[1] We characterized the gas-and speciated aerosol-phase emissions from the open combustion of 33 different plant species during a series of 255 controlled laboratory burns during the Fire Laboratory at Missoula Experiments (FLAME). The plant species we tested were chosen to improve the existing database for U.S. domestic fuels: laboratory-based emission factors have not previously been reported for many commonly burned species that are frequently consumed by fires near populated regions and protected scenic areas. The plants we tested included the chaparral species chamise, manzanita, and ceanothus, and species common to the southeastern United States (common reed, hickory, kudzu, needlegrass rush, rhododendron, cord grass, sawgrass, titi, and wax myrtle). Fire-integrated emission factors for gas-phase CO 2 , CO, CH 4 , C 2 -4 hydrocarbons, NH 3 , SO 2 , NO, NO 2 , HNO 3 , and particle-phase organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), SO 4 2À , NO 3 À , Cl À , Na + , K + , and NH 4 + generally varied with both fuel type and with the fire-integrated modified combustion efficiency (MCE), a measure of the relative importance of flaming-and smoldering-phase combustion to the total emissions during the burn. Chaparral fuels tended to emit less particulate OC per unit mass of dry fuel than did other fuel types, whereas southeastern species had some of the largest observed emission factors for total fine particulate matter. Our measurements spanned a larger range of MCE than prior studies, and thus help to improve estimates of the variation of emissions with combustion conditions for individual fuels.

In a single academic medical center study, implementation of a tele-ICU intervention was associated with reduced adjusted odds of mortality and reduced hospital length of stay, as well as with changes in best practice adherence and lower rates of preventable complications.

Alterations in GABAergic mRNA expression play a key role for prefrontal dysfunction in schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental disease. Here, we show that histone H3-lysine 4 methylation, a chromatin mark associated with the transcriptional process, progressively increased at GAD1 and other GABAergic gene promoters (GAD2, NPY, SST) in human prefrontal cortex (PFC) from prenatal to peripubertal ages and throughout adulthood. Alterations in schizophrenia included decreased GAD1 expression and H3K4-trimethylation, predominantly in females and in conjunction with a risk haplotype at the 5Ј end of GAD1. Heterozygosity for a truncated, lacZ knock-in allele of mixed-lineage leukemia 1 (Mll1), a histone methyltransferase expressed in GABAergic and other cortical neurons, resulted in decreased H3K4 methylation at GABAergic gene promoters. In contrast, Gad1 H3K4 (tri)methylation and Mll1 occupancy was increased in cerebral cortex of mice after treatment with the atypical antipsychotic, clozapine. These effects were not mimicked by haloperidol or genetic ablation of dopamine D 2 and D 3 receptors, suggesting that blockade of D 2 -like signaling is not sufficient for clozapine-induced histone methylation. Therefore, chromatin remodeling mechanisms at GABAergic gene promoters, including MLL1-mediated histone methylation, operate throughout an extended period of normal human PFC development and play a role in the neurobiology of schizophrenia.

DNA replication initiates at discrete origins along eukaryotic chromosomes. However, in most organisms, origin firing is not efficient; a specific origin will fire in some but not all cell cycles. This observation raises the question of how individual origins are selected to fire and whether origin firing is globally coordinated to ensure an even distribution of replication initiation across the genome. We have addressed these questions by determining the location of firing origins on individual fission yeast DNA molecules using DNA combing. We show that the firing of replication origins is stochastic, leading to a random distribution of replication initiation. Furthermore, origin firing is independent between cell cycles; there is no epigenetic mechanism causing an origin that fires in one cell cycle to preferentially fire in the next. Thus, the fission yeast strategy for the initiation of replication is different from models of eukaryotic replication that propose coordinated origin firing. INTRODUCTIONEukaryotic DNA replication begins at discrete origins distributed along chromosomes. Although much progress has been made in understanding the mechanisms that establish and activate individual origins, the manner in which origin firing is coordinately regulated spatially along the chromosomes and temporally throughout S phase remains unclear (Kelly and Brown, 2000;Gilbert, 2001;Schwob, 2004). These questions are of particular interest because in most cases origin firing is not efficient; that is, a particular origin will fire in only a fraction of cell cycles. The observation that origins do not fire in every cell cycle raises the question of how individual origins are selected to fire and if that selection is distributed in a coordinated manner. In the absence of such coordination, origin firing would be randomly distributed, leading to the random gap problem; some cells would have large gaps between origin firing that would take a long time to replicate (Lucas et al., 2000;Herrick et al., 2002;Hyrien et al., 2003;Jun et al., 2004). Simple models of replication kinetics predict that if replication origins are randomly distributed, ϳ5% of the cells will have such large gaps between active origins that they will take four times longer than average to replicate (see Materials and Methods for calculations). Alternatively, cells could have a mechanism that evenly distributes origin firing across the genome; they would thus avoid the random gap problem, and replication would be efficient. Models for such mechanisms have been proposed; for instance, origins within specific clusters could be selected to fire, or active origins could suppress their neighbors by lateral inhibition (Mesner et al., 2003;Shechter and Gautier, 2005). However, little direct evidence exists to either support or refute these models.Origin structure and function has been well characterized in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Kelly and Brown, 2000;Gilbert, 2001). Budding yeast have small (ϳ100 base pairs) origins characterized by a 17-b...

[1] Forty-four small-scale experimental fires were conducted in a combustion chamber to examine the relationship between biomass consumption, smoke production, convective energy release, and middle infrared (MIR) measurements of fire radiative energy (FRE). Fuel bed weights, trace gas and aerosol particle concentrations, stack flow rate and temperature, and concurrent thermal images were collected during laboratory-controlled burns of vegetative fuels. Using two different MIR thermal imaging systems, measurements of FRE taken at polar angles of ff48°and ff60°were found not to be significantly different from each other (p < 0.05), but were significantly different from those obtained at ff76°. A simple linear regression revealed that less than 12% of the variation in biomass consumption remained unexplained by the measured FRE regardless of MIR sensor characteristics, fuel type, or viewing angle. Measurements of FRE detected per unit of dry organic material consumed ranged from 1.29 to 4.18 MJ/kg, corresponding to an average of 12 ± 3% of the higher heating value of the biomass. Whole-fire emission factors agreed with previously reported values, and emission ratios relating total mass production to FRE were determined for CO 2 , CO, NO, NO 2 , and particulate matter less than 2.5 mm in aerodynamic diameter. A heat balance performed on the system showed that the release of convective energy could be predicted from a measurement of FRE (r 2 ! 0.84), and together these two modes of heat transfer accounted for 61 ± 13% of the total, potential heat of combustion available in the preburn solid fuel.Citation: Freeborn, P. H., M. J. Wooster, W. M. Hao, C. A. Ryan, B. L. Nordgren, S. P. Baker, and C. Ichoku (2008), Relationships between energy release, fuel mass loss, and trace gas and aerosol emissions during laboratory biomass fires,