Tropical Cyclone Hazards in Relation to Propagation Speed

As the population and infrastructure along the US East Coast increase, it becomes increasingly important to study the characteristics of tropical cyclones that can impact the coast. A recent study shows that the propagation speed of tropical cyclones has slowed over the past 60 years, which can lead to greater accumulation of precipitation and greater storm surge impacts. The study presented herein is meant to examine and analyze the relationships that exist between the propagation speed of tropical cyclones, their surface wind strength, displacement angles, and cyclone averaged winds. This analysis is focused on tropical cyclones spanning from 1950-2015 in the North Atlantic. We first confirm with other research that the temporal trends of intensity of tropical cyclones do not show a consistent temporal signal over the entire record. This inconsistency may be due to the lack of data in the era before satellite-retrieved weather data was readily available. A correlation analysis is applied for the propagation speed versus intensity of cyclone to examine which height of the wind best affect the cyclone propagation. The results show a strong positive correlation between propagation speed and cyclone averaged wind at 700-hPa with a size of 150 km radius away from storm center, especially when the cyclone moves eastward. To aid in the study of the movement of cyclones, a new metric is developed: the displacement angle analysis of cyclone paths. This metric examines the abrupt change of angles for each successive two instance cyclones, and the time series of displacement angle analysis shows a significant increasing trend due to the high frequency of top 10% events in recent decades. This research highlights an interesting question about the trends in tropical cyclones over the past 60 years related to the subtle differences in the behavior of the propagation speed and its wind strength

THE HYDRAULICS OF NATURE-LIKE FISHWAYS

Nature-like fishway arrangements are commonly used because these structures imitate the characteristics of natural rivers and effectively allow fish to migrate past river sections blocked by hydraulic structures. In this paper, physical models were analyzed, and the velocity distributions of two different fishway structures (Types I and II) were compared. Results showed that the maximum mainstream velocity of the Type I structure was 5.3% lower than that of the Type II structure. However, the average mainstream velocity of the Type I structure was 21.1% greater than that of the Type II structure. The total per-cycle length of the mainstream path in the Type II structure was 2.1 times greater than that of the Type I structure, which indicated that the length of the mainstream path was somewhat proportional to the average velocity of the mainstream. When the flow rate was kept constant, increases in the velocity of the main flow associated with changes in the internal structure of the fishway decreased the average velocity of the main flow, while decreases in the total length of the flow path led to increases in the average velocity of the main flow. Due to frictional head loss along the fishway and local head loss, as well as the overlaps between these factors, the overall flow rate gradually decreased every cycle, despite periodic fluctuations

Using Statistical Analysis to Examine Weather Variability in New York City

As the overall temperature of Earth continues to warm, atmospheric hazards (e.g. heatwaves, cyclones) may be driving increases in climatological trends. This study examines the daily precipitation and temperature record of the greater New York City region during the 1979-2014 period. Daily station observations from three greater New York City airports: John F. Kennedy (JFK), LaGuardia (LGA) and Newark (EWR), are used in this study. Climatological & statistical analyses are performed for the weather variability of New York City metro area to understand the impacts of climate change.The temperature climatology reveals a distinct seasonal cycle, while the precipitation climatology exhibits greater day-to-day variability. Furthermore, annual mean of precipitation and temperature in New York City show increasing trends with temperature trend is significant. After that, this study compare to other research findings with a different region such as Amazon Basin to examine climatological pattern of precipitation in both daily and annual climatological trend. Amazon basin has different climate phenomena than New York City due to different geographical location. Daily Climatology of precipitation in Amazon basin shows the greatest intensity occurred in January to March, with minimum in July. The annual mean of precipitation match with our spatial result generated by GPCP for global precipitation mean for January and July

Biological control agents colonize litchi fruit during storage and stimulate physiological responses to delay pericarp browning

IntroductionLitchi is an economically important fruit in subtropical countries, but pericarp browning can limit its shelf life outside of controlled storage conditions. Effective and sustainable biological control strategies are needed to protect fruit against postharvest browning.Results and DiscussionIn this study, we show that the four bacterial strains Bacillus licheniformis HS10, B. amyloliquefaciens LI24 and PP19, and Exiguobacterium acetylicum SI17 can delay fruit browning in both laboratory trials (LTs) and field plus laboratory trials (FLTs). Strains HS10, LI24, PP19 and SI17 showed 47.74%, 35.39%, 33.58% and 32.53% browning-inhibitory efficacy respectively at 180 h in LT. Litchi sarcocarp interior sourced isolate SI17 showed 74.05% inhibit-brown efficacy at 216 h in FLTs, performing better in FLT than in LT. Furthermore, strains PP19 and SI17 colonized the fruit pericarp and increased total phenolic and anthocyanin contents but decreased peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase activity. This is the first report of E. acetylicum (SI17) and B. licheniformis (HS10) strains acting as biological control agents (BCAs) to delay postharvest browning in litchi fruit. We conclude that PP19 and SI17 are promising BCAs against fruit browning, and their application could be effective for prolonging the shelf life of harvested litchi fruit

Changes in Cortical Thickness in Patients With Early Parkinson’s Disease at Different Hoehn and Yahr Stages

Objectives: This study was designed to explore changes in cortical thickness in patients with early Parkinson’s disease (PD) at different Hoehn and Yahr (H-Y) stages and to demonstrate the association of abnormally altered brain regions with part III of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS-III).Materials and Methods: Sixty early PD patients and 29 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HCs) were enrolled in this study. All PD patients underwent comprehensive clinical and neuropsychological evaluations and 3.0 T magnetic resonance scanning. Patients with H-Y stage ≤1.5 were included in the mild group, and all other patients were included in the moderate group. FreeSurfer software was used to calculate cortical thickness. We assessed the relationship between UPDRS-III and regional changes in cortical thinning, including the bilateral fusiform and the temporal lobe.Results: The average cortical thickness of the temporal pole, fusiform gyrus, insula of the left hemisphere and fusiform gyrus, isthmus cingulate cortex, inferior temporal gyrus, middle temporal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex of the right hemisphere exhibited significant decreasing trends in HCs group and PD groups (i.e., the mild group and moderate group). After controlling for the effects of age, gender, and disease duration, the UPDRS-III scores in patients with early PD were correlated with the cortical thickness of the left and right fusiform gyrus and the left temporal pole (p < 0.05).Conclusion: The average cortical thickness of specific brain regions reduced with increasing disease severity in early PD patients at different H-Y stages, and the UPDRS-III scores of early PD patients were correlated with cortical thickness of the bilateral fusiform gyrus and the left temporal pole

Seyfert 2 Galaxies with Spectropolarimetric Observations

We present a compilation of radio, infrared, optical and hard X-ray (2-10kev) data for a sample of 90 Seyfert 2 galaxies(Sy2s) with spectropolarimetric observations (41 Sy2s with detection of polarized broad lines (PBL) and 49 without PBL). Compared to Sy2s without PBL, Sy2s with PBL tend to be earlier-type spirals, and show warmer mid-infrared color and significant excess of emissions (including the hard X-ray(2-10kev), [O {\sc iii}]$\lambda$5007, infrared (25 $\mu$m) and radio). Our analyses indicate that the majority of Sy2s without PBL are those sources having less powerful AGN activities, most likely caused by low accretion rate. It implies that the detectability of the polarized broad emission lines in Sy2s may depend on their central AGN activities in most cases. Based on the available data, we find no compelling evidence for the presence of two types of Sy2s, one type of them has been proposed to be intrinsically different from Sy2s claimed in Unification Model.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Analyze and Examine Wildfire Events In California

•A wildfire is an unplanned, unwanted, uncontrolled fire in an area of combustible vegetation starting in rural areas and urban areas. •Recent studies have shown that the effect of anthropogenic climate change has fueled the wildfire events, leading to an increase in the annual burned areas and number of events. •California is one of the places having the most deadliest and destructive wildfire seasons. With the global warming effect of 1°C since 1850, the 20 largest wildfires events that have occurred in California, 8 of them were in 2017. (Center For Climate And Energy Solutions) •Climate change is primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels which increase the frequency and severity of wildfires. (California Air Resources Board