Little is known about who the main public and philanthropic funders of health research are globally, what they fund and how they decide what gets funded. This study aims to identify the 10 largest ...public and philanthropic health research funding organizations in the world, to report on what they fund, and on how they distribute their funds.
The world's key health research funding organizations were identified through a search strategy aimed at identifying different types of funding organizations. Organizations were ranked by their reported total annual health research expenditures. For the 10 largest funding organizations, data were collected on (1) funding amounts allocated towards 20 health areas, and (2) schemes employed for distributing funding (intramural/extramural, project/'people'/organizational and targeted/untargeted funding). Data collection consisted of a review of reports and websites and interviews with representatives of funding organizations. Data collection was challenging; data were often not reported or reported using different classification systems.
Overall, 55 key health research funding organizations were identified. The 10 largest funding organizations together funded research for $37.1 billion, constituting 40% of all public and philanthropic health research spending globally. The largest funder was the United States National Institutes of Health ($26.1 billion), followed by the European Commission ($3.7 billion), and the United Kingdom Medical Research Council ($1.3 billion). The largest philanthropic funder was the Wellcome Trust ($909.1 million), the largest funder of health research through official development assistance was USAID ($186.4 million), and the largest multilateral funder was the World Health Organization ($135.0 million). Funding distribution mechanisms and funding patterns varied substantially between the 10 largest funders.
There is a need for increased transparency about who the main funders of health research are globally, what they fund and how they decide on what gets funded, and for improving the evidence base for various funding models. Data on organizations' funding patterns and funding distribution mechanisms are often not available, and when they are, they are reported using different classification systems. To start increasing transparency in health research funding, we have established www.healthresearchfunders.org that lists health research funding organizations worldwide and their health research expenditures.
Many interesting but practically intractable problems can be reduced to that of finding the ground state of a system of interacting spins; however, finding such a ground state remains computationally ...difficult. It is believed that the ground state of some naturally occurring spin systems can be effectively attained through a process called quantum annealing. If it could be harnessed, quantum annealing might improve on known methods for solving certain types of problem. However, physical investigation of quantum annealing has been largely confined to microscopic spins in condensed-matter systems. Here we use quantum annealing to find the ground state of an artificial Ising spin system comprising an array of eight superconducting flux quantum bits with programmable spin-spin couplings. We observe a clear signature of quantum annealing, distinguishable from classical thermal annealing through the temperature dependence of the time at which the system dynamics freezes. Our implementation can be configured in situ to realize a wide variety of different spin networks, each of which can be monitored as it moves towards a low-energy configuration. This programmable artificial spin network bridges the gap between the theoretical study of ideal isolated spin networks and the experimental investigation of bulk magnetic samples. Moreover, with an increased number of spins, such a system may provide a practical physical means to implement a quantum algorithm, possibly allowing more-effective approaches to solving certain classes of hard combinatorial optimization problems.
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) is fed by galaxy outflows and accretion of intergalactic gas, but its mass, heavy element enrichment, and relation to galaxy properties are poorly constrained by ...observations. In a survey of the outskirts of 42 galaxies with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph onboard the Hubble Space Telescope, we detected ubiquitous, large (150-kiloparsec) halos of ionized oxygen surrounding star-forming galaxies; we found much less ionized oxygen around galaxies with little or no star formation. This ionized CGM contains a substantial mass of heavy elements and gas, perhaps far exceeding the reservoirs of gas in the galaxies themselves. Our data indicate that it is a basic component of nearly all star-forming galaxies that is removed or transformed during the quenching of star formation and the transition to passive evolution.
ABSTRACT
High-velocity clouds (HVCs), fast-moving ionized and neutral gas clouds found at high galactic latitudes, may play an important role in the evolution of the Milky Way. The extent of this ...role depends sensitively on their distances and total sky covering factor. We search for HVC absorption in Hubble Space Telescope high-resolution ultraviolet (UV) spectra of a carefully selected sample of 133 active galactic nuclei (AGN) using a range of atomic species in different ionization stages (e.g. O i, C ii, C iv, Si ii, Si iii, Si iv). This allows us to identify neutral, weakly ionized or highly ionized HVCs over several decades in H i column densities. The sky covering factor of UV-selected HVCs with |v
LSR| ≥ 90 km s−1 is about 68 per cent for the Galactic sky at . About 74 per cent of the HVC directions have cm−2 and 46 per cent have cm−2. We show that our survey is essentially complete, i.e. an undetected population of HVCs with extremely low H (H i + H ii) column density is unlikely to be important for the HVC mass budget. We confirm that the predominantly ionized HVCs contain at least as much mass as the traditional H i HVCs and show that large H i HVC complexes have generally ionized envelopes extending far from the H i contours. There are also large regions of the Galactic sky that are covered with ionized high-velocity gas with little H i emission nearby. We show that the covering factors of HVCs with km s−1 drawn from the AGN and stellar (with stars at d > 3 kpc) samples are similar. This confirms that most of the HVCs are within 5-15 kpc of the sun. The HVCs with |v
LSR |≳170 km s−1 are largely associated with the Magellanic Stream at b < −20° and its leading arm at b > 20° as well as other large known H i complexes. We conclude that there is no evidence in the Local Group that any galaxy shows a population of HVCs extending much farther away than 50 kpc from its host, except possibly for those tracing remnants of galaxy interaction.
The increase in the frictional strength of rocks with the time of quasi‐stationary contact, known as frictional aging, may ultimately determine whether unstable slip (i.e., earthquakes) can nucleate. ...In spite of its importance, the physical mechanism that underlies frictional aging in rocks is still uncertain. The widely held view is that aging results from an increase in contact area due to asperity creep. Here we show via nanoindentation testing that the hardness and creep rate of quartz are independent of relative humidity from <10−4% to 50%. This contrasts strongly with the standard interpretation of previous friction experiments on quartz tested over a similar humidity range, which reveal an absence of frictional aging for humidity <5%. Our results demonstrate that frictional aging in quartz cannot result from asperity creep and instead argue in favor of other mechanisms, including time‐dependent chemical bond formation or slip‐induced strengthening.
Plain Language Summary
The friction coefficient of rocks increases with the length of time they are held in stationary contact, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as frictional aging. However, at low relative humidity (i.e. <5%), frictional aging of silicate rocks does not occur. Some authors have hypothesized that aging is due to creep of the microscopic contacts at which faults actually touch, and that creep is enhanced in humid environments. Here we measured the creep behavior of quartz by indenting it with diamond probe, over a wide range of relative humidity. Our results show that the deformation of quartz is independent of relative humidity. Our results demonstrate that some other mechanism than contact creep must give rise to frictional aging.
Key Points
The hardness and nanoindentation creep behavior of quartz are independent of relative humidity over the range <10−4% to 50%
Variations in the frictional aging of rocks with humidity cannot be explained by changes in plastic deformation or creep of asperities
Chemical bonding, slip‐induced strengthening of asperities, or some other mechanism must be responsible for frictional aging of rocks
We assess the metal content of the cool (~10 super(4) K) circumgalactic medium (CGM) about galaxies at z <, ~ 1 using an H I-selected sample of 28 Lyman limit systems (LLS; defined here as absorbers ...with 16.2 <, ~ log N sub(H I) <, ~ 18.5) observed in absorption against background QSOs by the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope. The N sub(H I) selection avoids metallicity biases inherent in many previous studies of the low-redshift CGM. We compare the column densities of weakly ionized metal species (e.g., O II, Si II, Mg II) to N sub(H I) in the strongest H I component of each absorber. We find that the metallicity distribution of the LLS (and hence the cool CGM) is bimodal with metal-poor and metal-rich branches peaking at X/H Asymptotically = to -1.6 and -0.3 (or about 2.5% and 50% solar metallicities). The cool CGM probed by these LLS is predominantly ionized. The metal-rich branch of the population likely traces winds, recycled outflows, and tidally stripped gas; the metal-poor branch has properties consistent with cold accretion streams thought to be a major source of fresh gas for star forming galaxies. Both branches have a nearly equal number of absorbers. Our results thus demonstrate there is a significant mass of previously undiscovered cold metal-poor gas and confirm the presence of metal enriched gas in the CGM of z <, ~ 1 galaxies.
Entanglement lies at the core of quantum algorithms designed to solve problems that are intractable by classical approaches. One such algorithm, quantum annealing (QA), provides a promising path to a ...practical quantum processor. We have built a series of architecturally scalable QA processors consisting of networks of manufactured interacting spins (qubits). Here, we use qubit tunneling spectroscopy to measure the energy eigenspectrum of two- and eight-qubit systems within one such processor, demonstrating quantum coherence in these systems. We present experimental evidence that, during a critical portion of QA, the qubits become entangled and entanglement persists even as these systems reach equilibrium with a thermal environment. Our results provide an encouraging sign that QA is a viable technology for large-scale quantum computing.
Efforts to develop useful quantum computers have been blocked primarily by environmental noise. Quantum annealing is a scheme of quantum computation that is predicted to be more robust against noise, ...because despite the thermal environment mixing the system's state in the energy basis, the system partially retains coherence in the computational basis, and hence is able to establish well-defined eigenstates. Here we examine the environment's effect on quantum annealing using 16 qubits of a superconducting quantum processor. For a problem instance with an isolated small-gap anticrossing between the lowest two energy levels, we experimentally demonstrate that, even with annealing times eight orders of magnitude longer than the predicted single-qubit decoherence time, the probabilities of performing a successful computation are similar to those expected for a fully coherent system. Moreover, for the problem studied, we show that quantum annealing can take advantage of a thermal environment to achieve a speedup factor of up to 1,000 over a closed system.
The analysis of landslide hazard requires continuous and high frequency surface displacement monitoring at numerous and geomorphologically relevant locations. Ground-based geodetic methods (GNSS, ...tacheometry) allow very accurate and high frequency temporal observations while remote sensing methods (InSAR, terrestrial and satellite photogrammetry, LIDAR) allow spatially distributed observations at high spatial resolution. A single surface deformation monitoring technique coupling all these capabilities is still missing.
The Geocube system has been designed to partly overcome this pitfall by creating a low-cost, flexible, easy to install and wireless GPS receiver. Dense Geocube monitoring networks can be set easily for operational observations. Furthermore, the monitoring of other landslide properties (micro-seismicity, seismic waves) or triggering factors (meteorology, slope hydrology) is possible with the capacity of integrating additional sensors to the Geocube.
This work presents the Geocube system and the results of a field campaign performed during the summer 2012 at the Super-Sauze landslide, southern French Alps, with a network of wireless low-cost GPS. The objective was to assess the performance of the Geocube system in real field monitoring conditions. Our results document the spatial and temporal evolution of the landslide during a period of 40days. Landslide acceleration periods are detected and correlated to rainfall events.
•The Super-Sauze landslide is monitored by a dense, low-cost and wireless GPS network.•Precise position time series at high temporal frequency are obtained.•The complex spatial pattern of deformation of the landslide is investigated.•A landslide acceleration event is documented.
Many natural fault surfaces exhibit remarkably similar scale‐dependent roughness, which may reflect the scale‐dependent yield strength of rocks. Using atomic force microscopy (AFM), we show that a ...sample of the Corona Heights Fault exhibits isotropic surface roughness well‐described by a power law, with a Hurst exponent of 0.75 +/− 0.05 at all wavelengths from 60 nm to 10 μm. The roughness data and a recently proposed theoretical framework predict that yield strength varies with length scale as λ‐0.25+/−0.05. Nanoindentation tests on the Corona Heights sample and another fault sample whose topography was previously measured with AFM (the Yair Fault) reveal a scale‐dependent yield stress with power‐law exponents of −0.12 +/− 0.06 and −0.18 +/− 0.08, respectively. These values are within one to two standard deviations of the predicted value, and provide experimental evidence that fault roughness is controlled by intrinsic material properties, which produces a characteristic surface geometry.
Key Points
Nanoindentation tests show that the yield stress of fault surfaces increases with decreasing size of the indent
The power‐law roughness of two natural faults is consistent with laboratory measurements of scale‐dependent yield strength
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