Saltation is an important geological process and the primary source of atmospheric mineral dust aerosols. Unfortunately, no studies to date have been able to precisely reproduce the saltation process because of the simplified theoretical models used. For example, sand particles in most of the existing wind sand movement models are considered to be spherical, the effects of the sand shape on the...

Unlike green sand, chemically bonded sand cannot be used again and again without reclamation because in this system, the mixed sand gets it`s strength through chemical reaction which is irreversible in nature. Each sand particle is coated with this reacted chemical, which behaves like an inert element after usage once. This inert coating also called “Dead” binder needs to be removed from the us...

We present an interactive sand art drawing system using one RGB-D sensor, such as Kinect. Our system supports the common sand drawing functions, such as sand erosion, sand spilling, and sand leaking. To use hands to draw virtual sand on a drawing plane, we design four key gestures which enable drawing manipulation actions for sand. The basic idea is that the gesture of one hand controls the dra...

Metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) are reported to impact plant growth in hydroponic systems. This study describes the impact of commercial CuO (\50 nm) and ZnO (\100 nm) NPs on wheat (Triticum aestivum) grown in a solid matrix, sand. The NPs contained both metallic and non-metallic impurities to different extents. Dynamic light scattering and atomic force microscopy (AFM) assessments confirmed ag...

After transmission through the bite of female sand flies, Leishmania spp. can cause a broad spectrum of disease manifestations collectively known as leishmaniases. L. amazonensis is endemic in South America, where it causes cutaneous, diffuse cutaneous, and visceral leishmaniasis. In this study, we have provided evidence that salivary gland extracts (SGE) of Lutzomyia longipalpis enhances L. am...

Knowledge of coral reef GPP is the foundation for understanding the function of reef systems. GPP sets the maximum energy available to a reef community through autotrophic pathways and ultimately limit the biomass and secondary production of reef consumers [1-3]. Calcification, or the production of carbonate, is directly related to the value of GPP [4]. GPP describes the basic energy production...

production of highly viscous tar sand bitumen using steam assisted gravity drainage (sagd) with a pair of horizontal wells has advantages over conventional steam flooding. this paper explores the use of artificial neural networks (anns) as an alternative to the traditional sagd simulation approach. feed forward, multi-layered neural network meta-models are trained through the back-error-propaga...

BACKGROUND During a blood meal, female sand flies, vectors of Leishmania parasites, inject saliva into the host skin. Sand fly saliva is composed of a large variety of components that exert different pharmacological activities facilitating the acquisition of blood by the insect. Importantly, proteins present in saliva are able to elicit the production of specific anti-saliva antibodies, which c...

This experiment compared the effects of sand and straw bedding in free stalls on resting time, cleanliness, hock injuries, and hoof health of dairy cows and tested whether cow preferences for a bedding material depended on the familiarity with the material. A total of 52 dairy cows were kept either on straw bedded concrete stalls or sand stalls for at least 21 wk. The lying behavior was observe...