3,219 research outputs found
Socio-hydrological modelling: a review asking “why, what and how?”
Interactions between humans and the environment are occurring on a scale that
has never previously been seen; the scale of human interaction with the water
cycle, along with the coupling present between social and hydrological
systems, means that decisions that impact water also impact people. Models
are often used to assist in decision-making regarding hydrological systems,
and so in order for effective decisions to be made regarding water resource
management, these interactions and feedbacks should be accounted for in
models used to analyse systems in which water and humans interact. This paper
reviews literature surrounding aspects of socio-hydrological modelling. It
begins with background information regarding the current state of
socio-hydrology as a discipline, before covering reasons for modelling and
potential applications. Some important concepts that underlie
socio-hydrological modelling efforts are then discussed, including ways of
viewing socio-hydrological systems, space and time in modelling, complexity,
data and model conceptualisation. Several modelling approaches are described,
the stages in their development detailed and their applicability to
socio-hydrological cases discussed. Gaps in research are then highlighted to
guide directions for future research. The review of literature suggests that
the nature of socio-hydrological study, being interdisciplinary, focusing on
complex interactions between human and natural systems, and dealing with long
horizons, is such that modelling will always present a challenge; it is,
however, the task of the modeller to use the wide range of tools afforded to
them to overcome these challenges as much as possible. The focus in
socio-hydrology is on understanding the human–water system in a holistic
sense, which differs from the problem solving focus of other water management
fields, and as such models in socio-hydrology should be developed with a view
to gaining new insight into these dynamics. There is an essential choice that
socio-hydrological modellers face in deciding between representing individual
system processes or viewing the system from a more abstracted level and
modelling it as such; using these different approaches has implications for
model development, applicability and the insight that they are capable of
giving, and so the decision regarding how to model the system requires
thorough consideration of, among other things, the nature of understanding
that is sought
Prognostic value of bcl-2 expression in invasive breast cancer.
Expression of the bcl-2 proto-oncogene was studied immunohistochemically in 251 invasive ductal breast carcinomas (median follow-up time 91 months, range 24-186 months) and the results were correlated with clinicopathological data and prognostic variables. Sixty-three (25%) tumours were scored bcl-2 negative and 188 (75%) tumours were bcl-2 positive. No relationship could be observed between bcl-2 status and tumour grade, pTNM staging or menopausal status. A strong positive relationship was demonstrated between bcl-2 immunoreactivity and oestrogen receptor status (P < 0.001) and progesterone receptor status (P < 0.001). No prognostic value was demonstrated for bcl-2 expression on disease-free survival and overall survival in axillary node-negative breast cancer patients. However, in axillary node-positive breast cancer patients multivariate analysis demonstrated absence of bcl-2 expression to be independently related to shortened disease-free survival (P = 0.003) and shortened overall survival (P < 0.001). Our results suggest a potential important role for bcl-2 expression as a modulator of response to adjuvant therapy in breast cancer
An Open Data and Citizen Science Approach to Building Resilience to Natural Hazards in a Data-Scarce Remote Mountainous Part of Nepal
The citizen science approach has gained momentum in recent years. It can enable both experts and citizen scientists to co-create new knowledge. Better understanding of local environmental, social, and geographical contexts can help in designing appropriate plans for sustainable development. However, a lack of geospatial data, especially in the context of developing countries, often precludes context-specific development planning. This study therefore tests an innovative approach of volunteer citizen science and an open mapping platform to build resilience to natural hazards in the remote mountainous parts of western Nepal. In this study, citizen scientists and mapping experts jointly mapped two districts of Nepal (Bajhang and Bajura) using the OpenStreetMap (OSM) platform. Remote mapping based on satellite imagery, capacity building, and mobilization of citizen scientists was performed to collect the data. These data were then uploaded to OSM and later retrieved in ArcGIS to produce a usable map that could be exploited as a reference resource for evidence-based decision-making. The collected data are freely accessible to community members as well as government and humanitarian actors, and can be used for development planning and risk reduction. By piloting in two communities of western Nepal, we found that using open data platforms for collecting and analyzing location-based data has a mutual benefit for researchers and communities. Such data could be vital in understanding the local landscape, environmental risk, and distribution of resources. Furthermore, they enable both researchers and local people to transfer technical knowledge, collect location-specific data, and use them for better decision-making
Characterisation of Medipix3 Silicon Detectors in a Charged-Particle Beam
While designed primarily for X-ray imaging applications, the Medipix3 ASIC
can also be used for charged-particle tracking. In this work, results from a
beam test at the CERN SPS with irradiated and non-irradiated sensors are
presented and shown to be in agreement with simulation, demonstrating the
suitability of the Medipix3 ASIC as a tool for characterising pixel sensors.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figure
Morphology and function of Bast’s valve: additional insight in its functioning using 3D-reconstruction
The utriculo-endolymphatic valve was discovered by Bast in 1928. The function of Bast’s valve is still unclear. By means of orthogonal-plane fluorescence optical sectioning (OPFOS) microscopy 3D-reconstructions of the valve and its surrounding region are depicted. The shape of the duct at the utricular side is that of a flattened funnel. In the direction of the endolymphatic duct and sac this funnel runs into a very narrow duct. The valve itself has a rigid ‘arch-like’ configuration. The opposing thin, one cell-layer thick, utricular membrane is highly compliant. We propose that opening and closure of the valve occurs through movement of the flexible base/utricular membrane away from and toward the relatively rigid valve lip
Projected increases in the annual flood pulse of the Western Amazon
The impact of a changing climate on the Amazon basin is a subject of intensive research because of its rich biodiversity and the significant role of rainforests in carbon cycling. Climate change has also a direct hydrological impact, and increasing efforts have focused on understanding the hydrological dynamics at continental and subregional scales, such as the Western Amazon. New projections from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 ensemble indicate consistent climatic warming and increasing seasonality of precipitation in the Peruvian Amazon basin. Here we use a distributed land surface model to quantify the potential impact of this change in the climate on the hydrological regime of the upper Amazon river. Using extreme value analysis, historical and future projections of the annual minimum, mean, and maximum river flows are produced for a range of return periods between 1 and 100 yr. We show that the RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios of climate change project an increased severity of the wet season flood pulse (7.5% and 12% increases respectively for the 100 yr return floods). These findings agree with previously projected increases in high extremes under the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios climate projections, and are important to highlight due to the potential consequences on reproductive processes of in-stream species, swamp forest ecology, and socio-economy in the floodplain, amidst a growing literature that more strongly emphasises future droughts and their impact on the viability of the rainforest system over greater Amazonia
First results from NA60 on low mass muon pair production in In-In collisions at 158 GeV/nucleon
The NA60 experiment at the CERN SPS studies dimuon production in
proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. The combined information from a
novel vertex telescope made of radiation-tolerant silicon pixel detectors and
from the muon spectrometer previously used in NA50 allows for a precise
measurement of the muon vertex and a much improved dimuon mass resolution. We
report on first results from the data taken for Indium-Indium collisions at 158
AGeV/nucleon in 2003, concentrating on a subsample of about 370 000 muon pairs
in the mass range GeV/. The light vector mesons and
are completely resolved, with a mass resolution of about 23 MeV/
at the . The transverse momentum spectra of the are measured over
the continuous range GeV/c; the inverse slope parameter of
the spectra is found to increase with centrality, with an average value of
MeV.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. Plenary talk, SQM2004 conference, Cape Town,
South Africa 15-20 September, 2004. To be published in Journal of Physics G:
Nuclear and Particle Physic
First results from the NA60 experiment at CERN
Since 1986, several heavy ion experiments have studied some signatures of the
formation of the quark-gluon plasma and a few exciting results have been found.
However, some important questions are still unanswered and require new
measurements. The NA60 experiment, with a new detector concept that vastly
improves dimuon detection in proton-nucleus and heavy-ion collisions, studies
several of those open questions, including the production of open charm. This
paper presents the experiment and some first results from data collected in
2002.Comment: Paper presented at the XXXVIII Rencontres de Moriond, QCD and High
Energy Hadronic Interactions, Les Arcs, March 22-29, 2003. 4 pages, 6 figure
Timing performance of the LHCb VELO Timepix3 Telescope
We performed a detailed study of the timing performance of the LHCb VELO
Timepix3 Telescope with a 180 GeV/c mixed hadron beam at the CERN SPS. A
twofold method was developed to improve the resolution of single-plane time
measurements, resulting in a more precise overall track time measurement. The
first step uses spatial information of reconstructed tracks in combination with
the measured signal charge in the sensor to correct for a mixture of different
effects: variations in charge carrier drift time; variations in signal
induction, which are the result of a non-uniform weighting field in the pixels;
and lastly, timewalk in the analog front-end. The second step corrects for
systematic timing offsets in Timepix3 that vary from -2 ns to 2 ns. By applying
this method, we improved the track time resolution from 43816 ps to
2764 ps
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