Ivo Angelov

BEO Moussala – A New Facility for Complex Environment Studies

The main areas of research at the Basic Environmental Observatory (BEO) Moussala, Rila Mountain, are the aerospace and terrestrial environment. The interactions between cosmic rays and Earth atmosphere, global change parameters and climate research, natural hazards and technological risks are the objectives of the investigations. Real-time measurements of basic parameters of space and atmosphere are carried out. The information is transmitted via a high frequency radio-telecommunication system to the Internet and is stored in a database for further analysis within GAW, EURDEP, EUSAAR and UNBSS international programmes. Ecotoxicological investigations are performed to study the mountain ecosystems. On-line data and detailed information about BEO Moussala are available at: http://beo-db.inrne.bas.bg

Identification and purification of novel serine/threonine messenger-independent growth-related protein kinase from lactating goat mammary gland

A second messenger-independent serine/threonine protein kinase from lactating goat mammary gland is purified and characterized. The purification steps include: homogenization, ultracentrifugation, ammonium sulphate precipitation, DEAE-Sepharose, phosphocellulose, hydrophobic and Mono Q columns. On the final step of purification the enzyme is revealed as a single band of mol wt 45,000 on silver-stained SDS-PAGE. Mg2+ and K+ are necessary for its optimum activity. Phosvitin and casein are substrates for the enzyme but kemptide, RRREEETEEE, protamine and histone mixture are all poorly phosphorylated. The kinase is inhibited by quercetin, heparin, random tyrosine- and glutamic acid-containing polymers, Ca2+, NaF, 2,3-bis-phosphoglycerate. 1 mM Mn2+ affects positively the basal level of the kinase activity but 5 mM Mn2+ completely suppress the effect of 10 mM Mg2+. Km of this enzyme for ATP is 1.57 microM and pH optimum is from 6 to 7. Isolation of this kinase is facilitated by its unusually high affinity for phosphocellulose.

Amplification of bacterial plasmids without blocking protein biosynthesis

The effect of amino acids (presence or absence from the growth media) and metal ions on the replication of Escherichia coli plasmids in rel A+ strains was studied. It was found that: (i) The absence of one amino acid from the growth media had no effect on the plasmid copy number in prototrophic E. coli strains: (ii) The presence of only one amino acid in artificial media free of amino acids had a negligible effect on the plasmid copy number for the amino acids Ala, Arg, Glu, His, Leu, Phe, Thr, Trp, and Tyr: (iii) The combination of Met and Thr caused a rise in pBR322 plasmid copy number up to 90-100 plasmid copies per cell: (iv) The Fe3+ concentration had an amplification effect on E. coli plasmids. The pBR322 plasmid copy number for media free of amino acids and supplemented with 0.2-0.4 mM FeCl3 was 60-80 plasmid copies per cell: (v) The combination of Fe3+ with certain amino acids (Ala, Arg, Glu, Leu, Thr, and Trp) leads to a dramatic increase in the plasmid copy number reaching 180-270 plasmid copies per cell for the plasmid pBR322 and 20-24 for the plasmid pR100.

BEO Moussala: Complex for Environmental Studies

The main areas of research at the Basic Environmental Observatory (BEO) Moussala, Rila Mountain, are the aerospace and terrestrial environment. The interactions between cosmic rays and the Earth’s atmosphere, global change parameters and climate research, and natural hazards and technological risks are the objectives of the investigations.

Change Point Analysis as a Tool to Detect Abrupt Cosmic Ray Muons Variations

Recently, there have been an increasing number of studies using Big Data. They rely on large data sets of time series to detect artificial or natural patterns in processes of natural sciences and economy. The most possible outcome due to lack of rigid data processing is data contamination with abrupt drifts and regime shifts. They yield either inclusion of undetected errors or missed detection of important observations and events. Possible automatic tools for detection of regime shifts could be delivered from change point statistical methods. However, a major drawback for the most of the currently available change point (CP) methods is the challenge of complex temporal variations in non-stationary natural processes like cosmic rays observed at Earth. This kind of data analysis is applied to experimentally acquired time series from cosmic ray measurements. The observed parameters are muons produced in cosmic ray cascades in atmosphere and acquired in parallel with atmospheric and other meta-data. In this study, we test different approaches for change point detection in compound particle counting process.

DETECTION OF CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS (CMEs) IN THE PERIOD OF MARCH-MAY 2012 AT MOUSSALA PEAK

A large number of geoeffective solar events were registered during the period of March–May 2012. The events were detected as Forbush effects due to Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) occurring in March–April 2012 and a rare Ground Level Enhancement (GLE) in May, produced by region NOAA 1476 moderately strong (GOES class M5.1) flare at 01:25 UT on 17 May 2012 [1]. The data from permanently operational Cherenkov-water telescope of Basic Environmental Observatory at Moussala are used for observation of those activities. The magnetic IMF disturbances and resulting Forbush decreases were registered with high level of confidence. However, the GLE event detection was not confirmed statistically. The inter-comparison between detector responses of those events is used for preliminary study of the future space weather investigations in the Basic Environmental Observatory at Moussala.