Letter and Recollections of Alexander Agassiz: The 1891 Albatross Expedition

Presented here is another in the list of historic accounts of iconic research cruises of the USFC Steamer Albatross, this a reminiscence of the renowned scientist Alexander Agassiz edited by his son G. R. Agassiz, a chapter from the volume “Letters and Recollections of Alexander Agassiz,” published in 1913. Agassiz made three major cruises in the Albatross in 1891, 1899–1900, and 1904–05, adding greatly to the world’s store of specimens and knowledge of thalasography, his favored term for oceangraphy, and specifically of the Pacific Ocean. Having made important cruises and studies with the Blake in the Caribbean, he sought to do comparable research in the Pacific. His opportunity came in 1890, and with the consent of President Benjamin Harrison, he took charge of this Albatross research cruise, paying much of the expense himself. In contrast with the other ships he had been on, he found the laboratories, equipment, and furnishings to be comparatively luxurious and extremely well appointed for his work. Further, the Albatross was then captained by Lieutenant Commander Zera Luther Tanner who seemed to take as much interest in the oceanographic research as did the scientists, and Agassiz appreciated working with him, too. Little of the original text has been altered, and readers are cautioned that some of the views expressed may reflect unfortunate prejudices of that era toward individuals, nationalities, etc.

The distribution of larval fishes of the Charleston Gyre Region off the southeastern United States in winter shaped by mesoscale, cyclonic eddies

Serial, cyclonic, mesoscale eddies arise just north of the Charleston Bump, a topographical rise on the continental slope and Blake Plateau, and characterize the U.S. outer shelf and upper slope in the region of the Charleston Gyre. This region was transected during the winters of 2000, 2001, and 2002, and hydrographic data and larval fishes were collected. The hydrodynamics of the cyclonic eddies of the Charleston Gyre shape the distribution of larval fishes by mixing larvae from the outer continental shelf and the Gulf Stream and entraining them into the eddy circulation at the peripheral margins, the wrap-around filaments. Over all years and transects (those that intercepted eddies and those that did not), chlorophyll a concentrations, zooplankton displacement volumes, and larval fish concentrations were positively correlated. Chlorophyll a concentrations were highest in filaments that wrapped around eddies, and zooplankton displacement volumes were highest in the continental shelf–Gulf Stream–frontal mix. Overall, the concentration of all larval fishes declined from inshore to offshore with highest concentrations occurring over the outer shelf. Collections produced larvae from 91 fish families representing continental shelf and oceanic species. The larvae of shelf-spawned fishes—Atlantic Menhaden Brevoortia tyrannus, Round Herring Etrumeus teres, Spot Leiostomus xanthurus, and Atlantic Croaker Micropogonias undulatus—were most concentrated over the outer shelf and in the continental shelf–Gulf Stream–frontal mix. The larvae of ocean-spawned fishes—lanternfishes, bristlemouths, and lightfishes—were more evenly dispersed in low concentrations across the outer shelf and upper slope, the highest typically in the Gulf Stream and Sargasso Sea, except for lightfishes that were highest in the continental shelf–Gulf Stream–frontal mix. Detrended correspondence analysis rendered groups of larval fishes that corresponded with a gradient between the continental shelf and Gulf Stream and Sargasso Sea. Eddies propagate northeastward with a residence time on the outer shelf and upper slope of ∼1 month, the same duration as the larval period of most fishes. The pelagic habitat afforded by eddies and fronts of the Charleston Gyre region can be exploited as nursery areas for feeding and growth of larval fishes within the southeastern Atlantic continental shelf ecosystem of the U.S. Eddies, and the nursery habitat they provide, translocate larvae northeastward.

Towards a complete dense geometric and photometric reconstruction under varying pose and illumination

This paper proposes a novel framework to construct a geometric and photometric model of a viewed object that can be used for visualisation in arbitrary pose and illumination. The method is solely based on images and does not require any specialised equipment. We assume that the object has a piece-wise smooth surface and that its reflectance can be modelled using a parametric bidirectional reflectance distribution function. Without assuming any prior knowledge on the object, geometry and reflectance have to be estimated simultaneously and occlusion and shadows have to be treated consistently. We exploit the geometric and photometric consistency using the fact that surface orientation and reflectance are local invariants. In a first implementation, we demonstrate the method using a Lambertian object placed on a turn-table and illuminated by a number of unknown point light-sources. A discrete voxel model is initialised to the visual hull and voxels identified as inconsistent with the invariants are removed iteratively. The resulting model is used to render images in novel pose and illumination. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

稀土及过渡金属离子Fe(III)、Zn(II)、Cd(II）的协同萃取研究

自从1956年Blake等研究HDEHP萃取铀时发现协同效应以来，由于协同萃取具有可以显著地提高萃取效率，改变萃取选择性等优点，所以对协同萃取进行了大量研究工作，目前已广泛应用于核燃料稀有金属湿法冶金分离分析。但协同萃取研究领域十分广阔，新协萃体系，协萃机理和协萃配合物结构等许多方面还有待进一步研究。Fe~(3+)、Zn~(2+)和Cd~(2+)等过渡金属离子常与稀土离子在一起，成为高纯稀土产品的重要杂质元素，因此寻找Fe(III)、Zn(II)和Cd(II)与RE（III）的新协同萃取分离体系，不但具有理论意义，也有实际意义。本文研究了萃取分离中广泛使用的四种萑取剂，甲基膦酸二（1-甲基庚基）酯（P_(350), 以B表示）、仲碳伯胺N_(1923)(以RNH_2表示）、1-苯基-3-甲基-4-苯甲酰基吡唑酮-5（PMBP，以HL表示）和2-乙基基膦酸单（2-乙基已基）酯（P_(507)，以HA表示）对盐酸介质中Fe(III)、Zn(II)、Cd(II)和Nd(III)等金属离子的协同萃取，得到了六个新协萃体系，并且对协萃机理和萃取平稀奇规律等进行了研究，得到了一些有意义的结果。