1. The Joint Aeolus Tropical Atlantic Campaign 2021/2022 overview : atmospheric science and satellite validation in the tropicsThorsten Fehr, Griša Močnik, 2023, objavljeni povzetek znanstvenega prispevka na konferenci Opis: ESA’s Aeolus satellite observations are expected to have the biggest impact for the improvement of numerical weather prediction in the Tropics. An important case relating to the predictability of tropical weather systems is the outflow of Saharan dust, its interaction with cloud microphysics and impact on the development of tropical storms over the Atlantic Ocean.The Joint Aeolus Tropical Atlantic Campaign (JATAC) deployed on Cabo Verde (2021/2022) and the US Virgin Islands (2021) supported the validation and preparation of the ESA missions Aeolus, EarthCARE and WIVERN, and addressed science objectives regarding the Saharan Aerosol layer, African Easterly Waves and Jet, Tropical Easterly Jet, and the Intertropical Convergence Zone, as well as their relation to the formation of convective systems, and the long-range transport of dust and its impact on air quality.JATAC started in July 2021 with the deployment of ground-based instruments in the frame of the ASKOS project at the Ocean Science Center Mindelo, including the eVe and PollyXT lidars, and a W-band Doppler cloud radar. By mid-August, the CPEX-AW campaign started operations from the US Virgin Islands with NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory in the Western Tropical Atlantic and Caribbean carrying the Doppler Aerosol Wind Lidar (DAWN), Airborne Precipitation and Cloud Radar (APR-3), Water Vapor DIAL and HSRL (HALO), microwave sounder (HAMSR) and dropsondes. In September the DLR Falcon-20 aircraft, carrying the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator (A2D) and the 2-µm Doppler wind lidar, and the Safire Falcon-20, carrying the high-spectral-resolution Doppler lidar (LNG), the RASTA Doppler cloud radar, in-situ cloud and aerosol instruments, and dropsondes, were deployed to Sal in the frame of the AVATAR-T and CADDIWA projects. The Aerovizija Advantic WT-10 light aircraft with optical particle spectrometers, filter-photometers and nephelometers for in-situ aerosol characterisation was operating in close coordination with the ground-based observations in the CAVA-AW project.The activities continued in June 2022 when the ASKOS ground based observations were enhanced with UAV airborne in-situ aerosol measurements deployed by the Cyprus Institute, solar radiation measurements supported by PMOD/WRC, dust particle orientation measurements (WALL-E lidar), and radiosonde releases equipped with electric field-mills. NASA deployed the DC-8 aircraft all September to Sal with the 2021 payload in the framework of the CPEX-CV activity, including regular radiosonde launches. As in 2021, the Aerovizija aircraft took part with in-situ aerosol measurements during two weeks in September. JATAC was supported by dedicated numerical weather and dust simulations supporting forecasting efforts and addressing open science questions.Around 60 scientific flights of four aircraft, with an additional 25 UAV flights, were performed during JATAC. 23 Aeolus orbits were underflown, many of them with simultaneous observations of multiple aircraft collocated with ground-based observations. In addition, the science objectives were fully covered through the large number of flights, ground based cloud and aerosol observations, regular radiosondes and dropsondes.Overall, JATAC activities have resulted in a high-quality and comprehensive dataset supporting a wide range of tropical atmospheric research, the validation of Aeolus and other satellites, and have provided key reference data for the development future Earth Observation missions.
Ključne besede: Aeolus satellite, airborne measurements, mineral dust, cal/val, calibration, validation
Objavljeno v RUNG: 21.12.2023; Ogledov: 586; Prenosov: 4
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2. JATAC/CAVA-AW Aeolus Cal/Val airborne campaign datasetJesús Yus-Díez, Griša Močnik, Luka Drinovec, Marija Bervida, Blaž Žibert, Uroš Jagodič, Matevž Lenarčič, zaključena znanstvena zbirka raziskovalnih podatkov Opis: Light aircraft (WT10 - experimental) with position and windspeed variables provided by onboard GPS, as well as additional meteorological sensors. The aircraft was mounted with a: a sunshine pyranometer type SPN1 (Delta-T Devices Ltd), a polar integrating nephelometer AURORA 4000 (Ecotech Pty Ltd), and had a dual sampling line aircraft for measurements at the fine and coarse fraction of the absorption by two Continuous Light Absorption Photometer (CLAPS, by Haze Instruments d.o.o.) and the particle size distribution by two optical particle counters (OPC, model 11D, GRIMM Technologies). The pyranometer provides measurements of the global, direct and diffuse irradiance for a radiation spectrum range between 400 and 2700nm with a 1s time resolution. The polar integrating nephelometer measures the scattering coefficients of particles at three wavelengths (450, 525 and 635 nm) and multiple angles (two selected for the campaign: 0, 90deg) with a 5s time resolution. The CLAP photometers measure the absorption coefficient by aerosol particles at three wavelengths (467, 529 and 653 nm) with a 1s time resolution. The OPC measurements provide the number and mass concentration of aerosol particles for 31 bins in the size range between 0.253 and 35.15 micrometers with a 6s time resolution.
The 2021 and 2022 campaigns are found at:
http://www.worldgreenflight.com/glwf.php#to-2021
http://www.worldgreenflight.com/glwf.php#to-2022-jatac
Ključne besede: Aeolus satellite, Saharan dust, aerosol, calibration, validation
Objavljeno v RUNG: 27.09.2023; Ogledov: 811; Prenosov: 6
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3. Aeolus calibration, validation and science campaignsThorsten Fehr, Vassilis Amiridis, Sebastian Bley, Philippe Cocquerez, Christian Lemmerz, Griša Močnik, Gail Skofronick-Jackson, Anne Grete Straume, 2020, objavljeni povzetek znanstvenega prispevka na konferenci Opis: Since 2007, a series of ESA supported airborne campaigns have been essential to the development of the Aeolus Doppler Wind Lidar satellite mission, which was successfully launched on 22 September 2018 and is providing a novel wind and aerosol profile data.
A core element of the Aeolus Cal/Val activities is DLR’s A2D wind lidar on-board the DLR Falcon aircraft, an airborne demonstrator for the Aeolus ALADIN satellite instrument flown in combination with the 2-µm Doppler Wind Lidar reference system. Following the pre-launch WindVal-I and –II campaigns in 2015 and 2016, a number of calibration and validation campaigns have been successfully implemented: WindVal-III providing early Cal/Val results in November 2018 only three months after the Aeolus launch, AVATAR-E in May 2019 focussing on the Cal/Val over Central Europe, and AVATAR-I in September 2019 providing Cal/Val information in the North Atlantic and Arctic flying from Iceland.
The airborne validation is also being supported through balloon flights in the tropical UTLS and lower stratosphere in the frame of the CNES Stratéole-2 stratospheric balloon activities. In the frame of the ESA supported pre-Stratéole-2 campaign, eight stratospheric balloons have been launched from the Seychelles in November/December 2019 providing unique upper level wind data for the Aeolus validation.
The largest impact of the Aeolus observations is expected in the Tropics, and in particular over the Tropical oceans, where only a limited number of wind profile information is provided by ground based observations. Aeolus provides key direct measurements which are of importance to correctly constrain the wind fields in models. In addition, Aeolus observations have the potential to further enhance our current knowledge on aerosols and clouds by globally providing optical properties products that include atmospheric backscatter and extinction coefficient profiles, lidar ratio profiles and scene classification. In the tropics, a particularly interesting case is the outflow of Saharan dust and its impact on micro-physics in tropical cloud systems. The region off the coast of West Africa allows the study of the Saharan Aerosol layer, African Easterly Waves and Jets, Tropical Easterly Jet, as well as the deep convection in ITCZ.
Together with international partners, ESA is currently implementing a Tropical campaign in July 2020 with its base in Cape Verde that comprises both airborne and ground-based activities addressing the tropical winds and aerosol validation, as well as science objectives. The airborne component includes the DLR Falcon-20 carrying the A2D and 2-µm Doppler Wind lidars, the NASA P-3 Orion with the DAWN and HALO lidar systems, the APR Ku-, Ka- and W-band Doppler radar and drop sondes, and a Slovenian small aircraft providing in-situ information from aethalometers, nephelometers and optical particle counters. The ground-based component led by the National Observatory of Athens is a collaboration of European teams providing aerosol and cloud measurements with a range of lidar, radar and radiometer systems, as well as a drone providing in-situ aerosol observations. In addition, the participation airborne capabilities by NOAA and LATMOS/Meteo France are currently being investigated.
This paper will provide a summary of the Aeolus campaign focussing on the planned tropical campaign.
Ključne besede: Aeolus satellite, ALADIN, aerosol, validation
Objavljeno v RUNG: 23.08.2022; Ogledov: 1327; Prenosov: 55
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4. DEVELOPMENT OF A NOVEL PCR-BASED ASSAY FOR HIGH-RISK HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS DETECTION AND GENOTYPING IN SELF COLLECTED CERVICOVAGINAL SAMPLES: A NEW POSSIBILITY FOR THE CERVICAL CANCER SCREENINGAlice Avian, 2020, doktorska disertacija Opis: Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the causative agent for the invasive cervical cancer and its precancerous lesions, furthermore, there are growing evidences of HPV being a relevant factor in other anogenital cancers as well as head and neck cancers. Most sexually active women become infected with HPV at least once in their lifetime, but less than 10% of women becomes persistently infected, and it is precisely the persistent infection that contributes to the development of cervical cancer.
The preventive effect of cervical cancer screening largely depends in the high women participation and coverage; indeed, a large number of cervical cancers diagnoses normally arise among under-screened and unscreened women. Increase in the screening coverage is essential to improve the effectiveness of cervical screening programmes.
The main purpose of this PhD project was to solve some of the most relevant problems in the cervical cancer screening programmes, as the increase of cost-effectiveness and the amelioration of the screening coverage.
My work was focused on the development and validation of the first Ulisse BioMed S.p.A. product, the HPV Selfy™ test, an innovative PCR-based kit for the direct detection and genotyping of 12 high-risk HPV types (16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58 and 59) and 2 possible/probable high-risk (66 and 68), specifically optimized for the analysis of self-collected vaginal specimens.
The core of this innovative test is based on high-resolution melting (HRM) analysis, a recently developed technique for fast, high-throughput post-PCR analysis of variance in nucleic acid sequences, that characterizes the amplicons by studying thermal denaturation of double-stranded DNA. Based on this approach and through the design of different HPV type-specific primer pairs and the development of a specific master mix, unique melting peaks in a single fluorescence channel were obtained, allowing the multiple detection and genotyping of 14 HPV types in a single PCR well.
Three different clinical studies have been carried out to validate the assay on the vaginal self-collected samples with truly amazing results regarding the assay’s performance, but also for self-sampling acceptability by women. Moreover, data collected in these studies suggest a future possible use of this test for the hard-to-reach women, as an alternative of the conventional clinician-collected sample, in order to increase the cervical cancer screening coverage.
Ključne besede: Human Papillomavirus, HPV test, cervical cancer screening, prevention, diagnostic test, High resolution melting, HRM, genotyping, PCR, Self-sampling, clinical validation.
Objavljeno v RUNG: 17.06.2020; Ogledov: 3467; Prenosov: 106
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