A model for the development of types of atolls and volcanic islands on the Pacific lithospheric plate

"This paper is an expansion of a paper first delivered to the Annual Meeting of the Association of Canadian Geographers at Laval University, Quebec, May 1976."A literature review on atoll origins and volcanic island development on the Pacific lithospheric plate is combined with bathymetric data on the Hawaiian, Marshall, Caroline, Tuamotu and Society island chains to produce a model which helps explain the development of all major Pacific plate island types. This model incorporates the concept that as new lithosphere is formed along the East Pacific Rise older crust moves north-west towards Asia, cools and causes ocean deepening. Some distance from the East Pacific Rise relatively fixed melting anomalies produce volcanic island chains. In warmer waters these islands develop fringing reefs which continue to grow to wave level as the islands are carried on the cooling plate into deeper water. Raised volcanic island forms can develop on arches produced by the isostatic subsidence of new magmatic outpourings close by. As volcanic islands with fringing reefs move into deeper water almost-atolls and finally true atolls develop. Partly raised and raised forms result if atolls rise over minor upwarps on the crust produced by, 1) asthenospheric bumps, 2) arch flexuring resulting from isostatic subsidence of nearby magmatic outpourings, 3) compression within the lithosphere alongside Pacific plate subduction zones. The model also helps explain certain types of drowned atolls and guyots."Financial assistance from the University of Winnipeg is acknowledged.

Cooling of young neutron stars in GRB associated to Supernova

Recent observations of the late ($t=10^8$--$10^9$ s) emission of supernovae (SNe) associated to GRBs (GRB-SN) show a distinctive emission in the X-ray regime consistent with temperatures $10^7$--$10^8$ K. Similar features have been also observed in the two Type Ic SNe SN 2002ap and SN 1994I that are not associated to GRBs. We advance the possibility that the late X-ray emission observed in GRB-SN and in isolated SN is associated to a hot neutron star (NS) just formed in the SN event, here defined as a neo-NS. We discuss the thermal evolution of neo-NS in the age regime that spans from $\sim 1$ minute (just after the proto-NS phase) up to ages <10-100 yr. We examine the key factor governing the neo-NS cooling emphasizing on the neutrino emission. A phenomenological heating source and new boundary conditions are introduced to mimic the high-temperature atmosphere of young NSs. We match the neo-NS luminosity to the late X-ray emission of the GRB-SN events URCA-1 in GRB980425-SN1998bw, URCA-2 in GRB030329-SN2003dh, and URCA-3 in GRB031203-SN2003lw. By calibrating our additional heating source at early times to $\sim 10^{12}$--$10^{15}$ erg/g/s, we find a striking agreement of the luminosity obtained from the cooling of neo-NSs with the late ($t=10^{8}$--$10^{9}$ s) X-ray emission observed in GRB-SN. It is therefore appropriate to revise the boundary conditions used in the cooling theory of NSs, to match the proper conditions of the atmosphere at young ages. Additional heating processes that are still not studied within this context, such as e+e- pair creation by overcritical fields and nuclear fusion and fission energy release, might also take place under such conditions and deserve further analysis. Observation of GRB-SN has shown the possibility of witnessing the thermal evolution of neo-NSs. A new campaign of dedicated observations is recommended both of GRB-SN and of isolated Type Ic SN.Comment: Version to be published by Astronomy & Astrophysics. Abstract reduced with respect to the one to be published in A&A due to arXiv system constraint of 300 word

The relativistic Thomas-Fermi treatment for compressed atoms at finite temperatures

The degenerate relativistic Feynman, Metropolis and Teller treatment of compressed atoms is extended to finite temperatures. We present numerical calculations of the equation of state for dense matter as well as profiles of the electron density as a function of distance from the atomic nucleus for selected values of the total matter density and temperature. Marked differences appear especially in the low-density regimes

Special Issue: Advances in SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Since the beginning of the pandemic, and particularly during the first and second waves, the goal of this Special Issue has been to highlight the crucial aspects of SARS- CoV-2 and the disease in light of the new knowledge that was emerging. A total of 15 manuscripts have been published in this Special Issue. These papers provided insights into epidemiology, pathogenesis, epigenetics COVID-19 emergencies in hospital settings, advanced diagnosis, vaccination, and SARS-CoV-2 infection in the experimental setting. The high scientific rigor, originality, and, for some of them, the high number of citations obtained, are well evident

The Reproducibility and Reusability Platform

Poster presentation at OR2020, Stellenboch, South Africa 1st - 4th June 2020

Science Reproducibility and Reusability with FutureGateway and a Zenodo-like repository: the PALMS experiment

Open Science (OS) is a powerful and novel paradigm to share knowledge across multidisciplinary scientific communities with the aim to improve the quality of science. One of the most important OS enablers are the FAIR principles, which involves the way to Find, Access, Interoperate and Reuse research data. In most of the cases published scholarship materials are not linked with computed datasets, open source software and/or virtualized computing environments and OS currently lacks of means helping to reproduce and eventually reuse cited results exploiting public or private distributed computing infrastructures (DCIs). Moreover, from the final user point of view, the best option would be the use of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) normally hosted by a Science Gateway (SG) built for a specific scientific community. The FutureGateway Framework (FGF) consists of a complete software toolkit made of different parts such as: source codes, utilities, libraries and APIs capable to comfortably build reliable Science Gateways and link them to one or more DCIs avoiding any usage complexity from the final user perspective. Moreover, since SGs based on the FGF are capable to keep track of who is accessing the DCIs, not only its usage ensures OS-compliant reproducibility and reusability but also provides a possible answer in protecting or at least simply tracking people who are accessing data and this is one of the aspects that today still makes the adoption of the OS a delicate matter. This work presents and explains how the use of the EGI's Science Software on Demand (SSOD) service, built using the FutureGatewayFramework in conjunction with the INFN Open Access Repository (OAR), based on Zenodo software, can reproduce/reuse the outputs of the agent-based Physical Activity Lifelong Modelling & Simulations (PALMS) experiment

Science Reproducibility and Reusability with FutureGateway and a Zenodo-like repository: the PALMS experiment

Open Science (OS) is a powerful and novel paradigm to share knowledge across multidisciplinary scientific communities with the aim to improve the quality of science. One of the most important OS enablers are the FAIR principles, which involves the way to Find, Access, Interoperate and Reuse research data. In most of the cases published scholarship materials are not linked with computed datasets, open source software and/or virtualized computing environments and OS currently lacks of means helping to reproduce and eventually reuse cited results exploiting public or private distributed computing infrastructures (DCIs). Moreover, from the final user point of view, the best option would be the use of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) normally hosted by a Science Gateway (SG) built for a specific scientific community. The FutureGateway Framework (FGF) consists of a complete software toolkit made of different parts such as: source codes, utilities, libraries and APIs capable to comfortably build reliable Science Gateways and link them to one or more DCIs avoiding any usage complexity from the final user perspective. Moreover, since SGs based on the FGF are capable to keep track of who is accessing the DCIs, not only its usage ensures OS-compliant reproducibility and reusability but also provides a possible answer in protecting or at least simply tracking people who are accessing data and this is one of the aspects that today still makes the adoption of the OS a delicate matter. This work presents and explains how the use of the EGI's Science Software on Demand (SSOD) service, built using the FutureGatewayFramework in conjunction with the INFN Open Access Repository (OAR), based on Zenodo software, can reproduce/reuse the outputs of the agent-based Physical Activity Lifelong Modelling & Simulations (PALMS) experiment

Virtual actuator-based FTC for LPV systems with saturating actuators and FDI delays

The main contribution of this paper consists in solving the problem of fault tolerant control (FTC) for linear parameter varying (LPV) systems subject to actuator saturation and fault detection and isolation (FDI) delays. The FTC is based on virtual actuators that reconfigure the faulty plant to maintain the stability and to avoid the saturation of the actuators. On the other hand, a design methodology that provides the nominal output-feedback controller, which maximizes the tolerated delay between the fault occurrence and its isolation, is developed. The design process consists in finding the optimal feasible solution to a finite set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, an example is used to illustrate the theoretical results.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft