AN IMPROVED INFILTRATION MODEL AND DESIGN SIZING APPROACH FOR STORMWATER BIORETENTION FILTERS INCLUDING ANISOTROPY AND INFILTRATION INTO NATIVE SOILS

Bioretention filters are a common Best Management Practice used to treat pollutants and water volumes of stormwater runoff from urbanized watersheds. The current static sizing criterium for new design applies Darcy’s law to the Water Quality Volume (WQV) as it filters through the bioretention soil media. In retrofit applications, the WQV is instantaneously stored in the system pore space, including the ponded surface. While these designs are simple to implement, the systems areas are oversized because no infiltration or other outflow is considered in the design. The retrofit bioretention study site for this research located in Dover, NH (HSBS) treats a 21.9 ac. suburban watershed with 38% impervious cover. The static design treatment rainfall for the HSBS was 0.16 inches. Monitored data yielded a mean peak discharge reduction and mean volume reduction of 62% and 35% with standard deviations of 25% and 37%, respectively. Of 45 observed storms with one-minute logging intervals, 67% of the events were fully treated and ponding did not exceed the designed elevation; 95% of these events were less than 1.27 inches. The static design rainfall was in the 5.4th percentile, almost 800% less than the largest observed treated storm with no bypass. The volume balance model developed in this study used a Green and Ampt approach for the vertical bottom and lateral sidewall infiltrations integrated over the duration of the event. The model requires basic watershed and climatic properties, design dimensions, and anisotropic native soil characteristics. Comparing estimates of bottomonly infiltration and the developed model to observed infiltrated volumes yielded mean errors of -79% and -8%, with RMSE of 3210 cu. ft. and 2650 cu. ft., respectively. On average, 39% of the total infiltrated volume occurred through the sidewalls. The retrofit treatment rainfall for the model was 0.52 inches. This was 225% larger than the current static design rainfall and was in the 49th percentile of the observed, treated events for HSBS, which was an improvement of 44% over the current static design

Chromatic Illumination Discrimination Ability Reveals that Human Colour Constancy Is Optimised for Blue Daylight Illuminations

The phenomenon of colour constancy in human visual perception keeps surface colours constant, despite changes in their reflected light due to changing illumination. Although colour constancy has evolved under a constrained subset of illuminations, it is unknown whether its underlying mechanisms, thought to involve multiple components from retina to cortex, are optimised for particular environmental variations. Here we demonstrate a new method for investigating colour constancy using illumination matching in real scenes which, unlike previous methods using surface matching and simulated scenes, allows testing of multiple, real illuminations. We use real scenes consisting of solid familiar or unfamiliar objects against uniform or variegated backgrounds and compare discrimination performance for typical illuminations from the daylight chromaticity locus (approximately blue-yellow) and atypical spectra from an orthogonal locus (approximately red-green, at correlated colour temperature 6700 K), all produced in real time by a 10-channel LED illuminator. We find that discrimination of illumination changes is poorer along the daylight locus than the atypical locus, and is poorest particularly for bluer illumination changes, demonstrating conversely that surface colour constancy is best for blue daylight illuminations. Illumination discrimination is also enhanced, and therefore colour constancy diminished, for uniform backgrounds, irrespective of the object type. These results are not explained by statistical properties of the scene signal changes at the retinal level. We conclude that high-level mechanisms of colour constancy are biased for the blue daylight illuminations and variegated backgrounds to which the human visual system has typically been exposed

Situación actual del diagnóstico y tratamiento del cáncer de mama en Argentina

Un estudio realizado por ISALUD, que evidencia profundas desigualdades regionales y por subsectores, confirma que los esfuerzos deben focalizarse en la implementación de estrategias de detección precoz, pero también en asegurar que las mujeres con hallazgos sospechosos accedan a un estudio diagnóstico y, en el caso de confirmarse el cáncer, a un tratamiento oportuno y efectivo

Recombinant expression systems for production of stabilised virus-like particles as next-generation polio vaccines

Polioviruses have caused crippling disease in humans for centuries, prior to the successful development of vaccines in the mid-1900’s, which dramatically reduced disease prevalence. Continued use of these vaccines, however, threatens ultimate disease eradication and achievement of a polio-free world. Virus-like particles (VLPs) that lack a viral genome represent a safer potential vaccine, although they require particle stabilization. Using our previously established genetic techniques to stabilize the structural capsid proteins, we demonstrate production of poliovirus VLPs of all three serotypes, from four different recombinant expression systems. We compare the antigenicity, thermostability and immunogenicity of these stabilized VLPs against the current inactivated polio vaccine, demonstrating equivalent or superior immunogenicity in female Wistar rats. Structural analyses of these recombinant VLPs provide a rational understanding of the stabilizing mutations and the role of potential excipients. Collectively, we have established these poliovirus stabilized VLPs as viable next-generation vaccine candidates for the future

Toward the integrated marine debris observing system

Plastics and other artificial materials pose new risks to the health of the ocean. Anthropogenic debris travels across large distances and is ubiquitous in the water and on shorelines, yet, observations of its sources, composition, pathways, and distributions in the ocean are very sparse and inaccurate. Total amounts of plastics and other man-made debris in the ocean and on the shore, temporal trends in these amounts under exponentially increasing production, as well as degradation processes, vertical fluxes, and time scales are largely unknown. Present ocean circulation models are not able to accurately simulate drift of debris because of its complex hydrodynamics. In this paper we discuss the structure of the future integrated marine debris observing system (IMDOS) that is required to provide long-term monitoring of the state of this anthropogenic pollution and support operational activities to mitigate impacts on the ecosystem and on the safety of maritime activity. The proposed observing system integrates remote sensing and in situ observations. Also, models are used to optimize the design of the system and, in turn, they will be gradually improved using the products of the system. Remote sensing technologies will provide spatially coherent coverage and consistent surveying time series at local to global scale. Optical sensors, including high-resolution imaging, multi- and hyperspectral, fluorescence, and Raman technologies, as well as SAR will be used to measure different types of debris. They will be implemented in a variety of platforms, from hand-held tools to ship-, buoy-, aircraft-, and satellite-based sensors. A network of in situ observations, including reports from volunteers, citizen scientists and ships of opportunity, will be developed to provide data for calibration/validation of remote sensors and to monitor the spread of plastic pollution and other marine debris. IMDOS will interact with other observing systems monitoring physical, chemical, and biological processes in the ocean and on shorelines as well as the state of the ecosystem, maritime activities and safety, drift of sea ice, etc. The synthesized data will support innovative multi-disciplinary research and serve a diverse community of users