Temporally variable recurrence regimes of mega-tsunamis in the 6500 years prior to the 2004 Indian Ocean event

The analyses of cores retrieved from three sites near Port Blair (South Andaman) revealed out-of-sequence deposits at various depths. They are identified as previous episodes of tsunami by their sediment characteristics and microfossil content, using the 2004 event deposition as a template. These deposits have median ages of 601 cal. yr BP, 837 cal. yr BP, 1440 cal. yr BP, 3018 cal. yr BP, 3591 cal. yr BP, 4712 cal. yr BP, 5607 cal. yr BP, and 6357 cal. yr BP and are chronologically equivalent of those from the far-field locations in the Indian Ocean region. The distant deposits that are correlated with the South Andaman sites most likely owe their origin to the 2004-type events, as indicated by tsunami simulations in the study region. The long-term record presented here is characterized by an early phase of a quasiperiodic recurrence regime that transitions into a distinct interval of temporally clustered events. The quasiperiodic regime that appears around the mid-Holocene with an inter-event interval of 980 ± 385 years is followed by a sizable quiescent period of 1605 ± 245 years, before being succeeded by a regime of temporally clustered events. The chronology of nine tsunami events in the last 6500 years from the Indian Ocean region, thus implies a nonlinear pattern for the causative earthquakes. As demonstrated in the subduction zones elsewhere, the temporal variability of tsunamigenic great earthquakes is supported by the theoretical models espousing the characteristics of long-term stress recycling processes active within the subduction zones and transfer processes between the lower viscoelastic layer and the upper seismogenic crust

Where, when and what? A time study of surgeons' work in urology.

INTRODUCTION: Staff time is a relevant resource in the delivery of health care interventions. Its measurement is a prerequisite for unit costing but usually complex. The aim of this study was to analyse the distribution of surgeons' work time among types and places of activities. A second aim was to use these data to calculate costs per unit of output. METHODS: A self-reporting work sampling study was carried out at a department of Urology. All of twelve surgeons involved in clinical care participated in a two-week analysis of their work time. RESULTS: A total of 2,485 data-points were collected, representing about 1,242 hours of work time. Surgeons spent the greater part of their work time in direct patient care, but substantial shares were required for documentation and organisation. Assistants were mainly required at the wards and consultants at the operating theatre and the outpatient unit. Staff costs of surgeons were 32 € and 29 € per patient day at the wards, respectively, 1.30 € per minute at the operating theatre and 32 € per visit at the outpatient unit. CONCLUSION: Results provided a basis for costing of health care interventions at the study site. However, future research should focus on the establishment of standardised terminology in order to increase transferability of results

Educators' working conditions in a day care centre on ownership of a non-profit organization

Background: Working conditions of nursery school teachers have not been scrutinized thoroughly in scientific research. Only a few studies have so far examined work-load and strain in this profession. Preferably, subjective perceptions should be corroborated by data that can be quantified more objectively and accurately. The aim of the present observational field study was to evaluate pedagogical staffs' workflow. Methods: In 2009 eleven educators in a day care centre were observed throughout three complete workdays. A total of 250 working hours were recorded. Results: An educators' workday lasted on average 07:46:59 h (SD = 01:01:10 h).Within this time span, an average of 02:20:46 h (30.14%, SD = 00:28:07 h) were spent on caring, 01:44:18 h on playing (22.33%, SD = 00:54:12 h), 00:49:37 h on educational work (10.62%, SD = 00:40:09), and only 00:05:38 h on individual child contact (1.21%, SD = 00:04:58 h). Conclusion: For the first time, educators' workflow in day care centres was studied in real time. Some of the educators' self-reported problems were corroborated. The results of this study form a basis upon which further investigations can be built and measures can be developed for an overall improvement of child care

Temperature forecasting by deep learning methods

Numerical weather prediction (NWP) models solve a system of partial differential equations based on physical laws to forecast the future state of the atmosphere. These models are deployed operationally, but they are computationally very expensive. Recently, the potential of deep neural networks to generate bespoke weather forecasts has been explored in a couple of scientific studies inspired by the success of video frame prediction models in computer vision. In this study, a simple recurrent neural network with convolutional filters, called ConvLSTM, and an advanced generative network, the Stochastic Adversarial Video Prediction (SAVP) model, are applied to create hourly forecasts of the 2 m temperature for the next 12 h over Europe. We make use of 13 years of data from the ERA5 reanalysis, of which 11 years are utilized for training and 1 year each is used for validating and testing. We choose the 2 m temperature, total cloud cover, and the 850 hPa temperature as predictors and show that both models attain predictive skill by outperforming persistence forecasts. SAVP is superior to ConvLSTM in terms of several evaluation metrics, confirming previous results from computer vision that larger, more complex networks are better suited to learn complex features and to generate better predictions. The 12 h forecasts of SAVP attain a mean squared error (MSE) of about 2.3 K2, an anomaly correlation coefficient (ACC) larger than 0.85, a structural similarity index (SSIM) of around 0.72, and a gradient ratio (rG) of about 0.82. The ConvLSTM yields a higher MSE (3.6 K2), a smaller ACC (0.80) and SSIM (0.65), and a slightly larger rG (0.84). The superior performance of SAVP in terms of MSE, ACC, and SSIM can be largely attributed to the generator. A sensitivity study shows that a larger weight of the generative adversarial network (GAN) component in the SAVP loss leads to even better preservation of spatial variability at the cost of a somewhat increased MSE (2.5 K2). Including the 850 hPa temperature as an additional predictor enhances the forecast quality, and the model also benefits from a larger spatial domain. By contrast, adding the total cloud cover as predictor or reducing the amount of training data to 8 years has only small effects. Although the temperature forecasts obtained in this way are still less powerful than contemporary NWP models, this study demonstrates that sophisticated deep neural networks may achieve considerable forecast quality beyond the nowcasting range in a purely data-driven way.</p

Well-being through learning: a systematic review of learning interventions in the workplace and their impact on well-being

The view that learning is central to well-being is widely held and the workplace is an important setting in which learning takes place. Evaluations of the effectiveness of well-being interventions in work settings are commonplace, but to date, there has been no systematic review of the effectiveness of learning interventions with regard to their impact on well-being. The review synthesizes evidence from 41 intervention studies, and although no studies report a negative impact on well-being, 14 show no effect on well-being, with 27 studies having a positive impact. We classify the studies according to the primary purpose of the learning intervention: to develop personal resources for well-being through learning; to develop professional capabilities through learning; to develop leadership skills through learning; and to improve organizational effectiveness through organizational-level learning. Although there is an abundance of workplace learning interventions, few are evaluated from a well-being perspective despite the commonly held assumption that learning yields positive emotional and psychological outcomes. The evidence indicates an important gap in our evaluation of and design of workplace learning interventions and their impact on well-being, beyond those focusing on personal resources. This raises important theoretical and practical challenges concerning the relationship between learning and well-being in the context of professional capability enhancement, leadership capability and organizational learning

Does type of hospital ownership influence physicians' daily work schedules? An observational real-time study in German hospital departments

Background: During the last two decades the German hospital sector has been engaged in a constant process of transformation. One obvious sign of this is the growing amount of hospital privatization. To date, most research studies have focused on the effects of privatization regarding financial outcomes and quality of care, leaving important organizational issues unexplored. Yet little attention has been devoted to the effects of privatization on physicians' working routines. The aim of this observational real-time study is to deliver exact data about physicians' work at hospitals of different ownership. By analysing working hours, further impacts of hospital privatization can be assessed and areas of improvement identified. Methods: Observations were made by shadowing 100 physicians working in private, for-profit or non-profit as well as public hospital departments individually during whole weekday shifts in urban German settings. A total of 300 days of observations were conducted. All working activities were recorded, accurate to the second, by using a mobile personal computer. Results: Results have shown significant differences in physicians' working activities, depending on hospital ownership, concerning working hours and time spent on direct and indirect patient care. Conclusion: This is the first real-time analysis on differences in work activities depending on hospital ownership. The study provides an objective insight into physicians' daily work routines at hospitals of different ownership, with additional information on effects of hospital privatization