Morphological changes, beach inundation and overwash caused by an extreme storm on a low-lying embayed beach bounded by a dune system (NW Mediterranean)

The geomorphological evolution of a low-lying, micro-tidal sandy beach in the western Mediterranean, Pals beach, was characterized using airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data. Data were collected in prior to and six months after the impact of an extreme storm with a return period of approx. 50 years, with the aim of characterizing the beach's response to the storm. The use of repeated high-resolution topographic data to quantify beach geomorphic changes has allowed assessment of the accuracy of different proxies for estimating beach volume changes. Results revealed that changes in the shoreline position cannot accurately reproduce beach volume changes on low-lying beaches where overwash processes are significant. Observations also suggested that volume estimations from beach profiles do not accurately represent subaerial volume changes at large profile distances on beaches with significant alongshore geomorphological variability. Accordingly, the segmentation of the beach into regularly spaced bins is proposed to assess alongshore variations in the beach volume with the accuracy of the topographic data. The morphological evolution of Pals beach during the study period showed a net shoreline retreat (- 4 m) and a significant sediment gain on the subaerial beach (+ 7.5 m3/m). The net gain of sediment is mostly due to the impact of the extreme storm, driving significant overwash processes that transport sediment landwards, increasing volume on the backshore and dunes. The increase of volume on the foreshore and the presence of cuspate morphologies along the shoreline also evidence post-storm beach recovery. Observed morphological changes exhibit a high variability along the beach related to variations in beach morphology. Changes in the morphology and migration of megacusps result in a high variability in the shoreline position and foreshore volume changes. On the other hand, larger morphological changes on the backshore and larger inundation distances occur when the beach and the dunes are lower, favouring the dominance of overwash. The observed storm-induced morphological changes differ from predicted beach storm impacts because of spatial and temporal variations in the beach morphology, suggesting that detailed morphological parameters and indicators used for predicting beach vulnerability to storms should be regularly updated in order to represent the pre-storm beach conditions. Finally, observed morphological changes in Pals Bay evidenced a different behaviour between natural and urban areas, with better post-storm beach recovery on natural areas where the beach is not artificially narrowed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The digital divide in Papua New Guinea: Implications for journalism education

Access to new technology and the development of the necessary skills to master them are crucial aspects when developing countries aim to play a more important role in the current information age and knowledge-based society. New technology and the internet have the potential to enhance access to information for people and to help countries such as Papua New Guinea become active producers of knowledge, shifting away from the traditional role of passive consumption. However, new technology also has the potential to increase already existing inequalities. In this regard, exploring the concrete shortcuts brought by the digital divide in PNG and trying to address them for journalism education is an imperative, so that journalists in the country can bridge this gap, raise their own voices and best contribute to the development of Papua New Guinean society

Beyond Beck's triad: A case report of cardiac tamponade in a “super-super� obese patient

Cardiac tamponade is a medical emergency with various etiologies. Prompt recognition of the signs and symptoms of cardiac tamponade is critical but potentially full of challenge in clinical practice [1]. Here we report a case that required approaches more than classical Beck's triad due to extreme body habitus

High-throughput variable-to-fixed entropy codec using selective, stochastic code forests

Efficient high-throughput (HT) compression algorithms are paramount to meet the stringent constraints of present and upcoming data storage, processing, and transmission systems. In particular, latency, bandwidth and energy requirements are critical for those systems. Most HT codecs are designed to maximize compression speed, and secondarily to minimize compressed lengths. On the other hand, decompression speed is often equally or more critical than compression speed, especially in scenarios where decompression is performed multiple times and/or at critical parts of a system. In this work, an algorithm to design variable-to-fixed (VF) codes is proposed that prioritizes decompression speed. Stationary Markov analysis is employed to generate multiple, jointly optimized codes (denoted code forests). Their average compression efficiency is on par with the state of the art in VF codes, e.g., within 1% of Yamamoto et al.\u27s algorithm. The proposed code forest structure enables the implementation of highly efficient codecs, with decompression speeds 3.8 times faster than other state-of-the-art HT entropy codecs with equal or better compression ratios for natural data sources. Compared to these HT codecs, the proposed forests yields similar compression efficiency and speeds

Acute Viral Myopericarditis Presenting as a Transient Effusive-Constrictive Pericarditis Caused by Coinfection with Coxsackieviruses A4 and B3

Acute myopericarditis is usually caused by viral infections, and the most common cause of viral myopericarditis is coxsackieviruses. Diagnosis of myopericarditis is made based on clinical manifestations of myocardial (such as myocardial dysfunction and elevated serum cardiac enzyme levels) and pericardial (such as inflammatory pericardial effusion) involvement. Although endomyocardial biopsy is the gold standard for the confirmation of viral infection, serologic tests can be helpful. Conservative management is the mainstay of treatment in acute myopericarditis. We report here a case of a 24-year-old man with acute myopericarditis who presented with transient effusive-constrictive pericarditis. Echocardiography showed transient pericardial effusion with constrictive physiology and global regional wall motion abnormalities of the left ventricle. The patient also had an elevated serum troponin I level. A computed tomogram of the chest showed pericardial and pleural effusion, which resolved after 2 weeks of supportive treatment. Serologic testing revealed coxsackievirus A4 and B3 coinfection. The patient received conservative medical treatment, including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and he recovered completely with no complications

RETRATO DE SEÑORA CON VESTIDO NEGRO [Material gráfico]

BARCELONACopia digital. Madrid : Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, 201

Neumonía trombopenia y afectación hepática en un caso de fiebre Q aguda

PneumoniaFebr

The CCSDS 123.0-B-2 Low-Complexity Lossless and Near-Lossless Multispectral and Hyperspectral Image Compression Standard: A comprehensive review

The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) published the CCSDS 123.0-B-2, “Low- Complexity Lossless and Near-Lossless Multispectral and Hyperspectral Image Compression” standard. This standard extends the previous issue, CCSDS 123.0-B-1, which supported only lossless compression, while maintaining backward compatibility. The main novelty of the new issue is support for near-lossless compression, i.e., lossy compression with user-defined absolute and/or relative error limits in the reconstructed images. This new feature is achieved via closed-loop quantization of prediction errors. Two further additions arise from the new near lossless support: first, the calculation of predicted sample values using sample representatives that may not be equal to the reconstructed sample values, and, second, a new hybrid entropy coder designed to provide enhanced compression performance for low-entropy data, prevalent when non lossless compression is used. These new features enable significantly smaller compressed data volumes than those achievable with CCSDS 123.0-B-1 while controlling the quality of the decompressed images. As a result, larger amounts of valuable information can be retrieved given a set of bandwidth and energy consumption constraints