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1. Excess mortality in Belarus during the COVID-19 pandemic as the case study of a country with limited non-pharmaceutical interventions and limited reporting

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09345-z  

   Kirpich, Alexander; Shishkin, Aleksandr; Weppelmann, Thomas A.; Tchernov, Alexander Perez; Skums, Pavel; Gankin, Yuriy (December 2022, Scientific Reports)

   Abstract Public health intervention to contain the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic significantly differed by country since the SARS-CoV-2 spread varied regionally in time and in scale. Since vaccinations were not available until the end of 2020 non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) remained the only strategies to mitigate the pandemic spread at that time. Belarus in Europe is one of a few countries with a high Human Development Index where no lockdowns have ever been implemented and only limited NPIs have taken place for a period of time. Therefore, the Belarusian case was evaluated and compared in terms of the mortality burden. Since the COVID-19 mortality was low, the excess overall mortality was studied for Belarus. Since no overall mortality data have been reported past June 2020 the analysis was complemented by the study of Google Trends funeral-related search queries up until August 2021. Depending on the model, the Belarusian mortality for June of 2020 was 29 to 39% higher than otherwise expected with the corresponding estimated excess death was from 2953 to 3690 while the reported COVID-19 mortality for June 2020 was only 157 cases. The Belarusian excess mortality for June 2020 was higher than for all neighboring countries with an excess of 5% for Poland, 5% for Ukraine, 8% for Russia, 11% for Lithuania and 11% for Latvia. The relationship between Google Trends and mortality time series was studied using Granger’s test and the results were statistically significant. The results for Google Trends searches did vary by key phrase with the largest excess of 138% for April 2020 and 148% for September 2020 was observed for a key phrase “coffin”, while the largest excess of 218% for January 2021 was observed for “funeral services”. In summary, there are indications of the excess overall mortality in Belarus, which is larger than the reported COVID-19-related mortality. 

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2. Effects of ferromagnetic branch structures on coercivity of alnico permanent magnets

   https://doi.org/10.1063/9.0000298  

   Won, Hoyun; Hong, Yang-Ki; Choi, Minyeong; Mankey, Gary_J; Lee, Jongkook; Lee, Taegyu; Lim, Tae_Won (March 2022, AIP Advances)

   The effects of various branches geometry and dimensions such as length, thickness, and width for H-, U-, O-, YH- and YU-shaped alnico structures on coercivity (Hci) using micromagnetic simulation for coherent rotation and curling modes are investigated. The simulation results suggest that the H-shaped structure needs long and short branch length for the coherent rotation and curling, respectively, regardless of branch thickness and width to realize high Hci. Short branch length with thin thickness and short width are recommended for both rotations for the U- and O-shaped structures. Lastly, both Y-shaped structures need branch with long length, thin thickness, and mid-long width for the coherent rotation, but short width for the YH-shaped and mid-long width for the YU-shaped regardless of length and thickness for curling are desired. Furthermore, among the five studied structures, H- or YH-shaped structure for coherent rotation and O-shaped structure for curling are highly recommended for fabrication to realize a high Hci. 

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3. Role of Regularization in the Prediction of Valence from Speech

   https://doi.org/10.21437/Interspeech.2018-2508  

   Sridhar, Kusha; Parthasarathy, Srinivas; Busso, Carlos (September 2018, Interspeech 2018)

   Regularization plays a key role in improving the prediction of emotions using attributes such as arousal, valence and dominance. Regularization is particularly important with deep neural networks (DNNs), which have millions of parameters. While previous studies have reported competitive performance for arousal and dominance, the prediction results for valence using acoustic features are significantly lower. We hypothesize that higher regularization can lead to better results for valence. This study focuses on exploring the role of dropout as a form of regularization for valence, suggesting the need for higher regularization. We analyze the performance of regression models for valence, arousal and dominance as a function of the dropout probability. We observe that the optimum dropout rates are consistent for arousal and dominance. However, the optimum dropout rate for valence is higher. To understand the need for higher regularization for valence, we perform an empirical analysis to explore the nature of emotional cues conveyed in speech. We compare regression models with speakerdependent and speaker-independent partitions for training and testing. The experimental evaluation suggests stronger speaker dependent traits for valence. We conclude that higher regularization is needed for valence to force the network to learn global patterns that generalize across speakers. 

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4. Validity of steady Prandtl layer expansions

   https://doi.org/10.1002/cpa.22109  

   Guo, Yan; Iyer, Sameer (November 2023, Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics)

   Abstract Let the viscosity for the 2D steady Navier‐Stokes equations in the region and with no slip boundary conditions at . For , we justify the validity of the steady Prandtl layer expansion for scaled Prandtl layers, including the celebrated Blasius boundary layer. Our uniform estimates in ε are achieved through a fixed‐point scheme:for solving the Navier‐Stokes equations, where are the tangential and normal velocities at , DNS stands for of the vorticity equation for the normal velocityv, and the compatibility ODE for at . 

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5. Evaluating Liquefaction Triggering Potential Using Seismic Input Parameters that Are Consistent with ASCE 7-16

   https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784482810.010  

   Green, R.A. and (February 2020, Geo-Congress 2020: Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Special Topics)

   J.P. Hambleton, R. Makhnenko (Ed.)

   ASCE 7-16 details how the peak ground acceleration (PGA) should be determined for evaluating liquefaction triggering, with this PGA reflecting the influence of a range of earthquake magnitudes on a site’s seismic hazard. Similarly, the Finn and Wightman magnitude-weighting scheme can be used to account for the full range of magnitudes influencing the seismic hazard at a site, where the weights are derived from a site’s seismic hazard deaggregation data. However, the deaggregation data for the seismic hazard maps for the Central/Eastern U.S. are only available for rock motions and not motions at the surface of the soil profile. The authors explore this issue by comparing the weighted average magnitude scaling factors (MSF) and depth-stress weighting factor (rd) values for multiple sites in the Western U.S. developed using deaggregation data for rock motions and for motions at the surface of the soil profiles. Based on these comparisons, the authors found that using the PGA deaggregation data for rock conditions yield similar weighted averages for MSF and rd as those computed using deaggregation data for the PGA at the surface of the soil profile. 

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