The impacts of climate change have accelerated significantly in recent decades. This paper explores the cascading effects of accelerating climate change using a participatory Futures Research method. ...The Implications Wheel® method was used to identify and score possible higher-order implications of three key direct impacts of accelerating climate change: Increasing crop failures; more frequent, severe, and longer-lasting heatwaves; and more frequent, intense, and larger wildfires. Analysis of the many second- and third-order implications that were generated revealed implications with significance for proactive planning. surprising insights, major emergent themes, and a handful of potential high-impact wild cards.
Overlapping cDNAs encoding human platelet glycoprotein (Gp)IX were cloned from a human erythroleukemia cell lambda gt11 library. The possibly 'full-length' cDNA of 896 base pairs (bp) includes an ...open reading frame (528 bp), both 5' (222 bp) and 3' (146 bp) noncoding regions, and a poly(A) tail. Translation predicts a signal peptide of 16 amino acids and a mature protein of 160 amino acids that includes a 24 amino acid leucine-rich glycoprotein (LRG) segment. Southern blot analysis suggests the presence of a single copy of the Gp IX gene, and hybridization of Gp IX cDNA to sorted human chromosomes localizes the Gp IX gene to chromosome 3.
This note describes changes that have been made to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) operational ``early'' eta model. The changes are 1) a decrease in horizontal grid spacing ...from 80 to 48 km, 2) incorporation of a cloud prediction scheme, 3) replacement of the original static analysis system with a 12-h intermittent data assimilation system using the eta model, and 4) the use of satellite-sensed total column water data in the eta optimum interpolation analysis. When tested separately, each of the four changes improved model performance. A quantitative and subjective evaluation of the full upgrade package during March and April 1995 indicated that the 48-km eta model was more skillful than the operational 80-km model in predicting the intensity and movement of large-scale weather systems. In addition, the 48-km eta model was more skillful in predicting severe mesoscale precipitation events than either the 80-km eta model, the nested grid model, or the NCEP global spectral model during the March-April 1995 period. The implementation of this new version of the operational early eta system was performed in October 1995.
Fanconi anaemia (FA) is an autosomal recessive disorder associated with progressive bone-marrow failure, a variety of congenital abnormalities, and predisposition to acute myeloid leukaemia. Cells ...from FA patients show increased sensitivity to bifunctional DNA crosslinking agents such as diepoxybutane and mitomycin C, with characteristic chromosome breakage. FA is genetically heterogeneous, at least five different complementation groups (FA-A to FA-E) having been described. The gene for group C (FAC) was cloned by functional complementation and mapped to chromosome 9q22.3 (refs 3, 5), but the genes for the other complementation groups have not yet been identified. The group A gene (FAA) has recently been mapped to chromosome 16q24.3 by linkage analysis, and accounts for 60-65% of FA cases. We narrowed the candidate region by linkage and allelic association analysis, and have isolated a gene that is mutated in FA-A patients. The gene encodes a protein of 1,455 amino acids that has no significant homology to any other known proteins, and may therefore represent a new class of genes associated with the prevention or repair of DNA damage.
The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project Kalnay, E.; Kanamitsu, M.; Kistler, R. ...
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society,
03/1996, Letnik:
77, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The NCEP and NCAR are cooperating in a project (denoted "reanalysis") to produce a 40-year record of global analyses of atmospheric fields in support of the needs of the research and climate ...monitoring communities. This effort involves the recovery of land surface, ship, rawinsonde, pibal, aircraft, satellite, and other data; quality controlling and assimilating these data with a data assimilation system that is kept unchanged over the reanalysis period 1957–96. This eliminates perceived climate jumps associated with changes in the data assimilation system. The NCEP/NCAR 40-yr reanalysis uses a frozen state-of-the-art global data assimilation system and a database as complete as possible. The data assimilation and the model used are identical to the global system implemented operationally at the NCEP on 11 January 1995, except that the horizontal resolution is T62 (about 210 km). The database has been enhanced with many sources of observations not available in real time for operations, provided by different countries and organizations. The system has been designed with advanced quality control and monitoring components, and can produce 1 mon of reanalysis per day on a Cray YMP/8 supercomputer. Different types of output archives are being created to satisfy different user needs, including a "quick look" CD-ROM (one per year) with six tropospheric and stratospheric fields available twice daily, as well as surface, top-of-the-atmosphere, and isentropic fields. Reanalysis information and selected output is also available on-line via the Internet (http//:nic.fb4.noaa.gov:8000). A special CD-ROM, containing 13 years of selected observed, daily, monthly, and climatological data from the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis, is included with this issue. Output variables are classified into four classes, depending on the degree to which they are influenced by the observations and/or the model. For example, "C" variables (such as precipitation and surface fluxes) are completely determined by the model during the data assimilation and should be used with caution. Nevertheless, a comparison of these variables with observations and with several climatologies shows that they generally contain considerable useful information. Eight-day forecasts, produced every 5 days, should be useful for predictability studies and for monitoring the quality of the observing systems. The 40 years of reanalysis (1957–96) should be completed in early 1997. A continuation into the future through an identical Climate Data Assimilation System will allow researchers to reliably compare recent anomalies with those in earlier decades. Since changes in the observing systems will inevitably produce perceived changes in the climate, parallel reanalyses (at least 1 year long) will be generated for the periods immediately after the introduction of new observing systems, such as new types of satellite data. NCEP plans currently call for an updated reanalysis using a state-of-the-art system every five years or so. The successive reanalyses will be greatly facilitated by the generation of the comprehensive database in the present reanalysis.
We use a newly-developed genetic algorithm to determine the lowest energy atomic configurations of 2–100 atoms in the Lennard-Jones potential. Our method, which contains no bias to specific ...symmetries, yields structures which are identical to or are lower in energy than all previously published structures.
We have used sequence-based markers from an integrated YAC STS-content/somatic cell hybrid breakpoint physical map and radiation hybrid maps of human chromosome 16 to construct a new sequence-ready ...BAC map of the long arm of this chromosome. The integrated physical map was generated previously in our laboratory and contains 1150 STSs, providing a marker on average every 78 kb on the euchromatic arms of chromosome 16. The other two maps used for this effort were the radiation hybrid maps of chromosome 16 from Whitehead Institute and Stanford University. To create large sequenceable targets of this chromosome, we used a systematic approach to screen high-density BAC filters with probes generated from overlapping oligonucleotides (overgos). We first identified all available sequences in the three maps. These include sequences from genes, ESTs, STSs, and cosmid end sequences. We then used BLASTto identify 36-bp unique fragments of DNA for overgo probes. A total of 906 overgos were selected from the long arm of chromosome 16. Hybridizations occurred in three stages: (1) superpool hybridizations against the 12x coverage human BAC library (RPCI-11); (2) two-dimensional hybridizations against rearrayed positive BACs identified in the superpool hybridizations; and (3) pooled tertiary hybridizations for those overgos that had ambiguous positives remaining after the two-dimensional hybridization. For the superpool hybridizations, up to 236 overgos have been pooled in a single hybridization against the 12x BAC library. A total of 5187 positive BACs from chromosome 16q were identified as a result of five superpool hybridizations. These positive clones were rearrayed on membranes and hybridized with 161 two-dimensional subpools of overgos to determine which BAC clones were positive for individual overgos. An additional 46 tertiary hybridizations were required to resolve ambiguous overgo-BAC relationships. Thus, after a total of 212 hybridizations, we have constructed an initial probe-content BAC map of chromosome 16q consisting of 828 overgo markers and 3363 BACs providing >85% coverage of the long arm of this chromosome. The map has been confirmed by the fingerprinting data and BAC end PCR screening.