Carbon Free Boston: Buildings Technical Report

Part of a series of reports that includes: Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report; Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report; Carbon Free Boston: Technical Summary; Carbon Free Boston: Transportation Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Waste Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Energy Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Offsets Technical Report; Available at http://sites.bu.edu/cfb/OVERVIEW: Boston is known for its historic iconic buildings, from the Paul Revere House in the North End, to City Hall in Government Center, to the Old South Meeting House in Downtown Crossing, to the African Meeting House on Beacon Hill, to 200 Clarendon (the Hancock Tower) in Back Bay, to Abbotsford in Roxbury. In total, there are over 86,000 buildings that comprise more than 647 million square feet of area. Most of these buildings will still be in use in 2050. Floorspace (square footage) is almost evenly split between residential and non-residential uses, but residential buildings account for nearly 80,000 (93 percent) of the 86,000 buildings. Boston’s buildings are used for a diverse range of activities that include homes, offices, hospitals, factories, laboratories, schools, public service, retail, hotels, restaurants, and convention space. Building type strongly influences energy use; for example, restaurants, hospitals, and laboratories have high energy demands compared to other commercial uses. Boston’s building stock is characterized by thousands of turn-of-the-20th century homes and a postWorld War II building boom that expanded both residential buildings and commercial space. Boston is in the midst of another boom in building construction that is transforming neighborhoods across the city. [TRUNCATED]Published versio

Hippocampal Functional Dynamics Are Clinically Implicated in Autoimmune Encephalitis With Faciobrachial Dystonic Seizures

This is the first study to investigate functional brain activity in patients affected by autoimmune encephalitis with faciobrancial dystonic seizures (FBDS). Multimodal 3T MRI scans, including structural neuroimaging (T1-weighted, diffusion weighted) and functional neuroimaging (scene-encoding task known to activate hippocampal regions), were performed. This case series analysis included eight patients treated for autoimmune encephalitis with FBDS, scanned during the convalescent phase of their condition (median 1.1 years post-onset), and eight healthy volunteers. Compared to controls, 50% of patients showed abnormal hippocampal activity during scene-encoding relative to familiar scene-viewing. Higher peak FBDS frequency was significantly related to lower hippocampal activity during scene-encoding (p = 0.02), though not to markers of hippocampal microstructure (mean diffusivity, p = 0.3) or atrophy (normalized volume, p = 0.4). During scene-encoding, stronger within-medial temporal lobe (MTL) functional connectivity correlated with poorer Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-Revised memory score (p = 0.03). These findings suggest that in autoimmune encephalitis, frequent seizures may have a long-term impact on hippocampal activity, beyond that of structural damage. These observations also suggest a potential approach to determine on-going MTL performance in this condition to guide long-term management and future clinical trials

A user's guide to the local arithmetic of hyperelliptic curves

A new approach has been recently developed to study the arithmetic of hyperelliptic curves $y^2=f(x)$ over local fields of odd residue characteristic via combinatorial data associated to the roots of $f$. Since its introduction, numerous papers have used this machinery of "cluster pictures" to compute a plethora of arithmetic invariants associated to these curves. The purpose of this user's guide is to summarise and centralise all of these results in a self-contained fashion, complemented by an abundance of examples.Comment: Minor changes. To appear in the Bulletin of the London Mathematical Societ

Targeted cell imaging properties of a deep red luminescent iridium(III) complex conjugated with a c-Myc signal peptide

A nuclear localisation sequence (NLS) peptide, PAAKRVKLD, derived from the human c-Myc regulator gene, has been functionalised with a long wavelength (λex = 550 nm; λem = 677 nm) cyclometalated organometallic iridium(III) complex to give the conjugate Ir-CMYC. Confocal fluorescence microscopy studies on human fibroblast cells imaged after 18–24 h incubation show that Ir-CMYC concentrations of 80–100 μM promote good cell uptake and nuclear localisation, which was confirmed though co-localisation studies using Hoechst 33342. In comparison, a structurally related, photophysically analogous iridium(III) complex lacking the peptide sequence, Ir-PYR, showed very different biological behaviour, with no evidence of nuclear, lysosomal or autophagic vesicle localisation and significantly increased toxicity to the cells at concentrations >10 μM that induced mitochondrial dysfunction. Supporting UV-visible and circular dichroism spectroscopic studies show that Ir-PYR and Ir-CMYC display similarly low affinities for DNA (ca. 103 M−1), consistent with electrostatic binding. Therefore the translocation and nuclear uptake properties of Ir-CMYC are attributed to the presence of the PAAKRVKLD nuclear localisation sequence in this complex

Transcriptional repressor ZEB2 promotes terminal differentiation of CD8⁺ effector and memory T cell populations during infection

ZEB2 is a multi-zinc-finger transcription factor known to play a significant role in early neurogenesis and in epithelial-mesenchymal transition-dependent tumor metastasis. Although the function of ZEB2 in T lymphocytes is unknown, activity of the closely related family member ZEB1 has been implicated in lymphocyte development. Here, we find that ZEB2 expression is up-regulated by activated T cells, specifically in the KLRG1(hi) effector CD8(+) T cell subset. Loss of ZEB2 expression results in a significant loss of antigen-specific CD8(+) T cells after primary and secondary infection with a severe impairment in the generation of the KLRG1(hi) effector memory cell population. We show that ZEB2, which can bind DNA at tandem, consensus E-box sites, regulates gene expression of several E-protein targets and may directly repress Il7r and Il2 in CD8(+) T cells responding to infection. Furthermore, we find that T-bet binds to highly conserved T-box sites in the Zeb2 gene and that T-bet and ZEB2 regulate similar gene expression programs in effector T cells, suggesting that T-bet acts upstream and through regulation of ZEB2. Collectively, we place ZEB2 in a larger transcriptional network that is responsible for the balance between terminal differentiation and formation of memory CD8(+) T cells

The TEMPO Survey I: Predicting Yields of the Transiting Exosatellites, Moons, and Planets from a 30-day Survey of Orion with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

We present design considerations for the Transiting Exosatellites, Moons, and Planets in Orion (TEMPO) Survey with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. This proposed 30-day survey is designed to detect a population of transiting extrasolar satellites, moons, and planets in the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC). The young (1-3 Myr), densely-populated ONC harbors about a thousand bright brown dwarfs (BDs) and free-floating planetary-mass objects (FFPs). TEMPO offers sufficient photometric precision to monitor FFPs with ${\rm M}\geq1{\rm M}_{\rm J}$ for transiting satellites. The survey is also capable of detecting FFPs down to sub-Saturn masses via direct imaging, although follow-up confirmation will be challenging. TEMPO yield estimates include 14 (3-22) exomoons/satellites transiting FFPs and 54 (8-100) satellites transiting BDs. Of this population, approximately $50\%$ of companions would be "super-Titans" (Titan to Earth mass). Yield estimates also include approximately $150$ exoplanets transiting young Orion stars, of which $>50\%$ will orbit mid-to-late M dwarfs and approximately ten will be proto-habitable zone, terrestrial ($0.1{\rm M}_{\oplus} - 5{\rm M}_{\oplus}$) exoplanets. TEMPO would provide the first census demographics of small exosatellites orbiting FFPs and BDs, while simultaneously offering insights into exoplanet evolution at the earliest stages. This detected exosatellite population is likely to be markedly different from the current census of exoplanets with similar masses (e.g., Earth-mass exosatellites that still possess H/He envelopes). Although our yield estimates are highly uncertain, as there are no known exoplanets or exomoons analogous to these satellites, the TEMPO survey would test the prevailing theories of exosatellite formation and evolution, which limit the certainty surrounding detection yields.Comment: Submitted to PAS

Large Scale Searches for Brown Dwarfs and Free-Floating Planets

Searches of large scale surveys have resulted in the discovery of over 1000 brown dwarfs in the Solar neighbourhood. In this chapter we review the progress in finding brown dwarfs in large datasets, highlighting the key science goals, and summarising the surveys that have contributed most significantly to the current sample.Comment: Accepted to appear in the Handbook of Exoplanets (Springer); Editors: Hans J. Deeg & Juan Antonio Belmont

FR II radio galaxies at low frequencies I : morphology, magnetic field strength and energetics

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. ©: 2016 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.Due to their steep spectra, low-frequency observations of FR II radio galaxies potentially provide key insights in to the morphology, energetics and spectrum of these powerful radio sources. However, limitations imposed by the previous generation of radio interferometers at metre wavelengths has meant that this region of parameter space remains largely unexplored. In this paper, the first in a series examining FR IIs at low frequencies, we use LOFAR observations between 50 and 160 MHz, along with complementary archival radio and X-ray data, to explore the properties of two FR II sources, 3C452 and 3C223. We find that the morphology of 3C452 is that of a standard FR II rather than of a double-double radio galaxy as had previously been suggested, with no remnant emission being observed beyond the active lobes. We find that the low-frequency integrated spectra of both sources are much steeper than expected based on traditional assumptions and, using synchrotron/inverse-Compton model fitting, show that the total energy content of the lobes is greater than previous estimates by a factor of around 5 for 3C452 and 2 for 3C223. We go on to discuss possible causes of these steeper than expected spectra and provide revised estimates of the internal pressures and magnetic field strengths for the intrinsically steep case. We find that the ratio between the equipartition magnetic field strengths and those derived through synchrotron/inverse-Compton model fitting remains consistent with previous findings and show that the observed departure from equipartition may in some cases provide a solution to the spectral versus dynamical age disparity.Peer reviewe

A measurement of the millimetre emission and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect associated with low-frequency radio sources

We present a statistical analysis of the millimetre-wavelength properties of 1.4GHz-selected sources and a detection of the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) effect associated with the haloes that host them. We stack data at 148, 218 and 277GHz from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope at the positions of a large sample of radio AGN selected at 1.4GHz. The thermal SZ effect associated with the haloes that host the AGN is detected at the 5σ level through its spectral signature, representing a statistical detection of the SZ effect in some of the lowest mass haloes (average M 200 ≈ 10 13 M. h −1 70 ) studied to date. The relation between the SZ effect and mass (based on weak lensing measurements of radio galaxies) is consistent with that measured by Planck for local bright galaxies. In the context of galaxy evolution models, this study confirms that galaxies with radio AGN also typically support hot gaseous haloes. Adding Herschel observations allows us to show that the SZ signal is not significantly contaminated by dust emission. Finally, we analyse the contribution of radio sources to the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background