Predictive Value of Bronchoalveolar Lavage in Excluding a Diagnosis of Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia During Prophylaxis with Aerosolized Pentamidine

We assessed the negative predictive value of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) for Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) during prophylaxis with aerosolized pentamidine. On the basis of the assumption that undiagnosed and untreated PCP would progress and become clinically apparent, for 3 months we prospectively followed 34 consecutive cases in which BAL had not detected PCP. All patients were immunodeficient, had a symptomatic human immunodeficiency virus infection, and were evaluated for possible PCP during prophylaxis with aerosolized pentamidine. No transbronchial biopsies were performed. In 32 of 34 cases, a diagnosis of PCP could be excluded because of other definite diagnoses or improvement during the follow-up. Despite negative results of an examination of their BAL fluid, two patients received empirical treatment that was active against PCP; these patients were regarded as possibly having undiagnosed PCP. Thus, the negative predictive value of BAL alone was at least 94% (32 of 34 cases) in excluding a diagnosis of PCP during prophylaxis with aerosolized pentamidin

The global aerosol-climate model ECHAM6.3-HAM2.3-Part 2: Cloud evaluation, aerosol radiative forcing, and climate sensitivity

This is the final version. Available on open access from European Geosciences Union via the DOI in this recordCode availability. The ECHAM-HAMMOZ model is made freely available to the scientific community under the HAMMOZ Software License Agreement, which defines the conditions under which the model can be used. More information can be found at the HAMMOZ website (https://redmine.hammoz.ethz.ch/projects/hammoz, last access: 13 August 2019). Scripts can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2553891 (Neubauer et al., 2019a).Data availability. Data can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2541936 (Neubauer et al., 2019b). ESA cloud CCI data can be downloaded from http://www.esa-cloud-cci.org/?q=data_download (Poulsen et al., 2017; Stengel et al., 2017b). MODIS products are available for download from Level 1 and the Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS) at https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/search/ (Platnick, 2017). ISCCP histogram data and the CALIPSO-GOCCP product can be obtained from http://climserv.ipsl.polytechnique.fr/cfmip-obs/ (Zhang et al., 2012; Pincus et al., 2012). Cloud-top CDNC can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.15695/vudata.ees.1 (Bennartz and Rausch, 2016). MAC-LWP data are available at the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC; current hosting: http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov, Elsaesser et al., 2016). CERES satellite data can be obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center at https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/order_data.php (last access: 12 February 2018). The IWP satellite data from Li et al. (2012) were obtained from the authors. GPCP Precipitation data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site at https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/ (last access: 16 September 2017).The global aerosol-climate model ECHAM6.3-HAM2.3 (E63H23) as well as the previous model versions ECHAM5.5-HAM2.0 (E55H20) and ECHAM6.1-HAM2.2 (E61H22) are evaluated using global observational datasets for clouds and precipitation. In E63H23, the amount of low clouds, the liquid and ice water path, and cloud radiative effects are more realistic than in previous model versions. E63H23 has a more physically based aerosol activation scheme, improvements in the cloud cover scheme, changes in the detrainment of convective clouds, changes in the sticking efficiency for the accretion of ice crystals by snow, consistent ice crystal shapes throughout the model, and changes in mixed-phase freezing; an inconsistency in ice crystal number concentration (ICNC) in cirrus clouds was also removed. Common biases in ECHAM and in E63H23 (and in previous ECHAM-HAM versions) are a cloud amount in stratocumulus regions that is too low and deep convective clouds over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that form too close to the continents (while tropical land precipitation is underestimated). There are indications that ICNCs are overestimated in E63H23. Since clouds are important for effective radiative forcing due to aerosol-radiation and aerosol-cloud interactions (ERFariCaci) and equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), differences in ERFariCaci and ECS between the model versions were also analyzed. ERFariCaci is weaker in E63H23 (-1:0 W m-2) than in E61H22 (-1:2 W m-2) (or E55H20;-1:1 W m-2). This is caused by the weaker shortwave ERFariCaci (a new aerosol activation scheme and sea salt emission parameterization in E63H23, more realistic simulation of cloud water) overcompensating for the weaker longwave ERFariCaci (removal of an inconsistency in ICNC in cirrus clouds in E61H22). The decrease in ECS in E63H23 (2.5 K) compared to E61H22 (2.8 K) is due to changes in the entrainment rate for shallow convection (affecting the cloud amount feedback) and a stronger cloud phase feedback. Experiments with minimum cloud droplet number concentrations (CDNCmin) of 40 cm-3 or 10 cm-3 show that a higher value of CDNCmin reduces ERFariCaci as well as ECS in E63H23.Swiss National Science FoundationEuropean Union FP7European Research Council (ERC)Academy of Finlan

Effects of rising temperature on pelagic biogeochemistry in mesocosm systems: a comparative analysis of the AQUASHIFT Kiel experiments

A comparative analysis of data, obtained during four indoor-mesocosm experiments with natural spring plankton communities from the Baltic Sea, was conducted to investigate whether biogeochemical cycling is affected by an increase in water temperature of up to 6 °C above present-day conditions. In all experiments, warming stimulated in particular heterotrophic bacterial processes and had an accelerating effect on the temporal development of phytoplankton blooms. This was also mirrored in the build-up and partitioning of organic matter between particulate and dissolved phases. Thus, warming increased both the magnitude and rate of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) build-up, whereas the accumulation of particulate organic carbon (POC) and phosphorus (POP) decreased with rising temperature. In concert, the observed temperature-mediated changes in biogeochemical components suggest strong shifts in the functioning of marine pelagic food webs and the ocean’s biological carbon pump, hence providing potential feedback mechanisms to Earth’s climate system

In Situ Compatibilization of Biopolymer Ternary Blends by Reactive Extrusion with Low-Functionality Epoxy-Based Styrene Acrylic Oligomer

[EN] The present study reports on the use of low-functionality epoxy-based styrene¿acrylic oligomer (ESAO) to compatibilize immiscible ternary blends made of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV), polylactide (PLA), and poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT). The addition during melt processing of low-functionality ESAO at two parts per hundred resin (phr) of biopolymer successfully changed the soften inclusion phase in the blend system to a thinner morphology, yielding biopolymer ternary blends with higher mechanical ductility and also improved oxygen barrier performance. The compatibilization achieved was ascribed to the in situ formation of a newly block terpolymer, i.e. PHBVb- PLA-b-PBAT, which was produced at the blend interface by the reaction of the multiple epoxy groups present in ESAO with the functional terminal groups of the biopolymers. This chemical reaction was mainly linear due to the inherently low functionality of ESAO and the more favorable reactivity of the epoxy groups with the carboxyl groups of the biopolymers, which avoided the formation of highly branched and/or cross-linked structures and thus facilitated the films processability. Therefore, the reactive blending of biopolymers at different mixing ratios with low-functionality ESAO represents a straightforward methodology to prepare sustainable plastics at industrial scale with different physical properties that can be of interest in, for instance, food packaging applications.This research was funded by the EU H2020 project YPACK (Reference number 773872) and by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities (MICIU) with project numbers MAT2017-84909-C2-2-R and AGL2015-63855-C2-1-R. L. Quiles-Carrillo wants to thank the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports (MECD) for financial support through his FPU Grant Number FPU15/03812. Torres-Giner also acknowledges the MICIU for his Juan de la Cierva contract (IJCI-2016-29675).Quiles-Carrillo, L.; Montanes, N.; Lagaron, J.; Balart, R.; Torres-Giner, S. (2019). In Situ Compatibilization of Biopolymer Ternary Blends by Reactive Extrusion with Low-Functionality Epoxy-Based Styrene Acrylic Oligomer. 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