3,339 research outputs found
Fishy activities for your small fry : a unit plan in fish biology for grades kindergarten through sixth
A generalised multi-factor deep learning electricity load forecasting model for wildfire-prone areas
This paper proposes a generalised and robust multi-factor Gated Recurrent
Unit (GRU) based Deep Learning (DL) model to forecast electricity load in
distribution networks during wildfire seasons. The flexible modelling methods
consider data input structure, calendar effects and correlation-based leading
temperature conditions. Compared to the regular use of instantaneous
temperature, the Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) is decreased by 30.73%
by using the proposed input feature selection and leading temperature
relationships. Our model is generalised and applied to eight real distribution
networks in Victoria, Australia, during the wildfire seasons of 2015-2020. We
demonstrate that the GRU-based model consistently outperforms another DL model,
Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), at every step, giving average improvements in
Mean Squared Error (MSE) and MAPE of 10.06% and 12.86%, respectively. The
sensitivity to large-scale climate variability in training data sets, e.g. El
Ni\~no or La Ni\~na years, is considered to understand the possible
consequences for load forecasting performance stability, showing minimal
impact. Other factors such as regional poverty rate and large-scale off-peak
electricity use are potential factors to further improve forecast performance.
The proposed method achieves an average forecast MAPE of around 3%, giving a
potential annual energy saving of AU\$80.46 million for the state of Victoria
Public and patient involvement in child health research and service improvements: a survey of hospital doctors
Objectives: To determine whether paediatricians are supported by their organisations to encourage patient and public involvement (PPI) in research activities and clinical improvement work, the challenges they face and how they think these could be addressed by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH). Design: A survey. Setting: UK consultant paediatricians and staff associate specialist and specialty (SAS) doctors who are members of RCPCH. Main outcome measures: The proportion of respondents who said that PPI was central to research and service improvements in their organisation, the type of local support for PPI activity, challenges in undertaking PPI and the support members wanted from RCPCH. Results: There was a response rate of 44.4% (n=1924). In their organisation, 29.1% of respondents stated PPI was central to research and 36.1% to service improvement; 46% were unaware of support for PPI and 15% said there was no support. The main challenges for PPI activity were a lack of clinician time, local support and funding. Respondents wanted RCPCH to advocate for protected time for PPI, provide access to PPI groups and deliver guidance and training. Conclusions: The majority of paediatricians feel unsupported to undertake PPI activity by their local organisation. The RCPCH has a key role to enable all paediatricians to work with children, young people and their carers to improve the quality of research and clinical services as demonstrated by RCPCH's ongoing activity in these crucial and important areas
Scaling and synchronization in a ring of diffusively coupled nonlinear oscillators
Chaos synchronization in a ring of diffusively coupled nonlinear oscillators
driven by an external identical oscillator is studied. Based on numerical
simulations we show that by introducing additional couplings at -th
oscillators in the ring, where is an integer and is the maximum
number of synchronized oscillators in the ring with a single coupling, the
maximum number of oscillators that can be synchronized can be increased
considerably beyond the limit restricted by size instability. We also
demonstrate that there exists an exponential relation between the number of
oscillators that can support stable synchronization in the ring with the
external drive and the critical coupling strength with a scaling
exponent . The critical coupling strength is calculated by numerically
estimating the synchronization error and is also confirmed from the conditional
Lyapunov exponents (CLEs) of the coupled systems. We find that the same scaling
relation exists for couplings between the drive and the ring. Further, we
have examined the robustness of the synchronous states against Gaussian white
noise and found that the synchronization error exhibits a power-law decay as a
function of the noise intensity indicating the existence of both noise-enhanced
and noise-induced synchronizations depending on the value of the coupling
strength . In addition, we have found that shows an
exponential decay as a function of the number of additional couplings. These
results are demonstrated using the paradigmatic models of R\"ossler and Lorenz
oscillators.Comment: Accepted for Publication in Physical Review
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The impact of the state of the troposphere on the response to stratospheric heating in a simplified GCM
Previous studies have made use of simplified general circulation models (sGCMs) to investigate the atmospheric response to various forcings. In particular, several studies have investigated the tropospheric response to changes in stratospheric temperature. This is potentially relevant for many climate forcings. Here the impact of changing the tropospheric climatology on the modeled response to perturbations in stratospheric temperature is investigated by the introduction of topography into the model and altering the tropospheric jet structure.
The results highlight the need for very long integrations so as to determine accurately the magnitude of response. It is found that introducing topography into the model and thus removing the zonally symmetric nature of the model’s boundary conditions reduces the magnitude of response to stratospheric heating. However, this reduction is of comparable size to the variability in the magnitude of response between different ensemble members of the same 5000-day experiment.
Investigations into the impact of varying tropospheric jet structure reveal a trend with lower-latitude/narrower jets having a much larger magnitude response to stratospheric heating than higher-latitude/wider jets. The jet structures that respond more strongly to stratospheric heating also exhibit longer time scale variability in their control run simulations, consistent with the idea that a feedback between the eddies and the mean flow is both responsible for the persistence of the control run variability and important in producing the tropospheric response to stratospheric temperature perturbations
Event attribution of a midlatitude windstorm using ensemble weather forecasts
The widespread destruction incurred by midlatitude storms every year makes it an imperative to study how storms change with climate. The impact of climate change on midlatitude windstorms, however, is hard to evaluate due to the small signals in variables such as wind speed, as well as the high resolutions required to represent the dynamic processes in the storms. Here, we assess how storm Eunice, which hit the UK in February 2022, was impacted by anthropogenic climate change using the ECMWF ensemble prediction system. This system was demonstrably able to predict the storm, significantly increasing our confidence in its ability to model the key physical processes and their response to climate change. Using modified greenhouse gas concentrations and changed initial conditions for ocean temperatures, we create two counterfactual scenarios of storm Eunice in addition to the forecast for the current climate. We compare the intensity and severity of the storm between the pre-industrial, current, and future climates. Our results robustly indicate that Eunice has become more intense with climate change and similar storms will continue to intensify with further anthropogenic forcing. These results are consistent across forecast lead times, increasing our confidence in them. Analysis of storm composites shows that this process is caused by increased vorticity production through increased humidity in the warm conveyor belt of the storm. This is consistent with previous studies on extreme windstorms. Our approach of combining forecasts at different lead times for event attribution enables combining event specificity and a focus on dynamic changes with the assessment of changing risks from windstorms. Further work is needed to develop methods to adjust the initial conditions of the atmosphere for the use in attribution studies using weather forecasts but we show that this approach is viable for reliable and fast attribution systems
Child malnutrition and prenatal care: Evidence from three Latin American countries
Objective. To examine the effect of prenatal care (PNC) on the level and distribution of child stunting in three Andean countries-Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru-where expanding access to such care has been an explicit policy intervention to tackle child malnutrition in utero and during early childhood. Methods. An econometric analysis of cross-sectional Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data was conducted. The analysis included ordinary least-squares (OLS) regressions, estimates of concentration curves, and decompositions of a concentration index. Results. The analysis shows that the use of PNC in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru is only weakly associated with a reduction in the level of child malnutrition. Conclusions. Further expansion of PNC programs is unlikely to play a large role in reducing inequalities in malnutrition
Gait training with real-time augmented toe-ground clearance information decreases tripping risk in older adults and a person with chronic stroke
Falls risk increases with ageing but is substantially higher in people with stroke. Tripping-related balance loss is the primary cause of falls, and Minimum Toe Clearance (MTC) during walking is closely linked to tripping risk. The aim of this study was to determine whether real-time augmented information of toe-ground clearance at MTC can increase toe clearance, and reduce tripping risk. Nine healthy older adults (76 ± 9 years) and one 71 year old female stroke patient participated. Vertical toe displacement was displayed in real-time such that participants could adjust their toe clearance during treadmill walking. Participants undertook a session of unconstrained walking (no-feedback baseline) and, in a subsequent Feedback condition, were asked to modify their swing phase trajectory to match a "target" increased MTC. Tripping probability (PT) pre- and post-training was calculated by modeling MTC distributions. Older adults showed significantly higher mean MTC for the post-training retention session (27.7 ± 3.79 mm) compared to the normal walking trial (14.1 ± 8.3 mm). The PT on a 1 cm obstacle for the older adults reduced from 1 in 578 strides to 1 in 105,988 strides. With gait training the stroke patient increased MTC and reduced variability (baseline 16 ± 12 mm, post-training 24 ± 8 mm) which reduced obstacle contact probability from 1 in 3 strides in baseline to 1 in 161 strides post-training. The findings confirm that concurrent visual feedback of a lower limb kinematic gait parameter is effective in changing foot trajectory control and reducing tripping probability in older adults. There is potential for further investigation of augmented feedback training across a range of gait-impaired populations, such as stroke
Financial Consequences of Ill Health and Informal Coping Mechanisms in Indonesia
We assess the financial risk of ill health for households in Indonesia, the role of informal coping strategies, and the effectiveness of these strategies in smoothing consumption. based on household panel data, we find evidence of financial risk from illness through medical expenses, while income from informal wage labor is exposed to risk for the poor and income from self-employed business activities for the non-poor. however, only for the rural population and the poor does this lead to imperfect consumption smoothing, while the non-poor seem to be able to protect current spending.
borrowing and drawing on buffers, such as savings and assets, seem to be key informal coping strategies for the poor, which infers potential negative long term effects. while these results suggest scope for public intervention, the financial risk from income loss for the rural poor is beyond public health care financing reforms. rather, formal sector employment seems to be a key instrument for financial protection from illness, by also reducing income risk.
key words: illness, income, consumption smoothing, coping strategies, Indonesia
jel: o15, i1
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