Deriving land surface temperature from Landsat 5 and 7 during SMEX02/SMACEX

A sequence of five high-resolution satellite-based land surface temperature (T_s) images over a watershed area in Iowa were analyzed. As a part of the SMEX02 field experiment, these land surface temperature images were extracted from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) thermal bands. The radiative transfer model MODTRAN 4.1 was used with atmospheric profile data to atmospherically correct the Landsat data. NDVI derived from Landsat visible and near-infrared bands was used to estimate fractional vegetation cover, which in turn was used to estimate emissivity for Landsat thermal bands. The estimated brightness temperature was compared with concurrent tower based measurements. The mean absolute difference (MAD) between the satellite-based brightness temperature estimates and the tower based brightness temperature was 0.98 °C for Landsat 7 and 1.47 °C for Landsat 5, respectively. Based on these images, the land surface temperature spatial variation and its change with scale are addressed. The scaling properties of the surface temperature are important as they have significant implications for changes in land surface flux estimation between higher-resolution Landsat and regional to global sensors such as MODIS.     

Wave propagation in delaminated beam

The wave propagation model investigated herein is based on the known fact that material discontinuities affect the propagation of elastic waves in solids. The change in certain material characteristics, such as a local change in stiffness or inertia caused by a crack or the presence of material damage, will affect the propagation of transmitted elastic waves and will modify the received signal. Wave frequencies associated with the highest detection sensitivity depend, among other things, on the type of structure, the type of material, and the type of damage. This paper presents a method of wave propagation, which can be further used to detect small delaminations in beam-like structures. The considered beam is modelled by spectral finite elements.     

The Effects of Process Characteristics on the Value of B2B E-Procurement

Even as more organizations are moving towards implementing Web-based B2B procurement solutions, they are unsure of the real benefits of the Web. In other words, what is the value of B2B e-procurement to an organization and how to measure this value? What factors affect this value? In this paper, we discuss an evaluation framework to determine the value of B2B e-procurement and the effect of process characteristics on the value. We use an empirical study to highlight the different value created by different procurement types. We then develop a more comprehensive economic model to capture the additional effects of demand volume and process complexity. The integration of theoretical and empirical approaches provides a strong foundation to develop and evaluate useful adoption strategies for B2B e-procurement.     

Electronic trading and the process of globalization in traditional futures exchanges: a temporal perspective

This paper develops a temporal perspective to examine information and communication technologies (ICT) adoption and processes of globalization. The foundations of our theoretical approach explicitly draw upon three intersecting planes of temporality implicit in structuration; namely reversibility, irreversibility and institutionalization. We further develop our theoretical perspective by extending the scope of structuration to incorporate temporal features of Adam's social theory on ‘global time’. We then use this temporal perspective to examine the emergence of electronic trading and the process of globalization across London and Chicago futures exchanges. Our analysis provides insights into the IT-enabled reconfiguration of these exchanges during processes of reproduction and change associated with globalization. We conclude with some key implications for e-trading strategy and consider changes in trader work life associated with the adoption of e-trading.     

Kinetic and dynamic Delaunay tetrahedralizations in three dimensions

We describe algorithms to implement fully dynamic and kinetic three-dimensional unconstrained Delaunay triangulations, where the time evolution of the triangulation is not only governed by moving vertices but also by a changing number of vertices. We use three-dimensional simplex flip algorithms, a stochastic visibility walk algorithm for point location and in addition, we propose a new simple method of deleting vertices from an existing three-dimensional Delaunay triangulation while maintaining the Delaunay property. As an example, we analyse the performance in various cases of practical relevance. The dual Dirichlet tessellation can be used to solve differential equations on an irregular grid, to define partitions in cell tissue simulations, for collision detection etc.     

Anomalous wear behavior of MoS2 films in moderate vacuum and dry nitrogen

440C steel thrust ball bearing races lubricated with 1 m thick sputtered films of MoS₂ were tested in the unidirectional and oscillatory modes against bare steel balls in moderate (10^–4–10^–5 Pa 10^–6–10^–7 Torr) vacuum and in 1 atmosphere of 99.999% pure ( 1 ppm water) N₂ in the same unbaked environmental chamber. Over 90% of the residual gases in the chamber vacuum consisted of H₂O vapor. The bearings operated in N₂ showed substantially longer lives compared to the specimens tested in vacuum. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) tribometry was also performed on an MoS₂ film powder-burnished onto a 440C flat. This flat was repeatedly oscillated against bare, hemispherical-tipped 440C pins on fresh wear tracks in the same type of N₂ and column vacuum of ~10^–3 Pa 10^–5 Torr itself containing over 90% residual H₂O. The SEM-generated results on the burnished film confirmed the same, atmosphere-dependent difference in wear life observed with the sputtered layers. Varying the moisture content of the burnished flat and its immediate environment by cryosorption predictably manipulated the coefficient of friction and wear life of MoS₂. The various possible causes of this perplexing phenomenon are reviewed, and a plausible hypothesis is offered attributing the unexpected wear life reduction to the physico-chemical consequences of residual H₂O hydrogen-bonding to the oxidized and/or hydrated edge and basal plane sites of MoS₂ in moderate vacuum. The site-specific sorption of water is severely hindered in 1 atm N₂ by the gas molecules disrupting the H-bonding mechanism.     

Phototoxicity and fluorotoxicity combine to alter the behavior of neutrophils in fluorescence microscopy based flow adhesion assays

The use of fluorescent probes that allow visualization of leukocyte-endothelial cell (EC) interactions has greatly informed our understanding of leukocyte recruitment. However, effects of these agents on the biological functions of leukocytes are poorly described, leading to concerns about the interpretation of such data. Here we used two flow-based neutrophil adhesion assays to compare the effects of phase contrast illumination (PCI) with high intensity illumination (HII) used for fluorescent microscopy, in the presence or absence of five commonly used fluorochromes. Isolated neutrophils were either (1) perfused across P-selectin to establish a population of rolling cells, which were subsequently activated with fMLP; or (2) perfused across EC activated with TNF-alpha. In the absence of fluorescent dyes, HII did not affect levels of leukocyte adhesion; however, subsequent neutrophil behavior was dramatically altered when compared with cells under PCI, for example, dramatically reducing their migration velocities. In the presence of fluorescent dyes, the effects of HII were exacerbated, although the precise nature of the biological effects of these probes was agent specific. Thus, for the first time, our experiments describe the effects of fluorescent microscopy on the separate stages of the neutrophil recruitment process and reveal a previously unsuspected effect of HII on neutrophil migration.     

Structural insights into Alzheimer filament assembly pathways based on site-directed mutagenesis and S-glutathionylation of three-repeat neuronal Tau protein

Although Tau and MAP2 readily assemble into straight filaments (SFs), Tau's unique ability to form paired-helical filaments (PHFs) may offer clues as to why Tau's microtubule-binding region (MTBR) is the exclusive building block of the neurofibrillary tangles that accumulate during Alzheimer's disease. To learn more about the factors permitting Tau to form both SFs and PHFs, we investigated the microtubule binding, thiol oxidation, and polymerization reactions of the monomer and dimer forms of Tau and MAP2 MTBRs. This review focuses on electron microscopic evidence (1) that facilitated the identification of amino acid residues within 3-repeat Tau that promote PHF formation; and (2) provided experimental evidence for the polymerization of S-glutathionylated three-repeat Tau, a reaction that unambiguously demonstrates that disulfide-linked Tau-S-S-Tau dimer formation is not a compulsory step in filament assembly. We also consider these findings within the context of current views on the genetic and biochemical basis of Tau fibrillogenesis.     

Application of confocal laser scanning microscopy to analysis of H2O2-induced DNA damage in human cells

Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) offers improved depth discrimination and spatial resolution to the analysis of biologic samples. We demonstrate in this paper that such technology is valuable in examining DNA single-strand breaks in human cells. The single-cell-gel (SCG) assay is a new technique for measuring DNA strand breaks in individual cells. Cells embedded in lowmelting-point agarose are treated with varying concentrations of hydrogen peroxide to induce DNA strand breaks. Following cell lysis and alkaline electrophoresis, which enables single-stranded break detection, analysis of the resulting “comets” provides an accurate method of comparing changes in DNA migration patterns, which have been shown to reflect the DNA damage levels. A statistically significant difference (p < 0.01) in single-stranded DNA damage levels was detected in cells exposed to hydrogen peroxide concentrations as low as 10 nm for 2 min. LSM analysis of the SCG technique allows rapid, sensitive and reproducible quantitation of single-stranded breaks of cellular DNA.