The KINDRA project – towards Open Science in Hydrogeology for higher impact

Groundwater knowledge and research in the European Union is often scattered and non-standardised. Therefore, KINDRA is conducting an EU-wide assessment of existing groundwater-related practical and scientific knowledge based on a new Hydrogeological Research Classification System (HRC-SYS). The classification is supported by a web service, the European Inventory of Groundwater Research (EIGR), which acts not only as a knowledge repository but also as a tool to help identify relevant research topics, existing research trends and critical research challenges. These results will be useful for producing synergies, implementing policies and optimising water management in Europe. This article presents the work of the project during the first two years in relation to a common classification system and an activity for data collection and training delivered by the EFG’s National Associations in 20 European countries

Ex vivo treatment of patient biopsies as a novel method to assess colorectal tumour response to the MEK1/2 inhibitor, Selumetinib

Abstract Although an array of new therapeutics has emerged for the treatment of colorectal cancer, their use is significantly impacted by variability in patient response. Better pre-clinical models could substantially improve efficacy as it may allow stratification of patients into the correct treatment regime. Here we explore acute, ex vivo treatment of fresh, surgically resected human colorectal tumour biopsies as a novel pre-clinical model for identifying patient response to specific therapeutics. The MEK1/2 inhibitor, Selumetinib (AZD6244, ARRY-142886) was used as a tool compound. Firstly, we established an acute treatment protocol and demonstrated this protocol could differentiate phenotypic and pharmacodynamic responses to Selumetinib (0–3uM). We then used the protocol to evaluate Selumetinib response in tumours from 23 colon cancer patients. These studies revealed that the agent inhibited pERK1/2 phosphorylation in all tumours, caused a significant decrease in proliferation in 5/23 (22%) tumours, and that KRAS/BRAF mutant tumours were particularly sensitive to the anti-proliferative effects of the agent. These data are consistent with data from clinical trials of Selumetinib, suggesting that acute treatment of small tumour biopsies is worthy of further exploration as a pre-clinical model to evaluate colorectal cancer response to novel therapies

A generic approach to parameterize the turbulent energy of single-epoch atmospheric delays from InSAR time-series

The observed phase in time series of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) products is a superposition of various components. Differential topography, line-of-sight displacements, and differential atmospheric delays are the main contributions and need to be disentangled to derive accurate digital elevation model (DEM), deformation, or atmospherical products from InSAR. However, isolating the atmospheric component has been proven difficult as it is spatiotemporally highly dynamic and a superposition of two atmospheric states. Here, we propose an approach to parameterize the stochastic properties of the single-epoch atmospheric delay field as a way to define the atmospheric signal. We found that the atmospheric signal of a time series of interferograms can be characterized by structure functions, which can be used to isolate the single-epoch structure functions. Due to the scaling properties of the atmospheric signal, it is then possible to construct a parametric function per SAR acquisition, using two isotropic and three anisotropic parameters. In particular, the isotropic parameters for the short-distance variation and long-distance variation in atmospheric delay can be used to characterize the atmospheric signal. For a test set of 151 Sentinel-1 acquisitions, this results in an atmospheric energy range of about 10 for short-distance scales and about 50 for long-distance scales. Our parameterization demonstrates that we can describe the spatiotemporal variability of InSAR atmospheric delays, which provides a measure for atmospheric noise for individual epochs in deformation time series based on distance and azimuth.Geoscience and Remote SensingMathematical Geodesy and Positionin

Towards assimilation of InSAR data in operational weather models

InSAR signal delays due to the varying atmospheric refractivity are a potential data source to improve weathermodels [1]. Especially with the launch of the new Sentinel-1 satellites, which increases data coverage, latency andaccessibility, it may become possible to operationalize the assimilation of differential integrated refractivity (DIR)values in numerical weather models. Although studies exist on comparison between InSAR data and weathermodels [2], the impact of assimilation of DIR values in an operational weather model has never been assessed. Inthis study we present different ways to assimilate DIR values in an operational weather model and show the firstforecast results