Coulometric TCO2 analyses for marine studies; an introduction

Progress in the introduction of coulometry for the analysis of total carbon dioxide (TCO₂) in marine waters is described. An extractor—stripper removes CO₂ that is measured coulometrically by the quantity of electricity (coulombs) used to electrogenerate OH^? ions for the titration of the acid formed by the reaction of CO₂ and ethanolamine. The equivalence point is detected photometrically with thymolphthalein as the indicator, and Faraday's Law relates coulombs to equivalents of titrant generated and CO₂ determined so that there are no standard curves needed or titrants to standardize or store. Accuracy was determined by adding gelatin capsules containing 100–1500 μg C of pure CaCO₃ into the stripper, and accuracies of better than ± 1 μg C were achieved. The best precision for natural seawater (± 1 standard error) of ± 0.5 μmol l^?1 was found for 17 samples of Bermuda coastal waters having a mean TCO₂ of 2007.2 μmol l^?1 (0.05% CV). Sources of error and precautions are discussed. This method, which has been used successfully at sea, can be used to study a variety of marine phenomena involving TCO₂.     

Spatial and temporal variations of solar coronal loops

Skylab EUV observations of an active region near the solar limb were analyzed. Both cool (T < 10⁶ K) and hot (T > 10⁶ K) loops were observed in this region. For the hot loops the observed intensity variations were small, typically a few percent over a period of 30 min. The cool loops exhibited stronger variations, sometimes appearing and disappearing in 5 to 10 min. Most of the cool material observed in the loops appeared to be caused by the downward flow of coronal rain and by the upward ejection of chromospheric material in surges. The frequent EUV brightenings observed near the loop footpoints appear to have been produced by both in situ transient energy releases (e.g. subflares) and the infall/impact of coronal rain. The physical conditions in the loops (temperatures, densities, radiative and conducting cooling rates, cooling times) were determined. The mean energy required to balance the radiative and conductive cooling of the hot loops is approximately 3 × 10^–3 erg cm^–3 s^–1. One coronal heating mechanism that can account for the observed behavior of the EUV emission from McMath region 12634 is heating by the dissipation of fast mode MHD waves.     

A focal plane detector design for a wide-band Laue-lens telescope

The energy range above 60 keV is important for the study of many open problems in high energy astrophysics such as the role of Inverse Compton with respect to synchrotron or thermal processes in GRBs, non thermal mechanisms in SNR, the study of the high energy cut-offs in AGN spectra, and the detection of nuclear and annihilation lines. Recently the development of high energy Laue lenses with broad energy bandpasses from 60 to 600keV have been proposed for a Hard X ray focusing Telescope (HAXTEL) in order to study the X-ray continuum of celestial sources. The required focal plane detector should have high detection efficiency over the entire operative range, a spatial resolution of about 1mm, an energy resolution of a few keV at 500keV and a sensitivity to linear polarization. We describe a possible configuration of the focal plane detector based on several CdTe/CZT pixelated layers stacked together to achieve the required detection efficiency at high energy. Each layer can operate both as a separate position sensitive detector and polarimeter or work with other layers to increase the overall photopeak efficiency. Each layer has a hexagonal shape in order to minimize the detector surface required to cover the lens field of view. The pixels would have the same geometry so as to provide the best coupling with the lens point spread function and to increase the symmetry for polarimetric studies.     

Spectrophotometric Variability of Mira

Data from the Pulkovo spectrophotometric data base on the absolute quasimonochromatic fluxes from oCet in the 320–1080 nm range are used to determine the physical parameters of this star in different phases of its light curve. The continuum emission layer is found to expand between the phases of the cycle corresponding to the rising and falling branches of the light curve. The average expansion velocity is 32 km/s. By the time the star’s brightness has fallen by roughly three magnitudes, its radius has increased by almost a factor of three. Over this same time the temperature of the layer has fallen from 3000 K to 2200 K. For this expansion velocity, the calculated mass rate loss is ⊙ M /year.__________Translated from Astrofizika, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 175–189 (May 2005).     

Kinetic studies of lead(II) uptake by the seagrass Zostera muelleri in water by radiotracing,atomic absorption spectrometry and electrochemical techniques

Evidence was found that uptake of lead from seawater in both model and natural systems by the leaves of the seagrass Zostera muelleri does occur for live, dead and scraped leaves at all the lead concentrations tested. Positive uptake of lead was measured using the three analytical techniques of radio-tracer, differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry and atomic absorption spectrometry; similar uptake profiles were obtained for each technique. Profiles always showed an initial rapid uptake phase followed by a gradual transition to a plateau phase at which an approximate equilibrium between lead attached to seagrass and free ionic lead in seawater was reached. The presence of active lead uptake processes was indicated in experiments which attempted to remove lead from leaves by a chelating agent.     

Magneto-gravitational instability of a rotating and finitely-conducting fluid

The gravitational instability of an infinite homogeneous finitely conducting viscid fluid through porous medium is studied in the presence of a uniform vertical magnetic field and finite ion Larmor radius (FLR) effects. The medium is considered uniformly rotating along and perpendicular to the direction of the prevalent magnetic field. A general dispersion relation is obtained from the relevant linearized perturbation equations of the problem. Furthermore, the wave propagation along and perpendicular to the direction of existing magnetic field has been discussed for each direction of the rotation. It is found that the simultaneous presence of viscosity finite conductivity, rotation, medium porosity, and FLR corrections does not essentially change the Jeans's instability condition. The stabilizing influence of FLR in the case of transverse propagation is reasserted for a non-rotating and inviscid porous medium. It is shown that the finite conductivity has destabilizing influence on the transverse wave propagation whereas for longitudinal propagation finite conductivity does not affect the Jean's criterion.