A pilot study to determine the movements of buoy line used in the crab pot fishery to assess bottlenose dolphin entanglement

A pilot study on the characteristics of crab pot buoy line movements to assess bottlenose dolphin entanglement was conducted from 19 September to 30 September 2005 in the Charleston Harbor, Charleston, South Carolina. The objectives of this study were to determine: 1) the movements of the buoy line in the water at various tidal stages, current strengths, lengths of line, and water depth, 2) if lead-core rope was a better alternative to nylon rope, 3) and if the manner of deployment of the gear affected the suspension of the line in the water and on the bottom. Diamond braided nylon (#10) rope of varying length (20 ft. – 80 ft.) were used during 31 trials and stiffened (polypropylene lead-core) rope was used in four trials. Observations of the buoy line movements were captured with an Atlantis underwater camera attached to a Digital DPC-1000 video recorder. Results from this study showed that: 1) the method used for deployment was important in keeping the buoy line from arcing or coiling, 2) little to no arcing occurred in water current velocities of >0.20 m/s, 3) rope lengths of ≥50 ft. deployed in <10 ft. of water produced waving in the water column and arcing on the bottom, 4) slack tide was a period of increased risk of entanglement for bottlenose dolphins, and 5) poly lead-core rope was not a good alternative to nylon rope unless in deep water with strong water current velocities. This pilot study produced questions that can be used for future studies on the characteristics of buoy line movements in the crab pot fishery as it relates to bottlenose dolphin entanglements.

Estimation of bycatch in shrimp trawl fisheries: a comparison of estimation methods using field data and simulated data

Bycatch, or the incidental catch of nontarget organisms during fi shing operations, is a major issue in U.S. shrimp trawl fisheries. Because bycatch is typically discarded at sea, total bycatch is usually estimated by extrapolating from an observed bycatch sample to the entire fleet with either mean-per-unit or ratio estimators. Using both field observations of commercial shrimp trawlers and computer simulations, I compared five methods for generating bycatch estimates that were used in past studies, a mean-per-unit estimator and four forms of the ratio estimator, respectively: 1) the mean fish catch per unit of effort, where unit effort was a proxy for sample size, 2) the mean of the individual fish to shrimp ratios, 3) the ratio of mean fish catch to mean shrimp catch, 4) the mean of the ratios of fish catch per time fished (a variable measure of effort), and 5) the ratio of mean fish catch per mean time fished. For field data, different methods used to estimate bycatch of Atlantic croaker, spot, and weakfish yielded extremely different results, with no discernible pattern in the estimates by method, geographic region, or species. Simulated fishing fleets were used to compare bycatch estimated by the fi ve methods with “actual” (simulated) bycatch. Simulations were conducted by using both normal and delta lognormal distributions of fish and shrimp and employed a range of values for several parameters, including mean catches of fish and shrimp, variability in the catches of fish and shrimp, variability in fishing effort, number of observations, and correlations between fish and shrimp catches. Results indicated that only the mean per unit estimators provided statistically unbiased estimates, while all other methods overestimated bycatch. The mean of the individual fish to shrimp ratios, the method used in the South Atlantic Bight before the 1990s, gave the most biased estimates. Because of the statistically significant two- and 3-way interactions among parameters, it is unlikely that estimates generated by one method can be converted or corrected to estimates made by another method: therefore bycatch estimates obtained with different methods should not be compared directly.

浑善达克沙地退化生态系统生态恢复的自然保护区途径

本文从种群、群落、景观等水平研究了浑善达克沙地退化状况，发现浑善达克沙地生态系统退化严重。运用“以地养地”模式，建立自然保护地，能恢复浑善达克退化生态系统，同时能实现社区的经济发展。通过对自然保护区恢复潜力和可行性的分析，发现将“以地养地”模式推广到全旗，可实现全旗的可持续发展。运用自然保护区设计理论，对拟建自然保护区进行了设计，并对自然保护区-社区的区域可持续发展能力进行了分析，提出了可持续发展战略。有以下主要内容： 1）浑善达克沙地榆树疏林种群在人为干扰下处于衰退期。本研究表明，浑善达克沙地中部榆树疏林种群是一个数量处于下降的种群。中老龄龄级榆树较多，而年幼龄级榆树较少。种群静态生命表表明，幼苗库严重不足，种群进入中老龄期后，外界干扰(例如直接砍伐等)导致了个体较高的死亡量。按照一次平均推移法预测各龄级在未来20年、40年、60年及100年后的株数，老龄龄级株数将有所增加，而中幼年株数则下降。目前蓝旗榆种群中老年个体仍保持着比较旺盛生殖能力，应该充分利用这一特征，采取适度放牧、严禁超载过牧、严禁滥砍滥伐等措施，促进天然更新。 2）浑善达克沙地沙丘植物群落退化严重。浑善达克沙地中部典型固定沙丘调查表明，阴坡植物群落种类复杂，主要为耐阴乔木半乔木+灌木+柳灌丛类，群落较为稳定。阳坡主要以褐沙蒿、雾冰藜和虫实为主，种类组成较为简单，沙脊为沙蒿+半旱生杂草类，腰地形成木岩黄芪+半灌木半旱生杂草类。落沙地形成虫实+狗尾草优势群落，风蚀坑形成狗尾草+虫实+褐沙蒿优势群落。顶部则形成虫实单优势群落。固定沙丘退化严重，有活化的可能，需要加强保护，控制放牧强度。 3）浑善达克沙地榆树疏林在景观水平上破碎化严重。研究发现榆树疏林斑块在全旗分布不均匀，斑块集中分布于北部苏木。其中有20个嘎查所含疏林斑块面积较多，占该旗疏林斑块总面积的86%，是主要分布区。榆树疏林斑块密度较低，斑块边界割裂严重，斑块之间分离度高，大斑块较少，小斑块数量多。 4）建立保护区可恢复浑善达克退化生态系统。运用以地养地模式，将大部分退化沙地围封保护，进行自然恢复;在小面积土地上建立了高产高效饲料基地，以向上一营养级提供足够的能量。结果表明，牲畜的压力逐步向小范围的土地集中，而大面积的退化草地借助自然力逐步恢复。群落生物量、平均高度和总盖度2年后均显著增加。植被组成方面，优质牧草比例提高。生态恢复不仅使自然生态系统得以恢复，而且带动了社会经济的发展，项目中的正蓝旗巴音胡舒嘎查牧民，在实验示范以后，年人均收入提高了32%。在全旗自然保护区建成后，大量居民将从保护区内迁移到城镇中去，有利于提高城市化水平，有利于调整产业结构，对于当前逐渐发展的二、三产业有促进作用;同时，自然保护区面积扩大有利于城市人口增长，能为城市发展提供消费食物来源、水源保障、环境保障。 5）拟建自然保护区设计。按照景观规划理论、Diamond自然保护区设计原则，选择榆树疏林斑块集中分布区，作为潜在核心区，运用ArcGIS的缓冲区分析功能，设计不同的宽度。同时调查斑块外不同距离样方与疏林斑块的群落相似度。由此而初步确定的核心区分布在正蓝旗23个嘎查，面积1 531 km2，约占全旗总面积的15%。根据核心区边界的生态、经济社会发展等因素，以及保护核心区所需要的最小宽度、当地土地利用所能规划的最大宽度，确定了不同区域的缓冲区宽度。由此而确定的缓冲区面积为1140km2，占保护区总面积的11.2%。其他地区均设置为过渡区，面积为7514km2，占保护区总面积的73.8%。 6）浑善达克自然保护区-社区的可持续发展。按照区域可持续发展理论，对浑善达克自然保护区-社区的各个苏木、镇、牧场、示范区，按照环境、经济、社会三个子系统进行了综合评价。发现可以按照区域可持续发展原则将正蓝旗划分为四个区域、两条畜产品产业带，简称“四区两带”战略：北部景观保护区、西部生态功能恢复区，以自然保护和生态恢复为主;中部社会经济服务区，以经济社会发展为主，集中建设好三个小城镇，发展集约化畜牧业、生态旅游产业;南部低山丘陵农业区，以及沿国道、省道的畜产品产业带。

DLC/TiNi microcage for biopsy applications

A TiNi/diamond-like-carbon (DLC) microcage for biological application has been designed, fabricated and characterized. A compressively stressed DLC film with TiNi pattern on top lifts the fingers upwards once they are released from the substrate, and the microcage can be closed through shape memory effect of top TiNi film with temperature below 80°C. Further heating above 100°C, the gradual opening of the microcage can be obtained due to thermal bimorph effect. The biocompatibility of both the TiNi and DLC films has been proved using a cell-culture method.

Effect of deposition conditions on the chemical bonding in sputtered carbon nitride films

A balanced planar r.f. powered magnetron sputter source has been used to deposit carbon nitride films from a graphite target under various conditions. Sample temperature, bias voltage and nitrogen content in the gas mixture were varied. The effects of oxygen, methane and ammonia on the film growth were also studied. Special attention was paid to the effects of the deposition parameters on the structure of the films, in particular the hybridisation of the carbon and nitrogen bonding. The chemical bonding of the carbon and nitrogen atoms was studied by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). The chemical composition was evaluated by Rutherford back-scattering. The intensity of transitions to π antibonding orbitals, as revealed by EELS, was found to increase with the nitrogen content in the films. Ion bombardment of the films during growth and the addition of oxygen or hydrogen-rich gases further increased the proportion of π bonds of both the carbon and nitrogen atoms. It is suggested that the increase in the transitions to μ antibond orbitals is to be explained by increased sp2 or possibly sp hybridisation of the carbon and nitrogen. Also, the effect of annealing on the bonding of nitrogen rich films after deposition was tested. The changes caused by nitrogen and deposition conditions are consistent with previous reports on the formation of paracyanogen structures.

Defect and disorder reduction by annealing in hydrogenated tetrahedral amorphous carbon

Hydrogenated tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C:H) is a form of diamond-like carbon with a high sp3 content (>60%), grown here using a plasma beam source. Information on the behaviour of hydrogen upon annealing is obtained from effusion measurements, which show that hydrogen does not effuse significantly at temperatures less than 500 °C in films grown using methane and 700 °C in films grown using acetylene. Raman measurements show no significant structural changes at temperatures up to 300 °C. At higher temperatures, corresponding to the onset of effusion, the Raman spectra show a clustering of the sp2 phase. The density of states of ta-C:H is directly measured using scanning tunnelling spectroscopy. The measured gradients of the conduction and valence band tails increase up to 300 °C, confirming the occurrence of band tail sharpening. Examination of the photoluminescence background in the Raman spectra shows an increase in photoluminescence intensity with decreasing defect density, providing evidence that paramagnetic defects are the dominant non-radiative recombination centres in ta-C:H.

Bonding regimes of nitrogen in amorphous carbon

Nitrogen can have numerous effects on diamond-like carbon: it can dope, it can form the hypothetical superhard compound C3N4, or it can create fullerene-like bonding structures. We studied amorphous carbon nitrogen films deposited by a filtered cathodic vacuum arc as a function of nitrogen content, ion energy and deposition temperature. The incorporation of nitrogen from 10-2 to 10 at% was measured by secondary ion mass spectrometry and elastic recoil detection analysis and was found to vary slightly sublinearly with N2 partial pressure during deposition. In the doping regime from 0 to about 0.4% N, the conductivity changes while the sp3 content and optical gap remain constant. From 0.4 to approximately 10% N, existing sp2 sites condense into clusters and reduce the band gap. Nitrogen contents over 10% change the bonding from mainly sp3 to mainly sp2. Ion energies between 20 and 250 eV do not greatly modify this behaviour. Deposition at higher temperatures causes a sudden loss of sp3 bonding above about 150 °C. Raman spectroscopy and optical gap data show that existing sp2 sites begin to cluster below this temperature, and the clustering continues above this temperature. This transition is found to vary only weakly with nitrogen addition, for N contents below 10%.

Carbon based bottom gate thin film transistor

This paper describes the fabrication and characterization of a carbon based, bottom gate, thin film transistor (TFT). The active layer is formed from highly sp2 bonded nitrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:N) which is deposited at room temperature using a filtered cathodic vacuum arc technique. The TFT shows p-channel operation. The device exhibits a threshold voltage of 15 V and a field effect mobility of 10-4 cm2 V-1 s-1 . The valence band tail of a-C:N is observed to be much shallower than that of a-Si:H, but does not appear to severely impede the shift of the Fermi level. This may indicate that a significant proportion of the a-C tail states can still contribute to conduction.

Density, sp3 content and internal layering of DLC films by X-ray reflectivity and electron energy loss spectroscopy

A variety of hydrogenated and non-hydrogenated amorphous carbon thin films have been characterized by means of grazing-incidence X-ray reflectivity (XRR) to give information about their density, thickness, surface roughness and layering. We used XRR to validate the density of ta-C, ta-C:H and a-C:H films derived from the valence plasmon in electron energy loss spectroscopy measurements, up to 3.26 and 2.39 g/cm3 for ta-C and ta-C:H, respectively. By comparing XRR and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) data, we have been able for the first time to fit a common electron effective mass of m*/me = 0.87 for all amorphous carbons and diamond, validating the `quasi-free' electron approach to density from valence plasmon energy. While hydrogenated films are found to be substantially uniform in density across the film, ta-C films grown by the filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) show a multilayer structure. However, ta-C films grown with an S-bend filter show a high uniformity and only a slight dependence on the substrate bias of both sp3 and layering.

Preparation of tetrahedral amorphous carbon films by filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition

Tetrahedrally bonded amorphous carbon (ta-C) and nitrogen doped (ta-C:N) films were obtained at room temperature in a filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) system incorporating an off-plane double bend (S-bend) magnetic filter. The influence of the negative bias voltage applied to substrates (from -20 to -350 V) and the nitrogen background pressure (up to 10-3 Torr) on film properties was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) and X-ray reflectivity (XRR). The ta-C films showed sp3 fractions between 84% and 88%, and mass densities around 3.2 g/cm3 in the wide range of bias voltage studied. In contrast, the compressive stress showed a maximum value of 11 GPa for bias voltages around -90 V, whereas for lower and higher bias voltages the stress decreased to 6 GPa. As for the ta-C:N films grown at bias voltages below -200 V and with N contents up to 7%, it has been found that the N atoms were preferentially sp3 bonded to the carbon network with a reduction in stress below 8 GPa. Further increase in bias voltage or N content increased the sp2 fraction, leading to a reduction in film density to 2.7 g/cm3.

Low field electron emission from nanoclustered carbon grown by cathodic arc

Nanocluster carbon films grown using a cathodic arc process at room temperature in the presence of background gases such as helium are found to be good electron emitters. The variation in the surface morphology and the corresponding emission characteristics of the films with change in helium partial pressure (5×10-4 to 50 Torr) during film growth are reported. The effect of helium partial pressure on clustering was studied for films grown at nitrogen partial pressures of 10-4 and 10-3 Torr. The surface morphology of the films varied from smooth through clusters (with sizes 50-200 nm) to fibrous films. The threshold field varied from 1 to 10 V/μm for an emission current density 1 μA/cm2.

Microwave power effects on the properties of phosphorus-doped SiC:H films prepared using ECR-CVD

There has been a growing interest in hydrogenated silicon carbide films (SiC:H) prepared using the electron cyclotron resonance-chemical vapour deposition (ECR-CVD) technique. Using the ECR-CVD technique, SiC:H films have been prepared from a mixture of methane, silane and hydrogen, with phosphine as the doping gas. The effects of changes in the microwave power (from 150 to 900 W) on the film properties were investigated in a series of phosphorus-doped SiC:H films. In particular, the changes in the deposition rate, optical bandgap, activation energy and conductivity were investigated in conjunction with results from Raman scattering and Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) analysis. It was found that increase in the microwave power has the effect of enhancing the formation of the silicon microcrystalline phase in the amorphous matrix of the SiC:H films. This occurs in correspondence to a rapid increase in the conductivity and a reduction in the activation energy, both of which exhibit small variations in samples deposited at microwave powers exceeding 500 W. Analysis of IR absorption results suggests that hydrogen is bonded to silicon in the Si-H stretching mode and to carbon in the sp3 CHn rocking/wagging and bending mode in films deposited at higher microwave powers.

Tribological properties of mems materials measured on a small-scale device

Micro-electro-mechanical systems, MEMS, is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary technology within the general field of Micro-Systems Technology which deals with the design and manufacture of miniaturised machines with major dimensions at the scale of tens, to perhaps hundreds, of microns. Because they depend on the cube of a representative dimension, component masses and inertias rapidly become small as size decreases whereas surface and tribological effects, which often depend on area, become increasingly important. Although MEMS components and their areas of contact are small, tribological conditions, measured by contact pressures or acceptable wear rates, are demanding and technical and commercial success will require careful measurement and precise control of surface topography and properties. Fabrication of small numbers of MEMS devices designed to test potential material combinations can be prohibitively expensive and thus there is a need for small scale test facilities which mimic the contact conditions within a micro-machine without themselves requiring processing within a full semiconductor foundry. The talk will illustrate some initial experimental results from a small-scale experimental device which meets these requirements, examining in particular the performance of Diamond-Like-Carbon coatings on a silicon substrate. Copyright © 2005 by ASME.