Regulations & exemptions during the COVID-19 pandemic for new medical technology, health services & data

The rapid evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a large unmet need for new or additional medical technology and healthcare services to be made available urgently. Healthcare, Academic, Government and Industry organizations and individuals have risen to this challenge by designing, developing, manufacturing or implementing innovation. However, both they and healthcare stakeholders are hampered as it is unclear how to introduce and deploy the products of this innovation quickly and legally within the healthcare system. Our paper outlines the key regulations and processes innovators need to comply with, and how these change during a public health emergency via dedicated exemptions. Our work includes references to the formal documents regarding UK healthcare regulation and governance, and is meant to serve as a guide for those who wish to act quickly but are uncertain of the legal and regulatory pathways that allow new a device or service to be fast-tracked

Enhanced Australian carbon sink despite increased wildfire during the 21st century

Climate projections show Australia becoming significantly warmer during the 21st century, and precipitation decreasing over much of the continent. Such changes are conventionally considered to increase wildfire risk. Nevertheless, we show that burnt area increases in southern Australia, but decreases in northern Australia. Overall the projected increase in fire is small (0.72–1.31% of land area, depending on the climate scenario used), and does not cause a decrease in carbon storage. In fact, carbon storage increases by 3.7–5.6 Pg C (depending on the climate scenario used). Using a process-based model of vegetation dynamics, vegetation–fire interactions and carbon cycling, we show increased fire promotes a shift to more fire-adapted trees in wooded areas and their encroachment into grasslands, with an overall increase in forested area of 3.9–11.9%. Both changes increase carbon uptake and storage. The increase in woody vegetation increases the amount of coarse litter, which decays more slowly than fine litter hence leading to a relative reduction in overall heterotrophic respiration, further reducing carbon losses. Direct CO2 effects increase woody cover, water-use efficiency and productivity, such that carbon storage is increased by 8.5–14.8 Pg C compared to simulations in which CO2 is held constant at modern values. CO2 effects tend to increase burnt area, fire fluxes and therefore carbon losses in arid areas, but increase vegetation density and reduce burnt area in wooded areas

Diagnosing evapotranspiration responses to water deficit across biomes using deep learning.

Accounting for water limitation is key to determining vegetation sensitivity to drought. Quantifying water limitation effects on evapotranspiration (ET) is challenged by the heterogeneity of vegetation types, climate zones and vertically along the rooting zone. Here, we train deep neural networks using flux measurements to study ET responses to progressing drought conditions. We determine a water stress factor (fET) that isolates ET reductions from effects of atmospheric aridity and other covarying drivers. We regress fET against the cumulative water deficit, which reveals the control of whole-column moisture availability. We find a variety of ET responses to water stress. Responses range from rapid declines of fET to 10% of its water-unlimited rate at several savannah and grassland sites, to mild fET reductions in most forests, despite substantial water deficits. Most sensitive responses are found at the most arid and warm sites. A combination of regulation of stomatal and hydraulic conductance and access to belowground water reservoirs, whether in groundwater or deep soil moisture, could explain the different behaviors observed across sites. This variety of responses is not captured by a standard land surface model, likely reflecting simplifications in its representation of belowground water storage

First Demonstration of a Pixelated Charge Readout for Single-Phase Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers

Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) have been selected for the future long-baseline Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). To allow LArTPCs to operate in the high-multiplicity near detector environment of DUNE, a new charge readout technology is required. Traditional charge readout technologies introduce intrinsic ambiguities, combined with a slow detector response, these ambiguities have limited the performance of LArTPCs, until now. Here, we present a novel pixelated charge readout that enables the full 3D tracking capabilities of LArTPCs. We characterise the signal to noise ratio of charge readout chain, to be about 14, and demonstrate track reconstruction on 3D space points produced by the pixel readout. This pixelated charge readout makes LArTPCs a viable option for the DUNE near detector complex.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure

Vegetation plays an important role in mediating future water resources

Future environmental change is expected to modify the global hydrological cycle, with consequences for the regional distribution of freshwater supplies. Regional precipitation projections, however, differ largely between models, making future water resource projections highly uncertain. Using two representative concentration pathways and nine climate models, we estimate 21st century water resources across Australia, employing both a process-based dynamic vegetation model and a simple hydrological framework commonly used in water resource studies to separate the effects of climate and vegetation on water resources. We show surprisingly robust, pathway-independent regional patterns of change in water resources despite large uncertainties in precipitation projections. Increasing plant water use efficiency (due to the changing atmospheric CO2) and reduced green vegetation cover (due to the changing climate) relieve pressure on water resources for the highly populated, humid coastal regions of eastern Australia. By contrast, in semi-arid regions across Australia, runoff declines are amplified by CO2-induced greening, which leads to increased vegetation water use. These findings highlight the importance of including vegetation dynamics in future water resource projections

P-model v1.0: an optimality-based light use efficiency model for simulating ecosystem gross primary production

Terrestrial photosynthesis is the basis for vegetation growth and drives the land carbon cycle. Accurately simulating gross primary production (GPP, ecosystem-level apparent photosynthesis) is key for satellite monitoring and Earth System Model predictions under climate change. While robust models exist for describing leaf-level photosynthesis, predictions diverge due to uncertain photosynthetic traits and parameters which vary on multiple spatial and temporal scales. Here, we describe and evaluate a gross primary production (GPP, photosynthesis per unit ground area) model, the P-model, that combines the Farquhar-von Caemmerer-Berry model for C3 photosynthesis with an optimality principle for the carbon assimilation- transpiration trade-off, and predicts a multi-day average light use efficiency (LUE) for any climate and C3 vegetation type. The model is forced here with satellite data for the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation and site-specific meteorological data and is evaluated against GPP estimates from a globally distributed network of ecosystem flux measurements. Although the P-model requires relatively few inputs and prescribed parameters, the R2 for predicted versus observed GPP based on the full model setup is 0.75 (8-day mean, 131 sites) – better than some state-of-the-art satellite data-driven light use efficiency models. The R2 is reduced to 0.69 when not accounting for the reduction in quantum yield at low temperatures and effects of low soil moisture on LUE. The R2 for the P-model-predicted LUE is 0.37 (means by site) and 0.53 (means by vegetation type). The P-model provides a simple but powerful method for predicting – rather than prescribing light use efficiency and simulating terrestrial photosythesis across a wide range of conditions. The model is available as an R package (rpmodel)

Case study: ENVRI science demonstrators with D4Science

Whenever a community of practice starts developing an IT solution for its use case(s) it has to face the issue of carefully selecting “the platform” to use. Such a platform should match the requirements and the overall settings resulting from the specific application context (including legacy technologies and solutions to be integrated and reused, costs of adoption and operation, easiness in acquir- ing skills and competencies). There is no one-size-fits-all solution that is suitable for all application context, and this is particularly true for scientific communities and their cases because of the wide heterogeneity characterising them. However, there is a large consensus that solutions from scratch are inefficient and services that facilitate the development and maintenance of scientific community-specific solutions do exist. This chapter describes how a set of diverse communities of practice efficiently developed their science demonstrators (on analysing and pro- ducing user-defined atmosphere data products, greenhouse gases fluxes, particle formation, mosquito diseases) by leveraging the services offered by the D4Science infrastructure. It shows that the D4Science design decisions aiming at streamlin- ing implementations are effective. The chapter discusses the added value injected in the science demonstrators and resulting from the reuse of D4Science services, especially regarding Open Science practices and overall quality of service

Propagation of HF radio waves over northerly paths: measurements,simulation and systems aspects

Large deviations in the direction of arrival of ionospherically propagating radio signals from the Great Circle Path (GCP) have serious implications for the planning and operation of communications and radiolocation systems operating within the HF-band. Very large deviations are particularly prevalent in the polar and sub-auroral regions where signals often arrive at the receiver with bearings displaced from the great circle direction by up to ±100° or more. Measurements made over several paths are presented in this paper, and the principle causes of off-great circle propagation outlined. Significant progress has been made in modelling the propagation effects and work is now in hand to incorporate the results into tools to aid the planning and operation of HF radio systems operating at northerly latitudes

An examination of the precipitation delivery mechanisms for Dolleman Island, eastern Antarctic Peninsula

Copyright @ 2004 Wiley-BlackwellThe variability of size and source of significant precipitation events were studied at an Antarctic ice core drilling site: Dolleman Island (DI), located on the eastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Significant precipitation events that occur at DI were temporally located in the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) reanalysis data set, ERA-40. The annual and summer precipitation totals from ERA-40 at DI both show significant increases over the reanalysis period. Three-dimensional backwards air parcel trajectories were then run for 5 d using the ECMWF ERA-15 wind fields. Cluster analyses were performed on two sets of these backwards trajectories: all days in the range 1979–1992 (the climatological time-scale) and a subset of days when a significant precipitation event occurred. The principal air mass sources and delivery mechanisms were found to be the Weddell Sea via lee cyclogenesis, the South Atlantic when there was a weak circumpolar trough (CPT) and the South Pacific when the CPT was deep. The occurrence of precipitation bearing air masses arriving via a strong CPT was found to have a significant correlation with the southern annular mode (SAM); however, the arrival of air masses from the same region over the climatological time-scale showed no such correlation. Despite the dominance in both groups of back trajectories of the westerly circulation around Antarctica, some other key patterns were identified. Most notably there was a higher frequency of lee cyclogenesis events in the significant precipitation trajectories compared to the climatological time-scale. There was also a tendency for precipitation trajectories to come from more northerly latitudes, mostly from 50–70°S. The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) was found to have a strong influence on the mechanism by which the precipitation was delivered; the frequency of occurrence of precipitation from the east (west) of DI increased during El Niño (La Niña) events

Effects of Lewis Number on Temperatures of Spherical Diffusion Flames

Spherical diffusion flames supported on a porous sphere were studied numerically and experimentally. Experiments were performed in 2.2 s and 5.2 s microgravity facilities. Numerical results were obtained from a Chemkin-based program. The program simulates flow from a porous sphere into a quiescent environment, yields both steady-state and transient results, and accounts for optically thick gas-phase radiation. The low flow velocities and long residence times in these diffusion flames lead to enhanced radiative and diffusive effects. Despite similar adiabatic flame temperatures, the measured and predicted temperatures varied by as much as 700 K. The temperature reduction correlates with flame size but characteristic flow times and, importantly, Lewis number also influence temperature. The numerical results show that the ambient gas Lewis number would have a strong effect on flame temperature if the flames were steady and nonradiating. For example, a 10% decrease in Lewis number would increase the steady-state flame temperature by 200 K. However, for these transient, radiating flames the effect of Lewis number is small. Transient predictions of flame sizes are larger than those observed in microgravity experiments. Close agreement could not be obtained without either increasing the model s thermal and mass diffusion properties by 30% or reducing mass flow rate by 25%