Analysis of teleconnections between AVHRR-based sea surface temperature and vegetation productivity in the semi-arid Sahel

Vegetation productivity across the Sahel is known to be affected by a variety of global sea surface temperature (SST) patterns. Often climate indices are used to relate Sahelian vegetation variability to large-scale ocean-atmosphere phenomena. However, previous research findings reporting on the Sahelian vegetation response to climate indices have been inconsistent and contradictory, which could partly be caused by the variations in spatial extent/definitions of climate indices and size of the region studied. The aim of this study was to analyze the linkage between climate indices, pixel-wise spatio-temporal patterns of global sea surface temperature and the Sahelian vegetation dynamics for 1982-2007. We stratified the Sahel into five subregions to account for the longitudinal variability in rainfall. We found significant correlations between climate indices and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in the Sahel, however with different magnitudes in terms of strength for the western, central and eastern Sahel. Also the correlations based on NDVI and global SST anomalies revealed the same East-West gradient, with a stronger association for the western than the eastern Sahel. Warmer than average SSTs throughout the Mediterranean basin seem to be associated with enhanced greenness over the central Sahel whereas colder than average SSTs in the Pacific and warmer than average SSTs in the eastern Atlantic were related to increased greenness in the most western Sahel. Accordingly, we achieved high correlations for SSTs of oceanic basins which are geographically associated to the climate indices yet by far not always these patterns were coherent. The detected SST-NDVI patterns could provide the basis to develop new means for improved forecasts in particular of the western Sahelian vegetation productivity.     

Modeling of oxygen mass transfer in the presence of oxygen-vectors using neural networks developed by differential evolution algorithm

The search capabilities of the Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm – a global optimization technique – make it suitable for finding both the architecture and the best internal parameters of a neural network, usually determined by the training phase. In this paper, two variants of the DE algorithm (classical DE and self-adaptive mechanism) were used to obtain the best neural networks in two distinct cases: for prediction and classification problems. Oxygen mass transfer in stirred bioreactors is modeled with neural networks developed with the DE algorithm, based on the consideration that the oxygen constitutes one of the decisive factors of cultivated microorganism growth and can play an important role in the scale-up and economy of aerobic biosynthesis systems. The coefficient of mass transfer oxygen is related to the viscosity, superficial speed of air, specific power, and oxygen-vector volumetric fraction (being predicted as function of these parameters) using stacked neural networks. On the other hand, simple neural networks are designed with DE in order to classify the values of the mass transfer coefficient oxygen into different classes. Satisfactory results are obtained in both cases, proving that the neural network based modeling is an appropriate technique and the DE algorithm is able to lead to the near-optimal neural network topology.     

Engineering Accessible Web Applications. An Aspect-Oriented Approach

The development of accessible Web software is complicated for several reasons. Though some of them are technological, the majority are related with the need to compose different and, many times, unrelated design concerns which may be functional as in the case of most of the specific application’s requirements, or non-functional such as Accessibility itself. In this paper, we present a novel approach to conceive, design and develop Accessible Web applications in an aspect-oriented manner. In order to reach our goal, we provide some modeling techniques that we specifically developed for handling the non-functional, generic and crosscutting characteristics of the Accessibility concerns. Specifically, we have enriched User Interaction Diagrams with integration points, which are used to reason and document Accessibility for activity modeling during user interface design. Then by instantiating a Softgoal Interdependency Graph template with association tables, we work on an abstract interface model (composed by ontology widgets) to obtain a concrete and accessible interface model for the Web application being developed. We use a real application example to illustrate our ideas and point out the advantages of a clear separation of concerns throughout the development life-cycle.     

Hydrogel containing adapalene- and dapsone-loaded lipid-core nanocapsules for cutaneous application: development,characterization, in vitro irritation and permeation studies

Lipid-core polymeric nanocapsule suspensions containing adapalene and dapsone (AD-LCNC) were developed and incorporated in a Carbopol 940® hydrogel (AD-LCNC HG). A nanoemulsion (AD-NE), similarly prepared but omitting the polymer, was developed and also incorporated in a Carbopol 940^® hydrogel (AD-NE HG) to evaluate the polymer effect. Physicochemical characteristics were evaluated. AD-LCNC suspensions containing 0.07% of dapsone and 0.025% of adapalene presented an average size of 194.9?±?0.42?nm, zeta potential of ?15?±?1.2?mV and polydispersity index of 0.12?±?0.02, using electrophoretic light scattering (n?=?3). The granulometric profiles showed unimodal size distributions for AD-LCNC suspensions, demonstrating that no microscopic population is present in the formulation. No instability phenomena were observed by multiple light-scattering analysis. Photomicrographs obtained by TEM showed homogeneous- and spherical-shaped particles. The encapsulation efficiency was 99.99% for dapsone and 100% for adapalene. The pH values for AD-LCNC suspensions were 5.1 and 7.6 for AD-LCNC HG. Formulations were classified as nonirritant in the HET-CAM test. Rheological analysis demonstrated a non-Newtonian pseudoplastic profile. The in vitro skin permeation studies showed a higher amount of adapalene in epidermis (130.52?±?25.72?ng/mg) and dermis (4.66?±?2.5?ng/mg) for AD-NE HG. The AD-LCNC HG presented higher amount of dapsone in both the skin layers (73.91?±?21.64?ng/mg in epidermis and 4.08?±?0.85?ng/mg in dermis). The assay showed significant difference between AD-LCNC HG and AD-NE HG (p?相似文献   

Distribution of arsenic compounds in Mytilus galloprovincialis of the Venice lagoon (Italy)

Samples of Mytilus galloprovincialis collected in different sites of the Venice lagoon (Italy) were investigated for total arsenic concentrations by ICP-AES and for single arsenic species by HPLC-ICP-MS. For this purpose, an analytical procedure for the sensitive and efficient speciation of the arsenic species As(III), As(V), monomethylarsonic acid (MMA), dimethylarsinic acid (DMA), arsenobetaine (AB), arsenocholine (AC), and four arsenosugars was optimised. The total arsenic and the single arsenic species were determined in both the hepatopancreas (digestive gland) and the remaining soft tissues in order to verify the different arsenic accumulation in the body parts of mussels. Arsenic compounds were extracted from the mussels with a methanol/water mixture; the extracts were evaporated to dryness, redissolved in water, and chromatographed in an anion-exchange column, a Hamilton PRP-X100. Only small quantities or traces of inorganic arsenic were detected in the mussels. The majority of arsenic compounds detected in the extracts were organic species, with a predominance of arsenobetaine and of an arsenosugar. In addition, a greater arsenic accumulation in the digestive glands of mussels was observed.     

Assessment of activated sludge viability with flow cytometry

The aim of the study was to evaluate the applicability of fluorescent dyes and multiparameter flow cytometry for the rapid and direct viability/activity assessment of activated sludge samples taken from wastewater treatment plants. Viability and activity of the biomass were estimated respectively through cellular membrane integrity, staining with SYBR Green I and Propidium Iodide, and through fluorogenic dyes capable of detecting enzymatic activity, as FDA and BCECF-AM. A procedure has been developed to disaggregate sludge flocs before dyes staining and cytometric analysis. The developed procedure allows a high recovery of bacteria with good accuracy and repeatability, and minimize the damage of the cells suspension obtained from the disaggregation of the flocs. These measurements were applied to estimate the two main parameters required to define the biological activated sludge process: the endogenous decay rate and the specific growth rate in exponential phase with high F/M ratio. Oxygen utilization rate measurements (OUR) were conducted to conventionally monitor the activity of the biomass. The preliminary data are encouraging and support the possibility to investigate bacteria dynamics on wastewater treatment plants.     

Technologies for the removal of phenol from fluid streams: a short review of recent developments

The available technologies for the abatement of phenol from water and gaseous streams are briefly reviewed, and the recent advancements summarized. Separation technologies such as distillation, liquid–liquid extraction with different solvents, adsorption over activated carbons and polymeric and inorganic adsorbents, membrane pervaporation and membrane–solvent extraction, have been discussed. Destruction technologies such as non-catalytic, supercritical and catalytic wet air oxidation, ozonation, non-catalytic, catalytic and enzymatic peroxide wet oxidation, electrochemical and photocatalytic oxidation, supercritical wet gasification, destruction with electron discharges as well as biochemical treatments have been considered. As for the abatement of phenol from gases, condensation, absorption in liquids, adsorption on solids, membrane separation, thermal, catalytic, photocatalytic and biological oxidation have also been considered. The experimental conditions and the performances of the different techniques have been compared.     

Cesium leaching from gamma-irradiated CsA and CsX zeolites

The present study discusses the effect of γ-irradiation on Cs⁺-exchanged X and A zeolites. The incorporation of Cs⁺ ions into A and X zeolites was performed using three different cesium salts (chloride, nitrate or acetate). Cs⁺ ions immobilized into the vitrified zeolites by thermal treatment are located in different sites of the zeolite networks. It is found that γ-irradiation favors cesium retention depending on the cesium precursor salt used in the cationic exchange step.