University of Hawaii at Manoa

About: University of Hawaii at Manoa is a education organization based out in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 13693 authors who have published 25161 publications receiving 1023924 citations.

GWAS meta-analysis and replication identifies three new susceptibility loci for ovarian cancer

Abstract: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified four susceptibility loci for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), with another two suggestive loci reaching near genome-wide significance. We pooled data from a GWAS conducted in North America with another GWAS from the UK. We selected the top 24,551 SNPs for inclusion on the iCOGS custom genotyping array. We performed follow-up genotyping in 18,174 individuals with EOC (cases) and 26,134 controls from 43 studies from the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium. We validated the two loci at 3q25 and 17q21 that were previously found to have associations close to genome-wide significance and identified three loci newly associated with risk: two loci associated with all EOC subtypes at 8q21 (rs11782652, P = 5.5 × 10(-9)) and 10p12 (rs1243180, P = 1.8 × 10(-8)) and another locus specific to the serous subtype at 17q12 (rs757210, P = 8.1 × 10(-10)). An integrated molecular analysis of genes and regulatory regions at these loci provided evidence for functional mechanisms underlying susceptibility and implicated CHMP4C in the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer.

Niño indices for two types of ENSO

Abstract: [1] El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which dominates variability on interannual timescale in the climate system, is known to exhibit various spatio-temporal characteristics. Recent studies show that in additional to a canonical El Nino with its major center of sea surface temperatures (SST) anomalies in the equatorial Pacific cold-tongue region, a different type of El Nino with its major action center shifted to the warm-pool edge has emerged and become more common during the past two decades. Because the SST patterns of these two types of El Nino events are highly correlated, neither of the traditional Nino3 and Nino4 SST indices alone is effective in representing the new-type El Nino. Through a simple transformation of the Nino3 and Nino4 indices, we devised two new indices that separately identify the two types of ENSO events. Unlike the Nino3 and Nino4 indices, the two new indices are of little simultaneous correlation. The SST patterns associated with these new indices capture SST characteristics of the two types of ENSO. Their running lagged-correlations capture different ENSO-phase propagations and ENSO regime changes associated with the climate shift in 1976/77.

Delayed upwelling alters nearshore coastal ocean ecosystems in the northern California current

Abstract: Wind-driven coastal ocean upwelling supplies nutrients to the euphotic zone near the coast. Nutrients fuel the growth of phytoplankton, the base of a very productive coastal marine ecosystem [Pauly D, Christensen V (1995) Nature 374:255–257]. Because nutrient supply and phytoplankton biomass in shelf waters are highly sensitive to variation in upwelling-driven circulation, shifts in the timing and strength of upwelling may alter basic nutrient and carbon fluxes through marine food webs. We show how a 1-month delay in the 2005 spring transition to upwelling-favorable wind stress in the northern California Current Large Marine Ecosystem resulted in numerous anomalies: warm water, low nutrient levels, low primary productivity, and an unprecedented low recruitment of rocky intertidal organisms. The delay was associated with 20- to 40-day wind oscillations accompanying a southward shift of the jet stream. Early in the upwelling season (May–July) off Oregon, the cumulative upwelling-favorable wind stress was the lowest in 20 years, nearshore surface waters averaged 2°C warmer than normal, surf-zone chlorophyll-a and nutrients were 50% and 30% less than normal, respectively, and densities of recruits of mussels and barnacles were reduced by 83% and 66%, respectively. Delayed early-season upwelling and stronger late-season upwelling are consistent with predictions of the influence of global warming on coastal upwelling regions.

Recent change of the global monsoon precipitation (1979–2008)

Abstract: The global monsoon (GM) is a defining feature of the annual variation of Earth’s climate system. Quantifying and understanding the present-day monsoon precipitation change are crucial for prediction of its future and reflection of its past. Here we show that regional monsoons are coordinated not only by external solar forcing but also by internal feedback processes such as El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). From one monsoon year (May to the next April) to the next, most continental monsoon regions, separated by vast areas of arid trade winds and deserts, vary in a cohesive manner driven by ENSO. The ENSO has tighter regulation on the northern hemisphere summer monsoon (NHSM) than on the southern hemisphere summer monsoon (SHSM). More notably, the GM precipitation (GMP) has intensified over the past three decades mainly due to the significant upward trend in NHSM. The intensification of the GMP originates primarily from an enhanced east–west thermal contrast in the Pacific Ocean, which is coupled with a rising pressure in the subtropical eastern Pacific and decreasing pressure over the Indo-Pacific warm pool. While this mechanism tends to amplify both the NHSM and SHSM, the stronger (weaker) warming trend in the NH (SH) creates a hemispheric thermal contrast, which favors intensification of the NHSM but weakens the SHSM. The enhanced Pacific zonal thermal contrast is largely a result of natural variability, whilst the enhanced hemispherical thermal contrast is likely due to anthropogenic forcing. We found that the enhanced global summer monsoon not only amplifies the annual cycle of tropical climate but also promotes directly a “wet-gets-wetter” trend pattern and indirectly a “dry-gets-drier” trend pattern through coupling with deserts and trade winds. The mechanisms recognized in this study suggest a way forward for understanding past and future changes of the GM in terms of its driven mechanisms.

The Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Early Release Science Data: Panchromatic Faint Object Counts for 0.2-2 μm Wavelength

Abstract: We describe the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) Early Release Science (ERS) observations in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) South field. The new WFC3 ERS data provide calibrated, drizzled mosaics in the UV filters F225W, F275W, and F336W, as well as in the near-IR filters F098M (Ys ), F125W (J), and F160W (H) with 1-2 HST orbits per filter. Together with the existing HST Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) GOODS-South mosaics in the BViz filters, these panchromatic 10-band ERS data cover 40-50 arcmin2 at 0.2-1.7 μm in wavelength at 007-015 FWHM resolution and 0090 Multidrizzled pixels to depths of AB 26.0-27.0 mag (5σ) for point sources, and AB 25.5-26.5 mag for compact galaxies. In this paper, we describe (1) the scientific rationale, and the data taking plus reduction procedures of the panchromatic 10-band ERS mosaics, (2) the procedure of generating object catalogs across the 10 different ERS filters, and the specific star-galaxy separation techniques used, and (3) the reliability and completeness of the object catalogs from the WFC3 ERS mosaics. The excellent 007-015 FWHM resolution of HST/WFC3 and ACS makes star-galaxy separation straightforward over a factor of 10 in wavelength to AB 25-26 mag from the UV to the near-IR, respectively. Our main results are: (1) proper motion of faint ERS stars is detected over 6 years at 3.06 ± 0.66 mas year–1 (4.6σ), consistent with Galactic structure models; (2) both the Galactic star counts and the galaxy counts show mild but significant trends of decreasing count slopes from the mid-UV to the near-IR over a factor of 10 in wavelength; (3) combining the 10-band ERS counts with the panchromatic Galaxy and Mass Assembly survey counts at the bright end (10 mag AB 20 mag) and the Hubble Ultra Deep Field counts in the BVizYsJH filters at the faint end (24 mag AB 30 mag) yields galaxy counts that are well measured over the entire flux range 10 mag AB 30 mag for 0.2-2 μm in wavelength; (4) simple luminosity+density evolution models can fit the galaxy counts over this entire flux range. However, no single model can explain the counts over this entire flux range in all 10 filters simultaneously. More sophisticated models of galaxy assembly are needed to reproduce the overall constraints provided by the current panchromatic galaxy counts for 10 mag AB 30 mag over a factor of 10 in wavelength.