Aesthetics and literature : a problematic relation?

The paper argues that there is a proper place for literature within aesthetics but that care must be taken in identifying just what the relation is. In characterising aesthetic pleasure associated with literature it is all too easy to fall into reductive accounts, for example, of literature as merely "fine writing". Belleslettrist or formalistic accounts of literature are rejected, as are two other kinds of reduction, to pure meaning properties and to a kind of narrative realism. The idea is developed that literature-both poetry and prose fiction-invites its own distinctive kind of aesthetic appreciation which far from being at odds with critical practice, in fact chimes well with it

Maintenance of polar stratospheric clouds in a moist stratosphere

Previous work has shown that polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) could have acted to substantially warm high latitude regions during past warm climates such as the Eocene (55 Ma). Using a simple model of stratospheric water vapor transport and polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) formation, we investigate the dependence of PSC optical depth on tropopause temperature, cloud microphysical parameters, stratospheric overturning, and tropospheric methane. We show that PSC radiative effects can help slow removal of water from the stratosphere via self-heating. However, we also show that the ability of PSCs to have a substantial impact on climate depends strongly on the PSC particle number density and the strength of the overturning circulation. Thus even a large source of stratospheric water vapor (e.g. from methane oxidation) will not result in substantial PSC radiative effects unless PSC ice crystal number density is high compared to most current observations, and stratospheric overturning (which modulates polar stratospheric temperatures) is low. These results are supported by analysis of a series of runs of the NCAR WACCM model with methane concentrations varying up to one thousand times present levels

Redefining Performance Evaluation Tools for Real-Time QRS Complex Classification Systems

International audienceIn a heartbeat classification procedure, the detection of QRS complex waveforms is necessary. In many studies, this heartbeat extraction function is not considered: the inputs of the classifier are assumed to be correctly identified. This paper aims to redefine classical performance evaluation tools in entire QRS complex classification systems and to evaluate the effects induced by QRS detection errors on the performance of a heartbeat classification processing (normal vs abnormal). Performance statistics are given and discussed considering the MIT/BIH database records that are replayed on a real-time classification system imposed of the classical detector proposed by Hamilton & Tompkins, followed by a neural network classifier. This study shows that a classification accuracy of 96.72% falls to 94.90% when a drop of 1.78% error rate is introduced in the detector quality. This corresponds an increase of about 50% bad classifications

How would farmers in the French Alps adapt their systems to different drought and socio-economic context scenarios?

International audienceThe French Alps are considered as an area that is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Several droughts have already occurred since 2003. In order to assess the ability of farming systems to adapt to future drought events, we developed prospective scenarios combining different climatic and socio-economic contexts. Four scenarios were defined based on (i) prospective studies conducted at national and international levels, and (ii) a participatory approach with various stakeholders to transcribe these scenarios at a local level. Farmers and shepherds in the Vercors and Oisans massifs were surveyed in order to understand how they had reacted to previous droughts, and how they would plan to react to our scenarios. Results show first that the farmers would strive to continue their activity in each scenario, taking advantage of the flexibility of their farming systems, as in previous years. However, in the most pessimistic climatic scenario, they would also decrease the size of their herds. Depending on the socio-economic hypothesis, they would adopt farm structural changes (farm processing activities, direct selling, etc.), or look for part-time non-agricultural jobs. Three types of strategies were identified, depending on the farmers' objectives and adjustments. Finally, public policies to accompany these changes are considered

Projected changes of extreme weather events in the eastern United States based on a high resolution climate modeling system

This study is the first evaluation of dynamical downscaling using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model on a 4 km × 4 km high resolution scale in the eastern US driven by the new Community Earth System Model version 1.0 (CESM v1.0). First we examined the global and regional climate model results, and corrected an inconsistency in skin temperature during the downscaling process by modifying the land/sea mask. In comparison with observations, WRF shows statistically significant improvement over CESM in reproducing extreme weather events, with improvement for heat wave frequency estimation as high as 98%. The fossil fuel intensive scenario Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 was used to study a possible future mid-century climate extreme in 2057–9. Both the heat waves and the extreme precipitation in 2057–9 are more severe than the present climate in the Eastern US. The Northeastern US shows large increases in both heat wave intensity (3.05 °C higher) and annual extreme precipitation (107.3 mm more per year). doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/04402

Nighttime atmospheric chemistry of iodine

Little attention has so far been paid to the nighttime atmospheric chemistry of iodine species. Current atmospheric models predict a buildup of HOI and I₂ during the night that leads to a spike of IO at sunrise, which is not observed by measurements. In this work, electronic structure calculations are used to survey possible reactions that HOI and I₂ could undergo at night in the lower troposphere, and hence reduce their nighttime accumulation. The new reaction NO₃+ HOI  →  IO + HNO₃ is proposed, with a rate coefficient calculated from statistical rate theory over the temperature range 260–300 K and at a pressure of 1000 hPa to be k(T)  =  2.7  ×  10¯¹² (300 K/T)²·⁶⁶ cm³ molecule¯¹ s¯¹. This reaction is included in two atmospheric models, along with the known reaction between I₂ and NO₃, to explore a new nocturnal iodine radical activation mechanism. The results show that this iodine scheme leads to a considerable reduction of nighttime HOI and I₂, which results in the enhancement of more than 25 % of nighttime ocean emissions of HOI +I₂ and the removal of the anomalous spike of IO at sunrise. We suggest that active nighttime iodine can also have a considerable, so far unrecognized, impact on the reduction of the NO₃ radical levels in the marine boundary layer (MBL) and hence upon the nocturnal oxidizing capacity of the marine atmosphere. The effect of this is exemplified by the indirect effect on dimethyl sulfide (DMS) oxidation