Effects of organic toxicants on the anoxic energy metabolism of the mussel Mytilus edulis

The anoxic rates of heat dissipation by mussels (Mytilus edulis) were enhanced after exposure to pentachlorophenol (PCP) and tributyltin (TBT), both known uncouplers of oxidative phosphorylation. The degree of metabolic activation under anoxia was dependent upon the amount of toxicant accumulated in the tissues, but the concentration-response relationship was different to that under aerobic conditions. Biochemical measurements indicated that the anaerobic metabolic pathways were significantly disturbed by PCP and TBT. There was a decline in succinate, an increase in the fumarate: succinate ratio, and an increase in the accumulation of lactate, indicating a shift from succinate to lactate anaerobic pathways. A consequence of organic toxicant exposure was a reduction in anoxic survival time of mussels.     

Problems with biogenic silica measurement in marginal seas

Surface sediment samples from the Bohai, Yellow Sea, and the Pacific were used to assess biogenic silica (BSi) content and to study uncertainties in BSi measurements. The contents of BSi in the Bohai and Yellow Sea are all less than 1%. The dissolution of BSi in sediments from the Bohai and Yellow Sea is very important to maintain high levels of silicate in the water column. The non-biogenic silica from clay minerals has an obvious effect on BSi of sediment samples in the Bohai and Yellow Sea with low BSi and high clay minerals. The solid to solution ratio was found to have a great influence on BSi measurement, which can induce uncertainties up to 75%. The effect of loss by sorption and centrifugation is negligible. Interlaboratory comparison of techniques for BSi measurement by the wet alkaline extraction technique of Mortlock and Froelich [Deep-Sea Res. 36 (1989) 1415-1426] with clay correction was suggested to give no significant differences. However, differences in sediment compositions and reagent to sample ratio may limit the application of the wet alkaline extraction method.     

Dynamics and control of a towed underwater vehicle system, part I: model development

Autonomous vehicles are being developed to replace the conventional, manned surface vehicles that tow mine hunting towed platforms. While a wide body of work exists that describes numerical models of towed systems, they usually include relatively simple models of the towed bodies and neglect the dynamics of the towing vehicle. For systems in which the mass of the towing vehicle is comparable to that of the towed vehicle, it becomes important to consider the dynamics of both vehicles. In this work, we describe the development of a numerical model that accurately captures the dynamics of these new mine hunting systems. We use a lumped mass approximation for the towcable and couple this model to non-linear numerical models of an autonomous surface vehicle and an actively controlled towfish. Within the dynamics models of the two vehicles, we include non-linear controllers to allow accurate maneuvering of the towed system.     

Determination of nutrient salts by automatic methods both in seawater and brackish water: the phosphate blank

The main inconvenience in determining nutrients in seawater by automatic methods is simply solved: the preparation of a suitable blank which corrects the effect of the refractive index change on the recorded signal. Two procedures are proposed, one physical (a simple equation to estimate the effect) and the other chemical (removal of the dissolved phosphorus with ferric hydroxide).     

砂泥岩裂隙岩体埋深和岩性对渗透性影响分析

采用表征岩体渗透性的单位吸水量ω为参数,有效地分析了砂泥岩裂隙岩体中相对埋深和岩性对渗透性空间分布规律的影响.研究区内,在不同深度单位吸水量的最大值和最小值相差3-4个数量级,渗透性表现出显著的随机特征.通过将压水试验数据离散化并在不同深度上取logω的平均值,凸现了渗透性的结构特征.ω均值在一定范围内随相对深度表现出负指数分布规律;剔除logω的线性趋势项后,logω残差表现出与地层内部岩性相对应的规律.此外,研究还发现,渗透性参数随相对深度呈负指数分布规律是由含裂隙的砂岩介质引起的.这些规律为裂隙岩体的渗流计算和模拟奠定了基础.文章所提出的对压水试验数据离散化并在不同深度取均值以找出渗透性和深度关系,以及去除线性趋势项研究渗透性和岩性之间关系等方法具有广泛的应用价值.     

Atmospheric Artifact Compensation in Ground-Based DInSAR Applications

In this letter, a coherence-based technique for atmospheric artifact removal in ground-based (GB) zero-baseline synthetic aperture radar (SAR) acquisitions is proposed. For this purpose, polarimetric measurements acquired using the GB-SAR sensor developed at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya are employed. The heterogeneous environment of Collserola Park in the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain, was selected as the test area. Data sets were acquired at X-band during one week in June 2005. The effects of the atmosphere variations between successive zero-baseline SAR polarimetric acquisitions are treated here in detail. The need to compensate for the resulting phase-difference errors when retrieving interferometric information is put forward. A compensation technique is then proposed and evaluated using the control points placed inside the observed scene.     

Using Sequential Self-Calibration Method to Identify Conductivity Distribution: Conditioning on Tracer Test data

An iterative inverse method, the sequential self-calibration method, is developed for mapping spatial distribution of a hydraulic conductivity field by conditioning on nonreactive tracer breakthrough curves. A streamline-based, semi-analytical simulator is adopted to simulate solute transport in a heterogeneous aquifer. The simulation is used as the forward modeling step. In this study, the hydraulic conductivity is assumed to be a deterministic or random variable. Within the framework of the streamline-based simulator, the efficient semi-analytical method is used to calculate sensitivity coefficients of the solute concentration with respect to the hydraulic conductivity variation. The calculated sensitivities account for spatial correlations between the solute concentration and parameters. The performance of the inverse method is assessed by two synthetic tracer tests conducted in an aquifer with a distinct spatial pattern of heterogeneity. The study results indicate that the developed iterative inverse method is able to identify and reproduce the large-scale heterogeneity pattern of the aquifer given appropriate observation wells in these synthetic cases.