Evaluation of SMAP downscaled brightness temperature using SMAPEx-4/5 airborne observations.

The Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP) mission, launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on 31st January 2015, was designed to provide global soil moisture every 2 to 3 days at 9 km resolution by downscaling SMAP passive microwave observations obtained at 36 km resolution using active microwave observations at 3 km resolution, and then retrieving soil moisture from the resulting 9 km brightness temperature product. This study evaluated the SMAP Active/Passive (AP) downscaling algorithm together with other resolution enhancement techniques. Airborne passive microwave observations acquired at 1 km resolution over the Murrumbidgee River catchment in south-eastern Australia during the fourth and fifth Soil Moisture Active Passive Experiments (SMAPEx-4/5) were used as reference data. The SMAPEx-4/5 data were collected in May and September 2015, respectively, and aggregated to 9 km for direct comparison with a number of available resolution-enhanced brightness temperature estimates. The results show that the SMAP AP downscaled brightness temperature had a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.84 and Root-Mean-Squared Error (RMSE) of ~10 K, while SMAP Enhanced, Nearest Neighbour, Weighted Average, and the Smoothing Filter-based Modulation (SFIM) brightness temperature estimates had somewhat better performance (RMSEs of ~7 K and an R exceeding 0.9). Although the SFIM had the lowest unbiased RMSE of ~6 K, the effect of cloud cover on Ka-band observations limits data availability.

Multi-time scale analysis of the spatial representativeness of in situ soil moisture data within satellite footprints.

We conduct a novel comprehensive investigation that seeks to prove the connection between spatial and time scales in surface soil moisture (SM) within the satellite footprint (~50 km). Modeled and measured point series at Yanco and Little Washita in situ networks are first decomposed into anomalies at time scales ranging from 0.5 to 128 days, using wavelet transforms. Then, their degree of spatial representativeness is evaluated on a per time-scale basis by comparison to large-spatial scale datasets (the in situ spatial average, SMOS, AMSR2 and ECMWF). Four methods are used for this: temporal stability analysis (TStab), triple collocation (TC), the percentage of correlated areas (CArea) and a new proposed approach that uses wavelet-based correlations (WCor). We found that the mean of the spatial representativeness values tends to increase with the time scale but so does their dispersion. Locations exhibit poor spatial representativeness at scales below 4 days, while either very good or poor representativeness at seasonal scales. Regarding the methods, TStab cannot be applied to the anomaly series due to their multiple zero-crossings and TC is suitable for week and month scales but not for other scales where datasets cross-correlations are found low. In contrast, WCor and CArea give consistent results at all time-scales. WCor is less sensitive to the spatial sampling density, so it is a robust method that can be applied to sparse networks (1 station per footprint). These results are promising to improve the validation and downscaling of satellite SM series and the optimization of SM networks.

Successful treatment of neonatal trilateral retinoblastoma.

Trilateral retinoblastoma is a rare and almost exclusively fatal disease. Previous treatment regimens have failed to prolong life once the diagnosis is made. We present the first documented case of a patient with neonatal trilateral retinoblastoma successfully treated with chemotherapy and sequential local retinal treatment who is alive and well 26 months after diagnosis.

Continuous flow contact lens delivery of gentamicin to rabbit cornea and aqueous humor.

The Morgan Therapeutic Lens (MTL) was investigated as a continuous corneal perfusion system in New Zealand white rabbits. Gentamicin concentration in the cornea and aqueous humor delivered by the MTL was compared to gentamicin drops (13.6 mg/ml) administered every 15 or 30 minutes. Gentamicin (1 mg/ml) or 5 mg/ml was perfused at 10 ml/hr for up to 4.0 hours. At each time interval of 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 hours, homogenized corneas and aqueous humour were assayed for gentamicin concentrations. The highest aqueous humour gentamicin concentrations of 57.99 +/- 12.86 micrograms/ml were significantly higher with the MTL and 5 mg/ml of gentamicin compared with the MTL and 1 mg/ml of gentamicin or than drops applied every 30 minutes, but not significantly different than drops every 15 minutes. Highest corneal concentrations of gentamicin of 496.04 +/- 101.16 micrograms/gm cornea were significantly higher with MTL and 5 mg/ml of gentamicin compared with the MTL and 1 mg/ml gentamicin or than drops applied every 30 minutes, but not significantly different than drops every 15 minutes. All mean gentamicin concentrations attained via the MTL exceeded the mean inhibitory concentration for most sensitive bacterial species. The MTL is a reliable drug delivery system with distinct advantages, and may be a useful therapeutic modality in the ocular delivery of gentamicin and other drugs.