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With global warming, the behavior of extreme precipitation shifts toward nonstationarity. Here, we analyze the annual maxima of daily precipitation (AMP) all over the globe using projections of the latest phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) under four shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). The projections were bias corrected using a semiparametric quantile mapping, a novel technique extended to extreme precipitation. This analysis 1) explores the variability of future AMP globally and 2) investigates the performance of stationary and nonstationary models in describing future AMP with trends. The results show that global warming potentially intensifies AMP. For the nonparametric analysis, the 33-yr precipitation levels are increasing up to 33.2 mm compared to the historical period. The parametric analysis shows that the return period of 100-yr historical events will decrease approximately to 50 and 70 years in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, respectively. Under the highest emission scenario, the projected 100-yr levels are expected to increase by 7.5%–21% over the historical levels. Using stationary models to estimate the 100-yr return level for AMP projections with trends leads to an underestimation of 3.4% on average. Extensive Monte Carlo experiments are implemented to explain this underestimation.

The water cycle in Czechia has been observed to be changing in recent years, with precipitation and evapotranspiration rates exhibiting a trend of acceleration. However, the spatial patterns of such changes remain poorly understood due to the heterogeneous network of ground observations. This study relied on multiple state-of-the-art reanalyses and hydrological modeling. Herein we propose a novel method for benchmarking hydroclimatic data fusion based on water cycle budget closure. We ranked water cycle budget closure of 96 different combinations for precipitation, evapotranspiration, and runoff using CRU TS v4.06, E-OBS, ERA5-Land, mHM, NCEP/NCAR R1, PREC/L, and TerraClimate. Then we used the best-ranked data to describe changes in the water cycle in Czechia over the last 60 years. We determined that Czechia is undergoing water cycle acceleration, evinced by increased atmospheric water fluxes. However, the increase in annual total precipitation is not as pronounced nor consistent as evapotranspiration, resulting in an overall decrease in the runoff. Furthermore, non-parametric bootstrapping revealed that only evapotranspiration changes are statistically significant at the annual scale. At higher frequencies, we identified significant spatial heterogeneity when assessing the water cycle budget at a seasonal scale. Interestingly, the most significant temporal changes in Czechia take place during spring, while median spatial patterns stem from summer changes in the water cycle.

Der PCA3-Score ist seit seiner Einführung in der Diagnostik des Prostatakar-zinoms etabliert und wird an einigen spezialisierten Zentren inzwischen au-ßerhalb der klinischen Routine als zusätzliches Hilfsmittel eingesetzt. In be-reits erfolgten Untersuchungen wurde eine Altersabhängigkeit des PCA3-Scores vermutet. Ziel der Studie war eine Re-Evaluation einer Altersabhängig-keit des PCA3-Scores und der Versuch, diese in die Interpretation des Tester-gebnisses einfließen zu lassen. In der vorliegenden retrospektiven single-center Studie wurde ein Kollektiv von 713 Patienten untersucht, wobei bei 426 Patienten (59,7%) ein Prostatakarzi-nom nachgewiesen wurde gegenüber 287 Patienten (40,3%) ohne Karzinom-nachweis. Die vorliegenden Patientendaten umfassten jeweils das Alter des Patienten zum Zeitpunkt der Bestimmung des PCA3-Scores, den PCA3-Score und das Ergebnis der histopathologischen Untersuchung der Prostatastanzbi-opsie, des Prostataresektates oder des Prostatektomiepräparates. Zunächst wurde eine Alterskorrelation am Gesamtkollektiv untersucht. An-schließend erfolgte die Untersuchung nach Einteilung in Altersgruppen. Die eingeteilten Altersgruppen wurden schließlich hinsichtlich eines Karzinom-nachweises und eines Ausschlusses separat betrachtet. Zuletzt wurde für jede Altersgruppe ein eigener bester cut-off Wert erhoben und dem gängigen cut-off des PCA3-Scores von 35 gegenübergestellt. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass der PCA3-Score unabhängig vom Vorliegen eines Prostatakarzinoms mit dem Alter ansteigt. Der empfohlene cut-off Wert des PCA3-Scores von 35 hatte die beste Genauigkeit bei den 60-69 Jährigen. Eine Erniedrigung des cut-offs bei jüngeren Patienten (65 Jahre) konnte die diagnostische Genau-igkeit steigern. Dieses Ergebnis der vorliegenden Arbeit aus retrospektiv erho-benen Daten sollte in einer weiterführenden prospektiven Studie validiert wer-den. Die grundlegenden Mechanismen, die bei steigendem Alter zu einer Erhö-hung des PCA3-Scores führen sind unbekannt und bleiben weiterhin Teil der notwendigen Forschung. ist aktueller Teil der Forschung, inwiefern Biomarker wie auch PCA3 nach Implementierung der MRT in die Leitlinien des PCa in der Risikostratifizierung klinisch relevanter Karzinome zusätzlich eingesetzt werden können, um weitere Biopsien zu vermeiden.

Gridded meteorological estimates are essential for many applications. Most existing meteorological datasets are deterministic and have limitations in representing the inherent uncertainties from both the data and methodology used to create gridded products. We develop the Ensemble Meteorological Dataset for Planet Earth (EM-Earth) for precipitation, mean daily temperature, daily temperature range, and dewpoint temperature at 0.1° spatial resolution over global land areas from 1950 to 2019. EM-Earth provides hourly/daily deterministic estimates, and daily probabilistic estimates (25 ensemble members), to meet the diverse requirements of hydrometeorological applications. To produce EM-Earth, we first developed a station-based Serially Complete Earth (SC-Earth) dataset, which removes the temporal discontinuities in raw station observations. Then, we optimally merged SC-Earth station data and ERA5 estimates to generate EM-Earth deterministic estimates and their uncertainties. The EM-Earth ensemble members are produced by sampling from parametric probability distributions using spatiotemporally correlated random fields. The EM-Earth dataset is evaluated by leave-one-out validation, using independent evaluation stations, and comparing it with many widely used datasets. The results show that EM-Earth is better in Europe, North America, and Oceania than in Africa, Asia, and South America, mainly due to differences in the available stations and differences in climate conditions. Probabilistic spatial meteorological datasets are particularly valuable in regions with large meteorological uncertainties, where almost all existing deterministic datasets face great challenges in obtaining accurate estimates.

Annual Maxima (AM) and Peaks over Threshold (POT) are the two most common approaches to define extreme time series in hydroclimatic variables. Both methods present limitations. AM frequently fails to include significant extremes that occur during the same year. Conversely, POT may only include clustered values from a few years thus excluding many years from the analysis, especially when the threshold is set high. Additionally, a big challenge in POT is identifying the threshold which can markedly affect the results.Here, we merge notions from both AM and POT, preserving the strengths of each approach, to extract extreme temperature series and estimate the trends in their frequency and magnitude. We select the values larger than or equal to the minimum of the AM series as high temperatures (HT) (lower than or equal to the maximum of the Annual Minima as the low temperatures – LT). Thus, each year of the HT, LT series has at least one extreme value (H1, L1). We apply the method to 4797 quality-controlled raw station observations from a global dataset of maximum and minimum temperatures over 1970-2019 when warming accelerates. To examine changes in H1-L1 frequency and magnitude, we estimate the ratio of observed to expected H1 (L1) annual occurrences, and the difference between the observed and expected mean H1 (L1) annual temperature values, respectively. We estimate the regression slopes of these ratios at the station level, regionally in 2°×2° grids, and globally. We then compare these trends with the ones obtained from AM and POT series. The proposed method adapts the threshold for each sample, and finds a compromise among all tested methods, thus being a flexible approach that can be applied to any non-intermittent variable. AcknowledgmentThis research was supported by a GWF Ph.D. Excellence Scholarship from the Global Institute for Water Security (GIWS), University of Saskatchewan

In in this national report, we present the descriptive results of the SPOTnat survey (home care coordination and quality - a national study), which was conducted from January 2021 to September 2021 in 88 home care organizations in Switzerland. 3.223 home care employees, 1.509 clients and 1.165 relatives were surveyed. The focus of this survey was on coordination and quality of care, the quality of the work environment and personnel outcomes, e.g., job satisfaction or the intention to quit. German: Im vorliegenden nationalen Bericht stellen wir die deskriptiven Resultate der SPOTnat Befragung (Spitex Koordination und Qualität – eine nationale Studie) zusammen, die von Januar 2021 bis September 2021 in 88 Spitex-Orga­nisationen in der Schweiz durchgeführt wurde. Darin wurden 3.223 Spitex-Mitarbeitende, 1.509 Klient/-innen und 1.165 Angehörige befragt. Im Fokus der Erhebung stand die Koordination und Versorgungsqualität, die Arbeitsumgebungsqualität sowie die Personalergebnisse z. B. hinsichtlich Arbeitszufriedenheit oder Kündigungsabsicht., This report is available in German, French and Italian.

In questo rapporto nazionale, presentiamo i risultati descrittivi del sondaggio SPOTnat (Spitex Coordinazione e Qualità - uno studio nazionale), condotto da gennaio 2021 e settembre 2021 presso 88 organizzazioni di Spitex (cura a domicilio) in Svizzera. Hanno risposto al questionario, 3223 dipendenti Spitex, 1509 clienti e 1165 parenti. L’obiettivo di questa indagine è stato quello di analizzare il coordinamento e la qualità dell’assistenza, la qualità dell’ambiente lavorativo e i risultati legati al personale come, ad esempio, la soddisfazione sul lavoro o la propensione alle dimissioni. English: In in this national report, we present the descriptive results of the SPOTnat survey (home care coordination and quality - a national study), which was conducted from January 2021 to September 2021 in 88 home care organizations in Switzerland. 3.223 home care employees, 1.509 clients and 1.165 relatives were surveyed. The focus of this survey was on coordination and quality of care, the quality of the work environment and personnel outcomes, e.g., job satisfaction or the intention to quit., This report is available in German, French and Italian.

Both obesity and metabolic syndrome are linked to increased incidence of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancers of the breast (post-menopausal), and other obesity-related cancers. Over the past 50 years, the worldwide prevalence of obesity and metabolic syndrome has increased, with a concomitant higher incidence of associated co-morbidities and mortality. The precise mechanism linking metabolic syndrome to increased cancer incidence is incompletely understood, however, individual components of metabolic syndrome have been linked to increased breast cancer incidence and worse survival. There is a bidirectional relationship between the risk of CVD and cancer due to a high burden of shared risk factors and higher rates of CVD among cancer survivors, which may be impacted by the pro-inflammatory microenvironment associated with metabolic syndrome and cancer-directed therapies. The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) is an excellent resource to study a dual relationship between cancer and CVD (cardio-oncology) with extensive information on risk factors and long-term outcomes. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of research on cardio-oncology conducted utilizing WHI data with focus on studies evaluating both breast cancer and CVD including shared risk factors and outcomes after cancer. The review also includes results on other obesity related cancers which were included in the analyses of breast cancer, articles looking at cancer after heart disease (reverse cardio-oncology) and the role of Clonal Hematopoiesis of Indeterminate Potential (CHIP) as a shared risk factor between CVD and cancer. A summary of pertinent WHI literature helps to delineate the direction of future research evaluating the relationship between CVD and other cancer sites, and provides information on the opportunity for other novel analyses within the WHI.

This paper proposes a new very simply explicitly invertible function to approximate the standard normal cumulative distribution function (CDF). The new function was fit to the standard normal CDF using both MATLAB's Global Optimization Toolbox and the BARON software package. The results of three separate fits are presented in this paper. Each fit was performed across the range $ 0 \leq z \leq 7 $ and achieved a maximum absolute error (MAE) superior to the best MAE reported for previously published very simply explicitly invertible approximations of the standard normal CDF. The best MAE reported from this study is 2.73e–05, which is nearly a factor of five better than the best MAE reported for other published very simply explicitly invertible approximations.

Background The Chronic Care Model (CCM) is a longstanding and widely adopted model guiding chronic illness management. Little is known about how CCM elements are implemented in rare disease care or how patients’ care experiences relate to health-related quality of life (HRQoL). We engaged patients living with systemic sclerosis (SSc) to assess current care according to the CCM from the patient perspective and their HRQoL. Methods We employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. First, we conducted a cross-sectional quantitative survey (n = 101) using the Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (PACIC) and Systemic Sclerosis Quality of Life (SScQoL) questionnaires. Next, we used data from individual patient interviews (n = 4) and one patient focus group (n = 4) to further explore care experiences of people living with SSc with a focus on the PACIC dimensions. Results The mean overall PACIC score was 3.0/5.0 (95% CI 2.8–3.2, n = 100), indicating care was ‘never’ to ‘generally not’ aligned with the CCM. Lowest PACIC subscale scores related to ‘goal setting/tailoring’ (mean = 2.5, 95% CI 2.2–2.7) and ‘problem solving/contextual counselling’ (mean = 2.9, 95% CI 2.7–3.2). No significant correlations were identified between the mean PACIC and SScQoL scores. Interviews revealed patients frequently encounter major shortcomings in care including ‘experiencing organized care with limited participation’, ‘not knowing which strategies are effective or harmful’ and ‘feeling left alone with disease and psychosocial consequences’. Patients often responded to challenges by ‘dealing with the illness in tailored measure’, ‘taking over complex coordination of care’ and ‘relying on an accessible and trustworthy team’. Conclusions The low PACIC mean overall score is comparable to findings in patients with common chronic diseases. Key elements of the CCM have yet to be systematically implemented in Swiss SSc management. Identified gaps in care related to lack of shared decision-making, goal-setting and individual counselling-aspects that are essential for supporting patient self-management skills. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of complex care coordination tailored to individual patient needs.

Conference for Wind Power Drives, CWD 2023, Aachen, Germany, 21 Mar 2023 - 22 Mar 2023 Drivetrain and Systems Engineering Conference, DSEC 2023, Aachen, Germany, 21 Mar 2023 - 22 Mar 2023; Forschung im Ingenieurwesen = Engineering research 87(1), 497-506 (2023). doi:10.1007/s10010-023-00657-8 special issue: "CWD & DSEC 2023 / Georg Jacobs", Published by Springer, Berlin ; Heidelberg

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Musikbranschen har genomgått ett paradigmskifte på grund av digitaliseringen och möjligen behöver den optimeras för att vara bättre lämpad i den digitala musikmarknaden. Den här studiens målsättning har varit att ta reda på hur upphovsrättigheterna påverkats av denna förändring och fånga upp uppfattningar från yrkesaktiva i musikbranschen. Upphovsrättslagen (1960:729) har varit det ledande regelverket för studien. En granskning av prejudikat och intervjuer indikerar att upphovsrättslagens formuleringar och konstruktion alltjämt är på en hållbar nivå. Dock är ämnet både komplext och omfattande och det behövs vidare forskning för att kunna presentera en konkret åtgärdsplan. Förhoppningen är att studien ska ligga till grund för fortsatta diskussioner och forskning på området. 2019 var det dagliga antalet nysläppta låtar på Spotify ungefär 40 000, idag släpps det runt 100 000 nya låtar. Ökningen bidrar till att lagstiftare måste överväga mellan att skydda existerande verk å ena sida, och möjliggöra uppkomsten av nya verk. Problematiken med att det skapas mycket musik ur ett upphovsrättsligt perspektiv är att likheter mellan verk blir allt fler. Detta kan bidra till intrång i upphovspersonernas rättigheter som leder till juridiska konsekvenser. Att förändra upphovsrättslagen är en tidskrävande process, därför att den kräver en förändring på EU nivå. Studien kan dock fastställa att flertalet tongivande organisationer inom svensk musikbransch jobbar aktivt med frågorna om upphovsrätt och att aktuella propositioner framläggs och behandlas i riksdagen löpande.

INTRODUCTION As health care complexity increases, skilled care coordination is becoming increasingly necessary. This is especially true in homecare settings, where services tend to be highly interprofessional. Poor coordination can result in services being provided twice, at the wrong time, unnecessarily or not at all. In addition to risking harm to the client, such confusion leads to unnecessary costs. From the patient's perspective, then, professional coordination should help both to remove barriers limiting quality of care and to minimize costs. To date, though, studies examining the relationship between care coordination and care quality have faced multiple challenges, leading to mixed results. And in homecare contexts, where the clients are highly vulnerable and diverse care interfaces make coordination especially challenging, such studies are rare. OBJECTIVES Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the relationship, from the perspectives of clients and of homecare professionals, between coordination and quality of care. For both groups, we hypothesized that better coordination would correlate with higher ratings of quality of care. For the clients, we predicted that higher coordination ratings would lead to lower incidence of unplanned health care use, i.e., emergency department (ED) visits, unscheduled urgent medical visits and hospitalizations. DESIGN AND METHODS This study is part of a national multi-center cross-sectional study in the Swiss homecare setting. We recruited 88 homecare agencies and collected data between January and September 2021 through written questionnaires for agencies' managers, employees (n = 3223) and clients (n = 1509). To test our hypotheses, we conducted multilevel analyses. RESULTS Employee-perceived care coordination ratings correlated positively with employee-rated quality of care (OR = 2.78, p

Conference for Wind Power Drives, CWD 2023, Aachen, Germany, 21 Mar 2023 - 22 Mar 2023 Drivetrain and Systems Engineering Conference, DSEC 2023, Aachen, Germany, 21 Mar 2023 - 22 Mar 2023; Forschung im Ingenieurwesen = Engineering research 87(1), 507-519 (2023). doi:10.1007/s10010-023-00658-7 special issue: "CWD & DSEC 2023 / Georg Jacobs", Published by Springer, Berlin ; Heidelberg

If capitalism and the rise of the bourgeoisie emerged in Europe as Marx amongst others has suggested. Then this thesis will show how the symbiotic relationship between ‘race’, class, and capital – articulated as racial capitalism - can be exemplified within Liverpool’s Black community spaces. Liverpool has the oldest settled Black community in Europe thus offering this thesis the opportunity to analyze the first ‘Black space’ in Europe. Similarly, if England is essential to the development of industrial capital that accelerated the urbanization of the UK’s industrial spaces – Liverpool again offers a prima facie example par excellence in understanding how racial capitalism fuelled that development. Racial capitalism as a lens can also be applied to the development of mercantile capital, in terms of Liverpool’s legacy as the site of the great leap in relation to the transatlantic trade – a trade fuelled by a legacy of Slavery. The power this legacy brought to bear, shaped the UK's political approach in the development of Imperialism, and colonization and therefore influences the UK’s contemporary attitudes towards ‘race’. This study will show how the continuity of the psyche of colonial attitudes shapes the institutions and attitudes within Liverpool and beyond. Indeed, the decline of Liverpool, ensured the rise of a new breed of political actions at the forefront of the scramble for Africa, Asia, and the cadastral production of the ‘pink map of empire’, as the ‘reformed’ slaver families relocated their power bases to the capital. However, their legacy within Liverpool remains today and is revealed in all its insidiousness across this study. The concept of value – immaterial but objective - and its concatenation to contemporary articulations of Blackness will be exemplified through this study of spatiotemporality in Liverpool. Although the scope of achieving a complete oversight into such a complex and vast history tests the limits of what is possible in one thesis. This study’s greatest strength is that it makes an important contribution towards renewing a fresh engagement with the relationship between ‘race’, space, and capital, and as this study will show – articulated as the racial fix -, the centrality of this trialectic to the development of urbanization of capital has been totally underestimated to date, across debates of racial capitalism and beyond. This thesis presents a study on racial capitalism in the 21st century via the process of racialized space within urban development.

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Additional file 1: Figure F1. Flow diagram of the study participants from the study year for the analysis. Table S1. Description of the study variables. Table S2. Capacity utilization (%) at different percentile of annual distribution for each of the hospital. Table S3. Sensitivity analysis to evaluate robustness to different specifications of the capacity utilization tipping points in Swiss hospitals, splitting capacity utilization distribution at 75th, 80th, 85th, 90th, and 95th percentile. The table displays total/short-term effect of daily exposure on 14-day in-hospital mortality as estimated with generalized estimating equations (GEEs), for different values of the thresholds defining potential tipping points. Figure F2. DAGs A-D: Causal directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) showing causal effects of capacity utilization (CU) on in-hospital mortality (M). Note: the arrows are limited to prevent overcrowding. Green represents causal paths; black represents adjusted (blocked) paths; and pink represents biasing paths. A: Causal DAG for time-fixed confounders, exposure and outcome (PT1, PCCL1, CU1, M1: respectively, patient turnover, patient clinical complexity level, capacity utilization, and mortality at fixed-day/baseline). B: Causal DAG for time-varying confounders, exposure and outcome at day one (PT1, PCCL1, CU1, M1) and day two (PT2, PCC2, CU2, M2). C: Causal DAG for time-varying exposure, confounders and outcome at day one and day two with other fixed covariates (C) (age, sex, comorbidity weights, weeks). D: Causal DAG for time-varying exposure, confounders and outcome at day one and day two with other fixed covariates (C) and unmeasured variables (U) (e.g., leadership, staffing). Note: the arrows are limited to prevent overcrowding and main issue remained same if we add more arrows and to avoid complexity in DAG representation. Table S4. Daily distribution of time-varying variables capacity utilization, patient turnover and patient clinical complexity level per hospital by hospital type. Table S5. Patients’ treatment-exposure day distribution by hospital type. Figure F3. Density plot for inverse probability of treatment weight (IPTW) of capacity utilization with two time-varying confounders: patient turnover and patient clinical complexity level (PCCL). Inverse probability of treatment weight (IPTW) of capacity utilization with two time-varying confounders: patient turnover and patient clinical complexity level (PCCL) adjusting other fixed covariates. Table S6. Total/short-term effect of time-varying exposure (capacity utilization) on 14-day in-hospital mortality without and with IPTW. Table S7. Adjusted causal effect (total/short term and cumulative daily) of time-varying exposure (capacity utilization) on 14-day in-hospital mortality with truncation of the top and bottom 1% of IPTW.

Care workers in nursing homes often perform tasks that are rather related to organizational or management activities than 'direct patient care'. 'Indirect care activities', such as documentation or other administrative tasks are often considered by care workers as a burden, as they increase overall workload and keep them away from caring for residents. So far, there is little investigation into what kind of administrative tasks are being performed in nursing homes, by which type of care workers, and to which extent, nor how administrative burden is associated with care workers' outcomes.; The objective of this study was to describe care workers' administrative burden in Swiss nursing homes and to explore the association with four care worker outcomes (i.e., job dissatisfaction, emotional exhaustion, intention to leave the current job and the profession).; This multicenter cross-sectional study used survey data from the Swiss Nursing Homes Human Resources Project 2018. It included a convenience sample of 118 nursing homes and 2'207 care workers (i.e., registered nurses, licensed practical nurses) from Switzerland's German- and French-speaking regions. Care workers completed questionnaires assessing the administrative tasks and burden, staffing and resource adequacy, leadership ability, implicit rationing of nursing care and care worker characteristics and outcomes. For the analysis, we applied generalized linear mixed models, including individual-level nurse survey data and data on unit and facility characteristics.; Overall, 73.9% (n = 1'561) of care workers felt strongly or rather strongly burdened, with one third (36.6%, n = 787) reporting to spend 2 h or more during a "normal" day performing administrative tasks. Ratings for administrative burden ranged from 42.6% (n = 884; ordering supplies and managing stocks) to 75.3% (n = 1'621; filling out the resident's health record). One out of four care workers (25.5%, n = 561) intended to leave the profession, whereby care workers reporting higher administrative task burden (OR = 1.24; 95%CI: 1.02-1.50) were more likely to intend to leave the profession.; This study provides first insights on care workers' administrative burden in nursing homes. By limiting care workers' burdensome administrative tasks and/or shifting such tasks from higher to lower educated care workers or administrative personnel when appropriate, nursing home managers could reduce care workers' workload and improve their job satisfaction and retention in the profession.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the treatment results of 20MBq Erbium radiation synovectomy (radiosynoviorthesis; RSO) for chronic, therapy-refractory capsulitis of the finger and toe joints in rock climbers. Methods: In this retrospective study, 12 rock climbers (3 female, 9 male, [for full text, please go to the a.m. URL]

Background and state of (inter)national research: Nursing-sensitive events (NSEs) are common and have been found in international studies to occur in hospitalized patient up to 77% of all adverse events. NSEs may or may not be harmful and contribute to the suffering of patients. Additionally, they [for full text, please go to the a.m. URL]

The benefit of continuous modelling in hydrological studies is widely recognized since it provides the practitioner with effective hydrological outputs for risk assessment. However, this approach is still not common mainly because it needs as input simulated rainfall time series. Many rainfall generation methods exist yet there are still two main challenges: (i) many rainfall models are available without a clear suggestion on which is the most appropriate to use, (ii) most rainfall models are not user-friendly and require significant theoretical background to successfully be applied.In this contribution, we test eight rainfall models by evaluating the performances of the simulated rainfall time series when used as input for a specific continuous rainfall-runoff model, named COSMO4SUB (COntinuous Simulation MOdel For Small and Ungauged Basin), particularly designed for small and ungauged basins. The rainfall models selected here are: two versions of the Complete Stochastic Modelling Solution (CoSMoS-1s and 2s); three versions of Bootstrap-based models; the classical Bartlett Lewis and Neymann-Scott rectangular pulses models; and a mixed method based on monthly simulation and multifractal cascade disaggregation.The comparison was performed by analyzing runoff time series obtained with the COSMO4SUB model and using as input the rainfall time series simulated by the eight models and the observed one. We selected and investigated several general properties, such as the average number of flood events, the marginal distribution of peak, volume, duration and antecedent dry period before the flood, and their dependence structure.The comparison confirms the capability of all models to provide realistic flood events and allows identifying the models to be further improved and tailored for data scarce hydrological risk applications.

Like civilization and technology, our understanding of the global water cycle has been continuously evolving, and we have adapted our quantification methods to better exploit new technological resources. The accurate quantification of global water fluxes and storages is crucial in studying the global water cycle. These fluxes and storages physically interact with each other, are related through the water budget, and are constrained by it. First attempts to quantify them date back to the early 1900s, and during the past few decades, they have received an increasing research interest, which is reflected in the vast amount of data sources available nowadays. However, these data have not been comprehensive enough due to the high spatiotemporal variability of the global water cycle. Herein, we provide a comprehensive review of the chronological evolution of global water cycle quantification, the distinct data sources and methods used, and a critical assessment of their contribution to improving the spatiotemporal monitoring of the global water cycle. The chronology of global water cycle components shows that the uncertainty of flux estimates over oceans remains higher than that over land. Comparing the standard deviation and the interquartile range of the estimates from the 2000s onward with those from all the estimates (1905-2019), we can affirm that statistical variability has diminished in recent years. Moreover, the variability of ocean precipitation and evaporation estimates from the 2000 onward was reduced by more than $$70\%$$ compared with earlier studies. These findings advocate that the consistency of global water cycle quantification has been improved.

Meteorological data from ground stations suffer from temporal discontinuities caused by missing values and short measurement periods. Gap-filling and reconstruction techniques have proven to be effective in producing serially complete station datasets (SCDs) that are used for a myriad of meteorological applications (e.g., developing gridded meteorological datasets and validating models). To our knowledge, all SCDs are developed at regional scales. In this study, we developed the serially complete Earth (SC-Earth) dataset, which provides daily precipitation, mean temperature, temperature range, dewpoint temperature, and wind speed data from 1950 to 2019. SC-Earth utilizes raw station data from the Global Historical Climatology Network–Daily (GHCN-D) and the Global Surface Summary of the Day (GSOD). A unified station repository is generated based on GHCN-D and GSOD after station merging and strict quality control. ERA5 is optimally matched with station data considering the time shift issue and then used to assist the global gap filling. SC-Earth is generated by merging estimates from 15 strategies based on quantile mapping, spatial interpolation, machine learning, and multistrategy merging. The final estimates are bias corrected using a combination of quantile mapping and quantile delta mapping. Comprehensive validation demonstrates that SC-Earth has high accuracy around the globe, with degraded quality in the tropics and oceanic islands due to sparse station networks, strong spatial precipitation gradients, and degraded ERA5 estimates. Meanwhile, SC-Earth inherits potential limitations such as inhomogeneity and precipitation undercatch from raw station data, which may affect its application in some cases. Overall, the high-quality and high-density SC-Earth dataset will benefit research in fields of hydrology, ecology, meteorology, and climate. The dataset is available athttps://zenodo.org/record/4762586.

CCS often wish to have biological children yet harbour concerns about fertility impairment, pregnancy risks and the general health risks of prospective offspring. To clarify these concerns, health outcomes in survivor offspring born following ART (n = 74, 4.5%) or after spontaneous conception (n = 1585) were assessed in our European offspring study by descriptive and bivariate analysis. Outcomes were compared to a sibling offspring cohort (n = 387) in a 4:1 matched-pair analysis (n = 1681). (i) Survivors were more likely to employ ART than their siblings (4.5% vs. 3.7%, p = 0.501). Successful pregnancies were achieved after a median of one cycle with, most commonly, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) using non-cryopreserved oocytes/sperm. (ii) Multiple-sibling births (p < 0.001, 29.7% vs. 2.5%), low birth weight (p < 0.001; OR = 3.035, 95%-CI = 1.615–5.706), and preterm birth (p < 0.001; OR = 2.499, 95%-CI = 1.401–4.459) occurred significantly more often in survivor offspring following ART utilisation than in spontaneously conceived children. ART did not increase the prevalence of childhood cancer, congenital malformations or heart defects. (iii) These outcomes had similar prevalences in the sibling population. In our explorative study, we could not detect an influence on health outcomes when known confounders, such as multiple births, were taken into account.

CCS often wish to have biological children yet harbour concerns about fertility impairment, pregnancy risks and the general health risks of prospective offspring. To clarify these concerns, health outcomes in survivor offspring born following ART (n = 74, 4.5%) or after spontaneous conception (n = 1585) were assessed in our European offspring study by descriptive and bivariate analysis. Outcomes were compared to a sibling offspring cohort (n = 387) in a 4:1 matched-pair analysis (n = 1681). (i) Survivors were more likely to employ ART than their siblings (4.5% vs. 3.7%, p = 0.501). Successful pregnancies were achieved after a median of one cycle with, most commonly, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) using non-cryopreserved oocytes/sperm. (ii) Multiple-sibling births (p < 0.001, 29.7% vs. 2.5%), low birth weight (p < 0.001; OR = 3.035, 95%-CI = 1.615–5.706), and preterm birth (p < 0.001; OR = 2.499, 95%-CI = 1.401–4.459) occurred significantly more often in survivor offspring following ART utilisation than in spontaneously conceived children. ART did not increase the prevalence of childhood cancer, congenital malformations or heart defects. (iii) These outcomes had similar prevalences in the sibling population. In our explorative study, we could not detect an influence on health outcomes when known confounders, such as multiple births, were taken into account., + ID der Publikation: unilu_59897 + Sprache: Englisch + Letzte Aktualisierung: 2022-09-26 16:30:11

Aim The aim of this retrospective observational study was to determine how response times correlated to the experience of the community first responders (CFRs) using data collected from the Danish Island of Langeland via a global positioning system (GPS)-based system. Methods All medical emergency calls involving CFRs in the time period from 21st of April 2012 to 31st of December 2017 were included. Each emergency call activated 3 CFRs. Response times were calculated using the time from when the system alerted the CFRs to CFR time of arrival at the emergency site measured by GPS. CFRs response times were grouped depending on their level of experience according to ≤ 10, 11–24, 25–49, 50–99, ≥ 100 calls accepted and arrived on-site. Results A total of 7273 CFR activations were included. Median response time for the CFR arriving first on-site (n = 3004) was 4:05 min (IQR 2:42 − 6:01) and median response time for the arrival of the CFR with an automated external defibrillator (n = 2594) was 5:46 min (IQR 3:59 − 8:05). Median response times were 5:53 min (3:43 − 8:29) for ≤ 10 calls (n = 1657), 5:39 min (3:49 − 8:01) for 11–24 calls (n = 1396), 5:45 min (3:49 − 8:00) for 25–49 calls (n = 1586), 5:07 min (3:38 − 7:26) for 50–99 calls (n = 1548) and 4:46 min (3:14 − 7:32) for ≥ 100 calls (n = 1086) (p

Background While effectiveness outcomes of eHealth-facilitated integrated care models (eICMs) in transplant and oncological populations are promising, implementing and sustaining them in real-world settings remain challenging. Allogeneic stem cell transplant (alloSCT) patients could benefit from an eICM to enhance health outcomes. To combat health deterioration, integrating chronic illness management, including continuous symptom and health behaviour monitoring, can shorten reaction times. We will test the 1st-year post-alloSCT effectiveness and evaluate bundled implementation strategies to support the implementation of a newly developed and adapted eICM in allogeneic stem cell transplantation facilitated by eHealth (SMILe–ICM). SMILe-ICM has been designed by combining implementation, behavioural, and computer science methods. Adaptions were guided by FRAME and FRAME-IS. It consists of four modules: 1) monitoring & follow-up; 2) infection prevention; 3) physical activity; and 4) medication adherence, delivered via eHealth and a care coordinator (an Advanced Practice Nurse). The implementation was supported by contextually adapted implementation strategies (e.g., creating new clinical teams, informing local opinion leaders). Methods Using a hybrid effectiveness-implementation randomised controlled trial, we will include a consecutive sample of 80 adult alloSCT patients who were transplanted and followed by University Hospital Basel (Switzerland). Inclusion criteria are basic German proficiency; elementary computer literacy; internet access; and written informed consent. Patients will be excluded if their condition prevents the use of technology, or if they are followed up only at external centres. Patient-level (1:1) stratified randomisation into a usual care group and a SMILe-ICM group will take place 10 days pre-transplantation. To gauge the SMILe–ICM’s effectiveness primary outcome (re-hospitalisation rate), secondary outcomes (healthcare utilization costs; length of inpatient re-hospitalizations, medication adherence; treatment and self-management burden; HRQoL; Graft-versus-Host Disease rate; survival; overall survival rate) and implementation outcomes (acceptability, appropriateness, feasibility, fidelity), we will use multi-method, multi-informant assessment (via questionnaires, interviews, electronic health record data, cost capture methods). Discussion The SMILe–ICM has major innovative potential for reengineering alloSCT follow-up care, particularly regarding short- and medium-term outcomes. Our dual focus on implementation and effectiveness will both inform optimization of the SMILe-ICM and provide insights regarding implementation strategies and pathway, understudied in eHealth-facilitated ICMs in chronically ill populations. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov. Identifier: NCT04789863. Registered April 01, 2021.

Global gridded precipitation products have proven essential for many applications ranging from hydrological modeling and climate model validation to natural hazard risk assessment. They provide a global picture of how precipitation varies across time and space, specifically in regions where ground-based observations are scarce. While the application of global precipitation products has become widespread, there is limited knowledge on how well these products represent the magnitude and frequency of extreme precipitation—the key features in triggering flood hazards. Here, five global precipitation datasets (MSWEP, CFSR, CPC, PERSIANN-CDR, and WFDEI) are compared to each other and to surface observations. The spatial variability of relatively high precipitation events (tail heaviness) and the resulting discrepancy among datasets in the predicted precipitation return levels were evaluated for the time period 1979–2017. The analysis shows that 1) these products do not provide a consistent representation of the behavior of extremes as quantified by the tail heaviness, 2) there is strong spatial variability in the tail index, 3) the spatial patterns of the tail heaviness generally match the Köppen–Geiger climate classification, and 4) the predicted return levels for 100 and 1000 years differ significantly among the gridded products. More generally, our findings reveal shortcomings of global precipitation products in representing extremes and highlight that there is no single global product that performs best for all regions and climates.

Climate extremes threaten human health, economic stability, and the well-being of natural and built environments (e.g., 2003 European heat wave). As the world continues to warm, climate hazards are expected to increase in frequency and intensity. The impacts of extreme events will also be more severe due to the increased exposure (growing population and development) and vulnerability (aging infrastructure) of human settlements. Climate models attribute part of the projected increases in the intensity and frequency of natural disasters to anthropogenic emissions and changes in land use and land cover. Here, we review the impacts, historical and projected changes,and theoretical research gaps of key extreme events (heat waves, droughts, wildfires, precipitation, and flooding). We also highlight the need to improve our understanding of the dependence between individual and interrelated climate extremes because anthropogenic-induced warming increases the risk of not only individual climate extremes but also compound (co-occurring) and cascading hazards. ▪ Climate hazards are expected to increase in frequency and intensity in a warming world. ▪ Anthropogenic-induced warming increases the risk of compound and cascading hazards. ▪ We need to improve our understanding of causes and drivers of compound and cascading hazards.

Climate models are the available tools to assess risks of extreme precipitation events due to climate change. Models simulating historical climate successfully are often reliable to simulate future climate. Here, we assess the performance of CMIP6 models in reproducing the observed annual maxima of daily precipitation (AMP) beyond the commonly used methods. This assessment takes three scales: (1) univariate comparison based on L-moments and relative difference measures; (2) bivariate comparison using Kernel densities of mean and L-variation, and of L-skewness and L-kurtosis, and (3) comparison of the entire distribution function using the Generalized Extreme Value () distribution coupled with a novel application of the Anderson-Darling Goodness-of-fit test. The results depict that 70% of simulations have mean and variation of AMP with a percentage difference within 10 from the observations. Also, the statistical shape properties, defining the frequency and magnitude of AMP, of simulations match well with observations. However, biases are observed in the mean and variation bivariate properties. Several models perform well with the HadGEM3-GC31-MM model performing well in all three scales when compared to the ground-based Global Precipitation Climatology (GPCC) data. Finally, the study highlights biases of CMIP6 models in simulating extreme precipitation in the Arctic, Tropics, arid and semi-arid regions.

Simulating storms, or hydro-environmental fluxes in general, in space and time is challenging and crucial to inform environmental risk analysis and decision making under variability and uncertainty. Here, we advance space-time modelling by enabling simulation of random fields (RF) described by general velocity fields and anisotropy. This advances the skills of the Complete Stochastic Modeling Solution (CoSMoS) framework in space and time and enables RF's simulations that reproduce desired: (a) non-Gaussian marginal distribution, (b) spatiotemporal correlation structure (STCS), (c) velocity fields with locally varying speed and direction that describe advection, and (d) locally varying anisotropy. We demonstrate applications of CoSMoS by simulating storms at fine spatiotemporal scales that move across an area, spiraling fields such weather cyclones, air masses converging to (or diverging from) a point and more. The methods are implemented in the CoSMoS R package freely available in CRAN.Reference: Papalexiou, S. M., Serinaldi, F., & Porcu, E. (2021). Advancing Space-Time Simulation of Random Fields: From Storms to Cyclones and Beyond. Water Resources Research, 57(8), e2020WR029466. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR029466

Changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation resulting from climate change are responsible for natural disasters such as severe floods and have been a major study focus during the last decades. Previous studies have mainly focused on the trends of annual maxima precipitation at global and regional scales. However, little is known about how extreme precipitation trends change among different climate types. This study offers a global analysis of extreme precipitation changes in terms of climate type by using over 8500 gauge-based records. We focus on the period 1964 to 2013 when global warming was accelerating. A climate type is assigned to each station based on the Köppen Geiger (KG) climate classification, resulting in 30 KG climate subtypes. Mann-Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator are applied to each time series, measuring the magnitude and significance of trends. The heaviness of the tail for each station is assessed based on the shape parameter of the Generalized Extreme Value distribution. Our results indicate a decreasing trend for the majority of stations associated with some of the arid, temperate, and continental subtypes (i.e., hot semi-arid (BSh); hot-summer temperate (Csa); warm-summer temperate (Csb); and warm, dry-summer continental (Dsb)). An increasing trend is observed for the stations associated with the remaining KG subtypes, especially stations associated with dry-summer subarctic (Dsc) and monsoon-influenced extremely cold subarctic (Dwd). A significant increasing trend is estimated for 9.7% of stations located in the eastern USA, Asia, and northern Europe. However, only 2% of stations, mainly in eastern Australia and the central USA have a significant decreasing trend. The heaviness of the tail is the largest in the Polar major climate type (E), followed by Tropical (A), Dry (B), Continental (D), and Temperate (C). For the climate subtypes, large heavy-tailed extremes are observed in extremely cold subarctic (Dfd), polar tundra (ET), and tropical monsoon (Am), while only light-tailed extremes were observed in subpolar oceanic (Cfc). This study reveals the relationship of extreme precipitation characteristics (e.g., tail heaviness and trend) with the climate types at the global scale.

Re-gridding considerably alters precipitation statistics. Despite this fact, regridding precipitation datasets is commonly performed for coupling or comparing different models/datasets. In general, several studies have highlighted the effects of regridding at regional scale. In this study, the effects of re-gridding precipitation are emphasized at a global scale using different regridding methods, size of the shifts and resolutions of the dataset. Substantial differences are noted at high quantiles and precipitation dry (or wet-dry frequency) is altered to a great extent. Specifically, a difference of 46 mm in high (0.95) quantiles and a reduction of 30% wet-dry frequency is noted. The differences increase with the size of the grid shift at higher quantiles and vice versa for low quantiles. As the grid resolution increases, the difference between original and regridded data declines, yet the shift size dominates for high quantiles for which the differences are higher. Spatially, large differences at high quantiles in tropical land regions, and at low quantiles in polar regions are noted. These impacts are approximately same for the three different (first order conservative, bilinear, and distance weighted averaging) regridding methods considered in this study. Overall, re-gridding should be performed with caution as it can alter the statistical properties of precipitation to a great extent and adds uncertainty to further analysis of using in any models or in combined precipitation products.

This article undertakes a critical comparison of two books¬–Private Banking in Europe: Rise, Retreat, and Resurgence by Youssef Cassis and Philip Cottrell, and Financial Elites and European Banking: Historical Perspectives, edited by Youssef Cassis and Giuseppe Telesca–to explore how different genres of financial history and banking history have been written, and how the nature of financial history appears to be changing in relation to the rise of research on financialization and the social studies or finance / critical financial studies. The article argues that these genre differences are reflective of different methodological practices, theoretical and ethical concerns, and aesthetic preferences. The article concludes by arguing for greater engagement between financial history (especially that which intersects with business history) and the emerging research that embraces the social studies of finance.

Aims: To evaluate and compare survival after out-of-hospital (OHCA), where an automated external defibrillator (AED) was used, in densely, moderately and thinly populated areas. Also, to evaluate the association between AED retrieval distance and survival after OHCA. Methods: From 2014 to 2018, AEDs used during OHCA in the region of Southern Denmark were systematically collected. OHCAs were included if the OHCA address was known. OHCAs at nursing homes were excluded. To evaluate population density, a map with 1000 × 1000 meter grid cells was used with each cell color-graded according to the number of inhabitants. Densely, moderately and thinly populated areas were defined as ≥200 inhabitants, 20–199 inhabitants and 0–19 inhabitants per km 2, respectively. Primary outcome was 30-day survival. Results: A total of 423 cases of OHCA were included, of which 207 (49%) occurred in densely populated areas, while 78 (18%) and 138 (33%) occurred in moderately and thinly populated areas, respectively. AED retrieval distances were: densely populated 105 m (IQR 5–450), moderately populated 220 m (IQR 5–450) and thinly populated 350 m (IQR 5–1500) (P < 0.001). Thirty-day survival was 40%, 31% and 34%, respectively (P = 0.3). In a multivariable regression analysis, mortality increased with 10% per 100 m an AED was placed further away from the site of OHCA. Conclusion: Survival after OHCA, where an AED was used, did not seem to differ in thinly, moderately and densely populated areas. The length of the AED retrieval distance, however, was correlated with reduced survival after adjusting for other potentially explanatory variables.

Additional file 1. Supplementary material.