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Towards the assimilation of atmospheric CO2 concentration data in a land surface model using adjoint-free variational methods
Get PDFA comprehensive understanding and accurate modelling of the terrestrial carbon cycle are of paramount importance to improve projections of the global carbon cycle and more accurately gauge its impact on global climate systems. Land surface models, which have become an important component of weather and climate applications, simulate key aspects of the terrestrial carbon cycle, such as photosynthesis and respiration. These models rely on parameterisations that require careful calibration. In this study we explore the assimilation of atmospheric CO2 concentration data for parameter calibration of the ORganizing Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic EcosystEms (ORCHIDEE) land surface model using an EnVarDA method, an adjoint-free ensemble-variational data assimilation method. By circumventing the challenges associated with developing and maintaining tangent linear and adjoint models, the EnVarDA method offers a very promising alternative. Using synthetic observations generated through a twin experiment, we demonstrate the ability of EnVarDA to assimilate atmospheric CO2 concentrations for model parameter calibration. We then compare the results to a VarDA method that uses finite differences to estimate tangent linear and adjoint models, which reveals that EnVarDA is superior in terms of computational efficiency, fit to the observations, and parameter recovery
Promoting pharmacovigilance through educational strategies: impact of a national training intervention on the knowledge and practice of healthcare providers in Jordan
Get PDFBackground
This study assessed how an educational intervention affected healthcare providers’ knowledge and practice of pharmacovigilance (PV) principles, with an emphasis on enhancing the reporting ADRs.
Methods
In this cross-sectional study, a structured questionnaire was utilised. A pre- and post-educational intervention design was used to assess the influence of a PV workshop on ADRs reporting in Jordan. The PV educational workshop was a one-year interactive session that addressed core PV principles.
Results
A total of 250 healthcare providers participated in the study, including 14 general physicians (5.6%), 15 specialist physicians (6%), 93 pharmacists (37.2%), 51 clinical pharmacists (20.4%), 58 nurses (23.2%), 3 midwives (1.2%), and 16 others (6.4%). A positive trend in participants’ familiarity with the PV term was shown, with 69.6% of respondents expressing improvement post-workshop. After the workshop, more than 70% of participants agreed that the reporting of ADRs increased. The utilisation of electronic forms for reporting ADRs was reported to be increased among 68.4% of participants. Regarding the improvement in the awareness of delayed ADRs, clinical pharmacists had higher knowledge scores (3.04) compared to general physicians (2.50; p = 0.041). Clinical pharmacists had a higher practice score (3.92) regarding the frequency of filling up a suspected ADR form compared to nurses (3.53; p = 0.042). When comparing the period before to after launching the workshop, the number of reported cases of ADRs increased from 546 to 1060, and the number of reported ADRs increased from 1216 to 1763.
Conclusion
The educational intervention improved healthcare providers’ knowledge and practices related to PV and ADR reporting. These findings highlight the importance of targeted training initiatives in strengthening PV systems and promoting a culture of safety within healthcare settings
Migrants' right to membership of political parties: reappraisal
No full textAbsent state regulation, is it legally permissible and normatively plausible for national political parties to require persons to be citizens in order to join as members, or to admit only some non-citizens based on their foreign nationality? Whereas international human rights law, most prominently Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), neither requires states to nor prohibits them from granting migrants the right to vote in all elections, citizenship-based restrictions on other political rights, including the right to join political parties must be justified: the right to freedom of association, which Article 22 of the ICCPR requires contracting states to grant 'everyone', includes the right to join political parties qua associations. This article's central contention is that, doctrinally and normatively, the imposition by political parties of citizenship-based criteria for their membership is prima facie suspect. While parties may present exclusion of migrants qua migrants as ideologically driven, such exclusion can be democratically corrosive, by undermining migrants' ability to fully and meaningfully participate in their state of residence and impoverishing public discourse. They can also mask discriminatory intentions. Using South Africa as its case study, the article appraises its political and constitutional position in light of the Constitutional Court's jurisprudence on regulation of political parties. Critiquing the near-exclusive reliance on section 19 of the Bill of Rights, the article posits that resorting to section 18 analysis would enable the Court to reconcile South Africa's constitutional framework with international human rights law
Examining the impact of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 on refugee women
No full textThe Nationality and Borders Act 2022 was enacted despite significant opposition from refugee charity and legal sectors. It is without question that the Act changes the domestic landscape of the refugee status determination system and has the potential to also negatively influence refugee status determinations in other jurisdictions. There are several sections of the Act that are particularly problematic for women’s claims of asylum. The Act reverses well-established international and regional human rights and refugee law prin-ciples and standards. The reversal in some cases of decades of jurisprudence on the inter-pretation of the Refugee Convention poses a concern for the integrity of the law and ad-ministrative justice. While the Act imposes barriers for all claimants, it disproportionately affects some of the most complex cases, including refugee women fleeing gender-based persecution. Of the various changes brought about by the Act, this article focuses on three that are particularly relevant to women asylum seekers; first the regressive way in which membership of a particular social group has been framed, second the heightened standard of proof now required, and third the associated evidential burdens in relation to trauma and disclosure. Ultimately, these changes are likely to have a disproportionate and dis-criminatory impact on women seeking asylum, particularly those fleeing gender-based persecution
The role of experience in climate adaptation: evidence from a field experiment in China
No full textThis paper extends the existing individual decision-making framework of adapting to climate change by considering the effects of prior personal experience in shaping risk preferences. Conducting Prospect Theory-based “lab-in-field” risk experiments in rural areas of Xinjiang Province, we elicit Chinese farmers’ risk curvature and probability bias by adopting more flexible Prelec’s two-parameter probability functions. Using Bayesian approaches to estimation, we find that farmers’ prior experiences not only provide information that influences the subjective distributions of future outcomes but also, by shaping farmers’ personal risk preferences, affects how farmers absorb and update this information. As such, our research suggests that individual risk preferences can evolve, and the effects of personal experience on preferences exhibit distinct patterns depending on whether farmers face benefits or losses. Experiencing production damages tends to make farmers more averse to losses and increases their optimistic bias concerning personal loss risks. A policy implication of these findings is that it is crucial to reduce farmers’ cognitive biases regarding their own climate-related losses and their over-reliance on personal experiences in order to make accurate risk management decisions
Anthrenus (Anthrenops) Trilineatus (Coleoptera: Dermestidae: Megatominae), a new species from Afghanistan
No full textA new species, Anthrenus (Anthrenops) trilineatus Holloway & Herrmann (Coleoptera: Dermestidae: Megatominae) is described from Afghanistan and compared with A. amoenulus Reitter, 1896, A. coloratus Reitter, 1881, and A. zebra Reitter, 1889, the most likely confounding species from the region. Differentiation is performed using habitus coloration, antennal and genital structure. Images of habitus, ventrites, antenna, and male and female genital structures are presented. Three species of subgenus Anthrenops are now recorded from Afghanistan
Anthrenus (Anthrenus) corona new to Armenia and Greece and minimum geographical range
No full textTwo specimens of Anthrenus (Anthrenus) corona are presented new to Armenia and Greece, with images of habitus, antennae, aedeagus, and sternite IX shown. Potential confusion of A. corona with A. goliath and A. isabellinus are considered. The
importance of dissection in faunistic studies to provide reliable data for the World Catalogue of Dermestidae is discussed
Stagnation of atmospheric circulation leads to historically prolonged extreme rainfall event over northwestern India in August 2024
Get PDFNorthwestern India (NWI) received anomalously heavy rainfall from 21 to 30 August, 2024, despite the monsoon being in a break phase. This study reveals how midlatitude dynamics triggered this unusual event. Using reanalysis, we perform a moisture budget analysis and local wave activity (LWA) diagnostics and find that the enhanced mid-tropospheric baroclinic instability >1.1 day^-1 (1.34σ) peaked during 13–17 August in the North Atlantic, 7–10 days before the NWI rainfall event. This instability fueled the North Atlantic westerly jet and reinforced a “Ω” shaped blocking high over the Ural Mountains (“Ural block”) that developed over 21–22 August. This block initiated a wave train that propagated eastward with increasing amplitude over subsequent days. The downstream distorted Rossby waves broke, triggering a pronounced Caspian Sea trough that deepened by 25–26 August, strengthening a subtropical jet streak north of the Tibetan Plateau, with maximum geostrophic wind speeds exceeding 120 . The NWI was in the jet streak's right entrance region, where the upper-level divergence and compensatory upward motion intensified a low-pressure system that had been steered northwestward into the region. Despite monsoon break conditions, the elevated mid-tropospheric humidity allowed sustained deep convection, which combined with the quasigeostrophic ascent arising from the jet streak entrance region and led to extreme rainfall over NWI. Our analysis provides a case study showing the importance of the growing influence of mid-latitude circulation changes traceable to alterations in the North Atlantic for Indian monsoon variability. The physical linkages demonstrated here may be crucial for improving monsoon behavior in changing climate
