Exploring high-end climate change scenarios for flood protection of the Netherlands

This international scientific assessment has been carried out at the request of the Dutch Delta Committee. The "Deltacommissie" requested that the assessment explore the high-end climate change scenarios for flood protection of the Netherlands. It is a state-of–the art scientific assessment of the upper bound values and longer term projections (for sea level rise up to 2200) of climate induced sea level rise, changing storm surge conditions and peak discharge of river Rhine. It comprises a review of recent studies, model projections and expert opinions of more than 20 leading climate scientists from different countries around the North Sea, Australia and the US

Application of dynamic priorities for controlling the characteristics of a queuing system

This paper considers the development and modification of an imitation model of a queuing system. The initial model uses the laws of control (discipline of expectation and service) with mixed priorities. The work investigates the model with three types of entities (absolute priority, relative priority and priority-free ones) in the regime of overload, i.e. a system with losses. Verification and validation of the created imitation model confirmed its adequateness and accuracy of received results. The application of dynamic priorities for changing the laws of model control substantially alters certain system characteristics. The creation of the model in MatLab Simulink environment with the use of SimEvents and Stateflow library modules allowed creating a fairly complex queuing system and obtain new interesting results

Energy Demand in Agricultural Biomass Production in Parana state, Brazil

Energy flow analysis is an interesting approach to assess and to improve sustainability of agricultural production systems, represented by the economy of energy resources and other inputs translated into energy terms. This type of analysis can complement the economic view contributing to more efficient production systems. Moreover, assessing crops with traditional food use may play an important role in energy provision. Energy efficiency tools were applied in order to determine the energy demand as well as the efficiency of the biomass production of several forage crops in mechanized systems conducted at Paraná state, Brazil. Material flow, input and output energy, energy balance, energy return over investment and embodied energy were used and identified that maize and sorghum were the crops that uses energy in the most efficient way, represented by the best results at net energy availability, profitability and embodied energy at the final product. Oat and ryegrass were the crops the presented the least efficient energy uses in the biomass production systems.   Keywords: Bioenergy, energy indicators, sustainability, embodied energy. &nbsp

Cloud Condensation Nuclei properties of model and atmospheric HULIS

Humic like substances (HULIS) have been identified as a major fraction of the organic component of atmospheric aerosols. These large multifunctional compounds of both primary and secondary sources are surface active and water soluble. Hence, it is expected that they could affect activation of organic aerosols into cloud droplets. We have compared the activation of aerosols containing atmospheric HULIS extracted from fresh, aged and pollution particles to activation of size fractionated fulvic acid from an aquatic source (Suwannee River Fulvic Acid), and correlated it to the estimated molecular weight and measured surface tension. A correlation was found between CCN-activation diameter of SRFA fractions and number average molecular weight of the fraction. The lower molecular weight fractions activated at lower critical diameters, which is explained by the greater number of solute species in the droplet with decreasing molecular weight. The three aerosol-extracted HULIS samples activated at lower diameters than any of the size-fractionated or bulk SRFA. The Köhler model was found to account for activation diameters, provided that accurate physico-chemical parameters are known

Античные и средневековые городища на дне Иссык-Куля

В статье дается обзор результатов многолетних подводных археологических разведок на озере Иссык-Куль. Приводятся данные по местоположению некоторых затопленных городищ античности и средних веков (Тору-Айгыр, Кара-ой, Чигу). Описываются наиболее интересные артефакты, найденные на дне озера.В статті дається огляд результатів багаторічних підводних археологічних розвідок на озері Іссик-Куль. Наводяться дані про місцезнаходження деяких затоплених городищ античності і середньовіччя (Тору-Айгир, Кара-ой, Чігу). Описуються найцікавіші артефакти, знайдені на дні озера.The article is a review of the results of many years’ underwater archaeological researches at lake Issik Kul. Data about the place of location of some Ancient and Medieval towns (Toru-Aygir, Kara-oy, Chigu) are given. Most interesting artefacts found at the bottom of the lake are described

Classification of pediatric acute myeloid leukemia based on miRNA expression profiles

Pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease with respect to biology as well as outcome. In this study, we investigated whether known biological subgroups of pediatric AML are reflected by a common microRNA (miRNA) expression pattern. We assayed 665 miRNAs on 165 pediatric AML samples. First, unsupervised clustering was performed to identify patient clusters with common miRNA expression profiles. Our analysis unraveled 14 clusters, seven of which had a known (cyto-)genetic denominator. Finally, a robust classifier was constructed to discriminate six molecular aberration groups: 11q23-rearrangements, t(8;21)(q22;q22), inv(16)(p13q22), t(15;17) (q21;q22), NPM1 and CEBPA mutations. The classifier achieved accuracies of 89%, 95%, 95%, 98%, 91% and 96%, respectively. Although lower sensitivities were obtained for the NPM1 and CEBPA (32% and 66%), relatively high sensitivities (84%-94%) were attained for the rest. Specificity was high in all groups (87%-100%). Due to a robust double-loop cross validation procedure employed, the classifier only employed 47 miRNAs to achieve the aforementioned accuracies. To validate the 47 miRNA signatures, we applied them to a publicly available adult AML dataset. Albeit partial overlap of the array platforms and molecular differences between pediatric and adult AML, the signatures performed reasonably well. This corroborates our claim that the identified miRNA signatures are not dominated by sample size bias in the pediatric AML dataset. In conclusion, cytogenetic subtypes of pediatric AML have distinct miRNA expression patterns. Reproducibility of the miRNA signatures in adult dataset suggests that the respective aberrations have a similar biology both in pediatric and adult AML

Tales of future weather

Society is vulnerable to extreme weather events and, by extension, to human impacts on future events. As climate changes weather patterns will change. The search is on for more effective methodologies to aid decision-makers both in mitigation to avoid climate change and in adaptation to changes. The traditional approach uses ensembles of climate model simulations, statistical bias correction, downscaling to the spatial and temporal scales relevant to decision-makers, and then translation into quantities of interest. The veracity of this approach cannot be tested, and it faces in-principle challenges. Alternatively, numerical weather prediction models in a hypothetical climate setting can provide tailored narratives for high-resolution simulations of high-impact weather in a future climate. This 'tales of future weather' approach will aid in the interpretation of lower-resolution simulations. Arguably, it potentially provides complementary, more realistic and more physically consistent pictures of what future weather might look like

Improvement of Protective Oxide Layers Formed by Highfrequency Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation on Mg-RE Alloy with LPSO-Phase

Received: 17.04.23. Revised: 17.05.23. Accepted: 23.05.23. Available online: 29.05.23.PEO of Mg-RE (LPSO) alloy allows improving its corrosion behaviour and surface mechanical properties.Increase of pulse frequency under PEO allows decreasing the porosity and heterogeneity of the oxide layers.The best corrosion resistance and adhesive strength demonstrate the oxide layer obtained in aluminate electrolyte under high-frequency PEO.Oxide layers on Mg97Y2Zn1 magnesium alloy with strengthening LPSO-phase were formed by plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) in bipolar mode with frequency variation of forming current pulses (50 and 500 Hz) and addition of sodium aluminate or sodium silicate to alkali phosphate fluoride electrolyte. Microstructure, chemical and phase composition, corrosion and mechanical properties of the oxide layers formed were investigated. With increasing current frequency for both electrolytes, an increase in homogeneity of the oxide layers structure and a decrease in their porosity and fracturing at constant thickness were recorded. The oxide layers formed at 500 Hz even with some decrease in hardness have better adhesive strength and 2 orders of magnitude higher short-term corrosion resistance values. PEO of Mg-alloy with LPSO-phase in the electrolyte with addition of sodium aluminate in combination with increased pulse frequency (500 Hz) allows forming the best-quality uniform oxide layer with high hardness, adhesive strength and corrosion resistance properties. The use of electrolyte with addition of sodium silicate reduced the adhesive strength by 1.5 times and brought down the long-term corrosion resistance of oxide layers by an order of magnitude, as compared with the electrolyte with sodium aluminate. The reason for a significant improvement in the complex of protective properties of the oxide layers with an increase in the current pulse frequency is supposed to be a decrease in the power and duration of individual microarc discharges with simultaneous increase in their number per unit oxidized area.Financial support is provided by the Russian Science Foundation (grant No. 20-79-10262), https://rscf.ru/project/20-79-10262/