The paper “A coherent structure approach for parameter estimation in Lagrangian data assimilation“, co-authored by John Maclean (U North Carolina), Naratip Santitissadeekorn, and Christopher K.R.T. Jones (U North Carolina) has been published in the December 2017 issue of PhysicaD (link here).   The paper shows that coherent patterns can be used to form effective data assimilation schemes. A Pattern-based distance is used in a likelihood-free data assimilation, and the pattern-based scheme is unaffected by chaotic advection.