Projected Evolution of California's San Francisco Bay-Delta-River System in a Century of Climate Change

Background: Accumulating evidence shows that the planet is warming as a response to human emissions of greenhouse gases. Strategies of adaptation to climate change will require quantitative projections of how altered regional patterns of temperature, precipitation and sea level could cascade to provoke local impacts such as modified water supplies, increasing risks of coastal flooding, and growing challenges to sustainability of native species. Methodology/Principal Findings: We linked a series of models to investigate responses of California’s San Francisco Estuary-Watershed (SFEW) system to two contrasting scenarios of climate change. Model outputs for scenarios of fast and moderate warming are presented as 2010–2099 projections of nine indicators of changing climate, hydrology and habitat quality. Trends of these indicators measure rates of: increasing air and water temperatures, salinity and sea level; decreasing precipitation, runoff, snowmelt contribution to runoff, and suspended sediment concentrations; and increasing frequency of extreme environmental conditions such as water temperatures and sea level beyond the ranges of historical observations. Conclusions/Significance: Most of these environmental indicators change substantially over the 21 st century, and many would present challenges to natural and managed systems. Adaptations to these changes will require flexible planning t

Promises and pitfalls in the reliable determination of 233U using high resolution ICP-OES

This study highlights that the currently employed analytical approach for the ICP-OES determination of 233U at λ=385.950 nm is neither specific for this U isotope nor reliable and provides potential solutions for a selective and reliable quantification of 233U, 235U, and 238U using high resolution ICP-OES. While being a sensitive U wavelength region, the smallisotopic line splitting of 233U (λ=385.950 nm), 235U (λ=385.955 nm) and 238U (λ=385.958 nm) cannot be resolved with any commercial high resolution optical spectrometer. In addition, the width of 5.67 pm of the 233U peak, defined as full width at half maximum, is particularly larger than the 238U peak width of ~4.3 pm, thus indicating splitting of the 233U emission signal into multiple peaks. In contrast, superior U isotopic information can be obtained from isotope specific emission lines centred around λ=411.6 nm and λ=424.4 nm with a spectral distance between 233U and 238U of 25 pm and 39 pm, respectively. The 233U signal of both wavelength regions, however, suffers from a potential interference with thorium that requires peak deconvolution for accurate quantification of 233U.JRC.E.5-Nuclear chemistr

Problems Hard for Treewidth but Easy for Stable Gonality

We show that some natural problems that are XNLP-hard (hence W[t]-hard for all t) when parameterized by pathwidth or treewidth, become FPT when parameterized by stable gonality, a novel graph parameter based on optimal maps from graphs to trees. The problems we consider are classical flow and orientation problems, such as UNDIRECTED FLOW WITH LOWER BOUNDS, MINIMUM MAXIMUM OUTDEGREE, and capacitated optimization problems such as CAPACITATED (RED-BLUE) DOMINATING SET. Our hardness claims beat existing results. The FPT algorithms use a new parameter “treebreadth”, associated to a weighted tree partition, as well as DP and ILP

Problems Hard for Treewidth but Easy for Stable Gonality

We show that some natural problems that are XNLP-hard (hence $$\textrm{W}[t]$$ -hard for all t) when parameterized by pathwidth or treewidth, become FPT when parameterized by stable gonality, a novel graph parameter based on optimal maps from graphs to trees. The problems we consider are classical flow and orientation problems, such as Undirected Flow with Lower Bounds, Minimum Maximum Outdegree, and capacitated optimization problems such as Capacitated (Red-Blue) Dominating Set. Our hardness claims beat existing results. The FPT algorithms use a new parameter “treebreadth”, associated to a weighted tree partition, as well as DP and ILP

Problems hard for treewidth but easy for stable gonality

We show that some natural problems that are XNLP-hard (which implies W[t]-hardness for all t) when parameterized by pathwidth or treewidth, become FPT when parameterized by stable gonality, a novel graph parameter based on optimal maps from graphs to trees. The problems we consider are classical flow and orientation problems, such as Undirected Flow with Lower Bounds (which is strongly NP-complete, as shown by Itai), Minimum Maximum Outdegree (for which W[1]-hardness for treewidth was proven by Szeider), and capacitated optimization problems such as Capacitated (Red-Blue) Dominating Set (for which W[1]-hardness was proven by Dom, Lokshtanov, Saurabh and Villanger). Our hardness proofs (that beat existing results) use reduction to a recent XNLP-complete problem (Accepting Non-deterministic Checking Counter Machine). The new easy parameterized algorithms use a novel notion of weighted tree partition with an associated parameter that we call treebreadth, inspired by Seese's notion of tree-partite graphs, as well as techniques from dynamical programming and integer linear programming

Projected Evolution of California’s San Francisco Bay-Delta-River System

Background: Accumulating evidence shows that the planet is warming as a response to human emissions of greenhouse gases. Strategies of adaptation to climate change will require quantitative projections of how altered regional patterns of temperature, precipitation and sea level could cascade to provoke local impacts such as modified water supplies, increasing risks of coastal flooding, and growing challenges to sustainability of native species. Methodology/Principal Findings: We linked a series of models to investigate responses of California’s San Francisco Estuary-Watershed (SFEW) system to two contrasting scenarios of climate change. Model outputs for scenarios of fast and moderate warming are presented as 2010–2099 projections of nine indicators of changing climate, hydrology and habitat quality. Trends of these indicators measure rates of: increasing air and water temperatures, salinity and sea level; decreasing precipitation, runoff, snowmelt contribution to runoff, and suspended sediment concentrations; and increasing frequency of extreme environmental conditions such as water temperatures and sea level beyond the ranges of historical observations. Conclusions/Significance: Most of these environmental indicators change substantially over the 21 st century, and many would present challenges to natural and managed systems. Adaptations to these changes will require flexible planning t

Oncologic Outcome and Immune Responses of Radiotherapy with Anti-PD-1 Treatment for Brain Metastases Regarding Timing and Benefiting Subgroups

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and radiotherapy (RT) are widely used for patients with brain metastasis (BM). To evaluate markers for treatment response and find a treatment concept which has the best outcome effects, we analyzed data of 93 patients with BM from different cancer types. Predictive markers for survival were good performance status, melanoma as cancer type, low metastasis volume, normal inflammatory blood parameters, and a stereotactic radiotherapy concept with high doses. We found that the best survival outcome can be achieved with the concurrent use of RT and ICI. Concurrent treatment was particularly beneficial in patients with low inflammatory status and more and larger metastases, and when high doses cannot be administered. In concurrently treated patients, therapeutic response was often delayed compared to sequential treatment. Specific immune responses such as pseudoprogression and abscopal effects were induced by concurrent treatment and associated with prolonged survival. ABSTRACT: While immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in combination with radiotherapy (RT) are widely used for patients with brain metastasis (BM), markers that predict treatment response for combined RT and ICI (RT-ICI) and their optimal dosing and sequence for the best immunogenic effects are still under investigation. The aim of this study was to evaluate prognostic factors for therapeutic outcome and to compare effects of concurrent and non-concurrent RT-ICI. We retrospectively analyzed data of 93 patients with 319 BMs of different cancer types who received PD-1 inhibitors and RT at the University Hospital Cologne between September/2014 and November/2020. Primary study endpoints were overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and local control (LC). We included 66.7% melanoma, 22.8% lung, and 5.5% other cancer types with a mean follow-up time of 23.8 months. Median OS time was 12.19 months. LC at 6 months was 95.3% (concurrent) vs. 69.2% (non-concurrent; p = 0.008). Univariate Cox regression analysis detected following prognostic factors for OS: neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio NLR favoring 3 cm(3) (p = 0.007), other cancer types than melanoma (p = 0.006), anti-CTLA4-naïve patients (p < 0.001), low NLR (p = 0.039), steroid intake ≤4 mg (p = 0.042). Specific immune responses, such as abscopal effects (AbEs), pseudoprogression (PsP), or immune-related adverse events (IrAEs), occurred more frequently with concurrent RT-ICI and resulted in better OS. Other toxicities, including radionecrosis, were not statistically different in both groups. The concurrent application of RT and ICI, the ECOG-PS, cancer type, and PTV had an independently prognostic impact on OS. In concurrently treated patients, treatment response (LC) was delayed and specific immune responses (AbE, PsP, IrAE) occurred more frequently with longer OS rates. Our results suggest that concurrent RT-ICI application is more beneficial than sequential treatment in patients with low pretreatment inflammatory status, more and larger BMs, and with other cancer types than melanoma

COMBINED EFFECTS OF PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES ON COASTAL DYNAMICS AND RECOVERY: THE BLUECOAST PROJECT APPROACH

Poorly constrained uncertainties limit the prediction of medium-term to long-term regional sediment budgets and morphological change, and thus hinder coastal management decision-making. We present a multi-disciplinary approach that aims to address this challenge and is implemented in the BLUEcoast project. The approach brings together scientists and coastal stakeholders across a range of scientific disciplines. Quantifying all processes at all scales is not feasible and our approach uses targeted representative case studies, which are carefully selected to allow subsequent upscaling and ensure transferability. We illustrate this approach with specific examples from the BLUEcoast consortium