Academia Sinica

About: Academia Sinica is a facility organization based out in Taipei, Taiwan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 52086 authors who have published 65998 publications receiving 1728114 citations. The organization is also known as: Central Research Academy.

Amplified trace gas removal in the troposphere.

Abstract: The degradation of trace gases and pollutants in the troposphere is dominated by their reaction with hydroxyl radicals (OH). The importance of OH rests on its high reactivity, its ubiquitous photochemical production in the sunlit atmosphere, and most importantly on its regeneration in the oxidation chain of the trace gases. In the current understanding, the recycling of OH proceeds through HO2 reacting with NO, thereby forming ozone. A recent field campaign in the Pearl River Delta, China, quantified tropospheric OH and HO2 concentrations and turnover rates by direct measurements. We report that concentrations of OH were three to five times greater than expected, and we propose the existence of a pathway for the regeneration of OH independent of NO, which amplifies the degradation of pollutants without producing ozone.

Improved luminosity determination in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Abstract: The luminosity calibration for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV in 2010 and 2011 is presented. Evaluation of the luminosity scale is performed using several luminosity-sensitive detectors, and comparisons are made of the long-term stability and accuracy of this calibration applied to the pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV. A luminosity uncertainty of delta L/L = +/- 3.5 % is obtained for the 47 pb(-1) of data delivered to ATLAS in 2010, and an uncertainty of delta L/L = +/- 1.8 % is obtained for the 5.5 fb(-1) delivered in 2011.

Detection of baculovirus associated with white spot syndrome (WSBV) in penaeid shrimps using polymerase chain reaction

Abstract: White spot syndrome associated baculovlrus (WSBV) is the causative agent of a dlsease which has recently caused high shrimp mortahties and severe damage to shrimp cultures. In thls study, a strain of WSBV from black tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon was used to develop a diagnostlc tool for the detection of WSBV and related agent lnfect~ons in shnmp The vlnons were punfied from P monodon Infected with LVSBV V~ral genomlc DNA was extracted from purlfled vinons by treatlng the vlnons th proteinase K dnd cetyltnmethylammonium bromlde (CTAB) followed by phenol-chloroform extraction and ethanol precipitation A qualitative assessment Ivas performed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analys~s on the viral DNA and primers specif~c to shrimp genomic DNA in order to mon~ t o r shrimp DNA contamination In the viral genomic DNA preparations A WSBV genomlc DNA llbrary was constructed and based upon the sequence of the cloned WSBV DNA fragment, we deslgned a LVSBV-specific prlmer set for PCR to detect WSBV Infection in penaeld shrimp Samples which contained WSBV DNA yielded an evident ampl~f~cat lon product showing the expected moblllty of a 1447-bp DNA fragment whereas nuc le~c aclds extracted from tissue samples of clln~cally healthy shnmp showed no such DNA fragment, thereby confirming the speclficity of our pnmers By PCR with thls prlmer set, ~t was demonstrated that the causative agents of white spot syndrome in different shnmp specles are closely related An effective diagnostlc tool is thus provided for screening shnmp for \.VSBV infections, and may be important In preventing the further spread of this d~sease

Planck 2013 results. XV. CMB power spectra and likelihood

Abstract: This paper presents the Planck 2013 likelihood, a complete statistical description of the two-point correlation function of the CMB temperature fluctuations that accounts for all known relevant uncertainties, both instrumental and astrophysical in nature. We use this likelihood to derive our best estimate of the CMB angular power spectrum from Planck over three decades in multipole moment, l, covering 2 ≤ l ≤ 2500. The main source of uncertainty at l ≲ 1500 is cosmic variance. Uncertainties in small-scale foreground modelling and instrumental noise dominate the error budget at higher ls. For l < 50, our likelihood exploits all Planck frequency channels from 30 to 353 GHz, separating the cosmological CMB signal from diffuse Galactic foregrounds through a physically motivated Bayesian component separation technique. At l ≥ 50, we employ a correlated Gaussian likelihood approximation based on a fine-grained set of angular cross-spectra derived from multiple detector combinations between the 100, 143, and 217 GHz frequency channels, marginalising over power spectrum foreground templates. We validate our likelihood through an extensive suite of consistency tests, and assess the impact of residual foreground and instrumental uncertainties on the final cosmological parameters. We find good internal agreement among the high-l cross-spectra with residuals below a few μK2 at l ≲ 1000, in agreement with estimated calibration uncertainties. We compare our results with foreground-cleaned CMB maps derived from all Planck frequencies, as well as with cross-spectra derived from the 70 GHz Planck map, and find broad agreement in terms of spectrum residuals and cosmological parameters. We further show that the best-fit ΛCDM cosmology is in excellent agreement with preliminary PlanckEE and TE polarisation spectra. We find that the standard ΛCDM cosmology is well constrained by Planck from the measurements at l ≲ 1500. One specific example is the spectral index of scalar perturbations, for which we report a 5.4σ deviation from scale invariance, ns = 1. Increasing the multipole range beyond l ≃ 1500 does not increase our accuracy for the ΛCDM parameters, but instead allows us to study extensions beyond the standard model. We find no indication of significant departures from the ΛCDM framework. Finally, we report a tension between the Planck best-fit ΛCDM model and the low-l spectrum in the form of a power deficit of 5–10% at l ≲ 40, with a statistical significance of 2.5–3σ. Without a theoretically motivated model for this power deficit, we do not elaborate further on its cosmological implications, but note that this is our most puzzling finding in an otherwise remarkably consistent data set.