ARPA-E

About: ARPA-E is a government organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Climate change. The organization has 1161 authors who have published 1267 publications receiving 30049 citations. The organization is also known as: Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy.

Maternal exposure to magnetic fields from high-voltage power lines and the risk of birth defects

Abstract: The issue of adverse human health effects due to exposure to electromagnetic fields is still unclear, and congenital anomalies are among the outcomes that have been inconsistently associated with such exposure. We conducted a population-based, case–control study to examine the risk of congenital anomalies associated with maternal exposure to magnetic fields (MF) from high-voltage power lines during pregnancy in a community in northern Italy. We identified 228 cases of congenital malformations diagnosed in live births, stillbirths, and induced abortions among women living in the municipality of Reggio Emilia during the period 1998–2006, and a reference group of healthy newborns was matched for year of birth, maternal age, and hospital of birth. We identified maternal residence during early pregnancy and used Geographic Information System to determine whether the residences were within geocoded corridors with MF ≥0.1 µT near high-voltage power lines, then calculated the relative risk (RR) of congenital anomalies associated with maternal exposure. One case and 5 control mothers were classified as exposed, and the RR associated with MF ≥0.1 µT was 0.2 (95% CI: 0.0–2.0) after adjusting for maternal education. While small or moderate effects may have gone undetected due to low statistical power, the results of this study overall do not provide support for major effects of a teratogenic risk due to exposure to MF during early pregnancy. Bioelectromagnetics 33:405–409, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Monitoring Rock Wall Temperatures and Microseismic Activity for Slope Stability Investigation at J.A. Carrel Hut, Matterhorn

Abstract: Recent climate changes are increasing the frequency of rock-slope instabilities in the Alpine region. The formation of cracks leading to rockfalls causes a release of energy propagating in form of elastic waves. These latter can be detected by a suitable transducer array together with the vibrations generated by the impact of rockfalls. Geophones are among the most effective monitoring devices to investigate both these phenomena. A monitoring system composed by geophones and thermometers was installed at the J.A. Carrel hut (3829 m a.s.l., Matterhorn, NW Alps) in the framework of the Interreg Alcotra projects PERMAdataROC and MASSA by CNR IRPI and ARPA with the financial and logistic support of the Valle d’Aosta Region. The correlation between temperature trends and microseismic events is presented: cold periods characterized by a rapid temperature decrease present higher concentration of microseismic activity. However, not every drop in temperature is associated to microseismic activity, and the identification of the processes generating microseismic events in occasion of rapid temperature decrease is still uncertain. The objective of the ongoing research activity is to analyze in deep the statistical correlation between the number of microseismic records and the temperatures of air and rock in order to investigate the existence of recurrent patterns in the detected signals.

A hydrometeorological model intercomparison as a tool to quantify the forecast uncertainty in a medium size basin

Abstract: . In the framework of AMPHORE, an INTERREG III B EU project devoted to the hydrometeorological modeling study of heavy precipitation episodes resulting in flood events and the improvement of the operational hydrometeorological forecasts for the prediction and prevention of flood risks in the Western Mediterranean area, a hydrometeorological model intercomparison has been carried out, in order to estimate the uncertainties associated with the discharge predictions. The analysis is performed for an intense precipitation event selected as a case study within the project, which affected northern Italy and caused a flood event in the upper Reno river basin, a medium size catchment in the Emilia-Romagna Region. Two different hydrological models have been implemented over the basin: HEC-HMS and TOPKAPI which are driven in two ways. Firstly, stream-flow simulations obtained by using precipitation observations as input data are evaluated, in order to be aware of the performance of the two hydrological models. Secondly, the rainfall-runoff models have been forced with rainfall forecast fields provided by mesoscale atmospheric model simulations in order to evaluate the reliability of the discharge forecasts resulting by the one-way coupling. The quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs) are provided by the numerical mesoscale models COSMO and MM5. Furthermore, different configurations of COSMO and MM5 have been adopted, trying to improve the description of the phenomena determining the precipitation amounts. In particular, the impacts of using different initial and boundary conditions, different mesoscale models and of increasing the horizontal model resolutions are investigated. The accuracy of QPFs is assessed in a threefold procedure. First, these are checked against the observed spatial rainfall accumulations over northern Italy. Second, the spatial and temporal simulated distributions are also examined over the catchment of interest. And finally, the discharge simulations resulting from the one-way coupling with HEC-HMS and TOPKAPI are evaluated against the rain-gauge driven simulated flows, thus employing the hydrological models as a validation tool. The different scenarios of the simulated river flows – provided by an independent implementation of the two hydrological models each one forced with both COSMO and MM5 – enable a quantification of the uncertainties of the precipitation outputs, and therefore, of the discharge simulations. Results permit to highlight some hydrological and meteorological modeling factors which could help to enhance the hydrometeorological modeling of such hazardous events. Main conclusions are: (1) deficiencies in precipitation forecasts have a major impact on flood forecasts; (2) large-scale shift errors in precipitation patterns are not improved by only enhancing the mesoscale model resolution; and (3) weak differences in flood forecasting performance are found by using either a distributed continuous or a semi-distributed event-based hydrological model for this catchment.