Assuming the Leadership Role on Climate Change and Energy Security

With decades of service in the United States Senate, including Chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Lugar addresses the most looming issues facing mankind: global climate change and energy dependence. He concludes that effective leadership must not exist myopically, but must be shared by global partners, both friendly and hostile, and optimistically forecasts resolution through ingenuity and innovation

Purdue Climate Change Research Center Impacts of Climate Change for the State of Indiana

We have analyzed the potential “no-action ” impacts of climate change on the State of Indiana, as well as the potential opportunities and consequences of climate change mitigation in the State. Most of our analyses of no-action impacts assume future greenhouse gas concentrations at the high end of the IPCC SRES illustrative emissions scenarios, although some analyses also consider low emissions trajectories. Further, some of our analyses are quantitative based on published and unpublished work that is ongoing at Purdue University, while other analyses are qualitative based on “expert opinion. ” While further research will always bring further clarity, we hope that these initial analyses provide a reliable indication of the direction and magnitude of important climate change impacts and opportunities in Indiana. Should greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase, Indiana faces a number of potential impacts: • The occurrence of extreme hot events is likely to increase in Indiana, while the occurrence of extreme cold events is likely to decrease. • The occurrence of conditions that spawn severe thunderstorms is likely to increase in Indiana. • Annual average precipitation is likely to increase in the region, as is the occurrence of rai

A Multilaboratory Comparison of Calibration Accuracy and the Performance of External References in Analytical Ultracentrifugation

Analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) is a first principles based method to determine absolute sedimentation coefficients and buoyant molar masses of macromolecules and their complexes, reporting on their size and shape in free solution. The purpose of this multi-laboratory study was to establish the precision and accuracy of basic data dimensions in AUC and validate previously proposed calibration techniques. Three kits of AUC cell assemblies containing radial and temperature calibration tools and a bovine serum albumin (BSA) reference sample were shared among 67 laboratories, generating 129 comprehensive data sets. These allowed for an assessment of many parameters of instrument performance, including accuracy of the reported scan time after the start of centrifugation, the accuracy of the temperature calibration, and the accuracy of the radial magnification. The range of sedimentation coefficients obtained for BSA monomer in different instruments and using different optical systems was from 3.655 S to 4.949 S, with a mean and standard deviation of (4.304 ± 0.188) S (4.4%). After the combined application of correction factors derived from the external calibration references for elapsed time, scan velocity, temperature, and radial magnification, the range of s-values was reduced 7-fold with a mean of 4.325 S and a 6-fold reduced standard deviation of ± 0.030 S (0.7%). In addition, the large data set provided an opportunity to determine the instrument-to-instrument variation of the absolute radial positions reported in the scan files, the precision of photometric or refractometric signal magnitudes, and the precision of the calculated apparent molar mass of BSA monomer and the fraction of BSA dimers. These results highlight the necessity and effectiveness of independent calibration of basic AUC data dimensions for reliable quantitative studies