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The 23rd International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity (SIROCCO '16) was held on July 19-21, 2016, in Helsinki, Finland. The conference took place at the Aalto University School of Business, which is located in a lovely neighborhood near the city center. The venue is one block away from the Temppeliaukio Church, a magnificent church built directly into solid rock. I was lucky enough to enjoy a beautiful sacred music performance at the church on my first day in Helsinki, which helped me get over my jet lag. If you need some refreshing experiences while visiting Helsinki, I would definitely recommend the Temppeliaukio Church.

Surface drifters and virtual particles are used to investigate transport between seven coastal regions in the central and southern Adriatic Sea to estimate the degree to which these regions function as a network. Alongshore coastal currents and cyclonic gyres are the primary circulation features that connected regions in the Adriatic Sea. The historical drifter observations span 25 years and, thus, provide estimates of transport between regions realized by the mean surface circulation. The virtual particle trajectories and a dedicated drifter experiment show that southeasterly Sirocco winds can drive eastward cross-Adriatic transport from the Italian coast near the Gargano Promontory to the Dalmatian Islands in Croatia. Southeasterly winds disrupt alongshore transport on the west coast. Northwesterly Mistral winds enhanced east-to-west transport and resulted in stronger southeastward coastal currents in the western Adriatic current (WAC) and export to the northern Ionian Sea. The central Italian regions showed strong connections from north to south, likely realized by alongshore transport in the WAC. Alongshore, downstream transport was weaker on the east coast, likely due to the more complex topography introduced by the Dalmatian Islands of Croatia. Cross-Adriatic connection percentages were higher for east-to-west transport. Cross-Adriatic transport, in general, occurred via the cyclonic sub-gyres, with westward (eastward) transport observed in the northern (southern) arms of the central and southern gyres. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sirocco fan units, also known as squirrel cage fans, are usually installed at the air conditioning systems of vehicles used in public transport. They must provide an accurate ventilation flow rate, with high efficiency and performance, but also without operative problems like underperforming, outages or breakdowns, which usually lead to compromise the comfort and quietness of the passengers. Due to their heavy duty, they are susceptible of such problems which finally cause poor ventilation, magnified in highly crowded situations, and important noise generation with uncomfortable vibrations. Periodic maintenance and regular monitoring are thus essential to control that the fan operative range ensures a correct operation. This paper deals with a series of working failures, typically encountered in industrial applications with Sirocco fans, like impeller unbalances, obstructed channels or blocked inlets. A database with vibration signals has been measured experimentally to obtain the forced response of the fan as a function of the flow rate for different troubled scenarios. Following, a Symmetrized Dot Pattern (SDP) technique, that transforms the temporal waveforms into polar maps, is employed to generate dot patterns which can discriminate between different working conditions and failures, allowing an easy visual identification. The final objective is to show the potentiality of this technique as a fault diagnosis methodology for typical squirrel cage fans, providing optimal parameters for its use. The results obtained are also compared with other diagnosis techniques, previously employed by the authors, for a complementary analysis of the vibrating condition of these centrifugal fans.

Near-surface wind over the Adriatic region are examined under present-day and future climate conditions for two greenhouse gas scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) with an ensemble of high- resolution (0.11˚) CORDEX simulations. The influence of particular combinations of regional climate models (RCMs) and global climate models (GCMs) and emission scenarios on the future changes in the near-surface wind field has been explored in more detail. Starting with the seasonal climate change signal in large-scale flow over the entire CORDEX domain, we focus to regional daily wind fields over the Adriatic domain and subdaily features of well-known regional winds (Bora and Sirocco winds). The analysis reveals the strong sensitivity of the climate change signal in the simulated wind flow to (i) the choice of the GCM that provides the boundary conditions and (ii) the analyzed locations across the Adriatic region. The results of the 21st century projections indicate that the changes in synoptic activity have an impact on the wind field at the (sub)daily time scale. We found a reduction in the number of Bora events and increase in the number of Sirocco events in northern Adriatic during the winter season, with an increase in pressure in the middle of the 21st century. Overall, the mean wind speed during Bora and Sirocco events is reduced, except for Bora in northern Adriatic. For the summer season, we found a large increase in the number of thermally induced flows, which is probably caused by the weakening of the Azores High.

Flooding of the Adriatic coast is mainly induced by strong southerly wind episodes. This phenomenon in Venice is known as acqua alta. Here we studied threatening wind episodes using simulations of three Regional Climate Models (RCMs) to identify possible changes of their characteristics in future climate. It was shown that there is a small probability that frequency, intensity and annual cycle of these episodes will change in future climate. The result was robust and consistent according to all considered criteria – used RCM model, boundary conditions, climate scenario and future time interval.

This work presents the results of the numerical study implemented for the natural area of Lido di Spina, a touristic site along the Italian coast of the North Adriatic Sea, close to the mouth of River Reno. High-resolution simulations of nearshore dynamics are carried out under climate change conditions estimated for the site. The adopted modeling chain is based on the implementation of multiple-nested, open-source numerical models. More specifically, the coupled wave-2D hydrodynamics runs, using the open-source TELEMAC suite, are forced at the offshore boundary by waves resulting from the wave model (SWAN) simulations for the Adriatic Sea, and sea levels computed following a joint probability analysis approach. The system simulates presentday scenarios, as well as conditions reflecting the high IPCC greenhouse concentration trajectory named RCP8.5 under predicted climate changes. Selection of sea storms directed from SE (Sirocco events) and E-NE (Bora events) is performed together with Gumbel analysis, in order to define ordinary and extreme sea conditions. The numerical results are here presented in terms of local parameters such as wave breaking position, alongshore currents intensity and direction and flooded area, aiming to provide insights on how climate changes may impact hydrodynamics at a site scale. Although the wave energy intensity predicted for Sirocco events is expected to increase only slightly, modifications of the wave dynamics, current patterns, and inland flooding induced by climate changes are expected to be significant for extreme conditions, especially during Sirocco winds, with an increase in the maximum alongshore currents and in the inundated area compared to past conditions. © 2018 by the authors.

The conference was held from July 1st to July 4th at Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) in the heart of L'Aquila, Abruzzo, a historic city in Italy to the east of Rome. First Day On the rst day, a tutorial on Permissioned Blockchains took place. There, Roger Wattenhofer covered a variety of topics on permissioned and permissionless blockchains. The rst part started from the very basics, targeting an audience that has never heard of fault-tolerant distributed systems. In the second part, permissionless blockchains were explained, followed by the third and nal part, in which more advanced topics and current research were discussed. The 6-hour tutorial was well attended by researchers and students from various areas and the interactive format allowed the members of the audience to steer the talk into their preferred directions. In the evening, after the registration, the welcome reception with lots of delicious snacks and refreshing drinks took place.

In recent years, wave reanalyses have become popular as a powerful source of information for wave climate research and engineering applications. These wave reanalyses provide continuous time series of offshore wave parameters; nevertheless, in coastal areas or shallow water, waves are poorly described because spatial resolution is not detailed. By means of wave downscaling, it is possible to increase spatial resolution in high temporal coverage simulations, using forcing from wind and offshore wave databases. Meanwhile, the reanalysis wave databases are enough to describe the wave climate at the limit of simulations; wind reanalyses at an adequate spatial resolution to describe the wind structure near the coast are not frequently available. Remote sensing synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has the ability to detect sea surface signatures and estimate wind fields at high resolution (up to 300 m) and high frequency. In this work a wave downscaling is done on the northern Adriatic Sea, using a hybrid methodology and global wave and wind reanalysis as forcing. The wave fields produced were compared to wave fields produced with SAR winds that represent the two dominant wind regimes in the area: the bora (ENE direction) and sirocco (SE direction). Results show a good correlation between the waves forced with reanalysis wind and SAR wind. In addition, a validation of reanalysis is shown. This research demonstrates how Earth observation products, such as SAR wind fields, can be successfully up-taken into oceanographic modeling, producing similar downscaled wave fields when compared to waves forced with reanalysis wind.

Southeastern France is often subject to thermal breezes and inversions that are partly responsible for the dispersion behavior of air pollutants in this region. Generally, the coastal urban zone is the main contributor to PM10 emissions. However, a southerly wind, commonly known as Sirocco, occasionally generates dust advections from the Sahara desert, resulting in poor air quality in the study area. This work demonstrates the quick rise of PM10 levels on the French coastline under the influence of such a weather outbreak. Measurements were performed during a Saharan dust episode which occurred end of April 2013 and caused the tripling of PM10 daily averages at the regional scale in about 24 hours. In Vence, located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, the highest daily average was 7 times greater during the peak than before the dust outbreak. In Venaco (Corsica) off-line chemical characterizations for filter samples show that about 50% of the PM10 mass was composed of terrigenous dust, which confirms that they played a central role in the degradation of air quality and in the exceeding of the EU daily limit value of 50 μg/m3 at a regional scale.

This paper presents operability guidelines for seafarers on a product tanker which navigates in the Adriatic Sea during heavy weather. Tanker route starts from the Otranto strait in the south to the island Krk in the north of Adriatic Sea. Heavy weather is caused by south wind called jugo (blowing from E-SE to SS-E, sirocco family). Operability guidelines are given based on an operability criteria platform for presenting ship seakeeping characteristics. Operability criteria considered in this paper are propeller emergence, deck wetness and bow acceleration of a product tanker. Limiting values of mentioned criteria determine sustainable speed. Heavy weather is described by extreme sea state of 7.5 m wave height. Wave spectrum used in this paper is Tabain spectrum which is developed specifically for Adriatic Sea. Seafarer's approach of decisions making in extreme weather is also shown and servers as a guideline for further research of the authors.

Abstract This article explores different dynamics and spatialities of nonhuman animal encounters to illuminate important intersections between place and human-animal relations. The article focuses on Sirocco the Kakapo, an endangered New Zealand parrot, who due to illness as a chick was hand-reared in isolation from other Kakapo. Informed by qualitative research, data was gathered through interviewing those involved in the Kakapo Recovery Programme and from Internet websites and publications featuring Sirocco. Based on this research, it can be demonstrated how Sirocco, unlike his fellow Kakapo, is a bird who can traverse the seemingly clear-cut and spatially inscribed boundaries between “wild” and “tame,” between “human” and “animal,” and between “wild” and “domestic” places. Drawing upon relational theories of space and place in human geography, the case of Sirocco is used to interrogate and inform theorizations concerning the place of nonhuman animals in both spatial and conceptual terms. Sirocco’s story illuminates the complex and heterogeneous relations of encounter that stretch between New Zealand’s wild and domestic places, which in turn rely upon particular notions of wild and tame and prescribed relations between humans and “wild animals” that inhere in conservation practice more broadly.

[1] The historical data from the Trieste, Venice, Porto Corsini, and Rimini tide gauges have been used to investigate the spatial and temporal changes in extreme high water levels in the Northern Adriatic. A detailed analysis of annual mean sea level evolution at the three longest operating stations shows a coherent behavior both on a regional and global scale. A slight increase in magnitude of extreme water elevations, after the removal of the regularized annual mean sea level necessary to eliminate the effect of local subsidence and sea level rise, is found at the Venice and Porto Corsini stations. It seems to be mainly associated with a wind regime change occurred in the 1990s, due to an intensification of Bora wind events after their decrease in frequency and intensity during the second half of the 20th century. The extreme values, adjusted for the annual mean sea level trend, are modeled using a time-dependent GEV distribution. The inclusion of seasonality in the GEV parameters considerably improves the data fitting. The interannual fluctuations of the detrended monthly maxima exhibit a significant correlation with the variability of the large-scale atmospheric circulation represented by the North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic Oscillation indices. The different coast exposure to the Bora and Sirocco winds and their seasonal character explain the various seasonal patterns of extreme sea levels observed at the tide gauges considered in the present analysis.

Winds through the Vratnik Pass, a mountain gap in the Dinaric Alps, Croatia, are polarized along the gap axis that extends in the northeast–southwest direction. Although stronger northeasterly wind at the Vratnik Pass is frequently related to the Adriatic bora wind, especially at the downstream town of Senj, there are many cases in which the wind at Senj is directionally decoupled from the wind at the Vratnik Pass. A cluster analysis reveals that this decoupling is sometimes related to lower wind speeds or a shallow southeasterly sirocco wind along the Adriatic, but in many cases the bora blows over a wider region, while only Senj has a different wind direction. Several mechanisms can be responsible for the latter phenomenon, including the formation of a lee wave rotor. A numerical model simulation corroborates the decoupling caused by a rotor for a single case. The prevalence of northeasterly winds at the Vratnik Pass during southeasterly sirocco episodes is another result that challenges the current understanding. It is shown that, at least in one of these episodes, this phenomenon is related to a secondary mesoscale low pressure center in the eastern lee of the Apennines that forms as a subsystem of a broader Genoa cyclone. Less frequent southwesterly winds through the gap are predominantly related to the thermal sea breeze and anabatic circulations that are sometimes superimposed on the geostrophic wind.

Who would have thought that Sirocco winds could one day blow over Iceland? The distributed computing community made it happen by holding the 19th International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity (sirocco) in Reykjavik1. With its 120,000 inhabitants, its harbor, small town houses, but crowded bars and many cultural venues, Reykjavik has an air of a village and one of a European metropolis at the same time. In July, the days last forever and so does the hustle and bustle in Reykjavik streets. Reykjavik University, where the conference took place, is located in the southern part of the city, in a newly built campus on the shore, just next to a naturally heated sand beach, and is equipped with modern and pleasant facilities. The fifty or so participants had there the perfect environment to discuss advances in sirocco’s areas of interest. sirocco is devoted to the study of communication and knowledge in distributed systems from both qualitative and quantitative viewpoints. It has been indeed the aim of sirocco, since its 1994 first edition, to comprehend trade-offs and interplay between information that entities are provided in a distributed system and their computational and communication power. Aside from rather traditional problems such as agreement, local decision or graph exploration, new and innovative ones were also given special attention such as problems involving game theoretic aspects and quantum computations. And it is in reflection of this innovative spirit that each year, a Prize for Innovation in Distributed Computing is awarded to individuals whose contribution introduced new approaches or research areas. This year, 28 talks were selected among 54 submitted papers, with Roger Wattenhofer and Boaz Patt-Shamir as invited speakers.

Strong and persistent low-level winds blowing over the Adriatic basin are often associated with intense precipitation events over Italy. Typically, in case of moist southeasterly wind (Sirocco), rainfall affects northeastern Italy and the Alpine chain, while with cold northeasterly currents (Bora) precipitations are localized along the eastern slopes of the Apennines and central Italy coastal areas. These events are favoured by intense air-sea interactions and it is reasonable to hypothesize that the Adriatic sea surface temperature (SST) can affect the amount and location of precipitation. High-resolution simulations of different Bora and Sirocco events leading to severe precipitation are performed using a convection-permitting model (MOLOCH). Sensitivity experiments varying the SST initialization field are performed with the aim of evaluating the impact of SST uncertainty on precipitation forecasts, which is a relevant topic for operational weather predictions, especially at local scales. Moreover, diagnostic tools to compute water vapour fluxes across the Italian coast and atmospheric water budget over the Adriatic Sea have been developed and applied in order to characterize the air mass that feeds the precipitating systems. Finally, the investigation of the processes through which the SST influences location and intensity of heavy precipitation allows to gain a better understanding on mechanisms conducive to severe weather in the Mediterranean area and in the Adriatic basin in particular. Results show that the effect of the Adriatic SST (uncertainty) on precipitation is complex and can vary considerably among different events. For both Bora and Sirocco events, SST does not influence markedly the atmospheric water budget or the degree of moistening of air that flows over the Adriatic Sea. SST mainly affects the stability of the atmospheric boundary layer, thus influencing the flow dynamics and the orographic flow regime, and in turn, the precipitation pattern.

：The aerodynamic performance of double inlet sirocco fan is strongly dependent upon the design factors of impeller and scroll. In this paper, the change of scroll size was adopted to investigate the aerodynamic performances of double inlet sirocco fan and indoor PAC. Especially, a scroll expansion angle and a cut-off clearance ratio were considered to change the scroll size. In addition, the installation depth between double inlet sirocco fan and indoor PAC was considered. As a result, the total pressure efficiency of double inlet sirocco fan shows about 62%∼73% according to the change of scroll expansion angles. Moreover, the flowrate performance of indoor PAC is the best at the condition of a scroll expansion angle of 8°, an installation depth of 15 mm and a cut-off clearance ratio of 8%. Key Words ：Aerodynamic Performance, Cut-off Clearance Ratio, Double Inlet Sirocco Fan, Sirocco Impeller, Package Air-Conditioner, Scroll, Scroll Expansion Angle *†김장권(교신저자) : 군산대학교 동력기계시스템공학과E-mail : flowkim@kunsan.ac.kr, Tel : 063-469-1848** 오석형 : 군산대학교 기계공학부*†Jang-Kweon Kim(corresponding author) : Department of Power System Engineering, Kunsan National University.E-mail : flowkim@kunsan.ac.kr, Tel : 063-469-1848** Seok-Hyung Oh : School of Mechanical Engineering, Kunsan National University.

We have developed high-performance electric fans by applying features of the wings of living creatures. This paper proposes an air purifier sirocco fan blade that mimics the wings of a dragonfly. Air quality has increasingly attracted attention in Japanese homes, and one or more air purifiers are installed in almost 40% of all houses in the country. The purpose of an air purifier is to maintain air cleanness, and it is operated overnight. There is, however, the problem of the loud noise created by the fan, which also makes overnight operation inconvenient. To solve this problem, we adopted the shape of the dragonfly wing in the sirocco fan blade of an air purifier. As a result, a maximum reduction of 2.5 dB was achieved.

Particle deposition in three selected "urban/suburban" sites in Sfax city, southern Tunisia, was studied through biweekly monitoring particulate deposits from April 12 to November 26, 2014. Two sites (S1 and S2) were located at the proximity of well-exposed cross-roads; however, the third (S3) was located at a street canyon. A very high fluctuation in those particle fluxes, ranging from 0.1 and 17.9 g/m(2), was clearly observed. Spatiotemporal distribution of the deposited particulate fluxes proved the concomitant effects of multiple (local and synoptic) sources. The industrial contribution rate in terms of particulate deposits was demonstrated to be negligible, and as for that of traffic, it was confirmed to be more significant. The highest particulate deposition seemed to be associated with the sirocco wind phenomenon. Humidity appeared as a main parameter reinforcing the particle deposition (by gathering process); however, the rain was considered as an important factor in terms of atmosphere washing. The intersite distribution was also threatened by local wind movements, shown as a non-negligible factor in terms of deposition, especially in the street canyon.

The computational flow analysis using LES technique was carried out to investigate the flow characteristics of a sirocco fan under the maximum flowrate condition. The commercial SC/Tetra software was used for this unsteady and three-dimensional numerical analysis. In consequence, because a flow is unstable within the range of about 50% of a housing depth from a bellmouth around the cutoff region, the passing flow through the blade cascade occurred on the X-Y plane is a slow or a reverse with approaching to the housing inlet. Also, the secondary flow shows on the radial plane of a housing, and its vortex center exists within about 33% of a housing depth from a bellmouth except the cutoff region. Moreover, the flow occurring on the exit plane of a sirocco fan shows a complex secondary flow.

Aerodynamic characteristics depending on the shape of an internal motor in a small-size sirocco fan for residential ventilation have been investigated. For the aerodynamic analyses of the sirocco fan, three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are solved with the shear stress transport model for turbulence closure. The flow analyses are performed on hexahedral grids using a finite-volume solver. The validation of the numerical results at steady-state is performed by comparing with experimental data for the pressure and efficiency. In order to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics depending on shape of an internal motor in a sirocco fan, the reference shape is analyzed compared to the case without internal motor. Additionally, two shape parameters, height and width of the internal motor in a sirocco fan, are tested to investigate their effects on the aerodynamic characteristics. The results show that the shape of the internal motor in a sirocco fan is an important factor to improve the aerodynamic performances.

Dynamics and evolution trend in Budoni beach are described. The beach (long about 4km) is composed of fi ne to gravelly quarz sand, few seasonal lagoons are developed behind the dunes. Shortterm variations have been periodically monitored since October 09. Sedimentary and hydrodynamic characteristics were studied. Short-term evolution was tested using topo-bathymetric digital models, derived from data acquired in 3 different field; models of wave motion and hydrodynamics were created using Delft3D software. The results obtained from these models (wave ray direction, deep current distribution, structure and surfzone dynamics) allowed to visualize the response of beach to wind/waves stress, forced from NE, E, SE (wind intensity 18m/s, 10m/s). Gregale and Sirocco are the winds that generate the widest surfzone, the currents created by the these winds cause mainly longshore transportation in the early hours of the meteo-marine event. The beach shows an homeostatic behavior characteristics typical of balanced systems.

Atmospheric turbidity is an important parameter for assessing the air pollution in local areas and controlling the attenuation of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface under cloudless sky. An investigation of atmospheric turbidity has been undertaken in Kerkennah Island (in Tunisia). Turbidity indexes, namely, Linke factor (T L ) and Angstrom coefficient (β) were derived directly from measurements taken by pyrheliometer during a year: July (2008) to June (2009). Data obtained from these measurements in this area were compared with measurements performed in a coastal and urban region (Sidi Bou Said) located in the North of Tunisia. A comparison of the seasonal cycle of turbidity at both sites showed: *) maximum values of turbidity in the summer due to dust storms, vertical convection and breeze sea circulation; *) Values of turbidity decrease in the autumn season, due to the decreasing of days of Sirocco and to the increasing of amount of rainfall; *) low values of turbidity index in the winter, due to precipitation removal as well as relative humidity-impacted deposition; *) middle values of turbidity were observed in the spring season. Monthly, diurnal, hourly mean values and frequency of occurrence of the value of each turbidity index were used to characterize variations of atmospheric turbidity. The three-hourly standard meteorological data given by the Meteorological National Institute (Sfax) represent a valuable supplement to the data sets with the pyrheliometer measurements. The analysis of the results shows that there is a high correlation between atmospheric turbidity and local weather conditions, especially temperature and wind speed. The correlation of meteorological parameters (wind speed and temperature) with the turbidity coefficients was analyzed and discussed.

The accuracy of deterministic and probabilistic forecasts of storms in the Adriatic Sea that lead to the flooding of Venice is discussed. We consider ECMWF state-of-the-art high-resolution single deterministic and lower-resolution ensemble-based forecasts of meteorological and sea states (waves) for five storms that affected Venice between 1966 and 2008. Notwithstanding the complicated local orographic situation, it is shown that ECMWF single, deterministic forecasts provide accurate information up to 3–4 days in advance. This range is further extended to between 4 and 6 days if ensemble-based, probabilistic forecasts are considered. The assessment of the quality of Ensemble Prediction System (EPS) probabilistic forecasts during the winters of 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 over the Adriatic and the Mediterranean Seas, and the North Atlantic Ocean, is also discussed to provide a proper statistical evaluation of the accuracy of EPS-based probabilistic forecasts of the wind over the sea. Average results indicate that EPS probabilistic forecasts over these areas are skilful for the whole forecast range considered in this study. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society

This paper presents a procedure for the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic characteristics of a sirocco fan. For the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic analyses of the sirocco fan, three-dimensional steady and unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are solved with a shear stress transport turbulence model for turbulence closure. The flow analyses were performed on a hexahedral grid using a finite-volume solver. The validation of the numerical results is performed by comparing with experimental data for the pressure, efficiency and power. The internal flow analyses of the sirocco fan are performed to understand the unstable flow phenomenon on the casing for the wall pressure and internal flow characteristics at each position. It was found that fluctuation of pressure and locally concentrated noise source are observed near the cut-off and expansion regions of the casing.

Obtaining realistic meteorological fields that are necessary for numerical modelling and prediction of sea state within operational oceanography as well as for Rapid Environmental Assessment (REA) tasks is not easy in the regions like the Adriatic Sea, which is surrounded by complex local orography. By analysing the output fields from the mesoscale meteorological model LAMI and the global ECMWF model between October 2005 and September 2006, this paper investigates effects that orography may exert on meteorological fields over the Adriatic region. The analysis is performed over four weather regimes typical for the Adriatic Sea, namely those characterized by bora, sirocco, bora–sirocco and etesian winds. Analysed are mean fields and mean differences between the two models. Results indicate that all investigated flow regimes are significantly affected by the Apennines and the Dinaric Alps, but also by smaller scale orography that is, at least along the Italian coast, adequately represented by LAMI and not by the ECMWF model. A kind of symmetry is found between sirocco and etesian regimes on the Adriatic scale, as well as on smaller scales, e.g. around the Gargano peninsula which acts as a typical 3D obstacle. Well known jets-and-wakes bora pattern along the eastern coast is clearly seen in the mean fields. The enhanced cloudiness and precipitation regions are shown to appear in convergence zones of bora, bora–sirocco and sirocco regimes, related to the mountain ridges perpendicular to the respective flow. Additionally, within the bora–sirocco regime a relatively narrow convergence zone at the boundary between the bora and sirocco flow is noticed. The authors believe that methods used in this paper can be useful when applied to other coastal regions and models. By considering the differences between output fields from two models of different resolution, the areas affected by smaller scale phenomena could be clearly seen. On the other side, the mean modelled fields show persistent meso to synoptic scale structures thus enabling better understanding of dynamical and climatological characteristics, both of the considered region and the models used.

This study examines spatial and time evolutions of the principal constituents of the Tunisian background aerosols under Sirocco wind circulations. Aerosols coming from the Sahara Desert were found to be loaded with particulate matter, especially silicon. The aerosols were shown to have varying geochemical behaviour along the “South-North” displacement of the Saharan plumes, depending on the wind flow characteristics, geomorphologic features and the nature of soils swept by the wind. In the south and the center part of the country, the transfer of aerosol constituents to the soil (by gravity and/or impaction) was probably predominated by localized enrichment phenomena. The latter are reinforced by the effect of turbulent winds over bare soils, wind wakes and probably selective disintegration, especially in the vicinity of the geomorphologic features of central Tunisia. These relatively high features, extending over important distances, appear to be of paramount importance for the phenomena of redistribution of aerosol constituents even during periods without Sirocco wind circulations. In the northern section of the country, aerosol constituent concentrations dropped to almost 50%, in spite of the abundance of localized turbulent winds. This may be explained by the effect of forests and the relatively dense vegetation cover, which clearly reinforces the transfer phenomena to the soil and the attenuate of dust entrainment.

ARTICLE I NFO An analysis of the Bibliography of Aeolian Research has provided information regarding publication trends in aeolian research. Results suggest that there has been a significant increase in the number of publications per year since the first aeolian-research publication appeared in 1646. Rates of publication have increased from only three publications in the 17th Century to nearly three publications per day in the 21st Century. The temporal distribution of publications follows a complex pattern that is influenced by many factors. In the 17th and 18th Centuries, publications appear as isolated clusters indicating limited interest in aeolian research and limited opportunities for individuals to contribute to scientific literature. With time, many new scientific societies are formed and many new scientific journals are established, opening new opportunities for scientists to contribute to scientific discourse. Landmark publications open up new research areas and define new directions for aeolian research. General advances in science and technology provide new techniques for sampling blowing sand and dust. In addition, clear signs exist that publication rates respond to major environmental and climatic events, especially large-scale disasters that focus attention on wind erosion and blowing dust. The Sirocco dust events of 1901-1903, the North American Dust Bowl of the1930s, and the recent sand and dust storm problems in China have all led to significant increases in the number of publications in aeolian research. Rates of publication are negatively influenced by major political and social upheavals, especially global conflicts such as World Wars I and II. Sudden shifts in government structure and support can also influence publication rates. A good example is the increased publication rates in China following the end of the Cultural Revolution, a trend that continues today. Published by Elsevier B.V.

An automotive sirocco fan has been widely used in air-conditioning devices. It is essential to understand the flow characteristics of an automotive sirocco fan to satisfy the trends for more efficient and less noise. In this study, numerical calculations were conducted to explain the three-dimensional unsteady, incompressible flow characteristics and performance of the sirocco fan using FLUENT. Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with the standard k - ɛ turbulence model were used for the numerical analysis. The sliding mesh was used to simulate the relative transient motion of impeller against scroll. It was found that the inactive zone and the secondary flow reduce efficiency because they cause internal losses. A parametric study was performed to improve efficiency of the sirocco fan, using two geometric variables. Reducing the width of impeller could decrease the relative size of inactive zone and secondary flow. Changing the position of cut-off had little influence on the efficiency. Thus an improvement of efficiency could be achieved by reducing the width of impeller.

A sirocco fan using contra-rotating rotors in which an inner rotor is settled inside the sirocco fan rotor and each rotor rotates in an opposite direction was proposed for the purpose of getting the higher pressure and making the structure of a sirocco fan more compact. If the high discharge pressure is obtained with the adoption of the contra-rotating rotors, it could be used for various purposes. Pressure coefficient of a sirocco fan with contra-rotating rotors is 2.5 times as high as the conventional sirocco fan and the maximum efficiency point of contra-rotating rotors shifts to larger flow rate than a conventional sirocco fan. On the other hand, it was clarified from the flow measurement results that circumferential velocity component at the outlet of the outer rotor of contra-rotating rotors becomes larger than a conventional one. In the present paper, the performance of a conventional sirocco fan and a sirocco fan with contra-rotating rotors are shown and the internal flow field at the outlet of outer rotor of both cases is clarified. Then, the effect of different kind of contra-rotating rotors on the performance and internal flow field is investigated and the rotor design with higher performance would be discussed.

Sirocco is a massively parallel, high performance storage system that breaks from the classical Zebra-style file system design paradigm. Its architecture is inspired by peer-to-peer and victim-cache architectures, and emphasizes client-to-client coordination, low server-side coupling, and free data movement and placement. By leveraging these ideas, Sirocco natively supports automatic migration between several media types, including RAM, flash, disk, and archival storage.

In this talk we attempt to identify the characteristics of a task of distributed network computing, which make it easy (or hard) to solve by means of fast local algorithms. We look at specific combinatorial tasks within the LOCAL model of distributed computation, and rephrase some recent algorithmic results in a framework of constraint satisfaction. Finally, we discuss the issue of efficient computability for relaxed variants of the LOCAL model, involving the so-called non-signaling property.

Differences between meteorological fields over the Adriatic Sea as predicted by the mesoscale meteorological model ALADIN/HR and global ECMWF model, for sirocco episodes between November 2002 and September 2003, are analysed. Results indicate that the orography, namely Gargano Mountains and Apennines, may have a significant effect on the sirocco airflow. A brief discussion is given on the impact of the sirocco wind curl on the Western Adriatic Current (WAC).

A new high-resolution (

Sirocco is a massively parallel, high performance storage system for the exascale era. It emphasizes client-to-client coordination, low server-side coupling, and free data movement to improve resilience and performance. Its architecture is inspired by peer-to-peer and victim- cache architectures. By leveraging these ideas, Sirocco natively supports several media types, including RAM, flash, disk, and archival storage, with automatic migration between levels. Sirocco also includes storage interfaces and support that are more advanced than typical block storage. Sirocco enables clients to efficiently use key-value storage or block-based storage with the same interface. It also provides several levels of transactional data updates within a single storage command, including full ACID-compliant updates. This transaction support extends to updating several objects within a single transaction. Further support is provided for con- currency control, enabling greater performance for workloads while providing safe concurrent modification. By pioneering these and other technologies and techniques in the storage system, Sirocco is poised to fulfill a need for a massively scalable, write-optimized storage system for exascale systems. This is version 1.0 of a document reflecting the current and planned state of Sirocco. Further versions of this document will be accessible at http://www.cs.sandia.gov/Scalable_IO/ sirocco .

A case of snow fall in the plains of the Northern Italian region Veneto is presented from a forecasters' perspective. Contrasting forecast guidance came from the ECMWF global model and the limited area model LAMI. The former showed a marked warm-moist Sirocco flow coming from the Adriatic Sea onto the coast at all levels, the latter discerned a distinct cold air flow from the north-east along the foothills of the Alps. The integrated observing network of the Centro Meteorologico di Teolo ARPA Veneto revealed this cold-air structure and helped the forecaster in the choice of the forecast and underpin the snowfall alert to the road authorities. It is argued that this feature is a crucial element for the occurrence of snowfall over the Veneto plains, and that the high-resolution numerical weather prediction model was essential in describing this mesoscale feature. The nature of the north-easterly flow is thought to be a combination of a Bora like flow and a barrier jet induced by flow blocking by the Alps.