Direct observation of changing NO_x lifetime in North American cities

NO_x lifetime relates nonlinearly to its own concentration; therefore, by observing how NO_x lifetime changes with changes in its concentration, inferences can be made about the dominant chemistry occurring in an urban plume. We used satellite observations of NO₂ from a new high-resolution product to show that NOx lifetime in approximately 30 North American cities has changed between 2005 and 2014 in a manner consistent with our understanding of NO_x chemistry

The Berkeley High Resolution Tropospheric NO_2 product

We describe upgrades to the Berkeley High Resolution (BEHR) NO2 satellite retrieval product. BEHR v3.0B builds on the NASA version 3 standard Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) tropospheric NO_2 product to provide a high spatial resolution product for a domain covering the continental United States and lower Canada that is consistent with daily variations in the 12km a priori NO_2 profiles. Other improvements to the BEHR v3.0 product include surface reflectance and elevation, and factors affecting the NO_2 a priori profiles such as lightning and anthropogenic emissions.- We describe the retrieval algorithm in detail and evaluate the impact of changes to the algorithm between v2.1C and v3.0B on the retrieved NO_2 vertical column densities (VCDs). Not surprisingly, we find that, on average, the changes to the a priori NO_2 profiles and the update to the new NASA slant column densities have the greatest impact on the retrieved VCDs. More significantly, we find that using daily a priori profiles results in greater average VCDs than using monthly profiles in regions and times with significant lightning activity. The BEHR product is available as four subproducts on the University of California DASH repository, using monthly a priori profiles at native OMI pixel resolution (https://doi.org/10.6078/D1N086) and regridded to 0.05° × 0.05° (https://doi.org/10.6078/D1RQ3G) and using daily a priori profiles at native OMI (https://doi.org/10.6078/D1WH41) and regridded (https://doi.org/10.6078/D12D5X) resolutions. The subproducts using monthly profiles are currently available from January 2005 to July 2017, and will be expanded to more recent years. The subproducts using daily profiles are currently available for years 2005–2010 and 2012–2014; 2011 and 2015 on will be added as the necessary input data are simulated for those years

Lightning NO₂ simulation over the contiguous US and its effects on satellite NO₂ retrievals

Lightning is an important NO_x source representing ∼10 % of the global source of odd N and a much larger percentage in the upper troposphere. The poor understanding of spatial and temporal patterns of lightning contributes to a large uncertainty in understanding upper tropospheric chemistry. We implement a lightning parameterization using the product of convective available potential energy (CAPE) and convective precipitation rate (PR) coupled with the Kain–Fritsch convective scheme (KF/CAPE-PR) into the Weather Research and Forecasting-Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model. Compared to the cloud-top height (CTH) lightning parameterization combined with the Grell 3-D convective scheme (G3/CTH), we show that the switch of convective scheme improves the correlation of lightning flash density in the southeastern US from 0.30 to 0.67 when comparing against the Earth Networks Total Lightning Network; the switch of lightning parameterization contributes to the improvement of the correlation from 0.48 to 0.62 elsewhere in the US. The simulated NO₂ profiles using the KF/CAPE-PR parameterization exhibit better agreement with aircraft observations in the middle and upper troposphere. Using a lightning NO_x production rate of 500 mol NO flash−1, the a priori NO₂ profile generated by the simulation with the KF/CAPE-PR parameterization reduces the air mass factor for NO₂ retrievals by 16 % on average in the southeastern US in the late spring and early summer compared to simulations using the G3/CTH parameterization. This causes an average change in NO₂ vertical column density 4 times higher than the average uncertainty

Epidemiology and Impact of Abdominal Oblique Injuries in Major and Minor League Baseball.

BACKGROUND: Oblique injuries are known to be a common cause of time out of play for professional baseball players, and prior work has suggested that injury rates may be on the rise in Major League Baseball (MLB). PURPOSE: To better understand the current incidence of oblique injuries, determine their impact based on time out of play, and to identify common injury patterns that may guide future injury prevention programs. STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive epidemiological study. METHODS: Using the MLB Health and Injury Tracking System, all oblique injuries that resulted in time out of play in MLB and Minor League Baseball (MiLB) during the 2011 to 2015 seasons were identified. Player demographics such as age, position/role, and handedness were included. Injury-specific factors analyzed included the following: date of injury, timing during season, days missed, mechanism, side, treatment, and reinjury status. RESULTS: A total of 996 oblique injuries occurred in 259 (26%) MLB and 737 (74%) MiLB players. Although the injury rate was steady in MiLB, the MLB injury rate declined (P = .037). A total of 22,064 days were missed at a mean rate of 4413 days per season and 22.2 days per injury. The majority of these occurred during batting (n = 455, 46%) or pitching (n = 348, 35%), with pitchers losing 5 days more per injury than batters (P \u3c .001). The leading side was injured in 77% of cases and took 5 days longer to recover from than trailing side injuries (P = .009). Seventy-nine (7.9%) players received either a corticosteroid or platelet-rich plasma injection, and the mean recovery time was 11 days longer compared with those who did not receive an injection (P \u3c .001). CONCLUSION: Although the rate of abdominal oblique injuries is on the decline in MLB, this is not the case for MiLB, and these injuries continue to represent a significant source of time out of play in professional baseball. The vast majority of injuries occur on the lead side, and these injuries result in the greatest amount time out of play. The benefit of injections for the treatment of oblique injuries remains unknown

Dynamically Warped Theory Space and Collective Supersymmetry Breaking

We study deconstructed gauge theories in which a warp factor emerges dynamically and naturally. We present nonsupersymmetric models in which the potential for the link fields has translational invariance, broken only by boundary effects that trigger an exponential profile of vacuum expectation values. The spectrum of physical states deviates exponentially from that of the continuum for large masses; we discuss the effects of such exponential towers on gauge coupling unification. We also present a supersymmetric example in which a warp factor is driven by Fayet-Iliopoulos terms. The model is peculiar in that it possesses a global supersymmetry that remains unbroken despite nonvanishing D-terms. Inclusion of gravity and/or additional messenger fields leads to the collective breaking of supersymmetry and to unusual phenomenology.Comment: 28 pages LaTeX, JHEP format, 7 eps figures (v2: reference added

Tyrosine-phosphorylated and nonphosphorylated isoforms of α-dystrobrevin: roles in skeletal muscle and its neuromuscular and myotendinous junctions

α-Dystrobrevin (DB), a cytoplasmic component of the dystrophin–glycoprotein complex, is found throughout the sarcolemma of muscle cells. Mice lacking αDB exhibit muscular dystrophy, defects in maturation of neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) and, as shown here, abnormal myotendinous junctions (MTJs). In normal muscle, alternative splicing produces two main αDB isoforms, αDB1 and αDB2, with common NH2-terminal but distinct COOH-terminal domains. αDB1, whose COOH-terminal extension can be tyrosine phosphorylated, is concentrated at the NMJs and MTJs. αDB2, which is not tyrosine phosphorylated, is the predominant isoform in extrajunctional regions, and is also present at NMJs and MTJs. Transgenic expression of either isoform in αDB−/− mice prevented muscle fiber degeneration; however, only αDB1 completely corrected defects at the NMJs (abnormal acetylcholine receptor patterning, rapid turnover, and low density) and MTJs (shortened junctional folds). Site-directed mutagenesis revealed that the effectiveness of αDB1 in stabilizing the NMJ depends in part on its ability to serve as a tyrosine kinase substrate. Thus, αDB1 phosphorylation may be a key regulatory point for synaptic remodeling. More generally, αDB may play multiple roles in muscle by means of differential distribution of isoforms with distinct signaling or structural properties