The mechanisms underpinning Cenozoic intraplate volcanism in eastern Australia: Insights from seismic tomography and geodynamic modeling

Cenozoic intraplate volcanism is widespread throughout much of eastern Australia and manifests as both age-progressive volcanic tracks and non-age-progressive lava fields. Various mechanisms have been invoked to explain the origin and distribution of the volcanism, but a broad consensus remains elusive. We use results from seismic tomography to demonstrate a clear link between lithospheric thickness and the occurrence, composition, and volume of volcanic outcrop. Furthermore, we find that non-age-progressive lava fields overlie significant cavities in the base of the lithosphere. Based on numerical simulations of mantle flow, we show that these cavities generate vigorous mantle upwellings, which likely promote decompression melting. However, due to the intermittent nature of the lava field volcanics over the last 50 Ma, it is probable that transient mechanisms also operate to induce or enhance melting. In the case of the Newer Volcanics Province, the passage of a nearby plume appears to be a likely candidate. Our results demonstrate why detailed 3-D variations in lithospheric thickness, plate motion, and transient sources of mantle heterogeneity need to be considered when studying the origin of non age-progressive volcanism in continental interiors

Evidence of micro-continent entrainment during crustal accretion

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Inherited crustal deformation along the East Gondwana margin revealed by seismic anisotropy tomography

Acknowledgments We thank Mallory Young for providing phase velocity measurements in mainland Australia and Tasmania. Robert Musgrave is thanked for making available his tilt-filtered magnetic intensity map. In the short term, data may be made available by contacting the authors (S.P. or N.R.). A new database of passive seismic data recorded in Australia is planned as part of a national geophysics data facility for easy access download. Details on the status of this database may be obtained from the authors (S.P., N.R., or A.M.R.). There are no restrictions on access for noncommercial use. Commercial users should seek written permission from the authors (S.P. or N.R.). Ross Cayley publishes with the permission of the Director of the Geological Survey of Victoria.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Performance of Different Atrial Conduction Velocity Estimation Algorithms Improves with Knowledge about the Depolarization Pattern

Quantifying the atrial conduction velocity (CV) reveals important information for targeting critical arrhythmia sites that initiate and sustain abnormal electrical pathways, e.g. during atrial flutter. The knowledge about the local CV distribution on the atrial surface thus enhances clinical catheter ablation procedures by localizing pathological propagation paths to be eliminated during the intervention. Several algorithms have been proposed for estimating the CV. All of them are solely based on the local activation times calculated from electroanatomical mapping data. They deliver false values for the CV if applied to regions near scars or wave collisions. We propose an extension to all approaches by including a distinct preprocessing step. Thereby, we first identify scars and wave front collisions and provide this information for the CV estimation algorithm. In addition, we provide reliable CV values even in the presence of noise. We compared the performance of the Triangulation, the Polynomial Fit and the Radial Basis Functions approach with and without the inclusion of the aforementioned preprocessing step. The evaluation was based on different activation patterns simulated on a 2D synthetic triangular mesh with different levels of noise added. The results of this study demonstrate that the accuracy of the estimated CV does improve when knowledge about the depolarization pattern is included. Over all investigated test cases, the reduction of the mean velocity error quantified to at least 25 mm/s for the Radial Basis Functions, 14 mm/s for the Polynomial Fit and 14 mm/s for the Triangulation approach compared to their respective implementations without the preprocessing step. Given the present results, this novel approach can contribute to a more accurate and reliable CV estimation in a clinical setting and thus improve the success of radio-frequency ablation to treat cardiac arrhythmias

Seismic signature of subduction termination from teleseismic P- and S-wave arrival-time tomography : the case of northern Borneo

Acknowledgments S.P. acknowledges support from the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) Grant NE/R013500/1 and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement 790203. We thank the TanDEM-X Science Communication Team (German Aerospace Center (DLR) e.V.) for providing TanDEM topographic data. We thank the NERC Geophysical Equipment Facility for loan 1038 and seismometers loaned by the University of Cambridge and Aberdeen. We would like to thank Zhong-Hai Li and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive feedback during the review process.Peer reviewedPostprin

ECGdeli - An open source ECG delineation toolbox for MATLAB

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a standard cost-efficient and non-invasive tool for the early detection of various cardiac diseases. Quantifying different timing and amplitude features of and in between the single ECG waveforms can reveal important information about the underlying (dys-)function of the heart. Determining these features requires the detection of fiducial points that mark the on- and offset as well as the peak of each ECG waveform (P wave, QRS complex, T wave). Manually setting these points is time-consuming and requires a physician’s expert knowledge. Therefore, the highly modular ECGdeli toolbox for MATLAB was developed, which is capable of filtering clinically recorded 12-lead ECG signals and detecting the fiducial points, also called delineation. It is one of the few open toolboxes offering ECG delineation for P waves, T Waves and QRS complexes. The algorithms provided were evaluated with the QT database, an ECG database comprising 105 signals with fiducial points annotated by clinicians. The median difference between the fiducial points set by the boundary detection algorithm and the clinical annotations serving as a ground truth is less than 4 samples (16 ms) for the P wave and the QRS complex markers. The T wave onset, peak and offset were detected with a median difference of 5, 2 and 7 samples, respectively. Results were compared to two free algorithms available on PhysioNet. Our results show that ECGdeli can reliably detect P waves, QRS complexes and T waves. Thus, it can contribute to diagnose specific cardiac diseases by analyzing the ECG signal. As ECGdeli is published under GNU GPLv3 and thanks to its modularity, it can be used to extend existing algorithms or as a benchmark for new algorithms

Effect of fluorination on the crystal and electronic structure of organometallic cyclopentadienyl-phenylenediamino-cobalt complexes

The fluorinated half sandwich complex [CpCoLF] (Cp = cyclopentadiene; LF = o-perfluoro-phenylenediimine; 2F) shows a T-shaped geometry with the LF ligand coplanar with the metallocycle. The molecules are dimerized in a head-to-tail fashion and arranged in a herringbone manner in the crystal packing. The crystal structure of 2F is different from that of the corresponding hydrocarbon compound (2H). Moreover, the differences due to the presence of fluorine atoms are also highlighted by the analysis of the intermolecular contacts, which show that 2F exhibits several F⋯F contacts, as well as aromatic intra-dimer π … π interactions in addition to C–H … π and C–H⋯F contacts. No relevant π … π interactions are observed in the case of 2H. Hirshfeld Surface (HS) analysis also depicted well the differences in the solid state interactions between the different crystal structures. In particular, HS has been useful in highlighting the differences observed between the crystal structure of 2H obtained from Rietveld refinement and that measured on single crystal (2HP and 2HSCH, respectively). The effect of the fluorination on the electronic structure has been investigated also by CV measurements and Density Functional Theory calculations. Both are consistent with a lowering in energy of the molecular orbitals. Data Mining Force Field calculations clearly indicate that the 2HSCH structure is more stable than the 2HP one. These findings can be explained in terms of the energy of the intermolecular interactions. The enhanced stability of the fluorine substitute can be easily explained by the large number of strong interactions involving fluorine atoms

Quantification and classification of potassium and calcium disorders with the electrocardiogram: What do clinical studies, modeling, and reconstruction tell us?

Diseases caused by alterations of ionic concentrations are frequently observed challenges and play an important role in clinical practice. The clinically established method for the diagnosis of electrolyte concentration imbalance is blood tests. A rapid and non-invasive point-of-care method is yet needed. The electrocardiogram (ECG) could meet this need and becomes an established diagnostic tool allowing home monitoring of the electrolyte concentration also by wearable devices. In this review, we present the current state of potassium and calcium concentration monitoring using the ECG and summarize results from previous work. Selected clinical studies are presented, supporting or questioning the use of the ECG for the monitoring of electrolyte concentration imbalances. Differences in the findings from automatic monitoring studies are discussed, and current studies utilizing machine learning are presented demonstrating the potential of the deep learning approach. Furthermore, we demonstrate the potential of computational modeling approaches to gain insight into the mechanisms of relevant clinical findings and as a tool to obtain synthetic data for methodical improvements in monitoring approaches