Molecular dynamics (MD) calculations have been performed to determine equilibrium structure and properties of systems modeling supercritical (SC) water and SC aqueous solutions at two states near the critical point using the simple point charge (SPC) potential model of Berendsen et al. for water. Both thermodynamic and dielectric properties from the simulations for pure water are accurate in co...

Giles' planigale (Planigale gilesi) is among the smallest extant marsupials and inhabits deep soil cracks in arid floodplains. We examined whether its physiology shows specific adaptations to its extreme habitat. Metabolic rate, body temperature, evaporative water loss and thermal conductance were measured for eight planigales (average mass 9 g) exposed to four different ambient temperatures ra...

The first atom transfer radical graft copolymerisation at ambient temperature in water from a soluble polysaccharide is demonstrated for a range of monomer types.

Open-water sediment disposal is used in many applications around the world, including land reclamation, dredging, and contaminated sediment isolation. Timely examples include the land reclamation campaign currently underway in Singapore and the Boston Harbor Navigation Improvement Project. Both of these projects required the precise dumping of millions of cubic meters of purchased sediment, in ...

Water use efficiency (WUE) reflects the coupling of the carbon and water cycles and is an effective integral trait for assessing the responses of vegetated ecosystems to climate change. In this study, field experiments were performed to examine leaf WUE (WUEleaf) in response to changes in CO2 concentration and other environmental variables, including soil moisture and air temperature. We al...

Colombo is a city surrounded by a large and interconnected system of natural wetlands. These wetlands which have historically provided a range of water services to the city are now believed to be threatened by degradation due to the recent changes in the urbanization patterns and urban lifestyle in Colombo. This paper presents a study on the current state and recent trends in surface water qual...

the mixture of natural and artificial seismic sources with random distributions cause diffuse wave field with random amplitudes and phases called noise. when noise is analyzed in a long-term process, it contains surface waves which are spread in all directions. thus, ambient noise contains data relevant to the surface waves. in recent years, as broadband seismic networks have been distributed v...

the present paper describes the designing of a thermally and economically optimum mechanical draft counter-flow wet cooling tower. the design model allows the use of a variety of packing materials in the cooling tower toward optimizing heat transfer. once the optimum packing type is chosen, a compact cooling tower with low fan power consumption is modelled within the known design variables. mor...