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Simple Summary To better prevent/combat recurrence and identify predictive/targetable markers upon diagnosis, we performed whole-exome sequencing (WES) of primary tumours and relapses of human papillomavirus positive (HPV+) tonsillar and base of tongue cancer (TSCC/BOTSCC) on patients treated with curative intent, with and without relapse. A specific deletion in the CDC27 gene was observed only in the primaries of 5/17 patients that recurred but in none of the 18 patients without recurrence. Furthermore, three specific variants and 26 mutated genes enriched in mucins were identified in at least 30% of all primaries irrespective of recurrence. To conclude, a specific CDC27 deletion could be specific for recurrent HPV+ TSCC/BOTSCC, while BCLAF1, AQP7 and other globally mutated genes could be of significance for further investigation. Abstract To identify predictive/targetable markers in human papillomavirus positive (HPV+) tonsillar and base of tongue cancer (TSCC/BOTSCC), whole-exome sequencing (WES) of tumours of patients with/without recurrence was performed. Forty primary tumours and adjacent normal tissue were separated by micro-dissection from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue from patients treated with curative intent 2000–2014 at Karolinska University Hospital. Successful sequencing was obtained in primary tumours of 18 patients without and primaries of 17 with local or distant recurrence, as well as in 10 corresponding recurrences (i.e., five local relapses and five distant metastases) from these 17 patients. One variant—a high-impact deletion in the CDC27 gene—was observed only in primaries of 5/17 patients that had a recurrence after full treatment but in none of those without recurrence. In addition, 3 variants and 26 mutated genes, including CDC27, BCLAF1 and AQP7, were present in at least 30% of all primary tumours independent of prognosis. To conclude, a CDC27 deletion was specific and found in ~30% of samples from patients with a local relapse/distant metastasis and could, therefore, potentially be a prospective marker to predict prognosis. Commonly mutated genes, such as BCLAF1, should be further studied in the context of targeted therapy.

Cuevas, C.A. Schmale, J. Angot, H. Jokinen, T. Quéléver, L.L.J Blechschmidt, A.-M. Zilker, B. Richter, A. Serna, J.A. Garcia-Nieto, D. Fernandez, R.P. Skov, H. Dumitrascu, A. Pereira, P.S. Abrahamsson, K. Bucci, S. Dütsch, M. Stohl, A. Beck, I. Laurila, T. Blomquist, B. Howard, D. Archer, S Bariteau, L. Helmig, D. Hueber, J. Jacobi, H.-W. Posman, K. Dada, L. Daellenbach, K.R and Saiz-Lopez, A. (2022)

Background Symbiotic ant-plant associations, in which ants live on plants, feed on plant-provided food, and protect host trees against threats, are ubiquitous across the tropics, with the Azteca-Cecropia associations being amongst the most widespread interactions in the Neotropics. Upon colonization of Cecropia’s hollow internodes, Azteca queens form small patches with plant parenchyma, which are then used as waste piles when the colony grows. Patches—found in many ant-plant mutualisms—are present throughout the colony life cycle and may supplement larval food. Despite their initial nitrogen (N)-poor substrate, patches in Cecropia accommodate fungi, nematodes, and bacteria. In this study, we investigated the atmospheric N2 fixation as an N source in patches of early and established ant colonies. Results Via 15N2 tracer assays, N2 fixation was frequently detected in all investigated patch types formed by three Azteca ant species. Quantified fixation rates were similar in early and established ant colonies and higher than in various tropical habitats. Based on amplicon sequencing, the identified microbial functional guild—the diazotrophs—harboring and transcribing the dinitrogenase reductase (nifH) gene was highly diverse and heterogeneous across Azteca colonies. The community composition differed between early and established ant colonies and partly between the ant species. Conclusions Our data show that N2 fixation can result in reasonable amounts of N in ant colonies, which might not only enable bacterial, fungal, and nematode growth in the patch ecosystems but according to our calculations can even support the growth of ant populations. The diverse and heterogeneous diazotrophic community implies a functional redundancy, which could provide the ant-plant-patch system with a higher resilience towards changing environmental conditions. Hence, we propose that N2 fixation represents a previously unknown potential to overcome N limitations in arboreal ant colonies.

Permafrost peatlands are particularly sensitive to climate warming. The thawing of permafrost in these ecosystems accelerates the decomposition of old organic matter in deep soil layers and re-activates the cycling of carbon (C) and nutrients. Several studies showed that the thawing of permafrost in subarctic peatlands increases nitrogen (N) availability, ecosystem productivity as well as methane (CH4) and C dioxide (CO2) emissions. The mobilisation of other nutrients like phosphorus (P) or potassium (K) and the stoichiometric changes occurring in plants, soils and microbes in these fragile ecosystems are nevertheless poorly understood. In June 2018 we collected plant and soil samples across several permafrost thaw gradients in a palsa mire complex at Stordalen (Abisko, 68°N, Sweden). We selected three contrasting situations across the gradients: a) peat mounds with an intact permafrost core (‘palsa’ areas), b) semi-degraded palsas (‘transition’ area), and c) completely degraded palsas with no permafrost (‘collapsed’ area). For each situation we collected samples of the aboveground vegetation and soil samples at 5-10, 40-45, 70-75 and 95-100 cm (layers A-D), encompassing peat (A and B) and mineral soil layers (C and D). We determined total C, N, P and K, extractable organic C (EOC), total extractable N (TEN), extractable organic N (EON), ammonium (NH4+), nitrate (NO3-), extractable organic and inorganic P (EOP and EIP), microbial enzymatic activity, microbial C, N and P and pH in soil samples at each of the four depths across the gradient. We also determined total C, N, P and K in aboveground vegetation samples. The uppermost soil layer A showed the most statistically significant changes across the gradient of permafrost thaw, namely a 2-fold increase of total N and total P, 3- fold increase of EIP, 4-fold increase of EOP and 5-fold increase of NH4+, along with an increase of potential extracellular enzymatic activity. The fraction of total P immobilised by microbes was highest in the uppermost soil layer of palsas, where microbial P reached 33% of total P. In layer B, there were also several significant changes, such as a 4-fold increase of EOC and TEN and 12-fold increase of NH4+ in transition areas, and a 4-fold increase of EOP in collapsed areas. In addition, foliar chemistry changed significatively across the gradient of permafrost thaw, with a generalised increase of N, P and K, and a decrease of the CN and NP ratios. Along with these changes in foliar chemistry there was an increase of the stocks of N, P and K in biomass across the gradient. The biogeochemical and stoichiometric changes observed in plants, soil and microbes at different soil layers and across the gradient of permafrost thaw evidence that ongoing and future environmental changes will have a major impact on the functioning of these fragile ecosystems in the Subarctic.

Every polar spring, phenomena called bromine explosions occur over sea ice. These bromine explosions comprise photochemical heterogeneous chain reactions that release bromine molecules, Br2, to the troposphere and lead to tropospheric plumes of bromine monoxide, BrO. This autocatalytic mechanism depletes ozone, O3, in the boundary layer and troposphere and thereby changes the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere. The phenomenon also leads to accelerated deposition of metals (e.g., Hg). In this study, we present a 22-year (1996 to 2017) consolidated and consistent tropospheric BrO dataset north of 70∘ N, derived from four different ultraviolet–visible (UV–VIS) satellite instruments (GOME, SCIAMACHY, GOME-2A and GOME-2B). The retrieval data products from the different sensors are compared during periods of overlap and show good agreement (correlations of 0.82–0.98 between the sensors). From our merged time series of tropospheric BrO vertical column densities (VCDs), we infer changes in the bromine explosions and thus an increase in the extent and magnitude of tropospheric BrO plumes during the period of Arctic warming. We determined an increasing trend of about 1.5 % of the tropospheric BrO VCDs per year during polar springs, while the size of the areas where enhanced tropospheric BrO VCDs can be found has increased about 896 km2 yr−1. We infer from comparisons and correlations with sea ice age data that the reported changes in the extent and magnitude of tropospheric BrO VCDs are moderately related to the increase in first-year ice extent in the Arctic north of 70∘ N, both temporally and spatially, with a correlation coefficient of 0.32. However, the BrO plumes and thus bromine explosions show significant variability, which also depends, apart from sea ice, on meteorological conditions.

Additional file 3: Supplementary methods. Detailed information on molecular analysis and performed qPCR assays, calculating BNF rates in fungal gardens of leaf cutter ants, evaluating the potential ecological role of BNF for ant colony growth, and oxygen profiling through established patches.

Additional file 2: Figure S1. Alpha diversities in samples due to different patch types of individual Azteca species. Figure S2. Alpha diversities in patch samples of established ant colonies on nifH gene and transcript level. Figure S3. NifH transcribing community on genus level in selected patch samples of established Azteca alfari and A. constructor colonies with measured APE higher than the overall median. Figure S4. Oxygen gradients through patches of established Azteca colonies.

Additional file 1: Table S1. Relative read abundances of the most abundant taxonomic orders per patch type. Table S2. Calculating BNF rates in fungal gardens of leaf cutter ants. Table S3. Overview on the number of sampled Cecropia trees, early stage and established ant colonies.

How soil microorganisms respond to global warming is key to infer future soil-climate feedbacks, yet poorly understood. Here, we applied metatranscriptomics to investigate microbial physiological responses to medium-term ( 8 years) and long-term (>50 years) subarctic grassland soil warming of +6 degrees C. Besides indications for a community-wide up-regulation of centralmetabolic pathways and cell replication, we observed a down-regulation of the bacterial protein biosynthesis machinery in the warmed soils, coinciding with a lower microbial biomass, RNA, and soil substrate content. We conclude that permanently accelerated reaction rates at higher temperatures and reduced substrate concentrations result in cellular reduction of ribosomes, the macromolecular complexes carrying out protein biosynthesis. Later efforts to test this, including a short- term warming experiment (6 weeks, +6 degrees C), further supported our conclusion. Down-regulating the protein biosynthesis machinery liberates energy and matter, allowing soil bacteria to maintain high metabolic activities and cell division rates even after decades of warming.

Climate warming is releasing carbon from soils around the world, constituting a positive climate feedback. Warming is also causing species to expand their ranges into new ecosystems Yet, in most ecosystems, whether range expanding species will amplify or buffer expected soil carbon loss is unknown. Here we used alpine grasslands as a model system to determine whether the establishment of herbaceous lowland plants in alpine ecosystems influences short-term soil carbon storage under warming. We found that warming (

Depressive Störungen gehören zu den häufigsten psychiatrischen Krankheitsbildern in der Adoleszenz. Einen zentralen Bestandteil depressiver Störungen stellen Einschränkungen in der sozialen Interaktion und sozialen Funktion der Betroffenen dar. Die mit Depressionen assoziierten psychosozialen Einschränkungen werden unter anderem mit defizitären sozialen Kognitionen in Verbindung gebracht. Eine für die soziale Interaktion elementare soziale Kognition ist die Theory of Mind, also die Fähigkeit, sich selbst und Anderen mentale Zustände, wie Intentionen, Wünsche, Ansichten und Überzeugungen zuzuschreiben und anhand dieser das Verhalten Anderer einordnen und vorhersagen zu können. Die grundlegende Entwicklung der Theory of Mind findet in der frühen Kindheit statt. Grundlage der vorliegenden Arbeit ist das Theory of Mind-Modell der Depression von Stefan Lüttke, nach dem eingeschränkte Theory of Mind-Fähigkeiten einen Risikofaktor für die Entstehung depressiver Störungen im Jugendalter darstellen. Im Rahmen dieser Studie wurden 72 Jugendliche mit einer klinisch diagnostizierten depressiven Störung nach DSM-5 und 44 gesunde Jugendliche im Alter von 11;01 bis 17;10 Jahren auf ihre Theory of Mind-Leistungen hin untersucht. Zur Erfassung der kognitiven Theory of Mind wurden der Theory of Mind-Test von Brüne und der Werden-Elikann-Test, sowie zur Erfassung der affektiven Theory of Mind die Facial Scale der Cambridge Mindreading Face-Voice Battery von Golan et al. angewandt. Die zu untersuchenden Hypothesen waren, dass depressive Jugendliche im Gegensatz zu gesunden Jugendlichen signifikant niedrigere Werte in den Theory of Mind-Tests erreichen und diese Werte negativ mit der auf der Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children gemessenen Schwere depressiver Symptome korrelieren. Als Kontrollvariable wurde die aktuelle Tagesstimmung der Probandinnen und Probanden mit der Children Shortform des Positive and Negative Affective Schedule erfasst. Zur Testung des Modells wurde eine binär logistische Regression durchgeführt. Dabei wurde angenommen, dass die erreichten Werte in den Theory of Mind-Tests Prädiktoren für die Zugehörigkeit zur klinischen oder gesunden Gruppe sind. Es konnten im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit bei Jugendlichen mit depressiven Störungen keine eingeschränkten Theory of Mind-Fähigkeiten als Hinweis auf eine berechtigte Annahme des Theory of Mind-Modells der Depression festgestellt werden.

Ships are an important source of SO2 and NOx, which are key parameters of air quality. Monitoring of ship emissions is usually carried out using in situ instruments on land, which depend on favourable wind conditions to transport the emitted substances to the measurement site. Remote sensing techniques such as long-path differential optical absorption spectroscopy (LP-DOAS) measurements can supplement those measurements, especially in unfavourable meteorological conditions. In this study 1 year of LP-DOAS measurements made across the river Elbe close to Hamburg (Germany) have been evaluated. Peaks (i.e. elevated concentrations) in the NO2 and SO2 time series were assigned to passing ships, and a method to derive emission rates of SO2, NO2 and NOx from those measurements using a Gaussian plume model is presented. A total of 7402 individual ship passages have been monitored, and their respective NOx, SO2 and NO2 emission rates have been derived. The emission rates, coupled with the knowledge of the ship type, ship size and ship speed, have been analysed. Emission rates are compared to emission factors from previous studies and show good agreement. In contrast to emission factors (in grams per kilogram fuel), the derived emission rates (in grams per second) do not need further knowledge about the fuel consumption of the ship. To our knowledge this is the first time emission rates of air pollutants from individual ships have been derived from LP-DOAS measurements.

International audience; Interface circuits play an important role within the energy harvesting transduction chain. Sophisticated circuits allow extracting energy efficiently and provide output voltages significantly higher than standard techniques would allow. In this work, an easy and highly efficient interface circuit for electromagnetic energy harvesting (EMEH) is presented. As the EMEH open electric circuit voltage is typically low, this circuit aims at charging a capacitor to a higher voltage efficiently. A switch short-circuits and opens the transducer periodically to energize and transfer the energy to the capacitor. Based on unidirectionally coupled differential system equations, the energy efficiency is analyzed for both the discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) and the continuous conduction mode (CCM). The problem solution reveals a general description of the optimal ratio between short-circuit and open circuit for any linear electromagnetic energy harvester. It enables to set up the interface circuit properties, solely based on the electromagnetic system properties and based on the energy storage.

形態: カラー図版あり, Physical characteristics: Original contains color illustrations, Accepted: 2019-03-28, 資料番号: PA1910033000

An improved algorithm for the retrieval of total and tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) columns from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) is presented. The refined retrieval will be implemented in a future version of the GOME Data Processor (GDP) as used by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Atmospheric Composition and UV Radiation (AC-SAF). The first main improvement is the application of an extended 425–497 nm wavelength fitting window in the differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) retrieval of the NO2 slant column density, based on which initial total NO2 columns are computed using stratospheric air mass factors (AMFs). Updated absorption cross sections and a linear offset correction are used for the large fitting window. An improved slit function treatment is applied to compensate for both long-term and in-orbit drift of the GOME-2 slit function. Compared to the current operational (GDP 4.8) dataset, the use of these new features increases the NO2 columns by ∼1–3×1014 molec cm2 and reduces the slant column error by ∼24 %. In addition, the bias between GOME-2A and GOME-2B measurements is largely reduced by adopting a new level 1b data version in the DOAS retrieval. The retrieved NO2 slant columns show good consistency with the Quality Assurance for Essential Climate Variables (QA4ECV) retrieval with a good overall quality. Second, the STRatospheric Estimation Algorithm from Mainz (STREAM), which was originally developed for the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) instrument, was optimised for GOME-2 measurements to determine the stratospheric NO2 column density. Applied to synthetic GOME-2 data, the estimated stratospheric NO2 columns from STREAM shows good agreement with the a priori truth. An improved latitudinal correction is introduced in STREAM to reduce the biases over the subtropics. Applied to GOME-2 measurements, STREAM largely reduces the overestimation of stratospheric NO2 columns over polluted regions in the GDP 4.8 dataset. Third, the calculation of AMF applies an updated box-air-mass factor (box-AMF) look-up table (LUT) calculated using the latest version 2.7 of the Vector-LInearized Discrete Ordinate Radiative Transfer (VLIDORT) model with an increased number of reference points and vertical layers, a new GOME-2 surface albedo climatology, and improved a priori NO2 profiles obtained from the TM5-MP chemistry transport model. A large effect (mainly enhancement in summer and reduction in winter) on the retrieved tropospheric NO2 columns by more than 10 % is found over polluted regions. To evaluate the GOME-2 tropospheric NO2 columns, an end-to-end validation is performed using ground-based multiple-axis DOAS (MAXDOAS) measurements. The validation is illustrated for six stations covering urban, suburban, and background situations. Compared to the GDP 4.8 product, the new dataset presents improved agreement with the MAXDOAS measurements for all the stations.

Launched in October 2017, the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) aboard Sentinel-5 Precursor provides the potential to monitor air quality over point sources across the globe with a spatial resolution as high as 5.5 km × 3.5 km (7 km × 3.5 km before 6 August 2019). The nitrogen dioxide (NO2) retrieval algorithm for the TROPOMI instrument consists of three steps: the spectral fitting of the slant column, the separation of stratospheric and tropospheric contributions, and the conversion of the slant column to a vertical column using an air mass factor (AMF) calculation. In this work, an improved tropospheric NO2 retrieval algorithm from TROPOMI measurements over Europe is presented. The stratospheric estimation is implemented using the STRatospheric Estimation Algorithm from Mainz (STREAM), which was developed as a verification algorithm for TROPOMI and does not require chemistry transport model data as input. A directionally dependent STREAM (DSTREAM) is developed to correct for the dependency of the stratospheric NO2 on the viewing geometry by up to 2 × 1014 molec/cm2. Applied to synthetic TROPOMI data, the uncertainty in the stratospheric column is 3.5 × 1014 molec/cm2 for polluted conditions. Applied to actual measurements, the smooth variation of stratospheric NO2 at low latitudes is conserved, and stronger stratospheric variation at higher latitudes are captured. For AMF calculation, the climatological surface albedo data is replaced by geometry-dependent effective Lambertian equivalent reflectivity (GE_LER) obtained directly from TROPOMI measurements with a high spatial resolution. Mesoscale-resolution a priori NO2 profiles are obtained from the regional POLYPHEMUS/DLR chemistry transport model with the TNO-MACC emission inventory. Based on the latest TROPOMI operational cloud parameters, a more realistic cloud treatment is provided by a clouds-as-layers (CAL) model, which treats the clouds as uniform layers of water droplets, instead of the clouds-as-reflecting-boundaries (CRB) model, in which clouds are simplified as Lambertian reflectors. For the error analysis, the tropospheric AMF uncertainty, which is the largest source of NO2 uncertainty for polluted scenarios, ranges between 20 % and 50 %, leading to a total uncertainty in the tropospheric NO2 column in the 30–60 % range. From a validation performed with ground-based multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) measurements, the improved tropospheric NO2 data shows good correlations for nine European urban/suburban stations with an average correlation coefficient of 0.78. The implementation of the algorithm improvements leads to a decrease of the relative difference from −55.3 % to −34.7 % on average.

This paper reports on consolidated ground-based validation results of the atmospheric NO2 data produced operationally since April 2018 by the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on board of the ESA/EU Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) satellite. Tropospheric, stratospheric, and total NO2 column data from S5P are compared to correlative measurements collected from, respectively, 19 Multi-Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS), 26 Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) Zenith-Scattered-Light DOAS (ZSL-DOAS), and 25 Pandonia Global Network (PGN)/Pandora instruments distributed globally. The validation methodology gives special care to minimizing mismatch errors due to imperfect spatio-temporal co-location of the satellite and correlative data, e.g. by using tailored observation operators to account for differences in smoothing and in sampling of atmospheric structures and variability and photochemical modelling to reduce diurnal cycle effects. Compared to the ground-based measurements, S5P data show, on average, (i) a negative bias for the tropospheric column data, of typically −23 % to −37 % in clean to slightly polluted conditions but reaching values as high as −51 % over highly polluted areas; (ii) a slight negative median difference for the stratospheric column data, of about −0.2 Pmolec cm−2, i.e. approx. −2 % in summer to −15 % in winter; and (iii) a bias ranging from zero to −50 % for the total column data, found to depend on the amplitude of the total NO2 column, with small to slightly positive bias values for columns below 6 Pmolec cm−2 and negative values above. The dispersion between S5P and correlative measurements contains mostly random components, which remain within mission requirements for the stratospheric column data (0.5 Pmolec cm−2) but exceed those for the tropospheric column data (0.7 Pmolec cm−2). While a part of the biases and dispersion may be due to representativeness differences such as different area averaging and measurement times, it is known that errors in the S5P tropospheric columns exist due to shortcomings in the (horizontally coarse) a priori profile representation in the TM5-MP chemical transport model used in the S5P retrieval and, to a lesser extent, to the treatment of cloud effects and aerosols. Although considerable differences (up to 2 Pmolec cm−2 and more) are observed at single ground-pixel level, the near-real-time (NRTI) and offline (OFFL) versions of the S5P NO2 operational data processor provide similar NO2 column values and validation results when globally averaged, with the NRTI values being on average 0.79 % larger than the OFFL values. This research has been supported by the ESA/ESRIN (grant no. 4000117151/16/I-LG) and the BELSPO/ESA ProDEx (TROVA-E2 (PEA grant no. 4000116692)). Part of the reported work was carried out in the framework of the Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor Mission Performance Centre (S5P MPC), contracted by the European Space Agency and supported by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO), the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), the Netherlands Space Office (NSO), and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). Part of this work was carried out also in the framework of the S5P Validation Team (S5PVT) AO projects NIDFORVAL (ID no. 28607, PI Gaia Pinardi, BIRA-IASB) and CESAR (ID no. 28596, PI Arnoud Apituley, KNMI). The authors express special thanks to Ann Mari Fjæraa, José Granville, Sander Niemeijer, and Olivier Rasson for post-processing of the network and satellite data and for their dedication to the S5P operational validation. The LATMOS real-time processing facility is acknowledged for fast delivery of ZSL-DOAS SAOZ data. Fast delivery of MAX-DOAS data tailored to the S5P validation was organized through the S5PVT AO project NIDFORVAL. The authors are grateful to ESA/ESRIN for supporting the ESA Validation Data Centre (EVDC) established at NILU and for running the Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) programme and in particular the FRM4DOAS and Pandonia projects. The PGN is a bilateral project between NASA and ESA, and the NASA funding for the PGN is provided through the NASA Tropospheric Composition Program and Goddard Space Flight Center Pandora project. The MAX-DOAS, ZSL-DOAS, and PGN instrument PIs and staff at the stations are thanked warmly for their sustained effort on maintaining high-quality measurements and for valuable scientific discussions. Aleksandr Elokhov and Aleksandr Gruzdev acknowledge national funding from RFBR through the project 20-95-00274. IUP Bremen acknowledges DLR Bonn for funding received through project 50EE1709A. The SAOZ network acknowledges funding from the French Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers (INSU) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), and Institut polaire français Paul Emile Victor (IPEV). Work done by Hitoshi Irie was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-1901) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan, JSPS KAKENHI (grant nos. JP19H04235 and JP17K00529), the JAXA 2nd Research Announcement on the Earth Observations (grant no. 19RT000351), and JST CREST (grant no. JPMJCR15K4). The University of Toronto ZSL-DOAS measurements at Eureka were made at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) by the Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change (CANDAC), with support from the Canadian Space Agency (AVATARS project), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (PAHA project), and Environment and Climate Change Canada. Peerreview

Despite occasional pleas to incorporate the ethics of information systems into the field’s research agenda, the analysis of the moral ramifications of information systems has remained unsystematic in nature. Work on a remarkable variety of ethical issues has appeared, but the field has yet to produce a coherent conception of how it construes and studies the ethics of information systems. In this research-in-progress paper, we report on work to redress the situation by addressing three goals. First, we provide an overview of contributions made to the study of ethics in information systems research in recent decades. Second, we present a classificatory scheme to organize past and future work on the subject. Third, we identify themes that have received little attention to date, proposing routes for future work. In particular, we find that our field has yet to fully explore the moral implications of the very artifacts of its own design. We conclude with a call to action for information systems researchers to work towards a structured account of ethics as part of the field’s research agenda.

Terrorism is academically understood as the quest of non-state actors to cause fear beyond the immediate victims of their action to reach political goals. Means that have an immense psychological impact are therefore expected to be sought after to a high extent by these actors. This paper seeks therefore to explain the surprisingly low frequency of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) attacks by non-state actors and why the attempts which have been made rarely accomplish to cause mass casualties, also called super terrorism. Through multiple logistic regression analysis of data from the Profiles of Incidents Involving CBRN and Non-state Actors (POICN) database, this study found that lack of actor experience from prior CBRN attempts is correlated to failed CBRN events. The paper also found that events before the year 2001 did fail to a higher extent than after 2001. However, the paper did not find support for hypotheses provided by the literature regarding how sophisticated the plot was or that the perpetrator motive affected the outcome of CBRN events. The study did neither find support for alternative explanations regarding that regime type or state wealth correlated with the outcome of CBRN events. Further research should therefore involve grounded theoretical work in both conventional as CBRN terrorism studies as theoretical frameworks lack in the field which has negative complications for this type of positivistic hypothesis-testing studies. Without studies that test theoretical claims, CBRN terrorism studies are at risk of being contaminated with cognitive biases regarding the severity and frequency of the threat.

International audience; This paper reports on consolidated ground-based validation results of the atmospheric NO2 data produced operationally since April 2018 by the TROPOMI instrument on board of the ESA/EU Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5p) satellite. Tropospheric, stratospheric, and total NO2 column data from S5p are compared to correlative measurements collected from, respectively, 19 Multi-Axis DOAS (MAX-DOAS), 26 NDACC Zenith-Scattered-Light DOAS (ZSL-DOAS), and 25 PGN/Pandora instruments distributed globally. The validation methodology gives special care to minimizing mismatch errors due to imperfect spatio-temporal co-location of the satellite and correlative data, e.g., by using tailored observation operators to account for differences in smoothing and in sampling of atmospheric structures and variability, and photochemical modelling to reduce diurnal cycle effects. Compared to the ground-based measurements, S5p data show, on an average: (i) a negative bias for the tropospheric column data, of typically −23 to −37 % in clean to slightly polluted conditions, but reaching values as high as −51 % over highly polluted areas; (ii) a slight negative bias for the stratospheric column data, of about −0.2 Pmolec/cm2, i.e. approx. −2 % in summer to −15 % in winter; and (iii) a bias ranging from zero to −50 % for the total column data, found to depend on the amplitude of the total NO2 column, with small to slightly positive bias values for columns below 6 Pmolec/cm2 and negative values above. The dispersion between S5p and correlative measurements contains mostly random components, which remain within mission requirements for the stratospheric column data (0.5 Pmolec/cm2), but exceed those for the tropospheric column data (0.7 Pmolec/cm2). While a part of the biases and dispersion may be due to representativeness differences, it is known that errors in the S5p tropospheric columns exist due to shortcomings in the (horizontally coarse) a-priori profile representation in the TM5-MP chemistry transport model used in the S5p retrieval, and to a lesser extent, to the treatment of cloud effects. Although considerable differences (up to 2 Pmolec/cm2 and more) are observed at single ground-pixel level, the near-real-time (NRTI) and off-line (OFFL) versions of the S5p NO2 operational data processor provide similar NO2 column values and validation results when globally averaged, with the NRTI values being on average 0.79 % larger than the OFFL values.

Despite occasional pleas to incorporate the ethics of information systems into the field’s research agenda, the analysis of the moral ramifications of information systems has remained unsystematic in nature. Work on a remarkable variety of ethical issues has appeared, but the field has yet to produce a coherent conception of how it construes and studies the ethics of information systems. In this research-in-progress paper, we report on work to redress the situation by addressing three goals. First, we provide an overview of contributions made to the study of ethics in information systems research in recent decades. Second, we present a classificatory scheme to organize past and future work on the subject. Third, we identify themes that have received little attention to date, proposing routes for future work. In particular, we find that our field has yet to fully explore the moral implications of the very artifacts of its own design. We conclude with a call to action for information systems researchers to work towards a structured account of ethics as part of the field’s research agenda.

This paper reports on consolidated ground-based validation results of the atmospheric NO2 data produced operationally since April 2018 by the TROPOMI instrument on board of the ESA/EU Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5p) satellite. Tropospheric, stratospheric, and total NO2 column data from S5p are compared to correlative measurements collected from, respectively, 19 Multi-Axis DOAS (MAX-DOAS), 26 NDACC Zenith-Scattered-Light DOAS (ZSL-DOAS), and 25 PGN/Pandora instruments distributed globally. The validation methodology gives special care to minimizing mismatch errors due to imperfect spatio-temporal co-location of the satellite and correlative data, e.g., by using tailored observation operators to account for differences in smoothing and in sampling of atmospheric structures and variability, and photochemical modelling to reduce diurnal cycle effects. Compared to the ground-based measurements, S5p data show, on an average: (i) a negative bias for the tropospheric column data, of typically −23 to −37 % in clean to slightly polluted conditions, but reaching values as high as −51 % over highly polluted areas; (ii) a slight negative bias for the stratospheric column data, of about −0.2 Pmolec/cm2, i.e. approx. −2 % in summer to −15 % in winter; and (iii) a bias ranging from zero to −50 % for the total column data, found to depend on the amplitude of the total NO2 column, with small to slightly positive bias values for columns below 6 Pmolec/cm2 and negative values above. The dispersion between S5p and correlative measurements contains mostly random components, which remain within mission requirements for the stratospheric column data (0.5 Pmolec/cm2), but exceed those for the tropospheric column data (0.7 Pmolec/cm2). While a part of the biases and dispersion may be due to representativeness differences, it is known that errors in the S5p tropospheric columns exist due to shortcomings in the (horizontally coarse) a-priori profile representation in the TM5-MP chemistry transport model used in the S5p retrieval, and to a lesser extent, to the treatment of cloud effects. Although considerable differences (up to 2 Pmolec/cm2 and more) are observed at single ground-pixel level, the near-real-time (NRTI) and off-line (OFFL) versions of the S5p NO2 operational data processor provide similar NO2 column values and validation results when globally averaged, with the NRTI values being on average 0.79 % larger than the OFFL values.

In September 2016, 36 spectrometers from 24 institutes measured a number of key atmospheric pollutants for a period of 17 d during the Second Cabauw Intercomparison campaign for Nitrogen Dioxide measuring Instruments (CINDI-2) that took place at Cabauw, the Netherlands (51.97 degrees N, 4.93 degrees E). We report on the outcome of the formal semi-blind intercomparison exercise, which was held under the umbrella of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The three major goals of CINDI-2 were (1) to characterise and better understand the differences between a large number of multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) and zenith-sky DOAS instruments and analysis methods, (2) to define a robust methodology for performance assessment of all participating instruments, and (3) to contribute to a harmonisation of the measurement settings and retrieval methods. This, in turn, creates the capability to produce consistent high-quality ground-based data sets, which are an essential requirement to generate reliable long-term measurement time series suitable for trend analysis and satellite data validation. The data products investigated during the semi-blind intercomparison are slant columns of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), the oxygen collision complex (O-4) and ozone (O-3) measured in the UV and visible wavelength region, formaldehyde (HCHO) in the UV spectral region, and NO2 in an additional (smaller) wavelength range in the visible region. The campaign design and implementation processes are discussed in detail including the measurement protocol, calibration procedures and slant column retrieval settings. Strong emphasis was put on the careful alignment and synchronisation of the measurement systems, resulting in a unique set of measurements made under highly comparable air mass conditions. The CINDI-2 data sets were investigated using a regression analysis of the slant columns measured by each instrument and for each of the target data products. The slope and intercept of the regression analysis respectively quantify the mean systematic bias and offset of the individual data sets against the selected reference (which is obtained from the median of either all data sets or a subset), and the rms error provides an estimate of the measurement noise or dispersion. These three criteria are examined and for each of the parameters and each of the data products, performance thresholds are set and applied to all the measurements. The approach presented here has been developed based on heritage from previous intercomparison exercises. It introduces a quantitative assessment of the consistency between all the participating instruments for the MAX-DOAS and zenith-sky DOAS techniques. Netherlands Space Office (NSO); ESA through the CINDI-2 (ESA) project [4000118533/16/I-Sbo]; ESA through the FRM4DOAS (ESA) project [4000118181/16/I-EF]; EU 7th Framework Programme QA4ECV projectEuropean Union (EU) [607405]; Austrian Science Fund (FWF)Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [I 2296-N29]; Canadian Space Agency (AVATARS project); Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (PAHA project); Canada Foundation for InnovationCanada Foundation for Innovation; UVAS ("Ultraviolet and Visible Atmospheric Sounder") projects SEOSAT/INGENIO [ESP2015-71299-R]; DFG project RAPSODI [PL 193/17-1]; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)Centre National D'etudes Spatiales; National funding project HELADO [CTM2013-41311-P]; National funding project AVATAR [CGL2014-55230-R]; Russian Science FoundationRussian Science Foundation (RSF) [16-17-10275]; Russian Foundation for Basic ResearchRussian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) [16-05-01062, 18-35-00682]; ACTRIS-2 (H2020 grant) [654109]; NASA's Atmospheric Composition ProgramNational Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) [NASA-16-NUP2016-0001]; US National Science FoundationNational Science Foundation (NSF) [AGS-1620530]; NASANational Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA); University of Bremen; DFG Research Center/Cluster of Excellence "The Ocean in the Earth System-MARUM"German Research Foundation (DFG); University of Bremen Institutional Strategy of the DFG; Luftblick through the ESA Pandonia Project; NASA Pandora Project at the Goddard Space Flight Center under NASA Headquarters' Tropospheric Composition Program CINDI-2 received funding from the Netherlands Space Office (NSO). Funding for this study was provided by ESA through the CINDI-2 (ESA contract no. 4000118533/16/I-Sbo) and FRM4DOAS (ESA contract no. 4000118181/16/I-EF) projects and partly within the EU 7th Framework Programme QA4ECV project (grant agreement no. 607405). The BOKU MAX-DOAS instrument was funded and the participation of Stefan F. Schreier was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): I 2296-N29. The participation of the University of Toronto team was supported by the Canadian Space Agency (through the AVATARS project) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (through the PAHA project). The instrument was primarily funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and is usually operated at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) by the Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change (CANDAC). Funding for CISC was provided by the UVAS ("Ultraviolet and Visible Atmospheric Sounder") projects SEOSAT/INGENIO, ESP2015-71299-R, MINECO-FEDER and UE. The activities of the IUP-Heidelberg were supported by the DFG project RAPSODI (grant no. PL 193/17-1). SAOZ and Mini-SAOZ instruments are supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES). INTA recognises support from the National funding projects HELADO (CTM2013-41311-P) and AVATAR (CGL2014-55230-R). AMOIAP recognises support from the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 16-17-10275) and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant nos. 16-05-01062 and 18-35-00682). Ka L. Chan received transnational access funding from ACTRIS-2 (H2020 grant agreement no. 654109). Rainer Volkamer recognises funding from NASA's Atmospheric Composition Program (NASA-16-NUP2016-0001) and the US National Science Foundation (award AGS-1620530). Henning Finkenzeller is the recipient of a NASA graduate fellowship. Mihalis Vrekoussis recognises support from the University of Bremen and the DFG Research Center/Cluster of Excellence "The Ocean in the Earth System-MARUM". Financial support through the University of Bremen Institutional Strategy in the framework of the DFG Excellence Initiative is gratefully appreciated for Anja Schonhardt. Pandora instrument deployment was supported by Luftblick through the ESA Pandonia Project and NASA Pandora Project at the Goddard Space Flight Center under NASA Headquarters' Tropospheric Composition Program. The article processing charges for this open-access publication were covered by BK Scientific.

40 pags., 22 figs., 13 tabs., In September 2016, 36 spectrometers from 24 institutes measured a number of key atmospheric pollutants for a period of 17¿d during the Second Cabauw Intercomparison campaign for Nitrogen Dioxide measuring Instruments (CINDI-2) that took place at Cabauw, the Netherlands (51.97¿¿N, 4.93¿¿E). We report on the outcome of the formal semi-blind intercomparison exercise, which was held under the umbrella of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The three major goals of CINDI-2 were (1) to characterise and better understand the differences between a large number of multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) and zenith-sky DOAS instruments and analysis methods, (2) to define a robust methodology for performance assessment of all participating instruments, and (3) to contribute to a harmonisation of the measurement settings and retrieval methods. This, in turn, creates the capability to produce consistent high-quality ground-based data sets, which are an essential requirement to generate reliable long-term measurement time series suitable for trend analysis and satellite data validation. The data products investigated during the semi-blind intercomparison are slant columns of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), the oxygen collision complex (O4) and ozone (O3) measured in the UV and visible wavelength region, formaldehyde (HCHO) in the UV spectral region, and NO2 in an additional (smaller) wavelength range in the visible region. The campaign design and implementation processes are discussed in detail including the measurement protocol, calibration procedures and slant column retrieval settings. Strong emphasis was put on the careful alignment and synchronisation of the measurement systems, resulting in a unique set of measurements made under highly comparable air mass conditions. The CINDI-2 data sets were investigated using a regression analysis of the slant columns measured by each instrument and for each of the target data products. The slope and intercept of the regression analysis respectively quantify the mean systematic bias and offset of the individual data sets against the selected reference (which is obtained from the median of either all data sets or a subset), and the rms error provides an estimate of the measurement noise or dispersion. These three criteria are examined and for each of the parameters and each of the data products, performance thresholds are set and applied to all the measurements. The approach presented here has been developed based on heritage from previous intercomparison exercises. It introduces a quantitative assessment of the consistency between all the participating instruments for the MAX-DOAS and zenith-sky DOAS techniques., CINDI-2 received funding from the Netherlands Space Office (NSO). Funding for this study was provided by ESA through the CINDI-2 (ESA contract no. 4000118533/16/ISbo) and FRM4DOAS (ESA contract no. 4000118181/16/I-EF) projects and partly within the EU 7th Framework Programme QA4ECV project (grant agreement no. 607405). The BOKU MAX-DOAS instrument was funded and the participation of Stefan F. Schreier was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): I 2296-N29. The participation of the University of Toronto team was supported by the Canadian Space Agency (through the AVATARS project) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (through the PAHA project). The instrument was primarily funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and is usually operated at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) by the Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change (CANDAC). Funding for CISC was provided by the UVAS (“Ultraviolet and Visible Atmospheric Sounder”) projects SEOSAT/INGENIO, ESP2015-71299- R, MINECO-FEDER and UE. The activities of the IUP-Heidelberg were supported by the DFG project RAPSODI (grant no. PL 193/17-1). SAOZ and Mini-SAOZ instruments are supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). INTA recognises support from the National funding projects HELADO (CTM2013-41311-P) and AVATAR (CGL2014-55230-R). AMOIAP recognises support from the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 16-17-10275) and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant nos. 16-05- 01062 and 18-35-00682). Ka L. Chan received transnational access funding from ACTRIS-2 (H2020 grant agreement no. 654109). Rainer Volkamer recognises funding from NASA’s Atmospheric Composition Program (NASA-16-NUP2016-0001) and the US National Science Foundation (award AGS-1620530). Henning Finkenzeller is the recipient of a NASA graduate fellowship. Mihalis Vrekoussis recognises support from the University of Bremen and the DFG Research Center/Cluster of Excellence “The Ocean in the Earth System-MARUM”. Financial support through the University of Bremen Institutional Strategy in the framework of the DFG Excellence Initiative is gratefully appreciated for Anja Schönhardt. Pandora instrument deployment was supported by Luftblick through the ESA Pandonia Project and NASA Pandora Project at the Goddard Space Flight Center under NASA Headquarters’ Tropospheric Composition Program. The article processing charges for this open-access publication were covered by BK Scientific.

MAX-DOAS and direct sun NO2 vertical column network data are used to investigate the accuracy of tropospheric NO2 column measurements of the GOME-2 instrument on the MetOP-A satellite platform and the OMI instrument on Aura. The study is based on 23 MAX-DOAS and 16 direct sun instruments at stations distributed worldwide. A method to quantify and correct for horizontal dilution effects in heterogeneous NO2 field conditions is proposed. After systematic application of this correction to urban sites, satellite measurements are found to present smaller biases compared to ground-based reference data in almost all cases. We investigate the seasonal dependence of the validation results, as well as the impact of using different approaches to select satellite ground pixels in coincidence with ground-based data. In optimal comparison conditions (satellite pixels containing the station) the median bias between satellite tropospheric NO2 column measurements and the ensemble of MAX-DOAS and direct sun measurements is found to be significant and equal to −36 % for GOME-2A and −20 % for OMI. These biases are further reduced to −24 % and −8 % respectively, after application of the dilution correction. Comparisons with the QA4ECV satellite product for both GOME-2A and OMI is also performed, showing less scatter but also a slightly larger median tropospheric NO2 column bias with respect to the ensemble of MAX-DOAS and direct sun measurements.

Urban areas are currently facing new and enormous challenges: urbanization, connected and automated land and air transport with new demand for transport and logistic services, maintenance of more complex traffic and supply infrastructure as well as mandatory digitalization of cadastral information under the constraints of limited space and resources. Different stakeholders are interested in using detailed, precise and up-to-date data about the urban environment. These stakeholders are not only governmental bodies, road operators and (public) fleet managers but also companies that are interested in testing and operating new intelligent transportation systems and connected and automated vehicles in realistic and complex urban simulation environments. This article proposes a concept of how to tackle this complex task based on approaches already conducted in the domain of the development and test of automated driving and city modeling. Core elements of this thesis are an all-embracing geo-database, a toolchain to import, validate, process and fuse the necessary data as well as interfaces and data formats for automated data exchange. The feasibility and challenges as well as the potential and synergies of implementing of this concept are discussed by analyzing similar solutions in the key domains. The article concludes with a proposal to realize such a concept.

The QA4ECV (Quality Assurance for Essential Climate Variables) version 1.1 stratospheric and tropospheric NO2 vertical column density (VCD) climate data records (CDRs) from the OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument) satellite sensor are validated using NDACC (Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change) zenithscattered light differential optical absorption spectroscopy (ZSL-DOAS) and multi-axis DOAS (MAX-DOAS) data as a reference. The QA4ECV OMI stratospheric VCDs have a small bias of 0:2 Pmolec:cm-2 (5 % 10 %) and a dispersion of 0.2 to 1 Pmolec:cm-2 with respect to the ZSLDOAS measurements. QA4ECV tropospheric VCD observations from OMI are restricted to near-cloud-free scenes, leading to a negative sampling bias (with respect to the unrestricted scene ensemble) of a few peta molecules per square centimetre (Pmolec:cm-2) up to -10 Pmolec:cm-2 (-40 %) in one extreme high-pollution case. The QA4ECV OMI tropospheric VCD has a negative bias with respect to the MAX-DOAS data (-1 to -4 Pmolec:cm-2), which is a feature also found for the OMI OMNO2 standard data product. The tropospheric VCD discrepancies between satellite measurements and ground-based data greatly exceed the combined measurement uncertainties. Depending on the site, part of the discrepancy can be attributed to a combination of comparison errors (notably horizontal smoothing difference error), measurement/retrieval errors related to clouds and aerosols, and the difference in vertical smoothing and a priori profile assumptions.

The large stocks of soil organic carbon (SOC) in soils and deposits of the northern permafrost region are sensitive to global warming and permafrost thawing. The potential release of this carbon (C) as greenhouse gases to the atmosphere does not only depend on the total quantity of soil organic matter (SOM) affected by warming and thawing, but it also depends on its lability (i.e., the rate at which it will decay). In this study we develop a simple and robust classification scheme of SOM lability for the main types of soils and deposits in the northern permafrost region. The classification is based on widely available soil geochemical parameters and landscape unit classes, which makes it useful for upscaling to the entire northern permafrost region. We have analyzed the relationship between C content and C-CO2 production rates of soil samples in two different types of laboratory incubation experiments. In one experiment, ca. 240 soil samples from four study areas were incubated using the same protocol (at 5 ∘C, aerobically) over a period of 1 year. Here we present C release rates measured on day 343 of incubation. These long-term results are compared to those obtained from short-term incubations of ca. 1000 samples (at 12 ∘C, aerobically) from an additional three study areas. In these experiments, C-CO2 production rates were measured over the first 4 d of incubation. We have focused our analyses on the relationship between C-CO2 production per gram dry weight per day (µgC-CO2 gdw−1 d−1) and C content (%C of dry weight) in the samples, but we show that relationships are consistent when using C ∕ N ratios or different production units such as µgC per gram soil C per day (µgC-CO2 gC−1 d−1) or per cm3 of soil per day (µgC-CO2 cm−3 d−1). C content of the samples is positively correlated to C-CO2 production rates but explains less than 50 % of the observed variability when the full datasets are considered. A partitioning of the data into landscape units greatly reduces variance and provides consistent results between incubation experiments. These results indicate that relative SOM lability decreases in the order of Late Holocene eolian deposits to alluvial deposits and mineral soils (including peaty wetlands) to Pleistocene yedoma deposits to C-enriched pockets in cryoturbated soils to peat deposits. Thus, three of the most important SOC storage classes in the northern permafrost region (yedoma, cryoturbated soils and peatlands) show low relative SOM lability. Previous research has suggested that SOM in these pools is relatively undecomposed, and the reasons for the observed low rates of decomposition in our experiments need urgent attention if we want to better constrain the magnitude of the thawing permafrost carbon feedback on global warming.

Zinc (Zn) and Zn-based alloys have been proposed as a new generation of absorbable metals mainly owing to the moderate degradation behavior of zinc between magnesium and iron. Nonetheless, mechanical strength of pure Zn is relatively poor, making it insufficient for the majority of clinical applications. In this study, a novel Zn&ndash, 2Ag&ndash, 1.8Au&ndash, 0.2V (wt.%) alloy (Zn&ndash, Ag&ndash, Au&ndash, V) was fabricated and investigated for use as a potential absorbable biocompatible material. Microstructural characterization indicated an effective grain-refining effect on the Zn alloy after a thermomechanical treatment. Compared to pure Zn, the Zn&ndash, V alloy showed significantly enhanced mechanical properties, with a yield strength of 168 MPa, an ultimate tensile strength of 233 MPa, and an elongation of 17%. Immersion test indicated that the degradation rate of the Zn&ndash, V alloy in Dulbecco&rsquo, s phosphate buffered saline was approximately 7.34 &plusmn, 0.64 &mu, m/year, thus being slightly lower than that of pure Zn. Biocompatibility tests with L929 and Saos-2 cells showed a moderate cytotoxicity, alloy extracts at 16.7%, and 10% concentration did not affect metabolic activity and cell proliferation. Plaque formation in vitro was reduced, the Zn&ndash, V surface inhibited adhesion and biofilm formation by the early oral colonizer Streptococcus gordonii, indicating antibacterial properties of the alloy.

In this study we report on airborne imaging DOAS measurements of NO2 from two flights performed in Bucharest during the AROMAT campaign (Airborne ROmanian Measurements of Aerosols and Trace gases) in September 2014. These measurements were performed with the Airborne imaging Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) instrument for Measurements of Atmospheric Pollution (AirMAP) and provide nearly gapless maps of column densities of NO2 below the aircraft with a high spatial resolution of better than 100 m. The air mass factors, which are needed to convert the measured differential slant column densities (dSCDs) to vertical column densities (VCDs), have a strong dependence on the surface reflectance, which has to be accounted for in the retrieval. This is especially important for measurements above urban areas, where the surface properties vary strongly. As the instrument is not radiometrically calibrated, we have developed a method to derive the surface reflectance from intensities measured by AirMAP. This method is based on radiative transfer calculation with SCIATRAN and a reference area for which the surface reflectance is known. While surface properties are clearly apparent in the NO2 dSCD results, this effect is successfully corrected for in the VCD results. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of aerosols on the retrieval for a variety of aerosol profiles that were measured in the context of the AROMAT campaigns. The results of two research flights are presented, which reveal distinct horizontal distribution patterns and strong spatial gradients of NO2 across the city. Pollution levels range from background values in the outskirts located upwind of the city to about 4 × 1016 molec cm−2 in the polluted city center. Validation against two co-located mobile car-DOAS measurements yields good agreement between the datasets, with correlation coefficients of R = 0.94 and R = 0.85, respectively. Estimations on the NOx emission rate of Bucharest for the two flights yield emission rates of 15.1 ± 9.4 and 13.6 ± 8.4 mol s−1, respectively.

Digitale und hoch genaue Kartendaten sind für die Entwicklung und Bewertung moderner Fahrerassistenz- und Automationssysteme nicht mehr wegzudenken. Sie werden entweder als Input in der Simulation für Akzeptanz- und Sicherheitstest genutzt, als auch als Zusatzwissen an Bord der Fahrzeuge. In der Simulation werden spezielle Beschreibungsformate eingesetzt, die eine sehr genaue Modellierung der Umgebung ermöglichen. Die Erhebung von Realdaten und Konvertierung in die Simulationsformate kann jedoch schnell sehr aufwändig werden. Um den Aufwand der Vermessung von Strecken und Konvertierung von Katasterdaten in Simulationsformate zu reduzieren, wurde dieser Road2Simulation-Leitfaden für die standardisierte Erhebung von Straßen- und Oberflächendaten erstellt. Der Leitfaden orientiert sich am Straßenbeschreibungsformat OpenDRIVE und am Oberflächenbeschreibungsformat OpenCRG.

Digital and highly accurate road map data represent an indispensable prerequisite for the development and assessment of modern advanced driver assistance and automation systems. They are utilized as input for simulation in acceptance and safety tests, and as complementary knowledge on board the vehicles. For simulation, specific description formats are used, which allow for a very precise modelling of the environment. However, the acquisition of real data and their conversion into simulation formats may quickly become very time-consuming and cost-intensive. To reduce the efforts for surveying routes and converting cadastre data into simulation formats, these Road2Simulation Guidelines have been prepared for a standardized surveying of road and surface data. The guidelines are oriented on the road description format OpenDRIVE and the surface description format OpenCRG.

In September 2016, 36 spectrometers from 24 institutes measured a number of key atmospheric pollutants for a period of 17 days during the Second Cabauw Intercomparison campaign for Nitrogen Dioxide measuring Instruments (CINDI-2) that took place at Cabauw, The Netherlands (51.97° N, 4.93° E). We report on the outcome of the formal semi-blind intercomparison exercise, which was held under the umbrella of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The three major goals of CINDI-2 were to characterise and better understand the differences between a large number of Multi-AXis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) and zenith-sky DOAS instruments and analysis methods, to discuss the performance of the various types of instruments and to contribute to a harmonisation of the measurement settings and retrieval methods. This, in turn, creates the capability to produce consistent high-quality ground-based data sets, which are an essential requirement to generate reliable long-term measurement time series suitable for trend analysis and satellite data validation. The data products investigated during the semi-blind intercomparison are slant columns of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), the oxygen dimer (O4) and ozone (O3) measured in the UV and visible wavelength region, formaldehyde (HCHO) in the UV spectral region and NO2 in an additional (smaller) wavelength range in the visible. The campaign design and implementation processes are discussed in detail including the measurement protocol, calibration procedures and slant column retrieval settings. Strong emphasis was put on the careful alignment and synchronisation of the measurement systems, resulting in an unprecedented set of measurements made under highly comparable air mass conditions. The CINDI-2 data sets were investigated using a regression analysis of the slant columns measured by each instrument and for each of the target data products. The slope and intercept of the regression analysis respectively quantify the mean systematic bias and offset of the individual data sets against the reference, and the RMS error provides an estimate of the measurement noise or dispersion. These three criteria are examined and for each of the parameters and each of the data products, performance thresholds are set and applied to all the measurements. The approach presented here has been developed based on heritage from previous intercomparison exercises. It introduces a quantitative assessment of the measurement performance of all the participating instruments for the MAX-DOAS and zenith-sky DOAS techniques.

In this study the consistency between MAX-DOAS measurements and radiative transfer simulations of the atmospheric O4 absorption is investigated on 2 mainly cloud-free days during the MAD-CAT campaign in Mainz, Germany, in summer 2013. In recent years several studies indicated that measurements and radiative transfer simulations of the atmospheric O4 absorption can only be brought into agreement if a so-called scaling factor (

International audience

Recently, we could demonstrate positive effects of microfluidic cultivation conditions on maturation of cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS-CMs) in a 2D model. However, 3D cell culture models are much closer to physiological conditions. Combined with microfluidics, 3D systems should resemble the in-vivo conditions even better than standard 2D cultivation. For 3D models, two main technical challenges arise, the tissue integration and sufficient nutrient supply for the cells. This work focuses on concepts for the tissue integration based on a modular approach and different manufacturing technologies as well as using an oxygenator in the microfluidic device to provide sufficient oxygen supply for the cells.

This paper was published with several formatting errors. It will be republished with corrections in place.

Correction to: Ecosystems https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-018-0232-6; International audience

This study describes a novel application of an “onion-peeling” approach to multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) measurements of shipping emissions aiming at investigating the strong horizontal inhomogeneities in NO2 over a shipping lane. To monitor ship emissions on the main shipping route towards the port of Hamburg, a two-channel (UV and visible) MAX-DOAS instrument was deployed on the island Neuwerk in the German Bight, 6–7 km south of the main shipping lane. Utilizing the fact that the effective light path length in the atmosphere depends systematically on wavelength, simultaneous measurements and DOAS retrievals in the UV and visible spectral ranges are used to probe air masses at different horizontal distances to the instrument to estimate two-dimensional pollutant distributions. Two case studies have been selected to demonstrate the ability to derive the approximate plume positions in the observed area. A situation with northerly wind shows high NO2 concentrations close to the measurement site and low values in the north of the shipping lane. The opposite situation with southerly wind, unfavorable for the on-site in situ instrumentation, demonstrates the ability to detect enhanced NO2 concentrations several kilometers away from the instrument. Using a Gaussian plume model, in-plume NO2 volume mixing ratios can be derived from the MAX-DOAS measurements. For validation, a comparison to airborne imaging DOAS measurements during the NOSE campaign in July 2013 is performed, showing good agreement between the approximate plume position derived from the onion-peeling MAX-DOAS and the airborne measurements as well as between the derived in-plume NO2 volume mixing ratios (VMRs).

International audience; Reactive nitrogen is a key nutrient and its availability in the environment, together with other nutrients’ availability, is controlling ecosystem productivity. The latter is linked to carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere by the marine and terrestrial ecosystems and to food production. Atmospheric deposition of reactive nitrogen compounds has positive and negative impacts to ecosystems leading to fertilization or acidification and accumulation of excess nutrients, respectively. Several areas of the globe are estimated to be subject to high fluxes of deposited reactive nitrogen. However, model estimates are associated with high uncertainties. The present study aims to reduce these uncertainties and increase the robustness of nitrogen atmospheric deposition flux estimates. Knowledge on the global present-day atmospheric deposition fluxes of reactive nitrogen is here summarized, accounting both for the oxygenated and reduced species as well as for the organic fraction of reactive nitrogen that has been, until recently, neglected. The global 3-dimensional atmospheric chemistry transport model TM4-ECPL that accounts for multiphase chemistry, all major aerosol components and a very comprehensive atmospheric nitrogen cycle including organic nitrogen (Kanakidou et al., 2016) is here used in conjunction with satellite observations. The meteorology in this off-line model is taken from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts ERA-interim reanalysis products. The simulated nitrogen deposition fluxes have been successfully evaluated against surface observations. For the present study, satellite observations of NO2 and NH3 from the GOME-2, TROPOMI and IASI instruments are further used to evaluate model results. Atmospheric deposition fluxes derived from the satellite observations are compared with the simulated fluxes. Regions where significant improvements are achieved by reconciling model results and satellite observations are highlighted. The implications of the findings for the marine ecosystem functioning (Kanakidou et al., 2018) are discussed and put in perspective based on recent ocean biogeochemical modeling of the response of the oceans with regard to carbon sequestration and nitrous oxide emissions to the atmospheric inputs of nitrogen (Jickells et al., 2017).Kanakidou M., et al, Past, Present and Future Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences (JAS-D-15-0278) 73, 2039-2047, 2016.Kanakidou M., et al., Aerosols in atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemical cycles of nutrients, Environ. Res. Lett. 13, 063004, doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aabcdb , 2018.Jickells, T. D., et al., A reevaluation of the magnitude and impacts of anthropogenic atmospheric nitrogen inputs on the ocean, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 31, doi:10.1002/2016GB005586, 2017.

This study describes a novel application of an onion peeling like approach to MAX-DOAS measurements of shipping emissions aiming at investigating the strong horizontal inhomogeneities in NO2 over a shipping lane. To monitor ship emissions on the main shipping route towards the port of Hamburg, a two-channel (UV and visible) MAX-DOAS instrument was deployed on the island Neuwerk in the German Bight, 6–7 km south of the main shipping lane. Utilizing the fact that the effective light path length in the atmosphere depends systematically on wavelength, simultaneous measurements and DOAS retrievals in the UV and visible spectral range are used to probe air masses at different horizontal distances to the instrument to estimate two-dimensional pollutant distributions. Two case-studies have been selected to demonstrate the ability to derive the approximate plume positions in the observed area. A situation with northerly wind shows high NO2 concentrations close to the measurement site and low values in the north of the shipping lane. The opposite situation with southerly wind, unfavorable for the on-site in situ instrumentation, demonstrates the ability to detect enhanced NO2 concentrations several kilometers away from the instrument. To validate the approach, a comparison to air-borne imaging DOAS measurements during the NOSE campaign in July 2013 is performed, showing good agreement between the approximate plume position derived from the onion peeling MAX-DOAS and the air-borne measurements. Combining synergistically information about the plume width from the air-borne measurements and about the vertical plume extent from MAX-DOAS, yields NO2 concentrations in the plume from both measurements which agree very well.

International audience