Introduction: In radiation therapy with high-energy photon beams (E > 7 MeV) neutrons are generated mainly in LINACs head thorough (γ, n) interactions. These neutrons affect the shielding requirements in radiation therapy rooms. According to the protocol TG-34, photon absorbed dose of 10Gy can cause permanent damage to the pacemaker and the dose of 2Gy can make minor changes in...

The eddy covariance method is considered the only direct flux measurement method. Its application for fog deposition measurements is relatively new and has a high potential to allow the accurate determination of nutrient and trace element deposition due to fog droplet interception by vegetation canopies. Based on experiences gained at an agricultural site on the Swiss Plateau and a mountainous ...

In maize (Zea mays) roots, xylem water transfer supported by root pressure occurs during the day and is less important at night. Diurnal modifications of osmotic pressure gradient between medium and xylem could not explain the oscillation of water flux in young maize roots during the day-night cycle. We observed a high turgor pressure of root cortical cells associated with a high flux. In maize...

Background: Considering the carcinogenic effects of heavy metals, such as chromium, it is essential to remove these elements from water and wastewater. Direct osmosis is a new membrane technology, which can be a proper alternative to conventional chromium removal processes. Methods: The wastewater samples were collected from an electroplating unit, located in Alborz industrial city, Qazvin, Ir...

The thick ascending limb of the loop of Henle (TAL) reabsorbs ∼30% of filtered NaCl but is impermeable to water. The observation that little water traverses the TAL indicates an absence of water channels at the apical membrane. Yet TAL cells swell when peritubular osmolality decreases indicating that water channels must be present in the basolateral side. Consequently, we hypothesized that the ...

Water is essential for life. Specifically in the oases of inland arid basins, water is a critically limited resource, essential for the development of the socio-economy and the sustainability of eco-environmental systems. Due to the unique hydrological regime present in arid oases, a moderate groundwater table is the goal of sustainable water management. A shallow water table induces serious se...

This article investigated the long-term variation of the boreal summer (JJA) moisture circulation over South China (SC). The total precipitable water (TPW) and moisture convergence over SC have increased obviously, such trend is not a local phenomenon, but the result of large-scale circulation anomaly. In the past few decades, the water vapor transport from southern hemisphere and subtropical w...

Reverse osmosis (RO) has been widely applied in various water and wastewater treatment processes as a promising membrane technology. However, RO membrane fouling is a global issue, which limits it operating flux, decreases water production, increases power consumption and requires periodical membranes Cleaning-in-Place (CIP) procedure. This may result in low effectiveness, high cost and adds en...

Synthesis of river-monitoring data reveals that the average annual discharge of fresh water from the six largest Eurasian rivers to the Arctic Ocean increased by 7% from 1936 to 1999. The average annual rate of increase was 2.0 +/- 0.7 cubic kilometers per year. Consequently, average annual discharge from the six rivers is now about 128 cubic kilometers per year greater than it was when routine...

Using numerical simulation of diffusion inside diffusive gradients in thin films (DGT) samplers, we show that the effect of lateral diffusion inside the sampler on the solute flux into the sampler is a nonlinear function of the diffusion layer thickness and the physical sampling window size. In contrast, earlier work concluded that this effect was constant irrespective of parameters of the samp...