The Cyprus Institute

About: The Cyprus Institute is a other organization based out in Nicosia, Cyprus. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Aerosol & Environmental science. The organization has 418 authors who have published 1252 publications receiving 32586 citations.

Modeling organic aerosol concentrations and properties during winter 2014 in the northwestern Mediterranean region

Abstract: . Organic aerosols are measured at a remote site (Ersa) on the cape of Corsica in the northwestern Mediterranean basin during the winter campaign of 2014 of the CHemistry and AeRosols Mediterranean EXperiment (CharMEx), when high organic concentrations from anthropogenic origins are observed. This work aims to represent the observed organic aerosol concentrations and properties (oxidation state) using the air-quality model Polyphemus with a surrogate approach for secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. Because intermediate and semi-volatile organic compounds (I/S-VOCs) are the main precursors of SOAs at Ersa during winter 2014, different parameterizations to represent the emission and aging of I/S-VOCs were implemented in the chemistry-transport model of Polyphemus (different volatility distribution emissions and single-step oxidation vs multi-step oxidation within a volatility basis set – VBS – framework, inclusion of non-traditional volatile organic compounds – NTVOCs). Simulations using the different parameterizations are compared to each other and to the measurements (concentration and oxidation state). The highly observed organic concentrations are well reproduced in all the parameterizations. They are slightly underestimated in most parameterizations. The volatility distribution at emissions influences the concentrations more strongly than the choice of the parameterization that may be used for aging (single-step oxidation vs multi-step oxidation), stressing the importance of an accurate characterization of emissions. Assuming the volatility distribution of sectors other than residential heating to be the same as residential heating may lead to a strong underestimation of organic concentrations. The observed organic oxidation and oxygenation states are strongly underestimated in all simulations, even when multigenerational aging of I/S-VOCs from all sectors is modeled. This suggests that uncertainties in the emissions and aging of I/S-VOC emissions remain to be elucidated, with a potential role of formation of organic nitrate and low-volatility highly oxygenated organic molecules.

Estimation of adult age-at-death from entheseal robusticity: A test using an identified Italian skeletal collection.

Abstract: Objectives The present study tests the effectiveness of entheseal robusticity (ER) as a potential predictor of adult age-at-death by applying multiple regression models to a large contemporary identified skeletal sample Materials and methods ER was recorded for 23 bilateral postcranial entheses on 481 adult individuals (271 females and 210 males) from the Frassetto identified skeletal collection of Sassari (Italy), following the method of Mariotti et al 2007 ER scores were used as predictors in multiple regression analyses with age as the dependent variable; the performance of the resulting models was tested through standard error of estimate, the correlation coefficient between predicted and documented age, and the percentage of correctly classified individuals Results ER show a higher correlation with age in females, resulting in more accurate estimates when compared with those obtained for males Age-at-death is overestimated for male individuals under 45 years old and underestimated for older individuals Regression models including a reduced set of ER sites result in better estimates compared with those using the complete set of variables Discussion Results suggest the potential usefulness of ER for the estimation of age, especially for female skeletal remains If used with caution, ER may be a valid complement to existing methods for the reconstruction of the biological profile of skeletal remains of archaeological and forensic interest

Detecting Early Parkinson’s Disease from Keystroke Dynamics using the Tensor-Train Decomposition

Abstract: We present a method for detecting early signs of Parkinson’s disease from keystroke hold times that is based on the Tensor-Train (TT) decomposition. While simple uni-variate methods such as logistic regression have shown good performance on the given problem by using appropriate features, the TT format facilitates modelling high-order interactions by representing the exponentially large parameter tensor in a compact multi-linear form. By performing time-series feature extraction based on scalable hypothesis testing, we show that the proposed approach can significantly improve upon state-of-the-art for the given problem, reaching a performance of AUC=0.88, outperforming compared methods such as deep neural networks on the problem of detecting early Parkinson’s disease from keystroke dynamics.

Measurement report: Photochemical production and loss rates of formaldehyde and ozone across Europe

Abstract: . Various atmospheric sources and sinks regulate the abundance of tropospheric formaldehyde (HCHO) which is an important trace gas impacting the HOx (≡ HO2 + OH) budget and the concentration of ozone (O3). In this study, we present the formation and destruction terms of ambient HCHO and O3 calculated from in-situ observations of various atmospheric trace gases measured at three different sites across Europe during summer time. These include a coastal site in Cyprus in the scope of the Cyprus Photochemistry Experiment (CYPHEX) in 2014, a mountain site in Southern Germany as part of the Hohenpeisenberg Photochemistry Experiment (HOPE) in 2012 and a forested site in Finland where measurements were performed during the Hyytiala United Measurements of Photochemistry and Particles (HUMPPA) campaign in 2010. We show that at all three sites formaldehyde production from the OH oxidation of methane (CH4), acetaldehyde (CH3CHO), isoprene (C5H8) and methanol (CH3OH) can almost completely balance the observed loss via photolysis, OH oxidation and dry deposition. Ozone chemistry is clearly controlled by nitrogen oxides (NOx ≡ NO + NO2) that includes O3 production from NO2 photolysis and O3 loss via the reaction with NO. Finally, we use the HCHO budget calculations to determine whether net ozone production is limited by the availability of VOCs (VOC limited regime) or NOx (NOx limited regime). At the mountain site in Germany O3 production is VOC limited, whereas it is NOx limited at the coastal site in Cyprus. The forested site in Finland is in the transition regime.