Confounding Effect of Flow on Estuarine Response to Nitrogen Loading

The total maximum daily load (TMDL) concept provides the basis for regulating pollution load from riverine sources to impaired water bodies. However, load is comprised of two components: flow and concentration. These two components may have confounding, or even conflicting, effects on waterbody attributes of concern. This is particularly the case for dynamic, advective systems, such as estuaries. Resolving these components is critical for properly predicting the response of impaired systems to watershed management actions. The Neuse River Estuary in North Carolina is an example of such an impaired system. Nitrogen has been identified as the pollutant of concern, and the process of developing a TMDL for nitrogen is underway. We, therefore, analyze the extensive data that have been collected for the Neuse River and estuary to investigate spatiotemporal relationships between river flow, riverine total nitrogen (TN) inputs, water temperature, dissolved inorganic nitrogen concentration, algal density, and primary productivity. Results support the belief that phytoplankton in the estuary are under substantial riverine control. However, the riverine TN concentration alone has only a minor role in determining estuarine chlorophyll concentration. River flow has a stronger influence, likely through its effects on down-estuary nitrogen delivery, residence time, salinity, and turbidity. These results imply that using riverine nitrogen load as the metric to evaluate watershed nutrient management may not be appropriate. While nitrogen controls should reduce loads in the long term, in the short term, river flow is the dominant component of load and has the opposite effect of nitrogen on algae at the up-estuary locations.     

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drug Use Disorders and Personality Disorder Symptoms.

In a nonclinical sample of 395 young adults, the authors evaluated the relations between major personality traits, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) personality disorder symptoms, and DSM-IV alcohol use disorders (AUDs). Consistent with previous findings, traits related to disinhibition and negative affectivity were consistently associated with AUDs, as were Cluster B personality disorder symptoms (especially antisocial and borderline disorder symptoms). Multivariate analyses revealed that Cluster B symptoms were significantly associated with AUDs above and beyond what was accounted for by personality traits. Further, the authors found differential patterns of relations between other substance use disorders (SUDs; i.e., tobacco dependence and drug use diagnoses) and personality disorder symptoms. Overall, these results suggest that personality disorder symptoms predict unique variance in SUDs that reflect maladaptive aspects of personality traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Remote sensing of vegetation and land-cover change in Arctic Tundra Ecosystems

The objective of this paper is to review research conducted over the past decade on the application of multi-temporal remote sensing for monitoring changes of Arctic tundra lands. Emphasis is placed on results from the National Science Foundation Land-Air-Ice Interactions (LAII) program and on optical remote sensing techniques. Case studies demonstrate that ground-level sensors on stationary or moving track platforms and wide-swath imaging sensors on polar orbiting satellites are particularly useful for capturing optical remote sensing data at sufficient frequency to study tundra vegetation dynamics and changes for the cloud prone Arctic. Less frequent imaging with high spatial resolution instruments on aircraft and lower orbiting satellites enable more detailed analyses of land cover change and calibration/validation of coarser resolution observations.The strongest signals of ecosystem change detected thus far appear to correspond to expansion of tundra shrubs and changes in the amount and extent of thaw lakes and ponds. Changes in shrub cover and extent have been documented by modern repeat imaging that matches archived historical aerial photography. NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) time series provide a 20-year record for determining changes in greenness that relates to photosynthetic activity, net primary production, and growing season length. The strong contrast between land materials and surface waters enables changes in lake and pond extent to be readily measured and monitored.     

Computer-based determination of size and shape in living cells

Measurement of cell volume in living epithelial cells has become an important technique in studies of membrane transport processes that function in cell volume regulation. Planimetry of video images of optical sections enables the measurement of the cross sectional area of each section. Cell volume is calculated from the measured area of each section and the known focus displacements. In the past the measurement of cross section area has been done by manual positioning of a cursor superimposed on the video image. Each experiment generates approximately 200 images in which two or more cells may be analysed. We have developed a computer-based method that uses one image as a template, and allows automated area determination of successive images by template matching and digital image processing. This new method is comparable to the older method in speed and accuracy, but requires much less effort from the experimenter.     

Does the model matter? The relationship between science-practice emphasis in clinical psychology programs and the internship match.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 1(4) of Training and Education in Professional Psychology (see record 2007-18975-009). The biography for the third author was incorrect. It should read as follows: GREGORY KEILIN is an Assistant Director at the Counseling and Mental Health Center at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Chair of APPIC. He received his doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Colorado State University. His current research interests include supply and demand issues in professional psychology.] Academic training programs in clinical psychology vary in the emphasis that they place on science and practice, and this paper examines whether these differential emphases are linked to distinctive internship outcomes. In a study of 2,130 internship applicants from clinical psychology programs, differences were noted among practice-oriented programs, balanced science-practice programs, and science-oriented programs. Against a backdrop of some similarities, a differential emphasis on science and practice within academic training programs was related to significantly different internship match rates, as well as to successful matching in qualitatively different internship settings. Results provided qualified support for future work that might further address the relationship between academic training programs and outcomes in the field of clinical psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

CAE FOR THE MANUFACTURING ENGINEER: THE ROLE OF PROCESS SIMULATION IN CONCURRENT ENGINEERING

As America refocuses its attention on the factory, design and manufacturing engineers must work together closely to design the appropriate products, and matching production process in a team effort. By building off the designer's CAE tools that predict product performance, the manufacturing engineer is today able to simulate the proposed production process. Process simulations for the following manufacturing processes are available or being developed:

▪Forging, ▪Machining, ▪Injection Molding, ▪Die Casting, ▪Investment Casting, ▪Metal Forming, ▪Heat Treating, ▪Assembly Tolerancing

By utilizing the same 3-D solid model and finite element modeling tools used by the designer, coupled to powerful analysis simulation tools to predict the transient nonlinear heat transfer and plastic material flow found in many manufacturing processes, the manufacturing engineer is able to explore alternative processing plans, evaluate trade-offs and even influence the design to produce superior products.

Process simulation brings a science to support the manufacturing engineers experience for reduced lead time, lower cost, increase product quality and better understanding of the process. The next step will be to directly link the process simulation to an expert system.

This paper describes the current state of technology in the area of manufacturing process computer simulation for a number of manufacturing operations and suggests how these tools can be used “up-front” and lead to concurrent engineering.     

High-performance flat-panel solar thermoelectric generators with high thermal concentration

The conversion of sunlight into electricity has been dominated by photovoltaic and solar thermal power generation. Photovoltaic cells are deployed widely, mostly as flat panels, whereas solar thermal electricity generation relying on optical concentrators and mechanical heat engines is only seen in large-scale power plants. Here we demonstrate a promising flat-panel solar thermal to electric power conversion technology based on the Seebeck effect and high thermal concentration, thus enabling wider applications. The developed solar thermoelectric generators (STEGs) achieved a peak efficiency of 4.6% under AM1.5G (1 kW m(-2)) conditions. The efficiency is 7-8 times higher than the previously reported best value for a flat-panel STEG, and is enabled by the use of high-performance nanostructured thermoelectric materials and spectrally-selective solar absorbers in an innovative design that exploits high thermal concentration in an evacuated environment. Our work opens up a promising new approach which has the potential to achieve cost-effective conversion of solar energy into electricity.     

Dyadic spatial resolution reduction transcoding for H.264/AVC

In this paper, we examine spatial resolution downscaling transcoding for H.264/AVC video coding. A number of advanced coding tools limit the applicability of techniques, which were developed for previous video coding standards. We present a spatial resolution reduction transcoding architecture for H.264/AVC, which extends open-loop transcoding with a low-complexity compensation technique in the reduced-resolution domain. The proposed architecture tackles the problems in H.264/AVC and avoids visual artifacts in the transcoded sequence, while keeping complexity significantly lower than more traditional cascaded decoder–encoder architectures. The refinement step of the proposed architecture can be used to further improve rate-distortion performance, at the cost of additional complexity. In this way, a dynamic-complexity transcoder is rendered possible. We present a thorough investigation of the problems related to motion and residual data mapping, leading to a transcoding solution resulting in fully compliant reduced-size H.264/AVC bitstreams.     

Advent of 2D Rhenium Disulfide (ReS2): Fundamentals to Applications

Rhenium disulfide (ReS₂) is a two‐dimensional (2D) group VII transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD). It is attributed with structural and vibrational anisotropy, layer‐independent electrical and optical properties, and metal‐free magnetism properties. These properties are unusual compared with more widely used group VI‐TMDs, e.g., MoS₂, MoSe₂, WS₂ and WSe₂. Consequently, it has attracted significant interest in recent years and is now being used for a variety of applications including solid state electronics, catalysis, and, energy harvesting and energy storage. It is anticipated that ReS₂ has the potential to be equally used in parallel with isotropic TMDs from group VI for all known applications and beyond. Therefore, a review on ReS₂ is very timely. In this first review on ReS₂, we critically analyze the available synthesis procedures and their pros/cons, atomic structure and lattice symmetry, crystal structure, and growth mechanisms with an insight into the orientation and architecture of domain and grain boundaries, decoupling of structural and vibrational properties, anisotropic electrical, optical, and magnetic properties impacted by crystal imperfections, doping and adatoms adsorptions, and contemporary applications in different areas.