De geleefde ervaring van opnamegesprekken. Een fenomenologisch onderzoek binnen de Zorgethiek.

Op mijn werk, een verpleeghuis van zorginstelling Pieter van Foreest (PvF), locatie de Kreek, gaat men het verbeterplan Waardig verhuizen naar een verpleeghuis begint thuis honoreren. Dit zal de overgang naar een verpleeghuis en de opnamegesprekken waardiger moeten maken. Binnen de zorgethiek is nog niet eerder onderzoek gedaan naar hoe opnamegesprekken binnen verpleeghuizen worden ervaren. In dit onderzoek is middels een fenomenologische onderzoeksmethode de geleefde ervaring van verzorgenden, artsen, cliënten en mantelzorgers betreffende het fenomeen opnamegesprekken onderzocht. Met inzichten, verkregen uit een theoretisch kader, is de empirische data verzameld. Deze data is opgedaan door vier opnamegesprekken te observeren en vervolgens de betrokken partijen te interviewen. Drie opnamegesprekken zijn op de psychogeriatrische afdelingen onderzocht. Vanwege het dementiesyndroom is met de cliënten van deze afdelingen geen interview afgenomen. Het vierde onderzochte opnamegesprek vond plaats op een somatische cliënt. De verzamelde data is gecodeerd. Hier zijn verschillende thema’s uit naar voren gekomen. Deze bevindingen zijn vervolgens kritisch zorgethisch bediscussieerd. Uit de bevindingen blijkt dat een waardig opnamegesprek nog niet voldoende bereikt wordt. Cliënten kunnen zich bijvoorbeeld niet voldoende ontplooien en alle partijen voelen zich kwetsbaar, afhankelijk en niet voldoende erkend in een opnamegesprek. Wel zijn er een aantal inzichten opgedaan, welke mogelijk bij kunnen dragen aan een waardig opnamegesprek. Zo werd engrossment vanuit de theorie aanbevolen, om een zo’n goed mogelijke zorgrelatie aan te gaan. Echter, engrossment blijkt niet volledig haalbaar binnen een opnamegesprek. Het concept motivational displacement lijkt hieraan bij te kunnen dragen. Daarnaast wordt aanbevolen om meer embodiment te laten plaatsvinden in het opnamegesprek, waardoor een beter insiders perspectief aangenomen kan worden. Ook heerst er bij verzorgenden en mantelzorgers een gevoel van verplichtingen rondom regels, protocollen en richtlijnen. Deze verplichtingen gaan met name over het invullen van stapels formulieren. Doordat verzorgenden en artsen met name bezig zijn met wat vanuit de institutie en systemen ‘ moet’, gaan zij voorbij aan de noden van de ander, waardoor ook geen engrossment plaats kan vinden en alle partijen te weinig erkend worden tijdens het opnamegesprek. Het amendement van Kittay (1999) op het vulnerability model, waarin zij schetst dat de omgeving van de verzorgenden en artsen een morele verantwoordelijkheid heeft, lijkt ook binnen opnamegesprekken van toepassing. Concluderend zijn er zeer zeker momenten waarop een opnamegesprek wel als waardig wordt ervaren door alle partijen. Echter, helaas lijken deze momenten in de schaduw te staan van andere ervaringen. Deze ervaringen staan een waardig opnamegesprek in de weg. Met name vanuit de institutie zou veel meer aandacht mogen zijn voor deze ervaringen, waarbij bijvoorbeeld trainingen van verzorgenden en artsen en een gesprek voorafgaand aan het opnamegesprek zouden kunnen helpen

The ECOMS User Data Gateway: Towards seasonal forecast data provision and research reproducibility in the era of Climate Services

Sectorial applications of seasonal forecasting require data for a reduced number of variables from different datasets, mainly (gridded) observations, reanalysis, and predictions from state-of-the-art seasonal forecast systems (such as NCEP/CFSv2, ECMWF/System4 or UKMO/GloSea5). Whilst this information can be obtained directly from the data providers, the resulting formats, temporal aggregations, and vocabularies may not be homogeneous across datasets. Moreover, different data policies hold for the different databases, being only some of them publicly available. Therefore, obtaining and harmonizing multi-model seasonal forecast data for sector-specific applications is an error-prone, time consuming task. In order to facilitate this, the ECOMS User Data Gateway (ECOMS-UDG) was developed in the framework of the ECOMS initiative as a one-stop-service for climate data. To this aim, the variables required by end users were identified, downloaded from the data providers and locally stored as virtual datasets in a THREDDS Data Server (TDS), implementing fine-grained user management and authorization via the THREDDS Access Portal (TAP). As a result, users can retrieve the subsets best suited to their particular research needs in a user-friendly manner using the standard TDS data services. Moreover, an open source, R-based interface for data access and postprocessing was developed in the form of a bundle of packages implementing harmonized data access (one single vocabulary), data collocation, bias adjustment and downscaling, and forecast visualization and validation. This provides a unique comprehensive framework for end-to-end applications of seasonal predictions, hence favoring the reproducibility of the ECOMS scientific outcomes, extensible to the whole scientific community.We thank the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program [FP7/2007–2013] under Grant Agreements 308291 (EUPORIAS Project) and 308378 (SPECS Project). This project took advantage of THREDDS Data Server (TDS) software developed by UCAR/Unidata (http://doi.org/10.5065/D6N014KG). We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and comments

Changing Seasonal Rainfall Distribution With Climate Directs Contrasting Impacts at Evapotranspiration and Water Yield in the Western Mediterranean Region

Over the past century, climate change has been reflected in altered precipitation regimes worldwide. Because evapotranspiration is sensitive to both water availability and atmospheric demand for water vapor, it is essential to assess the likely consequences of future changes of these climate variables to evapotranspiration and, thus, runoff. We propose a simplified approach for annual evapotranspiration predictions, based on seasonal evapotranspiration estimates, accounting for the strong seasonality of meteorological conditions typical of Mediterranean climate, still holding the steady state assumption of basin water balance at mean annual scale. Sardinian runoff decreased over the 1975-2010 period by more than 40% compared to the preceding 1922-1974 period. Most of annual runoff in Sardinian basins is produced by winter precipitation, a wet season with relatively high evaporation rates. We derived linear seasonal evapotranspiration responses to seasonal precipitation, and, in turn, a relationship between the parameters of the linear functions and the seasonal vapor pressure deficit (D), accounting for residuals with basin properties. We then used these relationships to predict evapotranspiration and runoff using future Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate scenarios, considering changing precipitation and D seasonality. We show that evapotranspiration is insensitive to D scenario changes. Although both evapotranspiration and runoff are sensitive to precipitation seasonality, future changes in runoff are related only to changes of winter precipitation, while evapotranspiration changes are related to those of spring and summer precipitation. Future scenario predicting further runoff decline is particularly alarming for the Sardinian water resources system, requiring new strategies and designs in water resources planning and management.Peer reviewe

Forecasting the European carbon market

In an effort to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, in 2005 the European Union introduced a cap-and-trade scheme where mandated installations are allocated permits to emit CO2. Financial markets have developed that allow companies to trade these carbon permits. For the EU to achieve reductions in CO2 emissions at a minimum cost, it is necessary that companies make appropriate investments and policymakers design optimal policies. In an effort to clarify the workings of the carbon market, several recent papers have attempted to statistically model it. However, the European carbon market (EU ETS) has many institutional features that potentially impact on daily carbon prices (and associated …nancial futures). As a consequence, the carbon market has properties that are quite di¤erent from conventional financial assets traded in mature markets. In this paper, we use dynamic model averaging (DMA) in order to forecast in this newly-developing market. DMA is a recently-developed statistical method which has three advantages over conventional approaches. First, it allows the coefficients on the predictors in a forecasting model to change over time. Second, it allows for the entire forecasting model to change over time. Third, it surmounts statistical problems which arise from the large number of potential predictors that can explain carbon prices. Our empirical results indicate that there are both important policy and statistical benefits with our approach. Statistically, we present strong evidence that there is substantial turbulence and change in the EU ETS market, and that DMA can model these features and forecast accurately compared to conventional approaches. From a policy perspective, we discuss the relative and changing role of different price drivers in the EU ETS. Finally, we document the forecast performance of DMA and discuss how this relates to the efficiency and maturity of this market

Stilling project: advances in the compilation and homogenization of historical wind speed data for the assessment of the stilling phenomenon

Póster presentado en: EGU General Assembly 2018 celebrada del 8 al 13 de abril en Viena, Austria.During the last decade scientists have reported a terrestrial slowdown in wind speed across the world. This weakening in wind speed has been recently termed the “stilling” phenomenon, with a worldwide average trend of -0.140 m s-1 decade-1 reported since the 1960s. The precise causes of this “stilling” remain largely uncertain and have been hypothetically attributed to several factors, mainly related to an increase in surface roughness (i.e. forest growth, land use changes, and urbanization) with little attention paid to changes in atmospheric circulation. Unlike this “stilling” over land, satellite measurements have revealed that wind speed has increased over ocean surfaces, which introduces uncertainty to the “stilling” debate. Therefore, scientists are currently debating if global warming has and will impact on changes in wind speed.The uncertainty on the causes driving the “stilling” over land is mainly due to short availability (i.e. since the 1960s) and low quality of observed wind speed records as stated by the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the recent report “State of the Climate in 2015” . The main objective of the ongoing EU funded project STILLING (MSCAIF-2015 GA-703733) is to fill the key gap of short availability and low quality of wind speed datasets, and improve the limited knowledge on the causes driving the “stilling” in a climate change scenario. This has not yet been addressed by the scientific community due to (i) scientists have traditionally paid little attention on variability of wind speed; (ii) digitization of climate series at National Weather Services (NWS) systematically started in the 1960s, however, some longer but isolated past wind speed records are available for scientists to be rescued and analyzed; and (iii) efforts on advances in homogenization algorithms to improve quality of wind speed series have been scarce. The STILLING project covers a novel research niche on the “stilling” debate, and this contribution will present the advances in the compilation and homogenization of historical wind speed data (prior to the 1960s) to better assess trends/cycles and causes on multidecadal time periods and reliable datasets than previous studies.This research has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 703733 (STILLING project)

Extreme Value Statistics of the Total Energy in an Intermediate Complexity Model of the Mid-latitude Atmospheric Jet. Part I: Stationary case

A baroclinic model for the atmospheric jet at middle-latitudes is used as a stochastic generator of time series of the total energy of the system. Statistical inference of extreme values is applied to yearly maxima sequences of the time series, in the rigorous setting provided by extreme value theory. In particular, the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) family of distributions is used here. Several physically realistic values of the parameter $T_E$, descriptive of the forced equator-to-pole temperature gradient and responsible for setting the average baroclinicity in the atmospheric model, are examined. The location and scale GEV parameters are found to have a piecewise smooth, monotonically increasing dependence on $T_E$. This is in agreement with the similar dependence on $T_E$ observed in the same system when other dynamically and physically relevant observables are considered. The GEV shape parameter also increases with $T_E$ but is always negative, as \textit{a priori} required by the boundedness of the total energy of the system. The sensitivity of the statistical inference process is studied with respect to the selection procedure of the maxima: the roles of both the length of maxima sequences and of the length of data blocks over which the maxima are computed are critically analyzed. Issues related to model sensitivity are also explored by varying the resolution of the system