Cloudy Times Research Articles

Implementation of a hospital-based end-of-life and bereavement care program in a latin American middle-income country. A source of light and compassion in the midst of cloudy times

BackgroundThe death of a child is one of the most devastating events a family can face, resulting in significant physical and psychosocial morbidity. Bereavement support programs have been developed in high-income contexts to address this need. However, little is known about implementing bereavement programs in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Here, we describe the implementation of a bereavement program for parents whose children died due to cancer or other catastrophic illnesses.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective analysis to describe the implementation of a hospital-based End of Life (EoL) care and bereavement program. This program was developed in several stages, including an assessment of bereaved families, development program guidelines, staff training, piloting of the program, refinement, and standardization. The program was developed between 2019 and 2021 in a nonprofit, teaching hospital and referral center for southwestern Colombia.ResultsSeveral tools were developed as key components of the bereavement program: a virtual bereavement course; guidance for EoL and bereavement communication and care, memory making, and follow-up calls; a condolence letter template, and group support workshops. A total of 956 healthcare professionals were trained, 258 follow-up calls to bereaved parents were made, 150 individual psychological follow-ups to parents with complicated grief occurred, 79 condolence letters were sent, and 10 support group workshops were carried out. Challenges were identified and overcome, such as limited resources and staff, and cultural perceptions of death. In 2021, this program received an award by the hospital as the Best Strategy to Humanize Healthcare.ConclusionsThis study highlights the feasibility of developing and implementing EoL and bereavement care programs for parents and families within hospitals in LMICs. Lack of resources, staff, and training are some of the identified challenges to implementation. Utilizing methodological tools allows us to identify facilitator factors and deliverable outcomes of our EoL and bereavement program. This model provides a valuable framework for resource-limited settings.

Thermo-economic evaluation of a solar desalination equipped with Phase change material and spraying unit

Solar desalination is a suitable and cost-effective system for producing fresh water from salt water. The main goal of this study is improving the thermal performance of a solar desalination with latent thermal storage system and the spraying unit. The heat loss of the solar collector increases due to the fluctuations in the intensity of solar radiation. Using phase change materials is a suitable solution for storing energy during peak hours and releasing it when the solar radiation intensity is reduced or in cloudy times. Moreover, due to the effective area of the spraying mechanism the desalination efficiency enhanced. Thermal performance of the collector was analyzed at three spraying rates of 0.25, 0.5 and 1 l/min with and without phase change material in consecutive days from 10: 00 to 14: 00. The results showed that the presented solar desalination system equipped with paraffin (as PCM) wax had the highest thermal efficiency at the spraying rate of 1 l/min and the lowest with a flow rate of 0.25 l/min. With integration PCM and spraying mechanism the amount of produced fresh water during 4 h was 1840 ml/m2 and it significantly reduced the hardness of the produced water. The solar collector simulated by Anysy and the simulated results showed a good correlation between the predicted and experimental data with reasonable accuracy (R2 > 0.97).

Ambient Aerosol Is Physically Larger on Cloudy Days in Bondville, Illinois.

Particle chemical composition affects aerosol optical and physical properties in ways important for the fate, transport, and impact of atmospheric particulate matter. For example, hygroscopic constituents take up water to increase the physical size of a particle, which can alter the extinction properties and atmospheric lifetime. At the collocated AERosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) and Interagency Monitoring of PROtected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network monitoring stations in rural Bondville, Illinois, we employ a novel cloudiness determination method to compare measured aerosol physicochemical properties on predominantly cloudy and clear sky days from 2010 to 2019. On cloudy days, aerosol optical depth (AOD) is significantly higher than on clear sky days in all seasons. Measured Ångström exponents are significantly smaller on cloudy days, indicating physically larger average particle size for the sampled populations in all seasons except winter. Mass concentrations of fine particulate matter that include estimates of aerosol liquid water (ALW) are higher on cloudy days in all seasons but winter. More ALW on cloudy days is consistent with larger particle sizes inferred from Ångström exponent measurements. Aerosol chemical composition that affects hygroscopicity plays a determining impact on cloudy versus clear sky differences in AOD, Ångström exponents, and ALW. This work highlights the need for simultaneous collocated, high-time-resolution measurements of both aerosol chemical and physical properties, in particular at cloudy times when quantitative understanding of tropospheric composition is most uncertain.

Generating a 2-km, all-sky, hourly land surface temperature product from Advanced Baseline Imager data

By characterizing high-frequency surface thermal dynamics at a medium spatial scale, hourly land surface temperatures (LST), retrieved from geostationary satellite thermal infrared (TIR) observations, shows great potential to be used across a range of scientific applications; however, cloud cover typically leads to data gaps and degraded retrieval accuracy in TIR LST products, such as the official Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) LST product. Studies have focused on the LST gap reconstruction; however, most interpolation-based methods only work for a short-term cloud duration and are unable to adequately compensate for cloud effects, and traditional surface energy balance (SEB)-based methods are able to handle cloud coverage while they are not feasible for use at night. Moreover, few studies have concentrated on recovering the abnormal retrievals of partial cloud pixels. In this study, an all-sky diurnal, hourly LST estimation method based on SEB theory was proposed; the proposed method involved three major steps: 1) an original spatiotemporal dynamic model of LST was constructed from ECMWF Reanalysis v.5 (ERA5); 2) clear-sky ABI LST was then assimilated to the dynamic model to generate a continuous LST series; 3) the diurnal cloud effects were superimposed on cloudy time estimated by an innovative optimization method from satellite radiation products. A 2-km, all-sky, hourly LST product was produced over the contiguous US and Mexico from July 2017 to June 2021. Validation was conducted using ground measurements at 18 sites from Surface Radiation (SURFRAD) and core AmeriFlux networks, and produced an overall root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 2.44 K, a bias of −0.19 K, and an R2 of 0.97 based on 408,300 samples. For clear-sky samples, the RMSE values were 2.37 and 2.24 K for day and nighttime, respectively, which was a notable improvement over the corresponding values of the official ABI LST product (2.73 and 2.86 K, respectively). The RMSE values on cloudy-sky were 2.78 and 2.23 K for day and nighttime, respectively. The daily mean LST by aggregating all-sky, hourly LST had an RMSE of 1.13 K and R2 of 0.99. Overall, this product showed reliability under consistent cloud durations, although it was slightly affected by surface elevation. The diurnal temperature cycle climatology of major land cover types was also characterized. The product is freely available at: http://glass.umd.edu/allsky_LST/ABI/.

Deep learning based solar radiation micro forecast by fusion of infrared cloud images and radiation data

Solar irradiance forecasting has been gaining paramount importance in recent years due to its impact on power grids. However, solar energy harvesting over shorter periods also brings new challenges due to its intermittent and uncertain attributes. Hence, accurate forecasting has become an indispensable aspect of the effective management of power system operations. The existing models focus on using only time-series data for solar radiation forecasting. But during cloudy time instances, it fails to quickly capture the nonlinear Spatio-temporal variations in the data for shorter periods. To bridge this gap, in this paper, a multi-modal fusion network is developed for studying solar irradiance micro forecasts by using both infrared images and past solar irradiance data. Here both spatial and temporal information is extracted parallelly and fused using a fully connected neural network. The solar forecasts of the proposed methods are evaluated against benchmark models in terms of Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) and other qualitative measures. The experimental results illustrate that the multi-modal fusion networks outperform the existing methods while predicting solar irradiance for cloudy days as well as mixed days (both cloudy and sunny days). Hence a transfer learning-based classifier with 99.23% accuracy is developed to categorize the cloudy days from sunny days. In the case of higher horizon forecasts, the proposed models show the optimum trade-off between performance and test time. Moreover, the Multiple Image Convolutional Long Short Term Memory Fusion Network (MICNN-L) shows a 46.42% improvement in MAPE whereas the Convolutional Long Short Term Memory Fusion Network (CNN-L) has a 42.02% increase when compared to the benchmark machine learning and deep learning models.

Differences in fine particle chemical composition on clear and cloudy days.

Clouds are prevalent and alter PM2.5 mass and chemical composition. Cloud-affected satellite retrievals are often removed from data products, hindering estimates of tropospheric chemical composition during cloudy times. We examine surface fine particulate matter (PM2.5) chemical constituent concentrations in the Interagency Monitoring of PROtected Visual Environments network during Cloudy and Clear Sky times defined using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) cloud flags from 2010-2014 with a focus on differences in particle hygroscopicity and aerosol liquid water (ALW). Cloudy and Clear Sky periods exhibit significant differences in PM2.5 and chemical composition that vary regionally and seasonally. In the eastern US, relative humidity alone cannot explain differences in ALW, suggesting emissions and in situ chemistry exert determining impacts. An implicit clear sky bias may hinder efforts to quantitatively to understand and improve model representation of aerosol-cloud interactions.

Feasibility study of a blind-type photovoltaic roof-shade system designed for simultaneous production of crops and electricity in a greenhouse

The use of renewable energy in modern greenhouse management is important to achieve efficient and sustainable food supplies for a world with increasing population. This study assessed the performance of a blind-type shading regulator that can automatically rotate semi-transparent photovoltaic (PV) blades installed on the greenhouse roof in response to sunlight variation. The PV blind oriented parallel to the roof partially blocked intense sunlight penetration into the greenhouse, but it transmitted sunlight during cloudy time by turning the blind bearing to be perpendicular to the roof. A stable irradiation environment is therefore producible in the greenhouse under variable sky conditions. Annual operations demonstrated that the blinds’ own generated electrical energy can sustain PV blind operation and produce surplus electrical energy. The PV blind electricity generation and sunlight availability for crops below the PV blind roof were calculated based on a mathematical model developed using theoretical sunlight parameters and the experimentally obtained PV blind system parameters. Assuming cloudless skies and threshold irradiance for blind rotation set at 500 W m−2, 13.0 and 12.3 kWh m−2 yr−1 surplus electrical energy can be generated, respectively, by north–south and east–west oriented model greenhouses. Cloudy skies reduce surplus electrical energy production by 50%, but PV blinds can supply greenhouse electrical energy demands partially or completely, depending on the degree of greenhouse electrification. Below the PV blinds, 8–10 MJ m−2 day−1 of insolation is expected to irradiate crops under actual sky conditions. This insolation is sufficient to cultivate major horticultural crops. Regulating the threshold irradiance level for PV blind turning can control the sunlight apportionment ratio for cultivation and electricity generation, thereby enabling sustainable energy–food dual production in a greenhouse.

EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS OF THE SOLAR TRACKING PV SYSTEMS IN ESKISEHIR REGION

In this study, efficiency analysis of the tracking solar photovoltaic (PV) system in Eskisehir region is considered for onsite real solar power generation values. It is shown that the tracking system’s power generations are always higher than fixed one, but increased yield ratio is changing according to weather conditions (sunny or cloudy times). In order to make a fair analysis/comparison, all the instantaneous real solar power generations between 1 July and 30 October 2016 are used to figure out the ratio of sunny and cloudy days of whole year. The averaged total generation values are calculated and it is revealed that tracking system provides approximately 33 % higher yield from same capacity fixed PV panels for Eskisehir region.

Regionalization Approach for Modeling of Monthly Evaporation Based on Cluster Analysis

Among interesting Climatic Parameters (CPs) of different climates, it may be asserted that evaporation has received a particular attention. The present study, by considering 14 stations in arid central and southern parts of Iran, has tried to determine the most important factors affecting evaporation through using Factor Analysis (FA). At first, by conducting Cluster Analysis (CA) through Minitab software, Homogeneous Regions (HRs) separated at the investigating areas. Then, the relation between climatic factors and evaporation on the basis of monthly routine was obtained in each region. Finally, by the help of accomplished regression equations, evaporation was calculated and MAE or RMSE statistics were applied to determine the precision of each relation. The results show that, firstly, factor analysis is an appropriate method for determining climatic parameters affecting evaporation in the regions. Secondly, as far as the relation between independent parameters and evaporation and priority of the main factors has been proved previously, multiple regressions may be used with great confidence to calculate evaporation and consequently evapotranspiration. The results also indicate that the difference between maximum and minimum temperatures (Tmax - Tmin), Tmax and the difference between maximum and minimum relative humidity (Hmax - Hmin) are, respectively, the main factors which influence the evaporation value at the Homogeneous Region (HR1) which is spread along Iran's water borders having a warm and humid climate. Generally, the Temperature Related Parameters (TPR) including Tmax - Tmin, Tmax, Tmin and Tmean at the HR1 are found as the main factors affecting evaporation. At the HR2 and HR3, wind speed, Tmax and Hmax - Hmin are identified as the main parameters and cloudiness as the second one. The results show that the wind speed and the cloudy times of day have a more effective role in the amount of evaporation rather than the temperature related factors.

Sidney's "mongrell tragicomedy" and Anglo-Spanish Exchange in the New Arcadia

In 1586, Sir Philip Sidney died fighting the Spanish in the Netherlands.1 His death marked one episode during the conflict between Spain and England that would reach its apex with the launching of the Armada in 1588. Yet political and personal records give us ambivalent rather than strictly oppositional views of Sidney's dealings with the Elizabethans' most formidable enemy. Fulke Greville relates that the Spanish ambassador, upon learning of Sidney's demise, could not but lament to see Christendome depriv'd of so rare a light in those cloudy times; and bewail poor widow England-so he term'd her-that having been many years in breeding one eminent spirit, was in a moment bereaved of him, by the hands of a villain (36). Despite his own anti-Spanish political leanings, Greville acknowledges an Anglo-Spanish connection that transcends Christian and national divides to include Sidney in a community that encompassed the Spanish nobility. Fascinated by Spanish accomplishments, Sidney recommended that his brother travel in Spain to learn good and grave proceeding, their keeping so many provinces under them, and by what means, with the true points of honour (Major Works 286). Though Sidney never traveled to Spain, and though much of his career was dedicated to quelling Spanish power, his Hispanophilia manifests itself in his New Arcadia. This essay contends that Sidney's view of Spain was equivocal, marked by admiration and envy as well as by distaste and fear. With intertextual and topical references to Spain in his New Arcadia, Sidney opens a counterdiscourse to the English extremes of anti-Spanish sentiment in the 1580s. Attending to generic politics in the storylines of Miso, a celestinesque bawd, and Philisides, Sidney's aristocratic Iberian alter-ego, discloses textual borrowings from Spanish literature and ambivalent representations of Spanish identity. Sidney's equivocal stances toward the mixed generic model of tragicomedy and toward Spain come to the fore in his romance, where tragicomic admixture tempers the melancholic humor of Anglo- Spanish discord. Thus the presence of these suspect forms and cultures in the New Arcadia ultimately works to defuse generic and political tensions.Tragicomic organizes Sidney's New Arcadia, which has been called the supreme Elizabethan example of . . . the mixed mode (Greenblatt 269). The generic mixture of the romance's is characterized by the alternation of exposition and action, of tragic and comic, but the huge structure of the romance is controlled by narrative patterns and echoes based on parallel or contrasting sequences of action which form a commentary on each other and underline the common moral issues (Evans 41). While adding variety to the romance, Sidney balances contrasting tragic and comic elements through systematic structural control. The resulting juxtapositions harmonize and amplify underlying themes, such as the depiction of Spanish identity, a technique that echoes tragicomedy's workings.2 It is not surprising to find tragicomic elements in the Arcadia, because, like tragicomedy itself, romance is generically mixed. In grappling with new genres that did not fit into classical poetics, Renaissance theorists often extrapolated rules about long narratives from precedents for drama, which were more clearly defined in antiquity. Alonso Lopez Pinciano, for example, calls the epic genre un monton de Tragedias (a heap of tragedies; 1: 240), and when speaking of the Aethiopica, an ancient romance that Sidney imitates in the Arcadia, Martinus Crusius believes [t]otam vero Historiam, veluti Tragicocomoediam dicentes, haud errauerimus (truly, if we treat the whole History as if it were a Tragicomedy, we wouldn't err; 8). Romance could, I suggest, be considered the long version of tragicomedy. In this case, generic mixture sheds light on social tensions. Viewing Sidney's Spanish connections from the perspective of theories of generic mixture alongside English estimations of Spain illuminates their implications for Anglo Spanish exchange. …

Infrared cloud imaging in support of Earth-space optical communication

The increasing need for high data return from near-Earth and deep-space missions is driving a demand for the establishment of Earth-space optical communication links. These links will require a nearly obstruction-free path to the communication platform, so there is a need to measure spatial and temporal statistics of clouds at potential ground-station sites. A technique is described that uses a ground-based thermal infrared imager to provide continuous day-night cloud detection and classification according to the cloud optical depth and potential communication channel attenuation. The benefit of retrieving cloud optical depth and corresponding attenuation is illustrated through measurements that identify cloudy times when optical communication may still be possible through thin clouds.

Reflecting on Čerenkov reflections

MAGIC, as well as HESS and VERITAS, is a Čerenkov Telescope unveiling γ-ray sources above 60 GeV at vertical within noisy (hadronic) airshowering sky. These telescopes while facing the horizons may reveal rarest blazing UHECR as well as far fluorescence tails of downward PeV-EeV hadronic airshowers. Few of these inclined airshowers blazing on axis are spread by the geomagnetic field into twin spots. These twin flashes and their morphology may tag the UHECR origination site. There is a rich window of such reflecting Čerenkov lights visible by Telescopes on top of Mountains as MAGIC (and partially VERITAS): the reflections from the nearby ground (possibly enhanced by rain or snow, ice white cover), from the Sea and from the cloudy sky; in particular, these cloudy sheets may lay above or below the observer. MAGIC looking downward to the clouds or the snow, may well reveal blazing Moliere disks diffusing Čerenkov spots (few events per night). Because of geomagnetic forces and splitting of the inclined air-shower, one should reveal for the first time (at tens PeV or above) Čerenkov airshowers whose flashes are skimming the MAGIC nearby Sea and opened into twin spots. Their morphology may tag the UHECR origination, its consequent cross-section and composition. Magic telescopes looking upward into cloudy sky may observe very rare up-going UHE Tau, originated by UHE PeVs neutrinos skimming earth, air-showering into sky, reflecting into clouds. In particular Glashow resonant antineutrinos electron hitting into Earth electrons may lead to gauged boson W−, whose decay (inside the Earth) may produce a τ + ν̄τ [3], which later escape and decay in air is producing Čerenkov lights; these flashes may blaze into the clouds above MAGIC as upward dot spots. The Magic energy threshold for such UHE Neutrinos showers rises to PeV values. EeV UHE tau neutrinos by guaranteed GZK UHECR secondaries [6, 16], via the muon-tau flavor mixing, may skim the Earth, produce UHE tau particles whose escape in air and decay in flight may blaze Magic or reflect Čerenkov light at opposite far cloudy sky edges. Any collaboration (MAGIC,HESS,VERITAS) will be willing to dedicate cloudy time to UHECR physics since nothing else can be done in that time. These reflections may open a totally new UHECR spectroscopy while unveiling a rare, but loud Tau Neutrino astronomy [10, 8].

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL SYSTEMS FOR MIST PROPAGATION OF CUTTINGS

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL SYSTEMS FOR MIST PROPAGATION OF CUTTINGS

Cloudiness over the contiguous United States: Contemporary changes observed using ground‐based and ISCCP D2 data

Comparisons of monthly daytime cloudiness time series of total cloud cover (TCL) and cloud types' occurrences between the ground‐based and International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) D2 datasets were conducted over the contiguous United States. Despite its large bias (+6.7% to +20.8%), TCL in ISCCP D2 is highly correlated with the surface observations in all seasons. Close correspondence of seasonal and interannual variability between these two datasets is also seen in low stratiform and cirrus clouds. Reconstruction of these cloud characteristics using ISCCP data was performed for the 1990s when the Automated Surface Observation System (ASOS) implementation irreversibly broke the homogeneity of ground‐based cloudiness time series over the United States. Verification of reconstructed cloudiness characteristics was conducted using the independent in‐situ climatic variables such as diurnal temperature range and precipitation.

Use of autoregressive models to generate a series of daily averaged point cloudiness values

Analysis of observed data for 10 years in two Romanian localities showed that the daily averaged point cloudiness in a given day mainly depends on the cloud cover amount from the past two days. Hence, first or second order autoregressive (AR) processes can be used to generate a point cloudiness time series. The second order models are slightly better than the first order models. The AR models generate data whose mean and standard deviation are close to those of the observed data. Good agreement between the skewness of the observed and synthetic data occurs during the warm season. No concordance was emphasized between the kurtosis of observed and generated daily averaged point cloudiness values.

Nonprecipitating Low Cloud Frequencies for Central North America: 1982

Abstract Nonprecipitating low cloud frequencies for 1982 have been extracted from the U.S. Air Force 3-Dimensional Nephanalysis archives for central North America. These data were compiled from satellite, surface and pilot reports and contain, among other parameters, the low cloud type and present weather code for each 3-h time period for grid points in the Northern Hemisphere. The overall average precipitating to nonprecipitating low cloud ratio for central North America was 0.25, indicating that nonpredpitating low clouds were very common. Seasonal frequencies of these nonprecipitating low clouds are presented. The persistence of clear and nonprecipitating cloudy skies from one time period to the next was also calculated on a seasonal basis. Annual average values for transitions between clear and cloudy skies as well as between nonprecipitating and precipitating low cloudy time periods are also presented. A cluster analysis was performed on the seasonal nonprecipitating low cloud frequency data. It was ...

Modeling of par interception and productivity by Opuntia ficus-indica

A model is described that permits accurate calculation of radiation interception and shadows cast by a set of planar surfaces whose Cartesian coordinates are known. The model is applied to the calculation of interception of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) by the cladodes (flattened stems) of the widely cultivated cactus, Opuntia ficus-indica. Taking into account both direct and diffuse PAR, a PAR index is determined for both sides of the 27 cladodes on two plants. This index has a maximum value of 1.00 when net CO 2 uptake by the cladodes is not limited by PAR. The product with similar indices for water status and temperature indicates the fraction of maximum net CO 2 uptake expected under particular environmental conditions, the environmental productivity index (EPI). EPI is used to predict the net assimilation rate (NAR) of O. ficus-indica under field conditions in central Chile, where its NAR has been measured. The predicted NAR closely agreed with seasonal trends and average annual values, but underestimated measured NAR in the winter, presumably due to over-representation of the low NAR caused by isotropic diffuse radiation at this cloudy time of the year. Applying the PAR model to different plant spacings, the annual productivity predicted for a stem area index (stem area per ground area) of 1.4 was 1.4 kg m −2 y −1, which closely matched field measurements; maximal productivity nearly threefold higher was predicted at a stem area index of 7. The PAR model was also used to analyze a hypothetical plant with all cladodes in a plane so that the influence of cladode orientation on the PAR index at various times of the year for both clear and cloudy days could be determined. Besides indicating PAR distribution within the canopy of the platyopuntias, the PAR model can be used for other three-dimensional distributions of photosynthetic surfaces, especially those that have regularly repeating units in space, such as orchards and vineyards.