A simple model is presented for the evolution of a dipolar vortex propagating horizontally in a vertical-slice model of a weakly stratified inviscid atmosphere, following the model of Flierl & Haines (Phys. Fluids, vol. 6, 1994, pp. 3487–3497) for a modon on the ${\rm beta}$-plane. The dipole is assumed to evolve to remain within the family of Lamb–Chaplygin dipoles but with varying radius and speed. The dipole loses energy and impulse through internal wave radiation. It is argued, and verified against numerical solutions of the full equations, that an appropriately defined centre vorticity for the dipole is closely conserved throughout the flow evolution. Combining conservation of centre vorticity with the requirement that the dipole energy loss balances the work done on the fluid by internal wave radiation gives a model that captures much of the observed dipole decay. Similar results are noted for a cylindrical dipole propagating along the axis of a rotating fluid when the dipole axis is perpendicular to the axis of rotation and for a spherical vortex propagating horizontally in a weakly stratified fluid. The model extends to fluids of small viscosity and so provides an estimate for the relative importance of wave drag and dissipation in dipole decay.

The net erosion-deposition rate of an avalanche is fundamental to its dynamics and in determining its growth or decay. Small-scale experiments are performed by releasing a given volume of yellow sand onto a stationary erodible red sand layer on a rough inclined plane. Depending on the erodible layer depth and the slope angle, the avalanche is found to either decay, grow, propagate steadily or rapidly shed grains to produce secondary avalanches. The use of different coloured sand with identical properties shows that a particle exchange occurs, which eventually results in a flow that is comprised entirely of particles from the stationary layer rather than the initial release. It is notoriously difficult to model the erosion and deposition processes in granular flows, but it is shown that a two-dimensional depth-averaged avalanche model, with a hysteretic basal friction law, can reproduce all of the observed behaviours. The results illustrate how a continuous exchange of particles with the substrate layer is fundamentally important to the propagation of such avalanches. An investigation into long distance propagation behaviour reveals that avalanches can reach a steady state, the size and speed of which are independent of the initially released volume. In certain conditions avalanches can grow to steady states that are significantly more massive than the flows from which they are originally formed. This paper demonstrates the importance of correctly including erosion-deposition in operational forecast models of snow avalanches and other geophysical mass flows.

In recent years, a variety of efforts have been made in political science to enable, encourage, or require scholars to be more open and explicit about the bases of their empirical claims and, in turn, make those claims more readily evaluable by others. While qualitative scholars have long taken an interest in making their research open, reflexive, and systematic, the recent push for overarching transparency norms and requirements has provoked serious concern within qualitative research communities and raised fundamental questions about the meaning, value, costs, and intellectual relevance of transparency for qualitative inquiry. In this Perspectives Reflection, we crystallize the central findings of a three-year deliberative process—the Qualitative Transparency Deliberations (QTD)—involving hundreds of political scientists in a broad discussion of these issues. Following an overview of the process and the key insights that emerged, we present summaries of the QTD Working Groups’ final reports. Drawing on a series of public, online conversations that unfolded at www.qualtd.net, the reports unpack transparency’s promise, practicalities, risks, and limitations in relation to different qualitative methodologies, forms of evidence, and research contexts. Taken as a whole, these reports—the full versions of which can be found in the Supplementary Materials—offer practical guidance to scholars designing and implementing qualitative research, and to editors, reviewers, and funders seeking to develop criteria of evaluation that are appropriate—as understood by relevant research communities—to the forms of inquiry being assessed. We dedicate this Reflection to the memory of our coauthor and QTD working group leader Kendra Koivu.1

Understanding place-based contributors to health requires geographically and culturally diverse study populations, but sharing location data is a significant challenge to multisite studies. Here, we describe a standardized and reproducible method to perform geospatial analyses for multisite studies. Using census tract-level information, we created software for geocoding and geospatial data linkage that was distributed to a consortium of birth cohorts located throughout the USA. Individual sites performed geospatial linkages and returned tract-level information for 8810 children to a central site for analyses. Our generalizable approach demonstrates the feasibility of geospatial analyses across study sites to promote collaborative translational research.

We consider the resonant coupling of mode-1 and mode-2 internal solitary waves by topography. Mode-2 waves are generated by a mode-1 wave encountering variable topography, modelled by a coupled Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) system. Three cases, namely $(A)$ weak resonant coupling, $(B)$ moderate resonant coupling and $(C)$ strong resonant coupling, are examined in detail using a three-layer density-stratified fluid system with different stratification and topographic settings. The strength of the resonant coupling is determined by the range of values taken by the ratio of linear long-wave phase speeds ($c_2/c_1$, where $c_1$ is the mode-1 speed and $c_2$ the mode-2 speed) while the waves are above the slope. In case $A$ the range is from $0.42$ (ocean edge) to $0.48$ (shelf edge), in case $B$ from $0.58$ (ocean) to $0.72$ (shelf) and in case $C$ from $0.44$ (ocean) to $0.92$ (shelf). The feedback from mode-2 to mode-1 is estimated by comparing the coupled KdV system with a KdV model. In case $A$, a small-amplitude convex mode-2 wave is generated by a depression mode-1 wave and the feedback on the mode-1 wave is negligible. In case $B$, a concave mode-2 wave of comparable amplitude to that of the depression incident mode-1 wave is formed; strong feedback enhances the polarity change process of the mode-1 wave. In case $C$, a large-amplitude concave mode-2 wave is produced by an elevation mode-1 wave; strong feedback suppresses the fission of the mode-1 wave. Simulations for a wider range of topographic slopes and three-layer stratifications are then classified in terms of these responses.

Background: Central-line–associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) are a major source of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients, and they are associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and costs. CLABSI surveillance has been a critical component for hospitals participating in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) for many years. CLABSI reporting grew substantially as a result of state reporting mandates first introduced in 2005 and federal reporting requirements for all intensive care units that began in 2011. However, no recent assessment of NHSN CLABSI incidence rate changes have been performed. The objective of this analysis was to estimate the overall trends in annual CLABSI incidence rates in NICUs from 2009 to 2018. Methods: We analyzed NHSN CLABSI data reported from NICUs during 2009–2018. CLABSIs further classified as mucosal barrier injury were included in this analysis. To evaluate the trends of CLABSI incidence (per 1,000 central-line days), and to account for the potential impact of definition changes introduced in 2015, we conducted an interrupted time-series analysis using mixed-effects negative binomial regression modeling. Birth weight category, patient care location type and hospital-level characteristics such as hospital type, medical affiliation, teaching status, bed size, and average length of inpatient stay) were assessed as potential covariates in regression analysis. Random intercept and slope models were evaluated with covariance tests and used to account for differential baseline incidence and trends among reporting NICUs. Results: The number of NICUs reporting to NHSN increased significantly following the federal mandate and has remained slightly >1,000 NICUs since 2013. The crude incidence of CLABSI dropped from 2.24 in 2009 to 0.98 infections per 1,000 central-line days in 2018, except for an increase in 2015 (Table 1). The CLABSI incidence, adjusted for birth weight category, decreased by an average of 11.6% per year from 2009 to 2018 except for a 35.8% increase in 2015 (Table 2). Conclusion: These findings suggest that hospitals have made significant strides in reducing the occurrence of CLABSIs in NICUs over the last 10 years. The increase in 2015 could be explained in part by the implementation and application of new definitional changes. Continued practices and policies that target, assess and prevent CLABSI in this setting may have been effective and remain vital to sustaining this decline nationally in subsequent years.

Funding: None

Disclosures: None

Background: Central-line–associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) are an important cause of healthcare-associated morbidity and mortality in the United States. CLABSI surveillance in the CDC NHSN began in 2005 and has been propelled by state CLABSI reporting requirements, first introduced in 2005, and subsequently by the CMS requirements for intensive care units (ICUs) in 2011 and select ward locations in 2015. Although trend analyses were previously reported, no recent assessment of the NHSN CLABSI incidence rate changes has been performed. In this analysis, we evaluated trends in CLABSI rates in nonneonatal ICUs and all wards reported from acute-care hospitals. Methods: CLABSI rates, including blood stream infections attributed to mucosal barrier injury reported to the NHSN from 2009 to 2018, were analyzed. To evaluate trends in CLABSI incidence and to account for the potential impact of definitional changes in catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) that indirectly impacted CLABSI rates, as well as the CMS mandate for select wards, we conducted an interrupted time-series analysis using negative binomial random-effects modeling with an interruption in 2015. ICUs and ward locations were analyzed separately. Models were adjusted for patient care location type and hospital-level characteristics: hospital type, medical affiliation, teaching status, bed size, number of ICU beds, and average length of inpatient stay. Random intercept and slope models were used to account for differential baseline incidence and trends among reporting hospitals. Results: The overall crude incidence of CLABSI per 1,000 central-line days decreased from 1.6 infections in 2009 to 0.9 infections in 2018, except for an increase in 2015. Similar trends were observed by location type. Among the ICUs, adjusted CLABSI incidence decreased by 10% annually in 2009–2014, increased nearly 29% in 2015, and thereafter decreased at an average of 6.8% per year. Among the wards, adjusted CLABSI incidence decreased at an average of 7.9% annually, except for a 29.3% increase in 2015. Conclusions: Substantial progress has been made in reducing CLABSIs in both ICUs and wards over the last 10 years. Indirect effects of CAUTI definitional changes may explain the immediate increase in ICUs, whereas the CMS mandate may explain the similar increase in wards in 2015. Despite this increase, these findings suggest that policies and practices aimed at prevention of CLABSI have likely been effective on a national level.

Funding: None

Disclosures: None

Submesoscale processes along coastal boundaries provide a potential mechanism for the dissipation of mesoscale kinetic energy in the ocean. Since these processes occur on scales not generally resolved by global ocean models, a physically motivated parametrisation is required to accurately describe their effects. Submesoscale dynamics is characterised by strong turbulent mixing, nonlinearity and topographic effects; all of which significantly modify the flow. A major component of the submesoscale boundary response to mesoscale forcing is the Kelvin – or coastally trapped – wave field, which has been shown to transport energy over large distances. This paper thus examines the influence of vertical mixing, nonlinearity and steep-slope topography on baroclinic Kelvin waves with the aim of assessing the importance of these effects. We consider the limit of a steep coastal boundary, weak mixing and weak nonlinearity and perform an asymptotic analysis to determine the modification of the classical Kelvin wave solution by these effects. Linear and nonlinear solutions are given and different mixing limits are discussed and compared with previous work. We find that vertical mixing acts to damp slowly propagating Kelvin waves while nonlinearity can cause wave breaking which may be important for fast waves. Steep-slope topography acts to modify the wave speed and structure consistent with previous work.

Wholegrain consumption is linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Evidence from randomized controlled trials have established that the consumption of wholegrain oats lowers blood cholesterol, via a mechanism partly mediated by β-glucan soluble fiber. However, oats contain an array of phenolic acids, including ferulic acid and also structurally related avenanthramides, which may also contribute to the cardiovascular health benefits of oat intake. We investigated whether 4 weeks, daily consumption of oat phenolics leads to improvement in markers of CVD risk men and women.In a 3 arm crossover single-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 28 volunteers consumed either: 1) oatmeal/oatcake intervention (-containing 48.9 mg of phenolic acids and 19.2 mg of avenanthramides); 2) oatbran concentrate + rice porridge/wheat cracker intervention (-containing 38.4 mg of phenolic acids and 0.5 mg of avenanthramides) or 3) rice porridge/wheat cracker intervention (containing 13.8 mg of phenolic acids). All treatments were matched in soluble fiber (4.8g) and energy (500kcal). The primary endpoint was FMD and other cardiovascular endpoints were blood pressure, LDI, LDL/HDL cholesterol, platelets and endothelial cell-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs). All measures were taken at baseline and after three, 4 week long intervention periods and two washout periods.Our data indicates an increase by 1.09 % ± 0.41 %(Mean ± SEM) in FMD response following high phenolic oat intake with a significant difference (P = 0.007) between baseline and post-intervention. Consumption of high phenolic oats also led to a significant improvement in 24-hour SBP, day time SBP and night time SBP (P < 0.01, P < 0.01 and P < 0.05) and day time and night time DBP (p < 0.05). There was also a significant decrease with total and LDL cholesterol after the consumption of moderate and high phenolic oat interventions (P < 0.05) and a small improvement in LDI (both Ach and SNP) but not significant. The number of resting endothelial EVs were also found to be increasing after the consumption of high phenolic oats.The findings of this study may provide evidence about the role of oat phenolic acids and avenanthramides in cardiovascular health and contribute to more effective public health advice about the consumption of oats and healthy cardiovascular aging.

Oceanic internal waves can be decomposed into an infinite set of modes, and the dominant internal mode 1 waves have been extensively investigated. Although mode 2 waves have been observed, they have not received comparable attention, especially the generation mechanisms. In this work, we examine the generation of mode 2 internal waves by the interaction of mode 1 waves with topography. We use a coupled linear long-wave theory with mode coupling through topography, combined with evolution using a Korteweg–de Vries model, to predict the mode 2 wave amplitude, in an ideal three-layer fluid model, in a smooth density stratification and in two realistic oceanic settings. We find that the mode 2 wave amplitude is usually much smaller than the incident mode 1 wave amplitude and is quite sensitive to the pycnocline thickness, topographic slope and background stratification.

Shallow granular avalanches on slopes close to repose exhibit hysteretic behaviour. For instance, when a steady-uniform granular flow is brought to rest it leaves a deposit of thickness $h_{stop}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D701})$ on a rough slope inclined at an angle $\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}$ to the horizontal. However, this layer will not spontaneously start to flow again until it is inclined to a higher angle $\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}_{start}$, or the thickness is increased to $h_{start}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D701})>h_{stop}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D701})$. This simple phenomenology leads to a rich variety of flows with co-existing regions of solid-like and fluid-like granular behaviour that evolve in space and time. In particular, frictional hysteresis is directly responsible for the spontaneous formation of self-channelized flows with static levees, retrogressive failures as well as erosion–deposition waves that travel through the material. This paper is motivated by the experimental observation that a travelling-wave develops, when a steady uniform flow of carborundum particles on a bed of larger glass beads, runs out to leave a deposit that is approximately equal to $h_{stop}$. Numerical simulations using the friction law originally proposed by Edwards et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 823, 2017, pp. 278–315) and modified here, demonstrate that there are in fact two travelling waves. One that marks the trailing edge of the steady-uniform flow and another that rapidly deposits the particles, directly connecting the point of minimum dynamic friction (at thickness $h_{\ast }$) with the deposited layer. The first wave moves slightly faster than the second wave, and so there is a slowly expanding region between them in which the flow thins and the particles slow down. An exact inviscid solution for the second travelling wave is derived and it is shown that for a steady-uniform flow of thickness $h_{\ast }$ it produces a deposit close to $h_{stop}$ for all inclination angles. Numerical simulations show that the two-wave structure deposits layers that are approximately equal to $h_{stop}$ for all initial thicknesses. This insensitivity to the initial conditions implies that $h_{stop}$ is a universal quantity, at least for carborundum particles on a bed of larger glass beads. Numerical simulations are therefore able to capture the complete experimental staircase procedure, which is commonly used to determine the $h_{stop}$ and $h_{start}$ curves by progressively increasing the inclination of the chute. In general, however, the deposit thickness may depend on the depth of the flowing layer that generated it, so the most robust way to determine $h_{stop}$ is to measure the deposit thickness from a flow that was moving at the minimum steady-uniform velocity. Finally, some of the pathologies in earlier non-monotonic friction laws are discussed and it is explicitly shown that with these models either steadily travelling deposition waves do not form or they do not leave the correct deposit depth $h_{stop}$.

When a layer of static grains on a sufficiently steep slope is disturbed, an upslope-propagating erosion wave, or retrogressive failure, may form that separates the initially static material from a downslope region of flowing grains. This paper shows that a relatively simple depth-averaged avalanche model with frictional hysteresis is sufficient to capture a planar retrogressive failure that is independent of the cross-slope coordinate. The hysteresis is modelled with a non-monotonic effective basal friction law that has static, intermediate (velocity decreasing) and dynamic (velocity increasing) regimes. Both experiments and time-dependent numerical simulations show that steadily travelling retrogressive waves rapidly form in this system and a travelling wave ansatz is therefore used to derive a one-dimensional depth-averaged exact solution. The speed of the wave is determined by a critical point in the ordinary differential equation for the thickness. The critical point lies in the intermediate frictional regime, at the point where the friction exactly balances the downslope component of gravity. The retrogressive wave is therefore a sensitive test of the functional form of the friction law in this regime, where steady uniform flows are unstable and so cannot be used to determine the friction law directly. Upper and lower bounds for the existence of retrogressive waves in terms of the initial layer depth and the slope inclination are found and shown to be in good agreement with the experimentally determined phase diagram. For the friction law proposed by Edwards et al. (J. Fluid. Mech., vol. 823, 2017, pp. 278–315, J. Fluid. Mech., 2019, (submitted)) the magnitude of the wave speed is slightly under-predicted, but, for a given initial layer thickness, the exact solution accurately predicts an increase in the wave speed with higher inclinations. The model also captures the finite wave speed at the onset of retrogressive failure observed in experiments.

The continued development of the aquaculture industry is contributing to the proliferation of artificial structures in the marine environment. Observations of seaweed farms (infrastructure and biomass) suggest they act as a habitat for associated species. Seaweed farms differ from other forms of artificial infrastructure as the material deployed already has marine organisms (i.e. culture species) growing on it. This ‘priming’ of ropes with juvenile sporophytes may affect future development of communities by facilitating colonizing species or suppressing competitors. We call this process ‘ecological priming’: the provision of a biological platform that influences the successional development of specific communities. The communities that developed on ropes primed with Alaria esculenta individuals were compared with unprimed ropes to assess the ecological priming effect, at a commercial kelp farm in south-west Ireland. Species richness increased over two cultivation seasons and species composition was consistent between years, with distinct communities developing on primed and unprimed treatments. Timing of species occurrence on primed ropes was predictable with no predictable pattern occurring on unprimed ropes. Multivariate tests indicated distinct communities between treatments, with suppression of other algal species and potential facilitation of some species that have a particular association with A. esculenta on primed ropes. Communities from primed holdfasts contained a lower diversity of algal species compared with unprimed communities. Cultivated kelp holdfasts represent a habitat for distinct assemblages that reflect ecological priming of the substratum.