1,720,972 research outputs found
Trends in microfluidic systems for in situ chemical analysis of natural waters
Full text linkSpatially and temporally detailed measurement of ocean, river and lake chemistry is key to fully understanding the biogeochemical processes at work within them. To obtain these valuable data, miniaturised in situ chemical analysers have recently become an attractive alternative to traditional manual sampling, with microfluidic technology at the forefront of recent advances. In this short critical review we discuss the role, operation and application of in situ microfluidic analysers to measure biogeochemical parameters in natural waters. We describe recent technical developments, most notably how pumping technology has evolved to allow long-term deployments, and describe how they have been deployed in real-world situations to yield detailed, scientifically useful data. Finally, we discuss the technical challenges that still remain and the key obstacles that must be negotiated if these promising systems are to be widely adopted and used, for example, in large environmental sensor networks and on low-power underwater vehicles
Nitrate and nitrite variability at the seafloor of an oxygen minimum zone revealed by a novel microfluidic in-situ chemical sensor
Full text linkMicrofluidics, or lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a promising technology that allows the development of miniaturized chemical sensors. In contrast to the surging interest in biomedical sciences, the utilization of LOC sensors in aquatic sciences is still in infancy but a wider use of such sensors could mitigate the undersampling problem of ocean biogeochemical processes. Here we describe the first underwater test of a novel LOC sensor to obtain in situ calibrated time-series (up to 40 h) of nitrate+nitrite (?NOx) and nitrite on the seafloor of the Mauritanian oxygen minimum zone, offshore Western Africa. Initial tests showed that the sensor successfully reproduced water column (160 m) nutrient profiles. Lander deployments at 50, 100 and 170 m depth indicated that the biogeochemical variability was high over the Mauritanian shelf: The 50 m site had the lowest ?NOx concentration, with 15.2 to 23.4 ?M (median=18.3 ?M); while at the 100 site ?NOx varied between 21.0 and 30.1 ?M over 40 hours (median = 25.1?M). The 170 m site had the highest median ?NOx level (25.8 ?M) with less variability (22.8 to 27.7 ?M). At the 50 m site, nitrite concentration decreased fivefold from 1 to 0.2 ?M in just 30 hours accompanied by decreasing oxygen and increasing nitrate concentrations. Taken together with the time series of oxygen, temperature, pressure and current velocities, we propose that the episodic intrusion of deeper waters via cross-shelf transport leads to intrusion of nitrate-rich, but oxygen-poor waters to shallower locations, with consequences for benthic nitrogen cycling. This first validation of an LOC sensor at elevated water depths revealed that when deployed for longer periods and as a part of a sensor network, LOC technology has the potential to contribute to the understanding of the benthic biogeochemical dynamics
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
High-Resolution in situ measurement of nitrate in runoff from the Greenland Ice Sheet
Full text linkWe report the first in situ high-resolution nitrate time series from two proglacial meltwater rivers draining the Greenland Ice Sheet, using a recently developed submersible analyzer based on lab-on-chip (LOC) technology. The low sample volume (320 μL) required by the LOC analyzer meant that low concentration (few micromolar to submicromolar), highly turbid subglacial meltwater could be filtered and colorimetrically analyzed in situ. Nitrate concentrations in rivers draining Leverett Glacier in southwest Greenland and Kiattuut Sermiat in southern Greenland exhibited a clear diurnal signal and a gradual decline at the commencement of the melt season, displaying trends that would not be discernible using traditional daily manual sampling. Nitrate concentrations varied by 4.4 μM (±0.2 μM) over a 10 day period at Kiattuut Sermiat and 3.0 μM (±0.2 μM) over a 14 day period at Leverett Glacier. Marked changes in nitrate concentrations were observed when discharge began to increase. High-resolution in situ measurements such as these have the potential to significantly advance the understanding of nutrient cycling in remote systems, where the dynamics of nutrient release are complex but are important for downstream biogeochemical cycles.<br/
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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