Improvement of the GEOS-5 AGCM upon Updating the Air-Sea Roughness Parameterization

The impact of an air-sea roughness parameterization over the ocean that more closely matches recent observations of air-sea exchange is examined in the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System, version 5 (GEOS-5) atmospheric general circulation model. Surface wind biases in the GEOS-5 AGCM are decreased by up to 1.2m/s. The new parameterization also has implications aloft as improvements extend into the stratosphere. Many other GCMs (both for operational weather forecasting and climate) use a similar class of parameterization for their air-sea roughness scheme. We therefore expect that results from GEOS-5 are relevant to other models as well

Size-Dependent Transition to High-Dimensional Chaotic Dynamics in a Two-Dimensional Excitable Medium

The spatiotemporal dynamics of an excitable medium with multiple spiral defects is shown to vary smoothly with system size from short-lived transients for small systems to extensive chaos for large systems. A comparison of the Lyapunov dimension density with the average spiral defect density suggests an average dimension per spiral defect varying between three and seven. We discuss some implications of these results for experimental studies of excitable media.Comment: 5 pages, Latex, 4 figure

Design Principles for Aqueous Interactive Materials: Lessons from Small Molecules and Stimuli-Responsive Systems.

Interactive materials are at the forefront of current materials research with few examples in the literature. Researchers are inspired by nature to develop materials that can modulate and adapt their behavior in accordance with their surroundings. Stimuli-responsive systems have been developed over the past decades which, although often described as "smart," lack the ability to act autonomously. Nevertheless, these systems attract attention on account of the resultant materials' ability to change their properties in a predicable manner. These materials find application in a plethora of areas including drug delivery, artificial muscles, etc. Stimuli-responsive materials are serving as the precursors for next-generation interactive materials. Interest in these systems has resulted in a library of well-developed chemical motifs; however, there is a fundamental gap between stimuli-responsive and interactive materials. In this perspective, current state-of-the-art stimuli-responsive materials are outlined with a specific emphasis on aqueous macroscopic interactive materials. Compartmentalization, critical for achieving interactivity, relies on hydrophobic, hydrophilic, supramolecular, and ionic interactions, which are commonly present in aqueous systems and enable complex self-assembly processes. Relevant examples of aqueous interactive materials that do exist are given, and design principles to realize the next generation of materials with embedded autonomous function are suggested.JAM thanks ESPRC for an IAA KTF M is grateful for a Newton International Fellowship OAS is thankful to ERC Consolidator Grant CAM-RI

Predicting wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) using DARC (detecting apoptosing retinal cells) AI (artificial intelligence) technology

Objectives: To assess a recently described CNN (convolutional neural network) DARC (Detection of Apoptosing Retinal Cells) algorithm in predicting new Subretinal Fluid (SRF) formation in Age-related-Macular-Degeneration (AMD). Methods: Anonymized DARC, baseline and serial OCT images (n = 427) from 29 AMD eyes of Phase 2 clinical trial (ISRCTN10751859) were assessed with CNN algorithms, enabling the location of each DARC spot on corresponding OCT slices (n = 20,629). Assessment of DARC in a rabbit model of angiogenesis was performed in parallel. Results: A CNN DARC count >5 at baseline was significantly (p = 0.0156) related to development of new SRF throughout 36 months. Prediction rate of eyes using unique DARC spots overlying new SRF had positive predictive values, sensitivities and specificities >70%, with DARC count significantly (p < 0.005) related to the magnitude of SRF accumulation at all time points. DARC identified earliest stages of angiogenesis in-vivo. Conclusions: DARC was able to predict new wet-AMD activity. Using only an OCT-CNN definition of new SRF, we demonstrate that DARC can identify early endothelial neovascular activity, as confirmed by rabbit studies. Although larger validation studies are required, this shows the potential of DARC as a biomarker of wet AMD, and potentially saving vision-loss

The influence of ‘topic and resource’ on some aspects of social theorising

Developments in sociological theory since the 1960s have been responses to disciplinary problems rather than changes in fashion. The problem of topic and resource—where sociology has to use everyday understandings and practices as study resources even though they are legitimate topics of enquiry—has been an important and sometimes neglected spur to many of these developments. The turn to discourse, conversation analysis and the rise of Bourdieu's reflexivity are all attempts to address the problem, but each is shown to be unsatisfactory in different ways. In summary, they seek to address the issue as requiring either a principled methodological or a principled theoretical solution, and neither approach is capable of comprehensively addressing the matter. It is argued that these ‘solutions’ depend, in turn, on one of two particular construals of what the ‘problem’ consists in, neither of which is necessary or coherent. Each, it is argued, depends on a philosophical trick: making language out to need formal improvement (the Bertrand Russell trick) or introducing inappropriate scepticism to everyday life (the René Descartes trick). It is suggested that treating topic and resource not as a problem but as something which opens up new areas of investigation successfully deflates the issue and avoids unnecessary theoretical and methodological contortions

When veiled silences speak: reflexivity, trouble and repair as methodological tools for interpreting the unspoken in discourse-based data

Researchers who have attempted to make sense of silence in data have generally considered literal silences or such things as laughter. We consider the analysis of veiled silences where participants speak, but their speaking serves as ‘noise’ that ‘veils’, or masks, their inability or unwillingness to talk about a (potentially sensitive) topic. Extending Lisa Mazzei’s ‘problematic of silence’ by using our performativity-performance analytical method, we propose the purposeful use of ‘unusual conversational moves’, the deployment of researcher reflexivity, and the analysis of trouble and repair as methods to expose taken-for-granted normative frameworks in veiled silences. We illustrate the potential of these research practices through reference to our study on men’s involvement in reproductive decision-making, in which participants demonstrated an inability to engage with the topic. The veiled silence that this produced, together with what was said, pointed to the operation of procreative heteronormativity

Feminist phenomenology and the woman in the running body

Modern phenomenology, with its roots in Husserlian philosophy, has been taken up and utilised in a myriad of ways within different disciplines, but until recently has remained relatively under-used within sports studies. A corpus of sociological-phenomenological work is now beginning to develop in this domain, alongside a longer standing literature in feminist phenomenology. These specific social-phenomenological forms explore the situatedness of lived-body experience within a particular social structure. After providing a brief overview of key strands of phenomenology, this article considers some of the ways in which sociological, and particularly feminist phenomenology, might be used to analyse female sporting embodiment. For illustrative purposes, data from an autophenomenographic project on female distance running are also included, in order briefly to demonstrate the application of phenomenology within sociology, as both theoretical framework and methodological approach