Moisture content in Dall's porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli) tissues: a reference base for conversion factors between dry and wet weight trace element concentrations in cetaceans

Concentration of trace elements measured by dry weight basis has become more commonly used in recent studies on cetaceans than wet weight basis, which was used more in earlier studies. Because few authors present moisture content data in their papers, it is difficult to compare the concentrations of trace elements between various studies. Therefore, we felt that it would be useful if a reference conversion factor (CF) for tissue types could be found to convert between wet weight and dry weight data on trace element concentrations. We determined the moisture contents of 14 tissues of Dall's porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli), and then, calculated the CF values for those tissues. Because the moisture content of each tissue differs from other tissues, it is necessary to use a specific CIF for each tissue rather than a general CF for several tissues. We have also found that CIF values for Dall's porpoise tissues are similar to the same tissues in other cetaceans. Therefore CF values from Dall's porpoise can be reliably used to convert between wet and dry weight concentrations for other cetacean tissues as reference data. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Distribution, transformation, and long-term accumulation of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans in different tissues of fish and piscivorous birds

The present study monitored 10-year-old fish and piscivorous birds from sites contaminated for many Stars. The data reflected the results of actual, long-term environmental exposures, The results demonstrate that different tissues of fish have quite different concentrations of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/F), The concentration order of PCDD/F within fish is liver congruent to egg congruent to intestines kidney congruent to hearts gill congruent to bladders > muscle > brain. The concentration order of PCDD/F within piscivorous birds was livers egg congruent to hearts muscle congruent to stomachs brain, The results obtained also demonstrate that the accumulation patterns of piscivorous birds and fish are quite different. The tissues of fish and piscivorous birds have different capacities for bioaccumulation and biotransformation of PCDD/F; variable proportions of TEQs were also found throughout their bodies. In fish, toxic equivalency quotient (TEQ): PCDD/F ratios in various tissues ranged from 0.01 to 0.07, whereas in birds the ratios ranged from 0.07 to 0.43. If the concentrations are normalized with lipid content, the results vary less. The effect of different lipid properties is obvious in the case of brain tissue, which is richer in phospholipids. (C) 2000 Academic Press.

Three different viruses observed from the tissues of diseased mandarin fish Siniperca chuatsi

Three different kinds of viruses, the spherical virus SCSV with a diameter of about 280 nm, the rhabdovirus SCRV with a size about 250 x 120 nm, and the baculovirus SCBV with a size about 200 x 100 nm, were observed from the tissues of diseased mandarin fish Siniperca chuatsi with outbreak of infection and acute lethality. This phenomenon implicated that the reason why the epizootic disease of mandarin fish could not be quenched by only one kind of virus vaccine can be explained by the fact that the fish may be infected by different kinds of viruses. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the complexity of virus pathogens in the prevention strategy for mandarin fish diseases.

Evidence of ultrafast energy exchange-induced soft'mode of phonons and lattice instability: a nanotime effect

With a series of supportive experimental phenomena as induced by ion beam bombardment, energetic beaminduced athermal activation process in Si is demonstrated. This is correlated with phenomena induced by ultrafast energy exchange in condensed matter in general. A critical modelling is presented on the above process and a universal concept: the ultrafast energy exchange-induced soft mode of phonons and the lattice instability in condensed matter are proposed.

A Simplified Soft-output QRD-M MIMO Detector

In this paper, a low-complexity soft-output QRD-M detection algorithm is proposed for high-throughput Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. By employing novel expansion on demand and distributed sorting scheme, the proposed algorithm can reduce 70% and 85% foundational operations for 16-QAM and 64-QAM respectively compared to the conventional QRD-M algorithm. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm can yield soft information to improve the bit error rate (BER) performance. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve a near-NIL detection performance with less foundational operations

On the soft wall guiding potentials in realistic quantum waveguides

A transfer matrix method is presented for the study of electron conduction in a quantum waveguide with soft wall lateral confinement. By transforming the two-dimensional Schrodinger equation into a set of second order ordinary differential equations, the total transfer matrix is obtained and the scattering probability amplitudes are calculated. The proposed method is applied to the evaluation of the electron transmission in two types of cavity structure with finite-height square-well confinement. The results obtained by our method, which are found to be in excellent agreement with those from another transfer matrix method, suggest that the infinite square-well potential is a good approximation to finite-height square-well confinement for electrons propagating in the ground transverse mode, but softening of the walls has an obvious effect on the electron transmission and mode-mixing for propagating in the excited transverse mode. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Circumstantial Evidence for a Soft Nuclear Symmetry Energy at Suprasaturation Densities

Within an isospin- and momentum-dependent hadronic transport model, it is shown that the recent FOPI data on the pi(-)/pi(+) ratio in central heavy-ion collisions at SIS/GSI energies [Willy Reisdorf , Nucl. Phys. A 781, 459 (2007)] provide circumstantial evidence suggesting a rather soft nuclear symmetry energy E-sym(rho) at rho >= 2 rho(0) compared to the Akmal-Pandharipande-Ravenhall prediction. Some astrophysical implications and the need for further experimental confirmations are discussed.

Microlenses fabricated by discontinuous dewetting and soft lithography

This letter describes an approach to fabricating microlens arrays with low cost and large area through the combination of discontinuous dewetting and reversible water-ice transition via a soft lithography replica process. Microlenses with different curvature can be tuned by the modulation of the wettability of the substrates. The microlenses fabricated can project clear miniaturized images.

Facile preparation of macroscopic soft colloidal crystals with fiber symmetry

A facile, efficient way to fabricate macroscopic soft colloidal crystals with fiber symmetry by drying a latex dispersion in a tube is presented. A transparent, stable colloidal crystal was obtained from a 25 wt % latex dispersion by complete water evaporation for 4 days. The centimeter-long sample was investigated by means of synchrotron small-angle X-ray diffraction (SAXD). Analysis of a large number of distinct Bragg peaks reveals that uniaxially oriented colloidal crystals with face-centered cubic lattice structure were formed.

In Situ Observation of Tensile Deformation Processes of Soft Colloidal Crystalline Latex Fibers

The deformation mechanism or styrene/n-butyl acrylate copolymer latex films with fiber symmetric crystalline structure subjected to uniaxial stretching was studied using synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering technique. The fibers were drawn at angles or 0, 35, and 55 degrees with respect to the Fiber axis. In all cases, the microscopic deformation within the crystallites was Found to deviate from affine deformation behavior with respect to the macroscopic deformation ratio. Moreover, the extent of this deviation is different in the three cases. This peculiar behavior can be attributed to the relative orientation of the (111) plane of the crystals, the plane of densest packing, with respect to the stretching direction in each case. When the stretching direction coincides with the crystallographic (111) plane, which is the case for stretching directions of 0 and 55 degrees with respect to the fiber axis, the microscopic deformation deviates less from affine behavior than when the stretching direction is arbitrarily oriented with respect to the crystallographic (111) plan.

DEFORMATION OF SOFT COLLOIDAL CRYSTALLINE STRUCTURE - THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCES BY SYNCHROTRON SMALL-ANGLE X-RAY SCATTERING ON TENSILE STRETCHED POLYMERIC LATEX FILM

Films obtained via drying a polymeric latex dispersion are normally colloidal crystalline where latex particles are packed into a face centered cubic (fcc) structure. Different from conventional atomic crystallites or hard sphere colloidal crystallites, the crystalline structure of these films is normally deformable due to the low glass transition temperature of the latex particles. Upon tensile deformation, depending on the drawing direction with respect to the normal of specific crystallographic plane, one observes different crystalline structural changes. Three typical situations where crystallographic c-axis, body diagonal or face diagonal of the fcc structure of the colloidal crystallites being parallel to the stretching direction were investigated.

Highly oriented tunable wrinkling in polymer bilayer films confined with a soft mold induced by water vapor

The authors report the formation of highly oriented wrinkling on the surface of the bilayer [polystyrene (PS)/poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP)] confined by a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) mold in a water vapor environment. When PVP is subjected to water vapor, the polymer loses its mechanical rigidity and changes to a viscous state, which leads to a dramatic change in Young's modulus. This change generates the amount of strain in the bilayer to induce the wrinkling. With a shape-controlled mold, they can get the ordered wrinkles perfectly perpendicular or leaned 45 S to the channel orientation of the mold because the orientation of the resultant force changes with the process of water diffusion which drives the surface to form the wrinkling. Additionally, they can get much smaller wrinkles than the stripe spacing of PDMS mold about one order. The wrinkle period changes with the power index of about 0.5 for various values of the multiplication product of the film thicknesses of the two layers, namely, lambda similar to (h(PS)h(PVP))(1/2).