The Effects of Weathered Crude Oil from the M/T Alvenus Spill on Eggs and Yolk-Sac Larvae of Red Drum (Sciaenops ocellatus)

The Biitish tanker M/T ALVENUS ran aground 16.1 km south of Cameron, Louisiana, on 30 July 1984. An estimated 10,157 MT of Venezuelan crude oil were spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. Approximately 2,700 MT of the heavy viscous oil impacted beaches and an additional 1,360 MT remained in the subtidal areas of west Galveston Island, about 160 km southwest of the accident site. Red drum, which spawn in the Gulf of Mexico in the fall, could have been seriously impacted by oil concentrations potentially lethal to eggs or larvae. The impact of weathered crude oil on the survival, growth, and morphological development of red drum eggs and larvae was assessed in the laboratory. Equal numbers of eggs were randomly assigned to one of six treatments of weathered crude oil (control, 50, 100, 500, 1,000 and 2,000 mg/l) and observed through the yolk-sac stage. There were no differences in mean survival, length of surviving larvae, and frequency of morphological abnormalities among treatments (α \u3c 0.05). In addition, the frequency of spinal deformity and abnormal mouth development was low in all treatments. The initial chemical composition of the fresh crude oil and the seasonally warm weather contributed to the natural degradation of the soluble toxic components

Preliminary Results of American Eel Sampling Efforts in Gulf of Mexico Drainages of Texas

American Eel Anguilla rostrata has a unique and complex life history that is fairly well-studied on the eastern coast of the United States, but few studies have been done on Gulf of Mexico drainages. To inform conservation and management decisions, efforts to better understand the population structure, seasonal dynamics, and life history of American Eel are underway. The primary objectives of our efforts are to assess the current and historical distribution and abundance, habitat use, movement patterns, parasite occurrence, diet and population structure of American Eel across all life stages in Gulf of Mexico drainages of Texas.Texas State Wildlife Grant Program grants T-173-R-1 and T-172-R-1 in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration ProgramIntegrative Biolog

Streamlining of the RELAP5-3D Code

RELAP5-3D is widely used by the nuclear community to simulate general thermal hydraulic systems and has proven to be so versatile that the spectrum of transient two-phase problems that can be analyzed has increased substantially over time. To accommodate the many new types of problems that are analyzed by RELAP5-3D, both the physics and numerical methods of the code have been continuously improved. In the area of computational methods and mathematical techniques, many upgrades and improvements have been made decrease code run time and increase solution accuracy. These include vectorization, parallelization, use of improved equation solvers for thermal hydraulics and neutron kinetics, and incorporation of improved library utilities. In the area of applied nuclear engineering, expanded capabilities include boron and level tracking models, radiation/conduction enclosure model, feedwater heater and compressor components, fluids and corresponding correlations for modeling Generation IV reactor designs, and coupling to computational fluid dynamics solvers. Ongoing and proposed future developments include improvements to the two-phase pump model, conversion to FORTRAN 90, and coupling to more computer programs. This paper summarizes the general improvements made to RELAP5-3D, with an emphasis on streamlining the code infrastructure for improved maintenance and development. With all these past, present and planned developments, it is necessary to modify the code infrastructure to incorporate modifications in a consistent and maintainable manner. Modifying a complex code such as RELAP5-3D to incorporate new models, upgrade numerics, and optimize existing code becomes more difficult as the code grows larger. The difficulty of this as well as the chance of introducing errors is significantly reduced when the code is structured. To streamline the code into a structured program, a commercial restructuring tool, FOR_STRUCT, was applied to the RELAP5-3D source files. The methodology employed follows Dijkstra's structured programming paradigm, which is based on splitting programs into sub-sections, each with single points of entry and exit and in which control is passed downward through the structure with no unconditional branches to higher levels. GO TO commands are typically avoided, since they alter the flow and control of a program’s execution by allowing a jump from one place in the routine to another. The restructuring of RELAP5-3D subroutines is complicated by several issues. The first is use of code other than standard FORTRAN77. The second is restructuring limitations of FOR_STRUCT. The third is existence of pre-compiler directives and the complication of nested directives. Techniques were developed to overcome all these difficulties and more and these are reported. By implementing these developments, all subroutines of RELAP were restructured. Measures of code improvement relative to maintenance and development are presented

RESTRUCTURING RELAP5-3D FOR NEXT GENERATION NUCLEAR PLANT ANALYSIS

RELAP5-3D is used worldwide for analyzing nuclear reactors under both operational transients and postulated accident conditions. Development of the RELAP code series began in 1975 and since that time the code has been continuously improved, enhanced, verified and validated [1]. Since RELAP5-3D will continue to be the premier thermal hydraulics tool well into the future, it is necessary to modernize the code to accommodate the incorporation of additional capabilities to support the development of the next generation of nuclear reactors [2]. This paper discusses the reengineering of RELAP5-3D into structured code

Instream Flows Research and Validation Methodology Framework and Brazos Estuary Characterization: Brazos River and Associated Bay and Estuary System

Repor

Micro Cathode Arc Thruster for PhoneSat: Development and Potential Applications

NASA Ames Research Center and the George Washington University are developing an electric propulsion subsystem that will be integrated into the PhoneSat bus. Experimental tests have shown a reliable performance by firing three different thrusters at various frequencies in vacuum conditions. The interface consists of a microcontroller that sends a trigger pulse to the Pulsed Plasma Unit that is responsible for the thruster operation. A Smartphone is utilized as the main user interface for the selection of commands that control the entire system. The propellant, which is the cathode itself, is a solid cylinder made of Titanium. This simplicity in the design avoids miniaturization and manufacturing problems. The characteristics of this thruster allow an array of CATs to perform attitude control and orbital correction maneuvers that will open the door for the implementation of an extensive collection of new mission concepts and space applications for CubeSats. NASA Ames is currently working on the integration of the system to fit the thrusters and the PPU inside a 1.5U CubeSat together with the PhoneSat bus. This satellite is intended to be deployed from the ISS in 2015 and test the functionality of the thrusters by spinning the satellite around its long axis and measure the rotational speed with the phone gyros. This test flight will raise the TRL of the propulsion system from 5 to 7 and will be a first test for further CubeSats with propulsion systems, a key subsystem for long duration or interplanetary small satellite missions

International Coercion, Emulation and Policy Diffusion: Market-Oriented Infrastructure Reforms, 1977-1999

Why do some countries adopt market-oriented reforms such as deregulation, privatization and liberalization of competition in their infrastructure industries while others do not? Why did the pace of adoption accelerate in the 1990s? Building on neo-institutional theory in sociology, we argue that the domestic adoption of market-oriented reforms is strongly influenced by international pressures of coercion and emulation. We find robust support for these arguments with an event-history analysis of the determinants of reform in the telecommunications and electricity sectors of as many as 205 countries and territories between 1977 and 1999. Our results also suggest that the coercive effect of multilateral lending from the IMF, the World Bank or Regional Development Banks is increasing over time, a finding that is consistent with anecdotal evidence that multilateral organizations have broadened the scope of the “conditionality” terms specifying market-oriented reforms imposed on borrowing countries. We discuss the possibility that, by pressuring countries into policy reform, cross-national coercion and emulation may not produce ideal outcomes.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40099/3/wp713.pd

Productividad científica profesional mediante indicadores de reconocimiento o visibilidad y de pertenencia repulsiva

El propósito del estudio fue valorar la productividad científica profesional mediante indicadores de reconocimiento o visibilidad y de pertenencia repulsiva. Se analizó la productividad científica mediante nueve indicadores agrupados en dos categorías: I) de reconocimiento o visibilidad y II) de pertenencia repulsiva. En la primera categoría se agrupó: publicación de artículo científico, libro o capítulo de libro, registro de patente e índice-H. En la segunda categoría se agrupó: número de proyecto, ponencia en eventos científicos, asesoría de tesis, curso de posgrado impartido y contribución directa al desarrollo empresarial. A cada indicador se le asignó un punto y al compararse los resultados entre dos investigadores (A y B) hubo diferencias estadísticamente significativas (p<0,05) donde el puntaje total resultó menor para el investigador B, a pesar de presentar índice-H y no, el cumplimiento de otros indicadores. Se concluyó que, al mostrarse contribuciones sociales y no son aceptadas, existe pertenencia cognoscitiva repulsiva la cual desfavorece la productividad científica pudiendo ser la misma subjetiva solo si se considera el índice-H

Isolation and characterization of mercury resistant trichoderma strains from soil with high levels of mercury and its effects on Arabidopsis thaliana mercury uptake

"Traditional mining activities are usually correlated with high levels of soil pollution, which is a major environmental concern. Extensive mining activities have taken place in the San Joaquin region in the State of Querétaro, México resulting in high levels of mercury soil pollution (up to 1532 ± 300 mg/kg). We isolated mercury-resistant fungal strains from the San Joaquin region soils and identified them through morphologic characteristics and ITS rDNA region sequence analysis. We determined that fungi isolated belong to the genus Trichoderma. All the isolates selected showed the ability to catalyze the volatilization of Hg. For air sampling, an active sampling device was constructed and using acid KMnO4 as an absorbent, the concentration of mercury in solution was determined through the cold vapor atomic absorption method. The results show mercury volatilization from the fungal species assay, with a maximum of 213.04 ± 32.6 µg/m3 while mycelium accumulation ranged from less than 17.5 ± 2.9 to 20.0 ± 3.4 µg/g. The fungal isolates were also evaluated for their ability to reduce mercury uptake in Arabidopsis thaliana. These observations suggest the utility of Trichoderma for the mobilization of mercury in those contaminated soils.