Description: The Vasco—Cirene field experiment, in January—February 2007, targeted the Seychelles—Chagos thermocline ridge (SCTR) region, with the main purpose of investigating Madden—Julian Oscillation (MJO)-related SST events. The Validation of the Aeroclipper System under Convective Occurrences (Vasco) experiment (Duvel et al. 2009) and Cirene cruise were designed to provide complementary views of air—sea interaction in the SCTR region. While meteorological balloons were deployed from the Seychelles as a part of Vasco, the Research Vessel (R/V) Suroît was cruising the SCTR region as a part of Cirene. more: The Vasco—Cirene program explores how strong air—sea interactions promoted by the shallow thermocline and high sea surface temperature in the Seychelles—Chagos thermocline ridge results in marked variability at synoptic, intraseasonal, and interannual time scales. The Cirene oceanographic cruise collected oceanic, atmospheric, and air—sea flux observations in this region in January—February 2007. The contemporaneous Vasco field experiment complemented these measurements with balloon deployments from the Seychelles. Cirene also contributed to the development of the Indian Ocean observing system via deployment of a mooring and 12 Argo profilers. Unusual conditions prevailed in the Indian Ocean during January and February 2007, following the Indian Ocean dipole climate anomaly of late 2006. Cirene measurements show that the Seychelles—Chagos thermocline ridge had higher-than-usual heat content with subsurface anomalies up to 7°C. The ocean surface was warmer and fresher than average, and unusual eastward currents prevailed down to 800 m. These anomalous conditions had a major impact on tuna fishing in early 2007. Our dataset also sampled the genesis and maturation of Tropical Cyclone Dora, including high surface temperatures and a strong diurnal cycle before the cyclone, followed by a 1.5°C cooling over 10 days. Balloonborne instruments sampled the surface and boundary layer dynamics of Dora. We observed small-scale structures like dry-air layers in the atmosphere and diurnal warm layers in the near-surface ocean. The Cirene data will quantify the impact of these finescale features on the upper-ocean heat budget and atmospheric deep convection.

Description: Cancer of unknown primary site (CUP) may be called an “orphan” disease, because it is diagnosed when metastases are detected while the primary tumor typically remains undetected, and because little research has been done on its primary causes. So far, few epidemiological studies, if any, have addressed possible risk factors for CUP. We analyzed data from the European EPIC cohort (N = 476,940). During prospective follow-up, a total of 651 cases of incident cases of CUP were detected (ICD-O-2 code C809). Proportional hazards models were conducted to examine the associations of lifetime history of smoking habits, alcohol consumption, levels of education and anthropometric indices of adiposity with risk of being diagnosed with CUP. Risk of being diagnosed with CUP was strongly related to smoking, with a relative risk of 3.66 [95% C.I., 2.24 – 5.97] for current, heavy smokers (26+ cigarettes/day) compared to never smokers (adjusted for alcohol consumption, BMI, waist circumference, and level of education), and a relative risk of 5.12 [3.09 – 8.47] for cases with CUP who died within 12 months. For alcohol consumption and level of education, weaker associations were observed but attenuated and no longer statistically significant after adjusting for smoking and indices of obesity. Finally, risk of CUP was increased by approximately 30 per cent for subjects in the highest vs. lowest quartiles of waist circumference. Our analyses provide further documentation, in addition autopsy studies, that a substantial proportion of cancers of unknown primary site may have their origin in smoking-related tumors, in particular. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Description: Epidemiological studies have reported inconsistent findings for the association between B vitamins and breast cancer (BC) risk. We investigated the relationship between biomarkers of folate and vitamin B12 and the risk of BC in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. Plasma concentrations of folate and vitamin B12 were determined in 2,491 BC cases individually matched to 2,521 controls among women who provided baseline blood samples. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios by quartiles of either plasma B vitamin. Subgroup analyses by menopausal status, hormone receptor status of breast tumors (ER, PR, and HER2), alcohol intake, and MTHFR polymorphisms (677C〉T and 1298A〉C) were also performed. Plasma levels of folate and vitamin B12 were not significantly associated with the overall risk of BC or by hormone receptor status. A marginally positive association was found between vitamin B12 status and BC risk in women consuming above the median level of alcohol (OR Q4-Q1 = 1.26; 95% CI 1.00-1.58; P trend = 0.05). Vitamin B12 status was also positively associated with BC risk in women with plasma folate levels below the median value (OR Q4-Q1 = 1.29; 95% CI 1.02–1.62; P trend = 0.03). Overall, folate and vitamin B12 status was not clearly associated with BC risk in this prospective cohort study. However, potential interactions between vitamin B12 and alcohol or folate on the risk of BC deserve further investigation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Preliminary results are presented from the first validation of geophysical dataproducts (ice concentration, snow thickness on sea ice ( ) and ice temperature ( ) fromthe NASA EOS Aqua AMSR-E sensor, in East Antarctica (in September-October 2003). Thechallenge of collecting sufficient measurements with which to adequately validate thecoarse-resolution AMSR-E data products was addressed by means of a hierarchicalapproach, using detailed in situ measurements, digital aerial photography and other satellitedata. Initial results indicate that, at least under cold conditions with a dry snowcover, thereis a reasonably close agreement between satellite- and aerial photo-derived iceconcentrations i.e., 97.2 ±3.6% for NT2 and 96.5 ±2.5% for BBA algorithms versus 94.3±10% for the aerial photos. In general, the AMSR-E concentration represents a slightoverestimate of the actual concentration, with the largest discrepancies occurring in regionscontaining a relatively high proportion of thin ice. Although the AMSR-E concentrations fromthe NT2 and BBA algorithms are similar on average, differences of 〉5% occur on a point-by-point basis, again related to thin ice distribution. The AMSR-E ice temperature ( ) productagrees with coincident surface measurements to within approximately 0.5o C. Regardingsnow thickness, the AMSR retrieval is a significant underestimate compared to in situmeasurements weighted by the percentage of thin ice (and open water) present. For thecase study analysed, the underestimate was 46% for the overall average, but 23%compared to smooth ice measurements. An encouraging factor is that the spatialdistribution of the AMSR-E product follows an expected and consistent spatial pattern,suggesting that the observed difference may be an offset (at least under freezingconditions). Areas of discrepancy are identified, and the need for future work highlighted.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 90 (2009): 1337-1350, doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2499.1.

Description: The Vasco—Cirene program ex-plores how strong air—sea inter-actions promoted by the shallow thermocline and high sea surface temperature in the Seychelles—Chagos thermocline ridge results in marked variability at synoptic, intraseasonal, and interannual time scales. The Cirene oceano-graphic cruise collected oceanic, atmospheric, and air—sea flux observations in this region in Jan-uary—February 2007. The contem-poraneous Vasco field experiment complemented these measure-ments with balloon deployments from the Seychelles. Cirene also contributed to the development of the Indian Ocean observing system via deployment of a moor-ing and 12 Argo profilers. Unusual conditions prevailed in the Indian Ocean during Janu-ary and February 2007, following the Indian Ocean dipole climate anomaly of late 2006. Cirene measurements show that the Seychelles—Chagos thermocline ridge had higher-than-usual heat content with subsurface anomalies up to 7°C. The ocean surface was warmer and fresher than average, and unusual eastward currents prevailed down to 800 m. These anomalous conditions had a major impact on tuna fishing in early 2007. Our dataset also sampled the genesis and maturation of Tropical Cyclone Dora, including high surface temperatures and a strong diurnal cycle before the cyclone, followed by a 1.5°C cool-ing over 10 days. Balloonborne instruments sampled the surface and boundary layer dynamics of Dora. We observed small-scale structures like dry-air layers in the atmosphere and diurnal warm layers in the near-surface ocean. The Cirene data will quantify the impact of these finescale features on the upper-ocean heat budget and atmospheric deep convection.

Description: CNES funded the Vasco part of the experiment; INSU funded the Cirene part. R/V Suroît is an Ifremer ship. The contributions from ODU, WHOI, and FOI (Sweden) are supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 0525657. The participation of the University of Miami group was funded though NASA (NNG04HZ33C). PMEL participation was supported through NOAA’s Office of Climate Observation.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 90 (2009): ES1-ES4, doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2499.2.

Description: The Vasco—Cirene field experiment, in January—February 2007, targeted the Seychelles—Chagos thermocline ridge (SCTR) region, with the main purpose of investigating Madden—Julian Oscillation (MJO)-related SST events. The Validation of the Aeroclipper System under Convective Occurrences (Vasco) experiment (Duvel et al. 2009) and Cirene cruise were designed to provide complementary views of air—sea interaction in the SCTR region. While meteorological balloons were deployed from the Seychelles as a part of Vasco, the Research Vessel (R/V) Suroît was cruising the SCTR region as a part of Cirene.