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Artificial intelligence breakthrough gives longer advance warning of ozone issues

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Ozone levels in the earth’s troposphere (the lowest level of our atmosphere) can now be forecasted with accuracy up to two weeks in advance, a remarkable improvement over current systems that can accurately predict ozone levels only three days ahead.

The new artificial intelligence system developed in the University of Houston’s Air Quality Forecasting and Modeling Lab could lead to improved ways to control high ozone problems and even contribute to solutions for climate change issues.

“This was very challenging. Nobody had done this previously. I believe we are the first to try to forecast surface ozone levels two weeks in advance,” said Yunsoo Choi, professor of atmospheric chemistry and AI deep learning at UH’s College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. The findings are published online in the scientific journal, Scientific Reports-Nature. [Read more…] about Artificial intelligence breakthrough gives longer advance warning of ozone issues

Cities ‘must become car-free to survive’

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Cities must become fully car-free in order to be liveable in the future, according to the UCL experts behind a new modelling report looking at urban car use.

The experts have called for a shift in collective behaviour to reduce the number of private cars in cities. Globally, the number of cars produced is increasing faster than the population; 80m cars were produced in 2019, while the population increased by 78m.

The researchers said future city planning must include a focus on reducing dependence on cars, promoting fewer and shorter trips and encouraging walking and cycling as primary modes of local transport. [Read more…] about Cities ‘must become car-free to survive’

Modeling a circular economy for electronic waste

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Think about how many different pieces of technology the average household has purchased in the last decade. Phones, TVs, computers, tablets, and game consoles don’t last forever, and repairing them is difficult and often as expensive as simply buying a replacement.

Electronics are integral to modern society, but electronic waste (e-waste) presents a complex and growing challenge in the path toward a circular economy – a more sustainable economic system that focuses on recycling materials and minimizing waste.

Adding to the global waste challenge is the prevalence of dishonest recycling practices by companies who claim to be recycling electronics but actually dispose of them by other means, such as in landfills or shipping the waste to other countries. [Read more…] about Modeling a circular economy for electronic waste

RUDN mathematician builds a COVID-19 spread model – it shows how vaccination affects pandemic

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RUDN University mathematicians built a model of COVID-19 spreading based on two regression models. The mathematicians divided the countries into three groups, depending on the spreading rate and on the climatic conditions, and found a suitable mathematical approximation for each of them.

Based on the model, the mathematicians predicted the subsequent waves. The forecast was accurate in countries where mass vaccination was not introduced. The results are published in Mathematics.

The epidemy spreading rate within the country depends, among other things, on the climatic conditions: temperature, humidity, winds. For example, in the cold season, dry air dries the nasal mucus out which acts as a first line of defence to the virus. Therefore, a person becomes infected faster. High temperature, on the contrary, prevents the virus from surviving. [Read more…] about RUDN mathematician builds a COVID-19 spread model – it shows how vaccination affects pandemic

UEFA Euro forecast: France will be European Champion

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On Friday, 11 June, Europe’s men’s football teams started the European Championship – a year later than planned. The favourite this time is France with a probability of winning of 14.8 per cent.

This is what an international team of researchers consisting of Andreas Groll and Franziska Popp (both TU Dortmund, Germany), Gunther Schauberger (TU Munich, Germany), Christophe Ley and Hans Van Eetvelde (both Ghent University, Belgium), Achim Zeileis (University of Innsbruck, Austria) and Lars Hvattum (Molde University College, Norway) has shown with the help of machine learning.

Their forecast combines several statistical models for the teams’ strengths with information about the team structure (such as market value, number of Champions League players, club match performance of individual players) as well as socio-economic factors of the country of origin (population and gross domestic product). [Read more…] about UEFA Euro forecast: France will be European Champion

Machine learning ‘accurately predicts cardiac arrest risk’

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A branch of artificial intelligence (AI), called machine learning, can accurately predict the risk of an out of hospital cardiac arrest – when the heart suddenly stops beating – using a combination of timing and weather data, finds research published online in the journal Heart.

Machine learning is the study of computer algorithms, and based on the idea that systems can learn from data and identify patterns to inform decisions with minimal intervention.

The risk of a cardiac arrest was highest on Sundays, Mondays, public holidays and when temperatures dropped sharply within or between days, the findings show. [Read more…] about Machine learning ‘accurately predicts cardiac arrest risk’

Unraveling positional and structural errors in numerical weather forecast models

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Due to the chaotic nature of the atmosphere, weather forecasts, even with ever improving numerical weather prediction models, eventually lose all skill.

Meteorologists have a strong desire to better understand this process as they try to trace forecast error back to observational gaps and to provide a means for improvement.

Root mean square error (rms, or its square, the variance distance) is often used to measure differences between simulated and observed fields. In this case, scientists measured the distance between a model forecast field within its grid and the verifying analysis field that represents all real-world observations. [Read more…] about Unraveling positional and structural errors in numerical weather forecast models

An uncrackable combination of invisible ink and artificial intelligence

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Coded messages in invisible ink sound like something only found in espionage books, but in real life, they can have important security purposes.

Yet, they can be cracked if their encryption is predictable.

Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have printed complexly encoded data with normal ink and a carbon nanoparticle-based invisible ink, requiring both UV light and a computer that has been taught the code to reveal the correct messages. [Read more…] about An uncrackable combination of invisible ink and artificial intelligence

Implications are global in new study predicting human exodus in Bangladesh

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Rising sea levels and more powerful cyclonic storms, phenomena driven by the warming of oceans due to climate change, puts at immediate or potential risk an estimated 680 million people living in low-lying coastal zones (a number projected to reach more than one billion by 2050). In nations like Bangladesh these populations are already moving to escape sea-level rise.

In a new study, “Modeling human migration under environmental change: a case study of the effect of sea level rise in Bangladesh,” researchers led by Maurizio Porfiri, an engineer at the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, apply data science to predict how the cascading effects of the migration in Bangladesh will ultimately affect 1.3 million people across the country by 2050. The work has implications for coastal populations worldwide.

The new study, co-authors of which include first author Pietro De Lellis, an engineer at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, and Manuel Ruiz Marin, a mathematician at the Technical University of Cartagena, Spain, presents a mathematical model of human migration that considers not just economic factors but also human behavior – whether people are unwilling or unable to leave and if they later return home. [Read more…] about Implications are global in new study predicting human exodus in Bangladesh

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    Fossil trees on Peru's Central Andean Plateau tell a tale of dramatic environmental changeOn an expedition to the Central Andean Plateau, researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and colleagues were astounded to find a huge fossil-tree buried in the cold, grassy plain. The plant fossil record from this high-altitude site in southern Peru contains dramatic reminders that the environment in the…
    Tags: science, sea, region, de, rise, will, data, ultimately, environment, environmental

Star light, star bright… as explained by math

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Not all stars shine brightly all the time. Some have a brightness that changes rhythmically due to cyclical phenomena like passing planets or the tug of other stars. Others show a slow change in this periodicity over time that can be difficult to discern or capture mathematically.

KAUST’s Soumya Das and Marc Genton have now developed a method to bring this evolving periodicity within the framework of mathematically “cyclostationary” processes.

“It can be difficult to explain the variations of the brightness of variable stars unless they follow a regular pattern over time,” says Das. “In this study we created methods that can explain the evolution of the brightness of a variable star, even if it departs from strict periodicity or constant amplitude.” [Read more…] about Star light, star bright… as explained by math