Changes in Tropical Clouds and Atmospheric Circulation Associated with Rapid Adjustment Induced by Increased Atmospheric CO2 A Multiscale Modeling Framework Study

The radiative heating increase due to increased CO2 concentration is the primary source for the rapid adjustment of atmospheric circulation and clouds. In this study, we investigate the rapid adjustment resulting from doubling of CO2 and its physical mechanism using a multiscale modeling framework (MMF). The MMF includes an advanced higher-order turbulence closure in its cloud-resolving model component and simulates realistic shallow and deep cloud climatology and boundary layer turbulence. The rapid adjustment over the tropics is characterized by 1) reduced ascent and descent strengths over the ocean, 2) increased lower tropospheric stability (LTS) over the subsidence region, 3) shoaling of planetary boundary layers over the ocean, 4) increased deep convection over lands and shift of cloud coverage from the ocean to lands, and 5) reduced sensible (SH) and latent heat (LH) fluxes over the oceanic deep convective regions. Unlike conventional general circulation models and another MMF, a reduction in the global-mean shortwave cloud radiative cooling is not simulated, due to the increase in low clouds at lower altitudes over the ocean, resulting from reduced cloud-top entrainment due to strengthened inversion. Changes in regional circulation play a key role in cloud changes and shift of cloud coverage to lands. Weaker energy transport resulting from water vapor and cloud CO2 masking effects reduces the upward motion and convective clouds in the oceanic regions. The ocean-land transports are linked to the partitioning of surface SH and LH fluxes that increases humidity over lands and enhances deep convection over the tropical lands

Differences in the Hydrological Cycle and Sensitivity Between Multiscale Modeling Frameworks with and Without a HigherOrder Turbulence Closure

Current conventional global climate models (GCMs) produce a weak increase in globalmean precipitation with anthropogenic warming in comparison with the lower tropospheric moisture increases. The motive of this study is to understand the differences in the hydrological sensitivity between two multiscale modeling frameworks (MMFs) that arise from the different treatments of turbulence and low clouds in order to aid to the understanding of the model spread among conventional GCMs. We compare the hydrological sensitivity and its energetic constraint from MMFs with (SPCAMIPHOC) or without (SPCAM) an advanced higherorder turbulence closure. SPCAMIPHOC simulates higher global hydrological sensitivity for the slow response but lower sensitivity for the fast response than SPCAM. Their differences are comparable to the spreads of conventional GCMs. The higher sensitivity in SPCAMIPHOC is associated with the higher ratio of the changes in latent heating to those in net atmospheric radiative cooling, which is further related to a stronger decrease in the Bowen ratio with warming than in SPCAM. The higher sensitivity of cloud radiative cooling resulting from the lack of low clouds in SPCAM is another major factor in contributing to the lower precipitation sensitivity. The two MMFs differ greatly in the hydrological sensitivity over the tropical lands, where the simulated sensitivity of surface sensible heat fluxes to surface warming and CO2 increase in SPCAMIPHOC is weaker than in SPCAM. The difference in divergences of dry static energy flux simulated by the two MMFs also contributes to the difference in land precipitation sensitivity between the two models

Best Practices to Increase Efficacy of Graduate School Admissions Communications at Clark University

Within the period of time that a graduate student deposits and subsequently arrives at their academic institution, receiving timely information is important for their preparation. This process has been deemed by the Deans of the Enterprise Schools at Clark University as one that needs further investigation. As such, this Capstone looks at the array of communication that goes out to each graduate student during this four-month period. The purpose of examining this communication is to analyze its effectiveness in engaging students. To analyze the effectiveness of this communication, surveys were distributed to current students in these schools to gather data surrounding their experience after applying to Clark. In addition to looking at Clark University’s current process, we conducted an analysis of trends and best practices from colleges and universities across the country. Based on findings from this research and our firsthand interviews of the aforementioned Deans and involved staff members, we have provided recommendations to improve this process. Ultimately, in order to improve student engagement our group has created recommendations that could improve some of the challenges in engaging and retaining students during this period of time

InterFace:Adjustable Angular Margin Inter-class Loss for Deep Face Recognition

In the field of face recognition, it is always a hot research topic to improve the loss solution to make the face features extracted by the network have greater discriminative power. Research works in recent years has improved the discriminative power of the face model by normalizing softmax to the cosine space step by step and then adding a fixed penalty margin to reduce the intra-class distance to increase the inter-class distance. Although a great deal of previous work has been done to optimize the boundary penalty to improve the discriminative power of the model, adding a fixed margin penalty to the depth feature and the corresponding weight is not consistent with the pattern of data in the real scenario. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a novel loss function, InterFace, releasing the constraint of adding a margin penalty only between the depth feature and the corresponding weight to push the separability of classes by adding corresponding margin penalties between the depth features and all weights. To illustrate the advantages of InterFace over a fixed penalty margin, we explained geometrically and comparisons on a set of mainstream benchmarks. From a wider perspective, our InterFace has advanced the state-of-the-art face recognition performance on five out of thirteen mainstream benchmarks. All training codes, pre-trained models, and training logs, are publicly released \footnote{$https://github.com/iamsangmeng/InterFace$}.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2109.09416 by other author

The impact of adult children’s support on the psychological health of rural older adult people in China

BackgroundFamily old-age care is dominant in Chinese rural society, and children’s support is an important force in family old-age care. However, the migration of a large number of young and middle-aged rural laborers has undermined the traditional arrangements for old-age care in rural areas and affected the psychological health of the older adult.Methods2014 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey targets Chinese citizens aged 60 or older and covers 28 provinces in mainland China. In this paper, the database of the CLASS was selected for empirical analysis to explore the impact of children’s support on the depression level and loneliness of rural older adults through multiple linear regression, and was divided into two groups according to children’s migration to analyze heterogeneity.ResultsChildren’s financial support facilitates the maintenance of mental health among rural older adults. Children’s support promotes mental health among rural older adults, but this association does not exist among older adults without children’s migration. Individual characteristics of older people have a greater impact on mental health.DiscussionOur study firstly compares the differences of children’s migration status between children’s support and mental health among the older adult in rural China. In order to improve the mental health of the older adult, it is necessary to create a favorable atmosphere of love and respect for the older adult, improve the social security system in rural areas, and give full play to the strengths of the social forces, so as to ensure that the older adult have a sense of worthiness and enjoyment in their old age

Long-term outcomes of early childhood science education: insight from a cross-national comparative case study on conceptual understanding of science

The purpose of this research was to explore the long term outcomes of either participating or not participating in early childhood science education on Grade 6 students’ conceptual understanding of science. The research is situated in a conceptual framework that evokes Piagetian developmental levels as both potential curriculum constraints and potential models of efficacy. The research design was a multiple case study of Grade 6 children from three schools in China (n=140) who started formal science education in the third grade, and Grade 6 children from three matched schools in Australia (n=105) who started learning science in kindergarten. The students’ understanding was assessed by a science quiz and in-depth interview. The data showed that participating children from the high socio-economic schools in China and Australia had similar understandings of science. Divergence between the medium and low socio-economic schools, however, indicated that the grounding in early childhood science education in Australia may have placed these children at an advantage. Alternative explanations for the divergence including the nature of classroom instruction in the two countries are discussed

Facile Fabrication of a Hierarchical Superhydrophobic Coating with Aluminate Coupling Agent Modified Kaolin

A superhydrophobic coating was fabricated from the dispersion of unmodified kaolin particles and aluminate coupling agent in anhydrous ethanol. Through surface modification, water contact angle of the coating prepared by modified kaolin particles increased dramatically from 0° to 152°, and the sliding angle decreased from 90° to 3°. Scanning electron microscopy was used to examine the surface morphology. A structure composed of micro-nano hierarchical component, combined with the surface modification by aluminate coupling agent which reduced the surface energy greatly, was found to be responsible for the superhydrophobicity. The method adopted is relatively simple, facile, and cost-effective and can potentially be applied to large water-repellent surface coatings

Effectiveness of a scenario-based, community-based intervention in containing COVID-19 in China

BackgroundGiven the significant impact of the more than three-year-long COVID-19 pandemic on people’s health, social order, and economic performance, as well as the potential re-emergence of a new variant and the epidemic “Disease X,” it is crucial to examine its developmental trends and suggest countermeasures to address community epidemics of severe respiratory infectious diseases.MethodsThe epidemiological characterization of various strains of COVID-19 was modeled using an improved Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) model to simulate the infections of different strains of COVID-19 under different scenarios, taking as an example an urban area of a prefecture-level city in Shandong Province, China, with a resident population of 2 million. Scenarios 1–5 are scenario-based simulations the Omicron strain, and 6–8 simulate the original COVID-19 strain, with different parameters for each scenario. Scenarios 1 and 6 do not consider community NPIs and represent natural epidemic scenarios. Scenarios 2–4 assess the impact of different NPIs on the original COVID-19 strain. Scenarios 1–4 and 6–8 compare the effects of the same measures on different strains. Scenario 5 simulates the effects of implementing NPIs after an outbreak has spread widely. Compare scenarios 4 and 9 to analyze the effect of high grades versus dynamic clearing of NPIs. By analyzing the time at which the peak number of cases was reached and the maximum number of cases, we were able to calculate the effectiveness of urban community control measures (NPIs) and the impact of vaccination on disease trends. Based on our research into the degree of restriction of social activities in different levels of control areas during real-world epidemics, we categorized the NPIs into three levels, with controls becoming increasingly stringent from levels 1 to 3 as low-, medium-, and high-risk areas are, respectively, controlled.ResultsIn simulation scenarios 1–5 and 9, where the epidemic strain is Omicron and the susceptible population receives three doses of vaccine, it was found that the real-time peak number of cases in scenario 2, which implemented level 1 controls, was reduced by 18.19%, and in scenario 3, which implemented level 2 controls, it was reduced by 38.94%, compared with scenario 1, where no control measures were taken. Level 1 and level 2 controls do not block transmission but significantly reduce peak incidence and delay the peak time. In scenario 5, even with a high number of initial cases, the implementation of level 3 controls can still control the outbreak quickly, but it requires a longer period of time. However, Omicron has a low rate of severe illness, and the existing beds in City A could largely cope even if the control measures had not been implemented. Analyzing scenarios 4 and 9, level 3 community control and dynamic zeroing of the three zones were similarly successful in interrupting the spread of the epidemic. In simulation scenarios 6–8, where the prevalent strain was the original COVID-19 strain, only level 3 community control was able to rapidly extinguish the outbreak. Unchecked, the outbreak is severe, characterized by high peaks and substantial medical stress. Although level 2 controls reduced real-time incidence and peak new infections by 39.81 and 61.33%, and delayed the peaks by 55 and 52 days, respectively, the high rate of severe illnesses may still overwhelm the medical system.ConclusionControl effects are related to the level, timing and virus characteristics. Level 3 and dynamic zeroing measures can interrupt community transmission in the early stages of an outbreak. During a pandemic, different NPIs must be implemented, considering the virus’s status and cost of control, and ensuring that medical resources are sufficient to maintain medical order