Supporting the EU’s approach to climate change:the discourse of the transnational media within the ‘Brussels Bubble’

Abstract: The Union’s global climate change policy has been widely seen as an expression of its normative power, where it is committed to act through multilateral frameworks in order to tackle the effects of changes in the climate and safeguard the future of people around the world. Internally, the EU’s approach to climate change is complemented by high levels of support from citizens. This article explores another internal source of support for the EU’s leadership in global climate change policy, namely the media. The focus here is on the transnational media’s reporting and coverage of the Copenhagen summit, which is widely considered to be one of the key points in the development of global climate change policy. The article shows that within the ‘Brussels bubble,’ the transnational media supported through its reporting the EU’s ambitious agenda in global climate change policy around the time of the Copenhagen summit

The over-representation of binary DNA tracts in seven sequenced chromosomes

BACKGROUND: DNA tracts composed of only two bases are possible in six combinations: A+G (purines, R), C+T (pyrimidines, Y), G+T (Keto, K), A+C (Imino, M), A+T (Weak, W) and G+C (Strong, S). It is long known that all-pyrimidine tracts, complemented by all-purines tracts ("R.Y tracts"), are excessively present in analyzed DNA. We have previously shown that R.Y tracts are in vast excess in yeast promoters, and brought evidence for their role in gene regulation. Here we report the systematic mapping of all six binary combinations on the level of complete sequenced chromosomes, as well as in their different subregions. RESULTS: DNA tracts composed of the above binary base combinations have been mapped in seven sequenced chromosomes: Human chromosomes 21 and 22 (the major contigs); Drosophila melanogaster chr. 2R; Caenorhabditis elegans chr. I; Arabidopsis thaliana chr. II; Saccharomyces cerevisiae chr. IV and M. jannaschii. A huge over-representation, reaching million-folds, has been found for very long tracts of all binary motifs except S, in each of the seven organisms. Long R.Y tracts are the most excessive, except in D. melanogaster, where the K.M motif predominates. S (G, C rich) tracts are in excess mainly in CpG islands; the W motif predominates in bacteria. Many excessively long W tracts are nevertheless found also in the archeon and in the eukaryotes. The survey of complete chromosomes enables us, for the first time, to map systematically the intergenic regions. In human and other chromosomes we find the highest over-representation of the binary DNA tracts in the intergenic regions. These over-representations are only partly explainable by the presence of interspersed elements. CONCLUSIONS: The over-representation of long DNA tracts composed of five of the above motifs is the largest deviation from randomness so far established for DNA, and this in a wide range of eukaryotic and archeal chromosomes. A propensity for ready DNA unwinding is proposed as the functional role, explaining the evolutionary conservation of the huge excesses observed

ACTRIS ACSM intercomparison - Part 1 : Reproducibility of concentration and fragment results from 13 individual Quadrupole Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitors (Q-ACSM) and consistency with co-located instruments

As part of the European ACTRIS project, the first large Quadrupole Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (Q-ACSM) intercomparison study was conducted in the region of Paris for 3 weeks during the late-fall-early-winter period (November-December 2013). The first week was dedicated to the tuning and calibration of each instrument, whereas the second and third were dedicated to side-by-side comparison in ambient conditions with co-located instruments providing independent information on submicron aerosol optical, physical, and chemical properties. Near real-time measurements of the major chemical species (organic matter, sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, and chloride) in the non-refractory submicron aerosols (NR-PM1) were obtained here from 13 Q-ACSM. The results show that these instruments can produce highly comparable and robust measurements of the NR-PM1 total mass and its major components. Taking the median of the 13 Q-ACSM as a reference for this study, strong correlations (r(2) > 0.9) were observed systematically for each individual Q-ACSM across all chemical families except for chloride for which three Q-ACSMs showing weak correlations partly due to the very low concentrations during the study. Reproducibility expanded uncertainties of Q-ACSM concentration measurements were determined using appropriate methodologies defined by the International Standard Organization (ISO 17025, 1999) and were found to be 9, 15, 19, 28, and 36% for NR-PM1, nitrate, organic matter, sulfate, and ammonium, respectively. However, discrepancies were observed in the relative concentrations of the constituent mass fragments for each chemical component. In particular, significant differences were observed for the organic fragment at mass-to-charge ratio 44, which is a key parameter describing the oxidation state of organic aerosol. Following this first major intercomparison exercise of a large number of Q-ACSMs, detailed intercomparison results are presented, along with a discussion of some recommendations about best calibration practices, standardized data processing, and data treatment.Peer reviewe

Preliminary results of the ACTRIS ACSM intercomparison study at the SIRTA French Atmospheric Supersite in the region of Paris

As part of the EU-FP7 ACTRIS program (Aerosols, Clouds, and Trace gases Research InfraStructure Network; http://www.actris.net), 14 of 19 ACSMs (Aerosol Chemical Scpeciation Monitor; Aerodyne Research Inc., MA, USA) have been deployed for long-term observations within background monitoring stations, among which the French SIRTA atmospheric supersite (Site Instrumental de Recherche par Télédétection Atmosphérique; http://sirta.ipsl.fr) located 20km southwest of Paris. In order to have homogenous quality-controlled ACSM datasets at an European scale, an intercomparison study was conducted from 15 Nov. to 2 Dec. 2013 at the SIRTA station. The real-time mass concentrations and chemical composition (Organic, nitrate, sulfate, ammonium) of nonrefractory submicronic aerosols (NR-PM1) measured by the ACSMs were compared providing new insights on the precision of this instrument. Accuracy of these measurements was then evaluated with various co-located instruments (TEOM-FDMS, SMPS, OPC, OC-EC Sunset Field analyzer, PILS-IC, HR-ToF-AMS, aethalometers, nephelometers, filter sampling). Preliminary results of this significant intercomparison stduy are presented which compare ACSM measurement precision, accuracy and validity of source apportionment data

Sharp Images Detection for Microscope Pollen Slides Observation

International audienc