To better understand the effects of biological soil crusts (BSCs) on soil moisture and wind erosion and study the necessity and feasibility of disturbance of BSCs in the Mu Us sandland, the effects of four treatments, including moss-dominated crusts alone, Artemisia ordosica alone, bare sand, and Artemisia ordosica combined with moss-dominated crusts, on rainwater infiltration, soil moisture, a...

Biomass, mainly in the form of wood, is the oldest form of energy used by humans. Gasification is a process of conversion of solid carbonaceous fuel into combustible gas by partial combustion. In the present study, a model developed by us in our earlier study is used for predicting the steady-state composition and rate of reaction profiles for the reduction zone of the downdraft biomass gasifie...

UNLABELLED The public health risk and economic impact of dampness and mold exposures was assessed using current asthma as a health endpoint. Individual risk of current asthma from exposure to dampness and mold in homes from W.J. Fisk, Q. Lei-Gomez & M.J. Mendell [(2007) Indoor Air, [corrected] 17, 284-296], and [corrected] asthma risks calculated from additional studies that reported the preval...

Although the wet season in the tropical Amazon (108N–208S) at any one place and in any one year is initiated rapidly by synoptic systems, large-scale thermodynamic conditions modulate the frequency and intensity of these synoptic systems and hence control the climatology of the wet season. In this study, the satellite radiances, radiosondes, and assimilation data of the atmosphere are analyzed ...

The objective of this paper is to present the contribution of a new dielectric constant characterisation for the modelling of radar backscattering behaviour. Our analysis is based on a large number of radar measurements acquired during different experimental campaigns (Orgeval'94, Pays de Caux'98, 99). We propose a dielectric constant model, based on the combination of contributions from both s...

The small perturbation method (SPM) is applied to study thermal emission from a layered medium bounded by a slightly rough interface. Brightness temperatures are calculated to second order in surface height, including both specular reflection coefficient corrections and incoherent Bragg scatter terms. Unlike the homogeneous medium case, in which the SPM applied for emission predictions produces...

Topic 4.1 reviews the current status of the understanding on variability of tropical cyclone (TC) activity/intensity on intraseasonal to interannual time scales around the globe. Annually, approximately 80−90 TCs occur over the tropical oceans (Neumann 1993). The TC activities depend on thermodynamic parameters (e.g., sea surface temperature (SST), atmospheric stability, and mid-tropospheric mo...

Leaf water potential, leaf relative water content, and relative transpiration of barley were determined daily under greenhouse conditions at 3 growth stages: tillering to boot, boot to heading, and heading to maturity. The leaf moisture characteristic curve (relative water content versus leaf water potential) was the same for leaves of the same age growing in the same environment for the first ...

Upon an increase of moisture, unsaturated soil may collapse or swell, depending on the loading state and history. This important characteristic must be realistically reproduced by a constitutive model aimed for practical applications. In addition to collapse/swelling, other essential features, such as deformation and failure following arbitrary shearing paths, must also be realistically reprodu...