Further laboratory studies of the roughness and suspended load of alluvial streams

A laboratory study was made to determine the variation with depth and velocity of the hydraulic and sediment transport characteristics of a constant-discharge flow. Eight experimental runs were performed in a 60-foot long, 33.5-inch wide recirculating laboratory flume. The unit discharge for all runs was 0.50 cfs per ft. and the velocity was varied from 0.91 to 2.21 fps, corresponding to a change in depth from 0.550 to 0.228 ft. The bed sand used for these experiments had a geometric mean sieve diameter of 0.142 mm and a geometric standard deviation of 1.38. As the velocity was increased, the bed form changed from a dune-covered configuration to a flat bed, with sand waves occurring at intermediate velocities. It was found that for the unit discharge and bed sand used in this investigation, two different velocities and sediment transport rates are possible for a given slope, or a given bed shear velocity; however, this multiplicity is possible only in the range of slope and shear velocity where major changes in the bed configuration occur since it is a result of large variations in the bed roughness. Therefore the slope or shear velocity cannot logically be used as an independent variable since neither of these quantities uniquely determines the velocity or transport rate. However, if the velocity is used as the independent variable for a constant-discharge flow, the slope, shear velocity, and friction factor are all uniquely determined. The sediment transport rate was found to be a single-valued, uniformly increasing function of velocity, and it can therefore be used in place of the velocity as the independent variable. A comparison of data from this investigation with data from previous investigations which used the same sand showed that even a small decrease in the amount of fine material in the bed sand can have a significant effect on the transport rate. However, even relatively large changes in the standard deviation of the bed material have a small effect on the friction factor

Epidemiological Baseline of Influenza Virus in Wild Aquatic Birds in Hong Kong during the Pre-H5N1 Endemic Era

Influenza virus surveillance was conducted on wild ducks and shorebirds in Hong Kong at the Mai Po Nature Reserve to determine whether East Asian wild aquatic birds passing through or overwintering in Hong Kong are reservoirs of H5N1 influenza viruses and to establish an epidemiological baseline of influenza virus in wild aquatic birds during the pre-H5N1 endemic era. Three influenza viruses were isolated from 3178 faecal samples collected over three sampling periods from 1988 to 2001 during the southern and northern migration periods. The isolation rates and viruses were, respectively 0.08% (H10N5) in 1988 – 1990, 0.12% (H11N1) in 1998 and 0.09% (H3N8) in 1999 – 2001. Whereas tracheal and intestinal colon explants from representative shorebirds were susceptible to in vitro infection by the H10N5 virus, orally infected shorebirds were apparently not. Genetic analyses indicated that the nucleoprotein, matrix and nonstructural genes of the three viruses were related to those of aquatic bird viruses in Asia, but not to those of the human H5N1 virus. The present study provided epidemiological baseline information for future influenza virus surveillance in wild aquatic birds in southeast China

The Stability of Self Assessed Health Status

The use of self assessed health status as a measure of health is common in empirical research. We analyse a unique Australian survey in which a random sub-sample of respondents answer a standard self assessed health question twice – before and after an additional set of health related questions. 28% of respondents change their reported health status. Response instability is related to age, income and occupation. We also compare the responses of these individuals to other respondents who are queried only once. The distributions of responses to both questions by the former group are statistically different from the distribution of responses by the latter group.Self assessed health status

The Stability of Self Assessed Health Status

The use of self assessed health status as a measure of health is common in empirical research. We analyse a unique Australian survey in which a random sub-sample of respondents answer a standard self assessed health question twice -- before and after an additional set of health related questions. 28% of respondents change their reported health status. Response instability is related to age, income and occupation. We also compare the responses of these individuals to other respondents who are queried only once. The distributions of responses to both questions by the former group are statistically different from the distribution of responses by the latter group.self-assessed health status

Pump-probe detuning dependence of four-wave mixing pulse in an SOA

Four-wave mixing (FWM) between 2-ps pulses in a multiquantum-well semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is presented. The conjugate pulses are fully characterized using the frequency-resolved optical gating technique. The detuning between the pump and probe is varied, leading to a compression of the FWM signal from 3.71 to 2.77 ps as the detuning is increased from 5 to 25 nm. The output conjugate pulse is always broader than the injected probe signal due to gain saturation effects. A reshaping of the conjugate pulse is also measured. However, large nonlinearities are introduced to the frequency chirp across the pulse for large detunings which may degrade the performance of four-wave-mixing-based all-optical processing applications in SOAs