The impact of ensemble meteorology on inverse modeling estimates of volcano emissions and ash dispersion forecasts: Grímsvötn 2011

Volcanic ash can interact with the earth system on many temporal and spatial scales and is a significant hazard to aircraft. In the event of a volcanic eruption, fast and robust decisions need to be made by aviation authorities about which routes are safe to operate. Such decisions take into account forecasts of ash location issued by Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers (VAACs) which are informed by simulations from Volcanic Ash Transport and Dispersion (VATD) models. The estimation of the time-evolving vertical distribution of ash emissions for use in VATD simulations in real time is difficult which can lead to large uncertainty in these forecasts. This study presents a method for constraining the ash emission estimates by combining an inversion modeling technique with an ensemble of meteorological forecasts, resulting in an ensemble of ash emission estimates. These estimates of ash emissions can be used to produce a robust ash forecast consistent with observations. This new ensemble approach is applied to the 2011 eruption of the Icelandic volcano Grímsvötn. The resulting emission profiles each have a similar temporal evolution but there are differences in the magnitude of ash emitted at different heights. For this eruption, the impact of precipitation uncertainty (and the associated wet deposition of ash) on the estimate of the total amount of ash emitted is larger than the impact of the uncertainty in the wind fields. Despite the differences that are dominated by wet deposition uncertainty, the ensemble inversion provides confidence that the reduction of the unconstrained emissions (a priori), particularly above 4 km, is robust across all members. In this case, the use of posterior emission profiles greatly reduces the magnitude and extent of the forecast ash cloud. The ensemble of posterior emission profiles gives a range of ash column loadings much closer in agreement with a set of independent satellite retrievals in comparison to the a priori emissions. Furthermore, airspace containing volcanic ash concentrations deemed to be associated with the highest risk (likelihood of exceeding a high concentration threshold) to aviation are reduced by over 85%. Such improvements could have large implications in emergency response situations. Future research will focus on quantifying the impact of uncertainty in precipitation forecasts on wet deposition in other eruptions and developing an inversion system that makes use of the state-of-the-art meteorological ensembles which has the potential to be used in an operational setting

Newly qualified doctors' views about whether their medical school had trained them well: questionnaire surveys

A survey of newly qualified doctors in the UK in 2000/2001 found that 42% of them felt unprepared for their first year of employment in clinical posts. We report on how UK qualifiers' preparedness has changed since then, and on the impact of course changes upon preparedness. Methods Postal questionnaires were sent to all doctors who qualified from UK medical schools, in their first year of clinical work, in 2003 (n = 4257) and 2005 (n = 4784); and findings were compared with those in 2000/2001 (n = 5330). The response rates were 67% in 2000/2001, 65% in 2003, and 43% in 2005. The outcome measure was the percentage of doctors agreeing with the statement "My experience at medical school has prepared me well for the jobs I have undertaken so far". Results In the 2000/2001 survey 36.3% strongly agreed or agreed with the statement, as did 50.3% in the 2003 survey and 58.5% in 2005 (chi-squared test for linear trend: χ2 = 259.5; df = 1; p < 0.001). Substantial variation in preparedness between doctors from different medical schools, reported in the first survey, was still present in 2003 and 2005. Between 1998 and 2006 all UK medical schools updated their courses. Within each cohort a significantly higher percentage of the respondents from schools with updated courses felt well prepared. Conclusion UK medical schools are now training doctors who feel better prepared for work than in the past. Some of the improvement may be attributable to curricular change

IMILAST: a community effort to intercompare extratropical cyclone detection and tracking algorithms

The variability of results from different automated methods of detection and tracking of extratropical cyclones is assessed in order to identify uncertainties related to the choice of method. Fifteen international teams applied their own algorithms to the same dataset—the period 1989–2009 of interim European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis (ERAInterim) data. This experiment is part of the community project Intercomparison of Mid Latitude Storm Diagnostics (IMILAST; see www.proclim.ch/imilast/index.html). The spread of results for cyclone frequency, intensity, life cycle, and track location is presented to illustrate the impact of using different methods. Globally, methods agree well for geographical distribution in large oceanic regions, interannual variability of cyclone numbers, geographical patterns of strong trends, and distribution shape for many life cycle characteristics. In contrast, the largest disparities exist for the total numbers of cyclones, the detection of weak cyclones, and distribution in some densely populated regions. Consistency between methods is better for strong cyclones than for shallow ones. Two case studies of relatively large, intense cyclones reveal that the identification of the most intense part of the life cycle of these events is robust between methods, but considerable differences exist during the development and the dissolution phases

The Selaginella Genome Identifies Genetic Changes Associated with the Evolution of Vascular Plants

Vascular plants appeared ~410 million years ago then diverged into several lineages of which only two survive: the euphyllophytes (ferns and seed plants) and the lycophytes (1). We report here the genome sequence of the lycophyte Selaginella moellendorffii (Selaginella), the first non-seed vascular plant genome reported. By comparing gene content in evolutionary diverse taxa, we found that the transition from a gametophyte- to sporophyte- dominated life cycle required far fewer new genes than the transition from a non-seed vascular to a flowering plant, while secondary metabolic genes expanded extensively and in parallel in the lycophyte and angiosperm lineages. Selaginella differs in post- transcriptional gene regulation, including small RNA regulation of repetitive elements, an absence of the tasiRNA pathway and extensive RNA editing of organellar genes

LEARN: A multi-centre, cross-sectional evaluation of Urology teaching in UK medical schools

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the status of UK undergraduate urology teaching against the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) Undergraduate Syllabus for Urology. Secondary objectives included evaluating the type and quantity of teaching provided, the reported performance rate of General Medical Council (GMC)-mandated urological procedures, and the proportion of undergraduates considering urology as a career. MATERIALS AND METHODS: LEARN was a national multicentre cross-sectional study. Year 2 to Year 5 medical students and FY1 doctors were invited to complete a survey between 3rd October and 20th December 2020, retrospectively assessing the urology teaching received to date. Results are reported according to the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES). RESULTS: 7,063/8,346 (84.6%) responses from all 39 UK medical schools were included; 1,127/7,063 (16.0%) were from Foundation Year (FY) 1 doctors, who reported that the most frequently taught topics in undergraduate training were on urinary tract infection (96.5%), acute kidney injury (95.9%) and haematuria (94.4%). The most infrequently taught topics were male urinary incontinence (59.4%), male infertility (52.4%) and erectile dysfunction (43.8%). Male and female catheterisation on patients as undergraduates was performed by 92.1% and 73.0% of FY1 doctors respectively, and 16.9% had considered a career in urology. Theory based teaching was mainly prevalent in the early years of medical school, with clinical skills teaching, and clinical placements in the later years of medical school. 20.1% of FY1 doctors reported no undergraduate clinical attachment in urology. CONCLUSION: LEARN is the largest ever evaluation of undergraduate urology teaching. In the UK, teaching seemed satisfactory as evaluated by the BAUS undergraduate syllabus. However, many students report having no clinical attachments in Urology and some newly qualified doctors report never having inserted a catheter, which is a GMC mandated requirement. We recommend a greater emphasis on undergraduate clinical exposure to urology and stricter adherence to GMC mandated procedures

Career guidance and the changing world of work: Contesting responsibilising notions of the future.

Career guidance is an educational activity which helps individuals to manage their participation in learning and work and plan for their futures. Unsurprisingly career guidance practitioners are interested in how the world of work is changing and concerned about threats of technological unemployment. This chapter argues that the career guidance field is strongly influenced by a “changing world of work” narrative which is drawn from a wide body of grey literature produced by think tanks, supra-national bodies and other policy influencers. This body of literature is political in nature and describes the future of work narrowly and within the frame of neoliberalism. The ‘changing world of work’ narrative is explored through a thematic analysis of grey literature and promotional materials for career guidance conferences. The chapter concludes by arguing that career guidance needs to adopt a more critical stance on the ‘changing world of work’ and to offer more emancipatory alternatives.N/

Multi-level emulation of a volcanic ash transport and dispersion model to quantify sensitivity to uncertain parameters

Following the disruption to European airspace caused by the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 there has been a move towards producing quantitative predictions of volcanic ash concentration using volcanic ash transport and dispersion simulators. However, there is no formal framework for determining the uncertainties of these predictions and performing many simulations using these complex models is computationally expensive. In this paper a Bayesian linear emulation approach is applied to the Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modelling Environment (NAME) to better understand the influence of source and internal model parameters on the simulator output. Emulation is a statistical method for predicting the output of a computer simulator at new parameter choices without actually running the simulator. A multi-level emulation approach is applied using two configurations of NAME with different numbers of model particles. Information from many evaluations of the computationally faster configuration is combined with results from relatively few evaluations of the slower, more accurate, configuration. This approach is effective when it is not possible to run the accurate simulator many times and when there is also little prior knowledge about the influence of parameters. The approach is applied to the mean ash column loading in 75 geographical regions on 14 May 2010. Through this analysis it has been found that the parameters that contribute the most to the output uncertainty are initial plume rise height, mass eruption rate, free tropospheric turbulence levels and precipitation threshold for wet deposition. This information can be used to inform future model development and observational campaigns and routine monitoring. The analysis presented here suggests the need for further observational and theoretical research into parameterisation of atmospheric turbulence. Furthermore it can also be used to inform the most important parameter perturbations for a small operational ensemble of simulations. The use of an emulator also identifies the input and internal parameters that do not contribute significantly to simulator uncertainty. Finally, the analysis highlights that the faster, less accurate, configuration of NAME can, on its own, provide useful information for the problem of predicting average column load over large areas

Genomic survey of premetazoans shows deep conservation of cytoplasmic tyrosine kinases and multiple radiations of receptor tyrosine kinases

The evolution of multicellular metazoans from a unicellular ancestor is one of the most important advances in the history of life. Protein tyrosine kinases play important roles in cell-to-cell communication, cell adhesion, and differentiation in metazoans; thus, elucidating their origins and early evolution is crucial for understanding the origin of metazoans. Although tyrosine kinases exist in choanoflagellates, few data are available about their existence in other premetazoan lineages. To unravel the origin of tyrosine kinases, we performed a genomic and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based survey of the genes that encode tyrosine kinases in the two described filasterean species, Capsaspora owczarzaki and Ministeria vibrans, the closest relatives to the Metazoa and Choanoflagellata clades.We present 103 tyrosine kinase-encoding genes identified in the whole genome sequence of C. owczarzaki and 15 tyrosine kinase-encoding genes cloned by PCR from M. vibrans. Through detailed phylogenetic analysis, comparison of the organizations of the protein domains, and resequencing and revision of tyrosine kinase sequences previously found in some whole genome sequences, we demonstrate that the basic repertoire ofmetazoan cytoplasmic tyrosine kinases was established before the divergence of filastereans from the Metazoa and Choanoflagellata clades. In contrast, the receptor tyrosine kinases diversified extensively in each of the filasterean, choanoflagellate, and metazoan clades. This difference in the divergence patterns between cytoplasmic tyrosine kinases and receptor tyrosine kinases suggests that receptor tyrosine kinases that had been used for receiving environmental cues were subsequently recruited as a communication tool between cells at the onset of metazoan multicellularity.Peer Reviewe