The brown treesnake (BTS) has been on Guam for about 50 years and in this period has caused extensive ecological, economic, and social damage. It has also repeatedly dispersed from Guam via the transportation network, arriving at numerous locations. However, the conditions snakes face in surface shipping are unknown, making assessment of the risk of snake survival impossible. To address this, w...

BACKGROUND Exposure to elemental mercury (Hg0) in residential buildings can occur from accidental spills, broken objects (thermometers, fluorescent fixtures, thermostats), and deliberate introduction, one mode of which involves cultural practices by individuals who believe dispersal of mercury in a residence will bring luck, enhance health or ward off harm. OBJECTIVES To determine whether mer...

This study investigated an indirect evaporative cooling system (IECS) to control latent heat loss on roof ponds by increasing the evaporation rates wet fabric membranes. The potential of proposed was experimentally tested in a real environment and it compared against pond floating fiber (gunny bags) provide efficient model for buildings hot humid climates. Dry bulb temperatures (DBT) are presen...

Background: The activity concentrations of some radionuclides in soil samples collected from 20 locations in 8 major towns in Oyo State, Southwestern Nigeria have been determined by gamma-ray spectrometry technique. Materials and Methods: The activity concentrations were determined using high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector (Canberra Industries Inc.). The outdoor absorbed dose rates in air at ...

The changing climate has introduced new and unique challenges threats to humans their environment. Urban dwellers in particular have suffered from increased levels of heat stress, the situation is predicted continue worsen future. Attention toward urban change adaptation more than ever before, but previous studies focused on indoor outdoor temperature patterns separately. objective this researc...

Natural illumination from the sun and sky plays a significant role in the appearance of outdoor scenes. We propose the use of sophisticated outdoor illumination models, developed in the computer graphics community, for estimating appearance and timestamps from a large set of uncalibrated images of an outdoor scene. We first present an analysis of the relationship between these illumination mode...

A number n > 1 is harmonic if σ(n) | nτ(n), where τ(n) and σ(n) are the number of positive divisors of n and their sum, respectively. It is known that there are no odd harmonic numbers up to 1015. We show here that, for any odd number n > 106, τ(n) ≤ n1/3. It follows readily that if n is odd and harmonic, then n > p3a/2 for any prime power divisor pa of n, and we have used this in showing that ...

Agricultural laborers frequently work for piece rate wages – where they are paid per unit of output rather than per unit of time – based on the assumption that these wages incentivize productivity. In this paper, I exploit quasi-experimental variation to estimate the elasticity of labor productivity with respect to piece rate wages by analyzing a high-frequency panel of over 2,000 blueberry pic...