial melting possibly extending as deep as 300 km based on low seismic velocities and high Vp/Vs
Pterosaur phylogeny and comments on the evolutionary history of the group

Abstract A cladistic analysis based on 39 terminal taxa and 74 characters (several multistate) using PAUP (Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony) (3.1.1 for MacIntosh and 4.0b10 for Microsoft Windows) presents a new hypothesis of pterosaur inter-relationships. This study suggests that the most primitive taxon is the Anurognathidae, followed by Sordes and all remaining pterosaurs. Dendrorhynchoides is confirmed as a member of the Anurognathidae, being closely related to Batrachognathus. Preondactylus occupies a more derived position than Sordes, which questions its previous assignment as the most primitive pterosaur. The hypothesis of rhamphorhynchoid paraphyly is confirmed, with the Rhamphorhynchidae more closely related to the Pterodactyloidea than to more basal forms. The Pterodactyloidea shows a basal dichotomy: the Archaeopterodactyloidea and the Dsungaripteroidea. The Archaeopterodactyloidea is formed by Pterodactylus + Germanodactylus and a clade formed by Gallodactylidae + Ctenochasmatidae. The Nyctosauridae occupies the basal position within dsungaripteroids and is followed by the Pteranodontoidea and the Tapejaroidea. Pteranodontoids have Pteranodon at the base, followed stepwise by Istiodactylus, Ornithocheirus and the Anhangueridae. Tapejaroids are composed of the Dsungaripteridae at the base followed by the Tapejaridae and the Azhdarchidae. Major trends within pterosaur evolutionary history are: general increase in size (wing span and body); increase of wing metacarpal and pteroid; decrease of proportional length of the second and third wing phalanx relative to the first; gradual increase of rostrum (anterior to external nares); and anterior shift of the skull-mandible articulation. Cranial crests are present in most pterodactyloids, but markedly in the Ornithocheiroidea, where all taxa show some sort of crest on the skull. The loss of teeth, previously assumed to have occurred independently in several lineages, seems to be a general trend among dsungaripteroids. Several nodes recovered by this analysis are supported by very few characters, a result at least partially attributable to the limited available information from several taxa due to poor preservation and/or preparation.
Soil Surface Wetting Effects on Gradient‐Based Estimates of Soil Carbon Dioxide Efflux

The gradient method is widely used in conjunction with Fick's Law to estimate emissions of soil CO2. This requires accurate estimation of the soil gas diffusion coefficient (DP) and the CO2 concentration gradient, typically from measured water content and CO2 concentration. Shallow application of water via precipitation or irrigation causes a temporary reduction in the near‐surface soil gas diffusion coefficient, which compromises gradient‐based flux estimates when undetected by a water content sensor. Our objectives were to analyze the effects of soil surface wetting and temperature on CO2 concentration and efflux using laboratory and field measurements and to compare four widely used models for estimating DP. A laboratory test was conducted to determine the effects of water application on the soil CO2 concentration and the CO2 efflux calculated with the gradient method. The DP parameter was very sensitive to the soil water content and was most reliably calculated using a power function model in a Millville silt loam field soil, while both power function and SAPHIR models were similarly reliable in a Kidman fine sandy loam laboratory test. A single CO2 sensor at a depth of 5 cm with water content monitored at 2.5 cm provided reasonable estimates of the soil CO2 efflux validated with an automated chamber. We found that under most conditions, the CO2 concentration gradient in the soil profile is a reasonable estimator of CO2 flux when measurements of the soil water content and known porosity values are used to estimate the gas diffusion coefficient. However, shallow wetting events require improved monitoring of spatial and temporal changes near the surface or appropriate modeling of hydrodynamics there.
Palaeohydrological changes and human-impact history over the last millennium recorded at Lake Joux in the Jura Mountains, Switzerland

On the basis of sediment and pollen analyses of a radiocarbon-dated sediment sequence from Lake Joux in the Swiss Jura Mountains (west-central Europe), this paper presents a high-resolution record of lake-level and vegetation changes for the last millennium. The lake-level record makes it possible to determine that low-stands of the water-table dominated at c. AD 1200—1400, and from 1720 onward, with interruptions by short-lived rise events at c. AD 1340 and 1840. Highstands prevailed at c. AD 1100, and around AD 1450, 1550 and 1700. The comparison of the Joux lake-level record with a solar irradiance record based on cosmogenic nucleides supports the hypothesis of a major solar forcing of climate variations in west-central Europe over the last millennium. In agreement with other palaeohydrological records established in Western Europe and in the central North Atlantic Ocean, the Joux lake-level record suggests that, on a multicentennial scale, the period of the `Little Ice Age' coincided in the European mid-latitudes with wetter climatic conditions, and probably with an increase in summer precipitation. Variations in the hydrological cycle appear to have been associated with changes in the general atmospheric circulation pattern, probably coupled with variations in oceanic circulation and solar activity. The Joux record also points to changes in water resources expected to result from ongoing global warming. Finally, despite the severe climatic conditions which prevail in the Joux Valley, the human impact history at Lake Joux over the last millennium seems to reflect political choices and economic context more than climatic changes.