New opportunities for identification of precursors of sea earthquakes

In many publications, as well as in media statements, prominent foreign and Bulgarian seismologists admit that seismology still does not have reliable methods and technical means for the identification of earthquake precursors in marine conditions (short-term forecast). Several facts, circumstances, and considerations are presented, motivating the need to immediately start experimental research in this area. A Bulgarian patent of a device for capturing underwater gas sources is offered for transmitting characteristics of the underwater gas source to a receiving device on land, indicating an impending earthquake. A strategy for experimentation and application of the device through the implementation of a new European project, uniting the forces and capabilities of the South European countries, is being proposed.

Spatialized Epidemiological Forecasting applied to Covid-19 Pandemic at Departmental Scale in France

In this paper, we present a spatialized extension of a SIR model that accounts for undetected infections and recoveries as well as the load on hospital services. The spatialized compartmental model we introduce is governed by a set of partial differential equations (PDEs) defined on a spatial domain with complex boundary. We propose to solve the set of PDEs defining our model by using a meshless numerical method based on a finite difference scheme in which the spatial operators are approximated by using radial basis functions. Such an approach is reputed as flexible for solving problems on complex domains. Then we calibrate our model on the French department of Isère during the first period of lockdown, using daily reports of hospital occupancy in France. Our methodology allows to simulate the spread of Covid-19 pandemic at a departmental level, and for each compartment. However, the simulation cost prevents from online short-term forecast. Therefore, we propose to rely on reduced order modeling tools to compute short-term forecasts of infection number. The strategy consists in learning a time-dependent reduced order model with few compartments from a collection of evaluations of our spatialized detailed model, varying initial conditions and parameter values. A set of reduced bases is learnt in an offline phase while the projection on each reduced basis and the selection of the best projection is performed online, allowing short-term forecast of the global number of infected individuals in the department.

Algorithm and Results of Short-Term Forecast of Changes in the COVID-19 Spread Coefcient in the Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation

There was a decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases across many entities of the Russian Federation towards the end of summer season-2020. However, the disease remains a relevant threat to the public health and economy and the possibility of a second epidemic wave is not excluded. Rate of infection transmission (Rt) is one of the most important indicators to justify the transition to next stage of removing/introducing restrictive measures on COVID-19.Objective of the work was to describe the algorithm of analysis and short-term forecast of coronavirus spread rate, to assess correspondence between theoretically expected and actual values of this indicator.Materials and methods. Procedure for making a short-term extrapolation forecast of Rt in 10 RF constituent entities, depending on the presence or absence of indicator trends with calculation of a 95 % confdence interval of possible changes in its value is provided.Results and discussion. It is proposed to carry out Rt forecast based on averaged values over a week, combining regression analysis and expert assessment of time series dynamics nature for prompt transition from trend forecasting to extrapolation of stationary observation sequences and vice versa. It has been demonstrated that predicted Rt values are not statistically different from actual values. When making managerial decisions on COVID-19 prevention, special attention should be paid to cases when actual value of Rt exceeds the upper limit of confdence interval. Six (20.0 %) such cases were detected in surveyed entities on calendar weeks 33–35. Three of them were registered in Trans-Baikal Territory, where upward trend was reported during that period of time. The cause of this phenomenon should be analyzed. The put forward algorithm of analysis and forecasting of the Rt value changes, which was tested in 10 entities of Russia, provides a reliable basis for making management decisions on removing/introducing restrictive measures for COVID-19 prevention.

Short-term forecast of fire in the premises based on modification of the Brown’s zero-order model

This paper reports the rationale for the modification of Brown’s zero-order model, which ensures increased accuracy of the short-term fire forecast based on the use of the current measure of recurrence in the increments of the state of the air environment in the premises. A special feature of the proposed model modification is that the a priori model of the dynamics of the level of the time series of the measure of the current recurrence of increments in the air environment states determined by the dangerous factors of the fire has been modified. In this case, it is proposed that the new a priori model should take into consideration additionally the value of the current increments of the level of the studied time series. That makes it possible to negligibly reduce errors of the short-term forecast of fire in the premises without significantly complicating Brown’s zero-order model while retaining all its implementing advantages. The provided accuracy of the forecast for one step in advance on the basis of a time series of measures of the current recurrence of increments of the state of the air environment, determined from the experimental data during the ignition of alcohol and timber in a laboratory chamber, has been investigated. The considered quantitative indicators of forecast accuracy are the absolute and average errors exponentially smoothed with a parameter of 0.4. It has been established that for the proposed modification the value of the average absolute error does not exceed 0.02 %. That means that an error of the short-term forecast of a fire in the premises based on the proposed modification is an order of magnitude less than that in the case of using known Brown’s model at the smoothing parameter from an unclustered set. The results from the ignition of alcohol and timber in the laboratory chamber, in general, indicate significant advantages of using the proposed modification of Brown’s zero-order model for a short-term forecast of a fire in the premises.