Storm-Time Thermospheric Winds Over Peru

We used Fabry-Perot Interferometer (FPI) observations at Jicamarca, Nasca and Arequipa, Peru from 2011 to 2017 to study the nighttime zonal and meridional disturbance winds over the Peruvian equatorial region. We derived initially the seasonal-dependent average thermospheric winds corresponding to 12 hours of continuous geomagnetically quiet conditions. These quiet-time climatological winds, which are in general agreement with results from the Horizontal Wind Model (HWM14), were then used as baselines for the calculation of the disturbance winds. Our results indicate that the nighttime zonal disturbance winds are westward with peak values near midnight and with magnitudes much larger than predicted by the Disturbance Wind Model (DWM07). The premidnight equinoctial and June solstice westward disturbance winds have comparable values and increase with local time. The postmidnight westward disturbance winds decrease towards dawn and are largest during equinox and smallest during June solstice. The meridional average disturbance winds have small values throughout the night. They are northward in the premidnight sector, and southward with larger (smaller) values during December solstice (equinox) in the postmidnight sector. We also present observations showing that during the main and recovery phases of the April 2012 and May 2016 geomagnetic storms the zonal disturbance winds have much larger magnitudes and lifetimes (up to about 48 hours) than suggested by the HWM14. These observations highlight the importance of longer-term disturbance wind effects. The large and short-lived (about 2 hours) observed meridional wind disturbances are not reproduced by current climatological empirical models

Equatorial Disturbance Dynamo Vertical Plasma Drifts Over Jicamarca: Bi‐Monthly and Solar Cycle Dependence

We use extensive incoherent scatter radar observations from the Jicamarca Radio Observatory to study the local time and bi‐monthly dependence of the equatorial disturbance dynamo vertical plasma drifts on solar flux and geomagnetic activity. We show that the daytime disturbance drifts have generally small magnitudes with largest values before noon and an apparent annual variation. Near dusk, they are downward throughout the year with largest values during the equinoxes and smallest during June solstice. These downward drifts increase strongly with solar flux, and shift to later local times. They also increase with increasing geomagnetically active conditions with no apparent local time shift. The equinoctial evening downward disturbance drifts are larger during the autumnal equinox than during the vernal equinox. The nighttime disturbance drifts are upward and have small seasonal and solar cycle dependence but increase strongly with geomagnetic activity, particularly in the late night sector. Our results are in general agreement with those from previous theoretical and experimental studies, except near dusk where our results show much stronger seasonal and solar cycle dependence

Técnicas de biopsia para el diagnóstico de lesiones mamarias no palpables

Facing a non-palpable mammary lesion requiring a diagnostic biopsy, consideration must be given to the most suitable guiding method for obtaining the latter. Three methods are employed at present: stereotaxy (basically in cases of microcalcifications), echography (above all in the nodules), and magnetic resonance (for lesions not made visible through the previous systems). The next step is to select the most suitable biopsy technique. The most classical and reliable technique is the surgical biopsy with prior marking using a metallic harpoon, but, besides its high cost, it has the drawback of being an aggressive technique for the diagnosis of a benign pathology. Numerous systems of puncture have been developed as alternatives. Puncture with a fine needle is technically simple to carry out and can provide good results in the mammary nodules, but the existence of positive and negative false results has progressively limited its use. As an alternative, the systems of biopsy with a broad needle have made it possible to obtain multiple cylinders with a high diagnostic reliability, above all in the case of mammary nodules. However, their use in microcalcifications continues to show negative false results. The arrival of systems of vacuum-assisted biopsy has made it possible to obtain cylinders of greater quality, above all in cases of microcalcifications. Finally, the systems of percutaneous resection biopsy by means of cannulas with a diameter of 22 mm make it possible to completely extract lesions of a size below that of the cannula, with a reliability similar to that of the surgical biopsy

Walls talk: Microbial biogeography of homes spanning urbanization.

Westernization has propelled changes in urbanization and architecture, altering our exposure to the outdoor environment from that experienced during most of human evolution. These changes might affect the developmental exposure of infants to bacteria, immune development, and human microbiome diversity. Contemporary urban humans spend most of their time indoors, and little is known about the microbes associated with different designs of the built environment and their interaction with the human immune system. This study addresses the associations between architectural design and the microbial biogeography of households across a gradient of urbanization in South America. Urbanization was associated with households' increased isolation from outdoor environments, with additional indoor space isolation by walls. Microbes from house walls and floors segregate by location, and urban indoor walls contain human bacterial markers of space use. Urbanized spaces uniquely increase the content of human-associated microbes-which could increase transmission of potential pathogens-and decrease exposure to the environmental microbes with which humans have coevolved

Environmental drivers of salp Thalia democratica population dynamics from in situ observations

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2016. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Inter-Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Ecology Progress Series 561 (2016): 189-201, doi:10.3354/meps11915.Thalia democratica blooms are a recurrent phenomenon in many coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea and have significant ecological effects. To better understand the environmental drivers of salp blooms, we conducted 8 surveys to sample T. democratica in contrasting seasonal, temperature and chlorophyll conditions. In each survey, short-term variations in the abundances of different salp stages were assessed by sampling the same population at 30 min intervals. Using these data, we estimated the parameters in a set of stage-classified matrix population models representing different assumptions about the influence of temperature and chlorophyll on each stage. In the model that best explains our observations, only females are affected by changes in water temperature. Whether this is a direct influence of temperature or an indirect effect reflecting low food availability, female reproduction cessation seems to slow population growth under unfavourable conditions. When conditions become favourable again, females liberate the embryo and change sex to male, allowing for mating under extremely low salp densities and triggering the bloom. In contrast to previous findings, our results suggest that females, rather than oozooids, are responsible for the sustainability of salp populations during latency periods.This work was founded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under the Fishjelly project, the European commission ENPI CBC MED project under the Jellyrisk project and the European LIFE Commission under the Cubomed project. M. G. Neubert acknowledges the support of the US National Science Foundation (DEB-1145017 and DEB-1257545)

A beam-beam monitoring detector for the MPD experiment at NICA

The Multi-Purpose Detector (MPD) is to be installed at the Nuclotron Ion Collider fAcility (NICA) of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR). Its main goal is to study the phase diagram of the strongly interacting matter produced in heavy-ion collisions. These studies, while providing insight into the physics of heavy-ion collisions, are relevant for improving our understanding of the evolution of the early Universe and the formation of neutron stars. In order to extend the MPD trigger capabilities, we propose to include a high granularity beam-beam monitoring detector (BE-BE) to provide a level-0 trigger signal with an expected time resolution of 30 ps. This new detector will improve the determination of the reaction plane by the MPD experiment, a key measurement for flow studies that provides physics insight into the early stages of the reaction. In this work, we use simulated Au+Au collisions at NICA energies to show the potential of such a detector to determine the event plane resolution, providing further redundancy to the detectors originally considered for this purpose namely, the Fast Forward Detector (FFD) and the Hadron Calorimeter (HCAL). We also show our results for the time resolution studies of two prototype cells carried out at the T10 beam line at the CERN PS complex.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures. Updated to published version with added comments and correction

Consecutive renal biopsy in a cohort of patients with lupus nephritis of the Colombian Caribbean

Background: Renal biopsy is the gold standard for the diagnosis and classification of lupus nephritis (LN). However, a consecutive biopsy can predict the clinical course and optimize the therapeutic strategies. Objectives: To compare the histopathological findings with clinical responses. Patients and Methods: Thirty patients with active LN were included. Renal biopsies were performed at the time of diagnosis and subsequently under clinical criteria according to consensus of Spanish Society of Nephrology. The response to treatment was defined as complete response, partial responder or non-responder. The histological change in second biopsy towards LN classes I, II or III/IV-C was defined as histological response (HR). Results: In initial renal biopsy, 28 (93%) patients showed proliferative LN; III-A or A/C (n; 7), IV-A or A/C (n: 19) and mixed; III+IV/V (n; 2). LN class V was presented in two cases. The clinical response was; complete response (10%), partial response (20%), and non-response (70%). HR was manifested in 37% and non-histologic response in 63% of patients. Around 33% of patients with complete response/partial response showed active lesions in the consecutive renal biopsy. Conclusions: In Colombian Caribbean, LN is aggressive and refractory to treatment. The consecutive renal biopsy allowed to demonstrate the persistence of the activity of the lesion in almost half of the patients, which may provide additional information to create better response criteria. The consecutive renal biopsy is a tool that allows improving the evaluation of the response to treatment in the LN

Associations of Prenatal Growth with Metabolic Syndrome, Insulin Resistance, and Nutritional Status in Chilean Children

Peer reviewe

Application of Tensor Neural Networks to Pricing Bermudan Swaptions

The Cheyette model is a quasi-Gaussian volatility interest rate model widely used to price interest rate derivatives such as European and Bermudan Swaptions for which Monte Carlo simulation has become the industry standard. In low dimensions, these approaches provide accurate and robust prices for European Swaptions but, even in this computationally simple setting, they are known to underestimate the value of Bermudan Swaptions when using the state variables as regressors. This is mainly due to the use of a finite number of predetermined basis functions in the regression. Moreover, in high-dimensional settings, these approaches succumb to the Curse of Dimensionality. To address these issues, Deep-learning techniques have been used to solve the backward Stochastic Differential Equation associated with the value process for European and Bermudan Swaptions; however, these methods are constrained by training time and memory. To overcome these limitations, we propose leveraging Tensor Neural Networks as they can provide significant parameter savings while attaining the same accuracy as classical Dense Neural Networks. In this paper we rigorously benchmark the performance of Tensor Neural Networks and Dense Neural Networks for pricing European and Bermudan Swaptions, and we show that Tensor Neural Networks can be trained faster than Dense Neural Networks and provide more accurate and robust prices than their Dense counterparts.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, 2 table