Future mass loss projections of the Greenland ice sheet require understanding of the processes at a glacier terminus, especially of iceberg calving. We present detailed and high-rate terrestrial radar interferometer observations of Eqip Sermia and Bowdoin Glacier, two outlet glaciers in Greenland with comparable dimensions and investigate iceberg calving, surface elevation, velocity, strain rates and their links to air temperature, tides and topography. The results reveal that the two glaciers exhibit very different flow and calving behaviour on different timescales. Ice flow driven by a steep surface slope with several topographic steps leads to high velocities, areas of extension and intense crevassing, which triggers frequent but small calving events independent of local velocity gradients. In contrast, ice flow under smooth surface slopes leaves the ice relatively intact, such that sporadic large-scale calving events dominate, which initiate in areas with high shearing. Flow acceleration caused by enhanced meltwater input and tidal velocity variations were observed for terminus sections close to floatation. Firmly grounded terminus sections showed no tidal signal and a weak short-term reaction to air temperature. These results demonstrate reaction timescales to external forcings from hours to months, which are, however, strongly dependent on local terminus geometry.

Evidence of Late Triassic large tetrapods from the UK is rare. Here, we describe a track-bearing surface located on the shoreline near Penarth, south Wales, United Kingdom. The total exposed surface is c. 50 m long and c. 2 m wide, and is split into northern and southern sections by a small fault. We interpret these impressions as tracks, rather than abiogenic sedimentary structures, because of the possession of marked displacement rims and their relationship to each other with regularly spaced impressions forming putative trackways. The impressions are large (up to c. 50 cm in length), but poorly preserved, and retain little information about track-maker anatomy. We discuss alternative, plausible, abiotic mechanisms that might have been responsible for the formation of these features, but reject them in favour of these impressions being tetrapod tracks. We propose that the site is an additional occurrence of the ichnotaxon Eosauropus, representing a sauropodomorph trackmaker, thereby adding a useful new datum to their sparse Late Triassic record in the UK. We also used historical photogrammetry to digitally map the extent of site erosion during 2009–2020. More than 1 m of the surface exposure has been lost over this 11-year period, and the few tracks present in both models show significant smoothing, breakage and loss of detail. These tracks are an important datapoint for Late Triassic palaeontology in the UK, even if they cannot be confidently assigned to a specific trackmaker. The documented loss of the bedding surface highlights the transient and vulnerable nature of our fossil resources, particularly in coastal settings, and the need to gather data as quickly and effectively as possible.

This paper introduces the Instructed Glacier Model (IGM) – a model that simulates ice dynamics, mass balance and its coupling to predict the evolution of glaciers, icefields or ice sheets. The novelty of IGM is that it models the ice flow by a Convolutional Neural Network, which is trained from data generated with hybrid SIA + SSA or Stokes ice flow models. By doing so, the most computationally demanding model component is substituted by a cheap emulator. Once trained with representative data, we demonstrate that IGM permits to model mountain glaciers up to 1000 × faster than Stokes ones on Central Processing Units (CPU) with fidelity levels above 90% in terms of ice flow solutions leading to nearly identical transient thickness evolution. Switching to the GPU often permits additional significant speed-ups, especially when emulating Stokes dynamics or/and modelling at high spatial resolution. IGM is an open-source Python code which deals with two-dimensional (2-D) gridded input and output data. Together with a companion library of trained ice flow emulators, IGM permits user-friendly, highly efficient and mechanically state-of-the-art glacier and icefields simulations.

New Caledonia hosts a large part of the world’s breeding population of the Tahiti Petrel Pseudobulweria rostrata. This rare, cryptic and little-studied seabird nests locally in the mountains up to 1,200 m in altitude, particularly in ultramafic (i.e. nickel-rich) areas where mining activity is a major threat. The considerable development of mining activities in New Caledonia over the past decade raises concerns about its potential impacts on breeding populations through both direct habitat destruction and side effects such as pollution or repeated disturbances. This context calls for a dedicated assessment of the persistence of local populations to guide the design of an adapted conservation strategy and potential restoration programmes. We investigated the impact of mining activities on a Tahiti Petrel population when surveyed pre-mining (2004–2007) and following a period of full mining (2017–2018). The vocal activity was assessed at a total of 114 night-call count stations spread over the Koniambo massif. Areas with ground-originated vocal activity were then searched during daytime for nesting evidence. Finally, georeferenced aerial photos were used to estimate habitat degradation as the percentage of bare soil cover (PBSC) within a 400-m radius around each call count station. Our study revealed a dramatic decline in the Tahiti Petrel vocal activity and a desertion of breeding habitats during the full-mining period compared to the pre-mining period. In light of these results, we recommend designing safe breeding areas and combining restoration methods including social attraction, predation control and artificial burrows at mining sites.

As part of a process to improve the quality of care, the French Society of Biological Psychiatry developed recommendations for clinical practice in bipolar disorder.

Retreat of calving glaciers worldwide has contributed substantially to sea-level rise in recent decades. Mass loss by calving contributes significantly to the uncertainty of sea-level rise projections. At Bowdoin Glacier, Northwest Greenland, most calving occurs by a few large events resulting from kilometre-scale fractures forming parallel to the calving front. High-resolution terrestrial radar interferometry data of such an event reveal that crevasse opening is fastest at low tide and accelerates during the final 36 h before calving. Using the ice flow model Elmer/Ice, we identify the crevasse water level as a key driver of modelled opening rates. Sea water-level variations in the range of local tidal amplitude (1 m) can reproduce observed opening rate fluctuations, provided crevasse water level is at least 4 m above the low-tide sea level. The accelerated opening rates within the final 36 h before calving can be modelled by additional meltwater input into the crevasse, enhanced ice cliff undercutting by submarine melt, ice damage increase due to tidal cyclic fatigue, crevasse deepening or a combination of these processes. Our results highlight the influence of surface meltwater and tides on crevasse opening leading to major calving events at grounded tidewater glaciers such as Bowdoin.

Modelling paleo-glacier networks in mountain ranges on the millennial timescales requires ice flow approximations. Hybrid models calculating ice flow by combining vertical shearing (shallow ice approximation) and longitudinal stretching (shallow shelf approximation) have been applied to model paleo-glacier networks on steep terrain, yet their validity has not yet been assessed quantitatively. Moreover, hybrid models consistently yield higher ice thicknesses than Last Glacial Maximum geomorphological reconstructions in the European Alps. Here, we compare results based on the hybrid Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM) and the Stokes model Elmer/Ice on the Rhine Glacier, a catchment of the former European Alpine Icefield. For PISM, we also test two magnitudes of flux limitation in a scheme that reduces shearing velocities. We find that the flux limitation typically used in PISM yields significantly reduced shearing speeds and increases ice thicknesses by up to 500 m, partly explaining previous overestimations. However, reducing the ice flux limitation allows the hybrid model to minimize this mismatch and captures sliding speeds, ice thicknesses, ice extent and basal temperatures in close agreement with those obtained with the Stokes model.

In this contribution, the impact of extreme environmental conditions in terms of energy-level radiation of protons on silicon–germanium (SiGe)-integrated circuits is experimentally studied. Canonical representative structures including linear (passive interconnects/antennas) and non-linear (low-noise amplifiers) are used as carriers for assessing the impact of aggressive stress conditions on their performances. Perspectives for holistic modeling and characterization approaches accounting for various interaction mechanisms (substrate resistivity variations, couplings/interferences, drift in DC and radio frequency (RF) characteristics) for active samples are down to allow for optimal solutions in pushing SiGe technologies toward applications with harsh and radiation-intense environments (e.g. space, nuclear, military). Specific design prototypes are built for assessing mission-critical profiles for emerging RF and mm-wave applications.

Remains of a coelacanth specimen are described from Rhaetian deposits of the Var Department, southeastern France. They comprise the lower part of a branchial apparatus associated with a left lower jaw and a basisphenoid. Osteological features of the angular and basisphenoid and the teeth ornamentation allow the inclusion of the specimen in the mawsoniid family, genus and species indeterminate. Mawsoniids are known in freshwater environments from the Triassic of North America and from the Cretaceous of Western Gondwana and Europe, as well as from Late Jurassic marine environments from Europe. The new discovery here reported represents the first coelacanth from the marine Triassic of France and improves the understanding of the palaeobiogeography of the Mawsoniidae.

In this study, a modelling approach was used to investigate the cause of the diversion of erratic boulders from Mont Blanc and southern Valais by the Valais Glacier to the Solothurn lobe during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Using the Parallel Ice Sheet Model, we simulated the ice flow field during the LGM, and analyzed the trajectories taken by erratic boulders from areas with characteristic lithologies. The main difficulty in this exercise laid with the large uncertainties affecting the paleo climate forcing required as input for the surface mass-balance model. In order to mimic the prevailing climate conditions during the LGM, we applied different temperature offsets and regional precipitation corrections to present-day climate data, and selected the parametrizations, which yielded the best match between the modelled ice extent and the geomorphologically-based ice-margin reconstruction. After running a range of simulations with varying parameters, our results showed that only one parametrization allowed boulders to be diverted to the Solothurn lobe during the LGM. This precipitation pattern supports the existing theory of preferential southwesterly advection of moisture to the alps during the LGM, but also indicates strongly enhanced precipitation over the Mont Blanc massif and enhanced cooling over the Jura Mountains.

This is a report of a fortunate story of an unusual AK-47 bullet trajectory which took place during the Paris (France) attack of November 13th, 2015. A young man, trying to protect his girlfriend, interfered between her and a shooter. He had been wounded in the posterior compartment of the thigh. The bullet penetrated him and, instead of exiting, rebound against his Smartphone, which was in the front pocket of his pants. Thanks to that, the missile bullet did not injure his girlfriend but ended its trajectory in the fat tissue of his thigh.

ThabouillotO, PerrierP, RocheNC, AgardD, BarbierO, MartinG, ViantE, LeclereJB. A Fortunate Story of an Unusual AK-47 Bullet Trajectory: Always Keep a Smartphone in Your Pocket. Prehosp Disaster Med, 2016;31(3):343–345.

In this study we explore whether world knowledge (WK) processing differs between individuals listening to their native (L1) or their non-native (L2) language. We recorded event-related brain potentials in L1 and L2 speakers of Spanish while they listened to sentences uttered by native speakers of Spanish. Sentences were either congruent or incongruent with participants’ WK. In addition, participants also listened to sentences in which upcoming words could not be anticipated on the basis of WK. WK violations elicited a late negativity of greater magnitude and duration in the L2 than the L1 group. However, sentences in which WK was not helpful regarding word anticipation elicited similar N400 modulations in both groups. These results suggest that WK processing requires a deeper lexical search in L2 comprehension than in L1 comprehension.

Thalattosuchians are crocodylomorphs mainly known from marine strata of Early Jurassic to Early Cretaceous age. They represent the earliest crocodylomorph radiation to an aquatic habitat and their evolutionary history offers very few records from freshwater settings. Here, we report several exquisitely preserved thalattosuchian skulls attributed to a derived teleosaurid from a pedogenic horizon located at the base of a fluvial series of alternating silts and sandstones of the Phu Kradung Formation (Upper Jurassic) of northeastern Thailand. Using laser ablation multicollector inductively coupled mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) on tooth enamel and dentine, we measured isotopic ratios of strontium (87Sr/86Sr) to test the habitat of these teleosaurids. In addition, Sr concentrations of the dental tissues were estimated from the calibrated signal intensities of the Sr isotope measurements. The dataset includes bioapatite (teeth or scales) of eight terrestrial and five aquatic vertebrates. Theropods exhibit lower Sr concentrations both in enamel and dentine compared to others groups, a pattern in accordance with the calcium biopurification process, which predicts that Sr concentrations in the body of vertebrates decrease up the trophic chain. It also excludes the possibility that diagenesis has completely overprinted the Sr isotope compositions of the fossil assemblage, which exhibits a homogeneous 87Sr/86Sr signature above the Late Jurassic seawater value. Values for teleosaurid teeth are in the range of other values for vertebrates in the continental assemblage and imply that these crocodylomorphs did not migrate between freshwater and marine habitats at least in the time constraint of the mineralizing tooth. This result represents the first demonstration that a population of teleosaurids was established for a prolonged time in a freshwater environment. Whether the ability of teleosaurids to inhabit freshwater habitats is a secondary adaptation or whether it is plesiomorphic and inherited from freshwater ancestors is discussed.

In this paper we reconstruct the space–time trajectory beneath the surface of Aletschgletscher, Switzerland, of the corpses of three mountaineers that disappeared in March 1926 and reappeared at the glacier surface in June 2012. Our method integrates the time-dependent velocity field of an existing full-Stokes glacier model, starting at the point where the corpses were found at the glacier surface. Our main result is that we were able to localize the immersion location where the brothers presumably died. As a second result, the upstream end point of the computed trajectory emerges very close to the glacier surface in 1926, giving a new and global validation of the glacier model in space and time. Testing the sensitivity of the immersion location obtained with respect to the model and other uncertainties indicates an area of 0.6% of the entire glacier area where the accident could have occurred. Our result suggests that death was not caused by an avalanche or a fall into a crevasse; instead, it is likely that the mountaineers became disoriented in prolonged severe weather conditions and froze to death.

In the present paper, we present a dynamic gate biasing technique applied to a 10 W, S-band GaN amplifier. The proposed methodology addresses class-B operation of power amplifiers that offers the potential for high efficiency but requires a careful attention to maintain good linearity performances at large output power back-off. This work proposes a solution to improve the linearity of class-B amplifiers driven by radio frequency-modulated signals having large peak to average power ratios. An important aspect of this work concerns the characterization of the dynamic behavior of GaN devices for gate bias trajectory optimization. For that purpose, the experimental study reported here is based on the use of a time-domain envelope setup. A specific gate bias circuit has been designed and connected to a 10 W – 2.5 GHz GaN amplifier demo board from CREE. Compared to conventional class-B operation with a fixed gate bias, a 10-dB improvement in terms of third-order intermodulation is reached. When applied to the amplification of 16-QAM signals the proposed technique demonstrates significant ACPR reduction of order of 6 dB along with error vector magnitude (EVM) improvements of five points over 8 dB output power back-off with a minor impact on power-added efficiency performances.

Bemisia tabaci Gennadius is a major pest on cotton and vegetable plants in Africa. It is considered as a cryptic species complex. Identification of the most damaging species such as the Middle East–Asia Minor 1 (B biotype) and Mediterranean (MED) (which contains the Q and Africa silverleaf (ASL) biotypes) species represents an important step towards the management of B. tabaci. Some data on the geographical distribution of the B. tabaci species complex exist in Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo, but data on the pest's invasion and displacement dynamics, in relation to time, are lacking. Here, molecular markers (mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase, mtCO1) were used to determine the identity of B. tabaci. Our results illustrate population dynamics on cotton and vegetable plants between 2007, 2009 and 2010. On cotton in southern Togo, ASL was predominant and found in sympatry with Q1. Its frequency decreased slightly over time, i.e. from 92% in 2009 to 90% in 2010. In Burkina Faso, Q1, Q3 and ASL biotypes showed different temporal and spatial distribution patterns. There, Q1 dominated on cotton plants throughout the study. This work provides relevant information about the population dynamics of B. tabaci MED species in two West African countries, Burkina Faso and Togo, in connection with pest management programmes.

A previously undocumented marine vertebrate fauna comprising ichthyosaur, plesiosaur, marine crocodilian and fish remains from the Toarcian–Aalenian succession at Lafarge quarry, southern Beaujolais (Rhône, France) is described on the basis of both historical collections and new discoveries. The taxonomic composition of the Lafarge quarry marine vertebrate assemblage highlights its cosmopolitan nature and strong relationships with taxa known from elsewhere in Europe. Several groups are recorded for the first time in the Toarcian–Aalenian succession of France, implying new palaeobiogeographic interpretations and prompting discussion of marine amniote diversity during this interval.