The Community Foehn Classification Experiment

Strong winds crossing elevated terrain and descending to its lee occur over mountainous areas worldwide. Winds fulfilling these two criteria are called “foehn” in this paper although different names exist depending on region, sign of temperature change at onset, and depth of overflowing layer. They affect local weather and climate and impact society. Classification is difficult because other wind systems might be superimposed on them or share some characteristics. Additionally, no unanimously agreed-upon name, definition nor indications for such winds exist. The most trusted classifications have been performed by human experts. A classification experiment for different foehn locations in the Alps and different classifier groups addressed hitherto unanswered questions about the uncertainty of these classifications, their reproducibility and dependence on the level of expertise. One group consisted of mountain meteorology experts, the other two of Masters degree students who had taken mountain meteorology courses, and a further two of objective algorithms. Sixty periods of 48 hours were classified for foehn/no foehn at five Alpine foehn locations. The intra-human-classifier detection varies by about 10 percentage points (interquartile range). Experts and students are nearly indistinguishable. The algorithms are in the range of human classifications. One difficult case appeared twice in order to examine reproducibility of classified foehn duration, which turned out to be 50% or less. The classification dataset can now serve as a testbed for automatic classification algorithms, which - if successful - eliminate the drawbacks of manual classifications: lack of scalability and reproducibility

Automatic and Probabilistic Foehn Diagnosis with a Statistical Mixture Model

Diagnosing foehn winds from weather station data downwind of topographic obstacles requires distinguishing them from other downslope winds, particularly nocturnal ones driven by radiative cooling. We present an automatic classification scheme to obtain reproducible results that include information about the (un)certainty of the diagnosis. A statistical mixture model separates foehn and no-foehn winds in a measured time series of wind. In addition to wind speed and direction, it accommodates other physically meaningful classifiers such as relative humidity or the (potential) temperature difference to an upwind station (e.g., near the crest). The algorithm was tested for the central Alpine Wipp Valley against human expert classification and a previous objective method (Drechsel and Mayr 2008), which the new method outperforms. Climatologically, using only wind information gives nearly identical foehn frequencies as when using additional covariables, making the method suitable for comparable foehn climatologies all over the world where station data are available for at least one year

The Advantage of Standing Up to Fight and the Evolution of Habitual Bipedalism in Hominins

BACKGROUND: Many quadrupedal species stand bipedally on their hindlimbs to fight. This posture may provide a performance advantage by allowing the forelimbs to strike an opponent with the range of motion that is intrinsic to high-speed running, jumping, rapid braking and turning; the range of motion over which peak force and power can be produced. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To test the hypothesis that bipedal (i.e., orthograde) posture provides a performance advantage when striking with the forelimbs, I measured the force and energy produced when human subjects struck from "quadrupedal" (i.e., pronograde) and bipedal postures. Downward and upward directed striking energy was measured with a custom designed pendulum transducer. Side and forward strikes were measured with a punching bag instrumented with an accelerometer. When subjects struck downward from a bipedal posture the work was 43.70±12.59% (mean ± S.E.) greater than when they struck from a quadrupedal posture. Similarly, 47.49±17.95% more work was produced when subjects struck upward from a bipedal stance compared to a quadrupedal stance. Importantly, subjects did 229.69±44.19% more work in downward than upward directed strikes. During side and forward strikes the force impulses were 30.12±3.68 and 43.04±9.00% greater from a bipedal posture than a quadrupedal posture, respectively. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These results indicate that bipedal posture does provide a performance advantage for striking with the forelimbs. The mating systems of great apes are characterized by intense male-male competition in which conflict is resolved through force or the threat of force. Great apes often fight from bipedal posture, striking with both the fore- and hindlimbs. These observations, plus the findings of this study, suggest that sexual selection contributed to the evolution of habitual bipedalism in hominins

Automatic and probabilistic foehn diagnosis with a statistical mixture model

by David PlavcanInnsbruck, Univ., Master-Arb., 2014(VLID)24664

Hominin track assemblages from Okote Member deposits near Ileret, Kenya, and their implications for understanding fossil hominin paleobiology at 1.5 Ma

Tracks can provide unique, direct records of behaviors of fossil organisms moving across their landscapes millions of years ago. While track discoveries have been rare in the human fossil record, over the last decade our team has uncovered multiple sediment surfaces within the Okote Member of the Koobi Fora Formation near Ileret, Kenya that contain large assemblages of ∼1.5 Ma fossil hominin tracks. Here, we provide detailed information on the context and nature of each of these discoveries, and we outline the specific data that are preserved on the Ileret hominin track surfaces. We analyze previously unpublished data to refine and expand upon earlier hypotheses regarding implications for hominin anatomy and social behavior. While each of the track surfaces discovered at Ileret preserves a different amount of data that must be handled in particular ways, general patterns are evident. Overall, the analyses presented here support earlier interpretations of the ∼1.5 Ma Ileret track assemblages, providing further evidence of large, human-like body sizes and possibly evidence of a group composition that could support the emergence of certain human-like patterns of social behavior. These data, used in concert with other forms of paleontological and archaeological evidence that are deposited on different temporal scales, offer unique windows through which we can broaden our understanding of the paleobiology of hominins living in East Africa at ∼1.5 Ma