Title: Taking drift-diffusion analysis from the study of turbulent flows to the study of particulate matter smog and air pollutants dynamics
Author(s):

	T. Varapongpisan (Department of Statistics, Faculty of Science, Kasetsart University, Chatuchak, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand) ,
	L. Ingsrisawang (Department of Statistics, Faculty of Science, Kasetsart University, Chatuchak, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand) ,
	T.D. Frank (CESPA, Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Storrs, CT 06269, USA; Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, 2152 Hillside Road, Storrs, CT 06269, USA)

Drift-diffusion analysis has been introduced in physics as a method to study turbulent flows. In the current study, it is proposed to use the method to identify underlying dynamical models of particulate matter smog, ozone and nitrogen dioxide concentrations. Data from Chiangmai are considered, which is a major city in the northern part of Thailand that recently has witnessed a dramatic increase of hospitalization that are assumed to be related to extreme air pollution levels. Three variants of the drift-diffusion analysis method (kernel-density, binning, linear approximation) are considered. It is shown that all three variants explain the annual pollutant peaks during the first half of the year by assuming that the parameters of the physical-chemical evolution equations of the pollutants vary periodically throughout the year. Therefore, our analysis provides evidence that the underlying dynamical models of the three pollutants being considered are explicitly time-dependent.

Key words: drift-diffusion analysis, particulate matter, air pollutants
PACS: 02.50.Ey, 05.10.Gg, 05.40.-a, 92.60.Sz

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