Ross–Weddell Dipole Critical for Antarctic Sea Ice Predictability in MPI–ESM–HR

We use hindcasts from a state-of-the-art decadal climate prediction system initialized between 1979 and 2017 to explore the predictability of the Antarctic dipole-that is, the seesaw between sea ice cover in the Weddell and Ross Seas, and discuss its implications for Antarctic sea ice predictability. Our results indicate low forecast skills for the Antarctic dipole in the first hindcast year, with a strong relaxation of March values toward the climatology contrasting with an overestimation of anomalies in September, which we interpret as being linked to a predominance of local drift processes over initialized large-scale dynamics. Forecast skills for the Antarctic dipole and total Antarctic sea ice extent are uncorrelated. Limited predictability of the Antarctic dipole is also found under preconditioning around strong warm and strong cold events of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Initialization timing and model drift are reported as potential explanations for the poor predictive skills identified

A higher-resolution version of the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM1.2-HR)

The MPI‐ESM1.2 is the latest version of the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model and is the baseline for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 and current seasonal and decadal climate predictions. This paper evaluates a coupled higher‐resolution version (MPI‐ESM1.2‐HR) in comparison with its lower‐resolved version (MPI‐ESM1.2‐LR). We focus on basic oceanic and atmospheric mean states and selected modes of variability, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation. The increase in atmospheric resolution in MPI‐ESM1.2‐HR reduces the biases of upper‐level zonal wind and atmospheric jet stream position in the northern extratropics. This results in a decrease of the storm track bias over the northern North Atlantic, for both winter and summer season. The blocking frequency over the European region is improved in summer, and North Atlantic Oscillation and related storm track variations improve in winter. Stable Atlantic meridional overturning circulations are found with magnitudes of ~16 Sv for MPI‐ESM1.2‐HR and ~20 Sv for MPI‐ESM1.2‐LR at 26°N. A strong sea surface temperature bias of ~5°C along with a too zonal North Atlantic current is present in both versions. The sea surface temperature bias in the eastern tropical Atlantic is reduced by ~1°C due to higher‐resolved orography in MPI‐ESM‐HR, and the region of the cold‐tongue bias is reduced in the tropical Pacific. MPI‐ESM1.2‐HR has a well‐balanced radiation budget and its climate sensitivity is explicitly tuned to 3 K. Although the obtained reductions in long‐standing biases are modest, the improvements in atmospheric dynamics make this model well suited for prediction and impact studies

Racial-ethnic, gender identity, and sexual orientation disparities in COVID-19-related social and health outcomes: A decomposition analysis

Despite the growing literature on racial-ethnic disparities during the pandemic, less is known about the explanatory mechanisms of these disparities and inequalities across other axes, such as gender and sexual identities. We studied the levels and sources of racial-ethnic, gender identity, and sexual minority disparities in social (i.e., unmet resource needs) and health (i.e., hospitalization) outcomes among individuals diagnosed with COVID-19, hypothesizing differential age structure, underlying health, and work and living arrangements as contributors to inequalities. Using large-scale administrative data from Chicago and adjusting for covariates, we found substantial racial-ethnic and gender identity disparities in both outcomes, and weak evidence of sexual minority disparities in unmet needs. Subsequent decomposition analyses revealed that living in larger households, having a higher share of non-adult cases, and facing higher burdens of chronic illness, obesity, and unemployment each statistically significantly drove racial-ethnic disparities in unmet needs, but these together explained less than 15% of the disparities. Similarly, about 20% of the Black-White gap in hospitalization resulted from disparities in underlying health and unemployment, whereas a higher proportion of non-adult cases or higher unemployment rates respectively proved the only significant pathways to partially explain transgender individuals’ disadvantages in unmet needs (12%) or hospitalization (6%). These findings highlight the importance of considering multiple dimensions of social differences in studying health disparities, the vulnerabilities of transgender and non-adult communities during the pandemic, and the valid yet quite limited roles of previously suggested sociodemographic factors in accounting for COVID-19-related categorical inequalities

Photo-induced proton gradients for the in vitro investigation of bacterial efflux pumps

We describe an original activity assay for membrane transport that uses the proton motive force-dependent efflux pump MexAB from Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This pump is co-reconstituted into proteoliposomes together with bacteriorhodopsin (BR), a light-activated proton pump. In this system, upon illumination with visible light, the photo-induced proton gradient created by the BR is shown to be coupled to the active transport of substrates through the pump

Abstract 2765: Evaluation of family history of cancer in first-degree relatives and increased cancer risk: A multinational study

Abstract Family history of cancer is a known risk factor for several of the more prevalent cancer types. However, familial aggregation of cancer may not follow the genetic linkage pattern seen with most inherited cancer syndromes. In these instances, clustering may be due to unknown hereditary genetic mutations or to an aggregation of environmental risk factors and such clustering may still confer a significant risk. We assessed the association between family history of cancer in first-degree relatives and cancer risk among 9,122 cancer cases and 76,537 controls in a multinational study. Analyses also included evaluation of breast, colon and prostate cancer risk associated with family history of these respective cancer types. Cases were verified by physician diagnosis and all study participants were administered an in-depth survey to ascertain various demographic and lifestyle factors as well as a complete family history of cancer among first-degree relatives. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the association between family history of cancer and cancer risk. Among all subjects, the odds ratio (OR) for individuals with a family history of cancer was 1.79 [95% confidence interval = 1.7-1.9] after adjusting for age, gender, BMI, smoking pack years and ethnicity. Additionally, a greater cancer risk was associated with increasing number of first-degree relatives with a history of cancer. Ethnic groups studied included Caucasian-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic/Latinas and Caucasian-Polish. All ethnic groups showed a significant association between family history of cancer and cancer risk with the highest adjusted OR of 2.65 [95% confidence interval = 2.0-3.6] among the Hispanic/Latina group. Further analyses indicated that family history of colon, breast and prostate cancer was significantly associated with an increased risk of these respective cancer types across studied ethnic groups. In particular, the adjusted ORs for breast, colon and prostate cancer risk in the Caucasian-Polish group were at least double the overall adjusted ORs for each cancer type. Our study shows that family history of cancer is a significant predictor of cancer risk especially among certain ethnic groups. In addition, family history of cancer can represent both a genetic predisposition and/or environmental exposure and risk associated with familial clustering of cancer. Citation Format: Laxmi Modali, Teresa A. Lehman, Ramakrishna Modali, Luke D. Ratnasinghe. Evaluation of family history of cancer in first-degree relatives and increased cancer risk: A multinational study. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 2765. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-2765</jats:p

Wearable Woven Electrochemical Biosensor Patch for Non-invasive Diagnostics

In this paper, we demonstrate a woven electrochemical biosensor patch as a low cost, robust wearable sensor for non-invasive diagnostics. The critical requirement for wearable sensors is their robustness which necessitates the output signal to be independent of the deformation that the sensor system could potentially undergo. In this work, the performance of woven electrode patch post standard deformations such as bending and twisting were analysed using chronoamperometric detection of lactate, a sweat borne analyte, as a model system. In spite of rigorous deformation, the CV was well within 13 %, indicating the applicability of woven electrode patch as a low cost, robust, wearable, non-invasive electrochemical biosensor platform

Performance and wake characteristics of a tidal turbine under yaw

In tidal streams and rivers, the flow of water can be at yaw to the turbine rotor plane causing performance degradation and a skewed downstream wake. The current study aims to quantify the performance variation and associated wake behavior caused by a tidal turbine operating in a yawed inflow environment. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics study was carried out using multiple reference frame approach using κ-ω SST turbulence model with curvature correction. The computations were validated by comparison with experimental results on a 1:20 scale prototype for a 0° yaw case performed in a laboratory flume. The simulations were performed using a three-bladed, constant chord, untwisted tidal turbine operating at uniform inflow. Yaw effects were observed for angles ranging from 5° to 15°. An increase in yaw over this range caused a power coefficient deficit of 26% and a thrust coefficient deficit of about 8% at a tip speed ratio of 5 that corresponds to the maximum power coefficient for the tested turbine. In addition, wake propagation was studied up to a downstream distance of ten rotor radius, and skewness in the wake, proportional to yaw angle was observed. At higher yaw angles, the flow around the turbine rotor was found to cushion the tip vortices, accelerating the interaction between the tip vortices and the skewed wake, thereby facilitating a faster wake recovery. The center of the wake was tracked using a center of mass technique. The center of wake analysis was used to better quantify the deviation of the wake with increasing yaw angle. It was observed that with an increase in yaw angle, the recovery distance moved closer to the rotor plane. The wake was noticed to meander around the turbine centerline with increasing downstream distance and slightly deviate towards the free surface above the turbine centerline, magnitude of which varied depending on yaw.</jats:p

Abstract 870: Physical activity, diet and ovarian cancer risk

Abstract Physical activity and diet are modifiable risk factors for most cancers. Previous studies of the association between physical activity, diet and ovarian cancer risk have yielded mixed results. We evaluated the association between physical activity, diet and ovarian cancer risk among 578 ovarian cancer cases and 7188 non-cancer controls in the Global Epidemiology Study (GES). The GES is linked to the Global Repository that houses biomaterial. For ovarian cancer, newly diagnosed subjects provided informed consent and were asked about physical activity and diet during in-person interviews. The multivariate-adjusted odds ratio (OR) was 0.6 (95% confidence interval (95% CI): 0.5-0.8) for women who reported physical activity greater than 160 minutes per week after adjusting for age, race, BMI and pack-years of smoking compared to women who reported less than 30 minutes of physical activity. Women who were in the highest tertile of vegetables consumers were at 20% reduced risk for ovarian cancer compared to the lowest tertile [OR:0.8, 95% CI: 0.6-0.9]. Individuals who were in the highest tertile of dairy consumers were at 40% reduced risk for ovarian cancer compared to the lowest tertile [OR: 0.6, 95% CI: 0.5-0.8]. For meat consumption, individuals who were in the highest tertile were at 60% increased risk for ovarian cancer compared to the lowest tertile [OR: 1.6, 95% CI: 1.3-2.0]. Results from our study suggest that physical activity and diet are modifiable risk factors for ovarian cancer. Citation Format: Teresa A. Lehman, Ramakrishna V. Modali, Luke Ratnasinghe. Physical activity, diet and ovarian cancer risk. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 870. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-870</jats:p

Abstract 3426: Recurrent breast cancer risk and physical activity

Abstract Introduction: Physical activity reduces the risk of breast cancer. However, the potential role of physical activity in recurrence of breast cancer is not well established. The aim of our study is to examine the association between physical activity and risk of recurrent breast cancer. Methods: Data was obtained from the Global Epidemiological Study (GES). The GES is an IRB approved multinational biorepository and database to assess cancer and other disease risk factors and biomarkers. In-person interviews of all subjects provided demographics, family-history and other disease related information including age, BMI, diet and physical activity. For statistical analyses, t-tests were used for continuous variables and chi-square tests for categorical variables. The association between recurrent breast cancer and physical activity was assessed using logistic regression in univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: From a total of 2435 breast cancer subjects 215 had recurrent breast cancer. The average age of subjects without recurrence was 55.62 years and those with breast cancer recurrence was 58.35 years. In univariate analysis, subjects in the highest tertile of physical activity were 39% less likely to have recurrent breast cancer compared to those who reported no physical activity [Odds Ratio: 0.61, 95% Confidence Interval: 0.40-0.93]. In multivariate analysis, subjects in the highest tertile of physical activity were 45% less likely to have recurrent breast cancer compared to those who reported no physical activity [Odds Ratio: 0.55, 95% Confidence Interval: 0.34-0.89] after adjusting for age, BMI and cancer-stage. A statistically significant dose-response for physical-activity and reduced risk of recurrent breast cancer was observed with a P-value for trend of 0.05. Conclusion: Our study suggests that physical activity reduces the risk of recurrence of breast cancer. Further studies with larger sample size are needed to confirm our findings. Citation Format: Teresa A. Lehman, Ramakrishna V. Modali, Luke D. Ratnasinghe. Recurrent breast cancer risk and physical activity. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 3426.</jats:p