THz spectroscopy of the atmosphere for climatology and meteorology applications

We present a new satellite-based instrument concept that will enable global measurements of atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles with unprecedented resolution and accuracy, compared to currently planned missions. It will also provide global measurements of essential climate variables related to ice clouds that will better constrain global climate models. The instrument is enabled by the use of superconducting detectors coupled to superconducting filterbank spectrometers, operating between 50GHz and 850 GHz. We present the science drivers, the current instrument concept and status, and predicted performance

Down Selection of Polymerized Bovine Hemoglobins for Use as Oxygen Releasing Therapeutics in a Guinea Pig Model

Editor's Highlight: The development of hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers (HBOCs) as a replacement for whole-blood transfusions has been impeded by their systemic toxicity. This paper presents data from a series of HBOCs, demonstrating one candidate that meets predetermined safety criteria. This approach may allow the development of an acceptable blood substitute for human us

Results of an Indo-Swiss programme for qualification and testing of a 300-kW IISc-Dasag gasifier

The paper describes the performance and operational experience in India on a high efficiency, low tar, woody biomass gasifier developed at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. This development is also of interest to Switzerland, which has a substantial potential of biomass energy. The test scheme included measurements on tar and particulates and the effluents along with necessary measurements for the mass and energy balance. The results indicate a low tar level to meet the engine specifications and the effluents issuing out of the system could be treated using simpler techniques, as the levels are low

Martian magnetism with orbiting sub-millimeter sensor:simulated retrieval system

A Mars-orbiting sub-millimeter sensor can be used to retrieve the magnetic field at low altitudes over large areas of significant planetary crustal magnetism of the surface of Mars from measurements of circularly polarized radiation emitted by the 368 GHz ground-state molecular oxygen absorption line. We design a full retrieval system for one example orbit to show the expected accuracies on the magnetic field components that one realization of such a Mars satellite mission could achieve. For one set of measurements around a tangent profile, we find that the two horizontal components of the magnetic field can be measured at about 200 nT error with a vertical resolution of around 4 km from 6 up to 70 km in tangent altitude. The error is similar regardless of the true strength of the magnetic field, and it can be reduced by repeated measurements over the same area. The method and some of its potential pitfalls are described and discussed

ZOOMICS: comparative metabolomics of red blood cells from dogs, cows, horses and donkeys during refrigerated storage for up to 42 days

The use of omics technologies in human transfusion medicine has improved our understanding of the red blood cell (RBC) storage lesion(s). Despite significant progress towards understanding the storage lesion(s) of human RBCs, a comparison of basal and post-storage RBC metabolism across multiple species using omics technologies has not yet been reported, and is the focus of this study

Success Factors of European Syndromic Surveillance Systems: A Worked Example of Applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Introduction: Syndromic surveillance aims at augmenting traditional public health surveillance with timely information. To gain a head start, it mainly analyses existing data such as from web searches or patient records. Despite the setup of many syndromic surveillance systems, there is still much doubt about the benefit of the approach. There are diverse interactions between performance indicators such as timeliness and various system characteristics. This makes the performance assessment of syndromic surveillance systems a complex endeavour. We assessed if the comparison of several syndromic surveillance systems through Qualitative Comparative Analysis helps to evaluate performance and identify key success factors. Materials and Methods: We compiled case-based, mixed data on performance and characteristics of 19 syndromic surveillance systems in Europe from scientific and grey literature and from site visits. We identified success factors by applying crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. We focused on two main areas of syndromic surveillance application: seasonal influenza surveillance and situational awareness during different types of potentially health threatening events. Results: We found that syndromic surveillance systems might detect the onset or peak of seasonal influenza earlier if they analyse non-clinical data sources. Timely situational awareness during different types of events is supported by an automated syndromic surveillance system capable of analysing multiple syndromes. To our surprise, the analysis of multiple data sources was no key success factor for situational awareness. Conclusions: We suggest to consider these key success factors when designing or further developing syndromic surveillance systems. Qualitative Comparative Analysis helped interpreting complex, mixed data on small-N cases and resulted in concrete and practically relevant findings