An evidence-based review of creative problem solving tools: a practitioner’s resource

Creative problem solving (CPS) requires solutions to be useful and original. Typically, its operations span problem finding, idea generation and critical evaluation. The benefits of training CPS have been extolled in education, industry and government with evidence showing it can enhance performance. However, while such training schemes work, less is known about the specific tools used. Knowing whether a particular tool works or not would provide practitioners with a valuable resource, leading to more effective training schemes, and a better understanding of the processes involved. A comprehensive review was undertaken examining the empirical support of tools used within CPS. Despite the surprising lack of research focusing on the use and success of specific tools some evidence exists to support the effectiveness of a small set. Such findings present practitioners with a potential resource that could be used in a stand-alone setting or possibly combined to create more effective training programmes

AERONET Remotely Sensed Measurements and Retrievals of Biomass Burning Aerosol Optical Properties During the 2015 Indonesian Burning Season

An extreme biomass burning event occurred in Indonesia from September through October 2015 due to severe drought conditions, partially caused by a major El Niño event, thereby allowing for significant burning of peatland that had been previously drained. This event had the highest sustained aerosol optical depths (AODs) ever monitored by the global Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). The newly developed AERONET Version 3 algorithms retain high AOD at the longer wavelengths when associated with high Ångström exponents (AEs), which thereby allowed for measurements of AOD at 675 nm as high as approximately 7, the upper limit of Sun photometry. Measured AEs at the highest monitored AOD levels were subsequently utilized to estimate instantaneous values of AOD at 550 nm in the range of 11 to 13, well beyond the upper measurement limit. Additionally, retrievals of complex refractive indices, size distributions, and single scattering albedos (SSAs) were obtained at much higher AOD levels than possible from almucantar scans due to the ability to perform retrievals at smaller solar zenith angles with new hybrid sky radiance scans. For retrievals made at the highest AOD levels the fine‐mode volume median radii were ~0.25–0.30 micron, which are very large particles for biomass burning. Very high SSA values (~0.975 from 440 to 1,020 nm) are consistent with the domination by smoldering combustion of peat burning. Estimates of the percentage peat contribution to total biomass burning aerosol based on retrieved SSA and laboratory measured peat SSA were ~80–85%, in excellent agreement with independent estimates

Exome sequencing of gastric adenocarcinoma identifies recurrent somatic mutations in cell adhesion and chromatin remodelling genes

10.1038/ng.2246Nature Genetics445570-574NGEN

Genetic influences on schizophrenia and subcortical brain volumes:Large-scale proof of concept

Schizophrenia is a devastating psychiatric illness with high heritability. Brain structure and function differ, on average, between people with schizophrenia and healthy individuals. As common genetic associations are emerging for both schizophrenia and brain imaging phenotypes, we can now use genome-wide data to investigate genetic overlap. Here we integrated results from common variant studies of schizophrenia (33,636 cases, 43,008 controls) and volumes of several (mainly subcortical) brain structures (11,840 subjects). We did not find evidence of genetic overlap between schizophrenia risk and subcortical volume measures either at the level of common variant genetic architecture or for single genetic markers. These results provide a proof of concept (albeit based on a limited set of structural brain measures) and define a roadmap for future studies investigating the genetic covariance between structural or functional brain phenotypes and risk for psychiatric disorders