How Skillful are the Multiannual Forecasts of Atlantic Hurricane Activity?

The recent emergence of near-term climate prediction, wherein climate models are initialized with the contemporaneous state of the Earth system and integrated up to 10 years into the future, has prompted the development of three different multiannual forecasting techniques of North Atlantic hurricane frequency. Descriptions of these three different approaches, as well as their respective skill, are available in the peer-reviewed literature, but because these various studies are sufficiently different in their details (e.g., period covered, metric used to compute the skill, measure of hurricane activity), it is nearly impossible to compare them. Using the latest decadal reforecasts currently available, we present a direct comparison of these three multiannual forecasting techniques with a combination of simple statistical models, with the hope of offering a perspective on the current state-of-the-art research in this field and the skill level currently reached by these forecasts. Using both deterministic and probabilistic approaches, we show that these forecast systems have a significant level of skill and can improve on simple alternatives, such as climatological and persistence forecasts.The first author would like to thank Isadora Jimenez for providing the necessary material for Fig. 2. The first author would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO; Project CGL2014- 55764-R), the Risk Prediction Initiative at BIOS (Grant RPI2.0-2013-CARON), and the EU [Seventh Framework Programme (FP7); Grant Agreement GA603521]. We additionally acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. LPC's contract is cofinanced by the MINECO under the Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion postdoctoral fellowship number IJCI-2015-23367. Finally, we thank the National Hurricane Center for making the HURDAT2 data available. All climate model data are available at https://esgf-index1.ceda.ac.uk/projects/esgf-ceda/.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Hands-on, Shoes-off: multisensory tools enhance family engagement within an art museum

Families with young children typically struggle to engage with traditional art museum environments. This research examined the impact of multisensory tools on family engagement within Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar. Sixty families with at least one child aged 0–11 were observed during two tasks. One task required participants to look at a series of paintings to select their favorite. In another task, families were given a toolkit of multisensory items to facilitate interaction with a painting. A semi-structured observational method produced quantitative and qualitative data about participant engagement and intergenerational interaction. Self-rating scores of task enjoyment were also collected. Results indicate that multisensory tools enhance family engagement with museums, artworks, and each other. Results also suggest that word-based interpretation was not necessary. We consider the potential implications of these findings in relation to family programming within art museums and museums more generally.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Journey of Hope: giving research participants a voice to share their experiences and improve community engagement around advanced HIV disease in Uganda

Over the last decade excellent progress has been made globally in HIV management thanks to antiretroviral therapy (ART) rollout and international guidelines now recommending immediate initiation of ART in people living with HIV. Despite this, advanced HIV disease (CD4 less than 200 cells/mL) and opportunistic infections remain a persistent challenge and contribute significantly to HIV-associated mortality, which equates to 23,000 deaths in Uganda in 2018 alone. Our Meningitis Research Team based in Uganda is committed to conducting clinical trials to answer important questions regarding diagnostics and management of HIV-associated opportunistic infections, including tuberculosis and cryptococcal meningitis. However, clinical research is impossible without research participants and results are meaningless unless they are translated into benefits for those affected by the disease. Therefore, we held a series of community engagement events with the aims of 1) giving research participants a voice to share their experiences of clinical research and messages of hope around advanced HIV disease with the community, 2) dispelling myths and stigma around HIV, and 3) raising awareness about the complications of advanced HIV disease and local clinical research and recent scientific advances. The purpose of this Open Letter is to describe our community engagement experience in Uganda, where we aimed to give clinical research participants a greater voice to share their experiences. These activities build upon decades of work in HIV community engagement and lays a platform for future research and engagement activities.</ns4:p

How Skillful are the Multiannual Forecasts of Atlantic Hurricane Activity?

The recent emergence of near-term climate prediction, wherein climate models are initialized with the contemporaneous state of the Earth system and integrated up to 10 years into the future, has prompted the development of three different multiannual forecasting techniques of North Atlantic hurricane frequency. Descriptions of these three different approaches, as well as their respective skill, are available in the peer-reviewed literature, but because these various studies are sufficiently different in their details (e.g., period covered, metric used to compute the skill, measure of hurricane activity), it is nearly impossible to compare them. Using the latest decadal reforecasts currently available, we present a direct comparison of these three multiannual forecasting techniques with a combination of simple statistical models, with the hope of offering a perspective on the current state-of-the-art research in this field and the skill level currently reached by these forecasts. Using both deterministic and probabilistic approaches, we show that these forecast systems have a significant level of skill and can improve on simple alternatives, such as climatological and persistence forecasts.The first author would like to thank Isadora Jimenez for providing the necessary material for Fig. 2. The first author would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO; Project CGL2014- 55764-R), the Risk Prediction Initiative at BIOS (Grant RPI2.0-2013-CARON), and the EU [Seventh Framework Programme (FP7); Grant Agreement GA603521]. We additionally acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. LPC's contract is cofinanced by the MINECO under the Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion postdoctoral fellowship number IJCI-2015-23367. Finally, we thank the National Hurricane Center for making the HURDAT2 data available. All climate model data are available at https://esgf-index1.ceda.ac.uk/projects/esgf-ceda/.Peer Reviewe

Resonance Raman Spectra of Five-Coordinate Heme-Nitrosyl Cytochromes <i>c</i>′: Effect of the Proximal Heme-NO Environment

Five-coordinate heme nitrosyl complexes (5cNO) underpin biological heme-NO signal transduction. Bacterial cytochromes c′ are some of the few structurally characterized 5cNO proteins, exhibiting a distal to proximal 5cNO transition of relevance to NO sensing. Establishing how 5cNO coordination (distal vs proximal) depends on the heme environment is important for understanding this process. Recent 5cNO crystal structures of Alcaligenes xylosoxidans cytochrome c′ (AXCP) and Shewanella frigidimarina cytochrome c′ (SFCP) show a basic residue (Arg124 and Lys126, respectively) near the proximal NO binding sites. Using resonance Raman (RR) spectroscopy, we show that structurally characterized 5cNO complexes of AXCP variants and SFCP exhibit a range of (NO) (1651-1671 cm-1) and (FeNO) (519-536 cm-1) vibrational frequencies, depending on the nature of the proximal heme pocket and the sample temperature. While the AXCP Arg124 residue appears to have little impact on 5cNO vibrations, the (NO) and (FeNO) frequencies of the R124K variant are consistent with (electrostatically) enhanced Fe(II) (NO)∗ backbonding. Notably, RR frequencies for SFCP and R124A AXCP are significantly displaced from the backbonding trendline, which in light of recent crystallographic data and density functional theory modeling may reflect changes in the Fe-N-O angle and/or extent of donation from the NO to the Fe(II) (dz2) orbital. For R124A AXCP, correlation of vibrational and crystallographic data is complicated by distal and proximal 5cNO populations. Overall, this study highlights the complex structure-vibrational relationships of 5cNO proteins that allow RR spectra to distinguish 5cNO coordination in certain electrostatic and steric environments

Multidimensional predictors of antidepressant responses: Integrating mitochondrial, genetic, metabolic and environmental factors with clinical outcomes.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a primary psychiatric illness worldwide; there is a dearth of new mechanistic models for the development of better therapeutic strategies. Although we continue to discover individual biological factors, a major challenge is the identification of integrated, multidimensional traits underlying the complex heterogeneity of depression and treatment outcomes. Here, we set out to ascertain the emergence of the novel mitochondrial mediator of epigenetic function acetyl-L-carnitine (LAC) in relation to previously described individual predictors of antidepressant responses to the insulin-sensitizing agent pioglitazone. Herein, we report that i) subjects with MDD and shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL) show decreased levels of LAC, increased BMI, and a history of specific types of childhood trauma; and that ii) these multidimensional factors spanning mitochondrial metabolism, cellular aging, metabolic function, and childhood trauma provide more detailed signatures to predict longitudinal changes in depression severity in response to pioglitazone than individual factors. The findings of multidimensional signatures involved in the pathophysiology of depression and their role in predicting treatment outcomes provide a starting point for the development of a mechanistic framework linking biological networks and environmental factors to clinical outcomes in pursuit of personalized medicine strategies to effectively treat MDD

Multiple quantum well top cells for multijunction concentrator solar cells

International audienceHigh efficiency quantum well GaAs solar cells have been successfully applied in commercial multijunction concentrator cells to increase the absorption in the infrared and provide variability of the absorption edge to optimise energy harvesting. Multiple quantum well (MQW) top cells can further improve the performance of multijunction solar cells since the absorption edge of top and middle subcells can be tuned with the MQWs to maximize the efficiency. Also, our simulations show that photon coupling resulting from the radiative dominance of the MQW top cell can make the multijunction cell less sensitive to variations in the incoming spectrum, thus further improving energy harvesting. New results on the characterisation of a novel MQW top cell will be presented along with electro-and photo-luminescence studies relevant to the photonic coupling. The above text is an abstract of a manuscript initially published in the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics. View the full manuscript a

A rights revolution in Europe? Regulatory and judicial approaches to nondiscrimination in insurance

In a recent decision, the European Court of Justice has ruled that insurers cannot discriminate on grounds of sex in setting premiums or determining benefits. This paper discusses the background to this decision. It asks whether we are seeing a US-style ‘rights revolution’, fuelled by judicial activism, as suggested by Dobbin et al’s hypothesis of ‘the strength of weak states’ or Kagan and Kelemen’s account of ‘adversarial legalism’. It is shown that neither of these theories captures the distinctive nature of the ECJ’s intervention. An industry-friendly policy was pursued in regulatory venues, but this was overridden by the ECJ’s interpretation of the fundamental right of equal treatment. However, it is also shown that the judicial defence of fundamental rights is a weak basis for social policy, and does not foreshadow a revolution in the development of social rights in Europe