A Critical Review of Adversity Quotient Instruments: Using the Cosmin Checklist

Adversity intelligence and adversity quotient is the critical ability and robust predictor of a person’s success. However, no consensus and generalized instrument have been established. Hence, the study aims to assess the methodological quality and measurement features of the existing tools for adversity intelligence by identifying and evaluating the instruments following the consensus-based standards for selecting health measurement instruments (COSMIN) checklist. From 255 research studies, six tools were eligible by a systematic review of online databases and books. For three or more of the nine COSMIN criteria, only two of the instruments had strong to moderate levels of evidence. Meanwhile, none of the instruments met any of the criteria. These results demonstrate that no single instrument outperforms all others in all circumstances. Tools that will be refined in the future should capture the development, methodology, and quality during the development of the instrument and achieve a high measurement quality and a generalized tool of measuring adversity intelligence.

Assessing Momentary Well-Being in People Living With Dementia: A Systematic Review of Observational Instruments

Optimizing the possibility to lead good lives is at the core of treatment and care for people with dementia. This may be monitored by assessing well-being and quality of life. However, cognitive impairment following dementia may complicate recall-based assessment with questionnaires, and proxy-ratings from family-caregivers do not correspond well to self-reports. Thus, using observational measures represents a potentially advanced option. Systematic reviews evaluating measurement properties, interpretability and feasibility of observational instruments assessing well-being in people living with dementia are lacking. Thus, this review performed systematic searches to find peer reviewed validated instruments of relevance in the databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Web of Science, CINAHL and ProQuest. Twenty-two instruments assessing well-being were included for evaluation of measurement properties based on the systematic approach of the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN). The evaluation included risk of bias on study level, and assessment of measurement properties on instrument level including content validity, construct validity, structural validity, internal consistency, measurement invariance, cross-cultural validity, measurement error and inter-rater/intra-rater/test–retest reliability and responsiveness. Additionally, the feasibility and interpretability of the measures were evaluated. No single instrument could be recommended based on existing publications. Thus, we provide general recommendations about further assessment and development of these instruments. Finally, we describe the most promising instruments and offer guidance with respect to their implementation and use in clinical and research contexts.

THE ZADKO OBSERVATORY

The 1.0 metre f/4 fast-slew Zadko Telescope was installed in June 2008 approximately seventy kilometres north of Perth at Yeal, in the Shire of Gingin, Western Australia. Since the Zadko Telescope has been in operation it has proven its worth by detecting numerous Gamma Ray Burst afterglows, two of these being the most distant 'optical transients' imaged by an Australian telescope. Other projects include a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to image potentially hazardous near Earth asteroids (2019), monitoring space weather on nearby stars (2019), and photometry of a transit of Saturn's moon Titan (2018). Another active Zadko Telescope project is tracking Geostationary satellites and attempting to use photometry to classify various space debris (defunct satellites). The Zadko Telescope's importance as a potential tool for education, training, and public outreach cannot be underestimated, as the global awareness of the importance of astronomy (and space science) as a context for teaching science continues to increase. An example of this was the national media coverage of its contribution to the discovery of colliding neutron stars in 2017, capturing the imagination of the public. In this proceeding, I will focus on the practical aspects of managing a robotic Observatory, focusing on the sustainability of the Observatory and the technical management involved in hosting different commercial projects. I will review the evolution of the Observatory, from its early, single instrument, state to its current multi-telescope and multi-instrument capabilities. I will finish by outlining the future of the Observatory and the site.

Multipurpose Bracket Positioning Tool: A Modified Probe for Accurate Bracket Placement

There is no single bracket gauge that can be used universally for all teeth to orient brackets in the vertical and axial planes simultaneously. To overcome the increased armamentarium and steps involved in accurately positioning brackets, we have modified a UNC-15 probe to fabricate a multipurpose bracket positioning tool (MBP tool). Thus, one single instrument can be used not only to position brackets (both anterior and posterior) in all planes but also for the quick verification of positioned brackets just before curing.

A Hummingbird in Space

Two distinct trends are apparent in the design and planning of satellite missions. Until the late 1990s, multibillion-dollar space programs centered on large satellites, such as Envisat [1], promised to provide a common platform to support a variety of co-located sensing equipment. A reduction in cost was expected, as several instruments shared a single bus and a single launch. These benefits did not materialize due to the rise of a plethora of engineering and scheduling problems: electromagnetic incompatibilities between diverse technologies; instruments inducing vibrations on the platform that affect other equipment; and deployment-ready instruments waiting for other equipment in earlier development stages. As a reaction to these issues, the second trend where programs based on single-instrument satellites of much smaller sizes and mass began to emerge, eventually leading to the deployment of space devices that nowadays we call small satellites [11].

Should monetary policy lean against the wind in a small-open economy? Revisiting the Tinbergen rule

It has been debated whether monetary policy should lean against the wind, i.e., if central banks should also respond to the build-up of financial imbalances. I contribute to the debate by showing that targeting the two policy objectives with a single instrument is more costly for a small-open economy than for a closed one. To this end, I develop a small-open economy DSGE model with the Bernanke-Gertler-Gilchrist financial accelerator that features financial frictions and monopolistic competition in goods markets. I then estimate this model for Mexico to explore the policy regimes yielding the lowest welfare cost. My main finding is that the Tinbergen rule is alive and well. In addition, my model is useful to gauge macroprudential measures effectiveness when discriminating against foreign liabilities.

New tropospheric ozone dataset from OMPS/NPP

<p>The Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite, on board of Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (OMPS/NPP) since 2012, features a combination of limb and nadir sensors. This feature allows the use of the limb-nadir matching technique to retrieve tropospheric ozone columns on a global scale, with a single satellite. Using a single instrument avoids additional calibrations and interpolations of the input data for the retrieval. The limb-nadir matching method subtracts the stratospheric ozone column from limb observations (OMPS-LP) from the nadir derived total ozone column (OMPS-NM), using the tropopause height to define the troposphere. Most of the other satellite's retrievals methods are limited either geographically or to a certain altitude range, as e.g. the Convective Cloud Differential method (CCD). In the case of TROPOMI/S5P, the CCD method is used to retrieve tropospheric ozone columns in the tropics, up to 270 hPa.</p><p>The single instrument limb-nadir matching was applied for the first time with SCIAMACHY/Envisat (2002-2012). OMPS/NPP provides thus a unique opportunity to extend the time series from SCIAMACHY, in generating a consistent long-term dataset for trend analysis.</p><p>Here, we present the new OMPS tropospheric ozone dataset, generated by the limb-nadir matching technique. The dataset is validated using ozonesondes, and compared with the CCD tropospheric ozone product from TROPOMI/S5P, which flies a few minutes apart in the same orbit as OMPS.</p>

Hurricane ocean wind speeds

<p>How strong does the wind blows in a hurricane proves a question that is difficult to answer, but has far-reaching consequences for satellite meteorology, weather forecasting and hurricane advisories. Moreover, huge year-to-year variability in extremes challenges evidence for changing hurricane climatology in a changing climate. Tropical circulation conditions, such as El Nino and the Madden Julian Oscillation, are associated with the large year-to-year variability and their link to climate change is poorly understood, though of great societal interest. Since hurricanes are sparsely sampled, satellite instruments are in principle very useful to monitor climate change. However, their stability over time in quality and quantity (sampling) needs to be guaranteed. Moreover, to use the longest possible satellite record, satellite instrument intercalibration of the extremes is needed [6]. This applies for a single instrument using a single processor version (calibration, Quality Control, Geophysical Model Function, retrieval) for change detection over a decade typically and the use of overlapping single-instrument/single-processor series for climate analyses. Currently, systematic inconsistencies in the extremes exist, as illustrated within the European Union (EU) Copernicus Climate Change Windstorm Information Service (C3S WISC*) and European organisation for the exploitatrion of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) C-band High and Extreme-Force Speeds (CHEFS^) projects. Besides for the scatterometers ERS, QuikScat, ASCAT and OSCAT, these instrument series may be extended to passive microwave wind instruments from 1979, if proven reliable at the extremes?</p><p>In the EUMETSAT CHEFS project, KNMI, ICM and IFREMER worked with international colleagues to improve the detection of hurricane-force winds. To calibrate the diverse available satellite, airplane and model winds, in-situ wind speed references are needed. Unfortunately, these prove rather inconsistent in the wind speed range of 15 to 25 m/s, casting doubt on the higher winds too. However, dropsondes are used as reference operationally at high and extreme winds in nowcasting and in the European Space Agency (ESA) project MAXSS satellite intercalibration is further investigated based on dropsondes to serve this community. However, from a scientific point of view, we should perhaps put more confidence in the moored buoy references? This would favor accuracy in drag parameterizations and physical modelling and observation of the extremes. This dilemma will be presented to initiate a discussion with the international community gathered at EGU ’21.</p><p>* Windstorm Information Service: https://wisc.climate.copernicus.eu/ </p><p>^ C-band High and Extreme-Force Speeds: https://www.eumetsat.int/chefs</p>

Optical multi-channel interrogation instrument for bacterial colony characterization

A single instrument that includes multiple optical channels was developed to simultaneously measure various optical and associated biophysical characteristics of a bacterial colony. The multi-channel device can provide five distinct optical features without the need to transfer the sample to multiple locations or instruments. The available measurement channels are bright-field light microscopy, 3-D colony-morphology map, 2-D spatial optical-density distribution, spectral forward-scattering pattern, and spectral optical density. The series of multiple morphological interrogations is beneficial in understanding the bio-optical features of a bacterial colony and the correlations among them, resulting in an enhanced power of phenotypic bacterial discrimination. To enable a one-shot interrogation, a confocal laser scanning module was built as an add-on to an upright microscope. Three different-wavelength diode lasers were used for the spectral analysis, and high-speed pin photodiodes and CMOS sensors were utilized as detectors to measure the spectral OD and light-scatter pattern. The proposed instrument and algorithms were evaluated with four bacterial genera, Escherichia coli, Listeria innocua, Salmonella Typhimurium, and Staphylococcus aureus; their resulting data provided a more complete picture of the optical characterization of bacterial colonies.