EU-NICE, Eurasian University Network for International Cooperation in Earthquakes

Despite the remarkable scientific advancements of earthquake engineering and seismology in many countries, seismic risk is still growing at a high rate in the world’s most vulnerable communities. Successful practices have shown that a community’s capacity to manage and reduce its seismic risk relies on capitalization on policies, on technology and research results. An important role is played by education, than contribute to strengthening technical curricula of future practitioners and researchers through university and higher education programmes. In recent years an increasing number of initiatives have been launched in this field at the international and global cooperation level. Cooperative international academic research and training is key to reducing the gap between advanced and more vulnerable regions. EU-NICE is a European Commission funded higher education partnership for international development cooperation with the objective to build capacity of individuals who will operate at institutions located in seismic prone Asian Countries. The project involves five European Universities, eight Asian universities and four associations and NGOs active in advanced research on seismic mitigation, disaster risk management and international development. The project consists of a comprehensive mobility scheme open to nationals from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, North Korea, Philippines, and Sri Lanka who plan to enrol in school or conduct research at one of five European partner universities in Italy, Greece and Portugal. During the 2010-14 time span a total number of 104 mobilities are being involved in scientific activities at the undergraduate, masters, PhD, postdoctoral and academic-staff exchange levels. This high number of mobilities and activities is selected and designed so as to produce an overall increase of knowledge that can result in an impact on earthquake mitigation. Researchers, future policymakers and practitioners build up their curricula over a range of disciplines in the fields of engineering, seismology, disaster risk management and urban planning. Specific educational and research activities focus on earthquake risk mitigation related topics such as: anti-seismic structural design, structural engineering, advanced computer structural collapse analysis, seismology, experimental laboratory studies, international and development issues in disaster risk management, social-economical impact studies, international relations and conflict resolution

A Longitudinal Pilot Proton MRS Investigation of the Manic and Euthymic States of Bipolar Disorder

Several lines of evidence implicate dysfunction in brain energy production as a key component of bipolar disorder. In particular, elevated brain lactate levels observed in this condition suggest a shift from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism, possibly as a result of mitochondrial abnormalities. Most prior imaging studies of brain metabolites were performed in either euthymic or depressed bipolar patients or compared different populations in different mood states. We sought to measure brain metabolite concentrations in the same patients in both manic and euthymic states. Given the dramatic changes in clinical state of bipolar disorder patients, we hypothesized that previously observed abnormalities in lactate concentrations in bipolar disorder might show state dependent changes. In this study 15 patients (mean age 36.1 years) diagnosed with bipolar I disorder underwent proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the anterior cingulate cortex and parieto-occipital cortex during hospitalization for acute mania (mean Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) 22.1). Seven of these subjects returned (mean interval 21.16 months) to have imaging repeated while euthymic (mean YMRS 2.0). A group of age- and gender-matched control participants (N=6) were scanned as well. We report that during mania, bipolar disorder subjects had lactate levels comparable to healthy control subjects but during euthymia these levels were significantly reduced. No significant change was observed for other metabolites. These results implicate mood dependent alterations in energy metabolism in the biology of bipolar disorder. Additionally, this finding has potential use as a biomarker for both evaluating novel treatments as well as diagnostic clarification between mood disorders

A development cooperation Erasmus Mundus partnership for capacity building in earthquake mitigation science and higher education

Successful practices have shown that a community’s capacity to manage and reduce its seismic risk relies on capitalization on policies, on technology and research results. An important role is played by education, than contribute to strengthening technical curricula of future practitioners and researchers through university and higher education programs. EUNICE is a European Commission funded higher education partnership for international development cooperation with the objective to build capacity of individuals who will operate at institutions located in seismic prone Asian Countries. The project involves five European Universities, eight Asian universities and four associations and NGOs active in advanced research on seismic mitigation, disaster risk management and international development. The project consists of a comprehensive mobility scheme open to nationals from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, North Korea, Philippines, and Sri Lanka who plan to enroll in school or conduct research at one of five European partner universities in Italy, Greece and Portugal. During the 2010-14 time span a total number of 104 mobilities are being involved in scientific activities at the undergraduate, masters, PhD, postdoctoral and academic-staff exchange levels. Researchers, future policymakers and practitioners build up their curricula over a range of disciplines in the fields of earthquake engineering, seismology, disaster risk management and urban planning

Numerical and Experimental Study of Forced Mixing with Static Magnetic Field on SiGe System

A combined numerical and experimental investigation has been undertaken to explore the benefits of an applied static magnetic field on Silicon transport into a Germanium melt. This work utilized a similar material configuration to that used in the Liquid Phase Diffusion (LPD) and Melt-Replenishment Czochralski (Cz) growth systems. The measured concentration profiles from the samples processed with and without the application of magnetic field showed very similar shape. The amount of silicon transport into the melt is slightly higher in the samples processed under magnetic field, and there is a substantial difference in dissolution interface shape indicating a change in flow structure. Without magnetic field, a flat stable interface is observed. In the presence of an applied field, however, the dissolution interface remains flat in the center but dramatically curves back into the source material near the wall. This indicates a far higher dissolution rate at the edge of the silicon source. The 3-D numerical simulation results verify these observations and show that the flow structure of the melt has dramatically changed under the effect of magnetic field. Magnetic field-driven circulation cells develop at the edge of the melt increasing dissolution from this area. The change in the flow field is reflected in the concentration field, and consequently the transport of silicon into the melt is increased along the crucible wall

Broadband conversion of microwaves into propagating spin waves in patterned magnetic structures

We have used time-resolved scanning Kerr microscopy and micromagnetic simulations to demonstrate that, when driven by the spatially uniform microwave field, the edges of patterned magnetic samples represent both efficient and highly tunable sources of propagating spin waves. The excitation is due to the local enhancement of the resonance frequency induced by the non-uniform dynamic demagnetizing field generated by precessing magnetization aligned with the edges. Our findings represent a crucial step forward in the design of nanoscale spin-wave sources for magnonic architectures and are also highly relevant to the understanding and interpretation of magnetization dynamics driven by spatially uniform magnetic fields in patterned magnetic samples

A Numerical Simulation Study of Silicon Dissolution under Magnetic Field

When a metallic liquid is subject to strong magnetic body forces, the issues of convergence and numerical stability may arise in numerical simulations. Handling of magnetic body force terms needs care. In this work we have studied two open codes and discussed the related issues. Magnetic force and mass transport terms were added to these codes. Handling the stability issues was discussed. The developed systems were validated by two benchmark cases. Then, the dissolution process of silicon into the germanium melt was selected as an application. The objective was the numerical study of the dissolution process with and without the application of an applied static magnetic field to examine the conditions used in experiments. The simulation results agree with experiments in both cases in predicting concentration distribution in the melt. However, they do not predict the experimentally observed enhanced dissolution structure near the ampoule wall along the source/melt interface under magnetic field

Numerical Simulation of Liquid Phase Diffusion Growth of SiGe Single Crystals under Zero Gravity

Liquid Phase Diffusion (LPD) growth of SixGe1-x single crystals has been numerically simulated under zero gravity. The objective was to examine growth rate and silicon concentration distribution in the LPD grown crystals under diffusion dominated mass transport prior to the planned LPD space experiments on the International Space Station (ISS). Since we are interested in predicting growth rate and crystal composition, the gravitational fluctuation of the ISS (g-jitter) was neglected and the gravity level was taken as zero for simplicity. A fixed grid approach has been utilized for the simulation. An integrated top-level solver was developed in OpenFOAM to carry out numerical simulations for the melting and solidification periods of the LPD growth process. The solver employs the well-known enthalpy method for modeling the initial melting process and uses the virtual front-tracking method, originally developed to model dendritic growth. This simulates the solidification as driven by saturation and precipitation as is the case for this solution growth technique. The melting simulation determines the initial conditions for growth interface, temperature, and concentration. The solver then calculates the onset of solidification, the evolution of the growth interface. In addition, the concentration and temperature fields are calculated in the melt and grown crystal. The present simulation results agree qualitatively with the radial and axial silicon distributions in the grown crystals of the Earth-bound experiments, and also with those previously predicted numerically. The computed total growth rate also agrees quantitatively with that of the experiment. However, the simulation shows slight differences in the interface shapes and predicts faster initial growth rate. Such a small discrepancy is expected since the contribution of natural convection in the melt was not included in the present simulation. A well-design LPD space experiment may shed light on this prediction

Implications for prediction and hazard assessment from the 2004 Parkfield earthquake

Obtaining high-quality measurements close to a large earthquake is not easy: one has to be in the right place at the right time with the right instruments. Such a convergence happened, for the first time, when the 28 September 2004 Parkfield, California, earthquake occurred on the San Andreas fault in the middle of a dense network of instruments designed to record it. The resulting data reveal aspects of the earthquake process never before seen. Here we show what these data, when combined with data from earlier Parkfield earthquakes, tell us about earthquake physics and earthquake prediction. The 2004 Parkfield earthquake, with its lack of obvious precursors, demonstrates that reliable short-term earthquake prediction still is not achievable. To reduce the societal impact of earthquakes now, we should focus on developing the next generation of models that can provide better predictions of the strength and location of damaging ground shaking

Impact Factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?

A review of Garfield's journal impact factor and its specific implementation as the Thomson Reuters Impact Factor reveals several weaknesses in this commonly-used indicator of journal standing. Key limitations include the mismatch between citing and cited documents, the deceptive display of three decimals that belies the real precision, and the absence of confidence intervals. These are minor issues that are easily amended and should be corrected, but more substantive improvements are needed. There are indications that the scientific community seeks and needs better certification of journal procedures to improve the quality of published science. Comprehensive certification of editorial and review procedures could help ensure adequate procedures to detect duplicate and fraudulent submissions.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures, 6 table