a daughter of Ron and Valgene Wolfcale Meyers Kelly was most known and loved for her caring nature and fun-loving spirit always finding joy in spending time with her children and grandchildren and took pleasure in cooking for her family Kelly was a Gold Star mother of the TAPS Veterans Service Organization a distinction she carried with pride following the loss of her son who died in Iraq while serving his country in 2005 This profound loss impacted her life deeply Sarah Kuhns and Dawn Broll; daughter-in-law Kelly also leaves behind her longtime caregiver and dear friend Kelly’s life was a testament to her loving nature and enduring spirit; she will be deeply missed by all who knew her Copyright © 2025 Eastern Ohio Newspapers, Inc. | https://www.vindy.com | 240 Franklin Street SE, Warren, OH 44482 | 330-841-1600 | Terms of Service Saint Trifon eclipses Saint Valentine as the town celebrates its long history of winemaking The sun glows on the otherworldly shapes of the sandstone cliffs that have been sculpted by millennia of rain and left looking like someone tried to make sand castles but was too impatient to fill the bucket to the top Jagged battlements and conical heaps stretch to the horizon At the base of these cliffs stands a cluster of large the town is famous as the heart of Bulgaria’s wine region thousands of visitors arrive for Saint Trifon’s Day a celebration of the patron saint of winemaking which is a much bigger deal than Valentine’s Day The festivities begin when the wineries in the surrounding hills open their doors to visitors for tastings of the local red wine but soon take on the atmosphere of a village fete when meat is thrown on the grill a Bulgarian folk dance where the dancers link hands and move in winding lines the party moves on to the taverns in Melnik the noise growing proportionately to the number of jugs of house wine consumed – which is quite a few since they start at about £10 a litre everyone is dancing again as an impromptu horo weaves between the tables and chairs Women in traditional dress lead a folk dance Photograph: Niko LatrenchevFor most of the year I arrive for my fourth visit to the town and I have barely stepped out of the car when I am called over by a man selling wine pouring me a glass of red from a two-litre plastic bottle but it makes navigating the cobblestones harder as I climb a sidestreet between old stone houses I enter a large reception hall with stained glass windows Next door is a chamber for private dealings with a secret room hidden behind some bookshelves The whole family could sit here to listen in on trade deals Mavrud is available for tasting at the Melnik Wine Museum Photograph: Eloise StarkMany similar buildings now sit empty in the town In 1912 the town was incorporated into the newly founded Bulgaria and a year later the Greek government ordered Melnik’s Hellenic community to relocate across the border There is a disproportionate grandeur to these large empty houses as though skyscrapers had been left behind in a village and the only merchants left are the ones selling wine and jam to tourists The entrance fee to the wine museum includes tasting a variety supposedly favoured by Winston Churchill, who was said to order two barrels each yearBack on the main street, I follow a sign to the Wine Museum where information panels formatted as old scrolls and archive photos of winemakers line the walls who inhabited the region from about 1,000BC to the sixth century AD According to the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder the first European wine grower was a Thracian named Evmolp and Thracian wines are mentioned in Homer’s epics The small exhibit serves as a cultural alibi for the museum’s tasting section The £4.50 entrance ticket includes five wine tastings including a variety supposedly favoured by Winston Churchill who was said to order two barrels each year “Winston Leonard … What comes next?” asks the museum guide Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill,” he says as though I was smoking a cigar while drinking Ivan, a guide at Melnik's Wine Museum, places a label on a bottle. Photograph: Eloise StarkBut my favourite is a rosé made from a local grape called siroka melniska (broad-leaved melnik) and reminds me of fizzy fish sweets – apologies to wine connoisseurs melts wax on top and hands it to me with a flourish sitting at a wooden table outside a mehana but I order a vegetable stew with slices of aubergine that melt in my mouth alongside Bulgarian flatbread with paprika and cheese Dessert is homemade ice-cream with caramelised nuts and candied figs Melnik is falling into a sleepy torpor when I leave shortly after sunset It will need all of its energy come 14 February when visitors from throughout Bulgaria arrive to pay tribute to Saint Trifon How he earned the title of the patron saint of winemaking is a mystery Little is known of Saint Trifon other than the fact he was beheaded in the year 250 for being a Christian Bulgarians have filled in the gaps with little regard for chronological consistency Local lore states that Trifon was the Virgin Mary’s brother Mary passed the saint tending his vineyard and he yelled after her: “Where are you taking that bastard?” With those charming words he swung his scythe and accidentally cut off his nose the festival is more about wine than about the saint I asked a young couple drinking wine in a spa hotel whether they were there for Saint Trifon’s or Valentine’s Day Eloise stayed at Hotel Melnik, which has double rooms from £49 (115BGN) a night, hotelmelnik.com Владимир Мельник и Владимир Пискарёв в день освобождения 9 апреля 2025 года Артур Путинцев, Владимир Мельник и Владимир Пискарёв освободились из колоний в Орловской, Кировской и Калужской областях соответственно. Они полностью отбыли назначенное им наказание, проведя более 3 лет в СИЗО и более года в колониях Трое мужчин оказались за решеткой в декабре 2020 года Ирина Мельник вспоминает: «Сначала свидания не давали Потом 2 раза в месяц мы виделись на коротких свиданиях… Но это было на расстоянии 1 метра через стекло и решетку Увидеться и обняться мы смогли только в июле 2024 года на длительном свидании» В СИЗО у Владимира Пискарёва обострились проблемы с давлением он перенес инсульт и неоднократные гипертонические кризы а также острый приступ болезни желудочно-кишечного тракта Владимир Мельник и Артур Путинцев также испытывали проблемы со здоровьем во время своего заключения Благодаря образцовому поведению в колонии мужчины заслужили хорошую репутацию у администрации Из уважения к верующим некоторые из них перестали использовать бранную речь и старались не курить в их присутствии Артура Путинцева в колонии прозвали «рукой Бога» за его щедрость к другим заключенным а также оказывали материальную и практическую помощь их семьям друзья Артура Путинцева починили крышу его дома и забор Также единоверцы подвозили жен заключенных в суды и на свидания и помогали делать передачи Орловская область — это регион, с которого начались преследования Свидетелей Иеговы вскоре после запрета их юрлиц в 2017 году. В общей сложности 8 верующих из этой местности стали фигурантами уголовных дел за свою веру Четверо из них уже освободились из колонии а двое продолжают отбывать наказание в виде принудительных работ Этот веб-сайт использует cookie. Если вы дадите разрешение, мы будем использовать cookie, чтобы сделать ваше посещение более персональным, повысить его качество и улучшать работу сайта на основе того, как вы его используете. Если вы отклоните использование cookie, некоторые функции сайта могут не работать. Вы можете узнать больше о видах cookie, которые мы используем, на странице Политика конфиденциальности и использования cookie « Back Our websites may use cookies to personalize and enhance your experience. By continuing without changing your cookie settings, you agree to this collection. For more information, please see our University Websites Privacy Notice sign a distribution agreement leveraging their respective strengths Inspired by his own struggles with gastrointestinal illness Alexey Melnik developed an innovative new product to identify the source of microbial imbalances in the gut a root cause of many gastrointestinal (GI) diseases and disorders But Melnik and his co-founders at Arome Science, Inc No one at the biotech start-up knew the first thing about marketing a holistic health start-up also based at TIP in Farmington Gresh has distinguished himself as a skilled promoter of his plant-based pain relief products, which were featured in July on a segment of Good Morning America He is also adept at recognizing opportunities “Alexey is one of the biggest experts in the world on the gut microbiome,” says Gresh “That’s a huge focus here at the Feel Good Lab His product is one of the most exciting things I’ve seen in 10 years of doing what I’m doing.” The two companies recently signed a distribution agreement under which the Feel Good Lab will market and sell Arome’s new product as part of a kit that also includes a Feel Good Lab food inflammation test that measures how the body and immune system react to different foods “What aligned the most between us is that we are helping to change the way to look at health and giving people a tool to be proactive instead of reactive,” says Gresh Melnik worked as a research assistant in the lab of Pieter Dorrestein a pioneer in the emerging field of metabolomics at the University of California San Diego Metabolomics is the study of small molecules called metabolites that are created when the body breaks down food Melnik’s work at the lab focused on developing analytical tools and methods to explore human and microbial chemistry through a variety of projects He and his Arome co-founders have co-authored more than 300 articles which have been cited more than 50,000 times Melnik left his position in UConn’s Chemistry Department in August to focus full time on his work at Arome a professor of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences at UCSD who also directs its Collaborative Mass Spectrometry Innovation Center is a co-founder of the company with Melnik and UConn Assistant Professor of Chemistry more convenient approach to collecting the fecal samples needed to assess gut health The method uses a system that integrates the collection process into the user’s daily routine employing a novel collection manifold that works much like toilet paper The user preserves the sample in a solution which eliminates the need and associated costs of refrigerating samples during storage and transportation Scientists rely primarily on two analytical techniques – mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy – to conduct studies on metabolites These sophisticated tools are used to detect and quantify a wide range of metabolites with a high degree of precision in an array of applications that include the early detection of diseases such as cancer monitoring ecosystem health and pollutants in water and soil and assessing the impact of different diets on human health Using the technique to track trends in gut metabolites can offer actionable insights into an individual’s gut health over time – data that can inform personalized dietary interventions Molecules known as short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) – particularly acetate and butyrate –are the most studied biomarkers of gut health and play vital roles in maintaining gut integrity Imbalances in the regulation of SCFA production have been linked to various conditions including inflammatory bowel disease and even neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease is one of the best-known ways to keep the gut healthy but there are a multitude of other factors that can contribute to gut disease and disorders from the herbicides and pesticides used to grow the food to the toxins used to preserve it a widely used herbicide linked to inflammation An intervention using fiber is what helped Melnik resolve his gut issues The breakthrough followed a four-year bout of GI distress that resulted in visits to 10 different doctors and three trips to the ER By aggregating models from clinical trials on fiber they created a personalized regime of supplements that brought him relief The kits will initially be sold through physicians and GI doctors and eventually direct to consumers Each S’Wipe kit will contain three wipes and three tubes of solution for preserving the samples which are sent to Arome Science for analysis Melnik and Gresh envision adding interventional dietary supplements to the list of products under their agreement Simplifying the process will also enable large-scale gut studies which can be cumbersome and objectionable to users have been a bottleneck in the research process A few studies already enabled by S’Wipe suggest the new technology is positively impacting the problem “The message is that consumer access and research go hand in hand,” says Aksenov “This partnership came together through the TIP ecosystem in which both companies realized how they could help each other,” adds McMillian “The Feel Good Lab has built a robust direct-to-consumer business and is always looking for new products for their customers Arome has amazing science but has never sold online before TIP is creating an ecosystem of collaboration here.” Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti said Wednesday that its Athens bureau would shut down after the Greek authorities refused to renew the press accreditation for its chief correspondent Greece’s Foreign Ministry declined to renew bureau chief Gennady Melnik’s 2025 accreditation without explanation Melnik’s 2024 accreditation was renewed with delays Greece’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to The Moscow Times’ request for comment RIA Novosti established its Athens bureau ahead of the 2004 Summer Olympics. The agency is among several Russian state media outlets sanctioned by the EU for spreading “propaganda” related to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine The news agency claimed that the Greek authorities have restricted its journalists from covering certain events over the past three years Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Greece in May 2022 terminated the operations of the Sputnik news agency which is part of the state-funded media group Rossiya Segodnya alongside RIA Novosti and the broadcaster RT Rossiya Segodnya called the decision a “gross violation of free speech.” Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent." These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help please support us monthly starting from just $2 and every contribution makes a significant impact independent journalism in the face of repression Dear Reader,Unfortunately our comment platform isn\'t available at the moment due to issues with our paywall and authentication vendor Peg Melnik has experienced a lot during her career including an impromptu helicopter ride with a billionaire vintner immersed in an agrarian culture with deep roots and at the center of one of the most revered wine growing regions in the world I’ve been a wine writer at The Press Democrat for 25 years and have enjoyed the good fortune of being on the cutting edge of the wine world With the deepest gratitude for this remarkable experience I’m leaving the newspaper this month to devote my full attention to an entrepreneurial project I’m as charmed by this idyllic setting as the winemakers and growers I’ve written about for decades Horticulturist Luther Burbank called Sonoma County “the chosen spot of all this earth.” The wine grape — that bossy diva pampered by the best and the brightest growers — would agree I call Sonoma County rustic chic — part BMW It’s a quirky crossroads of the entrepreneur and the farmer Working at that intersection and writing for The Press Democrat has been an incredible ride I’ve had the opportunity to witness and chronicle the lives of people who bottle their genius and their irrepressible spirit along with their grapes I learned early on that every assignment in Wine Country has hidden gems worth discovering and it’s a good idea to lean into the mystery Embarking on a spur-of-the-moment helicopter ride with a billionaire vintner is a perfect example I grabbed a couple of pens and my reporter’s notebook The assignment that day was straightforward: Meet with Jess Jackson — the titan wine entrepreneur racehorse owner and businessman — to do a Q&A for The Press Democrat’s magazine including reading numerous articles about Jackson I asked him about his status on the Forbes list of billionaires he was the only listed billionaire in Sonoma County I’ll never forget how he reached into his pocket and pulled out $2.52 I prefer not to die on this particular day.” But my mouth expressed something entirely different Jackson alerted his pilot and within 10 minutes we jumped into his helicopter which was parked on a pad just a stone’s throw from his Healdsburg home well-known for its pricey Cabernet Sauvignons But first we touched down to take a peek at some gorgeous mountainsides “No wonder Jess Jackson only has $2.52 in his pocket Walking into Cardinale with the vintner assured VIP treatment We tasted through a flight of highbrow Cabernets After a quick tour of the winery and the grounds we headed back over the Mayacamas Mountains to Jackson’s home hopped in my Ford Explorer and drove back to the newsroom reflecting on that impulsive whirlybird ride across the sky My reporter’s notebook has proven to be my most treasured possession It’s what has invited me into people’s lives I always walk away knowing I’m the lucky one — the one who gets to hear their story firsthand And each story — whether about a difficult experience or an out-of-the-box invention — has made an impression on me It has shaped me; it has reconfigured my makeup So many stories fall into this transformational category but I’ll share a few that are close to my heart 1. In the early morning hours of June 17, Mike and Dani Price watched flames engulf their home on Dry Creek Road about a mile and a half southeast of where the Point Fire had erupted the previous day in the famed Dry Creek Valley wine region as did a refurbished barn with a cellar that stored more than a thousand wine bottles for the couple’s two business ventures: Maison du Prix and Fat Dragon The couple ultimately agreed to an interview after reading a few of my articles and hearing my case for the greater good — that sharing their story could help and provide comfort to others in a similar situation She was sad to lose her wedding photographs but “they’re just really things,” she said “I give myself two days to be ‘woe is me,’ but then I focus on the positive.” 2. Leading up to The Press Democrat’s North Coast Wine Challenge, I had the opportunity to interview DeShon Elliott who was then the Miami Dolphins safety — now he’s with Pittsburgh Steelers — and a judge in this year’s wine competition injured a knee and tore both his pectoral muscle and his shoulder “I spent a lot of time in isolation and in those circumstances you can either fold and give up or you can build yourself up and become a better version of yourself — not just physically but mentally,” he said of his recovery from the knee injury you may read stories about large corporations or Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs buying wineries in Sonoma and Napa counties But most of our wineries were founded by immigrants from Europe some arriving here as early as the mid 1850s Some of the most notable wineries in this area are operated by fourth-, fifth- or even sixth-generation family members These families immigrated here roughly 100 years ago drawn by word-of-mouth descriptions that painted Sonoma County as a place that looked like their Italian villages and had an ideal climate for farming genetically identical to the Italian red grape Primitivo Their ingenuity and hard work saw them through the turbulence of World War I I realize how proud they were of their achievements,” said Julie St third-generation vintner at Geyserville’s Pedroncelli Winery They began as Italian immigrants and achieved the American dream.” 4. Many winemakers have chosen the road less traveled to pursue their dreams. One journey that inspires me is that of Akiko Freeman Freeman was always at odds with the Japanese culture of conformity she preferred climbing trees and riding bikes with the boys to playing with dolls opting to make a life with an American instead The duo founded their namesake winery — Freeman Vineyards & Winery — in Sebastopol in 2001 Akiko became the boots-on-the-ground winemaker in 2010 Today the vintners’ label is one of the leading brands in Japan Akiko was the first woman to receive a Green-White medal from the Dar Nihon Agriculture Society of Japan “I’m glad people recognize me for what I’m doing,” Akiko said it’s going to open the door and be an inspiration for young female winemakers 5. Writing about such a legendary vintner as Warren Winiarski is an honor and a privilege But what I will remember most about the famous vintner is his way of talking about winemaking and the many goodwill projects he contributed to. He liked to use metaphors, alluding to the “seed money” he contributed to research projects, environmental causes and charitable initiatives. To illustrate his long-term commitment to change, he once explained the difference between a leaf, a cane (the part of the vine pruned back each year where the grape clusters will eventually form) and a seed. “A leaf lasts one season,” Winiarski said. “A cane lasts many years. But with a seed, the desire is forever. The seed carries that message. Everything is for the sake of the seed.” As I sort through my desk and my memories, I want to offer a heartfelt thank you. I appreciate readers for being my companions over the years. I always had you in mind writing my stories — I wanted to bring you along on my adventures. I’m grateful for The Press Democrat, a place where reporters use their humanity and honed skills to get to the truth. A former features editor, Corinne Asturias, told me that the best newsrooms are a crossroads of the smartest and most ethical people you’ll ever meet. I found that to be true at The Press Democrat. Finally, I’m grateful to the wine community for inviting me to indulge my curiosity and rewarding me with compelling stories. I hope you’ll continue to share your news with me and my successors at The Press Democrat. And I hope we cross paths before long. Until then, I thank you deeply for welcoming my notebook and me into your world. You can reach Wine Writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @pegmelnik. Volume 11 - 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00150 This article is part of the Research TopicMobile Brain/Body Imaging and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation and CreativityView all 13 articles Lab-based electroencephalography (EEG) techniques have matured over decades of research and can produce high-quality scientific data It is often assumed that the specific choice of EEG system has limited impact on the data and does not add variance to the results many low cost and mobile EEG systems are now available and there is some doubt as to the how EEG data vary across these newer systems We sought to determine how variance across systems compares to variance across subjects or repeated sessions We tested four EEG systems: two standard research-grade systems one system designed for mobile use with dry electrodes and an affordable mobile system with a lower channel count We recorded four subjects three times with each of the four EEG systems This setup allowed us to assess the influence of all three factors on the variance of data Subjects performed a battery of six short standard EEG paradigms based on event-related potentials (ERPs) and steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) Results demonstrated that subjects account for 32% of the variance and repeated sessions for each subject-system combination for 1% of the variance the number of subjects per study typically ranges from 10 to 20 and error of uncertainty in estimates of the mean (like ERP) will improve by the square root of the number of subjects the variance due to EEG system (9%) is of the same order of magnitude as variance due to subjects (32%/sqrt(16) = 8%) with a pool of 16 subjects The two standard research-grade EEG systems had no significantly different means from each other across all paradigms the two other EEG systems demonstrated different mean values from one or both of the two standard research-grade EEG systems in at least half of the paradigms In addition to providing specific estimates of the variability across EEG systems we also propose a benchmark to evaluate new mobile EEG systems by means of ERP responses EEG is one of the most widely used techniques in noninvasive brain research to study correlates of perceptual and motor activity associated with processing of information All of these aspects have a potential to alter EEG data How much do these changes affect the recorded signals Are the results obtained with new mobile EEG systems and research-grade EEG systems equivalent The general conclusion from these studies was that EEG data could be successfully collected using non-research grade EEG systems when taking into account the number and placement of electrodes to rightly estimate how large variability due to systems is we have to compare it to other factors of variance like subjects or repeated sessions for each subject-system combination The primary purpose of this study was to quantify the variance across EEG systems and sessions for some standard EEG measures and one mobile low-budget system with a lower channel count We used six well-established ERP paradigms: (1) auditory evoked potentials (AEPs); (2) steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP); (3) motor potentials (MPs); (4) visual mismatch negativity (vMMN); (5) face-sensitive N170 component; and (6) target-distractor visual decision-making (vDM) This setup allowed us to assess the influence of all three factors (System All subjects had normal or corrected-to-normal vision (self-reported) and normal hearing (self-reported) Subjects sat in a darkened EEG recording chamber in front of a computer monitor from a distance of 90 cm and with a headset on We obtained written informed consent from all subjects before the experiment and the protocol had been approved by the University Osnabrück ethics committee for protection of human subjects The current selection of paradigms covers different modalities (visual as wells as motor) and ranges from a low level to a higher level cognitive load This setup allowed us to assess the influence of the factors: System and Session on EEG data in different standard EEG paradigms Experimental setup of electroencephalography (EEG) recordings We recorded four subjects with four EEG systems and three sessions for each combination of a subject and an EEG system This results into 48 EEG recordings in the study subjects performed a battery of six standard EEG paradigms Pictograms (A–F) schematically represent the paradigms The order of the paradigms was identical for all recordings and had the following sequence: vMMN We had additional paradigms which related not to ERPs but to time-frequency analysis and eye movements which are however beyond the scope of the present article The additional paradigms took approximately 20 min before and 20 min after the paradigms processed in the current study Each of the paradigms in the current study was divided into blocks and subjects could decide themselves when to start a new block and how long pause to take between blocks duration of a recording session varied between 2 h and 3 h depending on how long pauses between blocks and paradigms took a subject In the auditory paradigm (Figure 2A) we presented short stimuli by a headset every 600 ms The duration of the tone was 200 ms and interstimulus interval was 400 ms Stimuli in the first half of the paradigm were pure tones at the frequency 1 kHz and stimuli in the second half of the paradigm were white-noise audio signals Therefore we asked subjects to close their eyes We assumed that it should help subjects to better concentrate on the task One-thousand stimuli in the paradigm were equally distributed across four blocks The peak-to-peak amplitude of the ERP components N1 and P2 defined the dependent variable in this paradigm In this paradigm (Figure 2B) we presented an alternating contrast checkerboard on a monitor (visual angle: 3.5 × 3.5°) at the frequency of 12 Hz Two-thousand and four-hundred alternations were equally distributed across four blocks but only to passively observe the flickering checkerboard A 4 × 4-pixel cross in the center of the checkerboard served as an anchor for the fixation point Minimum to maximum peak difference of the evoked potential defined the dependent variable in this paradigm In this paradigm (Figure 2C) we asked subjects to rhythmically press the key Arrow Down on a keyboard with the index finger of the right hand with a constant pace of about once per second subjects heard a guiding pace through a headset which consisted of 10 beeps played once per second subjects could start to press the key Arrow Down on the keyboard subjects had to conduct 240 button presses Thus we obtained 720 button presses in this paradigm The peak-to-peak amplitude of the ERP components MP and Reafferent Potential (RAP) defined the dependent variable in this paradigm In this paradigm (Figure 2D) we presented sequentially standard (red) and deviant (yellow) circles on a monitor (visual angle: 2 × 2°) with a deviant-to-standard stimuli ratio of 1–4. We spaced deviant stimuli according to Poisson distribution (Ord, 1967) while we set the minimal number of standard stimuli in between to 1 and the maximal number of standard stimuli in between to 8 We asked subjects to look and concentrate their attention at the blinking circles The duration of a stimulus was equal to 280 ms An interval between stimuli onsets was randomly selected for each new stimulus from intervals of 630 ms to 830 ms One-thousand and two-hundred stimuli in the paradigm were equally distributed across four blocks The difference-amplitude peak of subtracted ERPs (deviant stimuli ERP minus standard stimuli ERP) at around 200 ms after a stimulus onset defined the dependent variable in this paradigm We asked subjects to look and concentrate their attention on the appearing pictures One-thousand and thirty-two stimuli in the paradigm were equally distributed across four blocks The difference-amplitude peak of subtracted ERPs (face stimuli ERP minus car stimuli ERP) at around 170 ms after a stimulus onset defined the dependent variable in this paradigm In the paradigm (Figure 2F) we presented text labels with the German name of a color on a monitor (visual angle: 1.5 × 0.6°) The color of the font was always black and presented on a gray screen We asked subjects to look and concentrate their attention at the appearing text labels and to press the key Arrow Down on the keyboard with the index finger of the right hand only when the text label “rot” (red) appears on the monitor Other text labels did not require any action The interval between stimuli onsets was 1 s long subjects got feedback: a white flash of the full screen (duration of 150 ms) and extended interval to the next stimulus onset (2 s) Nine-hundred and sixty stimuli in the paradigm were equally distributed across four blocks The difference-amplitude peak of subtracted ERPs (target stimuli ERP minus distractor stimuli ERP) defined the dependent variable in this paradigm We recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) data using four EEG systems (Table 1 and Figure 3B): (1) asalabTM (ANT Neuro, Enschede, Netherlands1); (2) actiCAP (Brain Products GmbH2); (3) g.tec’s g.Nautilus; and (4) Emotiv EPOC We conducted EEG recordings in batches: first we conducted a batch of recordings for all subjects with g.Nautilus and the last batch of recordings with Emotiv General properties of the electroencephalography (EEG) systems (A) Mesh-head model with the 1082 mesh channels shown as white dots Black labels represent the 10–20 international system and depict positions of 35 electrodes Labels at the crosses represent anterior (A) Beneath the topoplots are photos of the corresponding EEG systems used in the study (Photos with permission from Emotiv asalabTM had 127 data channels and gel-based Ag/AgCl electrodes (waveguardTM caps). Electrodes were positioned according to the 10-5 international system (Oostenveld and Praamstra, 2001) The recording reference was Cz and the ground electrode laid on the left clavicle area We kept scalp impedances below 10 kΩ The sampling rate of continuously recorded EEG data was 1024 Hz Neither band-pass nor notch filter was applied The system transmits EEG data via a shielded electrical cord actiCAP had 64 data channels and gel-based Ag/AgCl active electrodes Electrodes were positioned according to the equidistant spherical montage The recording reference was Cz and the ground electrode laid near Fz The sampling rate of continuously recorded EEG data was 1000 Hz The system transmits EEG data via an electrical cord g.Nautilus had 32 data channels with g.SAHARA dry electrode technology and wireless data transmission A receiver situated in proximity to the EEG system Electrodes were positioned according to the 10-20 international system The recording reference was on the right ear and the ground electrode AFz The EEG system had dry active electrodes and high impedance amplifiers Internal impedance check was performed automatically via software The sampling rate of continuously recorded EEG data was 500 Hz g.Nautilus wirelessly transmits data via the 2.4 GHz band (Bluetooth) We shifted all timestamps (event triggers) in recordings with g.Nautilus for 11 ms earlier since we encountered the constant delay in comparison to asalabTM and actiCAP research-grade EEG systems The recording references in the CMS/DRL noise cancellation configuration were P3/P4 electrodes Sensors were adjusted until connectivity reached the “green” level indicating that the impedance level required by the software was reached (the Emotiv EPOC software development kit was used) The sampling rate of continuously recorded EEG data was 128 Hz Emotiv EPOC has a built-in band-pass filter of 0.2–43 Hz and notch filters at 50 Hz and 60 Hz and wirelessly transmits data via the 2.4 GHz band (Bluetooth) We noticed an issue of timestamps of event triggers with the Emotiv EPOC EEG system. Timestamps stored in the EEG data were highly susceptible to jitter and delay (Hairston et al., 2014) To overcome this issue we synchronized biased timestamps of the event triggers in EEG data with true timestamps of the same event trigger logged by a presentation script during the recordings Precise synchronization at different recording devises is an important aspect because residual jitter might contribute to a reduction of ERP amplitude Before each EEG recording, we digitized the 3D locations of all electrodes and three major fiducials (nasion, left and right preauricular points) using the optical ANT Neuro xensorTM system (ANT Neuro, Enschede, Netherlands3) we collected an individual electrodes digitization for each EEG recording Positions of electrodes did not overlap for all the different EEG systems actiCAP had a spherical montage but Emotiv EPOC and g.Nautilus used the 10-20 international system and asalabTM used the 10-5 international system The different electrode locations did not allow us to directly compare activity from electrodes in the same places across the different EEG systems but not all systems had multiple cap sizes Emotiv EPOC and g.Nautilus had only one cap size (these models had wires covered in a resilient plastic) This could have resulted in possibly different brain areas under the electrodes from different EEG systems for the same subject and the same EEG system there could have been shifts of a few centimeters across data collection sessions due to a bias in the placement procedure of the cap To overcome these issues, we interpolated channel positions (and their activities) over a mesh-head model, taken from EEGLAB (colin27headmesh.mat) that consisted of 1082 mesh points. After the interpolation (EEGLAB function headplot.m), we calculated the activity of 1082 mesh channels. Mesh points are depicted as white dots on the head model in Figure 3A Black labels represent the 10-20 international system and depict positions of 35 electrodes The procedure for each recording session consisted of two steps: (1) The first step is to project positions of electrodes digitized with xensorTM onto a mesh-head model This step was necessary because the mesh-head model and subjects’ head forms were not exactly the same (2) The second step was to interpolate electrode positions and activity of related channels over the positions of 1082 mesh points (mesh channels) the 1082 mesh channels had the same positions on the mesh-head model in all EEG recordings in the study we could compare selected mesh channels between all EEG recordings in the study For each paradigm we found a region of interest and selected a cluster of interpolated mesh channels (see definition of clusters for the paradigms below in the results). Due to the varying density of electrodes across EEG systems, some clusters in a part of recordings may lack of electrodes within the clusters. Table 2 demonstrates average distances from clusters to nearest electrodes Repeated measurements of a paradigm recorded with different subjects or in different sessions encompass some variance related to these factors We wanted to know to what extent each of these factors influenced the variance The analysis of variance (ANOVA) approach offers itself to statistically estimate which factor influenced EEG data the most we used a three-way ANOVA of factors: System Subject and Session and their two-factor interactions (Matlab function anovan.m and allows to model which of the different factors (Subject Session) explains how much of the variance The SS value served as a measure of variance explained by the factor ANOVA is a rather general approach which should be used before a more specific modeling is done We wanted to know whether repeated recordings introduced some variability we split a paradigm in each EEG recording into eight equal parts and analyzed each part individually The specific number eight was a trade-off between a larger number of parts we needed and the length of an individual part which is a function of the amount of data available We estimated that eight parts were a reasonable compromise The division into eight parts was not used to increase the number of available data but only to have an estimate of the variance within one paradigm in a recording we gained eight measurements of a dependent variable per paradigm and EEG recording we yielded 384 such measurements per paradigm for the statistical analysis ANOVA We did not want to be dependent on one specific paradigm we selected a whole range of paradigms frequently used in the literature and which covered a range of cognitive processes We treated each paradigm itself like an own experiment and analyzed the sources of variance independently from all the others paradigms there is no interaction between ANOVAs for different paradigms In Paradigm 1 we measured for each part (119 trials per part) a peak-to-peak amplitude N1—P2 (Figures 4, 5). The red numbers in Figure 5 indicate peak-to-peak amplitudes N1—P2 for each part The search interval for the peaks was from 100 ms to 200 ms relative to a stimulus onset Figure 4. Auditory evoked potential (AEP). (A) Superposition of an event-related potential (ERP) from the literature (Kraus and Nicol, 2009) and the grand total ERP of all 48 sessions in the current study We shifted the ERP from the literature by 16 ms to the right and reduced the voltage scale by 2.66 times in order to find the best superposition of these two ERPs (B) 3D map of the grand total ERP in the current study at 176 ms after the stimulus onset (P2 component in panel A) Seven white dots on the top of the head depict the cluster of mesh channels selected for further analysis The central point of the cluster was [ 0 37 85 ] (Montreal Neurological Institute Black labels represent the 10-20 international system (C–E) Grand average ERPs of the factors specified in the title above each panel and derived from the cluster of selected mesh channels (shown in panel B) Each ERP (colored lines) in panels (C,D) is based on 12 sessions grouped by a level of a factor and in panel (E) on 16 sessions the dark blue ERP in panel (C) represents the grand average ERP of 12 sessions recorded with the asalabTM EEG system and with four subjects The black dotted ERP in each panel is the grand total ERP of all 48 sessions in the study Eight ERPs yielded from eight sequential parts of a recording session (in the figure: asalabTM Vertical dotted lines indicate intervals used for finding minimum (N1) and maximum (P2) peaks in the paradigm on intervals 100–150 ms and 150–200 ms after a stimulus onset The red numbers indicate peak-to-peak amplitudes (N1—P2) for each part We processed 48 recordings and yielded 384 such peak-to-peak amplitude values of the paradigm Average distances between a cluster of selected mesh channels in a paradigm and the nearest electrode to the cluster in a recording session In Paradigm 2 we measured for each part (270 trials per part) a peak-to-peak amplitude (minimum-to-maximum) of a SSVEP (Figure 6) The search interval for the peaks was from 120 ms to 220 ms relative to a stimulus onset Figure 6. Steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP). (A) Superposition of an ERP from the literature (Andersen et al., 2013) and the grand total ERP of all 48 sessions in the current study We shifted the ERP from the literature by 40 ms to the left and increased the voltage scale by 1.54 times (B) 3D map of the grand total ERP in the current study at 126 ms after the stimulus onset (second positive peak in panel A) Thirty-one white dots on the back of the head depict the cluster of mesh channels selected for further analysis The central point of the cluster is [ 0 −118 14 ] (MNI coordinates) In Paradigm 3 we measured for each part (85 trials per part) a peak-to-peak amplitude MP—RAP (Figure 7) The search interval for the peaks was −40 ms to 140 ms relative to a stimulus onset Figure 7. Motor potentials (MPs). (A) Superposition of an ERP from the literature (Di Russo et al., 2005) and the grand total ERP of all 48 sessions in the current study We shifted the ERP from the literature by 53 ms to the left and reduced the voltage scale by 3.3 times (B) 3D map of the grand total ERP in the current study at 115 ms after the stimulus onset (RAP component in panel A) Seven white dots on the front top of the head depict the cluster of mesh channels selected for further analysis The central point of the cluster is [ −16 48 76 ] (MNI coordinates) In Paradigm 4 we derived two ERPs from each part: deviant stimuli ERP (25 trials per part) and standard stimuli ERP (100 trials per part). We measured a negative peak amplitude of a resulting subtraction of deviant stimuli ERP minus standard stimuli ERP for each part (Figure 8) The search interval for the negative peak was 150–220 ms relative to a stimulus onset We used the negative peak amplitude as the dependent variable Figure 8. Visual mismatch negativity (vMMN; ERP waveforms subtraction “deviant minus standard”). (A) Superposition of an ERP from the literature (Thierry et al., 2009) and the grand total ERP (subtraction “deviant minus standard”) of all 48 sessions in the current study We shifted the ERP from the literature by 10 ms to the left and reduced the voltage scale by 1.25 times (B) 3D map of the grand total ERP (subtraction “deviant minus standard”) in the current study at 180 ms after the stimulus onset (subtraction peak (SP) in panel A) Forty-eight white dots on the back of the head depict the cluster of mesh channels selected for further analysis the dark blue ERP in panel (C) represents the grand average ERP (subtraction “deviant minus standard”) of 12 sessions recorded with the asalabTM EEG system and with four subjects The black dotted ERP in each panel is the grand total ERP (subtraction “deviant minus standard”) of all 48 sessions in the study In Paradigm 5 we derived two ERPs from each part: face stimuli ERP (40 trials per part) and car stimuli ERP (40 trials per part). We measured a negative peak amplitude of a resulting subtraction of face stimuli ERP minus car stimuli ERP for each part (Figure 9) The search interval for the negative peak was 130–190 ms relative to a stimulus onset Figure 9. Face-sensitive N170 component (ERP waveforms subtraction “faces minus cars”). (A) Superposition of an ERP from the literature (Rossion and Caharel, 2011) and the grand total ERP (subtraction “faces minus cars”) of all 48 sessions in the current study We shifted the ERP from the literature by 23 ms to the right and reduced the voltage scale by 2.95 times (B) 3D map of the grand total ERP (subtraction: face minus car) in the current study at 160 ms after the stimulus onset (subtraction peak (SP) in panel A) Nine white dots on the right side of the head depict the cluster of mesh channels selected for further analysis The central point of the cluster is [ 70 −83 6 ] (MNI coordinates) the dark blue ERP in panel (C) represents the grand average ERP (subtraction “faces minus cars”) of 12 sessions recorded with the asalabTM EEG system and with four subjects The black dotted ERP in each panel is the grand total ERP (subtraction “faces minus cars”) of all 48 sessions in the study In Paradigm 6 we derived two ERPs from each part: target stimuli ERP (25 trials per part) and distractor stimuli ERP (80 trials per part). We measured a negative peak amplitude of a resulting subtraction of target stimuli ERP minus distractor stimuli ERP for each part (Figure 10) The search interval for the negative peak was 200–280 ms relative to a stimulus onset Figure 10. Visual decision-making (vDM) N240 component (ERP waveforms subtraction “targets minus distractors”). (A) Superposition of an ERP from the literature (VanRullen and Thorpe, 2001) and the grand total ERP (subtraction “targets minus distractors”) of all 48 sessions in the current study We shifted the ERP from the literature by 23 ms to the right and increased the voltage scale by 1.11 times (B) 3D map of the grand total ERP (subtraction “targets minus distractors”) in the current study at 235 ms after the stimulus onset (subtraction peak (SP) in panel A) Ten white dots on the left back side of the head depict the cluster of mesh channels selected for further analysis The central point of the cluster is [−58 −90 28] (MNI coordinates) the dark blue ERP in panel (C) represents the grand average ERP (subtraction “targets minus distractors”) of 12 sessions recorded with the asalabTM EEG system and with four subjects The black dotted ERP in each panel is the grand total ERP (subtraction “targets minus distractors”) of all 48 sessions in the study Despite the differences in sampling rates of the four EEG systems, interpolation to a common sampling frequency was not required, since we used search intervals to measure amplitude peaks. However, to build grand totals in Figures 4, 6–10 we did interpolation to a common sampling frequency of 1000 Hz for all systems To estimate which levels of a factor were significantly different from each other and therefore explain the variance within the factor we conducted the post hoc multiple comparison test (Matlab function multcompare.m) Late-latency AEPs “beginning with P1 (which is sometimes classified as middle-latency) at about 80 ms through to N2 at about 250 ms, all are cortical in origin and maximal in amplitude at the central top of the scalp” (Kraus and Nicol, 2009). The 3D map in Figure 4B demonstrates the scalp distribution of the grand total ERP at 176 ms after the stimulus onset (P2 component) in the current study The central point of the cluster is [ 0 37 85 ] in Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) coordinates All further results in this paradigm were based on the average activity of the selected mesh channels of the cluster In order to nullify possible influences of baseline position on P2 amplitude value we selected the peak-to-peak amplitude of the components N1 and P2 as a dependent variable in the paradigm A comparison of ERPs taken from scientific literature and the current study is shown in Figure 4A, which demonstrates similarity of these ERPs. Early auditory components of the ERP in the current study were smoothed, however, the most prominent components N1 and P2 have nearly identical forms. Grand average ERPs per level of a factor in Figures 4C–E reveal that the peak-to-peak amplitude of the components N1 and P2 vary the most by the factor Subject ANOVA results in the paradigm revealed that the factor Subject was the biggest source of variance Analysis of variance (ANOVA) Sum of Squares (SS) summary of six paradigms (A) Color bars represent ratios of SS of factors: System (B) ANOVA table summary of SS due to each source for the six paradigms “d.f.”: degrees of freedom associated with each source Emotiv and g.Nautilus demonstrated significantly different results from one or both of the research-grade EEG systems Subjects split up in two statistically distinguishable groups: the first group—subjects 1 and 2 and the second group—subjects 3 and 4 The red line indicates the original data of one recording session of one subject with the 127 channel system (asalab) The additional lines indicate the evoked potential obtained by downsampling the number of channels to 63 (orange) respectively and interpolating to 1082 mesh-head channels Post hoc test: “multiple comparison of means” in the six paradigms (A) Comparison of levels of the factor System (B) Comparison of levels of the factor Subject (C) Comparison of levels of the factor Session Colored dots in the plots show the mean value of the level of the factor the black dot in the first plot from the left is equal to 1.8 μV and represents the mean value of 96 measurements of the dependent variable (12 EEG recordings × 8 measurements per recording) in the paradigm AEPs with the asalabTM EEG system Error bars and related horizontal dotted lines indicate comparison intervals If two dots have intersecting comparison intervals Values above and below each plot show Y-axis limits of the plot all plots have 5 μV interval between the lower and upper Y-axis limits The first tree plots in each panel represent paradigms which investigate a peak-to-peak amplitude of an ERP where a higher positive value correlates with a larger manifestation of an effect therefore these plots have the normal direction of Y-axis The last three plots in each panel represent paradigms which investigate amplitude of a subtraction peak (SP) of two ERP waveforms where a higher negative value correlates with a larger manifestation of an effect therefore these plots have the reverse direction of Y-axis the higher a dot in all of these plots is located the larger the manifestation of the effect in a paradigm is Pictograms on the bottom of each plot show the paradigm related to the plot g.Nautilus and Emotiv demonstrated significantly different results from one or both of the research-grade EEG systems Subjects split up in three statistically distinguishable groups: the first group—subject 1 Emotiv demonstrated significantly different results from one of the research-grade EEG system Subjects split up in three statistically distinguishable groups: the first group—subjects 1 and 2 g.Nautilus demonstrated significantly different results from both of the research-grade EEG systems All four subjects’ had significantly different from each other mean values Emotiv demonstrated significantly different results from both of the research-grade EEG systems Subjects split up in three statistically distinguishable groups: the first group—subjects 1 and 4 Subjects split up in three statistically distinguishable groups: the first group—subjects 1 The ANOVA results are consistent across the six paradigms and suggest that the factor Subject was the largest source of variance in the study. However, ratio of variation over subjects (Figure 11) was smallest in the “low-level” tasks like flickering checkerboard (Figure 11—SSVEP) and highest in the more cognitive-oriented tasks like decision-making task (Figure 11—vDM) The factor System was also a significant source of variance in all paradigms The factor Session was a relatively small source of variance and it had a significant p-value (p < 0.01) only in two paradigms (MPs and SSVEP) out of six Figure 12 compares the AEP of the original recording and reduced, interpolated data sets. The high similarity of the evoked potentials demonstrates that here the interpolation step does not introduce relevant additional variance (Figure 12) as the topographic distribution of the evoked potential was relatively smooth the interpolation could capture the evoked potential even though the distance of physical electrodes to the region of interest was relatively large this does not imply that the number of electrodes is irrelevant It only shows that the interpolation step does not by itself degrade the data or create artifactual results The coverage of a system should be suited for a specific experiment Post hoc results were congruent with ANOVA results and suggested that the factor Subject was the largest source of variance in the study; the factor System was also the prominent source of variance mostly because of the mobile EEG systems (g.Nautilus and Emotiv EPOC); and the factor Session was the smallest source or variance in the study The present results demonstrate that subjects are the largest source of variance of ERPs in all paradigms systems are also a significant source of variance in all paradigms sessions are a relatively small source of variance this 1% does not mean that ERPs from two sequential recordings with the same EEG system and the same subject were nearly identical we did not find any systematic bias of ERP amplitudes based on the ordinal number of a recording for the same subject and the same system The two standard research-grade EEG systems had no significantly different means from each other through all paradigms the g.Nautilus with g.SAHARA electrodes and Emotiv EPOC EEG systems used in the current study demonstrated different mean values from one or both of the two standard research-grade EEG systems in at least half of the paradigms The variance across systems is smaller than variance across subjects but is not negligible It is relatively easy to collect more subjects the number of subjects per study ranges from 10 to 20 Our ANOVA evaluated the variance associated with different independent variables This variance is independent of the number of subjects that would improve the error of uncertainty in estimates of the mean (like ERP) by the square root of the number of subjects (sqrt(16)) It is unusual to average across different systems as most studies do not have access to multiple EEG systems The uncertainty due to EEG systems (9%) would be of the same order of magnitude as the uncertainty due to subjects (32%/sqrt(16) = 8%) Increasing the number of subjects even higher would have progressively diminishing returns because we are still left with the variance of the systems due to different laboratories using different EEG systems The variance across systems may appear due to variability in amplifiers it was not in the focus of the current study to disentangle these interactions and whether a system could be improved by tweaking an individual component we assumed that manufacturers designed complete optimized packages we tested the complete systems as they were supplied by the manufacturer Investigation of subtle ERPs requires lab conditions with reduced number of noise factors and advantages of mobile EEG systems are not relevant here it makes sense to compare prominent ERPs across EEG systems This 1% means that the systematic effect of knowing which session it is barely helps us to explain the variance this does not mean that there is no variance across sessions adding up SS of the three main factors and their interactions do not add up to 100% the residual variance across sessions can substantially contribute to the Error SS term the variance across sessions would be higher if subjects were always more anxious in the first than in the second session the present results of the variance across sessions suggest that different sessions are interchangeable There are other means to compare EEG systems, for example, the correlation of waveforms from two different EEG systems during a simultaneous recording from electrodes located near each other (Gargiulo et al., 2010; Yeung et al., 2015) Many mobile EEG systems have a rigid montage and it is not possible to overlay montages of two different EEG systems it is problematic to place two electrodes at the same spot Potential differences can then be attributed either to the systems or to the different positions The interpolation approach presented in the current study can address this problem The approach uses information from several physical electrodes to estimate the ERP at the optimal location as reported in the literature a direct comparison of different EEG systems we used standard algorithms supplied by EEGLAB The interpolation approach allows us to compare virtual channels at same scalp positions directly this approach should be used with caution when there are not enough channels to cover the head for accurate channel interpolation it might be the case that the differences observed for the Emotiv EPOC are still partly due to the lower coverage The sensitivity of a given EEG system for a given source inevitably depends on the location of the electrodes Different systems are developed for different purposes and are not necessarily generic in their usage; certainly a high electrode count is a suitable way to ensure good coverage For systems with a lower number of electrodes their spatial distributions are not suitable for all experiments Interpolating a moderate number of electrodes to a fine mesh might help in some situations they lack flexibility as generic EEG systems For the Emotiv EPOC especially the users should be aware of the shortcomings and use the system accordingly More subjects in the current study would be beneficial as well as increasing the number of sessions with new montages a multicenter study involving a larger number of subjects and systems using the present benchmark is a desirable next step We compared different EEG systems in this study, but the ground truth of EEG signal remains unknown. For example, the two research-grade systems in the study produce similar results, but it is hard to argue whether these are closer to the unknown ground truth than others or not. There are studies which use a phantom head with controlled dipolar sources of electrical activity embedded in the phantom (Oliveira et al., 2016a) such approach allows us to obtain results closer to the ground truth since the exact electrical stimulation of the phantom can be conducted on different EEG systems On the other side of the phantom head approach the real generators of EEG signal in the brain as well as tissue conductivity and other less predictable properties of natural environment While the ground truth of scalp EEG signals is unknown the expectations from new mobile EEG systems are to produce comparable results to those of research-grade EEG systems these issues did not influence measurements of dependent variables in the study The current study proposes an approach to evaluate new mobile EEG systems by means of ERP responses. The developed benchmark of six paradigms and yielded results can be used for evaluation of new EEG systems. In contrast to other studies (Gargiulo et al., 2010; Guger et al., 2012; Liao et al., 2012; De Vos et al., 2014; Yeung et al., 2015; Oliveira et al., 2016b) which compare EEG signals from different systems we match the difference between EEG systems to other factors of variance in order to estimate the importance of the difference between EEG systems We also demonstrated the mesh-head-model interpolation approach which addresses the issue of not overlapping EEG montages of different EEG systems Results showed that research-grade EEG systems are indeed mature since they have no significantly different means through all paradigms between the two systems The g.Nautilus with g.SAHARA electrodes and Emotiv EPOC EEG systems used in the current study are in many paradigms as good as current research-grade systems DPF and PK conceived and designed the experiments; AM PL and KI performed the experiments; AM and PK analyzed the data; AM This work was supported by the Cognition and Neuroergonomics Collaborative Technology Alliance (W911NF-10-2-0022) The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest The handling editor declared a past co-authorship with one of the authors PK and states that the process nevertheless met the standards of a fair and objective review The authors would like to thank Marcel Schumacher Maria Sokotushchenko for helping with data acquisition and Allison Moreno-Drexler for proofreading Global facilitation of attended features is obligatory and restricts divided attention The urban brain: analysing outdoor physical activity with mobile EEG “Low noise multichannel amplifier for portable EEG biomedical applications,” in Proceedings of the 25th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Google Scholar CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar The PREP pipeline: standardized preprocessing for large-scale EEG analysis Effects of acoustic stimuli on the waking human brain Google Scholar Recalibration of inhibitory control systems during walking-related dual-task interference: a Mobile Brain-Body Imaging (MOBI) Study P300 speller BCI with a mobile EEG system: comparison to a traditional amplifier Effect of practice on brain activity: an investigation in top-level rifle shooters Dixit, R. (2011). Meditation training and neurofeedback using a personal EEG device. PLoS Comput. Biol. 15–16. Available online at: http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/SSS/SSS12/paper/view/4355 Google Scholar A new EEG recording system for passive dry electrodes Visual evoked responses during standing and walking Toward a new cognitive neuroscience: modeling natural brain dynamics Comparison of dry and gel based electrodes for P300 brain-computer interfaces Electrocortical activity is coupled to gait cycle phase during treadmill walking Google Scholar Usability of four commercially-oriented EEG systems Empirically assessing minimum usable DAQ performance for highly fieldable EEG systems,” in Proceedings Foundations of Augmented Cognition 9th International Conference M Fidopiastis (Cham: Springer International Publishing) CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Batteryless electroencephalography (EEG): subthreshold voltage system-on-a-chip (SoC) design for neurophysiological measurement Army research lab aberdeen proving ground MD human research and engineering directorate A low-power low-noise CMOS amplifier for neural recording applications CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Google Scholar “Auditory evoked potentials,” in Encyclopedia of Neuroscience Google Scholar Gaming control using a wearable and wireless EEG-based brain-computer interface device with novel dry foam-based sensors Design and implementation of wireless multi-channel EEG recording system and study of EEG clustering method “Implementation of SSVEP based BCI with Emotiv EPOC,” in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Virtual Environments Human-Computer Interfaces and Measurement Systems (VECIMS) CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique “Real-world neuroimaging technologies,” in IEEE Access 1 CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar bHealthy: A physiological feedback-based mobile wellness application suite WH’13 Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Wireless Health (Baltimore) CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar MoBILAB: an open source toolbox for analysis and visualization of mobile brain/body imaging data Induction and separation of motion artifacts in EEG data using a mobile phantom head device Proposing metrics for benchmarking novel EEG technologies towards real-world measurements The five percent electrode system for high-resolution EEG and ERP measurements CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar A comparison of electroencephalography signals acquired from conventional and mobile systems ERP evidence for the speed of face categorization in the human brain: disentangling the contribution of low-level visual cues from face perception “Low cost mobile EEG for characterization of cortical auditory responses,” in Proceedings in 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar “Simultaneous neural and movement recording in large-scale immersive virtual environments,” in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems 7 CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Unconscious effects of language-specific terminology on preattentive color perception The time course of visual processing: from early perception to decision-making “A multi-channel EEG system featuring single- wire data aggregation via FM-FDM techniques,” Proceedings in 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) Google Scholar Practical Guide to Interpretive Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Google Scholar Comparison of foam-based and spring-loaded dry EEG electrodes with wet electrodes in resting and moving conditions steady-state visually evoked potential SSVEP Ferris DP and König P (2017) Systems Sessions: To What Extent Do These Factors Influence EEG Data Received: 29 November 2016; Accepted: 13 March 2017; Published: 30 March 2017 Copyright © 2017 Melnik, Legkov, Izdebski, Kärcher, Hairston, Ferris and König. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Andrew Melnik, YW5kbWVsbmlrQHVuaS1vc25hYnJ1ZWNrLmRl Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish. Volume 11 - 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2024.1369003 This article is part of the Research TopicSolar Radio Bursts and their Applications in Space Weather ForecastingView all 5 articles Spectral properties of a single type III burst in the wide frequency band from 10 to 70 MHz are studied in detail It is shown that electrons corresponding to different levels of type III emission move with different velocities these electron velocities decrease from the maximum value which corresponds to the 0.1 level of the maximum type III flux at its front corresponding to the 0.1 level of the maximum type III flux at its back The velocity of electrons corresponding to the maximum type III flux was approximately 0.31 c it was predicted by the gas dynamic theory of electron propagation through the coronal plasma we adduce arguments that the type III radio emission is the harmonic emission In supposition that type III electrons move through the Newkirk coronal plasma we find electron velocities for every level of the type III burst The duration dependence on frequency obtained from the observations is close to Elgaroy–Lingstad dependence We discuss the contribution of electron velocity dispersion to the type III burst duration we derived type III flux dependence on frequency in the frequency bands of 10–33 MHz and 33–62 MHz Such a situation is connected with the capabilities of radio telescopes and possibilities to measure the polarization of radio emission and locations at which radio emission was generated The special place is given to the continuous frequency band in which properties of type III bursts are measured It is especially important for the decameter range because it corresponds to a wide range of heights from which decameter radio emission comes out NenuFAR (New extension in Nançay upgrading LOFAR) and GURT (Giant Ukrainian Radio Telescope) which can observe solar radio emission in a wide frequency band with high frequency–time resolutions it is very important to study the dynamics of different levels of a solitary and rather strong type III burst in a wide frequency band This presents a significant challenge in spite of huge type III bursts observed for a long time (for example the radio telescope URAN-2 (Ukrainian Radio interferometer of Academy Science) makes solar observations daily during 6–11 h all year round since 2011) Observations of solar radio emission on 4 June 2020 were carried out using radio telescopes URAN-2 and GURT The radio telescope URAN-2 works in the continuous frequency band of 8–33 MHz (Brazhenko et al., 2005) Its back-end facility provides the frequency–time resolution of 4 kHz–100 ms so we could observe bursts in the wide range of fluxes from some s.f.u URAN-2 can measure the polarization of radio emission in the whole frequency band The radio telescope GURT works in the frequency band of 8–80 MHz (Konovalenko et al., 2016) Observations were made with a single section of GURT on 4 June 2020 and the frequency–time resolution is 38 kHz–100 ms The dynamic range of the GURT section was 90 dB but observational data agreed very well with data obtained by URAN-2 In favor of this are the similar frequency dependences of fluxes and durations in the joint frequency band (8–33 MHz) Dynamic spectra of type III bursts at 12:27 UT according to URAN-2 (A) and GURT (B) It was a single burst without a preceding type IIIb burst as it usually happens in the decameter range (Melnik et al., 2018) and this burst was convenient for detailed spectral analysis According to URAN-2 data, the polarization of this burst (<20%) and its duration (4–13 s) are close to those of the second harmonic of type III bursts in the decameter range (Melnik et al., 2018). So we suppose that the observed type III burst was generated at the second harmonic. It is interesting to notice that type III bursts can be superposition of both harmonics in the metric band (Rahman, Cairns, McCauley, 2020) the flux dependence on frequency follows the equation where frequency f is represented in MHz and flux I is represented in s.f.u. in the frequency band of 10–33 MHz. This dependence is greater than for type III components in IIIb–III pairs (Melnik et al., 2018) where f is represented in MHz and I is represented in relative units. Deviations from the fitted curve can be connected to different causes. First of all, these are inhomogeneities in the solar corona or fast electron beam, which generates type III bursts. Recently, Raja et al. (2022) argued that the maximum flux of type III bursts occurred at approximately 1.5 MHz this value is approximately 1.4⋅104s.f.u Dependence flux–frequency for the type III bursts according to URAN-2 (A) and GURT (B) The rest of the levels drift in an analogous manner The accuracy of the corresponding level locations in the dynamic spectra was defined by current time–frequency resolutions which were 100 ms (about 10%) and 4 kHz (no worse than 1%) for URAN-2 and 100 ms and 38 kHz (less than 5%) for GURT So uncertainties of electron velocities derived below are limited by 10% Observed tracks were approximated by the following equation: Profiles of type III bursts at frequencies 14.37 MHz (URAN-2) and 44.76 MHz (GURT) Tracks of maximum and 0.1 levels at the front and back of the type III burst (A) Drift rates of these levels as a dependence on frequency in the Newkirk model assuming the second harmonics of type III radio emission (B) Constants A (A is presented in s) and α for every level are given in Table 1 (indexes “+” and “–” correspond to the front and back of the type III burst) Parameters of the type III burst track and electron velocities associated with different levels of the burst Taking the derivative of Eq. 1, we obtain the expression for the drift rate of the corresponding level of the type III burst: which corresponded to 0.74 levels (v0.74+; v0.74−) and relative difference for these electrons were v0.74+−v0.74−/vm=0.3 This value is equal to our value for levels 0.7 (v0.7+; v0.7−) v0.7+−v0.7−/vm=0.3 We see that the result predicted in 1998 agrees very well with the observations of this burst Profile of the discussed type III bursts as a dependence on the electron velocity Type III durations at different frequencies are shown in Figure 6. It was approximately 4 s at high frequencies and approximately 13 s at low frequencies. Such values are standard for the decameter range for the second harmonic (Melnik et al., 2018; Melnik et al., 2021) The approximation equation for the duration of this type III burst is where f is represented in MHz and τ is represented in s. This dependence is very close to that by Elgaroy and Lingstad (1972) (Figure 6): Duration dependence on the frequency for the discussed type III bursts according to URAN-2 (10–33 MHz) and GURT (33–62 MHz) A physical cause of such dependence is unknown until now. Some authors speculated that the duration could be explained by particle collisions (Malville, 1962; Wild and Smerd, 1972; Smith and Davis, 1975; Suzuki and Dulk, 1985). At the same time, other authors connect it with scattering radio emission on the random density irregularities (Kontar et al., 2019; Krupar et al., 2020) As we mentioned previously, Reid and Kontar (2018a) studied 31 type III bursts observed by LOFAR in the frequency band 30–70 MHz and obtained noticeably smaller durations (Figure 6). They connected it with the difference between type III electron velocities and background plasma properties. We demonstrated (Melnik et al., 2018) that the fundamentals and harmonics of these bursts had durations varying by a factor of 6–8 This circumstance could also have influenced the average duration of 31 bursts where Λ≈20 is the Coulomb logarithm Taking into account that vmin and the duration of the type III burst τ=6s (at 30 MHz) we can estimate the density of fast electrons in the beam–plasma structure: Such density of fast electrons allows considering their interaction with Langmuir waves in the frame of the theory of “weak turbulence” (Tsytovich, 1970) because the ratio of Langmuir energy to the density of thermal energy of plasma is small enough: Note that in the opposite case W/nkT>10−3, such an interaction should be considered in the approximation of “strong turbulence” (Rudakov and Tsytovich, 1978; Goldman, 1984) According to the theory of formation of beam–plasma structures (Mel’Nik, 1995) their velocities are defined by the equation vbps=vmin+vmax/2 This value is close to the velocity of electrons responsible for the maximum of type III bursts v1≈0.31c If the longitudinal size of the beam–plasma structure is larger than its transverse size, then the burst duration at some frequency is defined by the time of its passing across the given plasma level in the solar corona (Melnik et al., 2017): where h is the height in the corona, RS is the solar radius, and R is the distance from the solar center to the level of the local plasma frequency fpe. In the Newkirk density model n=4.2⋅104⋅104.32Rs/R (Newkirk, 1961), Eq. 10 can be rewritten as This equation is correct for the case of radio emission at fundamental radio emission f=fpe For the radio emission at the second harmonic f=2fpe Durations in Eqs 11, 12 are shown in Figure 7. We see that the dependence in Eq. 12 is closer to the observed duration This again suggests that the discussed type III burst was generated at the second harmonic The difference with observational data can be connected by the fact that the transverse size of the beam–plasma structure is comparable and even larger than its longitudinal size it is necessary to take into account the path length difference from different regions of the source in transverse directions Figure 7. Durations of the burst at the first and the second harmonic in the Newkirk model for the solar corona if they are connected with electron velocity dispersion in the longitudinal direction according to Eqs 11, 12. In addition, the observational dependence is shown in Eq. 5 Observations of an individual type III burst in the wide frequency band of 10–70 MHz and the data analysis allowed obtaining the following results: - Each level of type III radio emission is associated with electrons with well-defined velocity electrons with larger velocities are responsible for earlier moments of the burst - An electron velocity spectrum of type III bursts was obtained for the first time - The electron velocity for the burst maximum equals to that predicted by the gas dynamic theory of electron propagation in plasma - Minimum electron velocity equal to the minimum value for the plateau at the electron distribution function gives the density of the fast electrons in the beam–plasma structure being a source of type III bursts - It was demonstrated that fast electrons propagate through the Newkirk plasma and radiation of type III bursts occurs at the second harmonic - The observational duration dependence on frequency is shown to be close to Elgaroy–Lingstad dependence - This dependence is also close to the calculated dependence under the supposition that radiation happened at the second harmonic in the Newkirk coronal plasma Smaller values seem to be connected with the larger transverse sizes of the beam–plasma structure - The flux dependence on frequency for the type III bursts is power law with the exponent equal to 1.75 and 1.63 for 10–33 MHz and 30–70 MHz The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material; further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author The authors declare financial support was received for the research The work was financed within the framework of the projects “Complex researches of sporadic radio emission of the Sun during 25 cycle of solar activity” (Radius) (0122U000616) and “Study of the polarization characteristics of decameter radio emission from space sources using the URAN-2 radio telescope” (0118U009760) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher Solar wind density model from km-wave type III bursts CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Exciter of type III bursts and coronal temperature Google Scholar Google Scholar High-resolution observations of Type III solar radio bursts Google Scholar CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar The modern radio astronomy network in Ukraine: UTR-2 CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Anisotropic radio-wave scattering and the interpretation of solar radio emission observations CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Numerical and analytical study of the propagation of a monoenergetic electron beam in a plasma Google Scholar Density fluctuations in the solar wind based on type III radio bursts observed by parker solar probe CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Interferometer observations of solar type III bursts by the radio telescope UTR-2 Google Scholar Mel'Nik ``Gas-dynamic'' expansion of a fast-electron flux in a plasma CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Decameter type III bursts with changing frequency drift-rate signs CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Properties of type III and type IIIb bursts in the frequency band of 8 - 80 MHz during PSP perihelion at the beginning of april 2019 CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Mel'Nik Solar sporadic radio emission in the decametre waveband CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Observations of powerful type III bursts in the frequency range 10 - 30 MHz CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Mel'Nik Plasma radio emission of beam-plasma structures in the solar corona CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Mel'Nik Propagation of a monoenergetic electron beam in the solar corona CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar The solar corona in active regions and the thermal origin of the slowly varying component of solar radio radiation CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Spectropolarimetric imaging of metric type III solar radio bursts CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Spectral analysis of solar radio type III bursts from 20 kHz to 410 MHz CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Large-scale simulations of solar type III radio bursts: flux density CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Solar type III radio burst time characteristics at LOFAR frequencies and the implications for electron beam transport CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Spatial expansion and speeds of type III electron beam sources in the solar corona CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar A decade of solar type III radio bursts observed by the Nançay radioheliograph 1998-2008 CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Type III radio bursts and their interpretation CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar “Bursts of type III and type V,” in Solar radiophysics: studies of emission from the Sun at metre wavelengths Google Scholar Google Scholar “Quasilinear effects in two-stream instabilities,” in Reviews of plasma Physics New York: Published by Consultants Bureau) Google Scholar Observations of the spectrum of high-intensity solar radiation at metre wavelengths CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar On the source position and duration of a solar type III radio burst observed by LOFAR CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar A type III radio burst automatic analysis system and statistic results for a half solar cycle with Nançay Decameter Array data CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Yerin S and Bubnov I (2024) Spectral features of a single type III burst in the frequency range of 10–70 MHz Received: 11 January 2024; Accepted: 28 May 2024;Published: 24 June 2024 Copyright © 2024 Melnik, Brazhenko, Dorovskyy, Frantsuzenko, Shevchuk, Yerin and Bubnov. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited *Correspondence: Valentin Melnik, bWVsbmlrQHJpYW4ua2hhcmtvdi51YQ== Volume 11 - 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2024.1403135 Introduction: The properties of the S-bursts observed during the storm on 20–21 June 2022 in frequency band 10–32 MHz by the radio telescope URAN-2 are discussed in this paper The storm was highly populated with other solar bursts The occurrence rate of S-bursts was very high reaching 60 bursts per minute All observed S-bursts were characterized by low fluxes with respect to the background radio emission Thus special processing methods are used to retrieve spectral properties of the bursts Some individual “long” S-bursts covered the whole frequency band of the URAN-2 radio telescope from 10 to 32 MHz Such extended in frequency S-bursts were recorded for the first time 50 extended S-bursts were selected for the further analysis Methods: The S-bursts dynamic spectra with time-frequency resolutions of 100 ms and 4 kHz as well as single-frequency profiles were used in the analysis Due to low S-bursts intensities the drift rates were estimated from the time-differentiated dynamic spectra highlighting the tracks of the bursts maxima Polarization dynamic spectra were used for measuring the degree and sense of the S-bursts circular polarization Individual S-bursts tracks were used for instant coronal inhomogeneities diagnostics Mean S-bursts parameters retrieved from the statistical processing of the set of 50 bursts were compared with previously obtained ones Results: We concluded that by the mean durations frequency extent and the polarization all observed S-bursts could be divided into two separate groups the “short” and the “long” S-bursts The power-law index of the drift rate-frequency dependence averaged over all 50 selected bursts was found to be 1.7 It was shown that sources of S-bursts most likely move through the Newkirk corona with the velocities of 0.06–0.08c The power-law dependence of the “long” S-bursts durations on frequency in frequency band of 12–30 MHz was obtained Its index equal to −0.61 appeared to be very close to that for Type III bursts From this dependence the electron velocity dispersion in the beam responsible for S-bursts generation was calculated Its value of 0.02 indicates that the beams responsible for S-bursts generation are almost monoenergetic Discussion: It is assumed that non-monotonic appearance of individual S-bursts tracks on the dynamic spectrum reflects density inhomogeneities encountered by the sources on their paths From the dynamic spectra of such S-bursts the characteristic size and amplitude of these coronal inhomogeneities were detected From the S-bursts durations and the velocities of their sources the longitudinal sizes of the latter were estimated It was then shown that the sizes of small-scale coronal inhomogeneities were comparable to those of “long” S-bursts sources Thus we concluded that individual tracks of the “long” S-bursts can be used for fie diagnostics the coronal plasma at heliocentric heights range from 1.7 to 3.2 Rs these tracks being ensemble-averaged give the information about the long-term large scale properties of the corona Solar S-bursts belong to the class of fine structure events of solar sporadic radio emission due to both temporal and frequency narrowness. They were firstly observed mostly in meter band by G.R.A. Ellis with Culgoora radio telescope in 1966–1967 (Ellis, 1969) He distinguished them as a separate type of solar radio bursts mainly by mean values of drift rate (1.9 MHz/s) frequency bandwidth (30 kHz) and duration (0.6 s) averaged in frequency band 25–100 MHz He informed that S-bursts drift rates were much less than those of normal Type III bursts and slightly larger than drift pairs ones The bandwidths were much less than those of both Type III bursts and drift pairs And finally the durations were reported to be considerably less than those of Type IIIs and drift pairs = 10–22 Wm−2Hz−1) required the use of highly sensitive meter and decameter band radio telescopes Authors processed about 1,000 S-bursts in frequency band of 10–32 MHz and found the dependence index to be equal to −1.5 A fine structure in the form of narrowband and non-drifting in time “fringes” were found in about 1% of all observed S-bursts (McConnell and Ellis, 1981). Bandwidths and frequency separation between neighboring elements were 20–100 kHz. The existence of “fringes” in S-bursts observed at frequencies 10–32 MHz was also confirmed in observations by Dorovskyy et al. (2006, 2017) Both Ellis (1969) and McConnell (1982) pointed out that S-bursts were circularly polarized in the sense coinciding with that of accompanying events. Morosan et al. (2015) reported that S-bursts were significantly more polarized than the Type III bursts In all cases no quantitative estimations were given First comparison of the parameters of S-bursts, recorded during different storms spaced in time by different intervals were performed by Dorovskyy et al. (2006) and Melnik et al. (2010) in the frequency band 18–30 MHz They analyzed S-burst observed in few neighboring days within one storm a month and a year apart during the maximum of 23-d (twenty third) solar cycle They found that while main parameters of S-bursts during one individual storm have narrow distributions their mean values obtained for different storms may differ more significantly Also they reported that in all cases S-bursts only occurred when the associated active regions were located near the central meridian First attempt to detect the size and location of S-bursts sources were done by Morosan et al. (2015) who used the LOFAR tied-array imaging technique Authors didn’t provide any exact numbers but only stated that the S-bursts sources were smaller than the Type III bursts ones Recently Zhang et al. (2020) observed an S-bursts storm with a single HBA beam of the LOFAR core station in frequency band ∼120–180 MHz and traced some individual bursts across the dynamic spectrum Currently these are the highest frequencies at which S-bursts were observed Authors discovered that individual S-bursts sometimes manifest non-monotonic wave-like drift on frequency as well as flux modulation along their track Assuming radiation at fundamental frequency they connected all these effects with coronal plasma density irregularities which caused variation in the optical depth of the source and hence the intensity modulation Plasma emission mechanism is now generally accepted for interpretation of the S-bursts generation. Melnik et al. (2010) proposed a model in which S-bursts are generated due to coalescence of the Langmuir and the fast magnetosonic waves whose phase and group velocities were equal to the electron beam velocity and all of them being equal to about 0.1c Observations of the solar radio emission during the summer months of 2022 were carried out with the URAN-2 radio telescope daily from 5:30 to 18:00 UT with resolutions of 100 ms and 4 kHz in time and frequency respectively This instrument is the second by the effective area Ukrainian radio telescope after the UTR-2 It operates in frequency band of 8–32 MHz and provides the effective area of 28,000 m2 and the beam size of 3,5 ° × 7 ° at frequency of 20 MHz Three-minute fragment of the S-bursts storm on 20–21 June 2022 recorded by URAN-2: (A) normal dynamic spectrum and (B) time-differential dynamic spectrum Some S-bursts are marked with white arrows Type III bursts are marked with yellow and reverse drift pairs with green ones To get the drift rate and its dependence on frequency we used a time-differential dynamic spectrum, which clearly highlights the bursts maxima and allows us to trace the drift of the bursts maxima in frequency and time with high accuracy (Figure 1B) This spectrum is obtained by time differentiating of the intensity profiles at each frequency channel of the power dynamic spectrum The main criterion of S-bursts identification is the characteristic drift rate and appearance of the track in the dynamic spectrum No interferometric observations were performed thus we were unable to detect the bursts locations and to associate the observed storm with a certain active region directly. Then we relied on the well-known fact that S-bursts used to occur only when the associated active region was near the central meridian (Melnik et al., 2010). On 20–21 June 2022 there were several active regions on the solar disk (Figure 2) Only two of them produced C-class flares - NOAA 13030 and NOAA 13038 Since AR 13030 was on the limb and AR 13038 was near the meridian it was natural to suppose that the latter was likely responsible for the S-bursts generation Figure 2. Active regions on the solar disk on 20 June 2022 according to SDO data, taken from https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/aiahmi/ Such appearance of the S-burst track may also indicate that the actual duration of this burst is probably less than the time resolution of the equipment being equal to 100 ms The morphology of the “short” and the “long” S-bursts: (A) amplitude dynamic spectrum and (B) polarization dynamic spectrum Distributions of the “short” (blue) and “long” (red) S-bursts: (A) by the durations and (B) by the absolute drift rates It is clear that each of these two groups of S-bursts have their specific durations and drift rates The durations of the “short” S-bursts do not exceed 0.25 s while mean duration of the “long” S-bursts equals 0.8 s The frequency drift rates of these bursts are −0.7 MHz/s and −0.38 MHz/s over which an individual burst extends are considerably different for the two groups of the observed S-bursts “Short” S-bursts usually cover the range of 1–2 MHz while the “long” ones extend over the band of around 10 MHz in rare cases covering the whole frequency band of the radio telescope from 9 to 32 MHz Mean degrees of circular polarization of the selected sets of S-bursts differ significantly: near 70% for the “short” bursts and about 35% for the “long” ones The occurrence rate of the latter was much higher The vast majority of all observed on 20–21 June 2022 S-bursts were the “long” ones In addition, we must note that aforementioned assumption that actual durations of the analyzed “short” S-bursts are most likely shorter than the time resolution is illustrated by the detailed durations distribution (Figure 5) Keep in mind that all durations were obtained from the S-bursts profiles approximated with the Gaussian curve Detailed distribution of the 50 selected “short” S-bursts by their durations The obvious trend of the bursts number to increase towards smaller durations and then the abrupt cutoff of the distribution at the duration of 100 ms, which is exactly the time resolution of the equipment, all speak in favor of the assumption that maximum of this distribution lies somewhere below 100 ms and closer to the durations reported by McConnell (1982) All of the above suggests the existence of two separate variants of solar S-bursts: the “short” and the “long” (diffuse) ones Previous papers on S-bursts properties (McConnell, 1980; McConnell and Ellis, 1981; McConnell, 1982; Melnik et al., 2010; Morosan et al., 2015; Dorovskyy et al., 2017) were based on study of the mean parameters (e.g. which were obtained on the statistical analysis of a large amount of S-bursts observed at different times during the storm and possibly from different locations of their sources This technique allowed obtaining general parameters of S-bursts averaged for periods from several hours up to few days and for different source locations The dependences derived this way give the information about the long-term and large scale properties of coronal plasma at the corresponding coronal heights while short-lived and small-scale coronal irregularities are smoothed and washed out For diagnostics of such small-scale inhomogeneities the analysis of each individual S-burst properties is of great importance The term small-scale in this context means the scale much smaller than the characteristic scale height of the solar corona it should be noted that aforementioned S-bursts were observed at frequencies 120–180 MHz and their frequency extent didn’t exceed 10 MHz In frames of the Newkirk corona model these frequencies correspond to the heliocentric heights of the emission source of about 1.1–1.2 Rs Thus an individual S-burst covered the heights range of no more than 0.015 Rs It is of no doubt that information about such small-scale coronal inhomogeneities higher in the corona is also very important The dynamic spectrum in the figure was 3-point median filtered and then time differentiated Example of the S-burst extended over the whole frequency band of the URAN-2 (marked with the yellow dashed curve) Tracks of the “long” S-bursts time-matched at frequency of 30 MHz An example of the S-burst with non-monotonic track observed on 21 June 2022: (A) time-differential spectrum and (B) retrieved track of the burst maximum (red curve) superimposed with expected monotonic track (blue dashed curve) The drift rates at separate frequencies are indicated with arrows Individual dependences of “long” S-bursts drift rates on frequency It is important to note that almost all dependences in Figure 9 are not actually monotonic. At the same time, we didn’t distinguish any correlation between the drift rate and the flux in an individual “long” S-burst, as it was found by Zhang et al. (2020) In this connection we should note that in these two cases we have different plasmas with considerable different absolute densities and the gradients To compare the dependences shown in Figure 9 with previously obtained ones we averaged the whole set of curves and approximated the averaged dependence with power-law function in the form of where ḟ is the absolute drift rate in MHz/s and f is the frequency in MHz. The averaged dependence with corresponding errors is shown in Figure 9 with the black dotted curve. Corresponding parameters a and b are given in Table 1. The parameters of Eq. 1 obtained by other authors are also brought for comparison Table 1. The parameters of approximation Eq. 1 obtained by different authors being divided by the factor of 2–4 This indicates that the sources of Type III and S-bursts move through the coronal plasmas with similar mean profiles but with velocities differing by a factor of 2–4 The duration is one of the distinct features of the S-bursts thus many authors use this parameter in their analysis. Nevertheless, the dependence of the S-bursts durations on frequency has not been obtained until recently (Dorovskyy et al., 2017) This fact is connected with difficulties in S-bursts duration measurement due to their weakness and with absence of the observational data in rather wide frequency band it was impossible to directly measure the FWHM durations of the S-bursts observed in 2022 due to their low fluxes and simultaneously high level of the background radio emission In such circumstances taking into account symmetrical appearance of an individual S-burst profile we proposed to approximate it with the sum of Gaussian curve and linearly varying background in the form: I2 and τ0 are the parameters of the approximation To estimate the correctness of this approximation we selected several individual S-bursts whose profile peaks exceeded the background by a factor of 5–10 and approximated them with Eq. 2. In all cases we got excellent agreement between the experimental profiles and approximations. An example of such approximation is shown in Figure 10 Figure 10. The example of the S-burst profile approximation with the sum of Gaussian curve and linearly varying background. The red curve depicts the original profile, the blue curve shows the approximation with Eq. 2 and the dashed lines delimit the approximation interval Thus when approximation parameters of Eq. 2 are found the initial FWHM duration of the S-burst τs can be determined as This approximation also makes it possible to retrieve the initial flux of the S-burst (parameter I0 in Eq. 2) From Eq. 2 and Eq. 3 the durations of all 50 selected “long” S-bursts were obtained in the whole frequency band of URAN-2 with a step of 2 MHz. Then we could find the dependence of the S-bursts durations on frequency. This dependence is shown in Figure 11 with the red curve The experimental dependence of the “long” S-bursts duration on frequency (the red curve) and its approximation (the blue curve) The obtained dependence of the “long” S-bursts durations on frequency was then approximated by the equation: where τs is the FWHM duration [s] and f is the frequency [MHz]. The approximation Eq. 4 is shown in Figure 11 with the blue curve Table 2. Coefficients of Eq. 1 describing the empirical dependences of the drift rate on frequency derived for different corona models Table 1, 2 show that the power-law indexes, obtained by different authors and those derived from different corona models deviate by no more than 20%. In particular, Melnik et al. (2010) found this index to range from 1.2 to 1.4 for storms occurred in 2001 and 2002 They attributed this deviation to different corona state during different storms and hence came to the conclusion that the corona may be described by different models at different times From this we may suppose that the sources of S-bursts observed on 20–21 June 2022 moved through the corona whose profile was best described by the Newkirk model The blue dashed line shows what appearance would have this S-burst track in the case when its source moved through the homogeneous Newkirk corona The instantaneous frequency difference between the observed and expected frequency (δf) is directly defined by the amplitude of coronal density inhomogeneity In this particular case it equals about 9 ⋅ 104cm−3 or 1.7% of the background plasma density At the same time the frequency range which covers the period of quasi-oscillations of the drift rate (and thus the distance between corresponding plasma frequency levels (δR) assuming the Newkirk corona model) is defined by the radial scale of this inhomogeneity It appears to be about 3 ⋅ 109 cm or 0.04 Rs at heliocentric height of 2 Rs Both obtained characteristics are at least by an order of magnitude larger than those found by Zhang et al. (2020) at frequencies near 120 MHz In our opinion these results do not contradict each other since the characteristic scale of the corona at the level of local plasma frequency of 120 MHz is about an order of magnitude smaller than that corresponding to the frequency of 20 MHz It is important to note that the above discussion concerns exclusively the longitudinal sizes of the coronal inhomogeneities The authors believe that the sensitivity of the burst to the longitudinal coronal inhomogeneities is defined by the relative lengths of the burst exciter and the inhomogeneity From this point of view all the inhomogeneities with radial sizes less than the length of the electron beam do not manifest themselves in the dynamic spectrum unlike those whose sizes are comparable or larger than the beam length The exciter (electron beam) length in its turn is defined by the burst duration and the source velocity observed on 20–21 June 2022 the source length appeared to be about (1–2) ⋅ 109 cm or not larger than 0.3 Rs Thus this value delimits the minimal longitudinal scale of the coronal inhomogeneity which can be diagnosed using the observed S-bursts In our opinion the discrepancy between two dependences happened due to overestimation of the measured durations of the S-bursts in 2013 at lower frequencies While the FWHM durations at higher frequencies were measured directly at lower frequency it was impossible because the bursts appeared to be too weak resulting in overestimation of the durations At the same time this index is very close to that of the analogous dependence for Type III bursts, obtained by different authors, which were −2/3 according to Elgaroy and Lyngstad (1972), −0.63 according to Krupar et al. (2020) and −0.59 obtained by Rutkevych and Melnik (2012) from the computer simulations The only difference between the dependences of Type III and S-burst durations on frequency is the significantly different absolute values The closeness of the indexes of these dependences for S-bursts and Type III bursts may indicate similar mechanisms of the bursts duration increase with time The difference between the largest and the smallest velocities is apparently defined by the particles velocity dispersion in the beam Thus non-zero velocity dispersion would lead to the increase of a burst duration with time From the dependence of “long” S-bursts durations on frequency we can find the minimal and maximal velocities of their sources They are vbmin = 2.2 ⋅ 109 cm/s and vbmax = 2.24 ⋅ 109 cm/s This means that the velocity dispersion in beams responsible for S-bursts generation is Δvb/vb ∼ 2 ⋅ 10–2 One can note that the velocity dispersion of the electrons responsible for the S-bursts generation is rather small This result can be very important for theoretical interpretation of the S-bursts generation The properties of the S-bursts observed during the intense storm on 20–21 June 2022 were discussed For the first time individual S-bursts covering the frequency range from 10 to 32 MHz were recorded during the storm The properties of 50 individual tracks of such bursts observed during 20–21 June 2022 were analyzed It was shown that individual S-bursts tracks can be used to identify short-term small-scale coronal inhomogeneities While ensemble-averaged track reflects the long-term and large scale properties of the coronal plasma From the drift rate dependence on frequency averaged over ensemble of 50 individual dependencies of the long S-bursts observed within 2 days it was shown that S-burst sources most likely move through the Newkirk corona at velocities of 0.06–0.08c The closeness of the obtained dependence to those by other authors indicates the long-term and large-scale stability of the corona density profile and the S-bursts sources velocities It was supposed that non-monotonic appearance of the “long” S-bursts tracks reflects instant small-scale plasma inhomogeneities met by the sources on their paths From the dynamic spectra these density inhomogeneities were found to have radial size of about 0.04 Rs and the amplitude of ∼1.7% The FWHM durations of S-bursts varied in a wide range from 0.1 to 1 s It was shown that all the observed S-bursts can be divided into two groups mainly by their durations: the “short” S-bursts with the durations less than 100 ms and the “long” ones whose durations were an order of magnitude larger the S-bursts of these two groups differed noticeably by a number of other properties The “short” S-bursts drifted in frequency twice as fast as the “long” ones at the same frequency Individual “long” S-bursts extended over rather wide frequency band sometimes covering the whole band of the URAN-2 instrument while the “short” ones used to extend over 1–2 MHz “short” S-bursts were much stronger circularly polarized than the “long” ones The obtained duration distributions suggest that “short” S-bursts apparently have durations smaller than measured 100 ms To make correct durations measurements at frequencies below 30 MHz the observations with time resolution of 5–10 ms are necessary The dependence of the “long” S-bursts durations on frequency was experimentally obtained in frequency band 10–32 MHz The index of this dependence was found to be −0.61 that was very close to that for Type III bursts We supposed that the bursts durations increased with time due to the electron velocity dispersion in the beam This dispersion for the case of S-bursts observed on 20–21 June 2022 appeared to be very small and equal Δvb/vb ∼ 10–2 This indicates that the beams responsible for S-bursts generation are almost monoenergetic From the obtained values of the S-bursts durations and their sources velocities the longitudinal sizes of the S-bursts sources were estimated At heliocentric distances 1.7–3 Rs these sizes were about 0.03 Rs One can see that the source sizes are comparable to the estimated sizes of small-scale coronal inhomogeneities At the same time simultaneously observed Type III bursts were rather diffuse and did not exhibit any fine structure From this we may assume that the sizes of the observed Type III bursts were possibly larger than those of the S-bursts and thus were not sensitive to the small-scale inhomogeneities Also for the first time the S-bursts polarization was measured at such low frequencies The degree of circular polarization of the S-bursts observed on 20–21 June 2022 varied from 30 up to 90% The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary material further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research The work was funded within the framework of the state budget grants “Complex researches of sporadic radio emission of the Sun during 25 cycle of solar activity” (Radius) (0122U000616) and “Study of the polarization characteristics of decameter radio emission from space sources using the URAN-2 radio telescope” (0118U009760) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine The authors express their deep gratitude to the technical staff of the URAN-2 radio telescope for the opportunity to make observations at such a difficult time VD acknowledges the Europlanet 2024 RI project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Grant agreement No Interpretation of electron densities from corona brightness CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Fine structures in solar radio emission at decametre wavelengths Google Scholar Properties and magnetic origins of solar S-bursts CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Relationship between drift pair bursts and decametre type III solar radio emission Google Scholar “Properties of groups of solar S-bursts in the decameter band,” in Planetary radio emissions VIII CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Fine and superfine structure of the decameter-hectometer type II burst on 7 June 2011 CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar “Observations of Solar S-bursts at the decameter wavelengths,” in Planetary radio emissions VI Google Scholar High-resolution observations of type III solar radio bursts Google Scholar Fine structure in the spectra of solar radio bursts CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Tracing the Electron Density from the Corona to 1 au CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Fine spectral structure of solar radio storms CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Spectral characteristics of solar S bursts CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Solar S-bursts at frequencies of 10 - 30 MHz CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar “Solar type IV bursts at frequencies 10-30 MHz,” in Solar Physics research trends (Nova Science Publishers) Google Scholar CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar “Characteristics of type III radio bursts and solar S bursts,” in Planetary radio emissions VIII CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar LOFAR tied-array imaging and spectroscopy of solar S bursts CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Propagation of type iii bursts emission in the solar corona doi:10.1615/RadioPhysicsRadioAstronomy.v3.i3.30 CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar A study of the background corona near solar minimum CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar A mechanism for generating the solar S-burst trains Google Scholar The frequency drift and fine structures of solar S-bursts in the high frequency band of LOFAR CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Brazhenko AI and Frantsuzenko AV (2024) Properties of individual S-bursts observed in the frequency band of 10–32 MHz during the rising phase of 25-th solar cycle Received: 18 March 2024; Accepted: 28 May 2024;Published: 25 June 2024 Copyright © 2024 Dorovskyy, Melnik, Brazhenko and Frantsuzenko. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use *Correspondence: V. V. Dorovskyy, ZG9yb3Zza3lAcmlhbi5raGFya292LnVh Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish Northampton High School teacher Bob Melnik prepares a fishing line for students Annika Bergstreiser and Abigail Rivera while Ivy Lovejoy fishes along the Mill River as part of a homesteading class on a recent Friday afternoon Mikaelyn DeFranco casts a line into the Mill River as part of a homesteading class with Northampton High School on a recent Friday afternoon Northampton High School teacher Bob Melnik prepares a fishing line for a student as part of a homesteading class at the Mill River on a recent Friday afternoon Abigail Rivera poses with a fish caught in the Mill River as part of a homesteading class with Northampton High School on a recent Friday afternoon Alex Brin casts a line into the Mill River as part of a homesteading class with Northampton High School on a recent Friday afternoon Northampton High School students in a homestead class listen as Brian Kelher an aquatic biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife talks about stocking the Mill River with rainbow and brown trout The class was introduced this year and is taught by Bob Melnik uses an old-fashioned bottle-capping device to seal a bottle of homemade root beer as part of a homesteading class taught at the school a Northampton High School student in a homestead class participates in stocking the Mill River with rainbow and brown trout provided by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife a Northampton High School student in a homestead class participates in stocking the Mill River with rainbow and brown trout provided by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife shows students how to make root beer with the as senior Zachary Elder looks on Bob Melnik leads a contingent of Northampton High School students outside the school and down a flight of stairs toward a small charcoal smoker grill to check on its contents Inside the smoker are nearly a dozen pieces of rainbow trout along with ramp leeks and onions that were foraged from the nearby woods and so Melnik leads the class back up the stairs to show them how to make homemade root beer These activities are all part of Melnik’s homesteading class something he began this year after teaching woodshop and engineering classes at the school since 2010 “I basically found a way to just kind of do my hobbies in school and teach them all in a class,” Melnik said “It’s a home economics class turned on its head.” is to teach students how to live more self-sufficiently using more naturally-grown resources and traditional manufacturing methods to make homemade versions of various goods but has since expanded to activities like fishing “It’s whatever you can do to lessen your footprint on the earth by living a little bit more naturally,” Melnik said “People just don’t know where their food comes from anymore and this is able to pull the curtain back a little bit and see how this stuff is made.” students helped the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife stock trout in the Mill River not far from the schools Then they tried to catch some of the fish to prepare for food students made pizza using a tradition wood-fired oven “I’ve done woodshop with Melnik before and if you have an idea and you come to him about it “I felt like this class would probably be sort of like that There’s times where I’ll just come in and fix a hole in some pair of pants that I have.” Melnik shows students a method used by his parents during the Great Depression Students poured nine cups of sugar into a bucket containing 4¾ gallons of water The students added root bear extract and then a dry yeast mixture to allow for fermentation and eventually but it also makes dirty water clean to drink The little microbes will quickly kill anything that’s bad in there,” Melnik explains to the class “The first time people actually started farming because they knew that if you fermented stuff inside water it would kill the stuff in the water that gave people diarrhea and used to kill people The wine was actually safer to drink than the water.” After using a funnel to pour the root bear into bottles Melnik then demonstrates how to properly seal a bottle cap that uses a handheld lever to press down and apply pressure to the cap a senior and one of the students manning the capping machine said this was the fourth class with Melnik throughout high school “I’m kind of a veteran of this class,” Cruz said “Making things is always what I wanted to do Melnik said that he hopes to continue the class next year using this year’s experience as a springboard for introducing other topics as part of the curriculum for future students and tests next year when I actually have done it the first time [since] I don’t even know exactly what’s going to work,” he said Everything’s a learning experience if you’ve never done it before.” Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com you agree with our use of cookies to personalize your experience measure ads and monitor how our site works to improve it for our users Flora Springs’ Trilogy 2021 Napa Valley Red Wine A complex Bordeaux red blend with an irresistible streak of black raspberry running through it from start to finish Cassis and a hint of plum are also in the mix and it has a lingering finish with a hint of tobacco give this Cabernet great appeal A supple Cabernet with aromas and flavors of black currant Flora Springs did something quite unexpected Helena winery decided to give small-scale winemaking a go the winery sold its original wine buildings and some vineyards and reduced its production by more than half “It was a tough decision but one we knew would pay dividends in the quality of our wines,” explained Nat Komes Flora Springs built a bespoke winery that could better accommodate the production of smaller wine lots They also redeveloped their most prized vineyard sites amended soils and adjusted irrigation techniques This unconventional winery with a penchant for boutique winemaking was a standout in The Press Democrat’s blind tasting winning the top honor — Wine of the Week — with its flagship Trilogy It’s a striking Bordeaux red blend with an irresistible streak of black raspberry running through it from start to finish Cassis and a hint of plum are also in the mix still representing that spirit of dedication but with a new commitment to the kind of hands-on winegrowing that can only be achieved when you work small,” Komes said Creating the Trilogy red blend took a great deal of reflective sipping “We conducted blending trials once a month amid much discussion to arrive at the ideal varietal and vineyard component percentages,” Komes said It also required a great deal of patience and perseverance we're actually seeking opportunity,” Komes said “We're tasting what one component might add or enhance and you have to imagine each of the endless possibilities.” at a time when red blends were still uncommon in California Wine drinkers at the time didn’t know what to expect But we believed Trilogy would prove that blends could be in the same league as the best Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.” Trilogy had “taken its rightful place” among iconic Napa Valley wines Flora Springs is owned and operated by the Komes-Garvey family Helena property in 1977 as a place to retire and grow grapes they proposed making wine from those grapes a third generation of the family is involved in the business “I've spent my entire career helping to build Flora Springs into what it is today,” said Nat Komes “I enjoy working alongside my dad on a daily basis He’s 84 years young and still beats me to the office every morning with a joke or a story to start the day.” You can reach Wine Writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com GREENSBORO, N.C. – UNCG senior Ian Melnik capped off the final regular season match of his Spartan career with a 7-6 7-5 victory over Chattanooga's Pablo Llebeili on Saturday April 13th at the Piedmont Indoor Tennis Center Melnik, whose win came from the No. 6 seed, was one of the three Spartans to claim a singles win, along with Nico Grewe and Roger Rogowski The final Chattanooga win in doubles action came from the team of Kerim Hyatt / Simon Bustamante, who defeated Grewe / Ollie Palmer by a 6-3 margin Rogowski tied the match at 1-1 when he claimed a 6-0 6-3 victory against Plaisted in singles action Grewe provided the Spartans with their first lead of the afternoon Hyatt put Chattanooga within one point of the victory after a 6-2 6 singles action over Llebeili set the stage for the decisive match between Palmer and Gerdes Gerdes rallied from an opening set loss to win a three-set clash between the No when they take on second-seeded Furman in the opening round of the SoCon Championships in Macon Thanks for visiting The use of software that blocks ads hinders our ability to serve you the content you came here to enjoy We ask that you consider turning off your ad blocker so we can deliver you the best experience possible while you are here 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Starwood Capital Group ("Starwood Capital") a global private investment firm focused on real estate and energy investments today announced it has hired Jared Melnik as a Managing Director and Head of Hotel Acquisitions for the Americas Melnik will be responsible for sourcing and executing acquisition opportunities in the hospitality and leisure industries who will be based in the firm's New York office "Jared will be an important addition to the Starwood Capital team as we continue to look for attractive investment opportunities in hospitality and leisure an area where Starwood has always been an industry leader," said Jennifer Barbetta Senior Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer Jared has displayed a talent for identifying compelling investments He will play a key role as we continue to build on our strong track record for our investors." Melnik joins Starwood Capital after 15 years at KSL Capital Partners a travel and leisure focused investment manager where he most recently served as Principal and member of the Investment Committee he oversaw equity and debt investments in both hotels and leisure operating companies Melnik led the implementation of investment strategy and opportunity sourcing and partnered with portfolio company management to drive operational improvement Melnik was an investment banker at Merrill Lynch "As a leader in real estate with a long track record of successful hospitality and leisure investments joining Starwood Capital represents a unique opportunity to work alongside some of the industry's most talented executives," said Mr "I am excited to bring my expertise to the organization and look forward to building on its long-standing success." the largest commercial mortgage real estate investment trust in the United States which has successfully deployed over $63 billion of capital since inception and manages a portfolio of over $17 billion across debt and equity investments Starwood Capital Group and its affiliates have successfully executed an investment strategy that involves building enterprises in both the private and public markets Additional information can be found at starwoodcapital.com http://starwoodcapital.com A joint venture between an affiliate of Starwood Capital Group a global private investment firm with a primary focus on real estate Starwood Capital Group ("Starwood Capital") Banking & Financial Services Hotels and Resorts Travel Personnel Announcements Do not sell or share my personal information: Mike Mahar and Peter Melnik on Saturday morning in Whately Mark Melnik adds a load of compost into a screening machine on Saturday morning at Bear Path Compost in Whately Mike Mahar and Mark Melnik on Saturday morning in Whately Mark Melnik delivers a load of compost into a customer’s truck bed Saturday morning at Bear Path Compost in Whately Compost debris gets sifted through a screening machine on Saturday morning at Bear Path Compost in Whately Windrows of compost Saturday morning at Bear Path Compost in Whately but it makes your soil better,” says Mike Mahar If you’re going to take something out of the soil by harvesting Bear Path Compost takes waste materials from other farms and turns them into compost that’s certified for organic use They sell to local farmers and landscapers but most of their customers are home gardeners looking to give their plants a nutrient boost Mahar didn’t grow up in the compost business “Since my brother Pete and I grew up on a dairy farm so he used to pay us a little cash to come help out.” When Obear wanted to get out of the business He and his brother still run Poplar Hill Farm on his family’s land This year he’s also taken on new business partners for Bear Path: Peter and Mark Melnik compost is like WD40 or a flathead screwdriver — one simple tool that’s good for a lot of things The main reason compost is so useful and versatile is its high amounts of organic matter meaning materials that are or once were alive Most organic matter in compost is already decomposing gently releasing nutrients back into the soil this infusion of fertility isn’t as potent as adding fertilizer but the nutrients stay in the soil longer and are less likely to wash away Compost also supports a rich community of soil organisms the benefits of which include better soil structure which allows plants to root deep and still give their roots access to oxygen Adding compost also helps the soil absorb more water and release it more slowly this sponge effect helps farmers and gardeners water more efficiently more absorption capacity means less soil erosion or drowned roots As a soil amendment for farm and garden beds Mahar suggests a baseline mix of one part compost to three parts soil Compost can also be spread as topdressing on lawns or garden beds for an added nutrient boost “Bark mulch is a better weed suppressor than compost whereas compost mulches and adds them back We’ve started selling blends of bark mulch and compost which allow you to have the best of both worlds.” Mulch and compost mixes of 3:1 or 1:1 are available now Bear Path Compost will also offer loam and compost blends in the same proportions compost is made by mixing high nitrogen materials with high carbon materials and ensuring there’s enough moisture and oxygen for the composting process to occur Bear Path mostly uses manure from the Melnik’s cows at Bar-Way Farm they turn to spent shavings from horse shows at the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton “Bar-Way manure is a natural fit (because of the Melnik’s involvement) and the fairgrounds generates a tremendous amount of bedding,” says Mahar “Both work great for us because they’re very clean — hardly any trash or other contamination.” it’s microbes that transform the mixture into finished compost The farmer’s job is to create conditions where these microbes thrive Getting the ratio of nitrogen to carbon is important which they do by turning them by tractor every few weeks which speeds up decomposition and denatures most pathogens Bear Path also adds high carbon wood ash to bind and neutralize anything not denatured by the heat Bear Path makes almost 3,000 cubic yards per year — about the volume of an Olympic sized swimming pool They sell it by the cubic yard ($70 each) and other increments as small as a five-gallon bucket ($3.50 each) “Since so many of our customers are home gardeners we probably sell 100 to 150 yards through five-gallon buckets,” says Mahar Mahar encourages customers to first use the calculator on their website which shows how many cubic yards are needed for their project anyone buying smaller amounts can come fill their own buckets any time at Bear Path’s facility at 134 Webber Road in Whatley anyone purchasing larger amounts can also have their trucks and trailers loaded up free of charge or they can call to request another pick up time Bear Path Compost’s address, contact details, prices, and self-serve instructions are all available on their website: bearpathcompost.com Their website also has a considerable amount of information on the science and uses of compost in general and for their products specifically Bear Path runs out of finished compost by mid-June as most farmers and gardeners move from prep to plant care they are a source of “black gold” for many a green thumb around the Valley Jacob Nelson is communications coordinator for CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture). As the growing season begins, visit buylocalfood.org to learn more about local farms and garden centers near you I relish this chosen spot and remain steadfast a reporter’s notebook in one hand and a glass of wine in the other,” says Press Democrat wine writer Peg Melnik I go to regional wineries with French ties 2) I have a unique take on matzo ball soup after amassing the secrets of Wine Country chefs over the years but I will disclose that it includes sauvignon blanc and ginger I agree with a fellow traveler and my dear friend “Travel is the air I breathe.” I personally believe travel changes you for the better I love being at the edge of the United States It makes me smile to know I’m still learning the English language I want to have a vast supply so I can pick through the jumble and string them together to write the most compelling stories possible “Behind the Byline” introduces you to those who write stories design pages and edit the content we deliver in our print editions and on pressdemocrat.com we’re also your neighbors with unique backgrounds and experiences who proudly call Sonoma County home And despite the grim reality that parts of it are a fragile fire zone They’ll always consider this agrarian cradle of grapes paradise a reporter’s notebook in one hand and a glass of wine in the other capturing the people who bottle their genius and their irrepressible spirit along with their grapes have roamed a bit to find myself in this wine-growing culture politics and eventually wine to my fifth-grade teacher I felt even more of a calling to journalism as I watched the Watergate hearings; That’s when I became a fan of hard-hitting reporters Studying journalism and English at the University of Illinois allowed me to work on the campus newspaper My interest in knowing more about political journalism led me to pursue a master’s degree in public affairs reporting and an internship at the state capital in Springfield I wrote my most daring story in the early 1990s I trespassed on the property of what was then Pacific Lumber with Earth First activists to see Headwaters Forest Headwaters was the most political woods in California at the time because the company was logging virgin redwoods at an escalated pace The Los Angeles Times published my story because it was an insider’s piece giving readers a peek at these endangered virgin redwoods some with trunks the size of a two-car garage Not long after covering the story on the redwoods You can’t live in Sonoma County without knowing who calls the shots — the grape I quickly became a fan of the diva and those with the relentless pursuit of eking out the best in Mother Nature Studying at UC Davis helped educate my palate I never fully understood why I loved working at a newspaper so much until my former features editor — Corinne Asturias — gave me her sentiments “Respectable newspapers are the crossroads of the smartest people you’ll ever meet and the most ethical.” People have no idea how careful we journalists are with our words which then gets into the gray matter of context all the while steering clear of conflict of interest I’ve had the opportunity to do so many compelling stories at The Press Democrat One of my favorites was a profile on Warren Winiarski the vintner who shocked the world when his cabernet sauvignon beat the best of Bordeaux in the Paris Tasting of 1976 The nine judges — all French — were astonished to learn the American upstart was behind the bottling the grapes in his wine were groomed on three-year-old vines “I’m as careful with my words as you are with your grapes the frustration on his face eased and a smile poked through I’m happy to report my brutal questioning of Winiarski was The profile earned a California News Publishers Association third-place award I continue to ask countless questions to tell stories about those behind the grapes I consider myself incredibly lucky to chronicle the lives of those like Winiarski Wine writer Peg Melnik can be reached at peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5310 A former officer and father of three daughters Vladimir Melnik became a staunch Christian almost 30 years ago he unexpectedly ended up in the Oryol pre-trial detention center for his faith This law-abiding man became accused under an "extremist" article Vladimir was born in December 1965 in Donetsk (Ukrainian SSR) He graduated from the Kiev Suvorov Military School and with honors the Oryol Higher Military Command School of Communications named after M Kalinin of the KGB of the USSR (now the Academy of the FSO) where he received the specialty "engineer of radio relay and tropospheric communication lines." After completing military service where he met his future wife Irina at a friend's wedding from where in 1994 the family decided to return to Oryol The Melnik family has three adult daughters Anastasiya is a specialist in information technology the youngest daughter Yekaterina graduated from high school with a gold medal and works as a tutor in mathematics and computer science but one day he came across a book about the life of Jesus Christ They worked hard to educate children based on the biblical commandments the family was left without a breadwinner for a long time the court sentenced Vladimir to 6 years in a penal colony taking into account his stay in a pre-trial detention center This website uses cookies. If you give permission, we will use cookies to make your visit more personal, improve its quality and improve the performance of the site based on how you use it. If you reject the use of cookies, some features of the site may not work. You can learn more about the types of cookies we use on our Privacy and Cookie Policy page what does a well-done LinkedIn profile look like You can follow Melnik on LinkedIn, here The book is available from the publisher and on Amazon Return to article listing Campus News and Student Life from around the Sarasota-Manatee campus Copyright © 2025, University of South Florida. All rights reserved This website is maintained by USF Sarasota-Manatee Campus The accreditation of this USF branch campus is a part of and depends on the continued accreditation of the University of South Florida EAST LANSING — Carter Melnik began the season as the No 2 hitter in the lineup for the Grand Ledge baseball team the Comets quickly realized they needed Melnik's presence at the bottom of the lineup to get on base for the guys at the top Melnik has embraced that role and delivered Wednesday night while helping Grand Ledge advance to the Diamond Classic title game for the Comets in their 11-9 semifinal victory over St "It felt great (to contribute)," Melnik said "I just really made sure to keep my shoulders square and I worked out and drove it in the opposite way Melnik's go-ahead hit came in the fifth inning and was part of eight unanswered runs scored by Grand Ledge after falling behind 7-3 Grand Ledge co-coach Grant Householder said Melnik's presence at the bottom of the lineup has been valuable for the Comets "We needed that table setter down at the bottom so the top of our order could get some guys in," Householder said "For him to hit over .340 now and get on base all the time and put together long at-bats — it's like a second leadoff hitter and that's what you want in the ninth spot." has shined while getting his first taste of the Diamond Classic after transferring in from Lowell a triple and five RBIs from the bottom of the order in Grand Ledge's two Diamond Classic wins "I definitely get more fastballs (in the No 9 spot) and that helps get the top of the lineup up," Melnik said It works out for me and it works out for the team." Grand Ledge had to hold on in the seventh to earn a date with Olivet in Monday's championship game which had its state tourney run ended with a pre-district loss to Ionia on Tuesday Logan Keilen delivered a two-out RBI single and St Johns added another run on a passed ball to pull within two The Redwings had runners on second and third and the go-ahead run at the plate when Grand Ledge was able to finish out the win and punch their ticket to a familiar spot — a Diamond Classic title game "It's just perseverance," Householder said "We always try to get these guys to stay together and embrace the situation that they're in I say that pressure is a privilege they have to have and this is pressure It's under the lights on the local campus and it's a big scene out there and they keep finding ways to do it." More: Dean Shippey Capital Diamond Classic schedule, results Contact Brian Calloway at bcalloway@lsj.com when Hopkins High School student Jessica Melnik was in 7th grade male classmates in a science class referred to the girls as “sandwich makers.” She recalls “That’s what we were supposed to do for them.”The sexist comment sparked a reading club Girls read about media representations of women and Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The club grew into a formalized group helping to lead the team into action at the state legislative level The group has helped develop and promote legislation that encourages public schools to offer curriculum about what sex trafficking is and how traffickers recruit young people.Propelled Into Political ActionThe team’s evolution has been swift and expansive the girls have discussed gender issues such as women in sports the group planned a STEM day for elementary school girls Girls United MN hosted a job fair to offer ideas about career options to 8th and 9th grade girls Recently group members invited girls in 5th and 6th grade to pick out inspirational quotes and paint them on canvases to be  hung in school bathrooms Working with a Leaders in Training program for middle school students Girls United MN recently  hosted another STEM day for girls Melnik is the daughter of immigrants from Belarus Her parents work in STEM fields and have become naturalized citizens who vote in every election but are not otherwise politically active.  Collaborative StrategyWorking in partnership with women’s advocacy groups as well as both Republican and Democratic legislators the bill prepared by Girls United MN supports trafficking prevention for both boys and girls The legislation is aimed at building awareness of the trafficking industry among classmates and teachers It would offer resources to help young students recognize that an older “boyfriend” who asks for sexual “favors” for “friends” — and the money involved with that trade — is not healthy or legal. Addressing the education of men and boys is an important part of the prevention curriculum “It is aimed at getting rid of the demand as well,” Melnik says “Sex trafficking isn’t going to stop [even] if all the women in the world say we don’t want it anymore.” It was a researcher from the University of Minnesota who gave a talk at their high school that made the Girls United MN group aware of the prevalence of trafficking in Minnesota “It was shocking that we had never heard about it before,” Melnik says. The girls talked to their health teachers about offering curriculum about awareness and warning signs “They said it was really difficult for any school district to put something like that into their health curriculum,” Melnik says largely because of the potential backlash from parents. The high school group met with two local legislators — Rep “I don’t think it is a partisan issue,” Melnik says also met with the Girls United MN group “She knew that I’ve been doing trafficking bills for the last decade.” At press time the proposed legislation was part of an omnibus bill that will potentially be discussed this spring One of the strengths Melnik seems to have is building a coalition of support through determination the ability to articulate issues and solutions and recognition of the value of networks with students, men Her high school principal and the superintendent of her district have been supportive of her initiatives Her 7th grade science teacher has been an ongoing mentor since the initial “sandwich maker” comment that prompted the group to form Girls United MN has hosted speakers from The Link and Breaking Free to talk about the issue at Hopkins High School in order to gather support among students The group hosted two events to write and mail postcards to legislators in support of the bill and make blankets that were donated to local shelters for sexually exploited youth.  Caroline Palmer is the public and legal affairs manager at the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MNCASA) to get feedback and support as the bill language was being drafted “She’s impressive and has pretty much lined up all of her legislative strategy She’s doing better than a lot of us adult lobbyists right now.” Melnik has dreams of one day running for public office herself “I tell everyone I want to be president one day,” she says Maybe she’ll have some of the boys from her 7th grade class making sandwiches in the White House kitchen.  people can spread the word to their local schools “Give school districts a heads up to make sure they are aware that they need to integrate this into their health classes,” she said Our 2025 Minnesota Newspaper Awards Winner of three photography and two writing state media awards in 2024 including  coverage about housing and mental health we also won two national awards related to our gender-based violence coverage Minnesota Women’s Press has been sharing the authentic voice and powerful vision of women since 1985, as one of the longest running feminist platforms (print and digital) in the U.S. Please donate to support our story sharing and free distribution to hundreds of locations. Piedmont High's Student-Run News Site physics teacher Glen Melnik walked through the breezeway of PHS Then one girl said hi to him as she walked by and a warm feeling came over him but that small gesture stuck with him through the countless memories he has gathered in his 19 years of teaching at PHS.  “I started substituting way back in 1976,” Melnik said so I did not want a full time position for about 14 years they tricked me into taking over the physics class for a couple weeks and it lasted now for 19 years.” After attending UC Santa Barbara for undergraduate and Northwestern University for graduate school Melnik taught social studies in Chicago for two years there were no teaching jobs because the war in Vietnam was winding down and people were all going into teaching,” Melnik said “So I started working in the psychiatric hospital and started private tutoring.” Melnik went back to school at UC Berkeley and enrolled in calculus and chemistry classes to get his teaching credentials in those subjects as well Melnik has five different teaching credentials overall “[Melnik is] somebody who’s just enjoyed education and learning stuff,” said math teacher and long time friend Doyle O’Regan “He likes teaching and engaging with people He’s been that way ever since I’ve known him.” agreed with O’Regan and said that his abundant stories and life experiences make for a really interesting class “He lets us work a lot and try to figure out problems as well as helping us along the way,” Tjogas said Melnik said he has decided this school year will be his last “I have realized this is the time,” Melnik said One reason Melnik has decided to retire is because of the new planned curriculum The science department must rewrite the physics curriculum in order to meet the Next Generation of Science Standards (NGSS) “Next year would be the time we would write the physics program with specific worksheets ‘Why should I go through all that time and effort after school to create something that I wouldn’t even be teaching?’” Melnik said The second reason for his retirement is the change of feeling in the air around PHS and faculty after the resignation of former history teacher Mark Cowherd “There was this cloud that went over the whole faculty,” Melnik said he really became targeted by the community,’ and whether he did something really bad or not it’s just that fact of how it went down on him really affected teachers.” The last reason Melnik said he will be leaving is because of his boats and I would stay on these boats over the weekend,” Melnik said ‘Why can’t I just stay here in Sausalito.’” O’Regan said that he does not think Melnik will miss coming out to the East Bay every week either although he does think they will stay in touch no matter what “I have not been on his boat,” O’Regan said He keeps talking about wanting to live on the boat sailing away to Hawaii I think he’ll definitely do that live-on-his-boat thing.” Melnik said he will now have time for things he has been waiting for like fixing up his boat to sail it down to Mexico “I’ll probably spend two years to [fix the boat] and from Mexico maybe around the world,” Melnik said “Because once you’re in Mexico you have to decide if you’re going to stay in Mexico or keep sailing south to the Panama Canal and going to the Caribbean Or going the other way and going towards the South Pacific.” but only take on about five students so he can continue teaching and helping others it’s just being positive and not giving up on people,” O’Regan said That’s probably my biggest take away from him Melnik said he has valued the students and his time at PHS “I’ve really appreciated my time here,” Melnik said I love physics so I felt fortunate that I could teach physics.” Your donation will support the student journalists of Piedmont High School Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs He has an anaerobic digester on his farm that converts food waste into renewable energy This story was produced as part of a collaboration with the PBS NewsHour As the season of big holiday meals kicks off it's as good a time as any to reflect on just how much food goes to waste If you piled up all the food that's not eaten over the course of a year in the U.S., it would be enough to fill a skyscraper in Chicago about 44 times And, when all this food rots in a landfill, it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. In fact, a recent report from the United Nations from a panel of climate experts estimates that up to 10 percent of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food waste So, here's one solution to the problem: Dairy farmers in Massachusetts are using food waste to create electricity. They feed waste into anaerobic digesters, built and operated by Vanguard Renewables which capture the methane emissions and make renewable energy The process begins by gathering wasted food from around the state, including from many Whole Foods locations. We visited the chain's store in Shrewsbury, Mass., which has installed a Grind2Energy system It's an industrial-strength grinder that gobbles up all the scraps of food the store can't sell who is the sustainability program manager for Whole Foods' North Atlantic region The machine will grind up all kinds of food waste — "everything from bones to vegetables to dry items like rice or grains," Franczyk says as the grinder is loaded Watch a video on farms turning food waste into renewable energy While Whole Foods donates a lot of surplus food to food banks Much of it is generated from prepping prepared foods The grinder turns all these bits into a slurry "It really becomes kind of a liquefied food waste," Franczyk says the waste is loaded into a truck and sent to an anaerobic digester "There's no question it's better than putting it in the trash," Franczyk says She says the chain is committed to diverting as much waste as possible and aims for zero waste Whole Foods composts; this waste-to-energy system is yet another way to meet its goal "We presently take in about a 100 tons [of waste] which is about three tractor-trailer loads In addition to all the food waste from Whole Foods he gets whey from a Cabot Creamery in the area as well as waste from a local brewery and a juice plant Melnik combines food waste from Whole Foods and other local sources with manure from his cows The mixture cooks at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit it rises to the top of a large red tank with a black bubble-shaped dome he combines all of this waste with manure from his cows Then we suck it into a big motor," Melnik explains Unlike other engines that run on diesel or gasoline which is creating one megawatt of electricity" continuously Melnik says — enough to power more than just his farm "We only use about 10 percent of what we make and the rest is fed onto the [electricity] grid," Melnik explains Vanguard pays him rental fees for having the anaerobic digester on his farm he's able to use the liquids left over from the process as fertilizer on his fields A large motor (housed inside here) runs on the methane gas captured in the digester which creates electricity — enough to power about 1,500 homes "The digester has been a home run for us," Melnik says "It's made us more sustainable — environmentally [and] also economically." Vanguard Renewables hopes to expand its operations in the state and elsewhere. "There's more than enough food waste in Massachusetts to feed all of our five digesters, plus many more," says CEO John Hanselman Massachusetts has a state law that prohibits the disposal of commercial organic waste — including food — by businesses and institutions that generate at least one ton of this waste per week This has created an incentive for food businesses to participate in the waste-to-energy initiative where there are thousands of digesters in operation His hope is that the concept will spread here "The food waste recycling through anaerobic digestion could be done in every part of the country," Hanselman says The company is currently building an anaerobic digester on a farm in Vermont The gas produced there will be piped to Middlebury College which will help the college reduce its carbon footprint Become an NPR sponsor