A pilot study of the efficacy of residuum lodges for managing sediment delivery to impoundment reservoirs

Residuum lodges comprise small dams constructed on feeder streams immediately before they enter a reservoir, behind which ponds form, where sediment is deposited. Despite their construction on many impoundment reservoirs (IRE) and catchwaters, little research has previously investigated their efficacy at removing sediments from feeder streams. The current pilot study has, therefore, been carried out at an IRE supplying Halifax, West Yorkshire, UK, where a residuum lodge was recently cleaned out. Sediment concentrations reaching the reservoir were reduced by up to 42% although no certain impacts were noted on the other water quality variables that were measured. Moreover, it was found that the clearance operation did not result in the release of excessive quantities of sediment into the reservoir. It was estimated that the cleared residuum lodge would take 12 years to refill. A survey of other residuum lodges in the Yorkshire region showed there to be considerable differences in their remaining capacities.     

Fall diet and bathymetric distribution of deepwater sculpin (Myoxocephalus thompsonii) in Lake Huron

Deepwater sculpin Myoxocephalus thompsonii are an important component of Great Lake's offshore benthic food webs. Recent declines in deepwater sculpin abundance and changes in bathymetric distribution may be associated with changes in the deepwater food web of Lake Huron, particularly, decreased abundance of benthic invertebrates such as Diporeia. To assess how deepwater sculpins have responded to recent changes, we examined a fifteen-year time series of spatial and temporal patterns in abundance as well as the diets of fish collected in bottom trawls during fall of 2003, 2004, and 2005. During 1992–2007, deepwater sculpin abundance declined on a lake-wide scale but the decline in abundance at shallower depths and in the southern portion of Lake Huron was more pronounced. Of the 534 fish examined for diet analysis, 97% had food in the stomach. Mysis, Diporeia, and Chironomidae were consumed frequently, while sphaerid clams, ostracods, fish eggs, and small fish were found in only low numbers. We found an inverse relationship between prevalence of Mysis and Diporeia in diets that reflected geographic and temporal trends in abundance of these invertebrates in Lake Huron. Because deepwater sculpins are an important trophic link in offshore benthic food webs, declines in population abundance and changes in distribution may cascade throughout the food web and impede fish community restoration goals.     

Influence of Amorphous Grain Boundary Phases on the Superplastic Behavior of 3-mol%-Yttria-Stabilized Tetragonal Zirconia Polycrystals (3Y-TZP)

Amorphous silicate grain boundary phases of varying chemistry and amounts were added to 3Y-TZP in order to determine their influence on the superplastic behavior between 1200° and 1300°C and on the room-temperature mechanical properties. Strain rate enhancement at high temperatures was observed in 3Y-TZP containing a glassy grain boundary phase, even with as little as 0.1 wt% glass. Strain rate enhancement was greatest in 3Y-TZP with 5 wt% glass, but the room-temperature hardness, elastic modulus, and fracture toughness were degraded. The addition of glassy grain boundary phases did not significantly affect the stress exponent of 3Y-TZP, but did lower the activation energy for superplastic flow. Strain rate enhancement was highest in samples containing the grain boundary phase with the highest solubility for Y₂O₃ and ZrO₂, but the strain rate did not scale inversely with the viscosity of the silicate phases. Grain boundary sliding accommodated by diffusional creep controlled by an interface reaction is proposed as the mechanism for superplastic deformation in 3Y-TZP with and without glassy grain boundary phases.     

DBC Technology for Extremely Thin Flat Heat Pipes

This paper presents the concept and experimental demonstration of flat copper heat pipe (HP) embedded in extremely thin 3-D packaging substrates. Since conventional machining for this application is very complicated and expensive, the direct bonded copper (DBC) technology proved to be interesting for mass production. The experimental results demonstrated that the DBC HP is an excellent solution to enhance the heat transfer within the 3-D packaging.     

Erosion of copper single crystals under conditions of 90° impact

High purity copper single crystals were eroded parallel to [111] at 90° to the surface with glass spheres 70 μm in diameter travelling at a velocity of 122 m s^?1. Detailed scanning electron microscopy of eroded surfaces together with transmission electron microscopy of both erosion debris and near-surface layers of the target was performed. It was observed that a hilland-valley surface topology developed ; this has not been reported previously and gave rise to a local low angle cutting component of erosion at 90°. Direct evidence was obtained of a transient heating effect from the particle impact as well as the formation of subsurface voids in heavily deformed regions. In addition it was shown that subsurface cracking produced a flaking mechanism of material loss.     

OWL-Eu: Adding customised datatypes into OWL

Although OWL is rather expressive, it has a very serious limitation on datatypes; i.e., it does not support customised datatypes. It has been pointed out that many potential users will not adopt OWL unless this limitation is overcome, and the W3C Semantic Web Best Practices and Development Working Group has set up a task force to address this issue. This paper makes the following two contributions: (i) it provides a brief summary of OWL-related datatype formalisms, and (ii) it provides a decidable extension of OWL DL, called OWL-Eu, that supports customised datatypes. A detailed proof of the decidability of OWL-Eu is presented.     

Simultaneous registration and activation detection for fMRI

Registration using the least-squares cost function is sensitive to the intensity fluctuations caused by the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal in functional MRI (fMRI) experiments, resulting in stimulus-correlated motion errors. These errors are severe enough to cause false-positive clusters in the activation maps of datasets acquired from 3T scanners. This paper presents a new approach to resolving the coupling between registration and activation. Instead of treating the two problems as individual steps in a sequence, they are combined into a single least-squares problem and are solved simultaneously. Robustness tests on a variety of simulated three-dimensional EPI datasets show that the stimulus-correlated motion errors are removed, resulting in a substantial decrease in false-positive and false-negative activation rates. The new method is also shown to decorrelate the motion estimates from the stimulus by testing it on different in vivo fMRI datasets acquired from two different 3T scanners.