Constraining a Historical Black Carbon Emission Inventory of the United States for 1960–2000

We present an observationally constrained United States black carbon emission inventory with explicit representation of activity and technology between 1960 and 2000. We compare measured coefficient of haze data in California and New Jersey between 1965 and 2000 with predicted concentration trends and attribute discrepancies between observations and predicted concentrations among several sources based on seasonal and weekly patterns in observations. Emission factors for sources with distinct fuel trends are then estimated by comparing fuel and concentration trends and further substantiated by in‐depth examination of emission measurements. We recommend (1) increasing emission factors for preregulation vehicles by 80–250%; (2) increasing emission factors for residential heating stoves and boilers by 70% to 200% for 1980s and before; (3) explicitly representing naturally aspired off‐road engines for 1980s and before; and (4) explicitly representing certified wood stoves after 1985. We also evaluate other possible sources for discrepancy between model and measurement, including bias in modeled meteorology, subgrid spatial heterogeneity of concentrations, and inconsistencies in reported fuel consumption. The updated U.S. emissions are higher than the a priori estimate by 80% between 1960 and 1980, totaling 690 Gg/year in 1960 and 620 Gg/year in 1970 (excluding open burning). The revised inventory shows a strongly decreasing trend that was present in the observations but missing in the a priori inventory.Key PointsSystematic evaluation of long‐term U.S. black carbon observations identifies a small number of poorly estimated emission sourcesUpdated black carbon emission is higher than the previous estimate by 80% for 1960–1980, showing a decreasing trend as found in observationEmission factors for preregulation vehicles, off‐road engines, and residential heating stoves in 1980 and before should be increasedPeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149266/1/jgrd55339_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149266/2/jgrd55339.pd

A randomised controlled trial investigating the effect of n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation on cognitive and retinal function in cognitively healthy older people: the Older People And n-3 Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (OPAL) study protocol [ISRCTN72331636].

The number of individuals with age-related cognitive impairment is rising dramatically in the UK and globally. There is considerable interest in the general hypothesis that improving the diet of older people may slow the progression of cognitive decline. To date, there has been little attention given to the possible protective role of n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LCPs) most commonly found in oily fish, in age-related loss of cognitive function. The main research hypothesis of this study is that an increased dietary intake of n-3 LCPs will have a positive effect on cognitive performance in older people in the UK. To test this hypothesis, a double-blind randomised placebo-controlled trial will be carried out among adults aged 70-79 years in which the intervention arm will receive daily capsules containing n-3 LCP (0.5 g/day docosahexaenoic acid and 0.2 g/day eicosapentaenoic acid) while the placebo arm will receive daily capsules containing olive oil. The main outcome variable assessed at 24 months will be cognitive performance and a second major outcome variable will be retinal function. Retinal function tests are included as the retina is a specifically differentiated neural tissue and therefore represents an accessible window into the functioning of the brain. The overall purpose of this public-health research is to help define a simple and effective dietary intervention aimed at maintaining cognitive and retinal function in later life. This will be the first trial of its kind aiming to slow the decline of cognitive and retinal function in older people by increasing daily dietary intake of n-3 LCPs. The link between cognitive ability, visual function and quality of life among older people suggests that this novel line of research may have considerable public health importance.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Body mass index at early adulthood, subsequent weight change and cancer incidence and mortality: Body mass index, weight change and cancer risk

Obesity later in adulthood is associated with increased risks of many cancers. However, the effect of body fatness in early adulthood, and change in weight from early to later adulthood on cancer risk later in life is less clear. We used data from 13,901 people aged 45-64 in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities cohort who at baseline (1987-1989) self-reported their weight at the age of 25 and had weight and height measured. Incident cancers were identified through 2006 and cancer deaths were ascertained through 2009. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard models were used to relate body mass index (BMI) at age 25 and percent weight change from age 25 to baseline to cancer incidence and mortality. After adjusting for weight change from age 25 until baseline, a 5 kg/m2 increment in BMI at age 25 was associated with a greater risk of incidence of all cancers in women [hazard ratio (95% confidence interval): 1.10 (1.02-1.20)], but not in men. Associations with incident endometrial cancer were strong [1.83 (1.47-2.26)]. After adjusting for BMI at age 25, a 5% increment in weight from age 25 to baseline was associated with a greater risk of incident post-menopausal breast cancer [1.05 (1.02-1.07)] and endometrial cancer [1.09 (1.04-1.14)] in women and incident colorectal cancer [1.05 (1.00-1.10)] in men. Excess weight during young adulthood and weight gain from young to older adulthood may be independently associated with subsequent cancer risk. Excess weight and weight gain in early adulthood should be avoided

Charge separation relative to the reaction plane in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}= 2.76 TeV

Measurements of charge dependent azimuthal correlations with the ALICE detector at the LHC are reported for Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV. Two- and three-particle charge-dependent azimuthal correlations in the pseudo-rapidity range $|\eta| < 0.8$ are presented as a function of the collision centrality, particle separation in pseudo-rapidity, and transverse momentum. A clear signal compatible with a charge-dependent separation relative to the reaction plane is observed, which shows little or no collision energy dependence when compared to measurements at RHIC energies. This provides a new insight for understanding the nature of the charge dependent azimuthal correlations observed at RHIC and LHC energies.Comment: 12 pages, 3 captioned figures, authors from page 2 to 6, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/286

A Non-Invasive Assessment of Skin Carotenoid Status Through Reflection Spectroscopy is a Feasible, Reliable and Potentially Valid Measure of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in a Diverse Community Sample

Objective To assess the feasibility, reliability and validity of reflection spectroscopy (RS) to assess skin carotenoids in a racially diverse sample. Design Study 1 was a cross-sectional study of corner store customers (n 479) who completed the National Cancer Institute Fruit and Vegetable Screener as well as RS measures. Feasibility was assessed by examining the time it took to complete three RS measures, reliability was assessed by examining the variation between three RS measures, and validity was examined by correlation with self-reported fruit and vegetable consumption. In Study 2, validity was assessed in a smaller sample (n 30) by examining associations between RS measures and dietary carotenoids, fruits and vegetables as calculated from a validated FFQ and plasma carotenoids. Setting Eastern North Carolina, USA. Results It took on average 94·0 s to complete three RS readings per person. The average variation between three readings for each participant was 6·8 %. In Study 2, in models adjusted for age, race and sex, there were statistically significant associations between RS measures and (i) FFQ-estimated carotenoid intake (P<0·0001); (ii) FFQ-estimated fruit and vegetable consumption (P<0·010); and (iii) plasma carotenoids (P<0·0001).Conclusions RS is a potentially improved method to approximate fruit and vegetable consumption among diverse participants. RS is portable and easy to use in field-based public health nutrition settings. More research is needed to investigate validity and sensitivity in diverse populations

Transverse sphericity of primary charged particles in minimum bias proton-proton collisions at s=0.9\sqrt{s}=0.9, 2.76 and 7 TeV

Measurements of the sphericity of primary charged particles in minimum bias proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=0.9$, 2.76 and 7 TeV with the ALICE detector at the LHC are presented. The observable is linearized to be collinear safe and is measured in the plane perpendicular to the beam direction using primary charged tracks with $p_{\rm T}\geq0.5$ GeV/c in $|\eta|\leq0.8$. The mean sphericity as a function of the charged particle multiplicity at mid-rapidity ($N_{\rm ch}$) is reported for events with different $p_{\rm T}$ scales ("soft" and "hard") defined by the transverse momentum of the leading particle. In addition, the mean charged particle transverse momentum versus multiplicity is presented for the different event classes, and the sphericity distributions in bins of multiplicity are presented. The data are compared with calculations of standard Monte Carlo event generators. The transverse sphericity is found to grow with multiplicity at all collision energies, with a steeper rise at low $N_{\rm ch}$, whereas the event generators show the opposite tendency. The combined study of the sphericity and the mean $p_{\rm T}$ with multiplicity indicates that most of the tested event generators produce events with higher multiplicity by generating more back-to-back jets resulting in decreased sphericity (and isotropy). The PYTHIA6 generator with tune PERUGIA-2011 exhibits a noticeable improvement in describing the data, compared to the other tested generators.Comment: 21 pages, 9 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 16, published version, figures from http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/308

Centrality dependence of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}} = 2.76 TeV

The inclusive transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) distributions of primary charged particles are measured in the pseudo-rapidity range $|\eta|<0.8$ as a function of event centrality in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}=2.76$ TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The data are presented in the $p_{\rm T}$ range $0.15<p_{\rm T}<50$ GeV/$c$ for nine centrality intervals from 70-80% to 0-5%. The Pb-Pb spectra are presented in terms of the nuclear modification factor $R_{\rm{AA}}$ using a pp reference spectrum measured at the same collision energy. We observe that the suppression of high-$p_{\rm T}$ particles strongly depends on event centrality. In central collisions (0-5%) the yield is most suppressed with $R_{\rm{AA}}\approx0.13$ at $p_{\rm T}=6$-7 GeV/$c$. Above $p_{\rm T}=7$ GeV/$c$, there is a significant rise in the nuclear modification factor, which reaches $R_{\rm{AA}} \approx0.4$ for $p_{\rm T}>30$ GeV/$c$. In peripheral collisions (70-80%), the suppression is weaker with $R_{\rm{AA}} \approx 0.7$ almost independently of $p_{\rm T}$. The measured nuclear modification factors are compared to other measurements and model calculations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 captioned figures, 2 tables, authors from page 12, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/284

Measurement of charm production at central rapidity in proton-proton collisions at s=2.76\sqrt{s} = 2.76 TeV

The $p_{\rm T}$-differential production cross sections of the prompt (B feed-down subtracted) charmed mesons D$^0$, D$^+$, and D$^{*+}$ in the rapidity range $|y|<0.5$, and for transverse momentum $1< p_{\rm T} <12$ GeV/$c$, were measured in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 2.76$ TeV with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis exploited the hadronic decays D$^0 \rightarrow$K$\pi$, D$^+ \rightarrow$K$\pi\pi$, D$^{*+} \rightarrow$D$^0\pi$, and their charge conjugates, and was performed on a $L_{\rm int} = 1.1$ nb$^{-1}$ event sample collected in 2011 with a minimum-bias trigger. The total charm production cross section at $\sqrt{s} = 2.76$ TeV and at 7 TeV was evaluated by extrapolating to the full phase space the $p_{\rm T}$-differential production cross sections at $\sqrt{s} = 2.76$ TeV and our previous measurements at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV. The results were compared to existing measurements and to perturbative-QCD calculations. The fraction of cdbar D mesons produced in a vector state was also determined.Comment: 20 pages, 5 captioned figures, 4 tables, authors from page 15, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/307

Particle-yield modification in jet-like azimuthal di-hadron correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

The yield of charged particles associated with high-$p_{\rm T}$ trigger particles ($8 < p_{\rm T} < 15$ GeV/$c$) is measured with the ALICE detector in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV relative to proton-proton collisions at the same energy. The conditional per-trigger yields are extracted from the narrow jet-like correlation peaks in azimuthal di-hadron correlations. In the 5% most central collisions, we observe that the yield of associated charged particles with transverse momenta $p_{\rm T}> 3$ GeV/$c$ on the away-side drops to about 60% of that observed in pp collisions, while on the near-side a moderate enhancement of 20-30% is found.Comment: 15 pages, 2 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 10, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/350

Effective Rheology of Bubbles Moving in a Capillary Tube

We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational probability of the positions of the bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur