Long-term impact of fecal transplantation in healthy volunteers

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has been recently approved by FDA for the treatment of refractory recurrent clostridial colitis (rCDI). Success of FTM in treatment of rCDI led to a number of studies investigating the effectiveness of its application in the other gastrointestinal diseases. However, in the majority of studies the effects of FMT were evaluated on the patients with initially altered microbiota. The aim of our study was to estimate effects of FMT on the gut microbiota composition in healthy volunteers and to monitor its long-term outcomes.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

On the Damping Time Scale of EVP Sea Ice Dynamics

We propose to make the damping time scale, which governs the decay of pseudo-elastic waves in the Elastic Viscous Plastic (EVP) sea-ice solvers, independent of the external time step and large enough to warrant numerical stability for a moderate number of internal time steps. A necessary condition is that the forcing on sea ice varies slowly on the damping time scale, in which case an EVP solution may still approach a Viscous Plastic one, but on a time scale longer than a single external time step. In this case, the EVP method becomes very close to the recently proposed modified EVP (mEVP) method in terms of stability and simulated behavior. In a simple test case dealing with sea ice breaking under the forcing of a moving cyclone, the EVP method with an enlarged damping time scale can simulate linear kinematic features which are very similar to those from the traditional EVP implementation, although a much smaller number of internal time steps is used. There is more difference in sea-ice thickness and linear kinematic features simulated in a realistic Arctic configuration between using the traditional and our suggested choices of EVP damping time scales, but it is minor considering model uncertainties associated with choices of many other parameters in sea-ice models

ON THE ISSUE OF PLANNING SOWING AGRICULTURAL CROPS WITH THE MINIMUM RISK UNDER THE PRESENCE OF VARIOUS AGROCLIMATIC CONDITIONS

The present paper deals with one problem of quantitative controlling the seeding of the sown area by agricultural crops in different agroclimatic conditions. The considered problem is studied from the standpoint of three strategies: from the seeding planning perspective aiming at minimal risk associated with possible unfavourable agroclimatic conditions (a probabilistic approach is used); from the perspective of obtaining the maximum crops sales profit (a deterministic approach is used); from the perspective of obtaining the maximum crops harvest. For the considered problem, mathematical models are constructed (one probabilistic model and two deterministic models, respectively), their analytical solutions are found, and then, using a specific example, the application of the constructed and solved mathematical models is illustrated as well as the obtained numerical results are analysed.

Designing variable ocean model resolution based on the observed ocean variability

If unstructured meshes are refined to locally represent eddy dynamics in ocean circulation models, a practical question arises on how to vary the resolution and where to deploy the refinement. We propose to use the observed sea surface height variability as the refinement criterion. We explore the utility of this method (i) in a suite of idealized experiments simulating a wind-driven double gyre flow in a stratified circular basin and (ii) in simulations of global ocean circulation performed with FESOM. Two practical approaches of mesh refinement are compared. In the first approach the uniform refinement is confined within the areas where the observed variability exceeds a given threshold. In the second one the refinement varies linearly following the observed variability. The resolution is fixed in time. For the double gyre case it is shown that the variability obtained in a high-resolution reference run can be well captured on variable-resolution meshes if they are refined where the variability is high and additionally upstream the jet separation point. The second approach of mesh refinement proves to be more beneficial in terms of improvement downstream the midlatitude jet. Similarly, in global ocean simulations the mesh refinement based on the observed variability helps the model to simulate high variability at correct locations. The refinement also leads to a reduced bias in the upper-ocean temperatur

On the impact of atmospheric vs oceanic resolutions on the representation of the sea surface temperature in the South Eastern Tropical Atlantic

Despite the efforts of the modelling community to improve the representation of the sea surface temperature (SST) over the South Eastern Tropical Atlantic, warm biases still persist. In this work we use four different configurations of the fully-coupled AWI Climate Model (AWI-CM) which allow us to gain physics-based insight into the role of the oceanic and atmospheric resolutions of the model in the regional distribution of the SST. Our results show that a sole refinement of the oceanic resolution reduces warm biases further than a single increase of the atmospheric component. An increased oceanic resolution is required (i) to simulate properly the Agulhas Current and its associated rings; (ii) to reinforce the northward-flowing Benguela Current and (iii) to intensify coastal upwelling. The best results are obtained when both resolutions are refined. However, even in that case, warm biases persist, reflecting that some processes and feedbacks are still not optimally resolved. Our results indicate that overheating is not due to insufficient upwelling, but rather due to upwelling of waters which are warmer than observations as a result of an erroneous representation of the vertical distribution of temperature. Errors in the representation of the vertical temperature profile are the consequence of a warm bias in the simulated climate state

Sensitivity of deep ocean biases to horizontal resolution in prototype CMIP6 simulations with AWI-CM1.0

Models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5) show substantial biases in the deep ocean that are larger than the level of natural variability and the response to enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations. Here, we analyze the influence of horizontal resolution in a hierarchy of five multi-resolution simulations with the AWI Climate Model (AWI-CM), the climate model used at the Al-fred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Ma-rine Research, which employs a sea ice–ocean model com-ponent formulated on unstructured meshes. The ocean grid sizes considered range from a nominal resolution of ∼ 1◦ (CMIP5 type) up to locally eddy resolving. We show that increasing ocean resolution locally to resolve ocean eddies leads to reductions in deep ocean biases, although these im-provements are not strictly monotonic for the five different ocean grids. A detailed diagnosis of the simulations allows to identify the origins of the biases. We find that two key re-gions at the surface are responsible for the development of the deep bias in the Atlantic Ocean: the northeastern North Atlantic and the region adjacent to the Strait of Gibraltar. Furthermore, the Southern Ocean density structure is equally improved with locally explicitly resolved eddies compared to parameterized eddies. Part of the bias reduction can be traced back towards improved surface biases over outcrop-ping regions, which are in contact with deeper ocean layers along isopycnal surfaces. Our prototype simulations provide guidance for the optimal choice of ocean grids for AWI-CM to be used in the final runs for phase 6 of CMIP (CMIP6) and for the related flagship simulations in the High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP). Quite remarkably, retaining resolution only in areas of high eddy activity along with excellent scalability characteristics of the unstructured-mesh sea ice–ocean model enables us to per-form the multi-centennial climate simulations needed in a CMIP context at (locally) eddy-resolving resolution with a throughput of 5–6 simulated years per day

Cytokine Gene Polymorphisms in Chronic Adenoiditis

The aim of our research was to study the multiphase response in a system of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines due to the additive contribution of homozygous and heterozygous genotypes for the polymorphic allelic variants of the interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-4 (IL-4) genes in patients with chronic adenoiditis (CA). Materials and Methods: The study included 388 children with CA. Associations between the IL1B gene (rs1143634) (C+3954T) SNP and the IL-4 gene (rs2243250) (C-589T) SNP and the clinical manifestations and clinical outcome of CA were investigated. Genotyping for the studied SNPs was performed using real-time PCR. The study of genotype-associated cytokine production in accordance with the level of concentration of IL-1β, IL-4 in blood serum with the method of solidphase EIA using horseradish peroxidase as an indicating enzyme was carried out. Results: The presence of homozygous or heterozygous genotypes of the studied SNPs of the IL-1β and IL-4 genes was characterized with genetically determined cytokine-production forming the phenotypical polymorphism. The conducted research into congenital immunity factors with an assessment of genetically determined cytokine production has revealed 5 options of the cytokine response and their corresponding frequencies. We extrapolated the results on clinical and functional outcomes of chronic adenoiditis, which allowed us to identify non-randomness in the nature of chronic adenoiditis as a multifactorial disease. Conclusion: The obtained data are evidence of the phenotypic-genetic heterogeneity of CA

Ocean Modeling on a Mesh With Resolution Following the Local Rossby Radius

We discuss the performance of the Finite Element Ocean Model (FESOM) on locally eddy-resolving global unstructured meshes. In particular, the utility of the mesh design approach whereby mesh horizontal resolution is varied as half the Rossby radius in most of the model domain is explored. Model simulations on such a mesh (FESOM-XR) are compared with FESOM simulations on a smaller-size mesh, where refinement depends only on the pattern of observed variability (FESOM-HR). We also compare FESOM results to a simulation of the ocean model of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPIOM) on a tripolar regular grid with refinement toward the poles, which uses a number of degrees of freedom similar to FESOM-XR. The mesh design strategy, which relies on the Rossby radius and/or the observed variability pattern, tends to coarsen the resolution in tropical and partly subtropical latitudes compared to the regular MPIOM grid. Excessive variations of mesh resolution are found to affect the performance in other nearby areas, presumably through dissipation that increases if resolution is coarsened. The largest improvement shown by FESOM-XR is a reduction of the surface temperature bias in the so-called North-West corner of the North Atlantic Ocean where horizontal resolution was increased dramatically. However, other biases in FESOM-XR remain largely unchanged compared to FESOM-HR. We conclude that resolving the Rossby radius alone (with two points per Rossby radius) is insufficient, and that careful use of a priori information on eddy dynamics is required to exploit the full potential of ocean models on unstructured meshes

Simulations for CMIP6 With the AWI Climate Model AWI‐CM‐1‐1

The Alfred Wegener Institute Climate Model (AWI‐CM) participates for the first time in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), CMIP6. The sea ice‐ocean component, FESOM, runs on an unstructured mesh with horizontal resolutions ranging from 8 to 80 km. FESOM is coupled to the Max Planck Institute atmospheric model ECHAM 6.3 at a horizontal resolution of about 100 km. Using objective performance indices, it is shown that AWI‐CM performs better than the average of CMIP5 models. AWI‐CM shows an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3.2°C, which is similar to the CMIP5 average, and a transient climate response of 2.1°C which is slightly higher than the CMIP5 average. The negative trend of Arctic sea‐ice extent in September over the past 30 years is 20–30% weaker in our simulations compared to observations. With the strongest emission scenario, the AMOC decreases by 25% until the end of the century which is less than the CMIP5 average of 40%. Patterns and even magnitude of simulated temperature and precipitation changes at the end of this century compared to present‐day climate under the strong emission scenario SSP585 are similar to the multi‐model CMIP5 mean. The simulations show a 11°C warming north of the Barents Sea and around 2°C to 3°C over most parts of the ocean as well as a wetting of the Arctic, subpolar, tropical, and Southern Ocean. Furthermore, in the northern middle latitudes in boreal summer and autumn as well as in the southern middle latitudes, a more zonal atmospheric flow is projected throughout the year