Ensemble-Based Error and Predictability Metrics Associated with Tropical Cyclogenesis. Part II: Wave-Relative Framework

Abstract The predictability of selected variables associated with tropical cyclogenesis is examined using 10-day ECMWF ensemble forecasts for 21 events from the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. Variables are associated with the strength of the pregenesis disturbance, quantified via circulation and thickness anomaly, and the favorability of the immediate environment via moisture and vertical wind shear. For approximately half of the cases, the predicted strength of the genesis signal is directly related to the predicted favorability of the environment. For the remainder of the cases, predictability is more directly associated with the strength and location of the analyzed disturbance. Some commonalities among the majority of the sample are also observed. Forecast joint distributions demonstrate that 700-hPa relative humidity of less than 60% within 300 km of the circulation center is a limiting factor for genesis. Genesis is also predicted and found to occur in the presence of significant wind shear (~15 m s−1), but almost exclusively when the core and environment of the wave are both very moist. The ensemble also demonstrates the potential to predict error standard deviation of variables averaged within 300- and 1000-km radii about individual tropical waves. Forecasts with greater ensemble standard deviation tend to be, on average, associated with greater mean error, especially for forecasts of less than 7 days. However, model biases, particularly a dry core and weak circulation bias, become pronounced at longer lead times. Overall, these results demonstrate that both the environmental conditions favorable to genesis and the genesis events themselves may be predictable to a week or more

Staphylinids (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae) of Ukrainian metropolises

During hundreds of years, in large cities man has been forming a specific urban environment with original species composition of insect communities, including the most diverse group of predatory beetles – Staphylinidae family. Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro are the three most populated cities of Ukraine. In the urban cenoses of these cities, over 140 species from 66 genera of Staphylinidae have been recorded. The total of 69 species (43 genera) were recorded in Kyiv, 67 (39 genera) in Dnipro and 66 (37 genera) in Kharkiv. Among them, , eight species in the catalogue of Palearctic staphylinds had not been previously recorded for Ukraine: Arpedium quadrum Grav., Atheta laticeps Thomson, Medon apicalis Kraatz, Ocalea rivularis Müll., Philonthus salinus Kiesenwetter, Quedius invreae Gridelli, Tasgius pedator Grav. and Xantholinus gallicus Coiffait. By number, common species accounted for 29 in Dnipro, 21 in Kyiv and 19 in Kharkiv. In all the metropolises, two species (Staphylinus caesareus Cederhjelm and Drusilla canaliculata (F.)) were identified as eudominants. Dominants and subdominants comprised 18–25 species. Almost two thirds of the fauna of staphylinids of the cities was classified as rare species. The lowest faunistic similarity was seen between the staphylinids of the urban cenoses of Dnipro and those in Kyiv and Kharkiv (15.3% and 17.5%), similarity was higher for Staphylinidae of Kyiv and Kharkiv (36.0%). Similarity by common species of staphylinids for Kyiv and Kharkiv equaled 73.9%, 28.2% for Dnipro and Kyiv and 37.1% for Dnipro and Kharkiv. The article offers a review of species diversity, number and ecological structure (biotopic confinedness, hygrothermal preference) of typical species of staphylinids in different urban cenoses of Kharkiv. Differences in qualitative-quantitative and ecological structures of staphylinids are related to the diversity of the conditions in a particular urban cenoses. The commonest representatives of the family in the metropolises were polytopic mesophilous carnivorous species

The Impact of an Intense Cyclone on Short-Term Sea Ice Loss in a Fully Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean-Ice Model

AbstractArctic cyclones may be associated with periods of locally enhanced sea ice loss during the summer, and some studies have found that an intense cyclone in August 2012 resulted in a rapid sea ice retreat. This study uses a coupled atmosphere‐ocean‐ice model (Navy‐ESPC) to explore the relationship between the 2012 cyclone and short‐term sea ice melting. There are two mechanisms of cyclone‐induced melting in Navy‐ESPC: turbulent mixing of a warm layer located at 15‐ to 35‐m depth increases bottom melting and warm air advection by the strong surface winds increases surface melting. Although the rate of sea ice melt is substantially increased in association with the cyclone, this effect is confined to a relatively small region and only lasts for a few days. There is no clear signature of the cyclone on the overall Arctic sea ice extent in Navy‐ESPC

Madness decolonized?: Madness as transnational identity in Gail Hornstein’s Agnes’s Jacket

The US psychologist Gail Hornstein’s monograph Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness (2009) is an important intervention in the identity politics of the mad movement. Hornstein offers a resignified vision of mad identity that embroiders the central trope of an “anti-colonial” struggle to reclaim the experiential world “colonized” by psychiatry. A series of literal and figurative appeals make recourse to the inner world and (corresponding) cultural world of the mad, as well as to the ethno-symbolic cultural materials of dormant nationhood. This rhetoric is augmented by a model in which the mad comprise a diaspora without an origin, coalescing into a single transnational community. The mad are also depicted as persons displaced from their metaphorical homeland, the “inner” world “colonized” by the psychiatric regime. There are a number of difficulties with Hornstein’s rhetoric, however. Her “ethnicity-and-rights” response to the oppression of the mad is symptomatic of Western parochialism, while her proposed transmutation of putative psychopathology from limit upon identity to parameter of successful identity is open to contestation. Moreover, unless one accepts Hornstein’s porous vision of mad identity, her self-ascribed insider status in relation to the mad community may present a problematic “re-colonization” of mad experience

Is early limited surgery associated with a more benign disease course in Crohn’s disease?

AIM: To analyze the difference in disease course and need for surgery in patients with Crohn's disease (CD). METHODS: Data of 506 patients with incident CD were analyzed (age at diagnosis: 31.5 ± 13.8 years). Both hospital and outpatient records were collected prospectively with a complete clinical follow-up and comprehensively reviewed in the population-based Veszprem province database, which includes incident CD patients diagnosed between January 1, 1977 and December 31, 2008. Follow-up data were collected until December 31, 2009. All patients included had at least 1 year of follow-up available. Patients with indeterminate colitis at diagnosis were excluded from the analysis. RESULTS: Overall, 73 patients (14.4%) required resective surgery within 1 year of diagnosis. Steroid exposure and need for biological therapy were lower in patients with early limited surgery (P < 0.001 and P = 0.09). In addition, surgery rates during follow-up in patients with and without early surgery differed significantly after matching on propensity scores (P < 0.001, HR = 0.23). The need for reoperation was also lower in patients with early limited resective surgery (P = 0.038, HR = 0.42) in a Kaplan-Meier and multivariate Cox regression (P = 0.04) analysis. However, this advantage was not observed after matching on propensity scores (P(Logrank) = 0.656, P(Breslow) = 0.498). CONCLUSION: Long-term surgery rates and overall exposure to steroids and biological agents were lower in patients with early limited resective surgery, but reoperation rates did not differ

A View of Tropical Cyclones from Above: The Tropical Cyclone Intensity Experiment

Tropical cyclone (TC) outflow and its relationship to TC intensity change and structure were investigated in the Office of Naval Research Tropical Cyclone Intensity (TCI) field program during 2015 using dropsondes deployed from the innovative new High-Definition Sounding System (HDSS) and remotely sensed observations from the Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD), both on board the NASA WB-57 that flew in the lower stratosphere. Three noteworthy hurricanes were intensively observed with unprecedented horizontal resolution: Joaquin in the Atlantic and Marty and Patricia in the eastern North Pacific. Nearly 800 dropsondes were deployed from the WB-57 flight level of ∼60,000 ft (∼18 km), recording atmospheric conditions from the lower stratosphere to the surface, while HIRAD measured the surface winds in a 50-km-wide swath with a horizontal resolution of 2 km. Dropsonde transects with 4–10-km spacing through the inner cores of Hurricanes Patricia, Joaquin, and Marty depict the large horizontal and vertical gradients in winds and thermodynamic properties. An innovative technique utilizing GPS positions of the HDSS reveals the vortex tilt in detail not possible before. In four TCI flights over Joaquin, systematic measurements of a major hurricane’s outflow layer were made at high spatial resolution for the first time. Dropsondes deployed at 4-km intervals as the WB-57 flew over the center of Hurricane Patricia reveal in unprecedented detail the inner-core structure and upper-tropospheric outflow associated with this historic hurricane. Analyses and numerical modeling studies are in progress to understand and predict the complex factors that influenced Joaquin’s and Patricia’s unusual intensity changes

Revisiting the mechanism of coagulation factor XIII activation and regulation from a structure/functional perspective

The activation and regulation of coagulation Factor XIII (FXIII) protein has been the subject of active research for the past three decades. Although discrete evidence exists on various aspects of FXIII activation and regulation a combinatorial structure/functional view in this regard is lacking. In this study, we present results of a structure/function study of the functional chain of events for FXIII. Our study shows how subtle chronological submolecular changes within calcium binding sites can bring about the detailed transformation of the zymogenic FXIII to its activated form especially in the context of FXIIIA and FXIIIB subunit interactions. We demonstrate what aspects of FXIII are important for the stabilization (first calcium binding site) of its zymogenic form and the possible modes of deactivation (thrombin mediated secondary cleavage) of the activated form. Our study for the first time provides a structural outlook of the FXIIIA 2 B 2 heterotetramer assembly, its association and dissociation. The FXIIIB subunits regulatory role in the overall process has also been elaborated upon. In summary, this study provides detailed structural insight into the mechanisms of FXIII activation and regulation that can be used as a template for the development of future highly specific therapeutic inhibitors targeting FXIII in pathological conditions like thrombosis

Nurses' perceptions of aids and obstacles to the provision of optimal end of life care in ICU

Contains fulltext : 172380.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Tropical Cyclogenesis: Observed Processes and Predictability

This research is a study of the behavior of the observed processes leading up to genesis, and how ensembles can be used to assess their predictability. In the first part of this study, dropwindsonde observations of developing and non-developing tropical waves are examined from the 2010 Pre-Depression Investigation of Cloud Systems in the Tropics (PREDICT) field campaign. Significant results include the development of positive temperature anomalies from 500-200 hPa two days prior to genesis in developing waves, which is not observed in the non-genesis mean. Progressive mesoscale moistening of the column is observed within 150 km of the center of circulation prior to genesis. The genesis composite is found to be significantly more moist than the non-genesis composite at the middle levels, while comparatively drier at low levels, suggesting that dry air is more detrimental to genesis when located at the middle levels. Time-varying tangential wind profiles reveal an initial delay in intensification, followed by an increase in organization 24 hours pre-genesis. The vertical evolution of relative vorticity, in addition to a warm-over-cold thermal structure, is more consistent with a top-down than a bottom-up genesis mechanism. Thereafter, several metrics are employed to evaluate predictive skill and attempt to quantify predictability using the ECMWF Ensemble Prediction System during the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, with an emphasis on large-scale variables relevant to tropical cyclogenesis. These metrics include: (1) Growth and saturation of error; (2) Errors versus climatology; (3) Predicted forecast error standard deviation; and (4) Predictive Power. Overall, variables that are more directly related to large-scale, slowly-varying phenomena are found to be much more predictable than variables that are inherently related to small-scale convective processes, regardless of the metric. For example, 850-200 hPa wind shear and 200 hPa velocity potential are found to be predictable beyond one week, while 200 hPa divergence and 850 hPa relative vorticity are only predictable to about one day. Similarly, area-averaged quantities such as circulation are much more predictable than non-averaged quantities such as vorticity. Significant day-to-day and month-to-month variability of predictability for a given metric also exists, likely due to the flow regime. For wind shear, more amplified flow regimes are associated with lower Predictive Power (and thereby lower predictability) than less amplified regimes. Relative humidity is found to be less predictable in the early and late season when there exists greater uncertainty of the timing and location of dry air. Similarly, significant case-to-case variability is observed in the wave-relative analysis. For some genesis events, predictability of genesis appears to be directly related to the capability of the ensemble to predict an environment favorable for genesis. In other cases, predictability appears to be more directly associated with the strength and location of the initial disturbance in the model. By examining forecast joint distributions of variables, predicted relative humidity values at 700 hPa of less than 60% in the wave core (≤300 km of center of circulation) are found to be a strong limiting factor for genesis in the ensemble, and also tend to be correlated with weak 200 hPa divergence. Genesis is also found to occur in the presence of significant wind shear (~15 ms-1), but generally only when the core and environment of the wave are both very moist (~85% and 75% 700 hPa RH, respectively). Lastly, the ensemble demonstrates the potential to predict error standard deviation of variables averaged in 10° x 10° boxes, as well as within 300 km and 1000 km radii about individual tropical waves. Forecasts with greater ensemble standard deviation are on average associated with greater mean error, especially for forecasts with less than 168 h lead time. However, the ensemble also tends to be under-dispersive