Lightning Imaging Sensor on International Space Station

No abstract availabl

Lightning Observations from the International Space Station (ISS) for Science Research and Operational Applications

There exist several core science applications of LIS lightning observations, that range from weather and climate to atmospheric chemistry and lightning physics due to strong quantitative connections that can be made between lightning and other geophysical processes of interest. The space-base vantage point, such as provided by ISS LIS, still remains an ideal location to obtain total lightning observations on a global basis

Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) for the International Space Station (ISS): Mission Description and Science Goals

In recent years, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and their partners have developed and demonstrated space-based lightning observations as an effective remote sensing tool for Earth science research and applications. The Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) continues to provide global observations of total lightning after 17 years on-orbit. In April 2013, a space-qualified LIS built as the flight spare for TRMM, was selected for flight as a science mission on the International Space Station. The ISS LIS (or I-LIS as Hugh Christian prefers) will be flown as a hosted payload on the Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP) H5 mission, which has a January 2016 baseline launch date aboard a SpaceX launch vehicle for a 2-4 year or longer mission. The LIS measures the amount, rate, and radiant energy of global lightning. More specifically, it measures lightning during both day and night, with storm scale resolution, millisecond timing, and high, uniform detection efficiency, without any land-ocean bias. Lightning is a direct and most impressive response to intense atmospheric convection. It has been found that the characteristics of lightning that LIS measures can be quantitatively coupled to both thunderstorm and other geophysical processes. Therefore, the ISS LIS lightning observations will provide important gap-filling inputs to pressing Earth system science issues across a broad range of disciplines, including weather, climate, atmospheric chemistry, and lightning physics. A unique contribution from the ISS platform will be the availability of real-time lightning, especially valuable for operational applications over data sparse regions such as the oceans. The ISS platform will also uniquely enable LIS to provide simultaneous and complementary observations with other payloads such as the European Space Agency's Atmosphere-Space Interaction Monitor (ASIM) that will be exploring the connection between thunderstorms and lightning with terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs). Another important function of the ISS LIS will be to provide cross-sensor calibration/validation with a number of other payloads, including the TRMM LIS and the next generation geostationary lightning mappers (e.g., GOES-R Geostationary Lightning Mapper and Meteosat Third Generation Lightning Imager). This inter-calibration will improve the long term climate monitoring provided by all these systems. Finally, the ISS LIS will extend the time-series climate record of LIS lightning observations and expand the latitudinal coverage of LIS lightning to the climate significant upper middle-latitudes

Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) for the International Space Station (ISS): Mission Description and Science Goals

No abstract availabl

Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) for the International Space Station (ISS): Mission Description and Science Goals

In recent years, the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and their partners have developed and demonstrated space-based lightning observations as an effective remote sensing tool for Earth science research and applications. The Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) continues to acquire global observations of total (i.e., intracloud and cloud-to-ground) lightning after 17 years on-orbit. However, TRMM is now low on fuel, so this mission will soon be completed. As a follow on to this mission, a space-qualified LIS built as the flight spare for TRMM has been selected for flight as a science mission on the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS LIS will be flown as a hosted payload on the Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP) H5 mission, which has a January 2016 baseline launch date aboard a SpaceX launch vehicle for a 2-4 year or longer mission. The LIS measures the amount, rate, and radiant energy of total lightning over the Earth. More specifically, it measures lightning during both day and night, with storm scale resolution (approx. 4 km), millisecond timing, and high, uniform detection efficiency, without any land-ocean bias. Lightning is a direct and most impressive response to intense atmospheric convection. It has been found that lightning measured by LIS can be quantitatively related to thunderstorm and other geophysical processes. Therefore, the ISS LIS lightning observations will continue to provide important gap-filling inputs to pressing Earth system science issues across a broad range of disciplines, including weather, climate, atmospheric chemistry, and lightning physics. A unique contribution from the ISS platform will be the availability of real-time lightning data, especially valuable for operational applications over data sparse regions such as the oceans. The ISS platform will also uniquely enable LIS to provide simultaneous and complementary observations with other ISS payloads such as the European Space Agency's Atmosphere-Space Interaction Monitor (ASIM) that will be exploring the connection between thunderstorms and lightning with terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Global LIghtning and Sprites MeasurementS (GLIMS) with its focus on global lightning and sprite connections. Another important function of the ISS LIS will be to provide cross-sensor calibration/validation with a number of other payloads, including the TRMM LIS and the next generation geostationary lightning mappers such as the GOES-R Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) and Meteosat Third Generation Lightning Imager (MTG LI), as well as with ground-based lightning detection systems. These inter-calibrations will improve the long term climate monitoring record provided by all these systems. Finally, the ISS LIS will extend the time-series climate record of LIS lightning observations and expand the latitudinal coverage of LIS lightning to the climate significant upper middle-latitudes

An Abundant Evolutionarily Conserved CSB-PiggyBac Fusion Protein Expressed in Cockayne Syndrome

Cockayne syndrome (CS) is a devastating progeria most often caused by mutations in the CSB gene encoding a SWI/SNF family chromatin remodeling protein. Although all CSB mutations that cause CS are recessive, the complete absence of CSB protein does not cause CS. In addition, most CSB mutations are located beyond exon 5 and are thought to generate only C-terminally truncated protein fragments. We now show that a domesticated PiggyBac-like transposon PGBD3, residing within intron 5 of the CSB gene, functions as an alternative 3′ terminal exon. The alternatively spliced mRNA encodes a novel chimeric protein in which CSB exons 1–5 are joined in frame to the PiggyBac transposase. The resulting CSB-transposase fusion protein is as abundant as CSB protein itself in a variety of human cell lines, and continues to be expressed by primary CS cells in which functional CSB is lost due to mutations beyond exon 5. The CSB-transposase fusion protein has been highly conserved for at least 43 Myr since the divergence of humans and marmoset, and appears to be subject to selective pressure. The human genome contains over 600 nonautonomous PGBD3-related MER85 elements that were dispersed when the PGBD3 transposase was last active at least 37 Mya. Many of these MER85 elements are associated with genes which are involved in neuronal development, and are known to be regulated by CSB. We speculate that the CSB-transposase fusion protein has been conserved for host antitransposon defense, or to modulate gene regulation by MER85 elements, but may cause CS in the absence of functional CSB protein

MRE11-Deficiency Associated with Improved Long-Term Disease Free Survival and Overall Survival in a Subset of Stage III Colon Cancer Patients in Randomized CALGB 89803 Trial

<div><p>Purpose</p><p>Colon cancers deficient in mismatch repair (MMR) may exhibit diminished expression of the DNA repair gene, <i>MRE11</i>, as a consequence of contraction of a T₁₁ mononucleotide tract. This study investigated MRE11 status and its association with prognosis, survival and drug response in patients with stage III colon cancer.</p><p>Patients and Methods</p><p>Cancer and Leukemia Group B 89803 (Alliance) randomly assigned 1,264 patients with stage III colon cancer to postoperative weekly adjuvant bolus 5-fluorouracil/leucovorin (FU/LV) or irinotecan+FU/LV (IFL), with 8 year follow-up. Tumors from these patients were analyzed to determine stability of a T₁₁ tract in the <i>MRE11</i> gene. The primary endpoint was overall survival (OS), and a secondary endpoint was disease-free survival (DFS). Non-proportional hazards were addressed using time-dependent covariates in Cox analyses.</p><p>Results</p><p>Of 625 tumor cases examined, 70 (11.2%) exhibited contraction at the T₁₁ tract in one or both <i>MRE11</i> alleles and were thus predicted to be deficient in MRE11 (dMRE11). In pooled treatment analyses, dMRE11 patients showed initially reduced DFS and OS but improved long-term DFS and OS compared with patients with an intact MRE11 T₁₁ tract. In the subgroup of dMRE11 patients treated with IFL, an unexplained early increase in mortality but better long-term DFS than IFL-treated pMRE11 patients was observed.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>Analysis of this relatively small number of patients and events showed that the dMRE11 marker predicts better prognosis independent of treatment in the long-term. In subgroup analyses, dMRE11 patients treated with irinotecan exhibited unexplained short-term mortality. MRE11 status is readily assayed and may therefore prove to be a useful prognostic marker, provided that the results reported here for a relatively small number of patients can be generalized in independent analyses of larger numbers of samples.</p><p>Trial Registration</p><p>ClinicalTrials.gov <a href="http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=NCT00003835" target="_blank">NCT00003835</a></p></div

Assessment of tumor MRE11 status as predictive of benefit from FU/LV and IFL.

<p>(A) Top: Disease free survival for dMRE11 vs. pMRE11 treated with FU/LV [n = 320; dMRE11 n = 31; events = 11; 5-yr rate: 67% (95% CI: 52–86%); pMRE11 n = 289; events = 122; 5-yr rate: 61% (95% CI: 56–67%)] or with IFL [n = 305; dMRE11 n = 39; events = 13; 5-yr rate: 67% (95% CI: 53–83%); pMRE11 n = 266; events = 118; 5-yr rate: 57% (95% CI: 51–63%)]. Bottom: Overall survival for dMRE11 vs. pMRE11, treated with FU/LV [n = 320; dMRE11 n = 31; events = 10; 5-yr rate: 70% (95% CI: 55–89%); pMRE11 n = 289; events = 98); 5-yr rate: 73% (95% CI: 68–79%)] or with IFL [n = 305; dMRE11 n = 39; events = 13; 5-yr rate: 67% (95% CI: 53–83%); pMRE11 n = 266; events = 96; 5-yr rate: 69% (95% CI: 63–75%)]. (B) Top: Disease-free survival for IFL vs. FU/LV treated dMRE11 [n = 70; IFL N = 39; events = 13; 5-yr rate: 67% (95% CI: 53–83%); FU/LV n = 31; events = 11; 5-yr rate: 67% (95% CI: 52–86%)] or pMRE11 (n = 555; IFL n = 266; events = 118; 5-yr rate: 57% (95% CI: 51–63%; FU/LV n = 289; events = 122; 5-yr rate: 61% (95% CI: 56–67%)]. Bottom: Overall survival for IFL vs. FU/LV-treated dMRE11 [n = 70; IFL n = 39; events = 13; 5-yr rate: 67% (95% CI: 53–83%); FU/LV n = 31; events = 10; 5-yr rate: 70% (95% CI: 55–89%) or pMRE11 [(n = 555; IFL n = 266; events = 96; 5-yr rate: 69% (95% CI: 63–75%); FU/LV n = 289; events = 98; 5-yr rate: 73% (95% CI: 68–79%)].</p

Consort diagram.

<p>Outline of CALGB 89803 randomized trial which generated the 625 samples tested.</p