Transport processes in and above two-dimensional urban street canyons under different stratification conditions: results from numerical simulation

Thermal stratification (neutral, unstable and stable) plays an important role in determining the transport processes in and above urban street canyons. This paper summarizes the recent findings of the effect of thermal stratification on the transport of momentum, heat, and pollutants in the two-dimensional (2D) urban street canyons in the skimming flow regime. Special attention is paid to the results from large-eddy simulations (LESs), while other experimental and numerical results are referred to when necessary. With increasing Richardson number, Ri, the drag coefficient of the 2D street canyon as felt by the overlying atmosphere decreases in a linear manner. Under neutral and stable stratification, a nearly constant drag coefficient of 0.02 is predicted by the LESs. Under unstable stratification, the turbulent pollutant transport is dominated by organized turbulent motions (ejections and sweeps), while under stable stratification, the unorganized turbulent motion (inward interactions) plays a more important role and the sweeps are inhibited. The unstable stratification condition also enhances the ejections of turbulent pollutant flux, especially at the leeward roof-level corner, where the ejections dominate the turbulent pollutant flux, outweighing the sweeps. With increasing Ri, both the heat (area active scalar source) and pollutant (line passive scalar source) transfer coefficients decrease towards a state where the transfer coefficients become zero at Ri≈0.5. It should be noted that, due to the limit of the 2D street canyon configuration discussed in this paper, great caution should be taken when generalising the conclusions drawn here.Singapore. National Research FoundationSingapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. Center for Environmental Sensing and Modelin

Simulation of the evolution of aircraft exhaust plumes including detailed chemistry and segregation

The Field Monte Carlo or Stochastic Fields (SF) method for turbulent reacting flows has been applied to the chemical evolution of the early part of a hot jet with bypass flow producing 7kN of thrust, using a 23 species chemical mechanism. This is done to broadly approximate a turbofan engine at idle thrust setting. Much of the chemistry was found to take place inside the core of the jet before mixing occurs, as there is no reactant gradient there, considering segregation makes little difference. Radical concentrations, however, were found to be changed. The reaction between NO and ambient O 3, which is slow compared to the fast mixing timescale of the turbulent jet, is unaffected by segregation. The local Damköhler number was calculated based on an estimate of the chemical timescale and the local large-eddy timescale. It was found that only those species which had local Da greater than five were affected by segregation. In this work we have applied the SF method the early part of the plume, however the method developed here could equally be employed to study the plume over a longer distance

Simulations of the dispersion of reactive pollutants in a street canyon, considering different chemical mechanisms and micromixing

The Stochastic Fields (SF) or Field Monte Carlo method has been used to model the dispersion of reactive scalars in a street canyon, using a simple chemistry and the CBM-IV mechanism. SF is a Probability Density Function (PDF) method which allows both means and variances of the scalars to be calculated as well as considering the effect of segregation on reaction rates. It was found that the variance of reactive scalars such as NO2 was very high in the mixing region at roof-top level with rms values of the order of the mean values. The effect of segregation on major species such as O3 was found to be very small using either mechanism, however, some radical species in CBM-IV showed a significant difference. These were found to be the seven species with the fastest chemical timescales. The calculated photostationary state defect was also found to be in error when segregation is neglected

Large-eddy simulatoin of flow field and pollutant dispession in urban street canyons under unstable atmospheric

Thermal stratification plays an important role in the air flow and pollutant dispersion processes. This study employed a large-eddy simulation (LES) code based on a one-equation subgrid-scale (SGS) model to investigate the flow field and pollutant dispersion characteristics inside urban street canyons. The unstable thermal stratification was simulated by heating the ground level of the street canyons. The thermal buoyancy forces were, using the Boussinesq assumption, taken into account in both the Navier-Stokes equations and the transport equation for SGS turbulent kinetic energy (TKE). The LES had been validated against experimental data obtained in wind tunnel studies before it was applied to study the detailed turbulence and pollutant dispersion characteristics in urban street canyons. The effects of different bulk Richardson number (Rb) were investigated. Several typical temperature differences between the street bottom and ambient air were configured to simulate the scenarios occurring at different times during the day.postprintThe 7th International Conference of Urban Climate (ICUC-7), Yokohama, Japan, 29 June-3 July 2009

Exploring the Pathogenic and Drug Resistance Mechanisms of Staphylococcus aureus

We have previously identified σS, an ECF sigma factor that is important in the virulence and stress response of S. aureus. Transcriptional profiling of sigS revealed that it is differentially regulated in a variety of laboratory and clinical strains of S. aureus, suggesting that there exists a regulatory network that modulates its expression. In order to identify direct regulators of sigS expression, we performed a biotin pull down assay in tandem with mass spectrometry. We identified CymR as a direct regulator and observed that sigS expression is increased in cells lacking cymR. In addition, transposon mutagenesis was performed to identify regulators of sigS expression. We identified insertions in genes that are transcriptional regulators, and elements involved in amino acid biosynthesis and DNA replication, recombination and repair as influencing sigS expression. Finally, methyl nitro-nitrosoguanidine mutagenesis in conjunction with whole genome sequencing was employed and revealed mutations in the lactose repressor, lacR, and the membrane sensor histidine kinase, kdpD, as negatively effecting sigS expression. EMSAs revealed that LacR is an indirect regulator of sigS expression, while the response regulator KdpE is a direct repressor. These results indicate that a complex regulatory network is in place for sigS that modulates its expression. In a continuation of studies on σS regulation, we next explored interplay with the products of genes conserved within the sigS locus. We determined that this region is conserved amongst all the sequenced staphylococci, and includes four genes: SAUSA300_1721 (a conserved hypothetical protein), as well as sigS, ecfX, and ecfY. In order to investigate the relationship between EcfX and σS we performed protein pull down assays and observed that these two protein interact. Further to this, transcriptional analysis of sigS in an ecfX mutant reveal that expression of sigS is decreased, indicating that it is an activator. Architectural analysis of the sigS locus via RNAseq revealed that the majority of transcription in this region comes from ecfY, a gene that is downstream and divergent to sigS. We demonstrate that inactivation of ecfY leads to a significant increase in sigS expression, and that ecfY null strains are more resistant to DNA damaging agents such as UV, H2O2, MMS, and ethidium bromide, which we have previously demonstrated that a sigS mutant is highly sensitive to. Our studies also revealed that an ecfY null strain is better able to survive intracellularly following phagocytosis by RAW 264.7 cell and demonstrates increased survival in whole-human blood, which is again opposed to that previously observed for sigS deficient strains. Because the ecfY null strain overexpresses sigS, we investigated the regulon of this sigma factor using this mutant in conjunction with RNAseq analysis. We identified that genes putatively under the control of σS are involved in DNA damage and repair, virulence, amino acid starvation and nucleic acid biosynthesis. Collectively, our results indicate that σS is regulated via a unique mechanism: positively through an apparent need for an activator protein (EcfX) and negatively via RNA-RNA interaction (the 3’ UTR of ecfY). We suggest that the evidence presented here greatly adds not only to our understanding of the regulatory circuits extant within S. aureus, but also to alternative sigma factor biology in general. Finally, we evaluated the efficacy of a novel library of quinazoline-based compounds against a highly drug resistant strain of S. aureus. We performed structure activity and structure property relationship assays in order to identify lead compounds. These methods lead to the identification of N2,N4-disubstituted quinazoline-2,4-diamines that had low minimum inhibitory concentrations, along with favorable physiochemical properties. Evaluation of their biological activity demonstrated limited potential for resistance of to our quinazoline based compounds, low toxicity to human epithelial cells, and strong efficacy in vivo. Taken together, our findings support the use of quinazoline derivatives as potential new antimicrobials against multidrug resistant S. aureus

Flow and Pollutant Transport in Urban Street Canyons of Different Aspect Ratios with Ground Heating: Large-Eddy Simulation

A validated large-eddy simulation model was employed to study the effect of the aspect ratio and ground heating on the flow and pollutant dispersion in urban street canyons. Three ground-heating intensities (neutral, weak and strong) were imposed in street canyons of aspect ratio 1, 2, and 0.5. The detailed patterns of flow, turbulence, temperature and pollutant transport were analyzed and compared. Significant changes of flow and scalar patterns were caused by ground heating in the street canyon of aspect ratio 2 and 0.5, while only the street canyon of aspect ratio 0.5 showed a change in flow regime (from wake interference flow to skimming flow). The street canyon of aspect ratio 1 does not show any significant change in the flow field. Ground heating generated strong mixing of heat and pollutant; the normalized temperature inside street canyons was approximately spatially uniform and somewhat insensitive to the aspect ratio and heating intensity. This study helps elucidate the combined effects of urban geometry and thermal stratification on the urban canyon flow and pollutant dispersion.Singapore National Research Foundation (Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART)

Integrated Urban Sensing: A Geo-sensor Network for Public Health Monitoring and Beyond

Pervasive environmental monitoring implies a wide range of technical, but also socio-political challenges, and this applies especially to the sensitive context of the city. In this paper, we elucidate issues for bringing out pervasive urban sensor networks and associated concerns relating to fine-grained information provision. We present the Common Scents project, which is based on the Live Geography approach, and show how it can overcome these challenges. As opposed to hitherto sensing networks, which are mostly built up in monolithic and closed systems, the Common Scents approach aims to establish an open, standards based and modular infrastructure. This ensures interoperability, portability and flexibility, which are crucial prerequisites for pervasive urban sensing. The implementation – a real-time data integration and analysis system for air quality assessment – has been realised on top of the CitySense sensor network in the City of Cambridge, MA US together with the city’s Public Health Department responding to concrete needs of the city and its inhabitants. The second pilot using mobile sensors mounted on bicycles has been deployed in Copenhagen, Denmark. Preliminary results show highly fine-grained variability of pollutant dispersion in urban environments.Singapore-MIT Alliance. Center for Environmental Sensing and MonitoringSingapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology CenterEuropean Commission (FP7 GENESIS project)Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und ForschungResearch Studio iSPAC

“Exposure Track”—The Impact of Mobile-Device-Based Mobility Patterns on Quantifying Population Exposure to Air Pollution

Air pollution is now recognized as the world’s single largest environmental and human health threat. Indeed, a large number of environmental epidemiological studies have quantified the health impacts of population exposure to pollution. In previous studies, exposure estimates at the population level have not considered spatially- and temporally varying populations present in study regions. Therefore, in the first study of it is kind, we use measured population activity patterns representing several million people to evaluate population-weighted exposure to air pollution on a city-wide scale. Mobile and wireless devices yield information about where and when people are present, thus collective activity patterns were determined using counts of connections to the cellular network. Population-weighted exposure to PM2.5 in New York City (NYC), herein termed “Active Population Exposure” was evaluated using population activity patterns and spatiotemporal PM2.5 concentration levels, and compared to “Home Population Exposure”, which assumed a static population distribution as per Census data. Areas of relatively higher population-weighted exposures were concentrated in different districts within NYC in both scenarios. These were more centralized for the “Active Population Exposure” scenario. Population-weighted exposure computed in each district of NYC for the “Active” scenario were found to be statistically significantly (p < 0.05) different to the “Home” scenario for most districts. In investigating the temporal variability of the “Active” population-weighted exposures determined in districts, these were found to be significantly different (p < 0.05) during the daytime and the nighttime. Evaluating population exposure to air pollution using spatiotemporal population mobility patterns warrants consideration in future environmental epidemiological studies linking air quality and human health

Ultrafine particles in cities

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