Predicting suspended sediment concentration from nephelometric turbidity in organic‐rich waters

Nephelometric turbidity is an optical index for the side scattering of light caused by fine particles suspended in water. When a mixed composition of suspended inorganic and organic materials, including dissolved organic material, is present, turbidity measurements can be affected by the different optical properties of the organic and inorganic materials present, and different turbidimeters are more or less sensitive to these influences. Two different methods of nephelometric turbidity measurement were assessed (using instruments confirming to two different turbidity standard methods: EPA 180.1 and ISO 7027). We investigated the influence of particulate organic matter and coloured dissolved organic matter on relationships between turbidity and suspended sediment concentration for rivers in diverse Otago catchments, in the South Island of New Zealand. The presence of organic matter and dissolved colour affected turbidity measurement owing to light absorption; however, turbidity measurement following the ISO 7027 standard, which specifies near infrared radiation at wavelengths where organic absorption is very weak, was less affected by organics. As a result, rating equations between suspended sediment and turbidity may be significantly different with ISO 7027 compared with EPA 180.1 methods.     

Numerical analysis of laser transmitter nonlinearity compensation technique for radio over fiber system

The task of reducing the noise and distortion generated by a laser transmitter has always been a challenge to improve the performance of radio over fiber systems. This paper presents a compensation system for nonlinear distortion of a laser transmitter supporting 5.2 GHz radio transmission over fiber employing a feed‐forward linearization technique. The nonlinearity of the laser diode is modeled using Volterra series analysis. The proposed linearization system is also simulated using commercial optical system software. The novel design has achieved 30 dB nonlinearity reduction considering 800 MHz modulation bandwidth. As an addition, this work also analyzes the effect of transmission length towards distortion reduction of the proposed system. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spatial and temporal trends and effects of contaminants in the Canadian Arctic marine ecosystem: a review

Recent studies have added substantially to our knowledge of spatial and temporal trends of persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals in the Canadian Arctic marine ecosystem. This paper reviews the current state of knowledge of contaminants in marine biota in the Canadian Arctic and where possible, discusses biological effects. The geographic coverage of information on contaminants such as persistent organochlorines (OCs) (PCBs, DDT- and chlordane-related compounds, hexachlorocyclohexanes, toxaphene) and heavy metals (mercury, selenium, cadmium, lead) in tissues of marine mammal and sea birds is relatively complete. All major beluga, ringed seal and polar bear stocks along with several major sea bird colonies have been sampled and analysed for OC and heavy metal contaminants. Studies on contaminants in walrus are limited to Foxe Basin and northern Québec stocks, while migratory harp seals have only been studied recently at one location. Contaminant measurements in bearded seal, harbour seal, bowhead whale and killer whale tissues from the Canadian Arctic are very limited or non-existent. Many of the temporal trend data for contaminants in Canadian Arctic biota are confounded by changes in analytical methodology, as well as by variability due to age/size, or to dietary and population shifts. Despite this, studies of OCs in ringed seal blubber at Holman Island and in sea birds at Prince Leopold Island in Lancaster Sound show declining concentrations of PCBs and DDT-related compounds from the 1970s to 1980s then a levelling off during the 1980s and early 1990s. For other OCs, such as chlordane, HCH and toxaphene, limited data for the 1980s to early 1990s suggests few significant declines in concentrations in marine mammals or sea birds. Temporal trend studies of heavy metals in ringed seals and beluga found higher mean concentrations of mercury in more recent (1993/1994) samples than in earlier collections (1981–1984 in eastern Arctic, 1972–1973 in western Arctic) for both species. Rates of accumulation of mercury are also higher in present day animals than 10–20 years ago. Cadmium concentrations in the same animals (eastern Arctic only) showed no change over a 10-year period. No temporal trend data are available for metals in sea birds or polar bears. There have been major advances in knowledge of specific biomarkers in Canadian Arctic biota over the past few years. The species with the most significant risk of exposure to PCBs and OC pesticides may be the polar bear which, based on comparison with EROD activity in other marine mammals (beluga, ringed seal), appears to have elevated CYP1A-mediated activity. The MFO enzyme data for polar bear, beluga and seals suggest that even the relatively low levels of contaminants present in Arctic animals may not be without biological effects, especially during years of poor feeding.     

Electrical and structural properties of GeMoW ohmic contact to an In0.5Ga0.5As cap layer on n-Type GaAs

The results of electrical and structural characterization of a GeMoW ohmic contact to n-type GaAs with a 100Å thick, In_0.5Ga_0.5As cap layer are presented. Electrical characterization demonstrates ohmic behavior over a wide annealing temperature range from 300 to 700°C. A minimum contact resistance of 0.176 Ω-mm was measured after furnace annealing at 500°C. The contact resistance is also insensitive to anneal time at 500°C. Structural characterization using secondary ion mass spectroscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy, and x-ray diffraction indicates excess In as a potential cause of increased contact resistance following 700°C annealing.     

Extending Loffeld's bistatic formula for the general bistatic SAR configuration

This study derives an accurate bistatic point target reference spectrum based on a zeroth-order polynomial model. The spectrum contains only two hyperbolic square root terms that are very analogous in form to the analytical monostatic spectrum. The new formulation can be considered as an improvement of the Loffeld?s bistatic formula (LBF) and allows it to handle a wider range of bistatic configurations. The original LBF works well only in the case where the contributions of transmitter and receiver to the total Doppler modulation are approximately equal. An earlier paper on the extended LBF (EBLF) uses time bandwidth product (TBP) to weight the azimuth phase modulation from each platform. However, this extension is valid only in the low squint bistatic geometry. Both LBF and ELBF are expanded up to the quadratic term to derive an approximate bistatic spectrum; however, they do not show a good focusing performance in the more complex bistatic geometry, for example, the high squint case. This is due to the inaccurate individual time- Doppler correspondences. In this study, a norm in Euclidean space is defined to derive the optimal individual time-Doppler correspondences. Using the accurate individual time-Doppler correspondences, a zeroth-order polynomial model can be used to readily derive a more accurate bistatic spectrum. Two simulation experiments in the high squint geometry are used to verify the accuracy of this new formulation. The first experiment uses a parallel-track spaceborne/spaceborne configuration, and the second experiment involves an orthogonal-track airborne/airborne case.     

Tumor necrosis factor-alpha induces apoptosis of human adipose cells

Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) production by adipocytes is elevated in obesity, as shown by increased adipose tissue TNF-alpha mRNA and protein levels and by increased circulating concentrations of the cytokine. Furthermore, TNF-alpha has distinct effects on adipose tissue including induction of insulin resistance, induction of leptin production, stimulation of lipolysis, suppression of lipogenesis, induction of adipocyte dedifferentiation, and impairment of preadipocyte differentiation in vitro. Taken together, these effects all tend to decrease adipocyte volume and number and suggest a role for TNF-alpha in limiting increase in fat mass. The aim of the present study was to determine if TNF-alpha could induce apoptosis in human adipose cells, hence delineating another mechanism by which the cytokine could act to limit the development of, or extent of, obesity. Cultured human preadipocytes and mature adipocytes in explant cultures were exposed in vitro to human TNF-alpha at varying concentrations for up to 24 h. Apoptosis was assessed using morphological (histology, nuclear morphology following acridine orange staining, electron microscopy) and biochemical (demonstration of internucleosomal DNA cleavage by gel electrophoresis and of annexin V staining using immunocytochemistry) criteria. In control cultures, apoptotic indexes were between 0 and 2.3% in all experiments. In the experimental systems, TNF-alpha induced apoptosis in both preadipocytes and adipocytes, with indexes between 5 and 25%. Therefore, TNF-alpha induces apoptosis of human preadipocytes and adipocytes in vitro. In view of the major metabolic role of TNF-alpha in human adipose tissue, and the knowledge that adipose tissue is dynamic (with cell acquisition via preadipocyte replication/differentiation and cell loss via apoptosis), these findings describe a further mechanism whereby adipose tissue mass may be modified by TNF-alpha.     

Integration of Ceramics Research with the Development of a Microsystem

Rapid implementation of new materials into engineering systems may require a paradigm shift in our approach to materials research. One option is to obtain fundamental material properties from experimental systems that can also serve as devices. This concept is applied to the measurement of Young's modulus of a novel ceramic, a polymer-derived silicon carbonitride (SiCN), directly from the performance of a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) device. The device is an electrostatic actuator. The flexure resistance of the arms of the actuator is measured and analyzed for the elastic modulus of SiCN. The comparison between theory and experiment yields a value for Young's modulus in the range 130–155 GPa.     

High-mobility modulation-doped SiGe-channel p-MOSFETs

A novel subsurface SiGe-channel p-MOSFET is demonstrated in which modulation doping is used to control the threshold voltage without degrading the channel mobility. A novel device design consisting of a graded SiGe channel, an n⁺ polysilicon gate, and p⁺ modulation doping is used. A boron-doped layer is located underneath the graded and undoped SiGe channel to minimize process sensitivity and maximize transconductance. Low-field hole mobilities of 220 cm²/V-s at 300 K and 980 cm²/V-s at 82 K were achieved in functional submicrometer p-MOSFETs     

Determination of oil palm fruit phenolic compounds and their antioxidant activities using spectrophotometric methods

There is scarce information on the phenolics of oil palm fruits (Elaeis guineensis). In this study, phenolics were extracted from oil palm fruits and analysed using spectrophotometry for information on the different types of palm phenolics and their antioxidative activities. Analyses of the total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), o‐diphenols index, hydroxycinnamic acid index, flavonols index and phenol index showed ranges between 5.64 and 83.97 g L^?1 gallic acid equivalent (GAE), 0.31–7.53 g L^?1 catechin equivalent, 4.90–93.20 g L^?1 GAE, 23.74–77.46 g L^?1 ferulic acid equivalent, 3.62–95.33 g L^?1 rutin equivalent and 15.90–247.22 g L^?1 GAE, respectively. The antioxidant assay, 2,2‐diphenyl‐2‐picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging assay, showed antioxidative activities in all the extracts with results ranging from 4.41 to 61.98 g L^?1 trolox equivalent. The high antioxidant activities of the oil palm fruit phenolics were also found to increase with increasing TPC and TFC.     

"Derived spectra" software tools for detecting spatial and spectral features in spectrum images

A spectrum image is recorded as an x-y array of beam locations at each of which a spectrum of radiation is recorded as stimulated by the beam. The large database or "datacube" that results from a single image presents a significant challenge to the analyst to recover information efficiently, especially in the case where a true unknown is examined. This paper describes a class of "derived spectra" software tools that can aid the analyst in recognizing both common and rare features within the datacube. A derived spectrum tool creates a spectrum-like display (intensity vs. channel number) in which the intensity (e.g., x-ray counts) at a particular channel (e.g., x-ray photon energy) is calculated from all of or a subset of the pixel intensities measured for that channel. Derived spectra tools considered include the SUM, MAXIMUM PIXEL, RUNNING SUM, and RUNNING MAXIMUM. The SUM-derived spectrum is useful for recognizing common features of the datacube, while the MAXIMUM PIXEL-and RUNNING MAXIMUM-derived spectra can locate rare, unanticipated features, which may occur as infrequently as being present at a single pixel in the original datacube.