ALBERT

Description: In radiation oncology as in many other specialties clinical trials are essential to investigate new therapy approaches. Usually, preparation for a prospective clinical trial is extremely time consuming until ethics approval is obtained. To test a new treatment usually many years pass before it can be implemented in the routine care. During that time, already new interventions emerge, new drugs appear on the market, technical & physical innovations are being implemented, novel biology driven concepts are translated into clinical approaches while we are still investigating the ones from years ago. Another problem is associated with molecular diagnostics and the growing amount of tumor specific biomarkers which allows for a better stratification of patient subgroups. On the other side, this may result in a much longer time for patient recruiting and consequently in larger multicenter trials. Moreover, all of the relevant data must be readily available for treatment decision making, treatment as well as follow-up, and ultimately for trial evaluation. This challenges even more for agreed standards in data acquisition, quality and management. How could we change the way currently clinical trials are performed in a way they are safe and ethically justifiable and speed up the initiation process, so we can provide new and better treatments faster for our patients? Further, while we rely on various quantitative information handling distributed, large heterogeneous amounts of data efficiently is very important. Thus data management becomes a strong focus. A good infrastructure helps to plan, tailor and conduct clinical trials in a way they are easy and quickly analyzable. In this research topic we want to discuss new ideas for intelligent trial designs and concepts for data management.

Description: Antarctic glaciers are losing ice rapidly to the ocean through basal melting of ice shelves/tongues. To better predicate future sea level rise, it is urgent to detect the rapid basal melting of ice shelves/tongues as well as ocean’s role in this process. In this study, basal melting of Drygalski Ice Tongue (DIT), the seaward extension of David Glacier in Northern Victoria Land, East Antarctica has been detected using a surface deployed Autonomous Phase-sensitive Radio-Echo-Sounder (ApRES). The ocean water changes adjacent to DIT front has been revealed using an ocean mooring. ApRES observation suggests a rapid basal melting 〉 10 m/a close to DIT front in February and mooring data shows a synchronous ocean warming in austral summer, indicating Antarctica Surface Water intrusion to the base of DIT. The mooring data has been used to simulate the basal melting of DIT front, which coincides with ApRES measurements. We conclude that rapid basal melting close to the tongue front was likely triggered by intrusion of Antarctica Surface Water in austral summer. Glacier-ocean interactions, such as glacier basal melting, can be detected from spaceborne, terrestrial and oceanic observations and are important processes to predict future sea level changes. To better understand the driving forces of glacier changes, multi-disciplinary observation and numerical modeling are required.

Description: Highlights • Code comparisons build confidence in simulators to model interdependent processes. • International hydrate reservoir simulators are compared over five complex problems. • Geomechanical processes significantly impact response of gas hydrate reservoirs. • Simulators yielded comparable results, however many differences are noted. • Equivalent constitutive models are required to achieve agreement across simulators. Geologic reservoirs containing gas hydrate occur beneath permafrost environments and within marine continental slope sediments, representing a potentially vast natural gas source. Numerical simulators provide scientists and engineers with tools for understanding how production efficiency depends on the numerous, interdependent (coupled) processes associated with potential production strategies for these gas hydrate reservoirs. Confidence in the modeling and forecasting abilities of these gas hydrate reservoir simulators (GHRSs) grows with successful comparisons against laboratory and field test results, but such results are rare, particularly in natural settings. The hydrate community recognized another approach to building confidence in the GHRS: comparing simulation results between independently developed and executed computer codes on structured problems specifically tailored to the interdependent processes relevant for gas hydrate-bearing systems. The United States Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, (DOE/NETL), sponsored the first international gas hydrate code comparison study, IGHCCS1, in the early 2000s. IGHCCS1 focused on coupled thermal and hydrologic processes associated with producing gas hydrates from geologic reservoirs via depressurization and thermal stimulation. Subsequently, GHRSs have advanced to model more complex production technologies and incorporate geomechanical processes into the existing framework of coupled thermal and hydrologic modeling. This paper contributes to the validation of these recent GHRS developments by providing results from a second GHRS code comparison study, IGHCCS2, also sponsored by DOE/NETL. IGHCCS2 includes participants from an international collection of universities, research institutes, industry, national laboratories, and national geologic surveys. Study participants developed a series of five benchmark problems principally involving gas hydrate processes with geomechanical components. The five problems range from simple geometries with analytical solutions to a representation of the world's first offshore production test of methane hydrates, which was conducted with the depressurization method off the coast of Japan. To identify strengths and limitations in the various GHRSs, study participants submitted solutions for the benchmark problems and discussed differing results via teleconferences. The GHRSs evolved over the course of IGHCCS2 as researchers modified their simulators to reflect new insights, lessons learned, and suggested performance enhancements. The five benchmark problems, final sample solutions, and lessons learned that are presented here document the study outcomes and serve as a reference guide for developing and testing gas hydrate reservoir simulators.

Description: Climate change affects human health; however, there have been no large-scale, systematic efforts to quantify the heat-related human health impacts that have already occurred due to climate change. Here, we use empirical data from 732 locations in 43 countries to estimate the mortality burdens associated with the additional heat exposure that has resulted from recent human-induced warming, during the period 1991–2018. Across all study countries, we find that 37.0% (range 20.5–76.3%) of warm-season heat-related deaths can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change and that increased mortality is evident on every continent. Burdens varied geographically but were of the order of dozens to hundreds of deaths per year in many locations. Our findings support the urgent need for more ambitious mitigation and adaptation strategies to minimize the public health impacts of climate change.

Description: The global spatiotemporal pattern of mortality risk and burden attributable to tropical cyclones is unclear. We aimed to evaluate the global short-term mortality risk and burden associated with tropical cyclones from 1980 to 2019.