Efforts to automate the reconstruction of neural circuits from 3D electron microscopic (EM) brain images are critical for the field of connectomics. An important computation for reconstruction is the detection of neuronal boundaries. Images acquired by serial section EM, a leading 3D EM technique, are highly anisotropic, with inferior quality along the third dimension. For such images, the 2D m...

Freshwater resources in the North China Plain (NCP) are near depletion due to the unceasing overexploitation of deep groundwater, by far the most significant source of freshwater in the region. To deal with the deepening freshwater crisis, brackish water (rich but largely unused water in agriculture) is increasingly being used in irrigation in the region. However, inappropriate irrigation with ...

Water resource shortage has been a serious problem since the 1980s in the North China Plain (NCP), resulting in plenty of environmental problems. Estimating the groundwater recharge rate accurately is vital for managing groundwater effectively. This study applied several methods, including chloride mass-balance, tracers (bromide and tritium) and numerical modeling (Hydrus-1D), to estimate groun...

In September 1987 an accident occurred with a cesium chloride (CsCl) teletherapy source taken from a cancer therapy institute in Goiânia, Brazil. Misuse of the abandoned source caused widespread contamination of radioactive material (about 50 TBq of Cs) in the town of Goiânia. Decontamination of affected areas did lead to about 3,500 m of solid radioactive wastes, which were disposed in two nea...

The purpose of this study was to assess the transport of the herbicide bentazone [3-(1-methylethyl)-1H-2,1,3-benzothiadiazin-4(3H)one 2,2-dioxide] in three contrasting tile-drained cultivated field soils subject to otherwise similar experimental conditions. Observed drain discharge rates and chemical concentrations in the drainage water reflected the different transport processes at the three s...

We report the discovery of two new AM Herculis systems (polars), identified as the optical V∼19 mag and V∼20 mag counterparts of the soft X-ray sources RX J2022.6−3954 and RX J0132.7−6554 detected during the ROSAT All-Sky Survey and present the results of our optical and X-ray follow-up observations. From the cyclotron emission lines detected in the optical spectra we determine magnetic field s...

The Constructed Wetland Model No. 1 (CWM1) is a biokinetic model describing microbial dynamics and transformation and degradation processes in subsurface flow constructed wetlands. The implementation of CWM1 in the HYDRUS program package (©PC Progress s.r.o.) was verified using data from controlled environment column experiments. These 20-day long batch experiments used synthetic wastewater and...