Application of the EEPAS earthquake forecasting model to Italy

The Every Earthquake a Precursor According to Scale (EEPAS) forecasting model is a space-time point-process model based on the precursory scale increase (⁠ψ) phenomenon and associated predictive scaling relations. It has been previously applied to New Zealand, California and Japan earthquakes with target magnitude thresholds varying from about 5-7. In all previous application, computations were done using the computer code implemented in Fortran language by the model authors. In this work, we applied it to Italy using a suite of computing codes completely rewritten in Matlab. We first compared the two software codes to ensure the convergence and adequate coincidence between the estimated model parameters for a simple region capable of being analysed by both software codes. Then, using the rewritten codes, we optimized the parameters for a different and more complex polygon of analysis using the Homogenized Instrumental Seismic Catalogue data from 1990 to 2011. We then perform a pseudo-prospective forecasting experiment of Italian earthquakes from 2012 to 2021 with M-w >= 5.0 and compare the forecasting skill of EEPAS with those obtained by other time independent (Spatially Uniform Poisson, Spatially Variable Poisson and PPE: Proximity to Past Earthquakes) and time dependent [Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS)] forecasting models using the information gain per active cell. The preference goes to the ETAS model for short time intervals (3 months) and to the EEPAS model for longer time intervals (6 months to 10 yr)

Maximizing ENSO as a source of western US hydroclimate predictability

Until recently, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) was considered a reliable source of winter precipitation predictability in the western US, with a historically strong link between extreme El Niño events and extremely wet seasons. However, the 2015–2016 El Niño challenged our understanding of the ENSO-precipitation relationship. California precipitation was near-average during the 2015–2016 El Niño, which was characterized by warm sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies of similar magnitude compared to the extreme 1997–1998 and 1982–1983 El Niño events. We demonstrate that this precipitation response can be explained by El Niño’s spatial pattern, rather than internal atmospheric variability. In addition, observations and large-ensembles of regional and global climate model simulations indicate that extremes in seasonal and daily precipitation during strong El Niño events are better explained using the ENSO Longitude Index (ELI), which captures the diversity of ENSO’s spatial patterns in a single metric, compared to the traditional Niño3.4 index, which measures SST anomalies in a fixed region and therefore fails to capture ENSO diversity. The physically-based ELI better explains western US precipitation variability because it tracks the zonal shifts in tropical Pacific deep convection that drive teleconnections through the response in the extratropical wave-train, integrated vapor transport, and atmospheric rivers. This research provides evidence that ELI improves the value of ENSO as a predictor of California’s seasonal hydroclimate extremes compared to traditional ENSO indices, especially during strong El Niño events

Attachment styles and personal growth following romantic breakups: The mediating roles of distress, rumination, and tendency to rebound

© 2013 Marshall et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.The purpose of this research was to examine the associations of attachment anxiety and avoidance with personal growth following relationship dissolution, and to test breakup distress, rumination, and tendency to rebound with new partners as mediators of these associations. Study 1 (N = 411) and Study 2 (N = 465) measured attachment style, breakup distress, and personal growth; Study 2 additionally measured ruminative reflection, brooding, and proclivity to rebound with new partners. Structural equation modelling revealed in both studies that anxiety was indirectly associated with greater personal growth through heightened breakup distress, whereas avoidance was indirectly associated with lower personal growth through inhibited breakup distress. Study 2 further showed that the positive association of breakup distress with personal growth was accounted for by enhanced reflection and brooding, and that anxious individuals’ greater personal growth was also explained by their proclivity to rebound. These findings suggest that anxious individuals’ hyperactivated breakup distress may act as a catalyst for personal growth by promoting the cognitive processing of breakup-related thoughts and emotions, whereas avoidant individuals’ deactivated distress may inhibit personal growth by suppressing this cognitive work

Gravitational collapse of a Hagedorn fluid in Vaidya geometry

The gravitational collapse of a high-density null charged matter fluid, satisfying the Hagedorn equation of state, is considered in the framework of the Vaidya geometry. The general solution of the gravitational field equations can be obtained in an exact parametric form. The conditions for the formation of a naked singularity, as a result of the collapse of the compact object, are also investigated. For an appropriate choice of the arbitrary integration functions the null radial outgoing geodesic, originating from the shell focussing central singularity, admits one or more positive roots. Hence a collapsing Hagedorn fluid could end either as a black hole, or as a naked singularity. A possible astrophysical application of the model, to describe the energy source of gamma-ray bursts, is also considered.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Statistical modeling of ground motion relations for seismic hazard analysis

We introduce a new approach for ground motion relations (GMR) in the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA), being influenced by the extreme value theory of mathematical statistics. Therein, we understand a GMR as a random function. We derive mathematically the principle of area-equivalence; wherein two alternative GMRs have an equivalent influence on the hazard if these GMRs have equivalent area functions. This includes local biases. An interpretation of the difference between these GMRs (an actual and a modeled one) as a random component leads to a general overestimation of residual variance and hazard. Beside this, we discuss important aspects of classical approaches and discover discrepancies with the state of the art of stochastics and statistics (model selection and significance, test of distribution assumptions, extreme value statistics). We criticize especially the assumption of logarithmic normally distributed residuals of maxima like the peak ground acceleration (PGA). The natural distribution of its individual random component (equivalent to exp(epsilon_0) of Joyner and Boore 1993) is the generalized extreme value. We show by numerical researches that the actual distribution can be hidden and a wrong distribution assumption can influence the PSHA negatively as the negligence of area equivalence does. Finally, we suggest an estimation concept for GMRs of PSHA with a regression-free variance estimation of the individual random component. We demonstrate the advantages of event-specific GMRs by analyzing data sets from the PEER strong motion database and estimate event-specific GMRs. Therein, the majority of the best models base on an anisotropic point source approach. The residual variance of logarithmized PGA is significantly smaller than in previous models. We validate the estimations for the event with the largest sample by empirical area functions. etc

Comparte la felicidad, educando sobre sexualidad con ciudadanos y ciudadanas habitantes de calle

Curso de Especial InterésLos habitantes de calle (en adelante CHC) se han convertido en una problemática social debido a la desarticulación, violencia y pobreza de la sociedad colombiana. A partir de esta situación se diseñó y elaboró la cartilla “Comparte la felicidad, educando sobre sexualidad con Ciudadanos y Ciudadanas Habitantes de calle” que aborda los cuatro holones de la sexualidad: Vinculación afectiva, erotismo, género y reproductividad, con el objetivo de promover la salud sexual y reproductiva, y la prevención de Infecciones de transmisión sexual, incluido el VIH/SIDA. Para identificar el contenido de la cartilla se realizó una entrevista estructurada de la cual se obtuvo la información a incluir en la cartilla, posteriormente validada en la unidad OASIS.Curso de Especial Interés1. Resumen 2. Justificación 3. Marco teórico 4. Objetivos de la investigación 5. Métodología 6. Estudio de mercado 7. Resultados 8. Discusión 9. Conclusiones 10. Recomendaciones 11. Referencias 12. ApéndicesPregradoPsicólog

Cardiac Procedures among American Indians and Alaska Natives compared to Non-Hispanic Whites Hospitalized with Ischemic Heart Disease in California

BackgroundAmerican Indians/Alaska Natives (AIAN) experience a high burden of cardiovascular disease with rates for fatal and nonfatal heart disease approximately twofold higher than the U.S. population.ObjectiveTo determine if disparities exist in cardiac procedure rates among AIAN compared to non-Hispanic whites hospitalized in California for ischemic heart disease defined as acute myocardial infarction or unstable angina.DesignCross-sectional study. EVENTS: A total of 796 ischemic heart disease hospitalizations among AIAN and 90971 among non-Hispanic whites in 37 of 58 counties in California from 1998-2002.MeasurementsCardiac catheterization, percutaneous cardiac intervention, and coronary artery bypass graft surgery procedure rates from hospitalization administrative data.Main resultsAIAN did not have lower cardiac procedure rates for cardiac catheterization and percutaneous cardiac intervention compared to non-Hispanic whites (unadjusted OR 1.00, 95% CI 0.87-1.16 and OR 1.04, 95% CI 0.90-1.20, respectively). Adjustment for age, sex, comorbidities, and payer source did not alter the results (adjusted OR 0.95, 95% CI 0.82-1.10 and OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.85-1.14, respectively). We found higher odds (unadjusted OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.09-1.70) for receipt of coronary artery bypass graft surgery among AIAN hospitalized for ischemic heart disease compared to non-Hispanic whites which after adjustment attenuated some and was no longer statistically significant (adjusted OR 1.26, 95% CI 1.00-1.58).ConclusionAIAN were not less likely to receive cardiac procedures as non-Hispanic whites during hospitalizations for ischemic heart disease. Additional research is needed to determine whether differences in specialty referral patterns, patients' treatment preferences, or outpatient management may explain some of the health disparities due to cardiovascular disease that is found among AIAN

Whatever the Weather: Ambient Temperature Does Not Influence the Proportion of Males Born in New Zealand

BACKGROUND: The proportion of male births has been shown to be over 50% in temperate climates around the world. Given that fluctuations in ambient temperature have previously been shown to affect sex allocation in humans, we examined the hypothesis that ambient temperature predicts fluctuations in the proportion of male births in New Zealand. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We tested three main hypotheses using time series analyses. Firstly, we used historical annual data in New Zealand spanning 1876-2009 to test for a positive effect of ambient temperature on the proportion of male births. The proportion of males born ranged by 3.17%, from 0.504 to 0.520, but no significant relationship was observed between male birth rates and mean annual temperature in the concurrent or previous years. Secondly, we examined whether changes in annual ambient temperature were negatively related to the proportion of male stillbirths from 1929-2009 and whether the proportion of male stillbirths negatively affected the proportion of male live births. We found no evidence that fewer male stillbirths occurred during warmer concurrent or previous years, though a declining trend in the proportion of male stillbirths was observed throughout the data. Thirdly, we tested whether seasonal ambient temperatures, or deviations from those seasonal patterns, were positively related to the proportion of male births using monthly data from 1980-2009. Patterns of male and female births are seasonal, but very similar throughout the year, resulting in a non-seasonal proportion of male births. However, no cross correlations between proportion of male births and lags of temperature were significant. CONCLUSIONS: Results showed, across all hypotheses under examination, that ambient temperatures were not related to the proportion of male births or the proportion of male stillbirths in New Zealand. While there is evidence that temperature may influence human sex allocation elsewhere, such effects of temperature are not universal

The spatial extent of tephra deposition and environmental impacts from the 1912 Novarupta eruption

The eruption of Novarupta within the Katmai Volcanic Cluster, south-west Alaska, in June 1912 was the most voluminous eruption of the twentieth century but the distal distribution of tephra deposition is inadequately quantified. We present new syntheses of published tephrostratigraphic studies and a large quantity of previously un-investigated historical records. For the first time, we apply a geostatistical technique, indicator kriging, to integrate and interpolate such data. Our results show evidence for tephra deposition across much of Alaska, Yukon, the northern Pacific, western British Columbia and northwestern Washington. The most distal tephra deposition was observed around 2,500 km downwind from the volcano. Associated with tephra deposition are many accounts of acid deposition and consequent impacts on vegetation and human health. Kriging offers several advantages as a means to integrate and present such data. Future eruptions of a scale similar to the 1912 event have the potential to cause widespread disruption. Historical records of tephra deposition extend far beyond the limit of deposition constrained by tephrostratigraphic records. The distal portion of tephra fallout deposits is rarely adequately mapped by tephrostratigraphy alone; contemporaneous reports of fallout can provide important constraints on the extent of impacts following large explosive eruptions