5,372 research outputs found

    THE HARVESTING OF HIGH LIPID CONTENT MICROALGAE BIOMASS THROUGH A FLOCCULATION STRATEGY

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    Different flocculants were evaluated for the flocculation of microalgae biomass of Acutodesmus obliquus. Flocculation was tested with FeCl3 and NaOH at different concentrations and compared to a sample centrifuged at 7000 rpm. The evaluated parameters were absorbance (540 nm) in the clarified medium, and lipids concentration. For FeCl3 (0.2 mmol L-1) as flocculant, efficiency was 96.8%, and with NaOH (8 mmol L-1) 93.5%. Centrifugation efficiency was lower than with either flocculants: 91.7%. However, NaOH flocculation reduced lipid content, which did not occur with FeCl3. Flocculation efficiency was affected by salt concentration, reducing efficiency by 79% due to increased nutrient concentration (9 mL L-1)

    Local helioseismology of sunspot regions: comparison of ring-diagram and time-distance results

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    Local helioseismology provides unique information about the subsurface structure and dynamics of sunspots and active regions. However, because of complexity of sunspot regions local helioseismology diagnostics require careful analysis of systematic uncertainties and physical interpretation of the inversion results. We present new results of comparison of the ring-diagram analysis and time-distance helioseismology for active region NOAA 9787, for which a previous comparison showed significant differences in the subsurface sound-speed structure, and discuss systematic uncertainties of the measurements and inversions. Our results show that both the ring-diagram and time-distance techniques give qualitatively similar results, revealing a characteristic two-layer seismic sound-speed structure consistent with the results for other active regions. However, a quantitative comparison of the inversion results is not straightforward. It must take into account differences in the sensitivity, spatial resolution and the averaging kernels. In particular, because of the acoustic power suppression, the contribution of the sunspot seismic structure to the ring-diagram signal can be substantially reduced. We show that taking into account this effect reduces the difference in the depth of transition between the negative and positive sound-speed variations inferred by these methods. Further detailed analysis of the sensitivity, resolution and averaging properties of the local helioseismology methods is necessary for consolidation of the inversion results. It seems to be important that both methods indicate that the seismic structure of sunspots is rather deep and extends to at least 20 Mm below the surface, putting constraints on theoretical models of sunspots.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS) GONG 2010 - SoHO 24 "A new era of seismology of the Sun and solar-like stars", June 27 - July 2, 2010 Aix-en-Provence, Franc

    NRLMSIS 2.0: A Whole-Atmosphere Empirical Model of Temperature and Neutral Species Densities

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    NRLMSIS® 2.0 is an empirical atmospheric model that extends from the ground to the exobase and describes the average observed behavior of temperature, eight species densities, and mass density via a parametric analytic formulation. The model inputs are location, day of year, time of day, solar activity, and geomagnetic activity. NRLMSIS 2.0 is a major, reformulated upgrade of the previous version, NRLMSISE-00. The model now couples thermospheric species densities to the entire column, via an effective mass profile that transitions each species from the fully mixed region below ~70 km altitude to the diffusively separated region above ~200 km. Other changes include the extension of atomic oxygen down to 50 km and the use of geopotential height as the internal vertical coordinate. We assimilated extensive new lower and middle atmosphere temperature, O, and H data, along with global average thermospheric mass density derived from satellite orbits, and we validated the model against independent samples of these data. In the mesosphere and below, residual biases and standard deviations are considerably lower than NRLMSISE-00. The new model is warmer in the upper troposphere and cooler in the stratosphere and mesosphere. In the thermosphere, N2 and O densities are lower in NRLMSIS 2.0; otherwise, the NRLMSISE-00 thermosphere is largely retained. Future advances in thermospheric specification will likely require new in situ mass spectrometer measurements, new techniques for species density measurement between 100 and 200 km, and the reconciliation of systematic biases among thermospheric temperature and composition data sets, including biases attributable to long-term changes

    NRLMSIS 2.0: A Whole-Atmosphere Empirical Model of Temperature and Neutral Species Densities

    Get PDF
    NRLMSIS® 2.0 is an empirical atmospheric model that extends from the ground to the exobase and describes the average observed behavior of temperature, eight species densities, and mass density via a parametric analytic formulation. The model inputs are location, day of year, time of day, solar activity, and geomagnetic activity. NRLMSIS 2.0 is a major, reformulated upgrade of the previous version, NRLMSISE-00. The model now couples thermospheric species densities to the entire column, via an effective mass profile that transitions each species from the fully mixed region below ~70 km altitude to the diffusively separated region above ~200 km. Other changes include the extension of atomic oxygen down to 50 km and the use of geopotential height as the internal vertical coordinate. We assimilated extensive new lower and middle atmosphere temperature, O, and H data, along with global average thermospheric mass density derived from satellite orbits, and we validated the model against independent samples of these data. In the mesosphere and below, residual biases and standard deviations are considerably lower than NRLMSISE-00. The new model is warmer in the upper troposphere and cooler in the stratosphere and mesosphere. In the thermosphere, N2 and O densities are lower in NRLMSIS 2.0; otherwise, the NRLMSISE-00 thermosphere is largely retained. Future advances in thermospheric specification will likely require new in situ mass spectrometer measurements, new techniques for species density measurement between 100 and 200 km, and the reconciliation of systematic biases among thermospheric temperature and composition data sets, including biases attributable to long-term changes

    Plasmonically Enhanced Reflectance of Heat Radiation from Low-Bandgap Semiconductor Microinclusions

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    Increased reflectance from the inclusion of highly scattering particles at low volume fractions in an insulating dielectric offers a promising way to reduce radiative thermal losses at high temperatures. Here, we investigate plasmonic resonance driven enhanced scattering from microinclusions of low-bandgap semiconductors (InP, Si, Ge, PbS, InAs and Te) in an insulating composite to tailor its infrared reflectance for minimizing thermal losses from radiative transfer. To this end, we compute the spectral properties of the microcomposites using Monte Carlo modeling and compare them with results from Fresnel equations. The role of particle size-dependent Mie scattering and absorption efficiencies, and, scattering anisotropy are studied to identify the optimal microinclusion size and material parameters for maximizing the reflectance of the thermal radiation. For composites with Si and Ge microinclusions we obtain reflectance efficiencies of 57 - 65% for the incident blackbody radiation from sources at temperatures in the range 400 - 1600 {\deg}C. Furthermore, we observe a broadbanding of the reflectance spectra from the plasmonic resonances due to charge carriers generated from defect states within the semiconductor bandgap. Our results thus open up the possibility of developing efficient high-temperature thermal insulators through use of the low-bandgap semiconductor microinclusions in insulating dielectrics.Comment: Main article (8 Figures and 2 Tables) + Supporting Information (8 Figures

    DNA barcoding of Brazilian sea turtles (Testudines)

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    Five out of the seven recognized species of sea turtles (Testudines) occur on the Brazilian coast. The Barcode Initiative is an effort to undertake a molecular inventory of Earth biodiversity. Cytochrome Oxidase c subunit I (COI) molecular tags for sea turtle species have not yet been described. In this study, COI sequences for the five species of sea turtles that occur in Brazil were generated. These presented widely divergent haplotypes. All observed values were on the same range as those already described for other animal groups: the overall mean distance was 8.2%, the mean distance between families (Dermochelyidae and Cheloniidae) 11.7%, the mean intraspecific divergence 0.34%, and the mean distance within Cheloniidae 6.4%, this being 19-fold higher than the mean divergence observed within species. We obtained species-specific COI barcode tags that can be used for identifying each of the marine turtle species studied
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