bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Cardiovascular Disease Risk and Cerebral Blood Flow Velocity
Authors: Pase Matthew P. , Grima Natalie A. , Stough Con K. , Scholey Andrew , Pipingas Andrew 
Published: August 2012

Background and Purpose—
Cardiovascular disease risk predicts cognitive decline although the mechanisms underpinning this association remain unclear. Increasing cardiovascular risk may impair cerebral blood flow predisposing to cerebrovascular damage, cognitive decline, and dementia.

Methods—
This study examined the association between the Framingham General Cardiovascular Risk Profile and cerebral blood flow velocity in 160 healthy middle-aged adults. Blood flow velocity was assessed in both the common carotid and middle cerebral arteries using Doppler.

Results—

In adjusted linear regression models, cardiovascular risk predicted higher pulsatile (common carotid artery β=0.56, Δ
R
2
=0.19,
P
<0.001; middle cerebral artery β=0.40, Δ
R
2
=0.09,
P
<0.001) and lower mean flow velocity (common carotid artery β=−0.49, Δ
R
2
=0.14,
P
<0.001; middle cerebral artery β=−0.27, Δ
R
2
=0.04,
P
<0.05). Cardiovascular risk predicted common carotid artery mean and pulsatile flow over and above the effects of age (Δ
R
2
=0.11–0.19,
P
<0.001) and sex (Δ
R
2
=0.03–0.03,
P
<0.05). In contrast, cardiovascular risk remained a significant predictor of middle cerebral artery pulsatile, but not mean flow velocity, when controlling for age (Δ
R
2
=0.05,
P
<0.05) and sex (Δ
R
2
=0.06,
P
<0.01).

Conclusion—
Cardiovascular risk has divergent effects on mean and pulsatile blood flow velocity, each of which may independently contribute to cerebral pathology and cognitive impairment.
Stream Discharge in Tropical Headwater Catchments as a Result of Forest Clearing and Soil Degradation
Authors: Recha John W. , Lehmann Johannes , Walter M. Todd , Pell Alice , Verchot Louis , Johnson Mark 
Published: August 2012

AbstractTropical Africa is affected by intense land-use change, particularly forest conversion to agricultural land. In this study, the stream discharge of four small headwater catchments located within an area of 6 km2 in western Kenya was examined for 2 years (2007 and 2008). The four catchments cover a degradation gradient ranging from intact forest to agricultural land under maize cultivation for 5, 10, and 50 years. The runoff ratio (e.g., annual catchment discharge expressed as a percentage of rainfall) increased with increasing duration of cultivation from an average of 16.0% in the forest to 32.4% in the 50-yr-old agricultural catchment. Similarly, the average runoff ratio due to the stormflow component was 0.033 in the forest and increased gradually to 0.095 with increasing duration of cultivation. The conversion from forest to agricultural land in the first 5 years caused about half of the total observed increases in runoff ratio (46.3%) and discharge in relation to rainfall (50.6%). The other half of the changes in discharge occurred later during soil degradation after forest clearing. With increasing duration of cultivation, soil bulk density ρb at a depth of 0–0.1 m increased by 46%, while soil organic carbon (SOC) concentrations and total porosity decreased by 75% and 20%, respectively. The changes in hydrological responses that occurred in the initial years after forest clearing may suggest a significant potential for improved land management in alleviating runoff and enhanced storm flow and moisture retention in agricultural watersheds.
An Evaluation of Multiscalar Drought Indices in Nevada and Eastern California
Authors: McEvoy Daniel J. , Huntington Justin L. , Abatzoglou John T. , Edwards Laura M. 
Published: August 2012

AbstractNevada and eastern California are home to some of the driest and warmest climates, most mountainous regions, and fastest growing metropolitan areas of the United States. Throughout Nevada and eastern California, snow-dominated watersheds provide most of the water supply for both human and environmental demands. Increasing demands on finite water supplies have resulted in the need to better monitor drought and its associated hydrologic and agricultural impacts. Two multiscalar drought indices, the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), are evaluated over Nevada and eastern California regions of the Great Basin using standardized streamflow, lake, and reservoir water surface stages to quantify wet and dry periods. Results show that both metrics are significantly correlated to surface water availability, with SPEI showing slightly higher correlations over SPI, suggesting that the inclusion of a simple term for atmospheric demand in SPEI is useful for characterizing hydrologic drought in arid regions. These results also highlight the utility of multiscalar drought indices as a proxy for summer groundwater discharge and baseflow periods.
Evaluation of a Dynamic Agroecosystem Model (Agro-IBIS) for Soybean in Southern Brazil
Authors: Webler Geovane , Roberti Débora Regina , Cuadra Santiago Vianna , Moreira Virnei Silva , Costa Marcos Heil 
Published: August 2012

AbstractWith the growing demands for food and biofuel, new technologies and crop management systems are being used to increase productivity and minimize land-use impacts. In this context, estimates of productivity and the impacts of agriculture management practices are becoming increasingly important. Numerical models that describe the soil–surface–atmosphere interactions for natural and agricultural ecosystems are important tools to explore the impacts of these agronomical technologies and their environmental impacts. However, these models need to be validated by considering the different soil and environmental conditions before they can be widely applied. The process-based terrestrial agricultural version of the Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) model (Agro-IBIS) has only been calibrated and validated for North American sites. Here, the authors validate the Agro-IBIS results for an experimental soybean site in southern Brazil. At this site, soybean was grown under two different management systems: no tillage (NT) and conventional tillage (CT). The model results were evaluated against micrometeorological, soil condition, and biomass observations made during the soybean growing season. The leaf area index (LAI) was underestimated, approaching the values obtained in the CT crop system, with higher error in the leaf senescence period. The model shows higher skill for daily averages and the diurnal cycle of the energy balance components in the period of high LAI. The soil temperature and moisture were robustly simulated, although the latter is best correlated with the observations made at the CT field. The ecosystem respiration is highly underestimated, causing an overestimation of the cumulative net ecosystem exchange (NEE), particularly at the end of the crop cycle.
Validation of Noah-Simulated Soil Temperature in the North American Land Data Assimilation System Phase 2
Authors: Xia Youlong , Ek Michael , Sheffield Justin , Livneh Ben , Huang Maoyi , Wei Helin , Feng Song , Luo Lifeng , Meng Jesse , Wood Eric 
Published: August 2012

AbstractSoil temperature can exhibit considerable memory from weather and climate signals and is among the most important initial conditions in numerical weather and climate models. Consequently, a more accurate long-term land surface soil temperature dataset is needed to improve weather and climate simulation and prediction, and is also important for the simulation of agricultural crop yield and ecological processes. The North American Land Data Assimilation phase 2 (NLDAS-2) has generated 31 years (1979–2009) of simulated hourly soil temperature data with a spatial resolution of ⅛°. This dataset has not been comprehensively evaluated to date. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to assess Noah-simulated soil temperature for different soil depths and time scales. The authors used long-term (1979–2001) observed monthly mean soil temperatures from 137 cooperative stations over the United States to evaluate simulated soil temperature for three soil layers (0–10, 10–40, and 40–100 cm) for annual and monthly time scales. Short-term (1997–99) observed soil temperatures from 72 Oklahoma Mesonet stations were used to validate simulated soil temperatures for three soil layers and for daily and hourly time scales. The results showed that the Noah land surface model generally matches observed soil temperature well for different soil layers and time scales. At greater depths, the simulation skill (anomaly correlation) decreased for all time scales. The monthly mean diurnal cycle difference between simulated and observed soil temperature revealed large midnight biases in the cold season that are due to small downward longwave radiation and issues related to model parameters.
Hadley Circulation Response to Orbital Precession. Part I: Aquaplanets
Authors: Merlis Timothy M. , Schneider Tapio , Bordoni Simona , Eisenman Ian 
Published: August 2012

Abstract
The response of the monsoonal and annual-mean Hadley circulation to orbital precession is examined in an idealized atmospheric general circulation model with an aquaplanet slab-ocean lower boundary. Contrary to expectations, the simulated monsoonal Hadley circulation is weaker when perihelion occurs at the summer solstice than when aphelion occurs at the summer solstice. The angular momentum balance and energy balance are examined to understand the mechanisms that produce this result. That the summer with stronger insolation has a weaker circulation is the result of an increase in the atmosphere’s energetic stratification, the gross moist stability, which increases more than the amount required to balance the change in atmospheric energy flux divergence necessitated by the change in top-of-atmosphere net radiation. The solstice-season changes result in annual-mean Hadley circulation changes (e.g., changes in circulation strength).
Potential Impacts of the Arctic on Interannual and Interdecadal Summer Precipitation over China
Authors: Li Yuefeng , Leung L. Ruby 
Published: August 2012

Abstract
After the end of the 1970s, there has been a tendency for enhanced summer precipitation over south China and the Yangtze River valley and drought over north China and northeastern China. Coincidentally, Arctic ice concentration has decreased since the late 1970s, with a larger reduction in summer than spring. However, the Arctic warming is more significant in spring than summer, suggesting that spring Arctic conditions could be more important in their remote impacts. This study investigates the potential impacts of the Arctic on summer precipitation in China. The leading spatial patterns and time coefficients of the unfiltered, interannual, and interdecadal precipitation (1960–2008) modes were analyzed and compared using empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis, which shows that the first three EOFs can capture the principal precipitation patterns (northern, central, and southern patterns) over eastern China. Regression of the Arctic spring and summer temperature onto the time coefficients of the leading interannual and interdecadal precipitation modes shows that interdecadal summer precipitation in China is related to the Arctic spring warming but that the relationship with Arctic summer temperature is weak. Moreover, no notable relationships were found between the first three modes of interannual precipitation and Arctic spring or summer temperatures. Finally, correlations between summer precipitation and the Arctic Oscillation (AO) index from January to August were investigated, which indicate that summer precipitation in China correlates with AO only to some extent. Overall, this study suggests important relationships between the Arctic spring temperature and summer precipitation over China at the interdecadal time scale.
A Two-Stage Quality Control Method for 2-m Temperature Observations Using Biweight Means and a Progressive EOF Analysis
Authors: Xu Zhifang , Wang Yi , Fan Guangzhou 
Published: August 2012

Abstract
The relatively smooth terrain embedded in the numerical model creates an elevation difference against the actual terrain, which in turn makes the quality control of 2-m temperature difficult when forecast or analysis fields are utilized in the process. In this paper, a two-stage quality control method is proposed to address the quality control of 2-m temperature, using biweight means and a progressive EOF analysis. The study is made to improve the quality control of the observed 2-m temperature collected by China and its neighboring areas, based on the 6-h T639 analysis from December 2009 to February 2010. Results show that the proposed two-stage quality control method can secure the needed quality control better, compared with a regular EOF quality control process. The new method is, in particular, able to remove the data that are dotted with consecutive errors but showing small fluctuations. Meanwhile, compared with the lapse rate of temperature method, the biweight mean method is able to remove the systematic bias generated by the model. It turns out that such methods make the distributions of observation increments (the difference between observation and background) more Gaussian-like, which ensures the data quality after the quality control.
Evaluation of Northern Hemisphere Blocking Climatology in the Global Environment Multiscale Model
Authors: Dunn-Sigouin Etienne , Son Seok-Woo , Lin Hai 
Published: August 2012

Abstract
The performance of the Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) model, the Canadian operational numerical model, in reproducing atmospheric low-frequency variability is evaluated in the context of Northern Hemisphere blocking climatology. The validation is conducted by applying a comprehensive but relatively simple blocking detection algorithm to a 20-yr (1987–2006) integration of the GEM model in climate mode. The comparison to reanalysis reveals that, although the model can reproduce Northern Hemisphere blocking climatology reasonably well, the maximum blocking frequency over the North Atlantic and western Europe is generally underestimated and its peak season is delayed from late winter to spring. This contrasts with the blocking frequency over the North Pacific, which is generally overestimated during all seasons. These misrepresentations of blocking climatology are found to be largely associated with the biases in climatological background flow. The modeled stationary waves show a seasonal delay in zonal wavenumber 1 and an eastward extension in zonal wavenumber-2 components consistent with blocking frequency biases. High-frequency eddies are, however, consistently underestimated both in the North Atlantic and Pacific, indicating that the biases in eddy fields might not be the main reason for the blocking biases in the North Pacific.
Evaluation of a Modified Scheme for Shallow Convection: Implementation of CuP and Case Studies
Authors: Berg Larry K. , Gustafson William I. , Kassianov Evgueni I. , Deng Liping 
Published: August 2012

Abstract
A new treatment for shallow clouds has been introduced into the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF). The new scheme, called the cumulus potential (CuP) scheme, replaces the ad hoc trigger function used in the Kain–Fritsch cumulus parameterization with a trigger function related to the distribution of temperature and humidity in the convective boundary layer via probability density functions (PDFs). An additional modification to the default version of WRF is the computation of a cumulus cloud fraction based on the time scales relevant for shallow cumuli. Results from three case studies over the U.S. Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) site in north-central Oklahoma are presented. These cases were selected because of the presence of shallow cumuli over the ARM site. The modified version of WRF does a much better job predicting the cloud fraction and the downwelling shortwave irradiance than control simulations utilizing the default Kain–Fritsch scheme. The modified scheme includes a number of additional free parameters, including the number and size of bins used to define the PDF, the minimum frequency of a bin within the PDF before that bin is considered for shallow clouds to form, and the critical cumulative frequency of bins required to trigger deep convection. A series of tests were undertaken to evaluate the sensitivity of the simulations to these parameters. Overall, the scheme was found to be relatively insensitive to each of the parameters.
Western North Pacific Monsoon Depression Formation
Authors: Beattie Jodi C. , Elsberry Russell L. 
Published: August 2012

Abstract
Relatively few studies have been carried out as to the conditions leading to the formation of monsoon depressions in the western North Pacific. Two monsoon depression formations during July 2007 were analyzed using ECMWF analyses and satellite observations. Wave-activity flux calculations indicated that cross-equatorial flow from the Southern Hemisphere played an important role in the formation of these monsoon depressions. A new conceptual model of monsoon depression formation in the western North Pacific is proposed that includes three southerly airstreams in the Southern Hemisphere that lead to cross-equatorial flows into the Northern Hemisphere. Examination of 44 monsoon depressions from April to December 2009 confirms the critical role of these cross-equatorial flows in monsoon depression formation. All of the monsoon depressions in the 2009 sample for which formation conditions could be established had at least one of three possible airstreams that interacted with a confluent region and, thus, may be a necessary condition for monsoon depression formation. This conceptual model of monsoon depression formation was further confirmed by means of wave-activity flux calculations and backward trajectory ensembles for the 2009 cases.
Incidence of Injury in Gaelic Football
Authors: Murphy John C. , O’Malley Edwenia , Gissane Conor , Blake Catherine 
Published: August 2012

Background: Gaelic football is a national sport of Ireland. While predominantly played in Ireland, it is recognized in North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australasia. Its high-velocity, multidirectional, and high physical contact elements expose players to a risk of injury. To date, prospective injury data for Gaelic football has been of short duration. Purpose: To describe the incidence and nature of sport-related injuries in elite male Gaelic football players over 4 consecutive seasons. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: Over the period 2007 to 2010, a total of 851 Gaelic football players were tracked. Players were members of county-level teams who volunteered to be included in the study. Team injury, training, and match play data were submitted by the team physiotherapist on a weekly basis through a dedicated web portal to the National Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) injury database. Injury was defined using a time loss criterion, in accordance with consensus statements in sports applicable to Gaelic games. Results: A total of 1014 Gaelic football injuries were recorded. Incidence of injury was 4.05 per 1000 hours of football training. Match-play injury rates were 61.86 per 1000 hours. Muscle was the most frequently injured tissue (42.6%) and fractures accounted for 4.4% of Gaelic football injuries. Lower extremity injuries predominated (76.0%). Hamstring injuries were the single most common injury overall, representing almost one quarter (24%) of all injuries and over half of muscle injuries. Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries accounted for 13% of knee injuries. The majority of injuries were defined as new injuries (74.7%), with recurrent injuries constituting 23% of all injuries. The majority (59%) of match play injuries occurred in the second half of the match. Eighty six percent of injuries caused over one week’s absence from play. Conclusion: These findings illustrate injury patterns in Gaelic football using a prospective methodology, over 4 consecutive seasons. Comparison with published literature suggests that Gaelic football match play injury risk is greater than soccer but less than rugby union.
Application of a Clinic-Based Algorithm as a Tool to Identify Female Athletes at Risk for Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury
Authors: Goetschius John , Smith Helen C. , Vacek Pamela M. , Holterman Leigh Ann , Shultz Sandra J. , Tourville Timothy W. , Slauterbeck James , Johnson Robert J. , Beynnon Bruce D. 
Published: August 2012

Background: When landing from a jump, the production of increased intersegmental knee abduction moments and coupled valgus motions has been associated with an increased risk of suffering a noncontact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in one study. This research has led to the development of a clinic-based algorithm that utilizes measures of knee valgus motion, knee flexion range of motion, body mass, tibial length, and quadriceps-to-hamstring strength ratio data to predict the probability of a high knee abduction moment (pKAM) when landing from a jump in female athletes. The ability of this algorithm to identify athletes at increased risk of suffering ACL injury has not been assessed. Hypothesis: The pKAM is associated with ACL injury in female athletes. Study Design: Case-control study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: This study was based on secondary analysis of data obtained from a previous investigation that focused on the use of the drop vertical jump (DVJ) test to assess the risk of ACL injury in female athletes. The DVJ screenings were performed on 1855 female high school and college athletes over 3 years. Knee valgus motion, knee flexion range of motion, and tibial length were measured from videos of the DVJ obtained during preseason screenings. Mass was measured using a physician’s scale, and quadriceps-to-hamstring strength ratio was included using a surrogate value. These data were entered into the clinic-based algorithm that determined the pKAM. The association of pKAM with ACL injury was assessed using conditional logistic regression. Results: A total of 20 athletes sustained ACL injury and were matched with 45 uninjured control athletes who were recruited from the same teams. There was no relationship between the risk of suffering ACL injury and pKAM, as determined by the clinic-based algorithm. Conclusion: The pKAM was not associated with noncontact ACL injury in our group of injured athletes and matched controls.
Dielectric and microwave properties of polyvinyl chloride/graphite/nickel composites and its applications
Authors: Al-Ghamdi AA , Al-Hartomy Omar A , Al-Solamy F , Al-Ghamdi Attieh A , Dishovsky Nikolay , El-Mossalamy EH , El-Tantawy Farid 
Published: August 2012

A novel dry phantom nanoconducting composite that can simulate the effect of electromagnetic wave on human tissues composed of graphite/nickel (GN) nanoparticles and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) was successfully fabricated. The morphology of as-synthesized graphite nanosheets and PVC/GN composites was investigated by means of scanning electron microscope. Dielectric parameters such as relative permittivity, imaginary permittivity, and alternating current conductivity are evaluated in the frequency range of 0.5–12 GHz. The results are compared with the in vitro equivalent human tissue data and good agreement is reported. The absorption and reflection coefficient as a function of frequency of nanocomposites were also studied. The novel PVC/GN nanocomposites have potential applications for dry phantom and the coupling media in microwave medical imaging.