Organochlorine (OC) pesticides have been used broadly in China's past, yet very little is known about their atmospheric concentrations and transport. In this work, air samples were collected in the Taihu Lake Region, China, from July 23 to August 11, 2002, to measure concentrations of OC pesticides in air. The average concentrations of alpha and gamma- hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), heptachlor (HEPT), alpha-endosulfan, p,p'-DDT, p,p'-DDE, p,p'-DDD, and o,p'-DDT in the air were 74 and 46, 47, 53, 307, 124, 212, 36, and 767 pg m(-3), respectively. It was interesting to note that the concentrations of p,p'-DDT, p,p'-DDE, and o,p'-DDT were all very high, even though the use of technical DDT has been banned in China since 1983. Moreover, the average concentration ratios of o,p'-DDT/p,p'-DDT and p,p'-DDE/p,p'-DDT were as high as 6.3 and 1.8. This suggested that there could be an unknown source of DDT-related compounds (DDTs), especially o,p'-DDT and p,p'-DDE. It is very likely that this unknown source was the application of dicofol, an acaricide manufactured from technical DDT and used mainly on cotton fields to treat mites in China. Backward trajectory analysis also provided consistent evidence that the high air concentrations of DDTs were related to trajectories from the area north of the Yangtze River, where cotton fields account for a significant fraction of land use.

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Proper mixing of reagents is of paramount importance for an efficient chemical reaction. While on a large scale there are many good solutions for quantitative mixing of reagents, as of today, efficient and inexpensive fluid mixing in the nanoliter and microliter volume range is still a challenge. Complete, i.e., quantitative mixing is of special importance in any small-scale analytical application because the scarcity of analytes and the low volume of the reagents demand efficient utilization of all available reaction components. In this paper we demonstrate the design and fabrication of a novel centrifugal force-based unit for fast mixing of fluids in the nanoliter to microliter volume range. The device consists of a number of chambers (including two loading chambers, one pressure chamber, and one mixing chamber) that are connected through a network of microchannels, and is made by bonding a slab of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to a glass slide. The PDMS slab was cast using a SU-8 master mold fabricated by a two-level photolithography process. This microfluidic mixer exploits centrifugal force and pneumatic pressure to reciprocate the flow of fluid samples in order to minimize the amount of sample and the time of mixing. The process of mixing was monitored by utilizing the planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique. A time series of high resolution images of the mixing chamber were analyzed for the spatial distribution of light intensities as the two fluids (suspension of red fluorescent particles and water) mixed. Histograms of the fluorescent emissions within the mixing chamber during different stages of the mixing process were created to quantify the level of mixing of the mixing fluids. The results suggest that quantitative mixing was achieved in less than 3 min. This device can be employed as a stand alone mixing unit or may be integrated into a disk-based microfluidic system where, in addition to mixing, several other sample preparation steps may be included.

The flow fields of slowly flying bats and fasterflying birds differ in that bats produce two vortex loops during each stroke, one per wing, and birds produce a single vortex loop per stroke. In addition, the circulation at stroke transition approaches zero in bats but remains strong in birds. It is unknown if these difference derive from fundamental differences in wing morphology or are a consequence of flight speed. Here, we present an analysis of the horizontal flow field underneath hovering Anna's hummingbirds (Calypte anna) to describe the wake of a bird flying at zero forward velocity. We also consider how the hummingbird tail interacts with the wake generated by the wings. High-speed image recording and analysis from three orthogonal perspectives revealed that the wing tips reach peak velocities in the middle of each stroke and approach zero velocity at stroke transition. Hummingbirds use complex tail kinematic patterns ranging from in phase to antiphase cycling with respect to the wings, covering several phase shifted patterns. We employed particle image velocimetry to attain detailed horizontal flow measurements at three levels with respect to the tail: in the tail, at the tail tip, and just below the tail. The velocity patterns underneath the wings indicate that flow oscillates along the ventral-dorsal axis in response to the down-and up-strokes and that the sideways flows with respect to the bird are consistently from the lateral to medial. The region around the tail is dominated by axial flows in dorsal to ventral direction. We propose that these flows are generated by interaction between the wakes of the two wings at the end of the upstroke, and that the tail actively defects flows to generate moments that contribute to pitch stability. The flow fields images also revealed distinct vortex loops underneath each wing, which were generated during each stroke. From these data, we propose a model for the primary flow structures of hummingbirds that more strongly resembles the bat model. Thus, pairs of unconnected vortex loops may be shared features of different animals during hovering and slow forward flight.