Integrating Offshore Wind and Wave Resource Assessment

The aim of this paper is to review the sources of wind and wave information, the methodologies to assess offshore wind and wave energy resources, and the more relevant results at the European level as a first step to integration of the evaluation of both resources. In situ and remote sensed wind and wave data (using satellite based sensors) are done generally by distinct systems (except for SAR) but numerical atmospheric models and wind - wave models are closely related. Offshore wind resource studies using various types of data are reviewed especially in northern European seas and in the Mediterranean. The wave energy resource assessment at European and national levels is also reviewed and the various atlases are identified

Impact of Genetic Polymorphisms on the Smoking-related Risk of Periodontal Disease: the Population-based Study SHIP

Periodontitis is a bacterial inflammatory disease leading to attachment loss with the consequence of tooth loss. There exists a multifactorial risk pattern including bacterial challenge, smoking, age, sex, diabetes, socio-economic and genetic factors. Smoking has the highest impact on the course of the disease modulated by all the other factors. Here, we report the relationship between smoking and the polymorphisms of genetic polymorphisms inflicted in the pathogenesis

Chlamydia muridarum Genital and Gastrointestinal Infection Tropism Is Mediated by Distinct Chromosomal Factors

Some members of the genus Chlamydia, including the human pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis, infect multiple tissues, including the genital and gastrointestinal (GI) tracts. However, it is unknown if bacterial targeting to these sites is mediated by multifunctional or distinct chlamydial factors. We previously showed that disruption of individual large clostridial toxin homologs encoded within the Chlamydia muridarum plasticity zone were not critical for murine genital tract infection. Here, we assessed whether cytotoxin genes contribute to C. muridarum GI tropism. Infectivity and shedding of wild-type (WT) C. muridarum and three mutants containing nonsense mutations in different cytotoxin genes, tc0437, tc0438, and tc0439, were compared in mouse genital and GI infection models. One mutant, which had a nonsense mutation in tc0439, was highly attenuated for GI infection and had a GI 50% infectious dose (ID50) that was 1,000 times greater than that of the WT. GI inoculation with this mutant failed to elicit anti-chlamydial antibodies or to protect against subsequent genital tract infection. Genome sequencing of the tc0439 mutant revealed additional chromosomal mutations, and phenotyping of additional mutants suggested that the GI attenuation might be linked to a nonsense mutation in tc0600 The molecular mechanism underlying this dramatic difference in tissue-tropic virulence is not fully understood. However, isolation of these mutants demonstrates that distinct chlamydial chromosomal factors mediate chlamydial tissue tropism and provides a basis for vaccine initiatives to isolate chlamydia strains that are attenuated for genital infection but retain the ability to colonize the GI tract and elicit protective immune responses

Modelling wind farm effects in HARMONIE–AROME (cycle 43.2.2) – Part 1: Implementation and evaluation

With increasing number and proximity of wind farms, it becomes crucial to consider wind farm effects (WFEs) in the numerical weather prediction (NWP) models used to forecast power production. Furthermore, these WFEs are also expected to affect other weather-related parameters at least locally. Thus, we implement the explicit wake parameterization (EWP) in the NWP model HARMONIE–AROME (hereafter HARMONIE) along-side the existing wind farm parameterization (WFP) by Fitch et al. (2012) (FITCH). We evaluate and compare the two WFPs against research flight measurements as well as against similar simulations performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model using case studies. The case studies include a case for WFEs above a wind farm as well as two cases for WFEs at hub height in the wake of farms. The results show that EWP and FITCH have been correctly implemented in HARMONIE. For the simulated cases, EWP underestimates the WFEs on wind speed and strongly underestimates the effect on turbulent kinetic energy (TKE). FITCH agrees better with the observations, and WFEs on TKE are particularly well captured by HARMONIE–FITCH. After this successful evaluation, simulations with all wind turbines in Europe will be performed with HARMONIE and presented in the second part of this paper series.</p