Observations of HONO by laser-induced fluorescence at the South Pole during ANTCI 2003

Observations of nitrous acid (HONO) by laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) at the South Pole taken during the Antarctic Troposphere Chemistry Investigation (ANTCI), which took place over the time period of Nov. 15, 2003 to Jan. 4, 2004, are presented here. The median observed mixing ratio of HONO 10 m above the snow was 5.8 pptv (mean value 6.3 pptv) with a maximum of 18.2 pptv on Nov 30th, Dec 1st, 3rd, 15th, 17th, 21st, 22nd, 25th, 27th and 28th. The measurement uncertainty is ±35%. The LIF HONO observations are compared to concurrent HONO observations performed by mist chamber/ion chromatography (MC/IC). The HONO levels reported by MC/IC are about 7.2 ± 2.3 times higher than those reported by LIF. Citation: Liao, W., A. T. Case, J. Mastromarino, D. Tan, and J. E. Dibb (2006), Observations of HONO by laser-induced fluorescence at the South Pole during ANTCI 2003, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L09810, doi:10.1029/2005GL025470

Comparative analysis of rigidity across protein families

We present a comparative study in which 'pebble game' rigidity analysis is applied to multiple protein crystal structures, for each of six different protein families. We find that the main-chain rigidity of a protein structure at a given hydrogen bond energy cutoff is quite sensitive to small structural variations, and conclude that the hydrogen bond constraints in rigidity analysis should be chosen so as to form and test specific hypotheses about the rigidity of a particular protein. Our comparative approach highlights two different characteristic patterns ('sudden' or 'gradual') for protein rigidity loss as constraints are removed, in line with recent results on the rigidity transitions of glassy networks

A Bi-Hamiltonian Formulation for Triangular Systems by Perturbations

A bi-Hamiltonian formulation is proposed for triangular systems resulted by perturbations around solutions, from which infinitely many symmetries and conserved functionals of triangular systems can be explicitly constructed, provided that one operator of the Hamiltonian pair is invertible. Through our formulation, four examples of triangular systems are exhibited, which also show that bi-Hamiltonian systems in both lower dimensions and higher dimensions are many and varied. Two of four examples give local 2+1 dimensional bi-Hamiltonian systems and illustrate that multi-scale perturbations can lead to higher-dimensional bi-Hamiltonian systems.Comment: 16 pages, to appear in J. Math. Phy

GCR access to the Moon as measured by the CRaTER instrument on LRO

[1] Recent modeling efforts have yielded varying and conflicting results regarding the possibility that Earth\u27s magnetosphere is able to shield energetic particles of \u3e10 MeV at lunar distances. This population of particles consists of galactic cosmic rays as well as energetic particles that are accelerated by solar flares and coronal mass ejections. The Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is in orbit about the Moon and is thus able to directly test these modeling results. Over the course of a month, CRaTER samples the upstream solar wind as well as various regions of Earth\u27s magnetotail. CRaTER data from multiple lunations demonstrate that Earth\u27s magnetosphere at lunar distances produces no measurable influence on energetic particle flux, even at the lowest energies (\u3e14 MeV protons) where any effect should be maximized. For particles with energies of 14–30 MeV, we calculate an upper limit (determined by counting statistics) on the amount of shielding caused by the magnetosphere of 1.7%. The high energy channel (\u3e500 MeV) provides an upper limit of 3.2%

New measurements of total ionizing dose in the lunar environment

[1] We report new measurements of solar minimum ionizing radiation dose at the Moon onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) from June 2009 through May 2010. The Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument on LRO houses a compact and highly precise microdosimeter whose design allows measurements of dose rates below 1 micro-Rad per second in silicon achieved with minimal resources (20 g, ∼250 milliwatts, and ∼3 bits/second). We envision the use of such a small yet accurate dosimeter in many future spaceflight applications where volume, mass, and power are highly constrained. As this was the first operation of the microdosimeter in a space environment, the goal of this study is to verify its response by using simultaneous measurements of the galactic cosmic ray ionizing environment at LRO, at L1, and with other concurrent dosimeter measurements and model predictions. The microdosimeter measured the same short timescale modulations in the galactic cosmic rays as the other independent measurements, thus verifying its response to a known source of minimum-ionizing particles. The total dose for the LRO mission over the first 333 days was only 12.2 Rads behind ∼130 mils of aluminum because of the delayed rise of solar activity in solar cycle 24 and the corresponding lack of intense solar energetic particle events. The dose rate in a 50 km lunar orbit was about 30 percent lower than the interplanetary rate, as one would expect from lunar obstruction of the visible sky

Record-setting Cosmic-ray Intensities in 2009 and 2010

We report measurements of record-setting intensities of cosmic-ray nuclei from C to Fe, made with the Cosmic Ray Isotope Spectrometer carried on the Advanced Composition Explorer in orbit about the inner Sun-Earth Lagrangian point. In the energy interval from ~70 to ~450 MeV nucleon^(–1), near the peak in the near-Earth cosmic-ray spectrum, the measured intensities of major species from C to Fe were each 20%-26% greater in late 2009 than in the 1997-1998 minimum and previous solar minima of the space age (1957-1997). The elevated intensities reported here and also at neutron monitor energies were undoubtedly due to several unusual aspects of the solar cycle 23/24 minimum, including record-low interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) intensities, an extended period of reduced IMF turbulence, reduced solar-wind dynamic pressure, and extremely low solar activity during an extended solar minimum. The estimated parallel diffusion coefficient for cosmic-ray transport based on measured solar-wind properties was 44% greater in 2009 than in the 1997-1998 solar-minimum period. In addition, the weaker IMF should result in higher cosmic-ray drift velocities. Cosmic-ray intensity variations at 1 AU are found to lag IMF variations by 2-3 solar rotations, indicating that significant solar modulation occurs inside ~20 AU, consistent with earlier galactic cosmic-ray radial-gradient measurements. In 2010, the intensities suddenly decreased to 1997 levels following increases in solar activity and in the inclination of the heliospheric current sheet. We describe the conditions that gave cosmic rays greater access to the inner solar system and discuss some of their implications

Measurements of galactic cosmic ray shielding with the CRaTER instrument

[1] The Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been measuring energetic charged particles from the galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and solar particle events in lunar orbit since 2009. CRaTER includes three pairs of silicon detectors, separated by pieces of tissue-equivalent plastic that shield two of the three pairs from particles incident at the zenith-facing end of the telescope. Heavy-ion beams studied in previous ground-based work have been shown to be reasonable proxies for the GCRs when their energies are sufficiently high. That work, which included GCR simulations, led to predictions for the amount of dose reduction that would be observed by CRaTER. Those predictions are compared to flight data obtained by CRaTER in 2010–2011

Cosmic-ray propagation properties for an origin in SNRs

We have studied the impact of cosmic-ray acceleration in SNR on the spectra of cosmic-ray nuclei in the Galaxy using a series expansion of the propagation equation, which allows us to use analytical solutions for part of the problem and an efficient numerical treatment of the remaining equations and thus accurately describes the cosmic-ray propagation on small scales around their sources in three spatial dimensions and time. We found strong variations of the cosmic-ray nuclei flux by typically 20% with occasional spikes of much higher amplitude, but only minor changes in the spectral distribution. The locally measured spectra of primary cosmic rays fit well into the obtained range of possible spectra. We further showed that the spectra of the secondary element Boron show almost no variations, so that the above findings also imply significant fluctuations of the Boron-to-Carbon ratio. Therefore the commonly used method of determining CR propagation parameters by fitting secondary-to-primary ratios appears flawed on account of the variations that these ratios would show throughout the Galaxy.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

The radiation environment near the lunar surface: CRaTER observations and Geant4 simulations

[1] At the start of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission in 2009, its Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation instrument measured the radiation environment near the Moon during the recent deep solar minimum, when galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) were at the highest level observed during the space age. We present observations that show the combined effects of GCR primaries, secondary particles (“albedo”) created by the interaction of GCRs with the lunar surface, and the interactions of these particles in the shielding material overlying the silicon solid-state detectors of the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation. We use Geant4 to model the energy and angular distribution of the albedo particles, and to model the response of the sensor to the various particle species reaching the 50 kilometer altitude of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Using simulations to gain insight into the observations, we are able to present preliminary energy-deposit spectra for evaluation of the radiation environment\u27s effects on other sensitive materials, whether biological or electronic, that would be exposed to a similar near-lunar environment

Improved chemistry restraints for crystallographic refinement by integrating the Amber force field into Phenix.

The refinement of biomolecular crystallographic models relies on geometric restraints to help to address the paucity of experimental data typical in these experiments. Limitations in these restraints can degrade the quality of the resulting atomic models. Here, an integration of the full all-atom Amber molecular-dynamics force field into Phenix crystallographic refinement is presented, which enables more complete modeling of biomolecular chemistry. The advantages of the force field include a carefully derived set of torsion-angle potentials, an extensive and flexible set of atom types, Lennard-Jones treatment of nonbonded interactions and a full treatment of crystalline electrostatics. The new combined method was tested against conventional geometry restraints for over 22 000 protein structures. Structures refined with the new method show substantially improved model quality. On average, Ramachandran and rotamer scores are somewhat better, clashscores and MolProbity scores are significantly improved, and the modeling of electrostatics leads to structures that exhibit more, and more correct, hydrogen bonds than those refined using traditional geometry restraints. In general it is found that model improvements are greatest at lower resolutions, prompting plans to add the Amber target function to real-space refinement for use in electron cryo-microscopy. This work opens the door to the future development of more advanced applications such as Amber-based ensemble refinement, quantum-mechanical representation of active sites and improved geometric restraints for simulated annealing