Statistical interpolation of ozone measurements from satellite data (TOMS, SBUV and SAGE II) using the kriging method

International audienceThis study demonstrates that ordinary kriging in spherical coordinates using experimental semi-variograms provides highly usable results, especially near the pole in winter and/or where there could be data missing over large areas. In addition, kriging allows display of the spatial variability of daily ozone measurements at different pressure levels. Three satellite data sets were used: Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) data, Solar Backscattered UltraViolet (SBUV), and the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE II) ozone profiles. Since SBUV is a nadir-viewing instrument, measurements are only taken along the sun-synchronous polar orbits of the satellite. SAGE II is a limb-viewing solar occultation instrument, and measurements have high vertical resolution but poor daily coverage. TOMS has wider coverage with equidistant distribution of data (resolution 1° × 1.25°) but provides no vertical information. Comparisons of the resulting SBUV-interpolated (column-integrated) ozone field with TOMS data are strongly in agreement, with a global correlation of close to 98%. Comparisons of SBUV-interpolated ozone profiles with daily SAGE II profiles are relatively good, and comparable to those found in the literature. The interpolated ozone layers at different pressure levels are shown

School feeding or general food distribution? Quasi-experimental evidence on the educational impacts of emergency food assistance during conflict in Mali

This study relies on a unique precrisis baseline and five-year follow-up to investigate the effects of emergency school feeding and generalised food distribution (GFD) on children’s schooling during conflict in Mali. It estimates programme impact on child enrolment, absenteeism, and attainment by using a difference in differences weighted estimator. School feeding led to increases in enrolment by 10 percentage points and to around an additional half-year of completed schooling. Attendance among boys in households receiving GFD, however, declined by about 20 per cent relative to the comparison group. Disaggregating by conflict intensity showed that receipt of any food assistance led to a rise in enrolment mostly in high-intensity conflict areas and that the negative effects of GFD on attendance were also concentrated in the most affected areas. School feeding mostly raised attainment among children in areas not in the immediate vicinity of conflict. Programme receipt triggered adjustments in child labour. School feeding led to lower participation and time spent in work among girls, while GFD raised children’s labour, particularly among boys. The educational implications of food assistance should be considered in planning humanitarian responses to bridge the gap between emergency assistance and development by promoting children’s education

Inclusive Urbanisation and Cities in the Twenty-First Century

In academic and policy discourse, urbanisation and cities are currently receiving a great deal of attention, and rightly so. Both have been central to the enormous transformation the world has been going through during the past few centuries. Many parts of the world have experienced and are experiencing an urban transformation. While these processes have taken distinct regional forms across Latin America, East and South Asia, and Africa, it is clear that, globally, the urban transformation has coincided with major societal and ecological changes. Some of these developments have been heralded as progress – notably millions of people being lifted out of poverty – while others, such as entrenching inequalities and accelerating climate change, are alarming. In recent years the pro-urban voices have been louder, but accounts of the wonders of cities need to be balanced with a recognition of the violence, inequity and environmentally destructive forces that cities can embody and reproduce. Equally important is to explore how cities and urbanisation can be made to contribute more to human wellbeing and to international and local development goals. This report is particularly concerned with whether and under what conditions more inclusive urbanisation and cities can support these development goals.UK Department for International Developmen

Feeling the Beat: Bouncing Synchronization to Vibrotactile Music in Hearing and Early Deaf People

The ability to dance relies on the ability to synchronize movements to a perceived musical beat. Typically, beat synchronization is studied with auditory stimuli. However, in many typical social dancing situations, music can also be perceived as vibrations when objects that generate sounds also generate vibrations. This vibrotactile musical perception is of particular relevance for deaf people, who rely on non-auditory sensory information for dancing. In the present study, we investigated beat synchronization to vibrotactile electronic dance music in hearing and deaf people. We tested seven deaf and 14 hearing individuals on their ability to bounce in time with the tempo of vibrotactile stimuli (no sound) delivered through a vibrating platform. The corresponding auditory stimuli (no vibrations) were used in an additional condition in the hearing group. We collected movement data using a camera-based motion capture system and subjected it to a phase-locking analysis to assess synchronization quality. The vast majority of participants were able to precisely time their bounces to the vibrations, with no difference in performance between the two groups. In addition, we found higher performance for the auditory condition compared to the vibrotactile condition in the hearing group. Our results thus show that accurate tactile-motor synchronization in a dance-like context occurs regardless of auditory experience, though auditory-motor synchronization is of superior quality

Electronic and physico-chemical properties of nanmetric boron delta-doped diamond structures

Heavily boron doped diamond epilayers with thicknesses ranging from 40 to less than 2 nm and buried between nominally undoped thicker layers have been grown in two different reactors. Two types of [100]-oriented single crystal diamond substrates were used after being characterized by X-ray white beam topography. The chemical composition and thickness of these so-called deltadoped structures have been studied by secondary ion mass spectrometry, transmission electron microscopy, and spectroscopic ellipsometry. Temperature-dependent Hall effect and four probe resistivity measurements have been performed on mesa-patterned Hall bars. The temperature dependence of the hole sheet carrier density and mobility has been investigated over a broad temperature range (6K<T<450 K). Depending on the sample, metallic or non-metallic behavior was observed. A hopping conduction mechanism with an anomalous hopping exponent was detected in the non-metallic samples. All metallic delta-doped layers exhibited the same mobility value, around 3.660.8 cm2/Vs, independently of the layer thickness and the substrate type. Comparison with previously published data and theoretical calculations showed that scattering by ionized impurities explained only partially this low common value. None of the delta-layers showed any sign of confinement-induced mobility enhancement, even for thicknesses lower than 2 nm.14 page

Ataxia with oculomotor apraxia type 2: clinical, biological and genotype/phenotype correlation study of a cohort of 90 patients

Ataxia with oculomotor apraxia type 2 (AOA2) is an autosomal recessive disease due to mutations in the senataxin gene, causing progressive cerebellar ataxia with peripheral neuropathy, cerebellar atrophy, occasional oculomotor apraxia and elevated alpha-feto-protein (AFP) serum level. We compiled a series of 67 previously reported and 58 novel ataxic patients who underwent senataxin gene sequencing because of suspected AOA2. An AOA2 diagnosis was established for 90 patients, originating from 15 countries worldwide, and 25 new senataxin gene mutations were found. In patients with AOA2, median AFP serum level was 31.0 mu g/l at diagnosis, which was higher than the median AFP level of AOA2 negative patients: 13.8 mu g/l, P = 0.0004; itself higher than the normal level (3.4 mu g/l, range from 0.5 to 17.2 mu g/l) because elevated AFP was one of the possible selection criteria. Polyneuropathy was found in 97.5% of AOA2 patients, cerebellar atrophy in 96%, occasional oculomotor apraxia in 51%, pyramidal signs in 20.5%, head tremor in 14%, dystonia in 13.5%, strabismus in 12.3% and chorea in 9.5%. No patient was lacking both peripheral neuropathy and cerebellar atrophy. The age at onset and presence of occasional oculomotor apraxia were negatively correlated to the progression rate of the disease (P = 0.03 and P = 0.009, respectively), whereas strabismus was positively correlated to the progression rate (P = 0.03). An increased AFP level as well as cerebellar atrophy seem to be stable in the course of the disease and to occur mostly at or before the onset of the disease. One of the two patients with a normal AFP level at diagnosis had high AFP levels 4 years later, while the other had borderline levels. The probability of missing AOA2 diagnosis, in case of sequencing senataxin gene only in non-Friedreich ataxia non-ataxia-telangiectasia ataxic patients with AFP level >= 7 mu g/l, is 0.23% and the probability for a non-Friedreich ataxia non-ataxia-telangiectasia ataxic patient to be affected with AOA2 with AFP levels >= 7 mu g/l is 46%. Therefore, selection of patients with an AFP level above 7 mu g/l for senataxin gene sequencing is a good strategy for AOA2 diagnosis. Pyramidal signs and dystonia were more frequent and disease was less severe with missense mutations in the helicase domain of senataxin gene than with missense mutations out of helicase domain and deletion and nonsense mutations (P = 0.001, P = 0.008 and P = 0.01, respectively). The lack of pyramidal signs in most patients may be explained by masking due to severe motor neuropathy

Nouméa: a new multi-mission calibration and validation site for past and future altimetry missions?

Today, monitoring the evolution of sea level in coastal areas is of importance, since almost 11 % of the world's population lives in low-lying areas. Reducing uncertainties in sea level estimates requires a better understanding of both altimetry measurements and local sea level dynamics. In New Caledonia, the Nouméa lagoon is an example of this challenge, as altimetry, coastal tide gauge, and vertical land motions from global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) do not provide consistent information. The GEOCEAN-NC 2019 field campaign addresses this issue with deployments of in situ instruments in the lagoon (GNSS buoy, pressure gauge, etc.), with a particular focus on the crossover of one Jason-series track and two Sentinel-3A missions tracks. In this study, we propose a method to virtually transfer the Nouméa tide gauge at the altimetry crossover point, using in situ data from the field campaign. Following the philosophy of calibration and validation (Cal/Val) studies, we derive absolute altimeter bias time series over the entire Jason and Sentinel-3A periods. Overall, our estimated altimeter mean biases are slightly larger by 1–2 cm compared to Corsica and Bass Strait results, with inter-mission biases in line with those of Bass Strait site. Uncertainties still remain regarding the determination of our vertical datum, only constrained by the three days of the GNSS buoy deployment. With our method, we are able to re-analyse about 20 years of altimetry observations and derive a linear trend of −0.2 ± 0.1 mm yr−1 over the bias time series. Compared to previous studies, we do not find any significant uplift in the area, which is more consistent with the observations of inland permanent GNSS stations. These results support the idea of developing Cal/Val activities in the lagoon, which is already the subject of several experiments for the scientific calibration phase of the SWOT wide-swath altimetry mission.</p

Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease in an Alsatian family: clinical and genetic studies

The clinical progression of Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease in a family of Alsatian origin is reported. The age of onset and the duration of evolution were variable. The clinical picture became more complex over the generations: in the first generations, isolated dementia and in later generations a triad of pyramidal, pseudobulbar syndromes and dementia associated with spinal cord and cerebellar features. Prion gene analysis showed that four surviving patients carry double missense changes at codons 117 and 129, identical to those found in one case at necropsy and 10 other healthy members of the family. The missense changes were not found in 100 controls. No member of the family had modification of condons 102, 178, or 200. The lod score suggests linkage between the missense change at codon 117 and Gerstmann- Straussler-Scheinker disease in this family

Characteristics of Correlated Photon Pairs Generated in Ultra-compact Silicon Slow-light Photonic Crystal Waveguides

We report the characterization of correlated photon pairs generated in dispersion-engineered silicon slow-light photonic crystal waveguides pumped by picosecond pulses. We found that taking advantage of the 15 nm flat-band slow-light window (vg ~ c/30) the bandwidth for correlated photon-pair generation in 96 and 196 \mum long waveguides was at least 11.2 nm; while a 396 \mum long waveguide reduced the bandwidth to 8 nm (only half of the slow-light bandwidth due to the increased impact of phase matching in a longer waveguide). The key metrics for a photon-pair source: coincidence to accidental ratio (CAR) and pair brightness were measured to be a maximum 33 at a pair generation rate of 0.004 pair per pulse in a 196 \mum long waveguide. Within the measurement errors the maximum CAR achieved in 96, 196 and 396 \mum long waveguides is constant. The noise analysis shows that detector dark counts, leaked pump light, linear and nonlinear losses, multiple pair generation and detector jitter are the limiting factors to the CAR performance of the sources.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure