Regional estimation of daily to annual regional evapotranspiration with MODIS data in the Yellow River Delta wetland

Evapotranspiration (ET) from the wetland of the Yellow River Delta (YRD) is one of the important components in the water cycle, which represents the water consumption by the plants and evaporation from the water and the non-vegetated surfaces. Reliable estimates of the total evapotranspiration from the wetland is useful information both for understanding the hydrological process and for water management to protect this natural environment. Due to the heterogeneity of the vegetation types and canopy density and of soil water content over the wetland (specifically over the natural reserve areas), it is difficult to estimate the regional evapotranspiration extrapolating measurements or calculations usually done locally for a specific land cover type. Remote sensing can provide observations of land surface conditions with high spatial and temporal resolution and coverage. In this study, a model based on the Energy Balance method was used to calculate daily evapotranspiration (ET) using instantaneous observations of land surface reflectance and temperature from MODIS when the data were available on clouds-free days. A time series analysis algorithm was then applied to generate a time series of daily ET over a year period by filling the gaps in the observation series due to clouds. A detailed vegetation classification map was used to help identifying areas of various wetland vegetation types in the YRD wetland. Such information was also used to improve the parameterizations in the energy balance model to improve the accuracy of ET estimates. This study showed that spatial variation of ET was significant over the same vegetation class at a given time and over different vegetation types in different seasons in the YRD wetlan

Motivation of internet use: relation with pathological internet use, gender and internet activities

This study is aimed to examine the motivation of Internet use among university students in Malaysia. A total of 102 students from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) answered the pencil-paper questionnaire. Result of descriptive analysis showed that 49.02% of students were identified as pathological Internet use (PIU). The predominant motivation of Internet use were information seeking and entertainment/escape. The inferential analysis using MANOVA indicated that students with PIU reported significantly higher scores of all motivation factors of Internet use than their non-PIU peers. Correlational test was used to examine the relationship between motivation of Internet use and Internet activities found that social recognition was significantly related to four Internet activities including social networking site (SNS), online game, shopping and browsing. Entertainment/escape was only related to SNS usage. The low coefficient of correlation between motivation and Internet activities implied the influence of potential variables

Object Picture of Quasinormal Modes for Stringy Black Holes

We study the quasinormal modes (QNMs) for stringy black holes. By using numerical calculation, the relations between the QNMs and the parameters of black holes are minutely shown. For (1+1)-dimensional stringy black hole, the real part of the quasinormal frequency increases and the imaginary part of the quasinormal frequency decreases as the mass of the black hole increases. Furthermore, the dependence of the QNMs on the charge of the black hole and the flatness parameter is also illustrated. For (1+3)-dimensional stringy black hole, increasing either the event horizon or the multipole index, the real part of the quasinormal frequency decreases. The imaginary part of the quasinormal frequency increases no matter whether the event horizon is increased or the multipole index is decreased.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Physical Fighting and Associated Factors among Adolescents Aged 13-15 Years in Six Western Pacific Countries.

Youth violence is an important public health challenge around the world, yet the literature on this problem in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has been limited. The present study aims to examine the prevalence of adolescent physical fighting (defined as having been involved in at least one physical fight during the past 12 months) in selected LMICs, and its relations with potential risk factors. We included 6377 school-going adolescents aged 13-15 years from six Western Pacific (WP) countries that had recently conducted a Global School-based Student Health Survey. Information was gathered through a self-administered anonymous closed-ended questionnaire. The prevalence of adolescent physical fighting varied across countries, ranging from 34.5% in Kiribati to 63.3% in Samoa. The prevalence was higher in boys than in girls, and lower at age 15 than 13-14 years. Physical fighting was significantly associated (pooled odds ratios (ORs), 95% confidence intervals (CIs)) with smoking (1.78, 1.53-2.06), drinking (1.57, 1.33-1.85), drug use (1.72, 1.33-2.23), and missing school (1.72, 1.51-1.95). The association with physical fighting increased with increasing number of joint adverse behaviors (increased from 1.99 (1.73-2.29) for one risk behavior to 4.95 (4.03-6.07) for at least 3 risk behaviors, versus having none of the 4 risk behaviors). The high prevalence of physical fighting and the associations with risk behaviors emphasize the need for comprehensive prevention programs to reduce youth violence and associated risk behaviors

Optimal windbreak design for wind-erosion in high-speed railway

It is also very important to improve resistant capabilities of wind resistance and structural stability of the windbreak while reducing train aerodynamic load. This article proposes a new type of windbreak with double-layer structure forming a cavity chamber with hole for energy dissipation of crosswind. Numerical simulation was used to analysis the wind protection effect of two kinds of windbreak and their own wind-resistance performance. The results showed that the two types of windbreaks can significantly reduce the train aerodynamic load under the action of crosswind, and the force act on the windbreak with cavity chamber structure is small than on another one with single layer structure. The new windbreak has better effect in aerodynamic load shedding for the train, stronger resistant capabilities of wind resistance and safety of structure. This new windbreak with cavity chamber will provides useful references for design of the wind protection system for high speed train. © 2013 Taylor & Francis Group