Intercomparison of NO2, O4, O3 and HCHO slant column measurements by MAX-DOAS and zenith-sky UV¿visible spectrometers during CINDI-2

40 pags., 22 figs., 13 tabs.In September 2016, 36 spectrometers from 24 institutes measured a number of key atmospheric pollutants for a period of 17¿d during the Second Cabauw Intercomparison campaign for Nitrogen Dioxide measuring Instruments (CINDI-2) that took place at Cabauw, the Netherlands (51.97¿¿N, 4.93¿¿E). We report on the outcome of the formal semi-blind intercomparison exercise, which was held under the umbrella of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The three major goals of CINDI-2 were (1) to characterise and better understand the differences between a large number of multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) and zenith-sky DOAS instruments and analysis methods, (2) to define a robust methodology for performance assessment of all participating instruments, and (3) to contribute to a harmonisation of the measurement settings and retrieval methods. This, in turn, creates the capability to produce consistent high-quality ground-based data sets, which are an essential requirement to generate reliable long-term measurement time series suitable for trend analysis and satellite data validation. The data products investigated during the semi-blind intercomparison are slant columns of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), the oxygen collision complex (O4) and ozone (O3) measured in the UV and visible wavelength region, formaldehyde (HCHO) in the UV spectral region, and NO2 in an additional (smaller) wavelength range in the visible region. The campaign design and implementation processes are discussed in detail including the measurement protocol, calibration procedures and slant column retrieval settings. Strong emphasis was put on the careful alignment and synchronisation of the measurement systems, resulting in a unique set of measurements made under highly comparable air mass conditions. The CINDI-2 data sets were investigated using a regression analysis of the slant columns measured by each instrument and for each of the target data products. The slope and intercept of the regression analysis respectively quantify the mean systematic bias and offset of the individual data sets against the selected reference (which is obtained from the median of either all data sets or a subset), and the rms error provides an estimate of the measurement noise or dispersion. These three criteria are examined and for each of the parameters and each of the data products, performance thresholds are set and applied to all the measurements. The approach presented here has been developed based on heritage from previous intercomparison exercises. It introduces a quantitative assessment of the consistency between all the participating instruments for the MAX-DOAS and zenith-sky DOAS techniques.CINDI-2 received funding from the Netherlands Space Office (NSO). Funding for this study was provided by ESA through the CINDI-2 (ESA contract no. 4000118533/16/ISbo) and FRM4DOAS (ESA contract no. 4000118181/16/I-EF) projects and partly within the EU 7th Framework Programme QA4ECV project (grant agreement no. 607405). The BOKU MAX-DOAS instrument was funded and the participation of Stefan F. Schreier was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): I 2296-N29. The participation of the University of Toronto team was supported by the Canadian Space Agency (through the AVATARS project) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (through the PAHA project). The instrument was primarily funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and is usually operated at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) by the Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change (CANDAC). Funding for CISC was provided by the UVAS (“Ultraviolet and Visible Atmospheric Sounder”) projects SEOSAT/INGENIO, ESP2015-71299- R, MINECO-FEDER and UE. The activities of the IUP-Heidelberg were supported by the DFG project RAPSODI (grant no. PL 193/17-1). SAOZ and Mini-SAOZ instruments are supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). INTA recognises support from the National funding projects HELADO (CTM2013-41311-P) and AVATAR (CGL2014-55230-R). AMOIAP recognises support from the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 16-17-10275) and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant nos. 16-05- 01062 and 18-35-00682). Ka L. Chan received transnational access funding from ACTRIS-2 (H2020 grant agreement no. 654109). Rainer Volkamer recognises funding from NASA’s Atmospheric Composition Program (NASA-16-NUP2016-0001) and the US National Science Foundation (award AGS-1620530). Henning Finkenzeller is the recipient of a NASA graduate fellowship. Mihalis Vrekoussis recognises support from the University of Bremen and the DFG Research Center/Cluster of Excellence “The Ocean in the Earth System-MARUM”. Financial support through the University of Bremen Institutional Strategy in the framework of the DFG Excellence Initiative is gratefully appreciated for Anja Schönhardt. Pandora instrument deployment was supported by Luftblick through the ESA Pandonia Project and NASA Pandora Project at the Goddard Space Flight Center under NASA Headquarters’ Tropospheric Composition Program. The article processing charges for this open-access publication were covered by BK Scientific

DPHL: A DIA Pan-human Protein Mass Spectrometry Library for Robust Biomarker Discovery

To address the increasing need for detecting and validating protein biomarkers in clinical specimens, mass spectrometry (MS)-based targeted proteomic techniques, including the selected reaction monitoring (SRM), parallel reaction monitoring (PRM), and massively parallel data-independent acquisition (DIA), have been developed. For optimal performance, they require the fragment ion spectra of targeted peptides as prior knowledge. In this report, we describe a MS pipeline and spectral resource to support targeted proteomics studies for human tissue samples. To build the spectral resource, we integrated common open-source MS computational tools to assemble a freely accessible computational workflow based on Docker. We then applied the workflow to generate DPHL, a comprehensive DIA pan-human library, from 1096 data-dependent acquisition (DDA) MS raw files for 16 types of cancer samples. This extensive spectral resource was then applied to a proteomic study of 17 prostate cancer (PCa) patients. Thereafter, PRM validation was applied to a larger study of 57 PCa patients and the differential expression of three proteins in prostate tumor was validated. As a second application, the DPHL spectral resource was applied to a study consisting of plasma samples from 19 diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients and 18 healthy control subjects. Differentially expressed proteins between DLBCL patients and healthy control subjects were detected by DIA-MS and confirmed by PRM. These data demonstrate that the DPHL supports DIA and PRM MS pipelines for robust protein biomarker discovery. DPHL is freely accessible at https://www.iprox.org/page/project.html?id=IPX0001400000

Níveis de lisina para leitoas selecionadas geneticamente para deposição de carne magra, dos 30 aos 60 kg, mantendo constante a relação entre lisina e metionina+cistina, treonina, triptofano, isoleucina e valina Levels of lysine for gilts with high genetic potential for lean meat deposition from 30 to 60 kg, mantaining constant the relation of lysine and methionine+cystine, threonine, tryptophan, isoleucine and valine

Foram utilizadas 40 leitoas mestiças (Hampshire, Landrace Belga, Pietran) com peso inicial médio de 30,1±1,25 kg e alto potencial genético para deposição de carne magra na carcaça, para avaliar diferentes níveis de lisina. Foi usado delineamento de blocos ao acaso com quatro tratamentos, cinco repetições e dois animais por unidade experimental. Os tratamentos corresponderam a uma ração basal com 17,5% de proteína bruta, suplementada com quatro níveis de L-lisina HCl, resultando em rações com 1,00; 1,10; 1,20; e 1,30% de lisina. As rações foram suplementadas com níveis crescentes de treonina, metionina, isoleucina, valina e triptofano, resultando em rações nas quais a relação entre estes aminoácidos e a lisina se manteve constante em 67, 62, 60, 68 e 19%, respectivamente, com base na digestibilidade verdadeira. Não se observou efeito dos tratamentos sobre consumo de ração, ganho de peso diário e concentração de uréia no soro sangüíneo dos animais, entretanto, os animais pareceram ter atingido o potencial genético máximo para ganho de peso no nível de lisina de 1,10% (0,329%/Mcal de ED), correspondente a um consumo de lisina de 22 g/dia. Observou-se efeito linear sobre o consumo de lisina diário, que aumentou, e a conversão alimentar, que reduziu com o aumento do nível de lisina da ração. O nível de 1,30% (0,389%/Mcal de ED) ou 1,19% (0,356%/Mcal de ED), correspondente a um consumo de lisina total e digestível, respectivamente, de 24 e 22,1 g/dia, proporcionou os melhores resultados de conversão alimentar de leitoas dos 30 aos 60 kg, quando se utilizou o conceito de proteína ideal na formulação das rações experimentais.<br>Forty crossbred gilts (Hampshire, Belgium Landrace, Pietran) with initial average weight of 30.1±1.25 kg and high genetic potential for lean meat deposition were used to evaluate different lysine levels. A randomized block experimental design, with four treatments, five replications and two animal per experimental unit, was used. The treatments corresponded to the basal diet with 17.5% crude protein, supplemented with L-lysine-HCl, resulting in diets with 1.00, 1.10, 1.20 and 1.30% of lysine. The diets were supplemented with increasing levels of threonine, methionine, isoleucine, valine and tryptophan, resulting in diets where the amino acids:lysine ratio was constant in 67, 52, 60, 68 and 19%, respectively, based on the true digestibility. There was no effect of treatments on feed intake, daily weight gain and blood serum urea concentration of animals, however, the animals seems to reach their maximum genetic potential for weight gain at lysine level of 1.10% (0.329%/Mcal de DE), corresponding to a lysine intake of 22 g/day. There was linear effect on daily lysine intake, that increased, and on feed:gain ratio that reduced with increasing dietary lysine level. The level of 1.30% (0.389%/Mcal of DE) or 1.19% (0.356%/Mcal of DE), corresponding to a total and digestible lysine intake of 24 and 22.1 g/day, respectively, showed the best results of feed:gain ratio of gilts from 30 to 60 kg, when the ideal protein concept was used in the diet formulation

Overview of Recent Flight Flutter Testing Research at NASA Dryden

In response to the concerns of the aeroelastic community, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, is conducting research into improving the flight flutter (including aeroservoelasticity) test process with more accurate and automated techniques for stability boundary prediction. The important elements of this effort so far include the following: 1) excitation mechanisms for enhanced vibration data to reduce uncertainty levels in stability estimates; 2) investigation of a variety of frequency, time, and wavelet analysis techniques for signal processing, stability estimation, and nonlinear identification; and 3) robust flutter boundary prediction to substantially reduce the test matrix for flutter clearance. These are critical research topics addressing the concerns of a recent AGARD Specialists&apos; Meeting on Advanced Aeroservoelastic Testing and Data Analysis. This paper addresses these items using flight test data from the F/A-18 Systems Research Aircraft and the F/A-18 H..

Complement factor H: using atomic resolution structure to illuminate disease mechanisms.

Complement Factor H has recently come to the fore with variant forms implicated in a range of serious disease states. This review aims to bring together recent data concerning the structure and biological activity of this molecule to highlight the way in which a molecular understanding of function may open novel therapeutic possibilities. In particular we examine the evidence for and against the hypothesis that sequence variations in factor H may predispose to disease if they perturb its ability to recognise and respond appropriately to polyanionic carbohydrates on host surfaces that require protection from complement-mediated damage