scholarly journals Stream temperature prediction in ungauged basins: review of recent approaches and description of a new physically-based analytical model

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 4081-4155 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Gallice ◽  
B. Schaefli ◽  
M. Lehning ◽  
M. P. Parlange ◽  
H. Huwald

Abstract. The development of stream temperature regression models at regional scales has regained some popularity over the past years. These models are used to predict stream temperature in ungauged catchments to assess the impact of human activities or climate change on riverine fauna over large spatial areas. A comprehensive literature review presented in this study shows that the temperature metrics predicted by the majority of models correspond to yearly aggregates, such as the popular annual maximum weekly mean temperature (MWMT). As a consequence, current models are often unable to predict the annual cycle of stream temperature, nor can the majority of them forecast the interannual variation of stream temperature. This study presents a new model to estimate the monthly mean stream temperature of ungauged rivers over multiple years in an Alpine country (Switzerland). Contrary to the models developed to date, which mostly rely upon statistical regression to express stream temperature as a function of physiographic and climatic variables, this one rests upon the analytical solution to a simplified version of the energy-balance equation over an entire stream network. This physically-based approach presents some advantages: (1) the functional form linking stream temperature to the predictor variables is directly obtained from first principles, (2) the spatial extent over which the predictor variables are averaged naturally arises during model development, and (3) the regression coefficients can be interpreted from a physical point of view – their values can therefore be constrained to remain within plausible bounds. The evaluation of the model over a new freely available data set shows that the monthly mean stream temperature curve can be reproduced with a root mean square error of ±1.3 °C, which is similar in precision to the predictions obtained with a multi-linear regression model. We illustrate through a simple example how the physical basis of the model can be used to gain more insight into the stream temperature dynamics at regional scales.

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (9) ◽  
pp. 3727-3753 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Gallice ◽  
B. Schaefli ◽  
M. Lehning ◽  
M. B. Parlange ◽  
H. Huwald

Abstract. The development of stream temperature regression models at regional scales has regained some popularity over the past years. These models are used to predict stream temperature in ungauged catchments to assess the impact of human activities or climate change on riverine fauna over large spatial areas. A comprehensive literature review presented in this study shows that the temperature metrics predicted by the majority of models correspond to yearly aggregates, such as the popular annual maximum weekly mean temperature (MWMT). As a consequence, current models are often unable to predict the annual cycle of stream temperature, nor can the majority of them forecast the inter-annual variation of stream temperature. This study presents a new statistical model to estimate the monthly mean stream temperature of ungauged rivers over multiple years in an Alpine country (Switzerland). Contrary to similar models developed to date, which are mostly based on standard regression approaches, this one attempts to incorporate physical aspects into its structure. It is based on the analytical solution to a simplified version of the energy-balance equation over an entire stream network. Some terms of this solution cannot be readily evaluated at the regional scale due to the lack of appropriate data, and are therefore approximated using classical statistical techniques. This physics-inspired approach presents some advantages: (1) the main model structure is directly obtained from first principles, (2) the spatial extent over which the predictor variables are averaged naturally arises during model development, and (3) most of the regression coefficients can be interpreted from a physical point of view – their values can therefore be constrained to remain within plausible bounds. The evaluation of the model over a new freely available data set shows that the monthly mean stream temperature curve can be reproduced with a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of ±1.3 °C, which is similar in precision to the predictions obtained with a multi-linear regression model. We illustrate through a simple example how the physical aspects contained in the model structure can be used to gain more insight into the stream temperature dynamics at regional scales.


Author(s):  
M. R. W. Brake ◽  
P. L. Reu ◽  
D. S. Aragon

The results of two sets of impact experiments are reported within. To assist with model development using the impact data reported, the materials are mechanically characterized using a series of standard experiments. The first set of impact data comes from a series of coefficient of restitution (COR) experiments, in which a 2 m long pendulum is used to study “in-context” measurements of the coefficient of restitution for eight different materials (6061-T6 aluminum, phosphor bronze alloy 510, Hiperco, nitronic 60A, stainless steel 304, titanium, copper, and annealed copper). The coefficient of restitution is measured via two different techniques: digital image correlation (DIC) and laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV). Due to the strong agreement of the two different methods, only results from the digital image correlation are reported. The coefficient of restitution experiments are in context as the scales of the geometry and impact velocities are representative of common features in the motivating application for this research. Finally, a series of compliance measurements are detailed for the same set of materials. The compliance measurements are conducted using both nano-indentation and micro-indentation machines, providing sub-nm displacement resolution and μN force resolution. Good agreement is seen for load levels spanned by both machines. As the transition from elastic to plastic behavior occurs at contact displacements on the order of 30 nm, this data set provides a unique insight into the transitionary region.


Author(s):  
Moritz Lipperheide ◽  
Thomas Bexten ◽  
Manfred Wirsum ◽  
Martin Gassner ◽  
Stefano Bernero

Reliable engine and emission models allow for an online monitoring of commercial gas turbine operation and help the plant operator and the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to ensure emission compliance of the aging engine. However, model development and validation require fine-tuning on the particular engines, which may differ in a fleet of a single design type by production, assembly and aging status. For this purpose, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) offer a good and fast alternative to traditional physically-based engine modeling, because the model creation and adaption is merely an automatized process in commercially available software environments. However, ANN performance depends strongly on the availability of suitable data and a-priori data processing. The present work investigates the impact of specific engine information from the OEM’s design tools on ANN performance. As an alternative to a strictly data-based benchmark approach, engine characteristics were incorporated into ANNs by a pre-processing of the raw measurements with a simplified engine model. The resulting ‘virtual’ measurements, i.e. hot gas temperatures, then served as inputs to ANN training and application during long-term gas turbine operation. When processed input parameters were used for ANNs, overall long-term NOx prediction improved by 55%, and CO prediction by 16% in terms of RMSE, yielding comparable overall RMSE values to the physically-based model.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. e001801
Author(s):  
Sarah Hanieh ◽  
Sabine Braat ◽  
Julie A Simpson ◽  
Tran Thi Thu Ha ◽  
Thach D Tran ◽  
...  

IntroductionGlobally, an estimated 151 million children under 5 years of age still suffer from the adverse effects of stunting. We sought to develop and externally validate an early life predictive model that could be applied in infancy to accurately predict risk of stunting in preschool children.MethodsWe conducted two separate prospective cohort studies in Vietnam that intensively monitored children from early pregnancy until 3 years of age. They included 1168 and 475 live-born infants for model development and validation, respectively. Logistic regression on child stunting at 3 years of age was performed for model development, and the predicted probabilities for stunting were used to evaluate the performance of this model in the validation data set.ResultsStunting prevalence was 16.9% (172 of 1015) in the development data set and 16.4% (70 of 426) in the validation data set. Key predictors included in the final model were paternal and maternal height, maternal weekly weight gain during pregnancy, infant sex, gestational age at birth, and infant weight and length at 6 months of age. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve in the validation data set was 0.85 (95% Confidence Interval, 0.80–0.90).ConclusionThis tool applied to infants at 6 months of age provided valid prediction of risk of stunting at 3 years of age using a readily available set of parental and infant measures. Further research is required to examine the impact of preventive measures introduced at 6 months of age on those identified as being at risk of growth faltering at 3 years of age.


Author(s):  
Louay N. Mohammad ◽  
Ananda Herath ◽  
Baoshan Huang

The presence of water in a pavement system is detrimental to its life. Permeable asphalt concrete pavement structures are vulnerable to stripping, which causes premature damage under heavy traffic. To assess the permeability of asphalt mixtures, a research study was conducted at the Louisiana Transportation Research Center (LTRC). Laboratory permeability tests were performed on field cores taken from 17 Superpave® projects in Louisiana. An LTRC-modified version of Karol-Warner's falling-head permeameter was used to conduct the permeability test. A sensitivity analysis was performed to relate the permeability test results to mixture volumetric properties such as air void content, compaction effort, mixture gradation, and lift thickness. A statistical regression model was developed to predict the permeability of Superpave mixtures from the mixture volumetric properties. The model successfully predicted the coefficient of permeability of asphalt mixtures from a separate data set that was not included in the model development.


2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (03) ◽  
pp. 102-122
Author(s):  
Tuu Ho Huy

The purpose of this study is to discuss and test the direct and moderating effects of attitudes, social norms, perceived behavioral control (PBC), past behavior, and habit strength in explaining Vietnamese consumers’ intention to consume fish. In addition to a data set of 466 consumers in a coastal province in Central Vietnam and structural equation modelling, a model development strategy with six nested models is used to test hypotheses. Results indicate that attitude, social norms, and PBC have a positive effect on intention. Both past behavior and habit strength have a significantly positive influence on intention and considerably increase the explained variance of intention. In particular, the results also indicate that habit strength, past behavior, and social norms negatively moderate the impact of attitudes on intention. All of these findings emphasize the importance of past behavior and habit strength as well as interactions within the theory of planned behavior in explaining intention to consume fish in Vietnam.


Author(s):  
Armin Hadadian ◽  
Sairam Prabhakar ◽  
Bjorn Sjodin ◽  
Keith Taylor

Predictive lifing with probabilistic treatment of key variables represents a promising approach to realizing the digital gas turbine of the future. In this paper, we present a predictive model for creep life assessment of an uncooled turbine blade. The model development methodology draws on well-established machine learning principles to develop and validate a surrogate model for creep life from engine performance parameters. Verified creep life results, obtained from 3D non-linear thermo-mechanical finite element simulation for varying engine operating conditions are used as the basis for model development. The selection of model response surface order is studied over a range of models by evaluating normalized residual error on training and uncorrelated validation data sets. A model that is fully quadratic in the data set features is shown to have excellent predictive capability, yielding nominal creep life predictions to within ± 3% on the validation data set. This work then considers probabilistic techniques to evaluate the impact of uncertainty associated with each key factor on the predicted nominal creep life in order to achieve a mandated life target with a defined probability of failure.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 2065-2085 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. M. Holländer ◽  
H. Bormann ◽  
T. Blume ◽  
W. Buytaert ◽  
G. B. Chirico ◽  
...  

Abstract. In practice, the catchment hydrologist is often confronted with the task of predicting discharge without having the needed records for calibration. Here, we report the discharge predictions of 10 modellers – using the model of their choice – for the man-made Chicken Creek catchment (6 ha, northeast Germany, Gerwin et al., 2009b) and we analyse how well they improved their prediction in three steps based on adding information prior to each following step. The modellers predicted the catchment's hydrological response in its initial phase without having access to the observed records. They used conceptually different physically based models and their modelling experience differed largely. Hence, they encountered two problems: (i) to simulate discharge for an ungauged catchment and (ii) using models that were developed for catchments, which are not in a state of landscape transformation. The prediction exercise was organized in three steps: (1) for the first prediction the modellers received a basic data set describing the catchment to a degree somewhat more complete than usually available for a priori predictions of ungauged catchments; they did not obtain information on stream flow, soil moisture, nor groundwater response and had therefore to guess the initial conditions; (2) before the second prediction they inspected the catchment on-site and discussed their first prediction attempt; (3) for their third prediction they were offered additional data by charging them pro forma with the costs for obtaining this additional information. Holländer et al. (2009) discussed the range of predictions obtained in step (1). Here, we detail the modeller's assumptions and decisions in accounting for the various processes. We document the prediction progress as well as the learning process resulting from the availability of added information. For the second and third steps, the progress in prediction quality is evaluated in relation to individual modelling experience and costs of added information. In this qualitative analysis of a statistically small number of predictions we learned (i) that soft information such as the modeller's system understanding is as important as the model itself (hard information), (ii) that the sequence of modelling steps matters (field visit, interactions between differently experienced experts, choice of model, selection of available data, and methods for parameter guessing), and (iii) that added process understanding can be as efficient as adding data for improving parameters needed to satisfy model requirements.


Crisis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuan-Ying Lee ◽  
Chung-Yi Li ◽  
Kun-Chia Chang ◽  
Tsung-Hsueh Lu ◽  
Ying-Yeh Chen

Abstract. Background: We investigated the age at exposure to parental suicide and the risk of subsequent suicide completion in young people. The impact of parental and offspring sex was also examined. Method: Using a cohort study design, we linked Taiwan's Birth Registry (1978–1997) with Taiwan's Death Registry (1985–2009) and identified 40,249 children who had experienced maternal suicide (n = 14,431), paternal suicide (n = 26,887), or the suicide of both parents (n = 281). Each exposed child was matched to 10 children of the same sex and birth year whose parents were still alive. This yielded a total of 398,081 children for our non-exposed cohort. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to compare the suicide risk of the exposed and non-exposed groups. Results: Compared with the non-exposed group, offspring who were exposed to parental suicide were 3.91 times (95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.10–4.92 more likely to die by suicide after adjusting for baseline characteristics. The risk of suicide seemed to be lower in older male offspring (HR = 3.94, 95% CI = 2.57–6.06), but higher in older female offspring (HR = 5.30, 95% CI = 3.05–9.22). Stratified analyses based on parental sex revealed similar patterns as the combined analysis. Limitations: As only register-­based data were used, we were not able to explore the impact of variables not contained in the data set, such as the role of mental illness. Conclusion: Our findings suggest a prominent elevation in the risk of suicide among offspring who lost their parents to suicide. The risk elevation differed according to the sex of the afflicted offspring as well as to their age at exposure.


2013 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 40-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Young ◽  
Philip Davignon ◽  
Margaret B. Hansen ◽  
Mark A. Eggen

ABSTRACT Recent media coverage has focused on the supply of physicians in the United States, especially with the impact of a growing physician shortage and the Affordable Care Act. State medical boards and other entities maintain data on physician licensure and discipline, as well as some biographical data describing their physician populations. However, there are gaps of workforce information in these sources. The Federation of State Medical Boards' (FSMB) Census of Licensed Physicians and the AMA Masterfile, for example, offer valuable information, but they provide a limited picture of the physician workforce. Furthermore, they are unable to shed light on some of the nuances in physician availability, such as how much time physicians spend providing direct patient care. In response to these gaps, policymakers and regulators have in recent years discussed the creation of a physician minimum data set (MDS), which would be gathered periodically and would provide key physician workforce information. While proponents of an MDS believe it would provide benefits to a variety of stakeholders, an effort has not been attempted to determine whether state medical boards think it is important to collect physician workforce data and if they currently collect workforce information from licensed physicians. To learn more, the FSMB sent surveys to the executive directors at state medical boards to determine their perceptions of collecting workforce data and current practices regarding their collection of such data. The purpose of this article is to convey results from this effort. Survey findings indicate that the vast majority of boards view physician workforce information as valuable in the determination of health care needs within their state, and that various boards are already collecting some data elements. Analysis of the data confirms the potential benefits of a physician minimum data set (MDS) and why state medical boards are in a unique position to collect MDS information from physicians.


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