Gravity as a tool to improve the hydrologic mass budget in karstic areas

Monitoring the water movements in karstic areas is a fundamental but challenging task due to the complexity of the drainage system and the difficulty in deploying a network of observations. Gravimetry offers a valid complement to classical hydrologic measurements in order to characterize such systems in which the recharge process causes temporarily accumulation of large water volumes in the voids of the epi-phreatic system. We show an innovative integration of gravimetric and hydrologic observations that constrains a hydrodynamic model of the Škocjan cave system (Slovenia). We demonstrate how the inclusion of gravity observations improves water mass budget estimates for the Škocjan area based on hydrological observations only. Finally, the detectability of water storage variations in other karstic contexts is discussed with respect to the noise performances of spring and super-conducting gravimeters

Progression of myopathology in Kearns-Sayre syndrome

We report on the progression of myopathology by comparing two biopsies from a patient with a Kearns-Sayre-Syndrome. The first biopsy was taken in 1979 and showed 10% ragged-red fibers. Myopathic changes were slight including internal nuclei and fiber splitting in 10% of the fibers. Electron microscopy revealed typical mitochondrial abnormalities with regard to number and shape. In 1989 a second biopsy was performed for an extended analysis of mitochondrial DNA. This time less than 5% of all fibers were ragged-red. Severe myopathic changes could be detected which so far has rarely been reported in mitochondrial cytopathy

A ground based gravity network for monitoring water mass movements in the Classical Karst region

The Classical Karst is a limestone plateau stretching between Italy and Slovenia over an area of about 600km2.The aquifer of Classical Karst contains a complex network of conduits, shafts and large voids that are fed by theautogenic recharge and allogenic input of the Reka River. The Reka River sinks underground in the \u160kocjan Cavesand continues its underground flow for almost 40km until it reaches the Adriatic Sea at the Timavo Springs. Theriver shows high discharge variations; with minimal discharge below 0.3 m3/s and maximal discharge reachingover 350 m3/s. As the conduit system cannot efficiently drain large discharge, huge water masses are stored inthe epiphreatic voids of the aquifer during flood events. \u160kocjan Caves present such storage, where a vast amountof water is temporary stored during intense rain. Further evidences of the impressive water movements in thissystem could be found in the geodetic time-series recorded by the Grotta Gigante horizontal pendulums, whichshow deformation transients during Reka flood events. Gravimetry could be a useful tool to obtain local mass balances of such complex system, contributing together withthe other classical hydrologic prospections in depicting the water dynamics in this karstic environment. In additionto this gravimetry represents the ideal completion to the already set up geodetic instrumentation in the ClassicalKarst region. In the last year, we installed two continuous recording gravity stations, near the \u160kocjan caves and inside the GrottaGigante cave. The \u160kocjan caves serve as a test site because the cave geometry and the hydraulic system here arewell known. The Grotta Gigante site offers a quiet place and long term geodetic time-series but on the other hand,the hydrodynamics here are less clear. In this contribution, we present the simulations in support to the placement of the instruments and the first analysisconducted on the observed gravity time-series. For the \u160kocjan caves our simulations estimate that this mass accu-mulation could generate gravity signals up to 30 microGal for extreme events with peak discharge over 250m3/slasting for 1-1.5 days, accumulating over 35 106m3of water. The recorded data in \u160kocjan supports our simula-tions: a prominent peak up to 5 microGal of amplitude was recorded during a 14 106m3flood event on October2018. We believe that the Classical Karst represents an interesting study case for both the geodetic and hydrologic com-munities; the \u160kocjan cave offers a natural laboratory to optimally assess the contribution of gravimetry as a toolfor monitoring underground fluid mass movements

On the comparison of tidal gravity parameters with tidal models in central Europe

Two accurately calibrated superconducting gravimeters (SGs) provide high quality tidal gravity records in three central European stations: C025 in Vienna and at Conrad observatory (A) and OSG050 in Pecný (CZ). To correct the tidal gravity factors from ocean loading effects we compared the load vectors from different ocean tides models (OTMs) computed with different software: OLFG/OLMP by the Free Ocean Tides Loading Provider (FLP), ICET and NLOADF. Even with the recent OTMs the mass conservation is critical but the methods used to correct the mass imbalance agree within 0.1 nm/s2. Although the different software agrees, FLP probably provides more accurate computations as this software has been optimised. For our final computation we used the mean load vector computed by FLP for 8 OTMs (CSR4, NAO99, GOT00, TPX07, FES04, DTU10, EOT11a and HAMTIDE). The corrected tidal factors of the 3 stations agree better than 0.04% in amplitude and 0.02° in phase. Considering the weighted mean of the three stations we get for O1 δc = 1.1535 ± 0.0001, for K1 δc = 1.1352 ± 0.0003 and for M2 δc = 1.1621 ± 0.0003. These values confirm previous ones obtained with 16 European stations. The theoretical body tides model DDW99/NH provides the best agreement for M2 (1.1620) and MATH01/NH for O1 (1.1540) and K1 (1.1350). The largest discrepancy is for O1 (0.05%). The corrected phase αc does not differ significantly from zero except for K1 and S2. The calibrations of the two SG's are consistent within 0.025% and agree with Strasbourg results within 0.05%

Emotional Perception of Fairy Tales: Achieving Agreement in Emotion Annotation of Text

Emotion analysis (EA) is a rapidly developing area in computational linguistics. An EA system can be extremely useful in fields such as information retrieval and emotion-driven computer animation. For most EA systems, the number of emotion classes is very limited and the text units the classes are assigned to are discrete and predefined. The question we address in this paper is whether the set of emotion categories can be enriched and whether the units to which the categories are assigned can be more flexibly defined. We present an experiment showing how an annotation task can be set up so that untrained participants can perform emotion analysis with high agreement even when not restricted to a predetermined annotation unit and using a rich set of emotion categories. As such it sets the stage for the development of more complex EA systems which are closer to the actual human emotional perception of text

Geophysical measurements in volcanic areas: Vulcano and Lipari

Southern Italy is characterised by several active volcanic regions like Mt. Vesuvio, Campi Flegrei, Etna and the Eolian Islands. Some of them are surrounded by some of the most densely populated areas in Europe like Napoli and Catania or are major targets for modern tourism, like Vulcano Island. Therefore in view of hazard mitigation it is very important to understand the structural and geological settings of these areas. In the frame of the European Community project TOMAVE (ENV4-CT-98-0697), different potential field methods were applied to investigate the physical structure of the volcanic areas, including airborne magnetics, VLF and gamma ray mapping at Mt. Vesuvio, Campi Flegrei and on the Islands of Vulcano and Lipari. In this paper we will focus mainly on the geoelectric, gravity and seismic research done on the Island of Vulcano on selected profiles. Moreover a 3d geoelectrical survey in a fumarolic area was conducted. In spring 2000 gravity measurements were carried out along the same profiles, covered in 1999 by geoelectrics and magnetics on the Island of Vulcano in the frame of an international co-operation with Japanese geophysicists from the Geological Survey of Japan