Sibship Size, Height and Cohort Selection: A Methodological Approach

This article deals with the historical relationship between the number of siblings in a family or household and height, a proxy for biological living standards. Ideally, this relationship is better assessed when we have evidence on the exact number of siblings in a family from its constitution onwards. However, this generally requires applying family reconstitution techniques, which, unfortunately, is not always possible. In this latter case, scholars must generally settle for considering only particular benchmark years using population censuses, from which family and household structures are derived. These data are then linked to the height data for the young males of the family or household. Height data are generally obtained from military records. In this matching process, several decisions have to be taken, which, in turn, are determined by source availability and the number of available observations. Using data from late 19th-century Catalonia, we explore whether the methodology used in matching population censuses and military records as described above might affect the relationship between sibship size and biological living standards and, if so, to what extent. We conclude that, while contextual factors cannot be neglected, the methodological decisions made in the initial steps of research also play a role in assessing this relationship.

Discerning the painter’s hand: machine learning on surface topography

Attribution of paintings is a critical problem in art history. This study extends machine learning analysis to surface topography of painted works. A controlled study of positive attribution was designed with paintings produced by a class of art students. The paintings were scanned using a chromatic confocal optical profilometer to produce surface height data. The surface data were divided into virtual patches and used to train an ensemble of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for attribution. Over a range of square patch sizes from 0.5 to 60 mm, the resulting attribution was found to be 60–96% accurate, and, when comparing regions of different color, was nearly twice as accurate as CNNs using color images of the paintings. Remarkably, short length scales, even as small as a bristle diameter, were the key to reliably distinguishing among artists. These results show promise for real-world attribution, particularly in the case of workshop practice.

How well does CMIP6 capture the dynamics of Euro-Atlantic weather regimes, and why?

Even the most advanced climate models struggle to reproduce the observed wintertime circulation of the atmosphere over the North Atlantic and Western Europe. During winter, this particularly challenging region is dominated by eddy-driven and highly non-linear flows, which are often studied from the perspective of regimes – a small number of qualitatively distinct atmospheric states. Poor representation of regimes associated with persistent atmospheric blocking events, or variations in jet latitude, degrade the ability of models to correctly simulate extreme events. In this paper we leverage a recently developed hybrid approach – which combines both jet and geopotential height data – to assess the representation of regimes in 8,400 years of historical climate simulations drawn from CMIP6, CMIP5 and HighResMip. We show that these geopotential-jet regimes are particularly suited to the analysis of climate data, with considerable reductions in sampling variability compared to classical regime approaches. We find that CMIP6 has a considerably improved spatial regime structure, and a more trimodal eddy-driven jet, relative to CMIP5, but still struggles with underpersistent regimes, and too little European blocking, when compared to reanalysis. Reduced regime persistence can be understood, at least in part, as a result of jets that are too fast and eddy feedbacks on the jet stream that are too weak – structural errors that do not noticeably improve in higher resolution models.

Active Monitoring of Selective Laser Melting Process by Training an Artificial Neural Net Classifier on Layer-By-Layer Surface Laser Profilometry Data

This paper reports some recent results related to active monitoring of Selective Laser Melting (SLM) processes through analysis of layer-by-layer surface profile data. Estimation of fault probability was carried out experimentally in a Renishaw AM250 machine, by collecting Fe3Si powder bed height data, in-situ, during the metal additive manufacturing of a Heat Exchanger section, comprised of a series of conformal channels. Specifically, high-resolution powder bed surface height data from a laser profilometer was linked to post-print ground-truth labels (faulty or nominal) for each site from CT scans, by training a shallow artificial neural net (ANN). The ANN demonstrated interesting capabilities for discovering correlations between surface roughness characteristics and the presence and size of faults. Strong performance was achieved with respect to several standard metrics for classifying faulty and nominal sites. These developments can potentially enable active monitoring processes to become a future component of a layer-by-layer feedback system for better control of SLM processes.

The CAMS volcanic forecasting system utilizing near-real time data assimilation of S5P/TROPOMI SO₂ retrievals

The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), operated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission, provides daily analyses and 5-day forecasts of atmospheric composition, including forecasts of volcanic sulphur dioxide (SO2) in near-real time. CAMS currently assimilates total column SO2 retrievals from the GOME-2 instruments on MetOp-B and -C and the TROPOMI instrument on Sentinel-5P which give information about the location and strength of volcanic plumes. However, the operational TROPOMI and GOME-2 retrievals do not provide any information about the height of the volcanic plumes and therefore some prior assumptions need to be made in the CAMS data assimilation system about where to place the resulting SO2 increments in the vertical. In the current operational CAMS configuration, the SO2 increments are placed in the mid-troposphere, around 550 hPa or 5 km. While this gives good results for the majority of volcanic emissions, it will clearly be wrong for eruptions that inject SO2 at very different altitudes, in particular exceptional events where part of the SO2 plume reaches the stratosphere. A new algorithm, developed by DLR for GOME-2 and TROPOMI and optimized in the frame of the ESA-funded Sentinel-5P Innovation–SO2 Layer Height Project, the Full-Physics Inverse Learning Machine (FP_ILM) algorithm, retrieves SO2 layer height from TROPOMI in NRT in addition to the SO2 column. CAMS is testing the assimilation of these data, making use of the NRT layer height information to place the SO2 increments at a retrieved altitude. Assimilation tests with the TROPOMI SO2 layer height data for the Raikoke eruption in June 2019 show that the resulting CAMS SO2 plume heights agree better with IASI plume height retrievals than operational CAMS runs without the TROPOMI SO2 layer height information and that making use of the additional layer height information leads to improved SO2 forecasts than when using the operational CAMS configuration. By assimilating the SO2 layer height data the CAMS system can predict the overall location of the Raikoke SO2 plume up to 5 days in advance for about 20 days after the initial eruption.

Oral Spermine Supplementation in Gestated Rabbit: A Study on Villi Height of Immature Intestines

Introduction: Immature intestines are the major problem in prematurity. Postnatal oral spermine has been shown in studies to improve intestinal maturation in rats and piglets. This study aimed to find out the efficacy of spermine in rabbits during gestation.Method: An experimental study was done in an unblinded, randomized manner on those treated with and without spermine administration. A morphological examination of hematoxylin–eosin-stained villi was performed under a light microscope with a focus on villi height. Data were subjected to analysis.Results: The median of the spermine-treated group was found to be higher at 24, 26, and 28 days than the non-spermine group, but was not significantly different.Conclusion: Oral spermine supplementation during gestation might improve intestinal villi height in immature rabbit intestines.

Rethinking the Fertility Transition in Rural Aragón (Spain) Using Height Data

Based on an analysis of the life trajectories of 2510 conscripts and their families from a Spanish rural area in the period 1835–1977, this paper studies the development of the fertility transition in relation to height using bivariate analyses. The use of heights is an innovative perspective of delving into the fertility transition and social transformation entailed. The results confirm that the men with a low level of biological well-being (related to low socio-economic groups) were those who started to control their fertility, perhaps due to the effect that increased average family size had on their budget. The children of individuals who controlled their fertility were taller than the children of other families. Therefore, the children of parents who controlled their fertility experienced the largest intergenerational increase in height (approximately 50% higher). This increase could be due to the consequence of a greater investment in children (Becker’s hypothesis) or a greater availability of resources for the whole family (resource dilution hypothesis).

Distinct Patterns of Urban-Rural and Sex Disparities in Children's BMI Trajectories From 2013 to 2018

Background: To identify distinct trajectories of body mass index (BMI) in a large sample of Chinese children by urban-rural and sex disparities.Methods: Data for this study were obtained from the National Surveys on Chinese Students' Constitution and Health among 16,060 children aged 6–11 years. Weight and height data were used to calculate BMI. Group-based trajectory modeling (GBTM) was used to identify distinct BMI trajectories.Results: Seven distinct trajectories were identified, “sustained healthy weight” (46.01%), “sustained obesity” (17.26%), “sustained underweight” (4.50%), “obesity to overweight” (6.45%), “obesity to healthy weight” (11.75%), “healthy weight to overweight” (8.67%), and “healthy weight to obesity” (5.36%). The proportions of “sustained obesity,” “healthy weight to obesity,” and “healthy weight to overweight” trajectories were much higher among boys compared with girls (P < 0.001). Meanwhile, children living in rural areas were more represented in the “healthy weight to obesity” trajectory (P < 0.001).Conclusion: In this study, the proportions of BMI development trajectories among 6–11-year-old children varied by sex and urban-rural areas, which may require tailored interventions specifically toward these at-risk trajectories.