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- Baumgardner, D., et al.
(författare)
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Soot reference materials for instrument calibration and intercomparisons: a workshop summary with recommendations
- 2012
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1867-1381 .- 1867-8548. ; 5:8, s. 1869-1887
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Soot, which is produced from biomass burning and the incomplete combustion of fossil and biomass fuels, has been linked to regional and global climate change and to negative health problems. Scientists measure the properties of soot using a variety of methods in order to quantify source emissions and understand its atmospheric chemistry, reactivity under emission conditions, interaction with solar radiation, influence on clouds, and health impacts. A major obstacle currently limiting progress is the absence of established standards or reference materials for calibrating the many instruments used to measure the various properties of soot. The current state of availability and practicability of soot standard reference materials (SRMs) was reviewed by a group of 50 international experts during a workshop in June of 2011. The workshop was convened to summarize the current knowledge on soot measurement techniques, identify the measurement uncertainties and limitations related to the lack of soot SRMs, and identify attributes of SRMs that, if developed, would reduce measurement uncertainties. The workshop established that suitable SRMs are available for calibrating some, but not all, measurement methods. The community of users of the single-particle soot-photometer (SP2), an instrument using laser-induced incandescence, identified a suitable SRM, fullerene soot, but users of instruments that measure light absorption by soot collected on filters did not. Similarly, those who use thermal optical analysis (TOA) to analyze the organic and elemental carbon components of soot were not satisfied with current SRMs. The workshop, and subsequent, interactive discussions, produced a number of recommendations for the development of new SRMs, and their implementation, that would be suitable for the different soot measurement methods.
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- Cavalli, F., et al.
(författare)
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A European aerosol phenomenology-4 : Harmonized concentrations of carbonaceous aerosol at 10 regional background sites across Europe
- 2016
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 1352-2310 .- 1873-2844. ; 144, s. 133-145
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although particulate organic and elemental carbon (OC and EC) are important constituents of the suspended atmospheric particulate matter (PM), measurements of OC and EC are much less common and More uncertain than measurements of e.g. the ionic components of PM. In the framework of atmospheric research infrastructures supported by the European Union, actions have been undertaken to determine and mitigate sampling artefacts, and assess the comparability of OC and EC data obtained in a network of 10 atmospheric observatories across Europe. Positive sampling artefacts (from 0:4 to 2.8 mu g C/m(3)) and analytical discrepancies (between -50% and +40% for the EC/TC ratio) have been taken into account to generate a robust data set, from which we established the phenomenology of carbonaceous aerosols at regional background sites in Europe. Across the network, TC and EC annual average concentrations range from 0.4 to 9 mu g C/m(3), and from 0.1 to 2 mu g C/m(3), respectively. TC/PM10 annual mean ratios range from 0.11 at a Mediterranean site to 0.34 at the most polluted continental site, and TC/PM2.5 ratios are slightly greater at all sites (0.15-0.42). EC/TC annual mean ratios range from 0.10 to 0.22, and do not depend much on PM concentration levels, especially in winter. Seasonal variations in PM and TC concentrations, and in TC/PM and EC/TC ratios, differ across the network, which can be explained by seasonal changes in PM source contributions at some sites.
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- Yttri, K. E., et al.
(författare)
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Source apportionment of the summer time carbonaceous aerosol at Nordic rural background sites
- 2011
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 11:24, s. 13339-13357
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the present study, natural and anthropogenic sources of particulate organic carbon (OCp) and elemental carbon (EC) have been quantified based on weekly filter samples of PM10 (particles with aerodynamic diameter
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- Cavalli, F., et al.
(författare)
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Toward a standardised thermal-optical protocol for measuring atmospheric organic and elemental carbon: the EUSAAR protocol
- 2010
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1867-1381 .- 1867-8548. ; 3:1, s. 79-89
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Thermal-optical analysis is a conventional method for determining the carbonaceous aerosol fraction and for classifying it into organic carbon, OC, and elemental carbon, EC. Unfortunately, the different thermal evolution protocols in use can result in a wide elemental carbon-to-total carbon variation by up to a factor of five. In Europe, there is currently no standard procedure for determining the carbonaceous aerosol fraction which implies that data from different laboratories at various sites are of unknown accuracy and cannot be considered comparable. In the framework of the EU-project EUSAAR (European Supersites for Atmospheric Aerosol Research), a comprehensive study has been carried out to identify the causes of differences in the EC measured using different thermal evolution protocols; thereby the major positive and negative biases affecting thermal-optical analysis have been isolated and minimised to define an optimised protocol suitable for European aerosols. Our approach to improve the accuracy of the discrimination between OC and EC was essentially based on four goals. Firstly, charring corrections rely on faulty assumptions - e.g. pyrolytic carbon is considered to evolve completely before native EC throughout the analysis -, thus we have reduced pyrolysis to a minimum by favoring volatilisation of OC. Secondly, we have minimised the potential negative bias in EC determination due to early evolution of light absorbing carbon species at higher temperatures in the He-mode, including both native EC and combinations of native EC and pyrolytic carbon potentially with different specific attenuation cross section values. Thirdly, we have minimised the potential positive bias in EC determination resulting from the incomplete evolution of OC during the He-mode which then evolves during the He/O-2-mode, potentially after the split point. Finally, we have minimised the uncertainty due to the position of the OC/EC split point on the FID response profile by introducing multiple desorption steps in the He/O-2-mode. Based on different types of carbonaceous PMencountered across Europe, we have defined an optimised thermal evolution protocol, the EUSAAR_2 protocol, as follows: step 1 in He, 200 degrees C for 120 s; step 2 in He 300 degrees C for 150 s; step 3 in He 450 degrees C for 180 s; step 4 in He 650 degrees C for 180 s. For steps 1-4 in He/O-2, the conditions are 500 degrees C for 120 s, 550 degrees C for 120 s, 700 degrees C for 70 s, and 850 degrees C for 80 s, respectively.
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- Genberg, Jenny, et al.
(författare)
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Indications and patterns of use of benzodiazepines and opioids in severe interstitial lung disease : a population based longitudinal study
- 2021
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Ingår i: ERJ Open Research. - : European Respiratory Society. - 2312-0541. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Despite evidence that opioids might relieve chronic breathlessness, physicians may still be reluctant to prescribe them due to safety concerns. By contrast, benzodiazepine (BDZ) prescribing often seeks to reduce chronic breathlessness despite no evidence of net benefit. Prescribing patterns and indications for these medications in severe interstitial lung disease (ILD) are unknown. Here, our objective was to evaluate the indications, medications and temporal patterns of BDZ and opioid prescriptions in people with oxygen-dependent ILD.Methods: This was an observational, population-based, longitudinal study of adults starting long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) for ILD between 2005 and 2014 in the Swedish National Registry for Respiratory Failure (Swedevox). People dispensed BDZs (n=2000) and opioids (n=2000) from 6 months before start of LTOT throughout follow-up (first of death or study end) were analysed.Results: Of 1635 included patients, 651 (39.8%) received BDZs and 710 (43.4%) received opioids during the study period; 373 (22.8%) patients received both. The most frequently prescribed BDZs and opioids were oxazepam (85.6%) and oxycodone (28.7%), respectively. Indications for breathlessness were uncommon for BDZs (1.4%) and opioids (6.4%). During the last year of life, opioid indications for breathlessness increased from 2.5% (12-10 months before death) to 10.2% in the last 3 months of life (p=0.048).Conclusions: In oxygen-dependent ILD, opioids are rarely prescribed for breathlessness even in the last months of life, when chronic breathlessness often increases in prevalence and intensity.
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- Genberg, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Light-absorbing carbon in Europe - measurement and modelling, with a focus on residential wood combustion emissions
- 2013
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 13:17, s. 8719-8738
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The atmospheric concentration of elemental carbon (EC) in Europe during the six-year period 2005-2010 has been simulated with the EMEP MSC-W model. The model bias compared to EC measurements was less than 20% for most of the examined sites. The model results suggest that fossil fuel combustion is the dominant source of EC in most of Europe but that there are important contributions also from residential wood burning during the cold seasons and, during certain episodes, also from open biomass burning (wildfires and agricultural fires). The modelled contributions from open biomass fires to ground level concentrations of EC were small at the sites included in the present study, <3% of the long-term average of EC in PM10. The modelling of this EC source is subject to many uncertainties, and it was likely underestimated for some episodes. EC measurements and modelled EC were also compared to optical measurements of black carbon (BC). The relationships between EC and BC (as given by mass absorption cross section, MAC, values) differed widely between the sites, and the correlation between observed EC and BC is sometimes poor, making it difficult to compare results using the two techniques and limiting the comparability of BC measurements to model EC results. A new bottom-up emission inventory for carbonaceous aerosol from residential wood combustion has been applied. For some countries the new inventory has substantially different EC emissions compared to earlier estimates. For northern Europe the most significant changes are much lower emissions in Norway and higher emissions in neighbouring Sweden and Finland. For Norway and Sweden, comparisons to source-apportionment data from winter campaigns indicate that the new inventory may improve model-calculated EC from wood burning. Finally, three different model setups were tested with variable atmospheric lifetimes of EC in order to evaluate the model sensitivity to the assumptions regarding hygroscopicity and atmospheric ageing of EC. The standard ageing scheme leads to a rapid transformation of the emitted hydrophobic EC to hygroscopic particles, and generates similar results when assuming that all EC is aged at the point of emission. Assuming hydrophobic emissions and no ageing leads to higher EC concentrations. For the more remote sites, the observed EC concentration was in between the modelled EC using standard ageing and the scenario treating EC as hydrophobic. This could indicate too-rapid EC ageing in the model in relatively clean parts of the atmosphere.
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