Ensemble-Based Forecast of Volcanic Clouds Using FALL3D-8.1

Operational forecasting of volcanic ash and SO2 clouds is challenging due to the large uncertainties that typically exist on the eruption source term and the mass removal mechanisms occurring downwind. Current operational forecast systems build on single-run deterministic scenarios that do not account for model input uncertainties and their propagation in time during transport. An ensemble-based forecast strategy has been implemented in the FALL3D-8.1 atmospheric dispersal model to configure, execute, and post-process an arbitrary number of ensemble members in a parallel workflow. In addition to intra-member model domain decomposition, a set of inter-member communicators defines a higher level of code parallelism to enable future incorporation of model data assimilation cycles. Two types of standard products are automatically generated by the ensemble post-process task. On one hand, deterministic forecast products result from some combination of the ensemble members (e.g., ensemble mean, ensemble median, etc.) with an associated quantification of forecast uncertainty given by the ensemble spread. On the other hand, probabilistic products can also be built based on the percentage of members that verify a certain threshold condition. The novel aspect of FALL3D-8.1 is the automatisation of the ensemble-based workflow, including an eventual model validation. To this purpose, novel categorical forecast diagnostic metrics, originally defined in deterministic forecast contexts, are generalised here to probabilistic forecasts in order to have a unique set of skill scores valid to both deterministic and probabilistic forecast contexts. Ensemble-based deterministic and probabilistic approaches are compared using different types of observation datasets (satellite cloud detection and retrieval and deposit thickness observations) for the July 2018 Ambae eruption in the Vanuatu archipelago and the April 2015 Calbuco eruption in Chile. Both ensemble-based approaches outperform single-run simulations in all categorical metrics but no clear conclusion can be extracted on which is the best option between these two.

Self-Focusing Property of Partially Coherent Beam With Non-Uniform Correlation Structure in Non-Linear Media

Coherence in a light beam has the potential to serve as a degree of freedom for manipulating the beam. In this work, the self-focusing property of a partially coherent beam with a non-uniform correlation structure propagating in a non-linear medium is investigated. The analysis of the evolution of beam width reveals that the coherence structure plays a vital role in the self-focusing formation. A threshold condition for the coherence radius is proposed for the first time, and the relation of self-focusing length and initial coherence radius is studied numerically and analytically. It is shown that a feasible approach for manipulating the self-focusing length by adjusting the initial coherence radius is achieved.

Long-time dynamics of an epidemic model with nonlocal diffusion and free boundaries

<abstract><p>In this paper, we consider a reaction-diffusion epidemic model with nonlocal diffusion and free boundaries, which generalises the free-boundary epidemic model by Zhao et al. ^{[<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b1">1</xref>]} by including spatial mobility of the infective host population. We obtain a rather complete description of the long-time dynamics of the model. For the reproduction number $ R_0 $ arising from the corresponding ODE model, we establish its relationship to the spreading-vanishing dichotomy via an associated eigenvalue problem. If $ R_0 \le 1 $, we prove that the epidemic vanishes eventually. On the other hand, if $ R_0 &gt; 1 $, we show that either spreading or vanishing may occur depending on its initial size. In the case of spreading, we make use of recent general results by Du and Ni ^{[<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b2">2</xref>]} to show that finite speed or accelerated spreading occurs depending on whether a threshold condition is satisfied by the kernel functions in the nonlocal diffusion operators. In particular, the rate of accelerated spreading is determined for a general class of kernel functions. Our results indicate that, with all other factors fixed, the chance of successful spreading of the disease is increased when the mobility of the infective host is decreased, reaching a maximum when such mobility is 0 (which is the situation considered by Zhao et al. ^{[<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b1">1</xref>]}).</p></abstract>

Long-Term Gully Erosion and Its Response to Human Intervention in the Tableland Region of the Chinese Loess Plateau

The gully erosion process is influenced by both natural conditions and human activities on the tableland region, the Chinese Loess Plateau, which is a densely populated agricultural area with unique topography. For the purpose of assessing long-term gully growth rates, the influencing factors and potential of gully growth, KH-4B satellite images, Quickbird-2 images, and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images were used to assess gully erosion from 1969 to 2019. The effects of runoff, topography and human activities were analyzed with information derived from historical and present images. Ninety-five investigated gullies were classified into four types: 45 growing, 25 stable, 21 infilled and four excavated gullies. The rates (RA) of 45 growing gullies ranged from 0.50 to 20.94 m2·yr−1, with an average of 5.66 m2·yr−1 from 1969 to 2010. The present drainage area, local slope, average drainage slope, annual runoff, and ratio of the terraced area were all significantly different between the stable and growing gullies. The long-term gully growth rate could be estimated using a nonlinear regression model with annual runoff (Qa) and the slope of the drainage area (Sd) as predictors (RA = 0.301Qa0.562Sd, R2 = 0.530). Based on the Sg-A and Sg-Qa relationship that was used to reveal the threshold conditions for gully growth, all growing gullies still have the potential to keep growing, but soil and water conservation measures, including terraces, could change the threshold condition by reducing the effective drainage area. The results of this study could be helpful for preventing further gully erosion by dealing with gullies far above the threshold line.

Hydrogen Isotope Effect on Self-Organized Radial Electric Field Criticality During Electron Internal Transport Barrier Formation in Toroidal Plasmas

Self-organized structure formation in magnetically confined plasmas is one of the most attractive subjects in modern experimental physics. Nonequilibrium media are known to often exhibit phenomena that cannot be predicted by superposition of linear theories. One representative example of such phenomena is the hydrogen isotope effect in fusion plasmas, where the larger the mass of the hydrogen isotope fuel is the better the plasma confinement becomes, contrary to what simple scaling models anticipate. In this article, threshold condition of a plasma structure formation is shown to have a strong hydrogen isotope effect. To investigate the underlying mechanism of this isotope effect, the electrostatic potential is directly measured by a heavy ion beam probe. It is elucidated that the positive radial electric field structure can be driven by less input power normalized by plasma density in plasmas with larger isotope mass across the structure formation.

Spatial Data Sequence Selection Based on a User-Defined Condition Using GPGPU

The size of spatial data is growing intensively due to the emergence of and the tremendous advances in technology such as sensors and the internet of things. Supporting high-performance queries on this large volume of data becomes essential in several data- and compute-intensive applications. Unfortunately, most of the existing methods and approaches are based on a traditional computing framework (uniprocessors) which makes them not scalable and not adequate to deal with large-scale data. In this work, we present a high-performance query for massive spatio–temporal data. The query consists of selecting fixed size raster subsequences, based on the average of their region of interest, from a spatio–temporal raster sequence satisfying a user threshold condition. In our paper, for the purpose of simplification, we consider that the region of interest is the entire raster and not only a subregion. Our aim is to speed up the execution using parallel primitives and pure CUDA. Furthermore, we propose a new method based on a sorting step to save computations and boost the speed of the query execution. The test results show that the proposed methods are faster and good performance is achieved even with large-scale rasters and data.

Influence of piezoelectricity, doping and magnetostatic field on Brillouin amplification in compound (AIIIBV and AIIBVI) semiconductors

A theoretical formulation followed by numerical analysis describing Brillouin amplification in compound (AIIIBV and AIIBVI) semiconductors is explored. The threshold condition for the onset of Brillouin amplification is determined. Well above the threshold intensity, the influence of piezoelectricity, doping concentration, and external magnetostatic field on the parameters characterizing Brillouin amplification viz. Brillouin amplification coefficient, transmitted intensity of Brillouin-scattered Stokes mode (BSSM), and Brillouin cell efficiency of the Brillouin cell isestimated. Numerical analysis is made for three different Brillouin cells consisting of [Formula: see text]-InSb, [Formula: see text]-GaAs, and [Formula: see text]-CdS, at 77[Formula: see text]K duly irradiated by a pulsed CO2 laser. Efforts are directed towards to determine appropriate values of doping concentration and magnetostatic field to enhance the parameters characterizing Brillouin amplification, at lower excitation intensity, and to establish the suitability of compound semiconductors as hosts for fabrication of efficient Brillouin amplifiers.