Dynamical modes associated with the Antarctic ozone hole

Generalized Maximum Covariance Analysis (GMCA) has been developed and applied to diagnosing the dynamical modes associated with variations in the Antarctic spring ozone hole. GMCA is used to identify the most important patterns of co-variability between interannual ozone mixing ratio variations in the Antarctic region and temperature, zonal, meridional and vertical velocities between 100 and 10 hPa in the same region. The most important two pairs of GMCA time coefficients show large year-to-year variations and trends, which are connected with the growth of the Antarctic Ozone Hole and the increase of ozone depleting substances. The associated spatial patterns of ozone variations may be characterized as being quasi-symmetric and asymmetric about the pole. These patterns of ozone variations are associated with comparable patterns of variations of temperature and winds through most of the vertical domain. <br><br> The year 2000 is shown to be dominated by the asymmetric mode, whereas the adjacent year 2001 is dominated by the quasi-symmetric mode. A case study, focusing on the asymmetric differences between these two years, shows the magnitude of the ozone mixing ratio, temperature and zonal wind differences to be in the range of 2 e–6 kg/kg, 10°C and 10 m/s, respectively. Budget calculations show that transport processes contribute substantially to the ozone and temperature changes in the middle stratosphere over the Antarctic continent. However, both radiative and chemical processes also play important roles in the changes

Climatology and trends in the forcing of the stratospheric zonal-mean flow

The momentum budget of the Transformed Eulerian-Mean (TEM) equation is calculated using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis (ERA-40) and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Reanalysis 2 (R-2). This study outlines the considerable contribution of unresolved waves, deduced to be gravity waves, to the forcing of the zonal-mean flow. A trend analysis, from 1980 to 2001, shows that the onset and break down of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) stratospheric polar night jet has a tendency to occur later in the season in the more recent years. This temporal shift follows long-term changes in planetary wave activity that are mainly due to synoptic waves, with a lag of one month. In the Southern Hemisphere (SH), the polar vortex shows a tendency to persist further into the SH summertime. This also follows a statistically significant decrease in the intensity of the stationary EP flux divergence over the 1980–2001 period. Ozone depletion is well known for strengthening the polar vortex through the thermal wind balance. However, the results of this work show that the SH polar vortex does not experience any significant long-term changes until the month of December, even though the intensification of the ozone hole occurs mainly between September and November. This study suggests that the decrease in planetary wave activity in November provides an important feedback to the zonal wind as it delays the breakdown of the polar vortex. In addition, the absence of strong eddy feedback before November explains the lack of significant trends in the polar vortex in the SH early spring. A long-term weakening in the Brewer-Dobson (B-D) circulation in the polar region is identified in the NH winter and early spring and during the SH late spring and is likely driven by the decrease in planetary wave activity previously mentioned. During the rest of the year, there are large discrepancies in the representation of the B-D circulation and the unresolved waves between the two reanalyses, making trend analyses unreliable.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant ATM0733698

Beyond Walkers in Stochastic Quantum Chemistry: Reducing Error using Fast Randomized Iteration

We introduce a family of methods for the full configuration interaction problem in quantum chemistry, based on the fast randomized iteration (FRI) framework [L.-H. Lim and J. Weare, SIAM Rev. 59, 547 (2017)]. These methods, which we term "FCI-FRI," stochastically impose sparsity during iterations of the power method and can be viewed as a generalization of full configuration interaction quantum Monte Carlo (FCIQMC) without walkers. In addition to the multinomial scheme commonly used to sample excitations in FCIQMC, we present a systematic scheme where excitations are not sampled independently. Performing ground-state calculations on five small molecules at fixed cost, we find that the systematic FCI-FRI scheme is 11 to 45 times more statistically efficient than the multinomial FCI-FRI scheme, which is in turn 1.4 to 178 times more statistically efficient than the original FCIQMC algorithm.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

University lecturers' perspectives on initial teacher education for mental health promotion in schools

Copyright ©2017 Sense Publishers Reproduced with permission of the publisher

A healthy start : promoting mental health and well-being in the early primary school years

This study was in part funded by the University of Malta.Mental health problems in children represent a significant international health concern, with up to one in five children using mental health services during the course of any given year. Identifying the processes of what prevents social, emotional and behaviour difficulties (SEBD) and promotes healthy development from an early age can make a significant contribution to the promotion of positive mental health in children. This article describes a longitudinal study which sought to identify the risk and promotive factors as young children move from the early to junior years in primary school. Multilevel analysis was used to identify the individual, classroom, school, home and community factors that predict change in SEBD and in prosocial behaviour in the early school years. It also calculated the cumulative effect of the various risk and promotive factors on the pupils’ well-being and mental health. The article presents the windows of vulnerability and opportunity for young children’s healthy development, proposing a trajectory for healthy development in early and middle childhood.peer-reviewe

The Effectiveness and Micro-costing Analysis of a Universal, School-Based, Social–Emotional Learning Programme in the UK: A Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial

There are a growing number of school-based interventions designed to promote children’s social and emotional learning. One such intervention, PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies), was evaluated in a randomised controlled trial involving 5074 pupils aged 4–6 years at baseline in 56 primary schools across a large city in the UK. The programme was implemented for two academic years. The primary outcome measure was the teacher-rated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). A secondary measure was the PATHS Teacher Rating Scale (PTRS). Observations of child and teacher behaviours were undertaken in a third of intervention and control schools using the Teacher–Pupil Observation Tool (T-POT). Regarding fidelity, dose and adherence were measured via weekly logs completed by teachers, and a semi-structured questionnaire completed by PATHS coaches was used as a global measure of fidelity (capturing adherence, dose and quality). A cost-consequence analysis examined programme costs from a multi-agency public sector perspective. At 1 year post-baseline, there were no statistically significant differences between the programme and control groups on the SDQ subscales or the SDQ total difficulties and impact scores. There were statistically significant differences favouring the programme group for six out of 11 subscales on the secondary outcome measure (PTRS). At 2 years post-baseline, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups on either measure. Fidelity, according to the global measure, was relatively strong, and there was no relationship between fidelity and treatment effects. The average cost of PATHS was £12,666 per school or £139 per child. The study, which was fully powered and independent of the programme developer, shows no statistically significant effect of the programme on child behaviour or emotional well-being. Trial registration site and number: www.controlled-trials.com: ISRCTN 32534848

A multicentric study on stigma towards people with mental illness in health sciences students

BackgroundThere is evidence of negative attitudes among health professionals towards people with mental illness but there is also a knowledge gap on what training must be given to these health professionals during their education. The purpose of this study is to compare the attitudes of students of health sciences: nursing, medical, occupational therapy, and psychology.MethodsA comparative and cross-sectional study in which 927 final-year students from health sciences university programmes were evaluated using the Mental Illness: Clinicians' Attitudes (both MICA-2 and MICA-4) scale. The sample was taken in six universities from Chile and Spain.ResultsWe found consistent results indicating that stigma varies across university programmes. Medical and nursing students showed more negative attitudes than psychology and occupational therapy students in several stigma-related themes: recovery, dangerousness, uncomfortability, disclosure, and discriminatory behaviour.ConclusionsOur study presents a relevant description of the attitudes of each university programme for education against stigma in the formative years. Results show that the biomedical understanding of mental disorders can have negative effects on attitudes, and that education based on the psychosocial model allows a more holistic view of the person over the diagnosis

Web Content Analysis: Expanding the Paradigm

Are established methods of content analysis (CA) adequate to analyze web content, or should new methods be devised to address new technological developments? This chapter addresses this question by contrasting narrow and broad interpretations of the concept of web content analysis. The utility of a broad interpretation that subsumes the narrow one is then illustrated with reference to research on weblogs (blogs), a popular web format in which features of HTML documents and interactive computer-mediated communication converge. The chapter concludes by proposing an expanded Web Content Analysis (WebCA) paradigm in which insights from paradigms such as discourse analysis and social network analysis are operationalized and implemented within a general content analytic framework