Potential evapotranspiration-related uncertainty in climate change impacts on river flow: An assessment for the Mekong River basin

SummarySix MIKE SHE models of the Mekong are developed, each employing potential evapotranspiration (PET) derived using alternative methods: Blaney–Criddle (BC), Hamon (HM), Hargreaves–Samani (HS), Linacre (LN), Penman (PN) and Priestley–Taylor (PT). Baseline (1961–1990) PET varies, with PT followed by HS providing the lowest totals, LN and BC the highest. The largest mean annual PET is over 1.5times the smallest. Independent calibration of each model results in different optimised parameter sets that mitigate differences in baseline PET. Performance of each model is “excellent” (monthly NSE>0.85) or “very good” (NSE: 0.65–0.85). Scenarios based on seven GCMs for a 2°C increase in global mean temperature are investigated. Inter-GCM variation in precipitation change is much larger (in percentage terms by 2.5–10times) than inter-GCM differences in PET change. Precipitation changes include catchment-wide increases or decreases as well as spatially variable directions of change, whereas PET increases for all scenarios. BC and HS produce the smallest changes, LN and HM the largest. PET method does impact scenario discharges. However, GCM-related uncertainty for change in mean discharge is on average 3.5times greater than PET method-related uncertainty. Scenarios with catchment-wide precipitation increases (decreases) induce increases (decreases) in mean discharge irrespective of PET method. Magnitude of change in discharge is conditioned by PET method; larger increases or smaller declines in discharge result from methods producing the smallest PET increases. Uncertainty in the direction of change in mean discharge due to PET method occurs for scenarios with spatially variable precipitation change, although this is limited to few gauging stations and differences are relatively small. For all scenarios, PET method-related uncertainty in direction of change in high and low flows occurs, but seasonal distribution of discharge is largely unaffected. As such, whilst PET method does influence projections of discharge, variation in the precipitation climate change signal between GCMs is a much larger source of uncertainty

Time-integrated directional detection of dark matter

The analysis of signals in directional dark matter (DM) detectors typically assumes that the directions of nuclear recoils can be measured in the Galactic rest frame. However, this is not possible with all directional detection technologies. In nuclear emulsions, for example, the recoil events must be detected and measured after the exposure time of the experiment. Unless the entire detector is mounted and rotated with the sidereal day, the recoils cannot be reoriented in the Galactic rest frame. We examine the effect of this `time integration' on the primary goals of directional detection, namely: (1) confirming that the recoils are anisotropic; (2) measuring the median recoil direction to confirm their Galactic origin; and (3) probing below the neutrino floor. We show that after time integration the DM recoil distribution retains a preferred direction and is distinct from that of Solar neutrino-induced recoils. Many of the advantages of directional detection are therefore preserved and it is not crucial to mount and rotate the detector. Rejecting isotropic backgrounds requires a factor of 2 more signal events compared with an experiment with event time information, whereas a factor of 1.5-3 more events are needed to measure a median direction in agreement with the expectation for DM. We also find that there is still effectively no neutrino floor in a time-integrated directional experiment. However to reach a cross section an order of magnitude below the floor, a factor of 8 larger exposure is required than with a conventional directional experiment. We also examine how the sensitivity is affected for detectors with only 2D recoil track readout, and/or no head-tail measurement. As for non-time-integrated experiments, 2D readout is not a major disadvantage, though a lack of head-tail sensitivity is

The use of a cephalonium containing dry cow therapy and an internal teat sealant, both alone and in combination

AbstractThe dry period is a critical time in the lactation cycle, being the optimum time to cure existing intramammary infection (IMI) as well as encompassing the periods of highest susceptibility to new infection. Currently, IMI in the dry period is controlled with antibiotic dry cow therapy. The aim of this randomized control trial was to investigate different dry cow therapy regimens by stratifying cows by likely infection status at drying off in herds with low somatic cell count (SCC; bulk milk SCC <250,000 cells/mL) in southwest England. All quarters in 890 cows were recruited. The recruited cows were categorized as either infected or uninfected on the basis of SCC and clinical mastitis history. Ipsilateral quarters within each cow were randomly allocated to receive 1 of 4 different treatment regimens according to their infection category. Quarters in high-SCC infected cows were allocated to receive antibiotic dry cow therapy either alone or in combination with an internal teat sealant; quarters in low-SCC uninfected cows were allocated to receive teat sealant either alone or in combination with antibiotic dry cow therapy. All quarters were sampled for bacteriology at drying off and again within 10 d post-calving. Quarters were subsequently monitored for clinical mastitis for the first 100 d of lactation. The mass of residual sealant was assessed immediately post-calving to allow assessment of the association of sealant retention with treatment efficacy. Models were constructed to assess the efficacy of the different regimens in preventing IMI. Apparent cure rates of existing IMI with major pathogens were consistently >90% in quarters receiving antibiotic. Combination treatment of high-SCC infected cows resulted in an increased likelihood of being pathogen free post-calving (odds ratio=1.40; 95% credibility interval=1.03–1.90). The benefits of combination treatment of low-SCC uninfected cows were less clear. With respect to clinical mastitis, combination treatment of high-SCC infected cows resulted in a decreased likelihood of developing clinical mastitis in the first 100 d of the subsequent lactation (odds ratio=0.68; 95% credibility interval=0.48–0.98). The retention of the internal sealant was adversely affected by its use in combination with antibiotic dry cow therapy

Innovations in Camera Trapping Technology and Approaches: The Integration of Citizen Science and Artificial Intelligence

Camera trapping has become an increasingly reliable and mainstream tool for surveying a diversity of wildlife species. Concurrent with this has been an increasing effort to involve the wider public in the research process, in an approach known as ‘citizen science’. To date, millions of people have contributed to research across a wide variety of disciplines as a result. Although their value for public engagement was recognised early on, camera traps were initially ill‐suited for citizen science. As camera trap technology has evolved, cameras have become more user‐friendly and the enormous quantities of data they now collect has led researchers to seek assistance in classifying footage. This has now made camera trap research a prime candidate for citizen science, as reflected by the large number of camera trap projects now integrating public participation. Researchers are also turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist with classification of footage. Although this rapidly‐advancing field is already proving a useful tool, accuracy is variable and AI does not provide the social and engagement benefits associated with citizen science approaches. We propose, as a solution, more efforts to combine citizen science with AI to improve classification accuracy and efficiency while maintaining public involvement

Unsteady Flow in Trailing Vortices

The instantaneous velocity distribution in trailing vortices generated by lifting hydrofoils has been measured in the Low Turbulence Water Tunnel at the California Institute of Technology. Two different rectangular planform hydrfoils with small aspect ratios were tested. Double-pulsed holography of injected microbubbles, which act much as Lagrangian flow tracers, was used to determine instantaneous axial and tangential velocities. Measurements were made at various free-stream velocities, angles of attack, and downstream distances. The vortex core mean axial velocity is consistently greater than the free-stream velocity near the hydrofoil trailing edge, and decreases with downstream distance. The mean axial velocity is strongly Reynolds-number dependent. Axial flow in the trailing vortex is highly unsteady for all the flow conditions studied; peak-to-peak fluctuations on the centreline as large as the free-stream velocity have been observed. The amplitude of these fluctuations falls rapdily with increasing distance from the centreline. For an angle of attack of 10 degrees the fluctuations consist of both 'fast' and 'slow' components, whereas for (symbol)=5 degrees only 'fast' fluctuations have been observed. Peak decelerations of the centreline fluid occur with amplitude comparable to the maximum centripetal acceleration around the centreline. Certain unusual structures of the vortex core-regions in which the flow direction quickly diverges from the free-stream direction, and then equally quickly recovers-have been labelled 'vortex kinks.

Parafermionic algebras, their modules and cohomologies

We explore the Fock spaces of the parafermionic algebra introduced by H.S. Green. Each parafermionic Fock space allows for a free minimal resolution by graded modules of the graded 2-step nilpotent subalgebra of the parafermionic creation operators. Such a free resolution is constructed with the help of a classical Kostant's theorem computing Lie algebra cohomologies of the nilpotent subalgebra with values in the parafermionic Fock space. The Euler-Poincar\'e characteristics of the parafermionic Fock space free resolution yields some interesting identities between Schur polynomials. Finally we briefly comment on parabosonic and general parastatistics Fock spaces.Comment: 10 pages, talk presented at the International Workshop "Lie theory and its applications in Physics" (17-23 June 2013, Varna, Bulgaria

Poincare Analyticity and the Complete Variational Equations

According to a theorem of Poincare, the solutions to differential equations are analytic functions of (and therefore have Taylor expansions in) the initial conditions and various parameters providing the right sides of the differential equations are analytic in the variables, the time, and the parameters. We describe how these Taylor expansions may be obtained, to any desired order, by integration of what we call the complete variational equations. As illustrated in a Duffing equation stroboscopic map example, these Taylor expansions, truncated at an appropriate order thereby providing polynomial approximations, can well reproduce the behavior (including infinite period doubling cascades and strange attractors) of the solutions of the underlying differential equations.Comment: 86 pages including 22 figure