Long-term response of Torrey pine to coastal climate: precipitation, temperature, and fog

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana Parry ex Carr.) has one of the most limited geographical ranges and population size in the Pinus genus; it is present only on Santa Rosa Island and on the coast between San Diego and Del Mar, where our research was conducted. A 168-year chronology (1827-1994) was developed using 28 increment cores extracted from 15 living and 2 dead stranding trees at Torrey Pines State Reserve, San Diego, California. ... The spatial correlation with western North America winter and spring precipitation, as well as with published tree-ring chronologies, indicates a connection with the American Southwest. Global correlation maps with winter sea level pressure and sea surface temperature are consistent with the hypothesis that San Diego precipitation is affected by a southerly displaced North Pacific storm track and by warmer water farther south, both leading to higher transport of lower latitude moisture.

A comparison of methods for assessing the lifetime reliability of a moored FPSO

Current design codes for floating offshore structures are based on measures of short-term reliability. That is, a design storm is selected via an extreme value analysis of the environmental conditions and the reliability of the vessel in that design storm is computed. Although this approach yields valuable information on the vessel motions, it does not produce a statistically rigorous assessment of the lifetime probability of failure. An alternative approach is to perform a long-term reliability analysis in which consideration is taken of all sea states potentially encountered by the vessel during the design life. Although permitted as a design approach in current design codes, the associated computational expense generally prevents its use in practice. A new efficient approach to long-term reliability analysis is presented here, the results of which are compared with a traditional short-term analysis for the surge motion of a representative moored FPSO in head seas. This serves to illustrate the failure probabilities actually embedded within current design code methods, and the way in which design methods might be adapted to achieve a specified target safety level.

Comparison between granular pillared, organo- and inorgano-organo-bentonites for hydrocarbon and metal ion adsorption

Granular reactive materials have higher permeability and are therefore desirable for in situ groundwater pollution control. Three granular bentonites were prepared: an Al-pillared bentonite (PBg), an organo-bentonite (OBg) using a quaternary ammonium cation (QAC), and an inorgano-organo-bentonite (IOBg), using both the pillaring agent and the QAC. Powdered IOB (IOBp) was also prepared to test the effect of particle size. The modified bentonites were characterised with X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and uniaxial compression tests. The d-spacing increased only with QAC intercalation. The Young's modulus of IOBg was twice as high as OBg. Batch adsorption tests were performed with aqueous multimetal solutions of Pb2+, Cu2+, Cd2+, Zn2+ and Ni2+ ions, with liquid dodecane and with aqueous dodecane solutions. Metal adsorption fit the Langmuir isotherm. Adsorption occurred within 30min for PBg, while the granular organo-bentonite needed at least 12h to reach equilibrium. IOBp had the maximum adsorption capacity at higher metal concentration and lower adsorbent content (Cu2+: 2.2, Ni2+: 1.7, Zn2+: 1.4, Cd2+: 0.9 and Pb2+: 0.7 all in mmolg-1). The dual pillaring of the QAC and Al hydroxide increased the adsorption. The adsorption of liquid dodecane was in the order IOBg>OBg>PBg (3.2>2.7>1.7mmolg-1). Therefore IOBg has potential for the removal of toxic compounds found in soil, groundwater, storm water and wastewater. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

The role of infrastructure in improving human settlements

This paper considers how the provision of integrated household-level infrastructure – particularly water and environmental sanitation (including water supply, sewerage, roads, storm drainage and solid waste management) –can play a leading role in improving the conditions in slum settlements. Around 700 socio-economic interviews were carried out in India and South Africa to investigate an innovative approach called slum networking, which sees the strong correlation between slum locations and drainage paths as an opportunity for improving the wider urban environment. This recognition allows resources to be mobilised locally, thereby removing the need for external aid funding. The evidence from the 700 families shows that communities perceive water and sanitation inputs to be their top priority and are willing to contribute to the costs. If slum upgrading is led with access to integrated water and environmental sanitation at household level with community contributions to the cost of infrastructure, then slum communities subsequently invest considerably greater sums in improved housing and education, with longer term contributions to poverty alleviation, improvements in health and literacy and an increase in disposable incomes.

Factors affecting seismic response of submarine slopes

The response of submerged slopes on the continental shelf to seismic or storm loading has become an important element in the risk assessment for offshore structures and "local" tsunami hazards worldwide. The geological profile of these slopes typically includes normally consolidated to lightly overconsolidated soft cohesive soils with layer thickness ranging from a few meters to hundreds of meters. The factor of safety obtained from pseudo-static analyses is not always a useful measure for evaluating the slope response, since values less than one do not necessarily imply slope failure with large movements of the soil mass. This paper addresses the relative importance of different factors affecting the response of submerged slopes during seismic loading. The analyses use a dynamic finite element code which includes a constitutive law describing the anisotropic stress-strain-strength behavior of normally consolidated to lightly overconsolidated clays. The model also incorporates anisotropic hardening to describe the effect of different shear strain and stress histories as well as bounding surface principles to provide realistic descriptions of the accumulation of the plastic strains and excess pore pressure during successive loading cycles. The paper presents results from parametric site response analyses on slope geometry and layering, soil material parameters, and input ground motion characteristics. The predicted maximum shear strains, permanent deformations, displacement time histories and maximum excess pore pressure development provide insight of slope performance during a seismic event. © 2006 Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Influence of Peripheral Velocity on Vane Shear Strength of an Artificial Clay

Shearing rate is among the most important factors affecting the undrained shear strength of clays. In particular, for seismic or storm-wave loading conditions, the shearing rate is much higher than that used in many common laboratory or field tests. The testing program described here evaluates the effect of peripheral velocity on the undrained strength inferred from the shear vane test. The study was conducted on a lightly cemented bentonite-kaolinite mixture manufactured in the laboratory, which possesses many characteristics similar to those of natural materials. Results show that the shear strength increases with increasing peripheral velocity, while the residual shear strength seems to be nearly independent of rotation rate.

谈谈藻类毒素

<正> 早在1878年就有关于有毒蓝藻使动物中毒的报道。廿世纪以来,产毒藻类引起人、畜中毒的事件在世界许多国家和地区均有发生。如1916年,在美国佛罗里达西海岸,许多人曾因甲藻中毒而出现呼吸系统的病状;由于供水系统中的藻类毒素引起人们消化道疾病的事例为数不少,Lippy和Erb 1976年报道的一起肠道疾病的暴发流行即是与水库中的一种丝状蓝藻——裂须藻的大量生长有关,毒性藻华造成鱼类和其它动物中毒和死亡,在经济上带来损失的事例不胜枚举。仅美国Storm湖因水华鱼腥藻毒性藻华使大量禽类及松鼠、狗、猫等动物中

Electron-beam patterning of polymer electrolyte films to make multiple nanoscale gates for nanowire transistors

We report an electron-beam based method for the nanoscale patterning of the poly(ethylene oxide)/LiClO4 polymer electrolyte. We use the patterned polymer electrolyte as a high capacitance gate dielectric in single nanowire transistors and obtain subthreshold swings comparable to conventional metal/oxide wrap-gated nanowire transistors. Patterning eliminates gate/contact overlap, which reduces parasitic effects and enables multiple, independently controllable gates. The method's simplicity broadens the scope for using polymer electrolyte gating in studies of nanowires and other nanoscale devices. © 2013 American Chemical Society.

The neural signature of escalating frustration in humans.

Mammalian studies show that frustration is experienced when goal-directed activity is blocked. Despite frustration's strongly negative role in health, aggression and social relationships, the neural mechanisms are not well understood. To address this we developed a task in which participants were blocked from obtaining a reward, an established method of producing frustration. Levels of experienced frustration were parametrically varied by manipulating the participants' motivation to obtain the reward prior to blocking. This was achieved by varying the participants' proximity to a reward and the amount of effort expended in attempting to acquire it. In experiment 1, we confirmed that proximity and expended effort independently enhanced participants' self-reported desire to obtain the reward, and their self-reported frustration and response vigor (key-press force) following blocking. In experiment 2, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to show that both proximity and expended effort modulated brain responses to blocked reward in regions implicated in animal models of reactive aggression, including the amygdala, midbrain periaqueductal grey (PAG), insula and prefrontal cortex. Our findings suggest that frustration may serve an energizing function, translating unfulfilled motivation into aggressive-like surges via a cortical, amygdala and PAG network.

Sand storms: CFD analysis of Reynolds stress and collision stress of particles near sand bed

Sand storm is a serious environmental threat to humans. Sand particles are transported by saltation and suspension, causing soil erosion in one place and deposition in another. In order to prevent and predict sand storms, the causes and the manners of particle motions must be studied in detail. In this paper a standard k-epsilon model is used for the gas phase simulation and the discrete element method (DEM) is used to predict the movements of particles using an in-house procedure. The data are summarized in an Eulerian-Eulerian regime after simulation to get the statistical particle Reynolds stress and particle collision stress. The results show that for the current case the Reynolds stress and the air shear stress predominate in the region 20-250 mm above the initial sand bed surface. However, in the region below 3 mm, the collision stress must be taken into account in predicting particle movement. (C) 2010 Chinese Society of Particuology and Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

西部大开发中退耕还林(草)面临的挑战及其作用

根据中国西部森林的现状 ,采用生态学与地理学的方法 ,分析了因毁林开荒造成水土流失、洪涝灾害、沙尘风暴、干旱少雨、江河断流、物种减少等危害对国民经济发展所造成的影响 ,以及近几年所产生的一系列生态环境问题 .探讨了退耕还林 (草 )对我国的生态环境治理、西部持续发展、江河整治、国土整治综合措施运用、西部农民脱贫致富的作用 .

不同坡度草地含沙水流水力学特性及其拦沙机理

参照黄土区侵蚀降雨和坡面片蚀产沙特征,采用恒流泥沙输送装置模拟坡面上方来水来沙,探讨不同坡度草地含沙水流的水力学特性及其对上方来沙的拦蓄机理。结果表明,草地坡面的水流弗劳德数随坡度增大而增加,而阻力系数与坡度呈反势。按明渠水流的一般标准,不同坡度草地水流均为层状缓流。草地坡面拦沙效应随坡度增大而减小,且径流前期的减沙作用较后期更为显著。不同坡度草地坡面的出流泥沙平均直径和大颗粒(>10μm)泥沙含量均显著小于上方来沙,这说明草地的拦沙效应主要体现在对大粒径泥沙的拦蓄上。

浅析沙漠化与沙尘暴对中国生态环境的影响

深入分析了沙漠化、沙尘暴形成的原因和沙漠化、沙尘暴对国民经济发展所造成的危害,并系统地提出了相应对策。

中国西部沙漠化与沙尘风暴问题探讨

我国西部地表植被向恶性循环方向发展 ,土地沙漠化面积迅速增长 ,沙尘风暴日趋频繁。分析中国西部沙漠化和沙尘风暴存在的主要问题 ,进一步探讨沙漠化和沙尘风暴形成的原因和对国民经济发展所造成的危害 ,因地制宜提出了相应的治理对策