Influencing Flow Patterns and Bed Morphology in Open Channels and Rivers by Means of an Air-Bubble Screen

The ability of a bubble screen to redistribute the flow field and bed morphology in shallow rivers and open channels has been investigated in laboratory experiments. Rising air bubbles generated by a pressurized porous tube situated on the bed induced secondary flow perpendicular to the porous tube. The secondary flow redistributed the longitudinal velocity, which caused also morphological redistribution under mobile-bed conditions. The strength and size of the bubble-induced secondary flow were independent of the base flow velocity and increased with water depth. The size of the secondary flow cell ranged from 3× (immobile bed) to 7× (mobile bed) the water depth. Similar sizes of bubble-induced secondary flow cells have been reported in literature for water depths ranging from 0.1 to 5 m, indicating that the laboratory experiments are relevant for natural rivers and open channels.Amutually strengthening interplay occurred between the bubble screen, the bubble-induced secondary flow, and the morphology. The bubble-induced secondary flowconsiderably increased the rising velocity of the air bubbles, which on its turn strengthened the secondary flow. The morphological redistribution increased the flow depth in the region covered by the secondary flow cell, which on its turn increased the size and strength of the secondary flow cell, and its effect on the morphological redistribution. This coupled hydrodynamic-morphologic behavior explains the larger size and strength of the secondary flow over a mobile bed than over a flat immobile bed. The results demonstrate the potential of the bubble screen as a technique to modify the morphology in a variety of applications in shallowrivers and open channels

PKWeir and flap gate spillway for the Gage II Dam

The Gage II concrete arch dam shows some limiting constraints in its structural behavior when submitted to particular hydrostatic and thermal load conditions. Its sensitivity to low temperature has led to determine two different maximum water levels during winter and summer, respectively. Therefore, a new complementary spillway, composed by a PKWeir and a flap gate weir has been designed by EDF and optimized using a physical scaled model at LCH. The experimental tests have been carried out for different configurations of the spillway. The output flow capacities of the PKWeir and the flap gate weir including their interaction through the restitution channel have been also investigated. The geometric optimization process has been conducted on several spillway parameters: number of the PKWeir units, its position relative to the flap gate weir, and the height, width and bottom slope of the restitution channel. The tested configurations have been compared based on their flow output capacity

Community Structure Characterization

This entry discusses the problem of describing some communities identified in a complex network of interest, in a way allowing to interpret them. We suppose the community structure has already been detected through one of the many methods proposed in the literature. The question is then to know how to extract valuable information from this first result, in order to allow human interpretation. This requires subsequent processing, which we describe in the rest of this entry

Blood DNA methylation and breast cancer risk: a meta-analysis of four prospective cohort studies

BACKGROUND: Environmental and genetic factors play an important role in the etiology of breast cancer. Several small blood-based DNA methylation studies have reported risk associations with methylation at individual CpGs and average methylation levels; however, these findings require validation in larger prospective cohort studies. To investigate the role of blood DNA methylation on breast cancer risk, we conducted a meta-analysis of four prospective cohort studies, including a total of 1663 incident cases and 1885 controls, the largest study of blood DNA methylation and breast cancer risk to date. METHODS: We assessed associations with methylation at 365,145 CpGs present in the HumanMethylation450 (HM450K) Beadchip, after excluding CpGs that did not pass quality controls in all studies. Each of the four cohorts estimated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between each individual CpG and breast cancer risk. In addition, each study assessed the association between average methylation measures and breast cancer risk, adjusted and unadjusted for cell-type composition. Study-specific ORs were combined using fixed-effect meta-analysis with inverse variance weights. Stratified analyses were conducted by age at diagnosis ( 10 years). The false discovery rate (q value) was used to account for multiple testing. RESULTS: The average age at blood draw ranged from 52.2 to 62.2 years across the four cohorts. Median follow-up time ranged from 6.6 to 8.4 years. The methylation measured at individual CpGs was not associated with breast cancer risk (q value > 0.59). In addition, higher average methylation level was not associated with risk of breast cancer (OR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.85, 1.05; P = 0.26; P for study heterogeneity = 0.86). We found no evidence of modification of this association by age at diagnosis (P = 0.17), ER status (P = 0.88), time since blood collection (P = 0.98), or CpG location (P = 0.98). CONCLUSIONS: Our data indicate that DNA methylation measured in the blood prior to breast cancer diagnosis in predominantly postmenopausal women is unlikely to be associated with substantial breast cancer risk on the HM450K array. Larger studies or with greater methylation coverage are needed to determine if associations exist between blood DNA methylation and breast cancer risk

Ergodicity and Central Limit Theorem in Systems with Long-Range Interactions

In this letter we discuss the validity of the ergodicity hypothesis in theories of violent relaxation in long-range interacting systems. We base our reasoning on the Hamiltonian Mean Field model and show that the life-time of quasi-stationary states resulting from the violent relaxation does not allow the system to reach a complete mixed state. We also discuss the applicability of a generalization of the central limit theorem. In this context, we show that no attractor exists in distribution space for the sum of velocities of a particle other than the Gaussian distribution. The long-range nature of the interaction leads in fact to a new instance of sluggish convergence to a Gaussian distribution.Comment: 13 pages,6 figure

ZSE466-3 - TOPIK-TOPIK LANJUTAN DALAM GEOFIZIK USAHACARI - APRIL 1987.

ABSTRACT: The Piano Key weir (PKW) is a hydraulically attractive alternative to linear overflow weirs, increasing the unit discharge for similar heads and spillway widths. This advantage allows operating dam reservoirs on an increased level and provides thereby an enhanced retention volume. It is a result of the non-linear nature of PKWs being folded back and forth to make repeating cycles or keys. As PKWs are relatively novel structures, only few design equations are available, so that normally physical model tests of prototypes have to be conducted assuring and optimizing their hydraulic characteristics. Nevertheless, first comprehensive and systematic model test series were conducted in several laboratories. Based on such a test series, a general design equation for A-type PKWs is proposed and discussed. Considering furthermore data of other laboratory studies, the latter is validated. It turned out that main and secondary parameters exist regarding the relative effect on the rating curve. The main parameters having a significant effect on the capacity are the relative developed crest length and the relative head. The secondary parameters of small but not negligible effect comprise the ratio of the inlet and outlet key widths, the ratio of the inlet and outlet key heights, the relative overhang lengths, and the relative height of the parapet walls.

Reducing socio-economic inequalities in all-cause mortality: a counterfactual mediation approach

Background: Socio-economic inequalities in mortality are well established, yet the contribution of intermediate risk factors that may underlie these relationships remains unclear. We evaluated the role of multiple modifiable intermediate risk factors underlying socio-economic-associated mortality and quantified the potential impact of reducing early all-cause mortality by hypothetically altering socio-economic risk factors.Methods: Data were from seven cohort studies participating in the LIFEPATH Consortium (total n = 179 090). Using both socio-economic position (SEP) (based on occupation) and education, we estimated the natural direct effect on all-cause mortality and the natural indirect effect via the joint mediating role of smoking, alcohol intake, dietary patterns, physical activity, body mass index, hypertension, diabetes and coronary artery disease. Hazard ratios (HRs) were estimated, using counterfactual natural effect models under different hypothetical actions of either lower or higher SEP or education.Results: Lower SEP and education were associated with an increase in all-cause mortality within an average follow-up time of 17.5 years. Mortality was reduced via modelled hypothetical actions of increasing SEP or education. Through higher education, the HR was 0.85 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84, 0.86] for women and 0.71 (95% CI 0.70, 0.74) for men, compared with lower education. In addition, 34% and 38% of the effect was jointly mediated for women and men, respectively. The benefits from altering SEP were slightly more modest.Conclusions: These observational findings support policies to reduce mortality both through improving socio-economic circumstances and increasing education, and by altering intermediaries, such as lifestyle behaviours and morbidities.</p

Polymorphisms in a Putative Enhancer at the 10q21.2 Breast Cancer Risk Locus Regulate NRBF2 Expression.

Genome-wide association studies have identified SNPs near ZNF365 at 10q21.2 that are associated with both breast cancer risk and mammographic density. To identify the most likely causal SNPs, we fine mapped the association signal by genotyping 428 SNPs across the region in 89,050 European and 12,893 Asian case and control subjects from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium. We identified four independent sets of correlated, highly trait-associated variants (iCHAVs), three of which were located within ZNF365. The most strongly risk-associated SNP, rs10995201 in iCHAV1, showed clear evidence of association with both estrogen receptor (ER)-positive (OR = 0.85 [0.82-0.88]) and ER-negative (OR = 0.87 [0.82-0.91]) disease, and was also the SNP most strongly associated with percent mammographic density. iCHAV2 (lead SNP, chr10: 64,258,684:D) and iCHAV3 (lead SNP, rs7922449) were also associated with ER-positive (OR = 0.93 [0.91-0.95] and OR = 1.06 [1.03-1.09]) and ER-negative (OR = 0.95 [0.91-0.98] and OR = 1.08 [1.04-1.13]) disease. There was weaker evidence for iCHAV4, located 5' of ADO, associated only with ER-positive breast cancer (OR = 0.93 [0.90-0.96]). We found 12, 17, 18, and 2 candidate causal SNPs for breast cancer in iCHAVs 1-4, respectively. Chromosome conformation capture analysis showed that iCHAV2 interacts with the ZNF365 and NRBF2 (more than 600 kb away) promoters in normal and cancerous breast epithelial cells. Luciferase assays did not identify SNPs that affect transactivation of ZNF365, but identified a protective haplotype in iCHAV2, associated with silencing of the NRBF2 promoter, implicating this gene in the etiology of breast cancer.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2015.05.002

The persistence of cognitive biases in financial decisions across economic groups

Data availability: All data will be posted open access via https://psyarxiv.com/mrxy6/ and in interactive form via https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/kai.ruggeri. We will post these only once an accepted version of all analyses is possible to avoid confusion based on version control.While economic inequality continues to rise within countries, efforts to address it have been largely ineffective, particularly those involving behavioral approaches. It is often implied but not tested that choice patterns among low-income individuals may be a factor impeding behavioral interventions aimed at improving upward economic mobility. To test this, we assessed rates of ten cognitive biases across nearly 5000 participants from 27 countries. Our analyses were primarily focused on 1458 individuals that were either low-income adults or individuals who grew up in disadvantaged households but had above-average financial well-being as adults, known as positive deviants. Using discrete and complex models, we find evidence of no differences within or between groups or countries. We therefore conclude that choices impeded by cognitive biases alone cannot explain why some individuals do not experience upward economic mobility. Policies must combine both behavioral and structural interventions to improve financial well-being across populations.This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (#2218595) and by Undergraduate Global Engagement at Columbia University. Additional support was provided to individual researchers from the Columbia University Office of the Provost, Masaryk University Centre for International Cooperation, and the Benjamin A. Gilman International Fund from the United States Department of State. This research was funded in part, by the UKRI [MR/N013468/1]