Remote sensing in the mixing zone

Characteristics of dispersion and diffusion as the mechanisms by which pollutants are transported in natural river courses were studied with the view of providing additional data for the establishment of water quality guidelines and effluent outfall design protocols. Work has been divided into four basic categories which are directed at the basic goal of developing relationships which will permit the estimation of the nature and extent of the mixing zone as a function of those variables which characterize the outfall structure, the effluent, and the river, as well as climatological conditions. The four basic categories of effort are: (1) the development of mathematical models; (2) laboratory studies of physical models; (3) field surveys involving ground and aerial sensing; and (4) correlation between aerial photographic imagery and mixing zone characteristics

Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer Observations of a Supernova Remnant in the Line of Sight to HD 5980 in the Small Magellanic Cloud

We report a detection of far ultraviolet absorption from the supernova remnant SNR 0057 - 7226 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The absorption is seen in the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) spectrum of the LBV/WR star HD 5980. Absorption from O VI 1032 and C III 977 is seen at a velocity of +300 km/s with respect to the Galactic absorption lines, +170 km/s with respect to the SMC absorption. The O VI 1038 line is contaminated by H_2 absorption, but is present. These lines are not seen in the FUSE spectrum of Sk80, only ~1' (~17 pc) away from HD 5980. No blue-shifted O VI 1032 absorption from the SNR is seen in the FUSE spectrum. The O VI 1032 line in the SNR is well described by a Gaussian with FWHM=75 km/s. We find log N(O VI)=14.33-14.43, which is roughly 50% of the rest of the O VI column in the SMC (excluding the SNR) and greater than the O VI column in the Milky Way halo along this sight line. The N(C IV)/N(O VI) ratio for the SNR absorption is in the range of 0.12-0.17, similar to the value seen in the Milky Way disk, and lower than the halo value, supporting models in which SNRs produce the highly ionized gas close to the plane of the Galaxy, while other mechanisms occur in the halo. The N(C IV)/N(O VI) ratio is also lower than the SMC ratio along this sight line, suggesting that other mechanisms contribute to the creation of the global hot ionized medium in the SMC. The O VI, C IV, and Si IV apparent column density profiles suggest the presence of a multi-phase shell followed by a region of higher temperature gas.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, uses emulateapj5.sty. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Stellar abundances and molecular hydrogen in high-redshift galaxies -the far-ultraviolet view

FUSE spectra of star-forming regions in nearby galaxies are compared to composite spectra of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs), binned by strength of Lyman alpha emission and by mid-UV luminosity. Several far-UV spectral features, including lines dominated by stellar wind and by photospheric components, are very sensitive to stellar abundances. Their measurement in Lyman-break galaxies is compromised by the strong interstellar absorption features, allowing in some cases only upper limits. The derived C and N abundances in the LBGs are no higher than half solar (scaled to oxygen abundance for comparison with emission-line analyses), independent of the strength of Lyman alpha emission. P V absorption indicates abundances as low as 0.1 solar, with an upper limit near 0.4 solar in the reddest and weakest-emission galaxies. Unresolved interstellar absorption components would further lower the derived abundances. Trends of line strength, and derived abundances, are stronger with mid-UV luminosity than with Lyman-alpha strength. H2 absorption in the Lyman and Werner bands is very weak in the LBGs. Template H2 absorption spectra convolved to appropriate resolution show that strict upper limits N(H2)< 10^18 cm^-2 apply in all cases, with more stringent values appropriate for the stronger-emission composites and for mixes of H2 level populations like those on Milky Way sight lines. Since the UV-bright regions are likely to be widespread in these galaxies, these results rule out massive diffuse reservoirs of H2, and suggest that the dust/gas ratio is already fairly large at z~3.Comment: Astron J., in press (June 2006

Safety of the Excimer Laser in LASIK and PRK for Patients with Implantable Cardiac Devices: Our Clinical Experience in the Past Two Decades

This is a Letter to the Editor and does not have an abstrac