A Deep Learning Approach to Radar-based QPE

In this study, we propose a volume-to-point framework for quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) based on the Quantitative Precipitation Estimation and Segregation Using Multiple Sensor (QPESUMS) Mosaic Radar data set. With a data volume consisting of the time series of gridded radar reflectivities over the Taiwan area, we used machine learning algorithms to establish a statistical model for QPE in weather stations. The model extracts spatial and temporal features from the input data volume and then associates these features with the location-specific precipitations. In contrast to QPE methods based on the Z-R relation, we leverage the machine learning algorithms to automatically detect the evolution and movement of weather systems and associate these patterns to a location with specific topographic attributes. Specifically, we evaluated this framework with the hourly precipitation data of 45 weather stations in Taipei during 2013-2016. In comparison to the operational QPE scheme used by the Central Weather Bureau, the volume-to-point framework performed comparably well in general cases and excelled in detecting heavy-rainfall events. By using the current results as the reference benchmark, the proposed method can integrate the heterogeneous data sources and potentially improve the forecast in extreme precipitation scenarios.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures. Published in Earth and Space Scienc

Pediatric Thalassemic Patients Have Higher Incidence of Asthma: A Nationwide Population-Based Retrospective Cohort Study

INTRODUCTION: Patients with hemoglobinopathies have been reported to have higher rates of pulmonary complications. Few studies have investigated the association between thalassemia and asthma in children. METHODS: We used the data of one million individuals randomly selected from the Registry for Beneficiaries of the National Health Insurance Research Database. One thalassemic child was matched with four control children without thalassemia according to sex, birth year, birth season, prematurity, and previous enteroviral infection. RESULTS: A total of 800 hundred thalassemic children and 3200 controls were included. Children with thalassemia had higher rates of developing asthma (41.81 vs 25.70 per 1000 person-years, P \u3c 0.001) than the non-thalassemia controls with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.37 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.19-1.58). Boys in the thalassemia cohort had a significantly higher adjusted incidence hazard ratio (IRR) of asthma than those in the non-thalassemia cohort (adjusted IRR = 1.45, 95% CI = 1.02-1.73). The risk of atopic and nonatopic asthma was higher in the thalassemia cohort than in the non-thalassemia cohort (IRR = 1.3, 1.61, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Children with thalassemia were more likely to develop asthma. More attention should be paid to the early diagnosis of asthma and prevention of asthma attacks

Nervous Necrosis Virus Replicates Following the Embryo Development and Dual Infection with Iridovirus at Juvenile Stage in Grouper

Infection of virus (such as nodavirus and iridovirus) and bacteria (such as Vibrio anguillarum) in farmed grouper has been widely reported and caused large economic losses to Taiwanese fish aquaculture industry since 1979. The multiplex assay was used to detect dual viral infection and showed that only nervous necrosis virus (NNV) can be detected till the end of experiments (100% mortality) once it appeared. In addition, iridovirus can be detected in a certain period of rearing. The results of real-time PCR and in situ PCR indicated that NNV, in fact, was not on the surface of the eggs but present in the embryo, which can continue to replicate during the embryo development. The virus may be vertically transmitted by packing into eggs during egg development (formation) or delivering into eggs by sperm during fertilization. The ozone treatment of eggs may fail to remove the virus, so a new strategy to prevent NNV is needed

AMiBA: System Performance

The Y.T. Lee Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy (AMiBA) started scientific operation in early 2007. This work describes the optimization of the system performance for the measurements of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect for six massive galaxy clusters at redshifts $0.09 - 0.32$. We achieved a point source sensitivity of $63\pm 7$ mJy with the seven 0.6m dishes in 1 hour of on-source integration in 2-patch differencing observations. We measured and compensated for the delays between the antennas of our platform-mounted interferometer. Beam switching was used to cancel instrumental instabilities and ground pick up. Total power and phase stability were good on time scales of hours, and the system was shown to integrate down on equivalent timescales of 300 hours per baseline/correlation, or about 10 hours for the entire array. While the broadband correlator leads to good sensitivity, the small number of lags in the correlator resulted in poorly measured bandpass response. We corrected for this by using external calibrators (Jupiter and Saturn). Using Jupiter as the flux standard, we measured the disk brightness temperature of Saturn to be $149^{+5}_{-12}$ K.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in Ap

Inference of reticulate evolutionary histories by maximum likelihood: the performance of information criteria

Background: Maximum likelihood has been widely used for over three decades to infer phylogenetic trees from molecular data. When reticulate evolutionary events occur, several genomic regions may have conflicting evolutionary histories, and a phylogenetic network may provide a more adequate model for representing the evolutionary history of the genomes or species. A maximum likelihood (ML) model has been proposed for this case and accounts for both mutation within a genomic region and reticulation across the regions. However, the performance of this model in terms of inferring information about reticulate evolution and properties that affect this performance have not been studied. Results: In this paper, we study the effect of the evolutionary diameter and height of a reticulation event on its identifiability under ML. We find both of them, particularly the diameter, have a significant effect. Further, we find that the number of genes (which can be generalized to the concept of "non-recombining genomic regions") that are transferred across a reticulation edge affects its detectability. Last but not least, a fundamental challenge with phylogenetic networks is that they allow an arbitrary level of complexity, giving rise to the model selection problem. We investigate the performance of two information criteria, the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), for addressing this problem. We find that BIC performs well in general for controlling the model complexity and preventing ML from grossly overestimating the number of reticulation events. Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that BIC provides a good framework for inferring reticulate evolutionary histories. Nevertheless, the results call for caution when interpreting the accuracy of the inference particularly for data sets with particular evolutionary features

Women with endometriosis have higher comorbidities: Analysis of domestic data in Taiwan

AbstractEndometriosis, defined by the presence of viable extrauterine endometrial glands and stroma, can grow or bleed cyclically, and possesses characteristics including a destructive, invasive, and metastatic nature. Since endometriosis may result in pelvic inflammation, adhesion, chronic pain, and infertility, and can progress to biologically malignant tumors, it is a long-term major health issue in women of reproductive age. In this review, we analyze the Taiwan domestic research addressing associations between endometriosis and other diseases. Concerning malignant tumors, we identified four studies on the links between endometriosis and ovarian cancer, one on breast cancer, two on endometrial cancer, one on colorectal cancer, and one on other malignancies, as well as one on associations between endometriosis and irritable bowel syndrome, one on links with migraine headache, three on links with pelvic inflammatory diseases, four on links with infertility, four on links with obesity, four on links with chronic liver disease, four on links with rheumatoid arthritis, four on links with chronic renal disease, five on links with diabetes mellitus, and five on links with cardiovascular diseases (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, etc.). The data available to date support that women with endometriosis might be at risk of some chronic illnesses and certain malignancies, although we consider the evidence for some comorbidities to be of low quality, for example, the association between colon cancer and adenomyosis/endometriosis. We still believe that the risk of comorbidity might be higher in women with endometriosis than that we supposed before. More research is needed to determine whether women with endometriosis are really at risk of these comorbidities

Identification of Gene Networks and Pathways Associated with Guillain-Barré Syndrome

BACKGROUND: The underlying change of gene network expression of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) remains elusive. We sought to identify GBS-associated gene networks and signaling pathways by analyzing the transcriptional profile of leukocytes in the patients with GBS. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Quantitative global gene expression microarray analysis of peripheral blood leukocytes was performed on 7 patients with GBS and 7 healthy controls. Gene expression profiles were compared between patients and controls after standardization. The set of genes that significantly correlated with GBS was further analyzed by Ingenuity Pathways Analyses. 256 genes and 18 gene networks were significantly associated with GBS (fold change ≥2, P<0.05). FOS, PTGS2, HMGB2 and MMP9 are the top four of 246 significantly up-regulated genes. The most significant disease and altered biological function genes associated with GBS were those involved in inflammatory response, infectious disease, and respiratory disease. Cell death, cellular development and cellular movement were the top significant molecular and cellular functions involved in GBS. Hematological system development and function, immune cell trafficking and organismal survival were the most significant GBS-associated function in physiological development and system category. Several hub genes, such as MMP9, PTGS2 and CREB1 were identified in the associated gene networks. Canonical pathway analysis showed that GnRH, corticotrophin-releasing hormone and ERK/MAPK signaling were the most significant pathways in the up-regulated gene set in GBS. CONCLUSIONS: This study reveals the gene networks and canonical pathways associated with GBS. These data provide not only networks between the genes for understanding the pathogenic properties of GBS but also map significant pathways for the future development of novel therapeutic strategies

A ring-like accretion structure in M87 connecting its black hole and jet

The nearby radio galaxy M87 is a prime target for studying black hole accretion and jet formation^{1,2}. Event Horizon Telescope observations of M87 in 2017, at a wavelength of 1.3 mm, revealed a ring-like structure, which was interpreted as gravitationally lensed emission around a central black hole^3. Here we report images of M87 obtained in 2018, at a wavelength of 3.5 mm, showing that the compact radio core is spatially resolved. High-resolution imaging shows a ring-like structure of 8.4_{-1.1}^{+0.5} Schwarzschild radii in diameter, approximately 50% larger than that seen at 1.3 mm. The outer edge at 3.5 mm is also larger than that at 1.3 mm. This larger and thicker ring indicates a substantial contribution from the accretion flow with absorption effects in addition to the gravitationally lensed ring-like emission. The images show that the edge-brightened jet connects to the accretion flow of the black hole. Close to the black hole, the emission profile of the jet-launching region is wider than the expected profile of a black-hole-driven jet, suggesting the possible presence of a wind associated with the accretion flow.Comment: 50 pages, 18 figures, 3 tables, author's version of the paper published in Natur

A ring-like accretion structure in M87 connecting its black hole and jet

The nearby radio galaxy M87 is a prime target for studying black hole accretion and jet formation1,2. Event Horizon Telescope observations of M87 in 2017, at a wavelength of 1.3 mm, revealed a ring-like structure, which was interpreted as gravitationally lensed emission around a central black hole3. Here we report images of M87 obtained in 2018, at a wavelength of 3.5 mm, showing that the compact radio core is spatially resolved. High-resolution imaging shows a ring-like structure of [Formula: see text] Schwarzschild radii in diameter, approximately 50% larger than that seen at 1.3 mm. The outer edge at 3.5 mm is also larger than that at 1.3 mm. This larger and thicker ring indicates a substantial contribution from the accretion flow with absorption effects, in addition\ua0to the gravitationally lensed ring-like emission. The images show that the edge-brightened jet connects to the accretion flow of the black hole. Close to the black hole, the emission profile of the jet-launching region is wider than the expected profile of a black-hole-driven jet, suggesting the possible presence of a wind associated with the accretion flow

A Ring-Like Accretion Structure in M87 Connecting Its Black Hole and Jet

The nearby radio galaxy M87 is a prime target for studying black hole accretion and jet formation1,2. Event Horizon Telescope observations of M87 in 2017, at a wavelength of 1.3 mm, revealed a ring-like structure, which was interpreted as gravitationally lensed emission around a central black hole3. Here we report images of M87 obtained in 2018, at a wavelength of 3.5 mm, showing that the compact radio core is spatially resolved. High-resolution imaging shows a ring-like structure of 8.4+0.5−1.1 Schwarzschild radii in diameter, approximately 50% larger than that seen at 1.3 mm. The outer edge at 3.5 mm is also larger than that at 1.3 mm. This larger and thicker ring indicates a substantial contribution from the accretion flow with absorption effects, in addition to the gravitationally lensed ring-like emission. The images show that the edge-brightened jet connects to the accretion flow of the black hole. Close to the black hole, the emission profile of the jet-launching region is wider than the expected profile of a black-hole-driven jet, suggesting the possible presence of a wind associated with the accretion flow