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At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

[Modulation of energy metabolism of lymphocytes in children by natural physical factors].

The aim of this work is exploration of natural physical factors influencing change of age-dependent energy exchange parameters (e.g. activity of SDG) in healthy and premature children. 35 healthy and 35 premature children were investigated over 11 years from early antenatal and postnatal period. Cytochemical investigations were carried out 1-2 time a year until 6 years of age. Solar activity, geomagnetic excitability, air temperature and atmospheric pressure and its diurnal variation on index represented environmental factors. It is suggested that quiet magnetic field might be a predictor of higher level of SDG activity and vice versa. Higher activity of magnetic field leads to displacement of maximum-age of SDG activity to an earlier age. Lymphocytes react to magnetic storm in a phasic manner. Other physical environmental factors might have reciprocal effect so that some of them could negate the effect of others. If intrauterine development took place in a year of higher solar activity, early-development results. However, later development is characterized by lower level of SDG activity. On premature children, as well as in healthy subjects, the more influencing factors on energetic age-dependent parameters are geomagnetic field and variation of atmospheric SDG activity in healthy children is within normal range (and has a training effect), while in premature children depression of hydrogenase in the end stage.

Aging↗

[Correlation between the microbiological (S. aureus) and seismic activities with regard to the sun-earth interactions and neutron flux generation].

The study searched for interactions between the solar activity, seismic energy of the Earth and microbiological processes in the period from 1969 to 1997. Microbiological processes were found dependent on as the solar, so intraterrestrial (e.g. seismic) activity. The 11-year seismic on biological cycles on Earth display a positive inter-correlation and a negative one with the solar activity (sun-spots cycles). There is also correlation between the Earth's seismic energy and neutron fluxes generated at the times of earthquakes on our planet, and microbiological parameters.

Atmosphere↗

Imaging sunspots using helioseismic methods.

The origin of sunspots is one of the most fundamental and yet poorly understood areas in solar physics. Imaging local anomalous features in the solar interior offers a direct way to unravel the underlying physical processes of sunspots and the mechanisms behind their formation. The advent of local helioseismology in the last few years has, for the first time, made it possible to image local internal solar structures. High-resolution satellite and ground telescope data which reveal the details of the vibrations of the visible solar surface are essential in the development of local helioseismology. We are now in a position to transfer the seismic methods that have traditionally been used to study the Earth's interior to solar investigations. This interdisciplinary approach to developing seismic imaging techniques is opening up new ways of understanding the flow and other structural characteristics beneath sunspots. In this article, I review recent progress in the imaging of sunspots and the surrounding solar active regions. By highlighting the strengths of seismic methods and the challenges facing local helioseismology, I discuss some of the new research directions and possibilities that have arisen from this novel type of seismic imaging.

Astronomy↗

[Radiation control on Saliut stations using directly indicating dosimeters].

Using PPD-2 dosimeters, daily radiation doses were measured in the same site of the Salyut-3. Salyut-4 and Salyut-5 stations (1974-1977). The doses were estimated to be about 13-16 mrad/day. During the flight of the Salyut-6 station (1977-1979) daily doses were measured in different sites and were found to vary significantly. By 1980, due to an increase in solar activity and lack of solar flares, the difference in the daily doses inside the station (except for the transfer module) reached the level of the error of measurements, i. t. +/- 20%.

Radiation Dosage↗

Solar particle events and the International Space Station.

The high inclination orbit for the International Space Station poses a risk to astronauts on EVA during occasional periods of enhanced high energy particle flux from the sun known as Solar Particle Events. We are currently unable to predict these events within the few-hour lead time required for evasive action. Compounding the threat is the fact that station construction occurs during increasing solar activity and through the peak of the solar cycle. In this paper we present an overview of the risk, the current methods to provide forecasts of SPEs, and potential risk mitigation options.

Aerospace Medicine↗

Associations by signatures and coherences between the human circulation and helio- and geomagnetic activity.

Helio-geomagnetic influences on the human circulation are investigated on the basis of an 11-year-long record from a clinically healthy cardiologist, 35 years of age at the start of monitoring. He measured his blood pressure and heart rate around the clock with an ambulatory monitor programmed to inflate an arm cuff, mostly at intervals of 15-30 minutes, with only few interruptions, starting in August 1987. While monitoring is continuing, data collected up to July 1998 are analyzed herein by cosinor rhythmometry and cross-spectral coherence with matching records of solar activity, gauged by Wolf numbers (WN) and of the geomagnetic disturbance index, Kp. A direct association between heart rate (HR) and WN is found to be solar cycle stage-dependent, whereas an inverse relationship between heart rate variability (HRV) and WN is found consistently. An inverse relation is also observed between WN and the variability in systolic blood pressure (SBP), and to a lesser extent, diastolic blood pressure (DBP). Moreover, HR is cross-spectrally coherent with WN at a frequency of one cycle in about 7.33 months. The results support previously reported associations on morbidity and mortality statistics, extending their scope to human physiology monitored longitudinally.

Adult↗

Variations observed in environmental radiation at ground level.

To investigate and monitor environmental radiation at ground level, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) has installed several dosemeters and particle detectors at the new Ambient Radiation Dosimetry Site. The separation of the total ambient dose equivalent rate H*10(env) of environmental radiation into the different contributions is achieved by comparing the data of different detectors: the muon detector MUDOS, a modified neutron dosemeter, proportional counters and ionisation chambers. The response of the latter two dosemeter systems to cosmic radiation was determined at the Cosmic Radiation Dosimetry Site on a lake near PTB. Besides the increase of the ambient dose equivalent rate during rainfall, variations owing to air pressure, solar activity and temperature changes in the upper atmosphere are observed. Without rain and solar effects, smooth variations of the cosmic component at ground level of +/-6.9 nSv h(-1) should be treated as naturally occurring variations during an entire year.

Air Pressure↗

Use of AMS in the marine environment.

In recent years, the field of AMS has expanded into many areas of science. This paper reviews a variety of applications of AMS in the marine environment, focusing particularly on recent developments and applications. Following a brief summary of the three main isotope techniques used in environmental studies: dating, tracing and source identification, a number of applications are considered. Traditional (14)C-dating is no longer the dominant application of AMS measurements, and together with measurements of (10)Be, (26)Al and (36)Cl, much of the research is now directed towards an understanding of global climate change via studies of oceanic circulation, atmospheric processes and past climates by cosmic ray exposure dating. Profiles of long-lived cosmogenic radionuclides in sediments and ice cores, as a function of depth and, thus, age, provide key information on past solar variability, production rate changes and atmospheric transport and deposition mechanisms. Useful paleoclimatic information may be derived from these archives both because deposition is influenced by climate and because solar activity (which influences production) and solar radiance (which influences climate) are correlated. In recent years, emphasis has been put on the development and application of AMS techniques for the measurement of heavier long-lived isotopes, including (99)Tc, (129)I, (236)U and other actinide isotopes. AMS combines ultra low detection limits and the possibility to analyse isotope ratios that can be difficult with traditional instruments and has been used in a number of applications on the consequences and uses of releases from nuclear energy. Finally, the use AMS in environmental sciences is expected to expand further in the foreseeable future with long-lived cosmogenic radionuclides contributing to a large body of knowledge on processes involving atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, biosphere, soils and sediments.

Environmental Monitoring↗

GERMANIUM AND SILICON DISULFIDES: STRUCTURE AND SYNTHESIS.

A series of carbon-14 measurements of 18th- and 19-century wood revealed an excellent correlation between the variations in carbon-14 content and average sunspot activity. It seems probable, therefore, that the predominant cause of the short-term fluctuations in carbon-14 activity is the variability of solar activity.

Carbon Radioisotopes↗

Galactic cosmic radiation model and its applications.

A model for the differential energy spectra of galactic cosmic radiation as a function of solar activity is described. It is based on the standard diffusion-convection theory of solar modulation. Estimates of the modulation potential based on fitting this theory to observed spectral measurements from 1954 to 1989 are correlated to the Climax neutron counting rates and to the sunspot numbers at earlier times taking into account the polarity of the interplanetary magnetic field at the time of observations. These regression lines then provide a method for predicting the modulation at later times. The results of this model are quantitatively compared to a similar Moscow State University (MSU) model. These model cosmic ray spectra are used to predict the linear energy transfer spectra, differential energy spectra of light (charge < or = 2) ions, and single event upset rates in memory devices. These calculations are compared to observations made aboard the Space Shuttle.

Computer Simulation↗

On statistical relationship of solar, geomagnetic and human activities.

Data of galactic cosmic rays, solar and geomagnetic activities and solar wind parameters on the one side and car accident events (CAE) in Poland on the other have been analyzed in order to reveal the statistical relationships among them for the period of 1990-2001. Cross correlation and cross spectrum of the galactic cosmic ray intensity, the solar wind (SW) velocity, Kp index of geomagnetic activity and CAE in Poland have been carried out. It is shown that in some epochs of the above-mentioned period there is found a reliable relationship between CAE and solar and geomagnetic activities parameters in the range of the different periodicities, especially, 7 days. The periodicity of 7 days revealed in the data of the CAE has the maximum on Friday without any exception for the minimum and maximum epochs of solar activity. However, the periodicity of 7 days is reliably revealed in other parameters characterizing galactic cosmic rays, SW, solar and geomagnetic activities, especially for the minimum epoch of solar activity. The periodicity of 3.5 days found in the series of CAE data more or less can be completely ascribed to the social effects, while the periodicity of 7 days can be ascribed to the social effect or/to the processes on the Sun, in the interplanetary space and in the Earth's magnetosphere and atmosphere.

Accidents, Traffic↗

Porcupine feeding scars and climatic data show ecosystem effects of the solar cycle.

Using North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) feeding scars on trees as an index of past porcupine abundance, we have found that porcupine populations have fluctuated regularly over the past 130 years in the Bas St. Laurent region of eastern Quebec, with superimposed periodicities of 11 and 22 years. Coherency and phase analyses showed that this porcupine population cycle has closely followed the 11- and 22-year solar activity cycles. Fluctuations in local precipitation and temperature were also cyclic and closely related to both the solar cycle and the porcupine cycle. Our results suggest that the solar cycle indirectly sets the rhythm of population fluctuations of the most abundant vertebrate herbivore in the ecosystem we studied. We hypothesize that the solar cycle has sufficiently important effects on the climate along the southern shore of the St. Lawrence estuary to locally influence terrestrial ecosystem functioning. This constitutes strong evidence for the possibility of a causal link between solar variability and terrestrial ecology at the decadal timescale and local spatial scale, which confirms results obtained at greater temporal and spatial scales.

Animals↗

Circasemiannual chronomics: half-yearly biospheric changes in their own right and as a circannual waveform.

Geomagnetic activity has a strong half-yearly but no precise yearly component in its spectrum, as Armin Grafe suggested nearly half a century ago. We have postulated elsewhere that non-photic cycles such as those in geomagnetics may have signatures in the biosphere and vice versa that biological rhythms have likely counterparts in the physical environment. Accordingly, we document phenomena characterized by a prominent about half-yearly variation, re-analyzed to constitute the start of a transdisciplinary chronomic (time structural) map, aligning these conditions with a half-yearly cycle in the geomagnetic index Kp. At least some biospheric phenomena fitted concomitantly with 1- and 0.5-year cosine curves exhibit an amplitude (A) ratio of A(0.5-year)/A(1-year) larger than unity. Methodologically, it is pertinent that even if data were read off published graphs, the resulting analyses were practically the same as those in the original data received subsequently. The main point is a circasemiannual pattern in status epilepticus, in several morbid oral conditions, in the cell density of vasopressin-containing neurons in the human suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), in circulating melatonin at middle latitudes at night during years of minimal solar activity or around noon at high latitudes, and in an unusual circasemiannual aspect of a birth-month-dependence of human longevity. Others have asked whether annual rhythms in human reproduction are biological, sociological or both. We show some other possibilities herein, involving the physical environment, hardly to be neglected in the case of open systems. As to almost certainly multifactorial circasemiannual rhythms, geomagnetics may also be a signal, a proxy or a putative, at least partial mechanism. Geomagnetic activity is related in its turn to solar and galactic activity, and may be a marker for other cyclic events that affect the biosphere. The similarity of cycle lengths in itself can only be a hint prompting the search for causal relations.

Atmosphere↗

Solar forcing of drought frequency in the Maya lowlands.

We analyzed lake-sediment cores from the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, to reconstruct the climate history of the region over the past 2600 years. Time series analysis of sediment proxies, which are sensitive to the changing ratio of evaporation to precipitation (oxygen isotopes and gypsum precipitation), reveal a recurrent pattern of drought with a dominant periodicity of 208 years. This cycle is similar to the documented 206-year period in records of cosmogenic nuclide production (carbon-14 and beryllium-10) that is thought to reflect variations in solar activity. We conclude that a significant component of century-scale variability in Yucatan droughts is explained by solar forcing. Furthermore, some of the maxima in the 208-year drought cycle correspond with discontinuities in Maya cultural evolution, suggesting that the Maya were affected by these bicentennial oscillations in precipitation.

Archaeology↗

[Effect of heliogeophysical factors on epizootic activity of a native focus of visceral leishmaniasis].

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) morbidity in the population of the south-eastern Turkmenistan and the epizootic activity of a natural focus were studied. A definite cyclic recurrence of the processes occurring in the natural focus of VL, which was associated with solar activity changes was found. The regularities found make it possible to predict the increase in the epizootic tension of a natural focus of VL in this region and the incidence of this disease among the population in 2002-2004.

Disease Reservoirs↗