We present a new method of chemical quantification utilizing thermal analysis for the detection of relative humidity. By measuring the temperature change of a hydrophilically-modified temperature sensing element vs. a hydrophobically-modified reference element, the total heat from chemical interactions in the sensing element can be measured and used to calculate a change in relative humidity. W...

BACKGROUND Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most important viral agent causing severe respiratory disease in infants and children. In temperate climates, RSV activity typically peaks during winter. We have described the seasonal variation in RSV activity and investigated which meteorological variables are related to RSV outbreaks for different time lags. METHODS Eleven laboratories in...

Environmental temperatures that exceed body temperature (Tb) force endothermic animals to rely solely on evaporative cooling to dissipate heat. However, evaporative heat dissipation can be drastically reduced by environmental humidity, imposing a thermoregulatory challenge. The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of humidity on the thermoregulation of desert birds and to compare t...

We present an 800-year δO chronology from the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau (TP). The chronology dates back to AD 1193 and was sampled in AD 1996 from living Juniperus tibetica trees. This first long-term tree-ringbased δO chronology for eastern Tibet provides a reliable archive for hydroclimatic reconstructions. Highly significant correlations were obtained with hydroclimatic variables (...

A simulation of the earth’s clear-sky long-wave radiation budget is used to examine the dependence of clearsky outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR) on surface temperature and relative humidity. The simulation uses the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts global reanalysed fields to calculate clear-sky OLR over the period from January 1979 to December 1993, thus allowing the seasonal...

[1] This study evaluates three major Numerical-Weather-Prediction reanalyses (ERA-Interim, NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis I, and NCEP/DOE Reanalysis II) in modeling surface relative shortwave cloud forcing, cloud fraction, and cloud albedo. The observations used for this evaluation are decade-long surface-based continuous measurements of the U.S. Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program from 03/25...

A major cause of high energy consumption for air conditioning in indoor spaces is the thermal storage characteristics of a building's envelope concrete material; therefore, the physiological signals (temperature and humidity) within concrete structures are an important reference for building energy management. The current approach to measuring temperature and humidity within concrete structures...

Azobenzene photoalignment materials are highly effective for liquid crystal alignment with high sensitivity and rewritability. A strong relationship between relative humidity and the alignment quality of a thin layer of azobenzenesulfonic dye has been investigated, where the photoinduced phase retardation, order parameter, and anchoring strength of the alignment layer are influenced dramaticall...

Majority of the fungi producing diseases in man and animals exist freely in nature as soil saprophytes or plant pathogens and gain entrance into the body through abrasion, implantation or inhalation. Adametz isolated fungi for the first time from the soil in the year 1886, since then there has been very few reports. Manipal and surrounding places being coastal areas, experience heavy rainfall w...

A method is proposed to increase the accuracy of satellite sensorderived near-surface humidity estimates. The method uses an operational atmospheric circulation model to correct the satellite sensor estimates of humidity from their regional bias. The method was applied to twelve orbits of the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) selected between 1997 and 1998. The SSM/I-derived humidity esti...