Organic species are an important but poorly characterized constituent of airborne particulate matter. A quantitative understanding of the organic fraction of particles (organic aerosol, OA) is ...necessary to reduce some of the largest uncertainties that confound the assessment of the radiative forcing of climate and air quality management policies. In recent years, aerosol mass spectrometry has been increasingly relied upon for highly time-resolved characterization of OA chemistry and for elucidation of aerosol sources and lifecycle processes. Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometers (AMS) are particularly widely used, because of their ability to quantitatively characterize the size-resolved composition of submicron particles (PM
1
). AMS report the bulk composition and temporal variations of OA in the form of ensemble mass spectra (MS) acquired over short time intervals. Because each MS represents the linear superposition of the spectra of individual components weighed by their concentrations, multivariate factor analysis of the MS matrix has proved effective at retrieving OA factors that offer a quantitative and simplified description of the thousands of individual organic species. The sum of the factors accounts for nearly 100% of the OA mass and each individual factor typically corresponds to a large group of OA constituents with similar chemical composition and temporal behavior that are characteristic of different sources and/or atmospheric processes. The application of this technique in aerosol mass spectrometry has grown rapidly in the last six years. Here we review multivariate factor analysis techniques applied to AMS and other aerosol mass spectrometers, and summarize key findings from field observations. Results that provide valuable information about aerosol sources and, in particular, secondary OA evolution on regional and global scales are highlighted. Advanced methods, for example a-priori constraints on factor mass spectra and the application of factor analysis to combined aerosol and gas phase data are discussed. Integrated analysis of worldwide OA factors is used to present a holistic regional and global description of OA. Finally, different ways in which OA factors can constrain global and regional models are discussed.
This book presents a modern introduction of pde constrained optimization. It provides a precise functional analytic treatment via optimality conditions and a state-of-the-art, non-smooth ...algorithmical framework. Furthermore, new structure-exploiting discrete concepts and large scale, practically relevant applications are presented. The main focus is on the algorithmical and numerical treatment of pde constrained optimization problems on the infinite dimensional level. A particular emphasis is on simple constraints, such as pointwise bounds on controls and states. For these practically important situations, tailored Newton- and SQP-type solution algorithms are proposed and a general convergence framework is developed. This is complemented with the numerical analysis of structure-preserving Galerkin schemes for optimization problems with elliptic and parabolic equations. Finally, along with the optimization of semiconductor devices and the optimization of glass cooling processes, two challenging applications of pde constrained optimization are presented. They demonstrate the scope of this emerging research field for future engineering applications.
•An elaborate overview on the contents and tools of the BRENDA enzyme database.•BRENDA combines manually curated enzyme data with proteomic and genomic information.•The BRENDA web interfaces provides ...versatile tools to access enzyme information.•In 30 years BRENDA was developed from a database to a competence center for enzyme-related information.
Enzymes, representing the largest and by far most complex group of proteins, play an essential role in all processes of life, including metabolism, gene expression, cell division, the immune system, and others. Their function, also connected to most diseases or stress control makes them interesting targets for research and applications in biotechnology, medical treatments, or diagnosis. Their functional parameters and other properties are collected, integrated, and made available to the scientific community in the BRaunschweig ENzyme DAtabase (BRENDA). In the last 30 years BRENDA has developed into one of the most highly used biological databases worldwide. The data contents, the process of data acquisition, data integration and control, the ways to access the data, and visualizations provided by the website are described and discussed.
In this study we compile and present results from the factor analysis of 43 Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (AMS) datasets (27 of the datasets are reanalyzed in this work). The components from all sites, ...when taken together, provide a holistic overview of Northern Hemisphere organic aerosol (OA) and its evolution in the atmosphere. At most sites, the OA can be separated into oxygenated OA (OOA), hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA), and sometimes other components such as biomass burning OA (BBOA). We focus on the OOA components in this work. In many analyses, the OOA can be further deconvolved into low-volatility OOA (LV-OOA) and semi-volatile OOA (SV-OOA). Differences in the mass spectra of these components are characterized in terms of the two main ions m/z 44 (CO2+) and m/z 43 (mostly C2H3O+), which are used to develop a new mass spectral diagnostic for following the aging of OA components in the atmosphere. The LV-OOA component spectra have higher f44 (ratio of m/z 44 to total signal in the component mass spectrum) and lower f43 (ratio of m/z 43 to total signal in the component mass spectrum) than SV-OOA. A wide range of f44 and O:C ratios are observed for both LV-OOA (0.17±0.04, 0.73±0.14) and SV-OOA (0.07±0.04, 0.35±0.14) components, reflecting the fact that there is a continuum of OOA properties in ambient aerosol. The OOA components (OOA, LV-OOA, and SV-OOA) from all sites cluster within a well-defined triangular region in the f44 vs. f43 space, which can be used as a standardized means for comparing and characterizing any OOA components (laboratory or ambient) observed with the AMS. Examination of the OOA components in this triangular space indicates that OOA component spectra become increasingly similar to each other and to fulvic acid and HULIS sample spectra as f44 (a surrogate for O:C and an indicator of photochemical aging) increases. This indicates that ambient OA converges towards highly aged LV-OOA with atmospheric oxidation. The common features of the transformation between SV-OOA and LV-OOA at multiple sites potentially enable a simplified description of the oxidation of OA in the atmosphere. Comparison of laboratory SOA data with ambient OOA indicates that laboratory SOA are more similar to SV-OOA and rarely become as oxidized as ambient LV-OOA, likely due to the higher loadings employed in the experiments and/or limited oxidant exposure in most chamber experiments.
A newly modified fast temperature-stepping thermodenuder (TD) was coupled to a High Resolution Time-of-Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer for rapid determination of chemically resolved volatility of ...organic aerosols (OA) emitted from individual sources. The TD-AMS system was used to characterize primary OA (POA) from biomass burning, trash burning surrogates (paper and plastic), and meat cooking as well as chamber-generated secondary OA (SOA) from α-pinene and gasoline vapor. Almost all atmospheric models represent POA as nonvolatile, with no allowance for evaporation upon heating or dilution, or condensation upon cooling. Our results indicate that all OAs observed show semivolatile behavior and that most POAs characterized here were at least as volatile as SOA measured in urban environments. Biomass-burning OA (BBOA) exhibited a wide range of volatilities, but more often showed volatility similar to urban OA. Paper-burning resembles some types of BBOA because of its relatively high volatility and intermediate atomic oxygen-to-carbon (O/C) ratio, while meat-cooking OAs (MCOA) have consistently lower volatility than ambient OA. Chamber-generated SOA under the relatively high concentrations used in traditional experiments was significantly more volatile than urban SOA, challenging extrapolation of traditional laboratory volatility measurements to the atmosphere. Most OAs sampled show increasing O/C ratio and decreasing H/C (hydrogen-to-carbon) ratio with temperature, further indicating that more oxygenated OA components are typically less volatile. Future experiments should systematically explore a wider range of mass concentrations to more fully characterize the volatility distributions of these OAs.
Organic aerosol (OA) represents approximately half of the submicron aerosol in Mexico City and the Central Mexican Plateau. This study uses the high time resolution measurements performed onboard the ...NCAR/NSF C-130 aircraft during the MILAGRO/MIRAGE-Mex field campaign in March 2006 to investigate the sources and chemical processing of the OA in this region. An examination of the OA/ΔCO ratio evolution as a function of photochemical age shows distinct behavior in the presence or absence of substantial open biomass burning (BB) influence, with the latter being consistent with other studies in polluted areas. In addition, we present results from Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) analysis of 12-s High-Resolution Time-of-Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS) OA spectra. Four components were resolved. Three of the components contain substantial organic oxygen and are termed semivolatile oxygenated OA (SV-OOA), low-volatility OOA (LV-OOA), and biomass burning OA (BBOA). A reduced "hydrocarbon-like OA" (HOA) component is also resolved. LV-OOA is highly oxygenated (atomic O/C~1) and is aged organic aerosol linked to regional airmasses, with likely contributions from pollution, biomass burning, and other sources. SV-OOA is strongly correlated with ammonium nitrate, Ox, and the Mexico City Basin. We interpret SV-OOA as secondary OA which is nearly all (>90%) anthropogenic in origin. In the absence of biomass burning it represents the largest fraction of OA over the Mexico City basin, consistent with other studies in this region. BBOA is identified as arising from biomass burning sources due to a strong correlation with HCN, and the elevated contribution of the ion C2H4O2+ (m/z 60, a marker for levoglucosan and other primary BB species). WRF-FLEXPART calculated fire impact factors (FIF) show good correlation with BBOA mass concentrations within the basin, but show location offsets in the far field due to model transport errors. This component is small or absent when forest fires are suppressed by precipitation. Since PMF factors represent organic species grouped by chemical similarity, additional postprocessing is needed to more directly apportion OA amounts to sources, which is done here based on correlations to different tracers. The postprocessed AMS results are similar to those from an independent source apportionment based on multiple linear regression with gas-phase tracers. During a flight with very high forest fire intensity near the basin OA arising from open BB represents ~66% of the OA mass in the basin and contributes similarly to OA mass in the outflow. Aging and SOA formation of BB emissions is estimated to add OA mass equivalent to about ~32–42% of the primary BBOA over several hours to a day.
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