Distribution and Accumulation of Mercury in Sediments of Kaohsiung River Mouth, Taiwan

AbstractThis study was conducted using the data collected in May 2009 to investigate and analyze mercury (Hg) contained in the surface sediments, and to evaluate the accumulation of Hg and the degree of its potential risk. The results show that samples collected at all monitoring stations near the mouth of Kaohsiung River contain 0.15–1.15mg kg-1of Hg with average of 0.68±0.30mg kg-1. The spatial distribution of Hg reveals that the Hg concentration is relatively high in the river mouth region, and gradually diminishes toward the harbor region. This indicates that upstream industrial and municipal wastewater discharges along the river bank are major sources of pollution. The accumulation factor and potential ecological risk index indicate that the sedimentation at Kaohsiung River mouth has the most serious degree of Hg accumulation and the highest ecological potential risk. Therefore, a strategy for effective controlling and managing Kaohsiung River upstream pollution needs to be immediately implemented in order to improve the sediment quality and alleviate the ecological risk

Copper Contamination in the Sediments of Salt River Mouth, Taiwan

AbstractThis study was conducted using the data collected at the mouth of Salt River to investigate and analyze copper (Cu) contained in the sediments, and to evaluate the accumulation of Cu and the degree of its potential risk. The results show that samples collected at all monitoring stations near the mouth of Salt River contain 286–895mg/kg of Cu with average of 501±243mg/kg. The spatial distribution of Cu reveals that the Cu concentration is relatively high in the river mouth region, and gradually diminishes toward the harbor region. This indicates that upstream industrial and municipal wastewater discharges along the river bank are major sources of pollution. The accumulation factor and potential ecological risk index indicate that the sedimentation at Salt River mouth has the most serious degree of Cu accumulation and the highest ecological potential risk

Decay Constants of Pseudoscalar DD-mesons in Lattice QCD with Domain-Wall Fermion

We present the first study of the masses and decay constants of the pseudoscalar $D$ mesons in two flavors lattice QCD with domain-wall fermion. The gauge ensembles are generated on the $24^3 \times 48$ lattice with the extent $N_s = 16$ in the fifth dimension, and the plaquette gauge action at $\beta = 6.10$, for three sea-quark masses with corresponding pion masses in the range $260-475$ MeV. We compute the point-to-point quark propagators, and measure the time-correlation functions of the pseudoscalar and vector mesons. The inverse lattice spacing is determined by the Wilson flow, while the strange and the charm quark masses by the masses of the vector mesons $\phi(1020)$ and $J/\psi(3097)$ respectively. Using heavy meson chiral perturbation theory (HMChPT) to extrapolate to the physical pion mass, we obtain $f_D = 202.3(2.2)(2.6)$ MeV and $f_{D_s} = 258.7(1.1)(2.9)$ MeV.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures. v2: the statistics of ensemble (A) with m_sea = 0.005 has been increased, more details on the systematic error, to appear in Phys. Lett.

Factors of Employee’s E-Learning Effectiveness: A Multi-Level Study Based on Socio-Technical Systems Theory

Application of e-learning in enterprises provides the advantages of lower training cost, richer learning content, higher information consistency, and easier update of content. Despite the fact that enterprises have the intention to introduce e-learning, there is not a complete framework to which they can refer to ensure the benefits of e-learning for employee training or learning and understand which important factors affect employee’s e-learning effectiveness. Relative to the difficulties of introducing e-learning in management practice, the academic achievements in this aspect also seem very limited. Most the existing papers are focused on discussion and survey of e-learning in school, and very few of them are dedicated to empirical research of e-learning in corporate environment. Besides, these studies discuss e-learning only at the technical or the individual level without a comprehensive investigation into the factors affecting e-learning effectiveness with multi-level theoretic framework. This paper applies the socio-technical systems theory to review and integrate theories about employee e-learning from a macro view. To make up the insufficiency of related research, literature review and case research are conducted first. Based on the interview results, an analysis model is constructed to thoroughly explore factors affecting employee’s e-learning effectiveness. Later, through a questionnaire survey on employees’ adoption of e-learning and subsequent multi-level data analysis, hypotheses on the relationship of the influencing factors and the research model are verified. Results show that e-learning effectiveness (usefulness of e-learning, continuance intention to use, and e-learning performance) is simultaneously or alternately affected by direct or moderating factors of the technical system and the social system at the work environment level and the individual level. Compared with the existing research, this paper uses a more comprehensive system view to construct the theoretical model and empirically verify it. The results can be a reference for future researchers and managers of e-learning in enterprises

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OVER-ARM THROWING PATTERN AND THROWING PERFORMANCE

Throwing is a common movement among the upper extremities activities. This study examined the relationship between throwing patterns and throwing distance. Eighty-five age 21 years old students (m =29, F =56)voluntarily participated in the study. Each subject threw a tennis ball as hard as they could straightforward for three trials. A video camera at subjects' right hand side was used to record the subjects' motion. The Burton's (1992) amendment of DSOT table was used to quantify the throwing patterns. Data collected was examined by Pearson correlation(p < .05). The results were as follows: 1. the trunk rotation was found to associated with throwing distance for the male SUbject, 2. the backswing and trunk rotation were associated with throwing distance for the female SUbject

THE LONG -TERM VARIATION OF ORGANIC CHARACTERISTICS IN DONGGANG RIVER USING EXCITATION EMISSION FLUORESCENT MATRIX (EEFM) INTEGRATED WITH PARALLEL FACTOR ANALYSIS (PARAFAC)

In this study, Excitation Emission Fluorescent matrix (EEFM) integrated with Parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) was applied to investigate the variation of organic property in Donggang River located in Southern Taiwan between Oct. 2010 and Oct. 2015. It reveals that both values of BOD5and COD had a closer proximity at twice samplings; however, the four main components in both samplings showed a different location of excitation and emission wavelengths. On Oct., 2010, EX/EM (percentage of area) of four components were respectively 320/410 nm (46 %), 370/460 nm (27 %), 290/350 nm (14 %) and 280/450 nm (13 %) mainly belonging to humic-like substance. Regrading to the result on Oct, 2015, 320/420 nm (29 %), 228,278/358 nm (29 %), 240/420(29 %) nm and 228/310 nm (14 %) were found attributed in amino organic substance with low excitation wavelength. On Oct.2015, the intensities of four main components in Cinsheda Bridge higher than those in other locations may be attributed with of heavily polluted source like piggery wastewater. For the partition of N-organic and C-organic, there had a significant change on both samplings