PURPOSE To compare topographic indices of surface regularity in dry eye patients and in normal subjects (controls) and to investigate the short-term effect of lacrimal punctal plugs on these indices in dry eye patients. METHODS The surface regularity index (SRI) and surface asymmetry index (SAI) of the TMS-2 corneal topographic modelling system were used to evaluate corneal surface regularity...

Many Forth systems provide means to call C functions, but these interfaces are not designed to be portable between platforms: A call to a C library function that works on one platform may fail on the next platform, because the parameter and return value types of the C function may be different. In this paper, we present an interface that avoids this problem: In particular, the actual calls can ...

[1] Changes in gravity due to volcanic loading of the crust are influenced by topography. We investigate the relative importance of topography and self-gravitation in the interpretation of gravity changes. It is shown that modeling of gravity changes can be more precise with the introduction of topographic relief, although it is neglected self-gravitation of the medium. This paper exploits this...

Uncontrolled excess moisture in buildings is a common problem that can lead to changes in fungal communities. In buildings, moisture parameters can be classified by location and include assessments of moisture in the air, at a surface, or within a material. These parameters are not equivalent in dynamic indoor environments, which makes moisture-induced fungal growth in buildings a complex occur...

Comparisons to ground-based surface soil moisture estimates are necessary to evaluate the capability of remote sensors to determine soil moisture and its spatiotemporal variability. Soil moisture can be especially variable in regions of complex terrain which exhibit large variations in vegetation, soil properties and hydrologic conditions. The objective of this study is to evaluate the spatiote...

Large variations in both snow water equivalent (SWE) and snow slope stability are known to exist in the alpine snowpack, caused by wind, topographic and microclimatic effects. This variability makes extrapolation of point measurements of snowpack properties difficult and prone to error, but these types of measurements are used to estimate SWE and stability across entire mountain ranges. Radar t...

Background: Similar to the thermoluminescence (TL) spectra, the optical parameters variations can also be used in TL crystals for dosimetry purposes. These optical parameters can include absorption, transmission and reflection coefficients. Materials and Methods: Single crystals of KBr and KCl which have been used in this research were grown from laboratory grade extra pure precursor p...

Resistive stresses and velocities at depth are calculated along the Byrd Station Strain Network, Antarctica, using field data. There are found to be large longitudinal variations in basal drag and this result is little affected by errors in the input data or by uncertainties in the constitutive relation for ice. Basal drag varies by a factor of about 2 along the strain network, and is usually e...

A 2D boundary-element numerical simulation approach and a local slowness analysis method for an embedded array are used to quantify effects of topographic scattering on near-source energy partitioning for simple underground explosion sources. Various parameters, including free-surface models with different root mean square (rms) random topographic fluctuations and correlation lengths, source de...

The area south of the Shandong peninsula has been of great interest to both oceanographers and underwater acousticians due to the measurements of Zhou et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90 (1991) 2042]. Over a period of years, in the summer, they observed anomalous losses in shallow water acoustic signals. They attributed the losses to acoustic mode conversions produced by solitary internal waves (sol...