Modeling PM10 Originating from Dust Intrusions in the Southern Iberian Peninsula Using HYSPLIT

The Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectories (HYSPLIT) model has been applied to calculate the spatial and temporal distributions of dust originating from North Africa. The model has been configured to forecast hourly particulate matter#10 mm(PM10) dust concentrations focusing on the impacts over the southern Iberian Peninsula. Two full years (2008 and 2009) have been simulated and compared against surface background measurement sites. A statistical analysis using discrete and categorical evaluations is presented. The model is capable of simulating the occurrence of Saharan dust episodes as observed at the measurement stations and captures the generally higher levels observed in eastern Andalusia, Spain, with respect to the western Andalusia station. But the simulation tends to underpredict the magnitude of the dust concentration peaks. The model has also been qualitatively compared with satellite data, showing generally good agreement in the spatial distribution of the dust column

Building a queer- and trans-inclusive microbiology conference

Microbiology conferences can be powerful places to build collaborations and exchange ideas, but for queer and transgender (trans) scientists, they can also become sources of alienation and isolation. Many conference organizers would like to create welcoming and inclusive events but feel ill-equipped to make this vision a reality, and a historical lack of representation of queer and trans folks in microbiology means we rarely occupy these key leadership roles ourselves. Looking more broadly, queer and trans scientists are systematically marginalized across scientific fields, leading to disparities in career outcomes, professional networks, and opportunities, as well as the loss of unique scientific perspectives at all levels. For queer and trans folks with multiple, intersecting, marginalized identities, these barriers often become even more severe. Here, we draw from our experiences as early-career microbiologists to provide concrete, practical advice to help conference organizers across research communities design inclusive, safe, and welcoming conferences, where queer and trans scientists can flourish

New considerations for PM, black carbon and particle number concentration for air quality monitoring across different European cities

In many large cities of Europe standard air quality limit values of particulate matter (PM) are exceeded. Emissions from road traffic and biomass burning are frequently reported to be the major causes. As a consequence of these exceedances a large number of air quality plans, most of them focusing on traffic emissions reductions, have been implemented in the last decade. In spite of this implementation, a number of cities did not record a decrease of PM levels. Thus, is the efficiency of air quality plans overestimated? Do the road traffic emissions contribute less than expected to ambient air PM levels in urban areas? Or do we need a more specific metric to evaluate the impact of the above emissions on the levels of urban aerosols? This study shows the results of the interpretation of the variability of levels of PM, Black Carbon (BC), aerosol number concentration (N) and a number of gaseous pollutants in seven selected urban areas covering road traffic, urban background, urban-industrial, and urban-shipping environments from southern, central and northern Europe. The results showed that variations of PM and N levels do not always reflect the variation of the impact of road traffic emissions on urban aerosols. However, BC levels vary proportionally with those of traffic related gaseous pollutants, such as CO, NO₂ and NO. Due to this high correlation, one may suppose that monitoring the levels of these gaseous pollutants would be enough to extrapolate exposure to traffic-derived BC levels. However, the BC/CO, BC/NO₂ and BC/NO ratios vary widely among the cities studied, as a function of distance to traffic emissions, vehicle fleet composition and the influence of other emission sources such as biomass burning. Thus, levels of BC should be measured at air quality monitoring sites. During morning traffic rush hours, a narrow variation in the N/BC ratio was evidenced, but a wide variation of this ratio was determined for the noon period. Although in central and northern Europe N and BC levels tend to vary simultaneously, not only during the traffic rush hours but also during the whole day, in urban background stations in southern Europe maximum N levels coinciding with minimum BC levels are recorded at midday in all seasons. These N maxima recorded in southern European urban background environments are attributed to midday nucleation episodes occurring when gaseous pollutants are diluted and maximum insolation and O₃ levels occur. The occurrence of SO₂ peaks may also contribute to the occurrence of midday nucleation bursts in specific industrial or shipping-influenced areas, although at several central European sites similar levels of SO₂ are recorded without yielding nucleation episodes. Accordingly, it is clearly evidenced that N variability in different European urban environments is not equally influenced by the same emission sources and atmospheric processes. We conclude that N variability does not always reflect the impact of road traffic on air quality, whereas BC is a more consistent tracer of such an influence. However, N should be measured since ultrafine particles (<100 nm) may have large impacts on human health. The combination of PM₁₀ and BC monitoring in urban areas potentially constitutes a useful approach for air quality monitoring. BC is mostly governed by vehicle exhaust emissions, while PM₁₀ concentrations at these sites are also governed by non-exhaust particulate emissions resuspended by traffic, by midday atmospheric dilution and by other nontraffic emissions

New considerations for PM, Black Carbon and particle number concentration for air quality monitoring across different European cities

In many large cities of Europe standard air quality limit values of particulate matter (PM) are exceeded. Emissions from road traffic and biomass burning are frequently reported to be the major causes. As a consequence of these exceedances a large number of air quality plans, most of them focusing on traffic emissions reductions, have been implemented in the last decade. In spite of this implementation, a number of cities did not record a decrease of PM levels. Thus, is the efficiency of air quality plans overestimated? Do the road traffic emissions contribute less than expected to ambient air PM levels in urban areas? Or do we need a more specific metric to evaluate the impact of the above emissions on the levels of urban aerosols? This study shows the results of the interpretation of the 2009 variability of levels of PM, Black Carbon (BC), aerosol number concentration (N) and a number of gaseous pollutants in seven selected urban areas covering road traffic, urban background, urban-industrial, and urban-shipping environments from southern, central and northern Europe. The results showed that variations of PM and N levels do not always reflect the variation of the impact of road traffic emissions on urban aerosols. However, BC levels vary proportionally with those of traffic related gaseous pollutants, such as CO, NO2 and NO. Due to this high correlation, one may suppose that monitoring the levels of these gaseous pollutants would be enough to extrapolate exposure to traffic-derived BC levels. However, the BC/CO, BC/NO2 and BC/NO ratios vary widely among the cities studied, as a function of distance to traffic emissions, vehicle fleet composition and the influence of other emission sources such as biomass burning. Thus, levels of BC should be measured at air quality monitoring sites. During morning traffic rush hours, a narrow variation in the N/BC ratio was evidenced, but a wide variation of this ratio was determined for the noon period. Although in central and northern Europe N and BC levels tend to vary simultaneously, not only during the traffic rush hours but also during the whole day, in urban background stations in southern Europe maximum N levels coinciding with minimum BC levels are recorded at midday in all seasons. These N maxima recorded in southern European urban background environments are attributed to midday nucleation episodes occurring when gaseous pollutants are diluted and maximum insolation and O3 levels occur. The occurrence of SO2 peaks may also contribute to the occurrence of midday nucleation bursts in specific industrial or shipping-influenced areas, although at several central European sites similar levels of SO2 are recorded without yielding nucleation episodes. Accordingly, it is clearly evidenced that N variability in different European urban environments is not equally influenced by the same emission sources and atmospheric processes. We conclude that N variability does not always reflect the impact of road traffic on air quality, whereas BC is a more consistent tracer of such an influence. However, N should be measured since ultrafine particles (<100 nm) may have large impacts on human health. The combination of PM10 and BC monitoring in urban areas potentially constitutes a useful approach for air quality monitoring. BC is mostly governed by vehicle exhaust emissions, while PM10 concentrations at these sites are also governed by non-exhaust particulate emissions resuspended by traffic, by midday atmospheric dilution and by other non-traffic emissions

The Neurovascular Unit Dysfunction in Alzheimer's Disease

Funding: This work was supported by Fondo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (FONDOCyT) from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Dominican Republic (2015-3A2-127 to M.P.-H.) and (2018-2019-2A3-208 to J.L.-M. and M.P.-H.). Acknowledgments: The authors want to express their gratitude to the Mexican families who have donated the brain of their loved ones affected by Alzheimer’s disease and made our research possible. We also want to express our gratitude to the Union Medical University Clinic, Dominican Republic, for their support and collaboration in developing of this research project. This work is dedicated to the memory of José Raúl Mena López †.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Levels of carbonaceous aerosols in remote, rural, urban and industrial sites of Spain

Comunicación presentada en: 2012 European Aerosol Conference (EAC-2012), B-WG01S2P30, celebrada del 2 al 7 de septiembre de 2012 en Granada.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (VAMOS CGL2010-19464/CLI; DAURE CGL2007-30502-E/CLI, GRACCIE- CSD2007-00067), the Ministry of the Economy Competitivity, the Generalitat de Catalunya, Gobierno de Canarias and Junta de Andalucía

PHF-Core Tau as the Potential Initiating Event for Tau Pathology in Alzheimer’s Disease

FUNDING This work was supported by Fondo Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnologia, FONDOCyT, from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Dominican Republic (2015- 3A2-127 to MP-H and 2018-2019-2A3-208 to JL-M and MP-H). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We want to express our gratitude to the following: Dr. P. Davies (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, United States) and Lester I. Binder† (North Western, Chicago, IL, United States) for the generous gifts of mAbs TG3 and Alz-50, and Tau-1, Tau-5, and Tau-7, respectively; Tec. Amparo Viramontes Pintos for the handling of the brain tissue; Samadhi Moreno-Campuzano for her technical assistance/support in the confocal microscopy unit of CIIDIR Durango, Instituto Politécnico Nacional; Union Medical University Clinic, Dominican Republic, for their support and collaboration in the development of this research project. We also want to express our gratitude to the Mexican families who have donated the brain of their loved ones affected with Alzheimer’s disease and made our research possible. This work is dedicated to the memory of Professor Dr. José Raúl Mena López† .Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Polymorphisms in the gene regions of the adaptor complex LAMTOR2/LAMTOR3 and their association with breast cancer risk.

Background: The late endosomal LAMTOR complex serves as a convergence point for both the RAF/MEK/ERK and the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathways. Interestingly, both of these signalling cascades play a significant role in the aetiology of breast cancer. Our aim was to address the possible role of genetic polymorphisms in LAMTOR2 and LAMTOR3 as genetic risk factors for breast cancer. Methodology/Results: We sequenced the exons and exon-intron boundaries of LAMTOR2 (p14) and LAMTOR3 (MP1) in 50 prospectively collected pairs of cancerous tissue and blood samples from breast cancer patients and compared their genetic variability. We found one single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in LAMTOR2 (rs7541) and two SNPs in LAMTOR3 (rs2298735 and rs148972953) in both tumour and blood samples, but no somatic mutations in cancerous tissues. In addition, we genotyped all three SNPs in 296 samples from the Risk Prediction of Breast Cancer Metastasis Study and found evidence of a genetic association between rs148972953 and oestrogen (ER) and progesterone receptor negative status (PR) (ER: OR = 3.60 (1.15-11.28); PR: OR = 4.27 (1.43-12.72)). However, when we additionally genotyped rs148972953 in the MARIE study including 2,715 breast cancer cases and 5,216 controls, we observed neither a difference in genotype frequencies between patients and controls nor was the SNP associated with ER or PR. Finally, all three SNPs were equally frequent in breast cancer samples and female participants (n = 640) of the population-based SAPHIR Study. Conclusions: The identified polymorphisms in LAMTOR2 and LAMTOR3 do not seem to play a relevant role in breast cancer. Our work does not exclude a role of other not yet identified SNPs or that the here annotated polymorphism may in fact play a relevant role in other diseases. Our results underscore the importance of replication in association studies