Time is of the essence: a selective review of the fall and rise of brief therapy research

For compelling reasons of equity and the advance of public health, brief psychotherapy has become the dominant format in both practice and research. One consequence of this is the apparent decline of a distinct stream of brief therapy research. However, much of the agenda formerly identified with that research stream is of increasing importance to the field. Time is indeed of the essence in current psychotherapy research. For example, factors conducive to the time efficiency of brief psychodynamic therapy have been described recently. The important question ‘How much therapy is enough?’ has been addressed by studies inspired by the dose-response analysis of Howard and colleagues. The value of ultra-brief interventions has been examined. These issues are considered in a selective review, drawing in particular on the work of the Sheffield/Leeds psychotherapy of depression research group. This research treats the number of treatment sessions as an independent variable, thereby providing a causal analysis of the dose-response relationship over a range from two to 16 sessions, illuminated by a comparative analysis of change processes in treatments of different durations. Its results enable some specification of the extent and nature of incremental benefit derived from additional sessions in the psychotherapy of depression.

Historical reconstruction of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation from the ECMWF operational ocean reanalysis

A reconstruction of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) for the period 1959–2006 has been derived from the ECMWF operational ocean reanalysis. The reconstruction shows a wide range of time-variability, including a downward trend. At 26N, both the MOC intensity and changes in its vertical structure are in good agreement with previous estimates based on trans-Atlantic surveys. At 50N, the MOC and strength of the subpolar gyre are correlated at interannual time scales, but show opposite secular trends. Heat transport variability is highly correlated with the MOC but shows a smaller trend due to the warming of the upper ocean, which partially compensates for the weakening of the circulation. Results from sensitivity experiments show that although the time-varying upper boundary forcing provides useful MOC information, the sequential assimilation of ocean data further improves the MOC estimation by increasing both the mean and the time variability.

The GlobMODEL demonstrator: assimilation of new satellite products in an operational meteorological center

As part of its Data User Element programme, the European Space Agency funded the GlobMODEL project which aimed at investigating the scientific, technical, and organizational issues associated with the use and exploitation of remotely-sensed observations, particularly from new sounders. A pilot study was performed as a "demonstrator" of the GlobMODEL idea, based on the use of new data, with a strong European heritage, not yet assimilated operationally. Two parallel assimilation experiments were performed, using either total column ozone or ozone profiles retrieved at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI). In both cases, the impact of assimilating OMI data in addition to the total ozone columns from the SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY (SCIAMACHY) on the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ozone analyses was assessed by means of independent measurements. We found that the impact of OMI total columns is mainly limited to the region between 20 and 80 hPa, and is particularly important at high latitudes in the Southern hemisphere where the stratospheric ozone transport and chemical depletion are generally difficult to model with accuracy. Furthermore, the assimilation experiments carried out in this work suggest that OMI DOAS (Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy) total ozone columns are on average larger than SCIAMACHY total columns by up to 3 DU, while OMI total columns derived from OMI ozone profiles are on average about 8 DU larger than SCIAMACHY total columns. At the same time, the demonstrator brought to light a number of issues related to the assimilation of atmospheric composition profiles, such as the shortcomings arising when the vertical resolution of the instrument is not properly accounted for in the assimilation. The GlobMODEL demonstrator accelerated scientific and operational utilization of new observations and its results - prompted ECMWF to start the operational assimilation of OMI total column ozone data.

Brief and precarious lives: Infant mortality in contrasting sites from medieval and post-medieval England (AD 850-1859)

This study compares the infant mortality profiles of 128 infants from two urban and two rural cemetery sites in medieval England. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of urbanization and industrialization in terms of endogenous or exogenous causes of death. In order to undertake this analysis, two different methods of estimating gestational age from long bone lengths were used: a traditional regression method and a Bayesian method. The regression method tended to produce more marked peaks at 38 weeks, while the Bayesian method produced a broader range of ages and were more comparable with the expected "natural" mortality profiles. At all the sites, neonatal mortality (28-40 weeks) outweighed post-neonatal mortality (41-48 weeks) with rural Raunds Furnells in Northamptonshire, showing the highest number of neonatal deaths and post-medieval Spitalfields, London, showing a greater proportion of deaths due to exogenous or environmental factors. Of the four sites under study, Wharram Percy in Yorkshire showed the most convincing "natural" infant mortality profile, suggesting the inclusion of all births (i.e., stillbirths and unbaptised infants).

Validation of improved TAMANN neural network for operational satellite-derived rainfall estimation in Africa

Real-time rainfall monitoring in Africa is of great practical importance for operational applications in hydrology and agriculture. Satellite data have been used in this context for many years because of the lack of surface observations. This paper describes an improved artificial neural network algorithm for operational applications. The algorithm combines numerical weather model information with the satellite data. Using this algorithm, daily rainfall estimates were derived for 4 yr of the Ethiopian and Zambian main rainy seasons and were compared with two other algorithms-a multiple linear regression making use of the same information as that of the neural network and a satellite-only method. All algorithms were validated against rain gauge data. Overall, the neural network performs best, but the extent to which it does so depends on the calibration/validation protocol. The advantages of the neural network are most evident when calibration data are numerous and close in space and time to the validation data. This result emphasizes the importance of a real-time calibration system.