Quality quantifier of indirect measurements

A quality quantifier, referred to as measurement quality quantifier (MQQ), is proposed for indirect measurements. It satisfies the property that the MQQ of the data fusion of two or more independent measurements is the sum of the MQQs of the individual measurements and can also be determined in absolute terms for ill-posed problems. It is calculated from the covariance and Jacobian matrices of the observations, but the same result is also obtained using the covariance and averaging kernel matrices of the retrieved quantities. In the case of measurements of a continuous distribution a quantifier that provides the information distribution can be derived from the MQQ. The proposed quantifiers are herewith used for the quality assessment of atmospheric ozone measurements performed by IASI and MIPAS instruments

Optimal use of the information provided by indirect measurements of atmospheric vertical profiles

A procedure for the optimal utilization and representation of the information retrieved from atmospheric observations is discussed. We show that the "measurement-space solution" exclusively contains the information present in the observations, but is not suitable for a representation of the retrieved profile in the form of a graph. The new method of the "null-space regularization", which provides in a complement space an external constraint and makes the solution compliant with this representation, is presented. In this way the measurement and the constraint are separately determined and are given in a vertical grid that can be freely chosen as fine as desired. The method is applied to simulated measurements and is used to define a procedure for data fusion

The average of atmospheric vertical profiles

A new method to perform averages of atmospheric vertical profiles is presented. The method allows changing a-posteriori the strength of the constraint used in the retrievals of the single profiles with the purpose of optimizing the trade-off between measurement error and vertical resolution. The method is used to calculate averages of HCFC-22 profiles retrieved from MIPAS observations, demonstrating the possibility of correctly obtaining retrievals with smaller constraints (that is: having at least a factor ten greater errors) and more degrees of freedom by up to a factor two

L∞-Algebras of Classical Field Theories and the Batalin-Vilkovisky Formalism

We review in detail the Batalin–Vilkovisky formalism for Lagrangian field theories and its mathematical foundations with an emphasis on higher algebraic structures and classical field theories. In particular, we show how a field theory gives rise to an L∞‐algebra and how quasi‐isomorphisms between L∞‐algebras correspond to classical equivalences of field theories. A few experts may be familiar with parts of our discussion, however, the material is presented from the perspective of a very general notion of a gauge theory. We also make a number of new observations and present some new results. Most importantly, we discuss in great detail higher (categorified) Chern–Simons theories and give some useful shortcuts in usually rather involved computations

Technical Note: Regularization performances with the error consistency method in the case of retrieved atmospheric profiles

International audienceThe retrieval of concentration vertical profiles of atmospheric constituents from spectroscopic measurements is often an ill-conditioned problem and regularization methods are frequently used to improve its stability. Recently a new method, that provides a good compromise between precision and vertical resolution, was proposed to determine analytically the value of the regularization parameter. This method is applied for the first time to real measurements with its implementation in the operational retrieval code of the satellite limb-emission measurements of the MIPAS instrument and its performances are quantitatively analyzed. The adopted regularization improves the stability of the retrieval providing smooth profiles without major degradation of the vertical resolution. In the analyzed measurements the retrieval procedure provides a vertical resolution that, in the troposphere and low stratosphere, is smaller than the vertical field of view of the instrument

Iatrogenic pathology of the urinary bladder

Intravesical immunotherapy, chemotherapy, and neoadjuvant systemic chemotherapy are among the most frequent therapeutic procedures to treat malignancies of the urinary bladder. These treatment modalities produce reactive morphologic changes in the urothelium that can mimic urothelial carcinoma in situ, urothelial dysplasia or true invasive urothelial neoplasia. Mitomycin C used after transurethral resection of bladder tumor to reduce recurrences, BCG intravesical immunotherapy to treat high risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer and urothelial carcinoma in situ, and platinum-based systemic chemotherapy to improve post-cystectomy disease-specific survival some of the causes of therapy related atypia in urinary bladder. In addition, a number of systemic drugs in use to treat other systemic diseases, such as cyclophosphamide used to treat certain auto-immune disorders or hematologic malignancies, or the anesthetics ketamine increasingly used as illegal recreational drug, may produce similarly relevant atypical changes in the urothelium, and therefore, need to be differentiated from intraepithelial neoplasia. Immunohistochemical approach to reactive urothelium from CIS using CK20, p53, and CD44 may also be of utility in the pos-therapy scenario

Phosgene in the UTLS: seasonal and latitudinal variations from MIPAS observations

Abstract. The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) is a Fourier transform spectrometer that measured mid-infrared atmospheric limb emission spectra from July 2002 to April 2012 on board the polar-orbiting satellite ENVISAT. We have used MIPAS data to study the latitudinal variations of phosgene (COCl2 or carbonyl chloride) and, for the first time, its seasonal variation in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere region (UTLS). Retrievals of phosgene were made using the 830–860 cm−1 region, corresponding to the ν5 bands of COCl2. Unfortunately, in that region, the ν4 band of CFC-11, which is much stronger than COCl2 ν5, hides the phosgene emission. In order to evaluate seasonality and latitudinal distribution of phosgene we have analysed all the measurements made by MIPAS on days 18 and 20 of each month of 2008 with the optimized retrieval model (ORM) recently upgraded with the multi-target retrieval technique and with the optimal estimation functionality to apply external constraints to the state vector. Average seasonal profiles of phosgene show an evident latitudinal variability with the largest values observed in the tropical regions (maximum  ≈  35 parts per trillion by volume (pptv) at about 300 hPa). In the midlatitude and polar regions, the volume mixing ratio (VMR) values do not exceed 30 pptv and the vertical distributions are less peaked. Our analysis highlights that COCl2 seasonal variability is fairly low, apart from the polar regions