The Landau free energy of hard ellipses obtained from microscopic simulations

Systems of two-dimensional hard ellipses of varying aspect ratios and packing fractions are studied by Monte Carlo simulations in the generalised canonical ensemble. From this microscopic model, we extract a coarse-grained macroscopic Landau-de Gennes free energy as a function of packing fraction and orientational order parameter. We separate the free energy into the ideal orientational entropy of non-interacting two-dimensional spins and an excess free energy associated with excluded volume interactions. We further explore the isotropic-nematic phase transition using our empirical expression for the free energy and find that the nature of the phase transition is continuous for the aspect ratios we studied.

Broad range of 2050 warming from an observationally constrained large climate model ensemble

Incomplete understanding of three aspects of the climate system���equilibrium climate sensitivity, rate of ocean heat uptake and historical aerosol forcing—and the physical processes underlying them lead to uncertainties in our assessment of the global-mean temperature evolution in the twenty-first century1,2. Explorations of these uncertainties have so far relied on scaling approaches3,4, large ensembles of simplified climate models1,2, or small ensembles of complex coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models5,6 which under-represent uncertainties in key climate system properties derived from independent sources7–9. Here we present results from a multi-thousand-member perturbed-physics ensemble of transient coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model simulations. We find that model versions that reproduce observed surface temperature changes over the past 50 years show global-mean temperature increases of 1.4–3 K by 2050, relative to 1961–1990, under a mid-range forcing scenario. This range of warming is broadly consistent with the expert assessment provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report10, but extends towards larger warming than observed in ensemblesof-opportunity5 typically used for climate impact assessments. From our simulations, we conclude that warming by the middle of the twenty-first century that is stronger than earlier estimates is consistent with recent observed temperature changes and a mid-range ‘no mitigation’ scenario for greenhouse-gas emissions.

Annotating climate data with commentary: the CHARMe project

The CHARMe project enables the annotation of climate data with key pieces of supporting information that we term “commentary”. Commentary reflects the experience that has built up in the user community, and can help new or less-expert users (such as consultants, SMEs, experts in other fields) to understand and interpret complex data. In the context of global climate services, the CHARMe system will record, retain and disseminate this commentary on climate datasets, and provide a means for feeding back this experience to the data providers. Based on novel linked data techniques and standards, the project has developed a core system, data model and suite of open-source tools to enable this information to be shared, discovered and exploited by the community.

What it means to stay: reterritorialising the Black Atlantic in Erna Brodber's writing of the local

The emphasis on migratory subjectivities within postcolonial studies has come from many directions—Bhabha, Gilroy, Appadurai, Boyce Davies—and their convergence has created a critical practice in which diaspora studies takes centre stage. More specifically the way in which the Caribbean person is given emblematic status as the metropolitan migrant is made clear in James Clifford's declaration that ‘We are all Caribbeans now…in our urban archipelagos'. This paper examines the serious impact on the critical reception of Caribbean writings that has been made as a result of the fact that metropolitan diasporas are now the privileged places in which to be properly ‘postcolonial’. It is my aim to show how Erna Brodber's culturally specific studies have enormous value in the face of the more general and flattened enunciations of diaspora and creolisation which are being circulated at a theoretical level. I shall look at two fairly recent pieces of writing by Brodber: a pamphlet entitled ‘The people of my Jamaican village (1817 – 1948)’ and an essay entitled ‘Where are all the others?’ in the book Caribbean Creolisation1

The MELODIES project: integrating diverse data using Linked Data and cloud computing

We present an overview of the MELODIES project, which is developing new data-intensive environmental services based on data from Earth Observation satellites, government databases, national and European agencies and more. We focus here on the capabilities and benefits of the project’s “technical platform���, which applies cloud computing and Linked Data technologies to enable the development of these services, providing flexibility and scalability.

Reticent autobiography: Henry Green and Christopher Isherwood at the Hogarth Press

Christopher Isherwood’s Lions and Shadows (1938) and Henry Green’s Pack My Bag (1940) are accounts of the authors’ educations in the 1920s. Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press, these works use reticent narrators to test the limits of autobiography. In each case, authorial self-presentation complicates the work’s classification in the literary marketplace: Green paradoxically extends his use of a pseudonym to autobiography and Isherwood assigns his own name to his purportedly fictional protagonist, and yet Hogarth published both as novels. The two texts and their publication histories exemplify modernist autobiography’s blurring of the lines between fiction and personal history.

Life before ‘The New Biography’: Modernist biographical methods in the Hogarth Press ‘Books on Tolstoi’ 1920-24

In the early 1920s, before Virginia Woolf wrote her now well-known essays “The New Biography” and “The Art of Biography,” the Hogarth Press published four biographies of Tolstoy. Each of these English translations of Russian works takes a different approach to biographical composition, and as a group they offer multiple and contradictory perspectives on Tolstoy’s character and on the genre of biography in the early twentieth century. These works show that Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press took a multi-perspectival, modernist approach to publishing literary lives.

The role of animal nutrition in designing optimal foods of animal origin as reviewed by the COST Action Feed for Health (FA0802)

This review provides an overview of the main scientific outputs of a network (Action) supported by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) in the field of animal science, namely the COST Action Feed for Health (FA0802). The main aims of the COST Action Feed for Health (FA0802) were: to develop an integrated and collaborative network of research groups that focuses on the roles of feed and animal nutrition in improving animal wellbeing and also the quality, safety and wholesomeness of human foods of animal origin; to examine the consumer concerns and perceptions as regards livestock production systems. The COST Action Feed for Health has addressed these scientific topics during the last four years. From a practical point of view three main scientific fields of achievement can be identified: feed and animal nutrition; food of animal origin quality and functionality and consumers’ perceptions. Finally, the present paper has the scope to provide new ideas and solutions to a range of issues associated with the modern livestock production system.

An evaluation of decadal probability forecasts from state-of-the-art climate models

While state-of-the-art models of Earth's climate system have improved tremendously over the last 20 years, nontrivial structural flaws still hinder their ability to forecast the decadal dynamics of the Earth system realistically. Contrasting the skill of these models not only with each other but also with empirical models can reveal the space and time scales on which simulation models exploit their physical basis effectively and quantify their ability to add information to operational forecasts. The skill of decadal probabilistic hindcasts for annual global-mean and regional-mean temperatures from the EU Ensemble-Based Predictions of Climate Changes and Their Impacts (ENSEMBLES) project is contrasted with several empirical models. Both the ENSEMBLES models and a “dynamic climatology” empirical model show probabilistic skill above that of a static climatology for global-mean temperature. The dynamic climatology model, however, often outperforms the ENSEMBLES models. The fact that empirical models display skill similar to that of today's state-of-the-art simulation models suggests that empirical forecasts can improve decadal forecasts for climate services, just as in weather, medium-range, and seasonal forecasting. It is suggested that the direct comparison of simulation models with empirical models becomes a regular component of large model forecast evaluations. Doing so would clarify the extent to which state-of-the-art simulation models provide information beyond that available from simpler empirical models and clarify current limitations in using simulation forecasting for decision support. Ultimately, the skill of simulation models based on physical principles is expected to surpass that of empirical models in a changing climate; their direct comparison provides information on progress toward that goal, which is not available in model–model intercomparisons.

Probabilistic skill in ensemble seasonal forecasts

Simulation models are widely employed to make probability forecasts of future conditions on seasonal to annual lead times. Added value in such forecasts is reflected in the information they add, either to purely empirical statistical models or to simpler simulation models. An evaluation of seasonal probability forecasts from the Development of a European Multimodel Ensemble system for seasonal to inTERannual prediction (DEMETER) and ENSEMBLES multi-model ensemble experiments is presented. Two particular regions are considered: Nino3.4 in the Pacific and the Main Development Region in the Atlantic; these regions were chosen before any spatial distribution of skill was examined. The ENSEMBLES models are found to have skill against the climatological distribution on seasonal time-scales. For models in ENSEMBLES that have a clearly defined predecessor model in DEMETER, the improvement from DEMETER to ENSEMBLES is discussed. Due to the long lead times of the forecasts and the evolution of observation technology, the forecast-outcome archive for seasonal forecast evaluation is small; arguably, evaluation data for seasonal forecasting will always be precious. Issues of information contamination from in-sample evaluation are discussed and impacts (both positive and negative) of variations in cross-validation protocol are demonstrated. Other difficulties due to the small forecast-outcome archive are identified. The claim that the multi-model ensemble provides a ‘better’ probability forecast than the best single model is examined and challenged. Significant forecast information beyond the climatological distribution is also demonstrated in a persistence probability forecast. The ENSEMBLES probability forecasts add significantly more information to empirical probability forecasts on seasonal time-scales than on decadal scales. Current operational forecasts might be enhanced by melding information from both simulation models and empirical models. Simulation models based on physical principles are sometimes expected, in principle, to outperform empirical models; direct comparison of their forecast skill provides information on progress toward that goal.

Application of complex extreme learning machine to multiclass classification problems with high dimensionality: a THz spectra classification problem

We extend extreme learning machine (ELM) classifiers to complex Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces (RKHS) where the input/output variables as well as the optimization variables are complex-valued. A new family of classifiers, called complex-valued ELM (CELM) suitable for complex-valued multiple-input–multiple-output processing is introduced. In the proposed method, the associated Lagrangian is computed using induced RKHS kernels, adopting a Wirtinger calculus approach formulated as a constrained optimization problem similarly to the conventional ELM classifier formulation. When training the CELM, the Karush–Khun–Tuker (KKT) theorem is used to solve the dual optimization problem that consists of satisfying simultaneously smallest training error as well as smallest norm of output weights criteria. The proposed formulation also addresses aspects of quaternary classification within a Clifford algebra context. For 2D complex-valued inputs, user-defined complex-coupled hyper-planes divide the classifier input space into four partitions. For 3D complex-valued inputs, the formulation generates three pairs of complex-coupled hyper-planes through orthogonal projections. The six hyper-planes then divide the 3D space into eight partitions. It is shown that the CELM problem formulation is equivalent to solving six real-valued ELM tasks, which are induced by projecting the chosen complex kernel across the different user-defined coordinate planes. A classification example of powdered samples on the basis of their terahertz spectral signatures is used to demonstrate the advantages of the CELM classifiers compared to their SVM counterparts. The proposed classifiers retain the advantages of their ELM counterparts, in that they can perform multiclass classification with lower computational complexity than SVM classifiers. Furthermore, because of their ability to perform classification tasks fast, the proposed formulations are of interest to real-time applications.

Modelling the rheology of anisotropic particles adsorbed on a two-dimensional fluid interface

We present a general approach based on nonequilibrium thermodynamics for bridging the gap between a well-defined microscopic model and the macroscopic rheology of particle-stabilised interfaces. Our approach is illustrated by starting with a microscopic model of hard ellipsoids confined to a planar surface, which is intended to simply represent a particle-stabilised fluid–fluid interface. More complex microscopic models can be readily handled using the methods outlined in this paper. From the aforementioned microscopic starting point, we obtain the macroscopic, constitutive equations using a combination of systematic coarse-graining, computer experiments and Hamiltonian dynamics. Exemplary numerical solutions of the constitutive equations are given for a variety of experimentally relevant flow situations to explore the rheological behaviour of our model. In particular, we calculate the shear and dilatational moduli of the interface over a wide range of surface coverages, ranging from the dilute isotropic regime, to the concentrated nematic regime.

Towards improving the framework for probabilistic forecast evaluation

The evaluation of forecast performance plays a central role both in the interpretation and use of forecast systems and in their development. Different evaluation measures (scores) are available, often quantifying different characteristics of forecast performance. The properties of several proper scores for probabilistic forecast evaluation are contrasted and then used to interpret decadal probability hindcasts of global mean temperature. The Continuous Ranked Probability Score (CRPS), Proper Linear (PL) score, and IJ Good’s logarithmic score (also referred to as Ignorance) are compared; although information from all three may be useful, the logarithmic score has an immediate interpretation and is not insensitive to forecast busts. Neither CRPS nor PL is local; this is shown to produce counter intuitive evaluations by CRPS. Benchmark forecasts from empirical models like Dynamic Climatology place the scores in context. Comparing scores for forecast systems based on physical models (in this case HadCM3, from the CMIP5 decadal archive) against such benchmarks is more informative than internal comparison systems based on similar physical simulation models with each other. It is shown that a forecast system based on HadCM3 out performs Dynamic Climatology in decadal global mean temperature hindcasts; Dynamic Climatology previously outperformed a forecast system based upon HadGEM2 and reasons for these results are suggested. Forecasts of aggregate data (5-year means of global mean temperature) are, of course, narrower than forecasts of annual averages due to the suppression of variance; while the average “distance” between the forecasts and a target may be expected to decrease, little if any discernible improvement in probabilistic skill is achieved.

Cardiac protein kinases: the cardiomyocyte kinome and differential kinase expression in human failing hearts

Aims. Protein kinases are potential therapeutic targets for heart failure, but most studies of cardiac protein kinases derive from other systems, an approach that fails to account for specific kinases expressed in the heart and the contractile cardiomyocytes. We aimed to define the cardiomyocyte kinome (i.e. the protein kinases expressed in cardiomyocytes) and identify kinases with altered expression in human failing hearts. Methods and Results. Expression profiling (Affymetrix microarrays) detected >400 protein kinase mRNAs in rat neonatal ventricular myocytes (NVMs) and/or adult ventricular myocytes (AVMs), 32 and 93 of which were significantly upregulated or downregulated (>2-fold), respectively, in AVMs. Data for AGC family members were validated by qPCR. Proteomics analysis identified >180 cardiomyocyte protein kinases, with high relative expression of mitogen-activated protein kinase cascades and other known cardiomyocyte kinases (e.g. CAMKs, cAMP-dependent protein kinase). Other kinases are poorly-investigated (e.g. Slk, Stk24, Oxsr1). Expression of Akt1/2/3, BRaf, ERK1/2, Map2k1, Map3k8, Map4k4, MST1/3, p38-MAPK, PKCδ, Pkn2, Ripk1/2, Tnni3k and Zak was confirmed by immunoblotting. Relative to total protein, Map3k8 and Tnni3k were upregulated in AVMs vs NVMs. Microarray data for human hearts demonstrated variation in kinome expression that may influence responses to kinase inhibitor therapies. Furthermore, some kinases were upregulated (e.g. NRK, JAK2, STK38L) or downregulated (e.g. MAP2K1, IRAK1, STK40) in human failing hearts. Conclusions. This characterization of the spectrum of kinases expressed in cardiomyocytes and the heart (cardiomyocyte and cardiac kinomes) identified novel kinases, some of which are differentially expressed in failing human hearts and could serve as potential therapeutic targets.