Morphology on the cloud Virtual Campus, an integrated didactic platform for biomedical studies

The current Core Curricula of Degree courses in Biomedical areas has enormously compressed the hours dedicated to the student for self-learning in morphological subjects. The result is a reduced student attitude to integrate the information received by attending lectures and practical sessions, with the indispensable consultation of texts dealing with morphological and \u2018functional\u2019 subjects, a key experience to autonomously logically identify the rational of the morphology/function relationship in the human body, at the macroscopic and microscopic level. These changes are occurring at a time when new medical imaging technologies become more and more informative in both morphological and functional areas. As a consequence, we are modifying our way of organize lessons compared to the generations of colleagues who have preceded us. More and more frontal lessons are organized with a logical morpho-functional approach. For example, the reference to the anatomy of the living, displayed through invasive or not invasive imaging, is added to the necessary and traditional anatomy of the cadaver. The reference to the pathology helps to define how the alteration of morphological integrity is reflected on function, both at the macro and microscopic level, and so on. However, there are no organized easy-to-use guided tours for the student to allow, in the shortest possible time, to \u2018rationally see\u2019 what he has studied, in the various imaging contexts available at the macro- and microscopic level. At the same time, there are no \u2018data bank\u2019 of resources for the preparation of the lessons. That is why we have imagined \u2018virtual campus\u2019 an integrated digital learning platform for self-learning. The platform has been thought and realized thanks to a group of teachers of \u2018morphologic\u2019 and \u2018functional\u2019 biomedical subjects and computer engineers belonging to a publishing house. The presentation will explain the rationale behind the platform, its structure and the educational opportunities offered

Scaling properties of heavy rainfall at short duration: A regional analysis

International audienceThe aim of this paper is to assess the scaling properties of heavy point rainfall with respect to duration. In the region of interest, the probability distribution tails of hourly to daily rainfall display log-log linearity. The log-log linearity of tails is a feature of fat-tailed distributions. The conservation of this property throughout the scales will be investigated in the framework of scale-invariant analysis. Evidence of the scaling of heavy rainfall is shown for one particularly long rainfall series through the conservation of the survival probability shape at durations in the range 1-24 h. An objective method is implemented to estimate the hyperbolic-tail parameters of rainfall distributions. This method is automatized and detects the lower bound above which the distributions exhibit power law tails and determines the power law exponent α using a maximum likelihood estimator. The application of unbiased estimation methods and scale-invariant properties for the estimation of the power law exponent provides a significant reduction of the intergage power law variability. This achievement is essential for a correct use of geostatistical approaches to interpolate the power law parameters at ungaged sites. The method is then applied to the rain gage network in the Cévennes-Vivarais region, a Mediterranean mountainous region located in southern France. The maps show thicker rainfall distribution tails in the flat area between the seashore and the foothill. It is shown that in a flat region closer to the Mediterranean Sea the rainfall distribution tails are hyperbolic and the power law exponent is quasi-constant with duration, whereas, over the mountain, the power law behavior is less defined. The physical reasons for such results and the consequences for the statistical modeling of heavy rainfall are then discussed, providing an innovative point of view for the comprehension of the rainfall extremes behavior at different temporal scales

Rainfall regimes in a Mountainous Mediterranean Region: Statistical analysis at short time steps.

International audienceThis paper presents an analysis of the rainfall regime of a Mediterranean mountainous region of south-eastern France. The rainfall regime is studied on temporal scales from hourly to yearly using daily and hourlyrain gauge data of 43 and 16 years, respectively. The domain is 200 3 200 km2 with spatial resolution of hourlyand daily rain gauges of about 8 and 5 km, respectively. On average, yearly rainfall increases from about0.5 m yr21 in the large river plain close to the Mediterranean Sea to up to 2 m yr21 over the surroundingmountain ridges. The seasonal distribution is also uneven: one-third of the cumulative rainfall occurs duringthe autumn season and one-fourth during the spring. At finer time scales, rainfall is studied in terms of rain–no-rain intermittency and nonzero intensity. The monthly intermittency (proportion of dry days per month)and the daily intermittency (proportion of dry hours per day) is fairly well correlated with the relief. Thehigher the rain gauges are, the lower the monthly and daily intermittencies are. The hourly and daily rainfallintensities are analyzed in terms of seasonal variability, diurnal cycle, and spatial pattern. The differencebetween regular and heavy-rainfall event is depicted by using both central parameters and maximum values ofintensity distributions. The relationship between rain gauge altitudes and rainfall intensity is grossly invertedrelative to intermittency and is also far more complex. The spatial and temporal rainfall patterns depictedfrom rain gauge data are discussed in the light of known meteorological processes affecting the study regio

Multi-scale evaluation of extreme rainfall-event predictions using severity diagrams

[Departement_IRSTEA]Eaux [TR1_IRSTEA]ARCEAUInternational audienceObservations and simulations of rainfall events are usually compared by analyzing: i) the total rainfall depth produced by the event and ii) the location of the rainfall maximum. A different approach is proposed here that compares the mesoscale simulated rainfall fields with the ground rainfall observations in the multi-scale framework of maximum intensity diagrams and severity diagrams. While the first simply displays the maximum rainfall intensity of an event at a number of scales, the second gives the frequency of occurrence of the maximum rainfall intensities as a function of the spatial and temporal aggregation scales, highlighting the space-time scales of the event severity. For use in a region featuring complex relief, severity diagrams have been generalized to incorporate the regional behavior of heavy rainfall events. To assess simulation outputs from a meteorological mesoscale model, three major storms that have occurred in the last decade over a mountainous Mediterranean region of Southern France are analyzed. The severity diagrams detect the critical space-time scales of the rainfall events for comparison with those predicted by the simulation. This validation approach is adapted to evaluate the ability of the mesoscale model to predict various types of storms with different regional climatologies

Rainfall regimes in a Mountainous Mediterranean Region: Statistical analysis at short time steps.

International audienceThis paper presents an analysis of the rainfall regime of a Mediterranean mountainous region of south-eastern France. The rainfall regime is studied on temporal scales from hourly to yearly using daily and hourlyrain gauge data of 43 and 16 years, respectively. The domain is 200 3 200 km2 with spatial resolution of hourlyand daily rain gauges of about 8 and 5 km, respectively. On average, yearly rainfall increases from about0.5 m yr21 in the large river plain close to the Mediterranean Sea to up to 2 m yr21 over the surroundingmountain ridges. The seasonal distribution is also uneven: one-third of the cumulative rainfall occurs duringthe autumn season and one-fourth during the spring. At finer time scales, rainfall is studied in terms of rain–no-rain intermittency and nonzero intensity. The monthly intermittency (proportion of dry days per month)and the daily intermittency (proportion of dry hours per day) is fairly well correlated with the relief. Thehigher the rain gauges are, the lower the monthly and daily intermittencies are. The hourly and daily rainfallintensities are analyzed in terms of seasonal variability, diurnal cycle, and spatial pattern. The differencebetween regular and heavy-rainfall event is depicted by using both central parameters and maximum values ofintensity distributions. The relationship between rain gauge altitudes and rainfall intensity is grossly invertedrelative to intermittency and is also far more complex. The spatial and temporal rainfall patterns depictedfrom rain gauge data are discussed in the light of known meteorological processes affecting the study regio