Upper tropospheric ozone production from lightning NOx-impacted convection: Smoke ingestion case study from the DC3 campaign

©2015. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. As part of the Deep Convective Cloud and Chemistry (DC3) experiment, the National Science Foundation/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Gulfstream-V (GV) and NASA DC-8 research aircraft probed the chemical composition of the inflow and outflow of two convective storms (north storm, NS, south storm, SS) originating in the Colorado region on 22 June 2012, a time when the High Park wildfire was active in the area. A wide range of trace species were measured on board both aircraft including biomass burning (BB) tracers hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and acetonitrile (ACN). Acrolein, a much shorter lived tracer for BB, was also quantified on the GV. The data demonstrated that the NS had ingested fresh smoke from the High Park fire and as a consequence had a higher VOC OH reactivity than the SS. The SS lofted aged fire tracers along with other boundary layer ozone precursors and was more impacted by lightning NOx (LNOx) than the NS. The NCAR master mechanism box model was initialized with measurements made in the outflow of the two storms. The NS and SS were predicted to produce 11 and 14ppbv of O3, respectively, downwind of the storm over 2days. Sensitivity tests revealed that the ozone production potential of the SS was highly dependent on LNOx. Normalized excess mixing ratios, ΔX/ΔCO, for HCN and ACN were determined in both the fire plume and the storm outflow and found to be 7.0±0.5 and 2.3±0.5pptvppbv-1, respectively, and 1.4±0.3pptvppbv-1 for acrolein in the outflow only

The effects of supernovae on the dynamical evolution of binary stars and star clusters

In this chapter I review the effects of supernovae explosions on the dynamical evolution of (1) binary stars and (2) star clusters. (1) Supernovae in binaries can drastically alter the orbit of the system, sometimes disrupting it entirely, and are thought to be partially responsible for `runaway' massive stars - stars in the Galaxy with large peculiar velocities. The ejection of the lower-mass secondary component of a binary occurs often in the event of the more massive primary star exploding as a supernova. The orbital properties of binaries that contain massive stars mean that the observed velocities of runaway stars (10s - 100s km s$^{-1}$) are consistent with this scenario. (2) Star formation is an inherently inefficient process, and much of the potential in young star clusters remains in the form of gas. Supernovae can in principle expel this gas, which would drastically alter the dynamics of the cluster by unbinding the stars from the potential. However, recent numerical simulations, and observational evidence that gas-free clusters are observed to be bound, suggest that the effects of supernova explosions on the dynamics of star clusters are likely to be minimal.Comment: 16 pages, to appear in the 'Handbook of Supernovae', eds. Paul Murdin and Athem Alsabti. This version replaces an earlier version that contained several typo

Two-scale Moving Boundary Dynamics of Cancer Invasion:Heterotypic Cell Populations Evolution in Heterogeneous ECM

This book contains a collection of original research articles and review articles that describe novel mathematical modeling techniques and the application of those techniques to models of cell motility in a variety of contexts. The aim is to highlight some of the recent mathematical work geared at understanding the coordination of intracellular processes involved in the movement of cells. This collection will benefit researchers interested in cell motility as well graduate students taking a topics course in this area.

Are Better Workers Also Better Humans? On Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement in the Workplace and Conflicting Societal Domains

The article investigates the sociocultural implications of the changing modern workplace and of pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) as a potential adaptive tool from the viewpoint of social niche construction. We will attempt to elucidate some of the sociocultural and technological trends that drive and influence the characteristics of this specific niche, and especially to identify the kind of capabilities and adaptations that are being promoted, and to ascertain the capabilities and potentialities that might become diminished as a result. In this context, we will examine what PCE is, and how and why it might be desirable as a tool for adaptation within the workplace. As human beings are, or at least should be allowed to be, more than merely productive, able-bodied and able-minded workers, we will further examine how adaptation to the workplace niche could result in problems in other domains of modern societal life that require the same or other cognitive capabilities. In this context we will also focus on the concept of responsibility and how it pertains to PCE and the modern workplace niche. This will shed some light on the kind of trends related to workplace niche construction, PCE and capability promotion that we can expect in the future, and on the contexts in which this might be either beneficial or detrimental to the individual as a well-rounded human being, and to other members of society

Visual Scan Paths and Recognition of Facial Identity in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development

Background: Previous research suggests that many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have impaired facial identity recognition, and also exhibit abnormal visual scanning of faces. Here, two hypotheses accounting for an association between these observations were tested: i) better facial identity recognition is associated with increased gaze time on the Eye region; ii) better facial identity recognition is associated with increased eye-movements around the face. Methodology and Principal Findings: Eye-movements of 11 children with ASD and 11 age-matched typically developing (TD) controls were recorded whilst they viewed a series of faces, and then completed a two alternative forced-choice recognition memory test for the faces. Scores on the memory task were standardized according to age. In both groups, there was no evidence of an association between the proportion of time spent looking at the Eye region of faces and age-standardized recognition performance, thus the first hypothesis was rejected. However, the 'Dynamic Scanning Index' - which was incremented each time the participant saccaded into and out of one of the core-feature interest areas - was strongly asso ciated with age-standardized face recognition scores in both groups, even after controlling for various other potential predictors of performance. Conclusions and Significance: In support of the second hypothesis, results suggested that increased saccading between core-features was associated with more accurate face recognition ability, both in typical development and ASD. Causal directions of this relationship remain undetermined.10 page(s

Mice with Different Susceptibility to Japanese Encephalitis Virus Infection Show Selective Neutralizing Antibody Response and Myeloid Cell Infectivity

Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that causes public health problems in Asian countries. Only a limited number of JEV-infected individuals show symptoms and develop severe encephalitis, indicating host-dependent susceptibilities.C3H/HeN and DBA/2 mice, which exhibit different mortalities when infected by intraperitoneal inoculation with JEV, were used as experimental models to compare viral pathogenesis and host responses. One hundred infectious virus particles killed 95% of C3H/HeN mice whereas only 40% of DBA/2 mice died. JEV RNA was detected with similar low levels in peripheral lymphoid organs and in the sera of both mouse strains. High levels of viral and cytokine RNA were observed simultaneously in the brains of C3H/HeN and DBA/2 mice starting on days 6 and 9 post-infection, respectively. The kinetics of the cytokines in sera correlated with the viral replication in the brain. Significantly earlier and higher titers of neutralizing antibodies were detected in the DBA/2 strain. Primary embryonic fibroblasts, bone marrow-derived dendritic cells and macrophages from the two mouse strains were cultured. Fibroblasts displayed similar JEV replication abilities, whereas DBA/2-derived myeloid antigen-presenting cells had lower viral infectivity and production compared to the C3H/HeN–derived cells. may be elements associated with late and decreased mouse neuroinvasion

Volunteer Bias in Recruitment, Retention, and Blood Sample Donation in a Randomised Controlled Trial Involving Mothers and Their Children at Six Months and Two Years: A Longitudinal Analysis

BACKGROUND: The vulnerability of clinical trials to volunteer bias is under-reported. Volunteer bias is systematic error due to differences between those who choose to participate in studies and those who do not. METHODS AND RESULTS: This paper extends the applications of the concept of volunteer bias by using data from a trial of probiotic supplementation for childhood atopy in healthy dyads to explore 1) differences between a) trial participants and aggregated data from publicly available databases b) participants and non-participants as the trial progressed 2) impact on trial findings of weighting data according to deprivation (Townsend) fifths in the sample and target populations. 1) a) Recruits (n = 454) were less deprived than the target population, matched for area of residence and delivery dates (n = 6,893) (mean [SD] deprivation scores 0.09[4.21] and 0.79[4.08], t = 3.44, df = 511, p<0.001). b) i) As the trial progressed, representation of the most deprived decreased. These participants and smokers were less likely to be retained at 6 months (n = 430[95%]) (OR 0.29,0.13-0.67 and 0.20,0.09-0.46), and 2 years (n = 380[84%]) (aOR 0.68,0.50-0.93 and 0.55,0.28-1.09), and consent to infant blood sample donation (n = 220[48%]) (aOR 0.72,0.57-0.92 and 0.43,0.22-0.83). ii) Mothers interested in probiotics or research or reporting infants' adverse events or rashes were more likely to attend research clinics and consent to skin-prick testing. Mothers participating to help children were more likely to consent to infant blood sample donation. 2) In one trial outcome, atopic eczema, the intervention had a positive effect only in the over-represented, least deprived group. Here, data weighting attenuated risk reduction from 6.9%(0.9-13.1%) to 4.6%(-1.4-+10.5%), and OR from 0.40(0.18-0.91) to 0.56(0.26-1.21). Other findings were unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: Potential for volunteer bias intensified during the trial, due to non-participation of the most deprived and smokers. However, these were not the only predictors of non-participation. Data weighting quantified volunteer bias and modified one important trial outcome. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This randomised, double blind, parallel group, placebo controlled trial is registered with the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trials Register, Number (ISRCTN) 26287422. Registered title: Probiotics in the prevention of atopy in infants and children

Genome-wide association study identifies susceptibility loci for acute myeloid leukemia

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a hematological malignancy with an undefined heritable risk. Here we perform a meta-analysis of three genome-wide association studies, with replication in a fourth study, incorporating a total of 4018 AML cases and 10488 controls. We identify a genome-wide significant risk locus for AML at 11q13.2 (rs4930561; P = 2.15 × 10-8; KMT5B). We also identify a genome-wide significant risk locus for the cytogenetically normal AML sub-group (N = 1287) at 6p21.32 (rs3916765; P = 1.51 × 10-10; HLA). Our results inform on AML etiology and identify putative functional genes operating in histone methylation (KMT5B) and immune function (HLA)