State Vector: A New Approach to Prediction of the Failure of Brittle Heterogeneous Media and Large Earthquakes

The concept of state vector stems from statistical physics, where it is usually used to describe activity patterns of a physical field in its manner of coarsegrain. In this paper, we propose an approach by which the state vector was applied to describe quantitatively the damage evolution of the brittle heterogeneous systems, and some interesting results are presented, i.e., prior to the macro-fracture of rock specimens and occurrence of a strong earthquake, evolutions of the four relevant scalars time series derived from the state vectors changed anomalously. As retrospective studies, some prominent large earthquakes occurred in the Chinese Mainland (e.g., the M 7.4 Haicheng earthquake on February 4, 1975, and the M 7.8 Tangshan earthquake on July 28, 1976, etc) were investigated. Results show considerable promise that the time-dependent state vectors could serve as a kind of precursor to predict earthquakes.

云南纳帕海越冬黑颈鹤日间行为模式与年龄和集群的关系

2006年10月2007年5月,在云南省西北部纳帕海,采用路线调查结合瞬时扫描行为取样法,对越冬黑颈鹤(Grus nigricollis)种群的时间分配及其与年龄、集群和时间的关系进行了观察.结果说明,黑颈鹤越冬活动主要足以觅食为主,占日间时间的(76.81±9.1)%.越冬期间黑颈鹤日间行为的节律性较为明显,具有适应高寒气候的特点.集群形式对成鹤的行为有着显著影响,集群和家庭中活动的成鹤红觅食、警戒和争斗中存在显著差异(F1.76=0.27、0.77,U=2779,P=0.001-0.000).年龄是影响鹤群行为的因素之一.幼鹤相比成鹤有较多的觅食时间和休息时间,警戒行为比例较低(F1.76=0.04-2.59,U=188-2779,P=0.006-0.000),且小受集群形式的影响.随着越冬期间的早、中、晚3个时期的环境变化,黑颁鹤的时间分配有显著变化(F2.36=4.63-26.54,x22=5.29-13.68,P=0.0016-0.000).不同越冬地的黑颈鹤行为存在差异.气候、食物资源和人为影响可能是造成这些差异的主要因素.