46 research outputs found
CIRENE Air-Sea Interactions in the Seychelles-Chagos Thermocline Ridge Region
A field experiment in the southwestern Indian Ocean provides new insights into ocean-atmosphere interactions in a key climatic region
Global genomic analyses of wheat powdery mildew reveal association of pathogen spread with historical human migration and trade
The fungus Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici causes wheat powdery mildew disease. Here, we study its spread and evolution by analyzing a global sample of 172 mildew genomes. Our analyses show that B.g. tritici emerged in the Fertile Crescent during wheat domestication. After it spread throughout Eurasia, colonization brought it to America, where it hybridized with unknown grass mildew species. Recent trade brought USA strains to Japan, and European strains to China. In both places, they hybridized with local ancestral strains. Thus, although mildew spreads by wind regionally, our results indicate that humans drove its global spread throughout history and that mildew rapidly evolved through hybridization
Cirene : air-sea iInteractions in the Seychelles-Chagos thermocline ridge region
Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 90 (2009): 1337-1350, doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2499.1.The VascoâCirene program ex-plores how strong airâsea inter-actions promoted by the shallow thermocline and high sea surface temperature in the SeychellesâChagos thermocline ridge results in marked variability at synoptic, intraseasonal, and interannual time scales. The Cirene oceano-graphic cruise collected oceanic, atmospheric, and airâsea flux observations in this region in Jan-uaryâFebruary 2007. The contem-poraneous Vasco field experiment complemented these measure-ments with balloon deployments from the Seychelles. Cirene also contributed to the development of the Indian Ocean observing system via deployment of a moor-ing and 12 Argo profilers.
Unusual conditions prevailed in the Indian Ocean during Janu-ary and February 2007, following the Indian Ocean dipole climate anomaly of late 2006. Cirene measurements show that the SeychellesâChagos thermocline ridge had higher-than-usual heat content with subsurface anomalies up to 7°C. The ocean surface was warmer and fresher than average, and unusual eastward currents prevailed down to 800 m. These anomalous conditions had a major impact on tuna fishing in early 2007. Our dataset also sampled the genesis and maturation of Tropical Cyclone Dora, including high surface temperatures and a strong diurnal cycle before the cyclone, followed by a 1.5°C cool-ing over 10 days. Balloonborne instruments sampled the surface and boundary layer dynamics of Dora. We observed small-scale structures like dry-air layers in the atmosphere and diurnal warm layers in the near-surface ocean. The Cirene data will quantify the impact of these finescale features on the upper-ocean heat budget and atmospheric deep convection.CNES funded the Vasco part of the experiment; INSU
funded the Cirene part. R/V SuroĂźt is an Ifremer ship. The
contributions from ODU, WHOI, and FOI (Sweden) are
supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant
Number 0525657. The participation of the University of
Miami group was funded though NASA (NNG04HZ33C).
PMEL participation was supported through NOAAâs Office
of Climate Observation
Evaluating two implant designs in patients undergoing primary total knee arthroplasty using a novel measure of early optimal recovery: a retrospective observational study.
Purpose Quality of care in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) between implants was assessed using a novel composite outcome measure, early optimal recovery (EOR), to indicate ideal clinical outcomes and minimal healthcare resource utilization. Methods Patients that underwent primary TKA in the study group (ATTUNEÂź Knee System) or control group (LCSÂź COMPLETE Knee System) were included in this retrospective, single-center study. EOR was defined as no complications, no readmissions, no extra outpatient visits,ââ€â48 h length of hospital stay (LOS), and restored range of motion and pain perception at 3-month follow-up. Multivariate logistic regression was used to compare EOR between the study and control groups. Results were adjusted for differences in baseline characteristics and are presented with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Data were collected from a specialized clinic for elective surgeries in the Netherlands, between January 2017 and December 2020. Results A total of 566 patients (62.4% female, mean age 67 years) were included for analysis; 185 patients (32.7%) underwent TKA in the study group. Compared to the control group, patients in the study group had greater probability of achieving EOR (65.8% [95% CI: 55.1â75.2] vs. 38.9% [95% CI: 32.8â45.3]; pâ<â0.001), a LOSââ€â48 h (77.2% [95% CI: 67.7â84.5] vs. 61.4% [95% CI: 54.7â67.7]; pâ<â0.05), and ideal pain perception at 3-month follow-up (93.3% [95% CI: 85.7â97.0] vs. 78.2% [95% CI: 71.0â83.9]; pâ<â0.05). Conclusion The study group was associated with a greater probability of achieving EOR versus the control group, suggesting improved quality of care
EURECâŽA
The science guiding the EURECâŽA campaign and its measurements is presented. EURECâŽA comprised roughly 5 weeks of measurements in the downstream winter trades of the North Atlantic â eastward and southeastward of Barbados. Through its ability to characterize processes operating across a wide range of scales, EURECâŽA marked a turning point in our ability to observationally study factors influencing clouds in the trades, how they will respond to warming, and their link to other components of the earth system, such as upper-ocean processes or the life cycle of particulate matter. This characterization was made possible by thousands (2500) of sondes distributed to measure circulations on meso- (200âkm) and larger (500âkm) scales, roughly 400âh of flight time by four heavily instrumented research aircraft; four global-class research vessels; an advanced ground-based cloud observatory; scores of autonomous observing platforms operating in the upper ocean (nearly 10â000 profiles), lower atmosphere (continuous profiling), and along the airâsea interface; a network of water stable isotopologue measurements; targeted tasking of satellite remote sensing; and modeling with a new generation of weather and climate models. In addition to providing an outline of the novel measurements and their composition into a unified and coordinated campaign, the six distinct scientific facets that EURECâŽA explored â from North Brazil Current rings to turbulence-induced clustering of cloud droplets and its influence on warm-rain formation â are presented along with an overview of EURECâŽA's outreach activities, environmental impact, and guidelines for scientific practice. Track data for all platforms are standardized and accessible at https://doi.org/10.25326/165 (Stevens, 2021), and a film documenting the campaign is provided as a video supplement
EURECâŽA
The science guiding the EURECâŽA campaign and its measurements is presented. EURECâŽA comprised roughly 5 weeks of measurements in the downstream winter trades of the North Atlantic â eastward and southeastward of Barbados. Through its ability to characterize processes operating across a wide range of scales, EURECâŽA marked a turning point in our ability to observationally study factors influencing clouds in the trades, how they will respond to warming, and their link to other components of the earth system, such as upper-ocean processes or the life cycle of particulate matter. This characterization was made possible by thousands (2500) of sondes distributed to measure circulations on meso- (200âkm) and larger (500âkm) scales, roughly 400âh of flight time by four heavily instrumented research aircraft; four global-class research vessels; an advanced ground-based cloud observatory; scores of autonomous observing platforms operating in the upper ocean (nearly 10â000 profiles), lower atmosphere (continuous profiling), and along the airâsea interface; a network of water stable isotopologue measurements; targeted tasking of satellite remote sensing; and modeling with a new generation of weather and climate models. In addition to providing an outline of the novel measurements and their composition into a unified and coordinated campaign, the six distinct scientific facets that EURECâŽA explored â from North Brazil Current rings to turbulence-induced clustering of cloud droplets and its influence on warm-rain formation â are presented along with an overview of EURECâŽA's outreach activities, environmental impact, and guidelines for scientific practice. Track data for all platforms are standardized and accessible at https://doi.org/10.25326/165 (Stevens, 2021), and a film documenting the campaign is provided as a video supplement
Exchanges of Kinetic Energy at the Ocean-Atmosphere Interface: A closer look at the Wave-influenced Boundary Layer (WBL) from wind-wave tank data and from a wave-following platform Thirteenth
International audienceRecent investigation of the Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE) budget in the Wave-influenced atmospheric Boundary Layer (WBL) from in situ measurements, numerical modelling, and wind-wave tank data.Basic concepts, experimental facility and sea-platform, as well as numerical model abilities are discussed from the point of view of momentum exchange across the air/sea interface, and the value of the imbalance term of the TKE budget due to the wind-wave effect is quantified
Exchanges of Kinetic Energy at the Ocean-Atmosphere Interface: A closer look at the Wave-influenced Boundary Layer (WBL) from wind-wave tank data and from a wave-following platform Thirteenth
International audienceRecent investigation of the Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE) budget in the Wave-influenced atmospheric Boundary Layer (WBL) from in situ measurements, numerical modelling, and wind-wave tank data.Basic concepts, experimental facility and sea-platform, as well as numerical model abilities are discussed from the point of view of momentum exchange across the air/sea interface, and the value of the imbalance term of the TKE budget due to the wind-wave effect is quantified
Single residues in the LRR domain of the wheat PM3A immune receptor can control the strength and the spectrum of the immune response
The development of improved plant nucleotide-binding, leucine-rich repeat (LRR) immune receptors (NLRs) has mostly been based on random mutagenesis or on structural information available for specific receptors complexed with the recognized pathogen effector. Here, we use a targeted mutagenesis approach based on the natural diversity of the Pm3 powdery mildew resistance alleles present in different wheat (Triticum aestivum) genotypes. In order to understand the functional importance of the amino acid polymorphisms between the active immune receptor PM3A and the inactive ancestral variant PM3CS, we exchanged polymorphic regions and residues in the LRR domain of PM3A with the corresponding segments of PM3CS. These novel variants were functionally tested for recognition of the corresponding AVRPM3A2/F2 avirulence protein in Nicotiana benthamiana. We identified polymorphic residues in four regions of PM3A that enhance the immune response, but also residues that reduce it or result in complete loss of function. We found that the identified critical residues in PM3A modify its activation threshold towards different protein variants of AVRPM3A2/F2 . PM3A variants with a lowered threshold gave a stronger overall response and gained an extended recognition spectrum. One of these variant proteins with a single amino acid change was stably transformed into wheat, where it conferred race-specific resistance to mildew. This is a proof of concept that improved PM3A variants with an enlarged recognition spectrum can be engineered based on natural diversity by exchanging single or multiple residues that modulate resistance function