Towards operational use of aircraft‐derived observations: a case study at London Heathrow airport

Mode-Selective Enhanced Surveillance (Mode-S EHS) aircraft reports can be collected at a low-cost, and are readily available around busy airports. The new work presented here demonstrates that observations derived from Mode-S EHS reports can be used to study the evolution of temperature inversions since the data have a high spatial and temporal frequency. This is illustrated by a case study centred around London Heathrow airport for the period 4 to 5 January 2015. Using Mode-S EHS reports from multiple aircraft and after applying quality control criteria, vertical temperature profiles are constructed by aggregating these reports at discrete intervals between the surface and 3000m. To improve these derived temperatures, four smoothing methods using low-pass filters are evaluated. The effect of smoothing reduces the variance in the aircraft derived temperature by approximately half. After smoothing, the temperature variance between the altitudes 3000m and 1000m is 1K to 2K; and below 1000m it is 2K to 4K. While the differences between the four smoothing methods are small, exponential smoothing is favoured because it uses all available Mode-S EHS reports. The resulting vertical profiles may be useful in operational meteorology for identifying elevated temperature inversions above 1000m. However, below 1000m they are less useful because of the reduced precision of the reported Mach number. A better source of in situ temperature observations would be for aircraft to use the meteorological reporting function of their automatic dependent surveillance (ADS) system

Fibrous Monolithic Ceramics: III, Mechanical Properties and Oxidation Behavior of the Silicon Carbide/Boron Nitride System

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66176/1/j.1151-2916.1994.tb05399.x.pd

Modeling the impact of sea-spray on particle concentrations in a coastal city

Abstract 18 An atmospheric chemistry-transport model is used to assess the impacts of sea-spray chemistry 19 on the particle composition in and downwind of a coastal city -Vancouver, British Columbia. 20 Reactions in/on sea-spray affect the entire particle ensemble and particularly the size distribution 21 of particle nitrate. 2

Role of oxido incorporation and ligand lability in expanding redox accessibility of structurally related Mn4 clusters

Photosystem II supports four manganese centers through nine oxidation states from manganese(II) during assembly through to the most oxidized state before O_2 formation and release. The protein-based carboxylate and imidazole ligands allow for significant changes of the coordination environment during the incorporation of hydroxido and oxido ligands upon oxidation of the metal centers. We report the synthesis and characterization of a series of tetramanganese complexes in four of the six oxidation states from Mn^(II)_(3)Mn^III to Mn^(III)_(2)Mn^(IV)_2 with the same ligand framework (L) by incorporating four oxido ligands. A 1,3,5-triarylbenzene framework appended with six pyridyl and three alkoxy groups was utilized along with three acetate anions to access tetramanganese complexes, Mn_(4)O_x, with x = 1, 2, 3, and 4. Alongside two previously reported complexes, four new clusters in various states were isolated and characterized by crystallography, and four were observed electrochemically, thus accessing the eight oxidation states from Mn^(II)_4 to Mn^(III)Mn^(IV)_3. This structurally related series of compounds was characterized by EXAFS, XANES, EPR, magnetism, and cyclic voltammetry. Similar to the ligands in the active site of the protein, the ancillary ligand (L) is preserved throughout the series and changes its binding mode between the low and high oxido-content clusters. Implications for the rational assembly and properties of high oxidation state metal–oxido clusters are presented

Modeling the impact of sea-spray on particle concentrations in a coastal city

An atmospheric chemistry-transport model is used to assess the impacts of sea-spray chemistry on the particle composition in and downwind of a coastal city--Vancouver, British Columbia. Reactions in/on sea-spray affect the entire particle ensemble and particularly the size distribution of particle nitrate. Urban air quality, and particularly airborne particles, is a major concern in terms of human health impacts. Sea-spray is known to be a major component of the particle ensemble at coastal sites yet relatively few air quality models include the interaction of gases with sea-spray and the fate of the particles produced. Sea-spray is not an inert addition to the particle ensemble because heterogeneous chemistry in/on sea-spray droplets changes the droplets composition and the particle size distribution, which impacts deposition and the ion balance in different particle size fractions. It is shown that the ISOPART model is capable of simulating gas and particle concentrations in the coastal metropolis of Vancouver and the surrounding valley. It is also demonstrated that to accurately simulate ambient concentrations of particles and reactive/soluble gases in a coastal valley it is absolutely critical to include heterogeneous chemistry in/on sea-spray. Partitioning of total particle-NO{sub 3}{sup -} between sea-spray and NH{sub 4}NO{sub 3} is highly sensitive to the amount of sea-spray present, and hence the initial vertical profile, sea-spray source functions [48] and the wind speed. When a fixed wind speed is used to initialize the sea-spray vertical profiles, as expected, the sea-spray concentration decays with distance inland, but the particle-NO{sub 3}{sup -} concentration decays more slowly because it is also a function of the uptake rate for HNO{sub 3}. The simulation results imply model analyses of air quality in coastal cities conducted without inclusion of sea-spray interactions may yield highly misleading results in terms of emission sensitivities of the PM size distribution. The sensitivity of the model results to the initial sea spray profile further suggests there would be great benefit in better definition of the vertical profile of size resolved sea-spray for use in such model studies

Turbulent flow at 190 m height above London during 2006-2008: A climatology and the applicability of similarity theory

Flow and turbulence above urban terrain is more complex than above rural terrain, due to the different momentum and heat transfer characteristics that are affected by the presence of buildings (e.g. pressure variations around buildings). The applicability of similarity theory (as developed over rural terrain) is tested using observations of flow from a sonic anemometer located at 190.3 m height in London, U.K. using about 6500 h of data. Turbulence statistics—dimensionless wind speed and temperature, standard deviations and correlation coefficients for momentum and heat transfer—were analysed in three ways. First, turbulence statistics were plotted as a function only of a local stability parameter z/Λ (where Λ is the local Obukhov length and z is the height above ground); the σ_i/u_* values (i = u, v, w) for neutral conditions are 2.3, 1.85 and 1.35 respectively, similar to canonical values. Second, analysis of urban mixed-layer formulations during daytime convective conditions over London was undertaken, showing that atmospheric turbulence at high altitude over large cities might not behave dissimilarly from that over rural terrain. Third, correlation coefficients for heat and momentum were analyzed with respect to local stability. The results give confidence in using the framework of local similarity for turbulence measured over London, and perhaps other cities. However, the following caveats for our data are worth noting: (i) the terrain is reasonably flat, (ii) building heights vary little over a large area, and (iii) the sensor height is above the mean roughness sublayer depth

A Kalman-filter bias correction of ozone deterministic, ensemble-averaged, and probabilistic forecasts

Kalman filtering (KF) is used to postprocess numerical-model output to estimate systematic errors in surface ozone forecasts. It is implemented with a recursive algorithm that updates its estimate of future ozone-concentration bias by using past forecasts and observations. KF performance is tested for three types of ozone forecasts: deterministic, ensemble-averaged, and probabilistic forecasts. Eight photochemical models were run for 56 days during summer 2004 over northeastern USA and southern Canada as part of the International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation New England Air Quality (AQ) Study. The raw and KF-corrected predictions are compared with ozone measurements from the Aerometric Information Retrieval Now data set, which includes roughly 360 surface stations. The completeness of the data set allowed a thorough sensitivity test of key KF parameters. It is found that the KF improves forecasts of ozone-concentration magnitude and the ability to predict rare events, both for deterministic and ensemble-averaged forecasts. It also improves the ability to predict the daily maximum ozone concentration, and reduces the time lag between the forecast and observed maxima. For this case study, KF considerably improves the predictive skill of probabilistic forecasts of ozone concentration greater than thresholds of 10 to 50 ppbv, but it degrades it for thresholds of 70 to 90 ppbv. Moreover, KF considerably reduces probabilistic forecast bias. The significance of KF postprocessing and ensemble-averaging is that they are both effective for real-time AQ forecasting. KF reduces systematic errors, whereas ensemble-averaging reduces random errors. When combined they produce the best overall forecast

Signaling via a CD27-TRAF2-SHP-1 axis during naive T cell activation promotes memory-associated gene regulatory networks.

The interaction of the tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) family member CD27 on naive CD8 <sup>+</sup> T (Tn) cells with homotrimeric CD70 on antigen-presenting cells (APCs) is necessary for T cell memory fate determination. Here, we examined CD27 signaling during Tn cell activation and differentiation. In conjunction with T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation, ligation of CD27 by a synthetic trimeric CD70 ligand triggered CD27 internalization and degradation, suggesting active regulation of this signaling axis. Internalized CD27 recruited the signaling adaptor TRAF2 and the phosphatase SHP-1, thereby modulating TCR and CD28 signals. CD27-mediated modulation of TCR signals promoted transcription factor circuits that induced memory rather than effector associated gene programs, which are induced by CD28 costimulation. CD27-costimulated chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered T cells exhibited improved tumor control compared with CD28-costimulated CAR-T cells. Thus, CD27 signaling during Tn cell activation promotes memory properties with relevance to T cell immunotherapy

Ab initio atomistic thermodynamics and statistical mechanics of surface properties and functions

Previous and present "academic" research aiming at atomic scale understanding is mainly concerned with the study of individual molecular processes possibly underlying materials science applications. Appealing properties of an individual process are then frequently discussed in terms of their direct importance for the envisioned material function, or reciprocally, the function of materials is somehow believed to be understandable by essentially one prominent elementary process only. What is often overlooked in this approach is that in macroscopic systems of technological relevance typically a large number of distinct atomic scale processes take place. Which of them are decisive for observable system properties and functions is then not only determined by the detailed individual properties of each process alone, but in many, if not most cases also the interplay of all processes, i.e. how they act together, plays a crucial role. For a "predictive materials science modeling with microscopic understanding", a description that treats the statistical interplay of a large number of microscopically well-described elementary processes must therefore be applied. Modern electronic structure theory methods such as DFT have become a standard tool for the accurate description of individual molecular processes. Here, we discuss the present status of emerging methodologies which attempt to achieve a (hopefully seamless) match of DFT with concepts from statistical mechanics or thermodynamics, in order to also address the interplay of the various molecular processes. The new quality of, and the novel insights that can be gained by, such techniques is illustrated by how they allow the description of crystal surfaces in contact with realistic gas-phase environments.Comment: 24 pages including 17 figures, related publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm