Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity

For more than 30 years, satellite altimetry has been providing a unique data record, crucial for many applications such as ocean circulation and the monitoring of sea level rise at global and regional scale. The stringent requirements of such applications set the need for continuous improvement of satellite altimeter products, including those of past missions, in order to get consistent and homogeneous datasets.The accurate retrieval of sea surface heights from satellite altimetry requires the measured ranges to be corrected for a number of atmospheric and sea state effects. Amongst these effects, the path delay induced by the water vapor and cloud liquid water, the wet tropospheric correction (WTC), is still a major source of uncertainty, in particular in the long-term sea level trend.Sponsored by the European Space Agency, the FDR4ALT project aims at generating improved, up-to-date altimetric records for the historical multidisciplinary 35-day repeat missions, ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat. To achieve this goal, a new set of wet tropospheric corrections based on the GNSS-derived Path Delay Plus (GPD+) algorithm, has been developed for these missions and is the focus of this study. GPD+ are wet path delays, obtained by data combination through objective analysis, using all available WTC sources, including onboard radiometers, GNSS, external imaging radiometers and an atmospheric model.Since the GPD+ WTC are combined values, the intercalibration of the various datasets is a crucial step. To this end, a novel method to intercalibrate the various WTC datasets against one of the current best radiometric references, the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) and the Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS), hereafter designated SSMIS, has been developed.The sensor calibration consists of the adjustment of each dataset to SSMIS using a time-varying set of two parameters (2P), offset and scale factor. For this purpose, 5°x5° grids of WTC mean values for the period of each altimeter cycle and each month, respectively, are computed for SSMIS. Similar grids of mean WTC values for the period of interest are computed for each non-SSMIS sensor, including the MWR onboard each altimeter mission. Using the set of corresponding grid cells for each pair (non-SSMIS, SSMIS) the 2P of the adjustment of each sensor to the SSMIS dataset has been computed. Finally, for the whole study period (1991-2012), ERA5 model and the GNSS dataset have also been adjusted to SSMIS by means of a similar 2P model, with yearly parameters.This paper summarizes the results, focusing on the impact of the inter-calibration and the added value if these corrections for the FDR4ALT products.The new calibration revealed to be robust, less sensitive to sampling issues and able to intercalibrate any set of sensors, even with different orbits and sampling patterns. Results show that the new GPD+ WTC are continuous, consistent and intercalibrated datasets, valid over all surface types. In addition to open ocean, they also cover conditions where the measurements from the onboard microwave radiometers are invalid, mostly coastal and polar regions, recovering, on average, 25-30% of the ocean points.

BackgroundThe human body radiates multiple biological fields which can be measured with sensors directly on or off the body. These electromagnetic fields are hypothesized to be altered by mind and body practices. The primary goal of the current study was to evaluate the feasibility of continuous multi-sensor monitoring during meditation and breathwork practices. It also explored methods to investigate whether simultaneous biological field measures correlate as parts of a dynamic system of biofields responsive to changes in states of consciousness.MethodsTwenty-three adults were recruited to participate. The intervention consisted of a guided loving kindness meditation followed by a guided breathwork exercise while equipped with multiple biofield sensors to measure heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), skin conductance (SCR), alpha waves with electroencephalography (EEG), infrared radiation (IR), and ultraweak photon emission (UPE). Participants completed self-report measures of emotional affect and states of consciousness. Aggregate and individual differences in participants’ responses to the meditation and breathwork were assessed. Exploratory analyses of within-subject correlations between biofields were also conducted.ResultsThe study procedure was feasible with 100% recruitment and retention and the intervention was acceptable to participants. Meditation significantly increased IR of the nose (p = 0.003). Breathwork significantly increased HR (p = 0.002) and decreased IR of the nose (p < 0.001), and left hand UPE showed a near-significant decreasing trend (p = 0.057). Biofield measures changed as expected for some participants. Post-meditation, participants reported lower arousal and increased control, boundarylessness, and non-duality. Post-breathwork, participants reported increased arousal and decreased boundarylessness, connectedness, and non-duality. There were strong correlations (r > 0.5) between UPE from both hands and moderate correlations (r > 0.4) between IR nose temperature and left hand UPE.ConclusionThe current study demonstrated the feasibility of simultaneous measurement using multiple on- and off-body biological field sensors. Meditation and breathwork produced nearly opposite effects on self-report and biofield measures. Preliminary analysis indicated intra-subject correlations between different biofield measures. Future work with a larger sample size and appropriate control groups is required to draw conclusions about the systemic nature of biofield measures and their relationship with states of consciousness.

BackgroundThe extent to which people routinely co-attain recommended sleep and physical activity levels, as well as bidirectional associations between both health behaviours, are poorly understood at the global level. This study aimed to describe the routine co-attainment of adequate sleep and daily step count thresholds and investigate non-linear associations between objective sleep and daily step count in a large multi-national sample of objective health monitoring data.MethodsData were collected from 70,963 users of two consumer-available health devices—an under-mattress sleep sensor and wrist-worn health tracker—between January 2020 and September 2023. Generalised additive models were used to investigate potentially non-linear, bidirectional, exposure-response relationships between sleep parameters (sleep duration, sleep efficiency, and sleep onset latency) and step count at the next-day/night level. Subgroup analyses were undertaken to investigate age-related differences in all effects.ResultsWe show that only 12.9% of people achieve the recommended sleep duration of 7-9hrs/night and >8,000 steps/day, with 16.5% having short sleep (<7hrs/night) and sedentary lives (<5,000 steps/day). Approximately 6hrs sleep equates to the greatest next-day step count (e.g., +339 steps vs 8 hrs/night), and sleep efficiency positively predicts next-day step count in a dose-dependent manner (25th vs 75th percentile: +282 steps/day). Sleep appears largely unaffected by previous-day step count. Effects are similar across age groups but decline in magnitude when adjusted for ‘awake duration’.ConclusionsOur findings provide insight into the bidirectional relationship between sleep-activity globally and highlight the need to ensure sleep and activity health recommendations are mutually attainable.

Extracting specific information, such as medication mentions, from large unstructured medical texts can be challenging, especially when no annotated corpus exists in the target language for training. To overcome this, leveraging existing machine learning models and datasets is essential, and since most pre-trained resources are in English, adopting multilingual approaches can help transferring between languages. In this work, we investigate the usage of a multi-lingual transformer model in a multi-lingual and cross-lingual setting to extract drug names from medical texts using named entity recognition in four European languages: German, English, French, and Spanish. We report the scores obtained by cross-lingual transfer with several published datasets after fine-tuning a multi-lingual model, aiming to create empirical evidence on how the transfer of “medical” knowledge between languages can be expected to benefit various language pairs. We further perform a qualitative error analysis and find that the performance on all languages achieves competitive levels. Conversely, erroneous prediction artifacts are introduced by annotation inconsistencies, differences in annotation guidelines and vague entity labels in general.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12911-025-03179-1.

International audience

Access to affordable and reliable scientific instrumentation remains a significant barrier to the democratization of healthcare and scientific research. In the field of biotechnology, in particular, the complexity, cost, and infrastructure requirements of many instruments continue to limit their accessibility, especially in resource-limited environments. Despite the recent increase in the development of open-source tools, driven by advances in digital fabrication and electronic prototyping, few of these projects have reached large-scale implementation or validation in real-world settings. Here, we present qByte, an open-source, 8-tube isothermal fluorimeter designed to overcome these barriers by offering a cost-effective ($60) yet production-ready solution. qByte leverages standard digital manufacturing and Printed Circuit Board (PCB) assembly techniques and is designed to be portable, making it ideal for both laboratory and field use. The device has been benchmarked against commercial real-time thermocyclers and spectrophotometers, showing comparable results across four key applications: nucleic acid amplification and detection, including the on-site diagnosis of human parasites in Ghana, analysis of protein activity and stability, genetic construct characterization, and bacterial viability tests. Taken together, our results proved qByte as flexible and reliable equipment for a variety of biological tests and applications, while its affordability and open-source design simplify further development and allow adaptation to the needs of future users.

A bstract Background Sleep is essential for overall health and well-being, but assessing sleep architecture and quality is often costly and time-consuming, relying primarily on polysomnography (PSG). Wearable and nearable devices offer potential alternatives, but they regularly lack rigorous validation, especially in real-world settings. Objectives This study evaluates the accuracy and reliability of Withings Sleep Analyzer (WSA), a contactless sleep monitoring device, compared to PSG in a home setting using a large and diverse cohort of healthy individuals. Methods A total of 117 participants (69 women; 39.9 ± 11.4 years, mean ± std) underwent home-based polysomnography (PSG) and simultaneous WSA recording. Data analysis focused on evaluating sleep-wake distinction and sleep stage identification using standard classification metrics. Results WSA demonstrates high sensitivity (93%) for sleep detection and moderate sensitivity (73%) for wakefulness, achieving an overall accuracy of 87% for sleep-wake distinction. The device showed consistent performance across various demographic subgroups, including different age, BMI, mattress and sleep arrangements (with or without bed partner) categories. Challenges were noted in accurately classifying specific sleep stages, particularly in distinguishing between light and deep sleep, with a mean accuracy of 63% and a Cohen’s Kappa of 0.49. The WSA tended to overestimate total sleep time (+20 min) and light sleep (+1h21 min) while underestimating REM (−15 min) and deep sleep (−46 min) durations. Disagreements between expert reviewers, particularly between light and deep sleep stages, mirrored in part the WSA’s misclassifications. Participants reported significantly altered perceived sleep quality during the night with the PSG, suggesting potential discomfort during sleep. Conclusions WSA offers a promising approach to sleep monitoring in natural home environments. Being contactless and placed under the mattress, the WSA’s allows for long-term monitoring of sleep measures. It shows competitive performance in sleep-wake and sleep stage identification compared to other consumer devices. Progress in wearable and nearable devices is necessary to enhance their accuracy to better support the monitoring of populations with strongly impaired sleep, although limited by an imperfect gold standard. This work also emphasizes the importance of using large, diverse, and challenging datasets, as well as the need for a standardized methodology for accurate sleep stage classification.

Schrock-type alkylidene complexes, especially imido ligand-supported metal alkylidene complexes, have been used as catalysts and reagents for C–C multiple bond-forming reactions involving unsaturated organic compounds. Herein, we report that an imidotungsten(IV) complex, WCl2(=NDipp)(P(OMe)3)3, catalyzes a [2+2+1]-cycloaddition reaction of 3,3-disubstituted cyclopropenes and 2 equiv of alkynes, giving multisubstituted cyclopentadienes. The initial step of this catalytic reaction is ring-opening of a cyclopropene by the (imido)tungsten(IV) complex to form an (imido)tungsten vinylalkylidene species. Stoichiometric reactions of the (imido)tungsten vinylalkylidene complex and an η2-alkyne tungsten complex as well as density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed the reaction mechanism, in which two consecutive metatheses of the (imido)tungsten vinylalkylidene species and two alkynes followed by reductive elimination afford the multisubstituted cyclopentadiene along with a regeneration of an (imido)tungsten(IV) species.

The transition route from laminar to turbulent flow in a magnetohydrodynamic duct with a square cross-section is investigated in the limit of low magnetic Reynolds number. In the presence of a transverse magnetic field, Hartmann and Shercliff layers are present on the walls orthogonal and parallel to the field direction, respectively. Independently of the initial location of a finite perturbation in either Shercliff or Hartmann layers, transition relies on a tripping of the Shercliff layer by perturbations, while the Hartmann layer plays a passive role. This is explained, using a dynamical systems interpretation, by the spatial localization of the edge states in the Shercliff layer.

La visite réalisée au Musée National Centre d’Art Reina Sofía, en juillet 2022, après la mise en place du projet d’envergure de l’ancien directeur du Musée, Manuel Borja-Villel, intitulé « Vasos comunicantes – 1881-2021 », qui a vu le jour le 26 novembre 2021, m’a amenée à considérer les initiatives entreprises depuis plusieurs années pour visibiliser le féminin au cœur de cette institution muséale madrilène de renommée internationale. Cette étude liminaire sur ce sujet très vaste se présente ainsi comme un préambule à la question et se propose d’offrir quelques pistes de réflexion sur la thématique abordée, notamment au travers de l’étude des parcours de visite féministes et du réaménagement de l’espace et de la collection permanente, tout en interrogeant également les limites de ces pratiques.