Polar vortex formation in giant-planet atmospheres due to moist convection

A strong cyclonic vortex has been observed on each of Saturn’s poles, coincident with a local maximum in observed tropospheric temperature. Neptune also exhibits a relatively warm, although much more transient, region on its south pole. Whether similar features exist on Jupiter will be resolved by the 2016 Juno mission. Energetic, small-scale storm-like features that originate from the water-cloud level or lower have been observed on each of the giant planets and attributed to moist convection, suggesting that these storms play a significant role in global heat transfer from the hot interior to space. Nevertheless, the creation and maintenance of Saturn’s polar vortices, and their presence or absence on the other giant planets, are not understood. Here we use simulations with a shallow-water model to show that storm generation, driven by moist convection, can create a strong polar cyclone throughout the depth of a planet’s troposphere. We find that the type of shallow polar flow that occurs on a giant planet can be described by the size ratio of small eddies to the planetary radius and the energy density of its atmosphere due to latent heating from moist convection. We suggest that the observed difference in these parameters between Saturn and Jupiter may preclude a Jovian polar cyclone.National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research FellowshipNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (ATM-0850639)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (AGS-1032244)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (AGS-1136480)United States. Office of Naval Research (N00014-14-1-0062

Natural variation in immune responses to neonatal mycobacterium bovis bacillus calmette-guerin (BCG) vaccination in a cohort of Gambian infants

Background There is a need for new vaccines for tuberculosis (TB) that protect against adult pulmonary disease in regions where BCG is not effective. However, BCG could remain integral to TB control programmes because neonatal BCG protects against disseminated forms of childhood TB and many new vaccines rely on BCG to prime immunity or are recombinant strains of BCG. Interferon-gamma (IFN-) is required for immunity to mycobacteria and used as a marker of immunity when new vaccines are tested. Although BCG is widely given to neonates IFN- responses to BCG in this age group are poorly described. Characterisation of IFN- responses to BCG is required for interpretation of vaccine immunogenicity study data where BCG is part of the vaccination strategy. Methodology/Principal Findings 236 healthy Gambian babies were vaccinated with M. bovis BCG at birth. IFN-, interleukin (IL)-5 and IL-13 responses to purified protein derivative (PPD), killed Mycobacterium tuberculosis (KMTB), M. tuberculosis short term culture filtrate (STCF) and M. bovis BCG antigen 85 complex (Ag85) were measured in a whole blood assay two months after vaccination. Cytokine responses varied up to 10 log-fold within this population. The majority of infants (89-98% depending on the antigen) made IFN- responses and there was significant correlation between IFN- responses to the different mycobacterial antigens (Spearman’s coefficient ranged from 0.340 to 0.675, p=10-6-10-22). IL-13 and IL-5 responses were generally low and there were more non-responders (33-75%) for these cytokines. Nonetheless, significant correlations were observed for IL-13 and IL-5 responses to different mycobacterial antigens Conclusions/Significance Cytokine responses to mycobacterial antigens in BCG-vaccinated infants are heterogeneous and there is significant inter-individual variation. Further studies in large populations of infants are required to identify the factors that determine variation in IFN- responses

A falls prevention programme to improve quality of life, physical function and falls efficacy in older people receiving home help services: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Falls and fall-related injuries in older adults are associated with great burdens, both for the individuals, the health care system and the society. Previous research has shown evidence for the efficiency of exercise as falls prevention. An understudied group are older adults receiving home help services, and the effect of a falls prevention programme on health-related quality of life is unclear. The primary aim of this randomised controlled trial is to examine the effect of a falls prevention programme on quality of life, physical function and falls efficacy in older adults receiving home help services. A secondary aim is to explore the mediating factors between falls prevention and health-related quality of life. METHODS: The study is a single-blinded randomised controlled trial. Participants are older adults, aged 67 or older, receiving home help services, who are able to walk with or without walking aids, who have experienced at least one fall during the last 12 months and who have a Mini Mental State Examination of 23 or above. The intervention group receives a programme, based on the Otago Exercise Programme, lasting 12 weeks including home visits and motivational telephone calls. The control group receives usual care. The primary outcome is health-related quality of life (SF-36). Secondary outcomes are leg strength, balance, walking speed, walking habits, activities of daily living, nutritional status and falls efficacy. All measurements are performed at baseline, following intervention at 3 months and at 6 months' follow-up. Sample size, based on the primary outcome, is set to 150 participants randomised into the two arms, including an estimated 15-20% drop out. Participants are recruited from six municipalities in Norway. DISCUSSION: This trial will generate new knowledge on the effects of an exercise falls prevention programme among older fallers receiving home help services. This knowledge will be useful for clinicians, for health managers in the primary health care service and for policy makers

Identification of plastic constitutive parameters at large deformations from three dimensional displacement fields

The aim of this paper is to provide a general procedure to extract the constitutive parameters of a plasticity model starting from displacement measurements and using the Virtual Fields Method. This is a classical inverse problem which has been already investigated in the literature, however several new features are developed here. First of all the procedure applies to a general three-dimensional displacement field which leads to large plastic deformations, no assumptions are made such as plane stress or plane strain although only pressure-independent plasticity is considered. Moreover the equilibrium equation is written in terms of the deviatoric stress tensor that can be directly computed from the strain field without iterations. Thanks to this, the identification routine is much faster compared to other inverse methods such as finite element updating. The proposed method can be a valid tool to study complex phenomena which involve severe plastic deformation and where the state of stress is completely triaxial, e.g. strain localization or necking occurrence. The procedure has been validated using a three dimensional displacement field obtained from a simulated experiment. The main potentialities as well as a first sensitivity study on the influence of measurement errors are illustrated

Single‐Column Model Simulations of Subtropical Marine Boundary‐Layer Cloud Transitions Under Weakening Inversions

Results are presented of the GASS/EUCLIPSE single‐column model intercomparison study on the subtropical marine low‐level cloud transition. A central goal is to establish the performance of state‐of‐the‐art boundary‐layer schemes for weather and climate models for this cloud regime, using large‐eddy simulations of the same scenes as a reference. A novelty is that the comparison covers four different cases instead of one, in order to broaden the covered parameter space. Three cases are situated in the North‐Eastern Pacific, while one reflects conditions in the North‐Eastern Atlantic. A set of variables is considered that reflects key aspects of the transition process, making use of simple metrics to establish the model performance. Using this method, some longstanding problems in low‐level cloud representation are identified. Considerable spread exists among models concerning the cloud amount, its vertical structure, and the associated impact on radiative transfer. The sign and amplitude of these biases differ somewhat per case, depending on how far the transition has progressed. After cloud breakup the ensemble median exhibits the well‐known “too few too bright” problem. The boundary‐layer deepening rate and its state of decoupling are both underestimated, while the representation of the thin capping cloud layer appears complicated by a lack of vertical resolution. Encouragingly, some models are successful in representing the full set of variables, in particular, the vertical structure and diurnal cycle of the cloud layer in transition. An intriguing result is that the median of the model ensemble performs best, inspiring a new approach in subgrid parameterization

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Search for direct pair production of the top squark in all-hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for direct pair production of the scalar partner to the top quark using an integrated luminosity of 20.1fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at √s = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported. The top squark is assumed to decay via t˜→tχ˜01 or t˜→ bχ˜±1 →bW(∗)χ˜01 , where χ˜01 (χ˜±1 ) denotes the lightest neutralino (chargino) in supersymmetric models. The search targets a fully-hadronic final state in events with four or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No significant excess over the Standard Model background prediction is observed, and exclusion limits are reported in terms of the top squark and neutralino masses and as a function of the branching fraction of t˜ → tχ˜01 . For a branching fraction of 100%, top squark masses in the range 270–645 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 30 GeV. For a branching fraction of 50% to either t˜ → tχ˜01 or t˜ → bχ˜±1 , and assuming the χ˜±1 mass to be twice the χ˜01 mass, top squark masses in the range 250–550 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 60 GeV

Detecting failure of climate predictions

The practical consequences of climate change challenge society to formulate responses that are more suited to achieving long-term objectives, even if those responses have to be made in the face of uncertainty. Such a decision-analytic focus uses the products of climate science as probabilistic predictions about the effects of management policies. Here we present methods to detect when climate predictions are failing to capture the system dynamics. For a single model, we measure goodness of fit based on the empirical distribution function, and define failure when the distribution of observed values significantly diverges from the modelled distribution. For a set of models, the same statistic can be used to provide relative weights for the individual models, and we define failure when there is no linear weighting of the ensemble models that produces a satisfactory match to the observations. Early detection of failure of a set of predictions is important for improving model predictions and the decisions based on them. We show that these methods would have detected a range shift in northern pintail 20 years before it was actually discovered, and are increasingly giving more weight to those climate models that forecast a September ice-free Arctic by 2055

New Fathers' Perinatal Depression and Anxiety-Treatment Options: An Integrative Review.

More than 10% of fathers experience depression and anxiety during the perinatal period, but paternal perinatal depression (PPND) and anxiety have received less attention than maternal perinatal mental health problems. Few mainstream treatment options are available for men with PPND and anxiety. The aim of this literature review was to summarize the current understanding of PPND and the treatment programs specifically designed for fathers with perinatal depression. Eight electronic databases were searched using a predefined strategy, and reference lists were also hand searched. PPND and anxiety were identified to have a negative impact on family relationships, as well as the health of mothers and children. Evidence suggests a lack of support and tailored treatment options for men having trouble adjusting to the transition to fatherhood. Of the limited options available, cognitive behavioral therapy, group work, and blended delivery programs, including e-support approaches appear to be most effective in helping fathers with perinatal depression and anxiety. The review findings have important implications for the understanding of PPND and anxiety. Future research is needed to address the adoption of father-inclusive and father-specific models of care to encourage fathers' help-seeking behavior. Inclusion of male-specific requirements into support and treatment options can improve the ability of services to engage new fathers. Psychotherapeutic intervention could assist to address the cognitive differences and dissonance for men adjusting to the role of father, including male identity and role expectations

Assessment of the Potential Use of Compost Filled Plastic Void Forming Units to Serve as Vents on Historic Landfills and Related Sites

Much of the solid municipal waste generated by society is sent to landfill, where biodegrading processes result in the release of methane, a major contributor to climate change. This work examined the possibility of installing a type of biofilter within paved areas of the landfill site, making use of modified pervious paving, both to allow the escape of ground gas and to avoid contamination of groundwater, using specially designed test models with provision for gas sampling in various chambers. It proposes the incorporation of an active layer within a void forming box with a view to making dual use of the pervious pavement to provide both a drainage feature and a ground gas vent, whilst providing an active layer for the oxidation of methane by microbial action. The methane removal was observed to have been effected by microbial oxidation and as such offers great promise as a method of methane removal to allow for development of landfills.<br/