The sGP (soluble GP) protein produced by Ebola virus (EBOV) is considered a key component in the pathogenesis of EBOV infections, but the exact function of sGP remains unknown. It is hypothesised that sGP may have many roles during the course of a EBOV infection, from restoring barrier functions of endothelial cells to modulating the immune response. Moreover, it is possible that sGP could also play a role in the control of bystander apoptosis in the host cell.
Located on 160 acres of cattle pasture and wheat fields southeast of Lamont, the SGP observatory is the first field measurement site established by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility. It is the world’s largest field laboratory for cloud, aerosol and atmospheric science. ARM scientists use data from the SGP to better understand atmospheric processes and their impacts on Earth’s climate.
In addition to measuring air temperature, humidity, and wind speed, the SGP observatory is equipped with advanced instruments that collect detailed information about clouds and aerosols, which can be used to improve global models of Earth’s atmosphere and its interaction with the sun. The observatory uses a combination of in situ and remote sensing instrument clusters to make observations across an area of approximately 9,000 square miles in central Oklahoma and south Kansas.
SGP data are made available through a web-based Data Discovery interface that allows scientists to access, manipulate and analyze data sets from anywhere in the world. Data Discovery enables the use of a variety of software tools for analyzing ARM observational data, from individual sensitivity analyses and multi-observation process studies to large-eddy simulation (LES) model data assimilation.
All ARM data are transmitted to the ARM Data Center and made freely available through Data Discovery. The SGP data are extensively analyzed by ARM staff and are used in atmospheric models to learn about complex cloud and aerosol processes that are not easily understood using single observations alone.
The SGP Observational Data sgpData is an open source software package that makes data from the ARM Southern Great Plains observatory easy to understand and manage. sgpData is designed to work with long format data, and higher level SGP analysis functions in the SGP package often assume the presence of state specific meta-data in the embedded SGPstateData meta-data. More comprehensive documentation on how to use sgpData for SGP analyses is provided in the SGP Data Analysis Vignette.