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The Global Wind Atlas (GWA) provides high-resolution databases and maps of the wind resource for all land points and for water points within 200 km of the coastline, excluding Antarctica. The GWA is used to identify and understand the global, national, regional, and local potential for wind energy and to guide energy specialists, policymakers, and planners in the transition to a sustainable energy system. This information is vital to ensuring the growth of wind energy, helping to transition to a sustainable energy system, which will mitigate climate change and meet the world’s need for reliable, affordable, and clean energy. The GWA uses the established numerical wind atlas methodology to downscale coarse-resolution wind data to microscale, using linearized flow modeling and high-resolution topographic data. There have been three versions of the GWA, each using mesoscale model data at successively higher spatial resolution. A website and geographic information system (GIS) files support quick and in-depth analysis. Validation data and analysis, using measurements from tall masts located worldwide, are also provided through the web application. The development process of the GWA involves a dialogue between meteorological modelers, wind energy development experts, web designers, and representatives of the end users to provide accurate data in a dynamic and relevant way. This article outlines the general method, specific development, and application of the Global Wind Atlas.

This is the first of two papers that document the creation of the New European Wind Atlas (NEWA). It describes the sensitivity analysis and evaluation procedures that formed the basis for choosing the final setup of the mesoscale model simulations of the wind atlas. The suitable combination of model setup and parameterizations, bound by practical constraints, was found for simulating the climatology of the wind field at turbine-relevant heights with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Initial WRF model sensitivity experiments compared the wind climate generated by using two commonly used planetary boundary layer schemes and were carried out over several regions in Europe. They confirmed that the most significant differences in annual mean wind speed at 100 m a.g.l. (above ground level) mostly coincide with areas of high surface roughness length and not with the location of the domains or maximum wind speed. Then an ensemble of more than 50 simulations with different setups for a single year was carried out for one domain covering northern Europe for which tall mast observations were available. We varied many different parameters across the simulations, e.g. model version, forcing data, various physical parameterizations, and the size of the model domain. These simulations showed that although virtually every parameter change affects the results in some way, significant changes in the wind climate in the boundary layer are mostly due to using different physical parameterizations, especially the planetary boundary layer scheme, the representation of the land surface, and the prescribed surface roughness length. Also, the setup of the simulations, such as the integration length and the domain size, can considerably influence the results. We assessed the degree of similarity between winds simulated by the WRF ensemble members and the observations using a suite of metrics, including the Earth Mover's Distance (EMD), a statistic that measures the distance between two probability distributions. The EMD was used to diagnose the performance of each ensemble member using the full wind speed and direction distribution, which is essential for wind resource assessment. We identified the most realistic ensemble members to determine the most suitable configuration to be used in the final production run, which is fully described and evaluated in the second part of this study .

Background Synoptic circulation patterns (large-scale tropospheric motion systems) affect air pollution and, potentially, air-pollution-morbidity associations. We evaluated the effect of synoptic circulation patterns (air masses) on the association between ozone and hospital admissions for asthma and myocardial infarction (MI) among adults in North Carolina. Methods Daily surface meteorology data (including precipitation, wind speed, and dew point) for five selected cities in North Carolina were obtained from the U.S. EPA Air Quality System (AQS), which were in turn based on data from the National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We used the Spatial Synoptic Classification system to classify each day of the 9-year period from 1996 through 2004 into one of seven different air mass types: dry polar, dry moderate, dry tropical, moist polar, moist moderate, moist tropical, or transitional. Daily 24-hour maximum 1-hour ambient concentrations of ozone were obtained from the AQS. Asthma and MI hospital admissions data for the 9-year period were obtained from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Generalized linear models were used to assess the association of the hospitalizations with ozone concentrations and specific air mass types, using pollutant lags of 0 to 5 days. We examined the effect across cities on days with the same air mass type. In all models we adjusted for dew point and day-of-the-week effects related to hospital admissions. Results Ozone was associated with asthma under dry tropical (1- to 5-day lags), transitional (3- and 4-day lags), and extreme moist tropical (0-day lag) air masses. Ozone was associated with MI only under the extreme moist tropical (5-day lag) air masses. Conclusions Elevated ozone levels are associated with dry tropical, dry moderate, and moist tropical air masses, with the highest ozone levels being associated with the dry tropical air mass. Certain synoptic circulation patterns/air masses in conjunction with ambient ozone levels were associated with increased asthma and MI hospitalizations.

Natural Killer (NK) cells are innate immune cells that secrete lytic granules to directly kill virus-infected or transformed cells across an immune synapse. However, a major gap in understanding this process is in establishing how lytic granules pass through the mesh of cortical actin known to underlie the NK cell membrane. Research has been hampered by the resolution of conventional light microscopy, which is too low to resolve cortical actin during lytic granule secretion. Here we use two high-resolution imaging techniques to probe the synaptic organisation of NK cell receptors and filamentous (F)-actin. A combination of optical tweezers and live cell confocal microscopy reveals that microclusters of NKG2D assemble into a ring-shaped structure at the centre of intercellular synapses, where Vav1 and Grb2 also accumulate. Within this ring-shaped organisation of NK cell proteins, lytic granules accumulate for secretion. Using 3D-structured illumination microscopy (3D-SIM) to gain super-resolution of ~100 nm, cortical actin was detected in a central region of the NK cell synapse irrespective of whether activating or inhibitory signals dominate. Strikingly, the periodicity of the cortical actin mesh increased in specific domains at the synapse when the NK cell was activated. Two-colour super-resolution imaging revealed that lytic granules docked precisely in these domains which were also proximal to where the microtubule-organising centre (MTOC) polarised. Together, these data demonstrate that remodelling of the cortical actin mesh occurs at the central region of the cytolytic NK cell immune synapse. This is likely to occur for other types of cell secretion and also emphasises the importance of emerging super-resolution imaging technology for revealing new biology.

In men with metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer who were receiving testosterone suppression, the addition of enzalutamide led to significantly longer progression-free and overall survival than the addition of standard nonsteroidal antiandrogen therapy. The better outcome was less clear among patients who had received docetaxel.

THE WIVES of Cambodia's government troops are no strangers to warfare but remain ever ready to fight alongside their husbands when communist-led insurgents attack. The latest example of their heroism came at the beginning of...

An anti–SARS-CoV-2 antibody cocktail was given to patients within 3 days after PCR confirmation of Covid-19. In patients who were antibody-negative at baseline, treatment was associated with rapid viral clearance and potentially with a less frequent need for medical attention. The effect was less marked among patients who were antibody-positive at baseline.

Household contacts of persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 are at risk for infection. A single subcutaneous injection of two anti–SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibodies in such persons within 4 days after the detection of infection in a household contact reduced this risk by two thirds in the first 28 days after exposure.

This phase 3, placebo-controlled platform trial evaluated a single infusion of casirivimab and imdevimab (REGEN-COV) at 2400-mg and 1200-mg doses in outpatients with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. The incidence of Covid-19–related hospitalization was lower and recovery was faster among patients who received the antibody combination than among those who received placebo.

No currently available treatment is reported to reduce the exaggerated airway wall inflammation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We tested the hypothesis that inhaled combined long-acting beta2-agonist (salmeterol) and corticosteroid (fluticasone propionate) will reduce inflammation. Bronchial biopsies and induced sputum were taken from 140 current and former smokers (mean age, 64 yr) with moderate to severe disease, randomized in a 13-wk double-blind study to placebo (n = 73) or salmeterol/fluticasone propionate 50/500 microg (n = 67) twice daily. Biopsies were repeated at 12 wk and sputa at 8 and 13 wk. After adjustment for multiplicity, comparisons between active and placebo were made for median change from baseline in the numbers of biopsy CD8+ and CD68+ cells/mm2 and sputum neutrophils. Combination therapy was associated with a reduction in biopsy CD8+ cells of -118 cells/mm2 (95% confidence interval [CI], -209 to -42; p = 0.02), a reduction of 36% over placebo (p = 0.001). CD68+ cells were unaffected by combination treatment. Sputum differential (but not total) neutrophils reduced progressively and, at Week 13, significantly with combination treatment (median treatment difference, 8.5%; 95% CI, 1.75%-15.25%; p = 0.04). The combination also significantly reduced biopsy CD45+ and CD4+ cells and cells expressing genes for tumor necrosis factor-alpha and IFN-gamma and sputum total eosinophils (all p < or = 0.03). These antiinflammatory effects were accompanied by a 173-ml (95% CI, 104-242; p < 0.001) improvement in prebronchodilator FEV1. The combination of salmeterol and fluticasone propionate has a broad spectrum of antiinflammatory effects in both current and former smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which may contribute to clinical efficacy.