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Article:Herut, B., Krom, M.D., Pan, G. et al. (1 more author) (1999) Atmospheric input of nitrogen and phosphorus to the Southeast Mediterranean: Sources, fluxes, and possible impact. Limnology and Oceanography, 44 (7).

Chitosan modification can turn many solids, such as local clays and soils, into highly effective flocculants in removing harmful cyanobacterial blooms in freshwaters. AbstractAfter sepiolite was modified with Fe 3C to increase its surface charge, the initial algal removal rate increased significantly, but its Q 8 h was not improved substantially at clay loadings below 0.1 g/L. Modification on netting and bridging properties of clays by either chitosan or polyacrylamide (PAM) dramatically increased flocculation (Q 8 h ) of MA cells in freshwaters. Algal removal efficiencies of different solids, including Type III clays, local soils and sediments, were all improved to a similar level of O90% at a total loading of 0.011 g/L (contained 0.001 g/L chitosan) after they were modified with chitosan, making the idea of clearing up algal blooms using local soils/sediments possible. The mechanism of netting and bridging was confirmed to be the most important factor in improving the removal efficiency of cells, whereas clays also played important roles in the sedimentation of the floc.

Holographic particle image velocimetry (HPIV) offers potentially the best solution to volumetric measurements of the three-dimensional velocity fields in complex flows. However, the traditional film-based HPIV measurement is rather cumbersome, limiting its use to only a handful of groups worldwide. The newly emerged digital HPIV revolutionizes flow measurement science by providing a practical 3D velocimetry tool. It commands simple hardware that is similar to regular two-dimensional particle image velocimetry (PIV), yet it provides continuous (time-series) three-dimensional, three-component flow field data. Not only is the need for chemical processing eliminated, but also the cumbersome optical reconstruction is completely replaced by numerical reconstruction algorithms. Several breakthroughs have led to the development of the first practical and integrated digital HPIV systems. To explain the transition from film to digital recording, fundamental issues in HPIV are reviewed in this paper. Axial accuracy in HPIV measurement is ultimately limited by an inherent depth-of-focus problem, while information capacity is limited by inherent speckle noise. Information capacity is an important concept in HPIV, comprising the maximum acceptable seeding density multiplied by the sample volume depth along the optic axis. Both the axial accuracy and the information capacity are limited by the effective hologram aperture. The pursuit of a large hologram aperture in the past has resulted in further complexity in film-based HPIV systems. Digital HPIV, on the other hand, enjoys great simplicity of implementation and operation. A digital HPIV is also far more compact and rugged compared to existing film-based HPIV systems, making it suitable for duplication and commercialization. However, since digital sensors suffer from inferior pixel resolutions compared to films, the effective hologram aperture is much smaller in digital HPIV than that achievable in film-based HPIV. Alleviating this problem, digital HPIV also presents new possibilities in data processing such as the use of the complex amplitude of the reconstructed light wave to improve depth sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio. Two examples of digital HPIV systems and measurement results are given. We believe digital HPIV can revitalize holographic particle imaging and bring it into the mainstream in much the same way that digital PIV brought PIV into widespread use a decade ago.

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A loading of 0.025 g/L chitosan-modified local soils removed 99% algal cells in 16 h in a field enclosure of Taihu Lake. AbstractEffects of ionic strength, pH, organic content, cell concentration, and growth phase on the removal of MA cells using chitosan-modified sepiolite were studied in the laboratory. The MA removal efficiency increased with the increase of salinity for normal clay flocculation. In contrast, for chitosan-modified clays/soils, MA removal efficiency increased with the decrease of salinity. The removal efficiency of chitosan-modified sepiolite was not significantly affected by pH (6e9), but dropped dramatically beyond pH 10. Humic acid had a small negative effect on the removal of MA cells. Cells were removed more effectively by clays around the early senescence growth phase than other growth stages. The removal efficiency increased as the cell concentration increased. In a field enclosure of Taihu Lake, a loading of 0.025 g/L chitosan-modified local soils removed 99% algal cells and no increase of chlorophyll-a was observed during the following one month's monitoring process.

A universal environmental friendly method was developed to turn sand into effective flocculants for mitigating harmful algal blooms (HABs) in marine and freshwater systems. The isoelectric point of sand was largely increased from pH 4.5 to 10.5 after been modified by Moringa oleifera coagulant (MO) abstracted form MO seeds. However, when sand was modified by MO alone, maximum removal efficiencies of 80% and 20% for Amphidinium carterae (A.C.) and Chlorella sp. (C.S.) in seawater and 60% for Microcystis aeruginosa (M.A.) in fresh water were achieved in 30 min. The limited removal improvement was due to the form of only small flocs (20-100 μm) by surface charge modification only. Large flocs (270-800 μm) and high removal rate of 96% A.C. and C.S. cells in seawater and 90% of M.A. cells in fresh water were achieved within 30 min when the small MO-algae-sand flocs were linked and bridged by chitosan. High HAB removal rate is achievable when the sand is modified by the bicomponent mechanism of surface charge and netting-bridging modification using biodegradable modifiers such as MO and chitosan. The optimized dosage of modified sand depends on the property of algal cells and water conditions.

Digital holography appears to be a strong contender as the next-generation technology for holographic diagnostics of particle fields and holographic particle image velocimetry for flow field measurement. With the digital holographic approach, holograms are directly recorded by a digital camera and reconstructed numerically. This not only eliminates wet chemical processing and mechanical scanning, but also enables the use of complex amplitude information inaccessible by optical reconstruction, thereby allowing flexible reconstruction algorithms to achieve optimization of specific information. However, owing to the inherently low pixel resolution of solid-state imaging sensors, digital holography gives poor depth resolution for images, a problem that severely impairs the usefulness of digital holography especially in densely populated particle fields. This paper describes a technique that significantly improves particle axial-location accuracy by exploring the reconstructed complex amplitude information, compared with other numerical reconstruction schemes that merely mimic traditional optical reconstruction. This novel method allows accurate extraction of particle locations from forward-scattering particle holograms even at high particle loadings.