Design study for a moored surface-scanning sonar

This report contains the results of a design study for a surface scanning sonar instrument capable of long-term deployment on ocean moorings. The instrument is intended to sample the bubble field just below the ocean's surface and compute the backscattered intensity and Doppler velocity in small unit volumes. The principal motivation for the development of such an instrument is to enhance the study of upper ocean processes by utilizing the ability of the sonar to detect surface waves and Langmuir circulation. Important design parameters for the instrument are investigated and a detailed design proposed. Key technical issues such as the trade-offs among spatial resolution, temporal resolution, velocity precision, total range, and power are discussed. The azimuthal motion of the instrument on a mooring is considered as a potential problem, and possible solutions are discussed. Matlab functions used for the investigations are included in an appendix.Funding was provided by a grant from the Webster Foundation to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Radiation Retinopathy: Case report and review

BACKGROUND: Ocular damage from radiation treatment is a well established phenomenon. Many factors are now known to influence the incidence of radiation retinopathy, including total dosage and daily fraction size. Patients who are diabetic, hypertensive or received previous chemotherapy are more susceptible to radiation retinopathy. CASE PRESENTATION: A 55 year old male was referred from the oncology department with epiphora. His medical history included Type 2 Insulin treated Diabetes Mellitus and hypertension. One year prior to presentation he had undergone a total rhinectomy with a 4 week course of post-operative radiotherapy for an aggressive sqaumous cell carcinoma of the nose. On examination the visual acuity was noted to be 6/36 left eye and 6/9 right eye. Posterior segment examination revealed marked retinal ischaemia present in the posterior pole and macular region of both eyes. The appearance was not thought to be typical of diabetic changes, radiation retinopathy being the more likely diagnosis especially in view of his history. Over the next four months the vision in both eyes rapidly deteriorated to 3/60 left eye and 1/60 right eye. Bilateral pan retinal photocoagulation was thought to be appropriate treatment at this point. CONCLUSION: This case highlights the importance for ophthalmologists and oncologists to be aware of the close relationship between diabetes and radiation treatment and the profound rapid impact this combination of factors may have on visual function. Radiation is being used with increasing frequency for ocular and orbital disease, because of this more cases of radiation retinopathy may become prevalent. Factors which may potentiate radiation retinopathy should be well known including, increased radiation dosage, increased fraction size, concomitant systemic vascular disease and use of chemotherapy. Counselling should be offered in all cases at risk of visual loss. As no effective treatment currently exists to restore visual function, monitoring of visual acuity in all cases and early referral to the ophthalmologist as appropriate is warranted

A multilevel examination of gender differences in the association between features of the school environment and physical activity among a sample of grades 9 to 12 students in Ontario, Canada

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Creating school environments that support student physical activity (PA) is a key recommendation of policy-makers to increase youth PA. Given males are more active than females at all ages, it has been suggested that investigating gender differences in the features of the environment that associate with PA may help to inform gender-focused PA interventions and reduce the gender disparity in PA. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to explore gender differences in the association between factors of the school environment and students' time spent in PA.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Among a sample of 10781 female and 10973 male students in grades 9 to 12 from 76 secondary schools in Ontario, Canada, student- and school-level survey PA data were collected and supplemented with GIS-derived measures of the built environment within 1-km buffers of the 76 schools.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Findings from the present study revealed significant differences in the time male and female students spent in PA as well as in some of the school- and student-level factors associated with PA. Results of the gender-specific multilevel analyses indicate schools should consider providing an alternate room for PA, especially for providing flexibility activities directed at female students. Schools should also consider offering daily physical education programming to male students in senior grades and providing PA promotion initiatives targeting obese male students.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Although most variation in male and female students' time spent in PA lies between students within schools, there is sufficient between-school variation to be of interest to practitioners and policy-makers. More research investigating gender differentials in environment factors associated with youth PA are warranted.</p

Atlantic Long-Term Oceanographic Mooring (ALTOMOOR)

The Atlantic Long-Term Oceanogrphic Mooring (ALTOMOOR) has been maintained offshore Bermuda since 1993 as a testbed for the evaluation of new data telemetry technologies and new oceanographic instrumentation. It is currently a joint project between the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of Southern California This report documents the WHOI contributions which have focused on the development of new data telemetry methods and new mooring technology. Details of the instrumentation evaluations will be published separately. A new inductively-coupled telemetry technology for ocean moorings has been developed and tested on ALTOMOOR. The inductive link uses standard, plastic-jacketed mooring wire as the transmission path for data generated at the individual instruments installed on the mooring. The signals are inductively linked to the mooring wire via toroids clamped around the wire, thus avoiding the need for multiconductor electromechanical cables terminated at each instrument. Seawater provides the electrical return path. The inductive modems send and receive data at 1200b/s. A controller in the surface buoy collects data from each of the subsurface instruments and forwards the data to shore by traditional satellite telemetry (Argos) and by short range radio using a nearby ship as a store and forward node. The buoy-to-ship link operates over about 2 km at 10kBytes/sec. When the ship docks, data are offloaded automatically to a computer on shore which can be accessed via the Internet.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research through Contract Nos. N000-14-94-10346 and N000-14-90-J-1719