Three-dimensional dynamic rupture simulation with a high-order discontinuous Galerkin method on unstructured tetrahedral meshes

Accurate and efficient numerical methods to simulate dynamic earthquake rupture and wave propagation in complex media and complex fault geometries are needed to address fundamental questions in earthquake dynamics, to integrate seismic and geodetic data into emerging approaches for dynamic source inversion, and to generate realistic physics-based earthquake scenarios for hazard assessment. Modeling of spontaneous earthquake rupture and seismic wave propagation by a high-order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method combined with an arbitrarily high-order derivatives (ADER) time integration method was introduced in two dimensions by de la Puente et al. (2009). The ADER-DG method enables high accuracy in space and time and discretization by unstructured meshes. Here we extend this method to three-dimensional dynamic rupture problems. The high geometrical flexibility provided by the usage of tetrahedral elements and the lack of spurious mesh reflections in the ADER-DG method allows the refinement of the mesh close to the fault to model the rupture dynamics adequately while concentrating computational resources only where needed. Moreover, ADER-DG does not generate spurious high-frequency perturbations on the fault and hence does not require artificial Kelvin-Voigt damping. We verify our three-dimensional implementation by comparing results of the SCEC TPV3 test problem with two well-established numerical methods, finite differences, and spectral boundary integral. Furthermore, a convergence study is presented to demonstrate the systematic consistency of the method. To illustrate the capabilities of the high-order accurate ADER-DG scheme on unstructured meshes, we simulate an earthquake scenario, inspired by the 1992 Landers earthquake, that includes curved faults, fault branches, and surface topography

Extremely low Plasmodium prevalence in wild plovers and coursers from Cape Verde and Madagascar

Martínez-de la Puente J, Eberhart-Phillips L, Cristina Carmona-Isunza M, et al. Extremely low Plasmodium prevalence in wild plovers and coursers from Cape Verde and Madagascar. Malaria Journal. 2017;16(1): 243

To-many or to-one? All-in-one! Efficient purely functional multi-maps with type-heterogeneous hash-tries

An immutable multi-map is a many-to-many map data structure with expected fast insert and lookup operations. This data structure is used for applications processing graphs or many-to-many relations as applied in compilers, runtimes of programming languages, or in static analysis of object-oriented systems. Collection data structures are assumed to carefully balance execution time of operations with memory consumption characteristics and need to scale gracefully from a few elements to multiple gigabytes at least. When processing larger in-memory data sets the overhead of the data structure encoding itself becomes a memory usage bottleneck, dominating the overall performance. In this paper we propose AXIOM, a novel hash-trie data structure that allows for a highly efficient and type-safe multi-map encoding by distinguishing inlined values of singleton sets from nested sets of multi-mappings

Intersection between metabolic dysfunction, high fat diet consumption, and brain aging

Deleterious neurochemical, structural, and behavioral alterations are a seemingly unavoidable aspect of brain aging. However, the basis for these alterations, as well as the basis for the tremendous variability in regards to the degree to which these aspects are altered in aging individuals, remains to be elucidated. An increasing number of individuals regularly consume a diet high in fat, with high‐fat diet consumption known to be sufficient to promote metabolic dysfunction, although the links between high‐fat diet consumption and aging are only now beginning to be elucidated. In this review we discuss the potential role for age‐related metabolic disturbances serving as an important basis for deleterious perturbations in the aging brain. These data not only have important implications for understanding the basis of brain aging, but also may be important to the development of therapeutic interventions which promote successful brain aging.Fil: Uranga, Romina Maria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Bahía Blanca. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Bahía Blanca; ArgentinaFil: Bruce Keller, Annadora J.. State University of Louisiana; Estados UnidosFil: Morrison, Christopher D.. State University of Louisiana; Estados UnidosFil: Fernandez Kim, Sun Ok. State University of Louisiana; Estados UnidosFil: Ebenezer, Philip J.. State University of Louisiana; Estados UnidosFil: Zhang, Le. State University of Louisiana; Estados UnidosFil: Dasuri, Kalavathi. State University of Louisiana; Estados UnidosFil: Keller, Jeffrey N.. State University of Louisiana; Estados Unido

Genomic Imprinting in Mammals: Emerging Themes and Established Theories

The epigenetic events that occur during the development of the mammalian embryo are essential for correct gene expression and cell-lineage determination. Imprinted genes are expressed from only one parental allele due to differential epigenetic marks that are established during gametogenesis. Several theories have been proposed to explain the role that genomic imprinting has played over the course of mammalian evolution, but at present it is not clear if a single hypothesis can fully account for the diversity of roles that imprinted genes play. In this review, we discuss efforts to define the extent of imprinting in the mouse genome, and suggest that different imprinted loci may have been wrought by distinct evolutionary forces. We focus on a group of small imprinted domains, which consist of paternally expressed genes embedded within introns of multiexonic transcripts, to discuss the evolution of imprinting at these loci

The EU Center of Excellence for Exascale in Solid Earth (ChEESE): Implementation, results, and roadmap for the second phase

publishedVersio

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security