High‐speed solar wind streams emanating from coronal holes are frequently impinging on the Earth's magnetosphere causing recurrent, medium‐level geomagnetic storm activity. Modeling high‐speed solar wind streams is thus an essential element of successful space weather forecasting. Here we evaluate high‐speed stream forecasts made by the empirical solar wind forecast (ESWF) and the semiempirical Wang‐Sheeley‐Arge (WSA) model based on the in situ plasma measurements from the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft for the years 2011 to 2014. While the ESWF makes use of an empirical relation between the coronal hole area observed in Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) images and solar wind properties at the near‐Earth environment, the WSA model establishes a link between properties of the open magnetic field lines extending from the photosphere to the corona and the background solar wind conditions. We found that both solar wind models are capable of predicting the large‐scale features of the observed solar wind speed (root‐mean‐square error, RMSE ≈100 km/s) but tend to either overestimate (ESWF) or underestimate (WSA) the number of high‐speed solar wind streams (threat score, TS ≈ 0.37). The predicted high‐speed streams show typical uncertainties in the arrival time of about 1 day and uncertainties in the speed of about 100 km/s. General advantages and disadvantages of the investigated solar wind models are diagnosed and outlined.
The amygdala and the parietal cortex play a key role in the neural representation of personal space. Although the concept of personal space is clinically very relevant for borderline personality disorder (BPD), especially in affective contexts, it has not been investigated thus far with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In this fMRI study, 25 female BPD patients and 25 healthy women were exposed to photos of angry, disgusted and neutral facial expressions. All stimuli were once shown as still photos, and once were zoomed-in in order to simulate intrusion into one's own personal space. Approaching faces generally provoked activation of the amygdala and the somatosensory cortex. BPD patients showed an increased activation within both regions, but only toward approaching disgusted faces. Their amygdala activation in this specific condition positively correlated with self-disgust scores. Moreover, the clinical group indicated an enhanced personal distance preference, which was associated with parietal activation. The present study revealed altered personal space processing of BPD patients, especially in situations that relate to social contexts involving disgust. Future studies should focus on the temporal stability of personal space processing during the natural course of BPD as well as during therapy.
The present fMRI study investigated whether placebo treatment can change disgust feelings. Disgust-prone women underwent a retest design where they were presented with disgusting, fear-eliciting and neutral pictures once with and once without a placebo (inert pill presented with the suggestion that it can reduce disgust symptoms). The placebo provoked a strong decrease of experienced disgust, which was accompanied by reduced insula activation. Exploratory psychophysiological interaction analyses revealed decreased connectivity in a network consisting of the insula, the amygdala, the anterior cingulate cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex. Moreover, the placebo increased amygdala-DMPFC coactivation. Our findings suggest that placebo use can modulate a specific affective state and might be an option as a first therapy step for clinical samples characterized by excessive and difficult-to-control disgust feelings.
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