ALBERT

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 6 Sarah Cornell, Cat Downy ESS2010 was the first Open Science Conference of the international collaborative initiative AIMES, and was convened and organized by QUEST, the UK's directed research programme for Earth System science. The conference showcased advances in Earth system modelling, deploying observations and process understanding to develop more quantitative and predictive understanding of the interactions of the climate system, the biosphere and the anthroposphere. These tools extend understanding of the system dynamics of biogeochemical cycles, and give perspectives on the relationships between climate, ecosystems and human needs. As Earth system science is a global research endeavour, and its remit has important societal and policy implications, a recurrent theme in the conference was the responsibility of scientists working on knowledge integration in the global environmental change context.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 4 Ma Chun, Ju Mei-ting, Zhang Xiao-chun, Li Hong-yuan Analyses of energy consumption and carbon emissions in Tianjin are ways to understand the dynamics of developing cities in China. Using carbon emission calculation methodology recommended by IPCC, the amount of energy consumption and carbon emissions in Tianjin were calculated from 1995 to 2007. The results showed that the energy consumption structure in Tianjin relied on coal. Annual carbon emission was 26.37 million tons with growth of 4.48% per year; Sc (carbon emission per GDP) reduced year by year, and Se (carbon emission per energy consumption) decreased overall. We also proposed countermeasures to reduce carbon emissions from energy consumption.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part B Yanhong Yan, Zhining Jia, Yulin Yang The polytetrafluroethylene (PTFE) polymer-based nanocomposites filled with nanoscale lamellar structure expanded graphite (nano-EG) and reinforced with different nanoparticles, such as nano-Al 2 O 3 , nano-copper, nano-SiO 2 and nano-TiO 2 , were prepared by using cold briquetting and hot-press sintering technologies. The quasi-static tensile experiments and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DTMA) were carried out. The results showed that the mechanical properties of these nanocomposites stronger depend on the variety of nanoparticles. Stress-displacement and stress relaxation curves indicate that theses composites are typical viscoelastic materials. However, due to the addition of nano-EG and other nano-particles, some composites showed relatively brittle to some extent. These research findings are believed to be helpful for providing practical guide in harsh environments.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part C Liu Hongmin Crew's health and productivity is strongly affected by cabins’ thermal environment. This paper focuses on the numerical simulation of the indoor thermal environment in air-conditioned vessel cabins. The original airconditioning system of the cabin was analyzed. Three modified air-conditioning systems with different air-supply outlet locations and under-supply air-conditioning system were put forward for optimization. Air temperature, air velocity and PMV distribution were discussed under Airpak simulation. The results show that under-supply airconditioning system has good performance with little eddies and can contribute to energy saving. Indoor air temperature with under-supply air-conditioning system was 2∼4 lower than that °C with original air-conditioning system, leading to lower predicted mean vote (PMV).

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 8 Parvinder Singh Sandhu

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part C Xin Zhou, Ziru Lian, Jiangtao Wang, Liju Tan, Zhichao Zhao Estrogens (estrone, estradiol and estriol) and synthetic compound (ethynyl estradiol) in the water and sediment of Licun River-Jiaozhou Bay area in Qingdao were monitored. Estrogens in waters were concentrated using modified C- 18 SPE cartridges, and estrogens in sediments were extracted by liquid-solid extraction. Silane derivatives of the extracted and concentrated estrogens were analyzed by GC-MS. The concentration of estrogens ranged from ND (below the detection limit) to 180 ng/L in waters and ND to 10.8 colong/kg (dry weight) in sediment. The concentrations of estrogen in river water were higher than those in seawater during the monitoring periods. The distribution of estrogen concentration along Licun river suggested that estrogens were different with distance from the respective effluent sites. The highest concentrations were detected at station 5 which directly receives huge quantities of pollutants from adjacent rivers containing large amounts of farming and industrial wastewater.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 9 Jean-Christophe Lata, Sébastien Barot, Gérard Lacroix The International Congress “Ecological Engineering; from concepts to applications”, Paris, was held on 2-4 December, 2009 [3]. These three days were dedicated to the exploration of new breakthroughs in ecological engineering and reflections on the way to develop the field and ground it on sound ecological and conceptual bases

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 6 Cat Downy, Sarah Cornell

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part B Shuzhou Wang, Bo Meng Neural networks with good nonlinear mapping abilities can be applied to build simulation model of helicopter. But they have some difficulties such as hardness of selecting network structure, slow convergence speed, local minimum, and over-fitting. To avoid above problems, a modeling method for dynamic nonlinear system based on support vector machine was proposed. This method was applied to build simulation model of helicopter. Compared with neural network model, SVM model possess some advantages such as simple structure, fast convergence speed and high generalization ability.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part C Xu Shujian, Wang Tao The grain size records of loess-paleosol deposit in China are some of the most important terrestrial records of the Quaternary. It systematically carried out fieldwork on loess profile of Tuoji Island on Miaodao Islands and Changyi profile on the Laizhou Bay plain, analyzed grain size of 220 and 86 samples respectively. It shows the grain size of loess in Tuoji Island profile coarser than Changyi profile. The environment-sensitive size fractions of Tuoji Island and Changyi loess section respectively are 89.1-100.0colonm and 70.8-79.4colonm, by analyzing grain-size class vs. standard deviation values method. The changes of grain size characteristics of loess-paleosol recorded in different sections implicated the much plentiful materials in the Changyi profile on Laizhou Bay plain than Tuoji profile on Miaodao Islands.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part C Zhiming Fang, Xiaochun Li This paper presents a preliminary assessment of the potential for CO2 geological storage in Chongqing, China. Currently, there are about 116 large stationary CO2 point emission sources which emit 85.57 MtCO2/yr totally. These stationary sources are mainly belonged to four industries: cement, power plant, iron & steel and synthetic ammonia industries. In the three kinds of geological storage formations, namely, deep saline formations (DSFs), unmineable coalbeds and depleted gas fields, the total basin-scale theoretical storage capacities of CO2 reach 24.36 Gt, equivalent to about 285 times of the annual total CO2 emissions in Chongqing. The DSFs have the largest potential storage capacity accounting for 98% of the total storage capacities. The matching results between CO2 point emission sources and candidate geological storage formations show that 94.8% of the point emission sources (accounting for 97.1% of annual total emissions) can find at least one candidate geological storage formation in its adjacent areas. This means that, for Chongqing, the CO2 transport cost is likely very low. The research findings indicate that there is great potential for CO2 geological storage technology to deploy in Chongqing and for this technology to deliver profound and sustaining impacts on reducing CO2 emissions and developing low-carbon economy in Chongqing. This preliminary study is expected to stimulate more researches, critical thinking and policy actions to promote positive measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so as to mitigate the impact of global climate change, as well as to set a good example for other regions in China.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 7 M.D. Ruiz-Medina, R.M. Espejo Montes Functional Statistics provides a suitable framework for the analysis of large dimensional data sets. In this paper, we consider the spatial autoregressive functional series (SARH(1)) framework. This framework allows the incorporation of spatial interaction to the statistical analysis of functional data (see Ruiz-Medina [1] , [2] ). The SARH(1) model is fitted to the average ocean temporal temperature profiles, collected in different spatial locations, during the years 1998, 1999 and 2000. We have used the public oceanographic bio-optical database, The World-wide Ocean Optics Database (WOOD). The SARH(1) plug-in extrapolator is then computed, from the previously derived infinite-dimensional projection parameter estimator.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 3 Fabio Sigrist, Hans R. Künsch, Werner A. Stahel A spatio-temporal model for precipitation is presented. It is assumed that precipitation follows a censored and power-transformed normal distribution. Through a regression term, precipitation is linked to covariates. Spatial and temporal dependencies are accounted for by a latent Gaussian variable that follows a Markovian temporal evolution combined with spatially correlated innovations. Such a specification allows for nonseparable covariances in space and time. Further, the Markovian structure yields computational efficiency and it exploits in a natural way the unidirectional flow of time. In addition, the model is space as well as time resolution consistent. The model is applied to three-hourly Swiss rainfall data, collected at 26 stations.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part B Shuzhou Wang, Bo Meng Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a new modeling method. It has shown good performance in many field and mostly outperformed neural networks. The parameter selection should to be done before training SVM. Modified particle swarm optimization (POS) was adpoted to select parameters of SVM. It is shown by simulation that the modified POS algorithm can derive a set of optimal parameters of SVM. Compared with neural networks, SVM model possess some advantages such as simple structure, fast convergence speed with high generalization ability.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part A Li Xiaonian, Zhu Yi, Zhang Fuhao, Liu Xiaodong According to domestic and foreign rural geographic information system construction, this article points out the problems of domestic new socialist countryside construction. Combined with the reality of Xinjiang new socialist countryside construction, it has constructed the geographic information platform of new socialist countryside comprehensive services, which is easier to realize farmland protection, cadastre management, central village plan and many other basic services in rural areas, and provided reliable and real-time information technology services for Xinjiang new socialist countryside construction.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 9 Lino José Alvarez-Vázquez, Aurea Martínez, Miguel Ernesto Vázquez-Méndez, Miguel Angel Vilar The main objective of this work is showing how numerical simulation and optimal control theory can be useful tools in practical ecological engineering. We take attention into diadromous fish (salmon, trout, eel…) and their river migrations, and particularly, we focus on fishways, hydraulic structures that enable fish to overcome stream obstructions as dams or weirs. We use mathematical modelling to formulate the problems of design and management of a fishway providing a good hydraulic performance for fish. By solving these problems for a standard vertical slot fishway, we can observe that controlling the flux of inflow water is a useful technique for the management of an already built fishway, but a correct shape design is mandatory in order to guarantee a correct hydraulic performance, especially for a new fishway.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 5 Dacheng Liu, Ning Li, Xianchun Tan, Xiaoou Yang, Li Wang, Jianbing Liu Chinese government committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40% to 45% by 2020. As the capital and one of the biggest cites, Beijing expected to both keep higher GDP growth than average and cut unit GDP carbon emission, and has to adjust the relevant energy strategy in near future. The paper analysis the characteristics of energy supply and energy consumption in Beijing, and setups the economic-energy-environment-oriented reference energy system (RES), selects MARKAL as the optimal model and constructs districted multi-period linear programming matrix, which including 15 energy carriers, 4 energy processes, 17 energy conversions, and 18 energy end-use sets. Furthermore, the paper designs 11 scenarios in various pollute emission restrictions, and establishes the total economic cost as the optimize target, the low-carbon emission as main restriction, to obtain the suitable energy supply structure and end-use technology structure. At last, we have the conclusion that Beijing can attach the demands of cutting carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 45% under the scheduled GDP growth.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 4 Elena Paoletti, Tommaso Bardelli, Gianluca Giovannini, Leonella Pecchioli The Urban Forest Effects (UFORE) model, a computer model designed to use tree allometric, air pollution and meteorological data to statistically estimate urban forest characteristics and various urban forest functions, was applied to the main park in the city of Florence, Italy (Cascine Park), in 1985 and 2004, in order to study how the natural and man-made evolution of the park affected its ability to control air quality. Plant data were for both the years, while climate and pollutant data were for year 2004 only, in order to remove the variability due to changes in the atmospheric variables. The results show that the forest growth compensated the losses due to cuttings and damages by extreme climatic events, so that the overall amount of pollutants removed from the air did not change from 1985 to 2004 (72.4–69.0 kg/ha). In contrast, the amount of carbon storing and biogenic volatile organic compound emission decreased over time, because of a reduction in the number of large trees and of isoprene-emitting individuals, but the results were very variable plot by plot. The species were ranked according to their ability of controlling air quality. These data can be used as a decision tool for establishing cuttings and new plantings in urban planning and their effects on air quality under Mediterranean climate conditions.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part C Liu-Zhihong, Yu-Jinhui, Zhang-Deng Under the low-carbon time of globalization, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region as the one of the many provinces in western China, it is necessary that to open Beibu Gulf for getting sustainable development in the new time and situation. Exactly the basic way for the development is the strategy of sustainable development that of construction Beibu Gulf economic zone consist of low-carbon, ecological and harmonious. With the development and construction of Beibu Gulf, a lot of towns are stepping into the progress of urbanization one by one. However, in the background for urbanization of ecological and low-carbon, study on low-carbon building and ecological city construction in harmonious Beibu Gulf culture that would be necessary and of great significance.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 5 Shaoqing Chen, Bin Chen, Meirong Su The importance of addressing cumulative environmental impact of large development projects on rivers has been increasingly highlighted. Consideration to potential impact pathways may be difficult, however, without appropriate analytical methods. By introducing ecological network model, this paper focuses on the quantification of the cause-effect relationships inherent the cumulative effects of dam construction from a holistic perspective. With Lancang river of Longitudinal Range-Gorge Region (LRGR) as an example, the risk-based interaction instead of the conventional energy or material flow of ecological network model has been created to conceptualize the cumulative effects network model. Based on this model, the network structural and functional analysis were adjusted for the assessment of potential eco-environmental impact within the ecosystem, thus demonstrating how the risk-based ecological network analysis can be used to characterize the holistic cumulative effects of dams on the temporal and spatial scale.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 7 Daniel K. Heersink, Reinhard Furrer Modern compaction rollers monitor soil properties by observing vibrational characteristics of the soil. A vibrating drum traverses the compaction site measuring soil stiffness and collecting GPS coordinates that are together termed roller measurement values (RMVs). These RMVs can be modeled as a random spatial field and additively decomposed into any sensible combination of mean terms, spatial terms, spline terms, and ridge regression terms. The goal of this modeling is to implement intelligent compaction for quality control and quality assurance purposes. Proper modeling of such data (stationarity, anisotropy,.) is then of paramount concern. Each layer of the compaction site can be modeled by the n-vector y = Xβ+α+γ+ ɛ, where Xβ is a low-order (linear) polynomial trend, α is a mean term estimated using ridge regression or splines modeling the large-scale variation, γ is a (zero-mean Gaussian) spatial process modeling the small-scale variation, and ɛ is the noise. Here, X is the (n × p) design matrix with rank p. There are many general approaches to working with such an additive mixed model, including a backfitting procedure for maximum-likelihood estimation and generalized cross-validation. Due to computational complexity of maximum-likelihood estimation a backfitting procedure, Furrer and Sain (2009) [1] , was extended to the more general models used here and employed in the estimation. The extended backfitting procedure has been shown to converge and the iterative least-squares estimates have been shown to converge to the generalized least-squares estimate. A simulation study has been conducted to analyze estimates of this general model using a penalized likelihood and generalized cross-validation (GCV) approach as well. Results of the cross-validation study using a spline structure indicate there are some random fields that can be generated that do not have a minimum GCV.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 4 S.M. Salim, R. Buccolieri, A. Chan, S. Di Sabatino, S.C. Cheah This paper presents numerical simulations of the aerodynamic effects of trees on the flow field and dispersion of trafficoriginated pollutants in an urban street canyon of W/H = 1 with a perpendicular approach flow. Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is employed for the investigation and is validated against wind tunnel (WT) experiment. Comparisons is made between an empty street canyon and one containing avenue-like tree planting of pore volume, Pvol = 96%. In the presence of trees, both measurements and simulations show considerably larger pollutant concentrations near the leeward wall and slightly lower concentrations near the windward wall in comparison to the tree-free case.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part B Shuo Zhou, Zongxing Chen, Xiaoyang Liu, Hao Tang In this paper we focus on augment reality (AR) used in mobile device and analysis advantages of touch-screen devices in facilitating user experience for elder people. We developed a virtual system on symbian^3 platform considering the characteristic of elder people. The assessment of the system at the end suggests the potential of mobile AR for elders.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 6 Muhammad Afzal, Martin G. Mansell, Alexandre S. Gagnon The objective of this research is to analyse temporal changes in historic rainfall variability across Scotland using different measures of variability. The CUSUM and sequential Mann-Kendall test applied to records from 28 weather stations with up to 80 years of daily precipitation data reveal the occurrence of abrupt changes in the rainfall trends. Most weather stations show a turning point between 1978 and 1985, although some stations situated in Eastern Scotland have more than one turning point. The temporal changes in rainfall variability across Scotland are presented using a number of measures of variability.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 9 Adil Baghli, Philippe Thiévent R&D activities at Egis Environnement (a civil engineering-based environmental consultancy) facilitated the development of OptiFlux, a spatial analysis tool designed to predict and visualize the effects of implementing a linear infrastructure upon wildlife habitats. It also tests the relevance of positioning fauna passages to ensure the restoration of habitat connectivity and therefore allows the optimization of the number and location of potential fauna passages. OptiFlux makes use of habitat quality maps which correlated with ecological requirements of each studied species. The concept is based on the evaluation of the spatial distribution of wildlife in their natural habitats. It also allows the evaluation of the impact of a project that modifies landscape structures and contributes to territory fragmentation. OptiFlux is a project optimization instrument which helps in the decisionmaking process. Major applications are: • Identification of routes with the least impact on wildlife population fluxes and their habitats, • Optimization of the number and location of fauna passages for the benefit of wildlife and reduction of the conflict points between infrastructures (road, highway, railway) and ecological networks, • Simulation of the positive effects of the proposed fauna passages or biotopes (amphibian ponds, for example) for a better choice of installations and for a better reconnection of the fragmented habitats.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part C Zhou Yan, Jing Guang-e, Liu Xiao-hui, Li Qing-ling Theoretical research and numerical simulation for ventilation properties of solar chimney with vertical collector are performanced and they are compared with experimental results. Results show that: there are many factors to affect solar chimney ventilation that include heat collection height and width, solar radiation intensity, inlet and outlet area ratio of chimney and air inlet velocity, etc. When the collector height is increased, chimney ventilation is getting higher; but the ventilation increases slowly even decreases; the ventilation increases first and then decreases as the growing of the air layer thickness under the same chimney height and width; there exists an optimal ratio between heat collector height and width which makes the ventilation largest; considering the urban architecture image and the influence of the air layer thickness on chimney ventilation, the best air layer thickness is between 0.2m and 0.4m. Besides, the airflow temperature in solar chimney increases with chimney height in certain solar radiation intensity. It is consistent with the theoretical analysis and simulation results.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 8

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part A Ye Yun, Xu Xi-shan, Qi Zhi-chang To protect critical resources in networked environments, it is important to quantify the likelihood of potential multi- step attacks in attack graphs. Aimed at the problems that probabilistic incorrect computing caused by shared dependencies in nodes, a methodology for security risk analysis that is based on the model of attack graphs and the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) was presented, and the problem of probabilistic incorrect computing was solved successfully by proposing the probabilistic computing approach of accurate calculation and approximate calculation, While ensuring the accuracy of the probability of attack graph-based nodes, quickly Calculated the probability of each node, which can be adapted to a large-scale network. Reasonableness and effectiveness of proposed method was verified in the simulation. Compared with the related research, our approach can be adapted to a more complex attack graph, and had good scalability.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part A Xin Jin, Xin Zhou Electric power enterprises are one important part of pillar industries in our country. There are many factors to cause risks which might bring trouble and disaster, so that we ought to manage those risks so as to reduce and avoid those risks, therefore we need to evaluate the risks which could happen. In this paper, in order to evaluate the risks of some thermal power enterprises in East China which are belong to one power group, we use text content analysis method to analyze a lot of risk exploration reports to build risk evaluation index system and every index’ weight, then evaluate risk level for every risk factor with AHP, and discuss the risk comprehensive evaluation of enterprises.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 8 Suqin Li, Xue Zhang Reverse osmosis approach was used to dispose pulp and paper wastewater from a papermaking company. To meet the requirements of reverse osmosis membranes for water quality, a proper pretreatment had been done before raw water into RO membranes. A new efficient composite flocculant named PAFSSB had been used in the pre-treatment of pulp and paper wastewater. In the paper, the results showed that the treatment effect of PAFSSB was better, COD content was down to 10 mg/L and COD removal rate was up to 75%. The pre-treatment process was simplified and processing costs were reduced.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 3 Sarah E. Nevillea, M.P. Wand We devise a variational Bayes algorithm for fast approximate inference in Bayesian Generalized Extreme Value additive model analysis. Such models are useful for flexibly assessing the impact of continuous predictor variables on sample extremes. The new methodology allows large Bayesian models to be fitted and assessed without the significant computing costs of Monte Carlo methods. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Alfred Stein.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part A Wang Yong, Liu Yanping, Su Youpo According to the GPS data provided by International GNSS Service, the author adopted the software of GAMIT/GLOBK to solve the GPS data. The deformation of GPS stations’ coordinates during the Mw 9.0 Japan Earthquake was achieved which was utilized to infer physical processes at earthquake sources. It was computed six GPS stations’ data by GAMIT/GLOBK software and analyzed the GPS stations’ coordinate series. The changes of six stations were subsiding in the Vertical direction, while the changes of each station were moving north in the earthquake time in the North direction. The change values among KGNI, TSK2 and TSKB in North and Vertical direction reached 0.4m, or nearly 0.5m. It can be concluded that KGNI, TSK2 and TSKB were greater changes in the earthquake, which were close to the earthquake epicenter.

Description: Two drugs that were thought not to be of benefit in the later stages of Alzheimer's disease have been shown to hold back severe decline by four months

Description: Hopes dashed of personalised drug treatments after two-thirds of genetic mutations in the same tumour are found to vary from one biopsy to the next

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Jinyang Zhang, Changqian Ma, Zhenbing She The Erlangmiao granite intrusion is located in the eastern part of the East Qinling Orogen. The granite contains almost 99 vol.% felsic minerals with accessory garnet, muscovite, biotite, zircon, and Fe-Ti oxide. Garnet is the dominant accessory mineral, shows zoned texture, and is rich in w (FeO) (14.13%–16.09%) and w (MnO) (24.21%–27.44%). The rocks have high SiO 2 , alkalis, FeO t /MgO, TiO 2 /MgO and low Al 2 O 3 , CaO with w (Na 2 O)/ w (K 2 O)〉 1. Their Rb, Ga, Ta, Nb, Y, and Yb contents are high and Sr, Ba, Eu, Zr, P, and Ti contents are low. These features indicate that the Erlangmiao granite is a highly evolved metaluminous A-type. Garnet crystallized at the expense of biotite from the MnO-rich evolved melt after fractionation of biotite, plagioclase, K-feldspar, zircon, apatite, and ilmenite. The relatively high initial 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios (0.706–0.708), low and negative ɛ Nd (120 Ma) values (−6.6 to −9.0), and old Nd model ages (1.5–1.7 Ga) suggest that the rocks were probably formed by partial melting of the Paleoproterozoic granitic gneisses from the basement, with participation of depleted mantle in an extensional setting. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► FeO-, MnO-rich garnet crystallized at the expense of biotite from MnO-rich granitic magma. ► Granite formed from a highly evolved metaluminous A-type magma. ► Granite magma derived through the melting of Paleoproterozoic granitic gneisses.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Sanghoon Kwon, Gautam Mitra The map expression of “abrupt” changes in lateral stratigraphic level of a thrust fault has been traditionally interpreted to be a result of the presence of (1) a lateral (or oblique) thrust-ramp, or (2) a frontal ramp with displacement gradient, and/or (3) a combination of these geometries. These geometries have been used to interpret the structures near transverse zones in fold-thrust belts (FTB). This contribution outlines an alternative explanation that can result in the same map pattern by lateral variations in stratigraphy along the strike of a low angle thrust fault. We describe the natural example of the Leamington transverse zone, which marks the southern margin of the Pennsylvanian–Permian Oquirrh basin with genetically related lateral stratigraphic variations in the North American Sevier FTB. Thus, the observed map pattern at this zone is closely related to lateral stratigraphic variations along the strike of a horizontal fault. Even though the present-day erosional level shows the map pattern that could be interpreted as a lateral ramp, the observed structures along the Leamington zone most likely share the effects of the presence of a lateral (or oblique) ramp, lateral stratigraphic variations along the fault trace, and the displacement gradient. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► Map expression of “abrupt” changes in lateral stratigraphic level of a thrust fault. ► New interpretation along a frontal-ramp without vertical-axis rotations. ► “Abrupt” changes controlled by lateral (or oblique) ramp, stratigraphy along a fault, and displacement gradients on a frontal ramp.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Y. Srinivas, A. Stanley Raj, D.Hudson Oliver, D. Muthuraj, N. Chandrasekar The applications of intelligent techniques have increased exponentially in recent days to study most of the non-linear parameters. In particular, the behavior of earth resembles the non-linearity applications. An efficient tool is needed for the interpretation of geophysical parameters to study the subsurface of the earth. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) perform certain tasks if the structure of the network is modified accordingly for the purpose it has been used. The three most robust networks were taken and comparatively analyzed for their performance to choose the appropriate network. The single-layer feed-forward neural network with the back propagation algorithm is chosen as one of the well-suited networks after comparing the results. Initially, certain synthetic data sets of all three-layer curves have been taken for training the network, and the network is validated by the field datasets collected from Tuticorin Coastal Region (78°7'30"E and 8°48'45"N), Tamil Nadu, India. The interpretation has been done successfully using the corresponding learning algorithm in the present study. With proper training of back propagation networks, it tends to give the resistivity and thickness of the subsurface layer model of the field resistivity data concerning the synthetic data trained earlier in the appropriate network. The network is trained with more Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) data, and this trained network is demonstrated by the field data. Groundwater table depth also has been modeled. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► Vertical Electrical Sounding data in the Tuticorin region has been modeled for ground water occurrence and saline water intrusion. ► Artificial Neural Network program using Feed forward back propagation algorithm gains more advantage over conventional methods. ► Error percentage on comparing with the conventional method makes the program to extend on different type of field data. ► Synthetic Memory driven model forms the frame work of the algorithm to support any kind of rough field data. ► Saline water intrusion and ground water occurrence can be very well studied with well defined sub surface structural modeling.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Dedong Li, Yuwang Wang, Jingbin Wang, Zhaohua Luo, Jiulong Zhou, Zongfeng Yang, Cui Liu According to the metallogenic theory by transmagmatic fluid (TMF), one magmatic intrusion is a channel of ore-bearing fluids, but not their source. Therefore, it is possible to use TMF’s ability for injection into and for escaping from the magmatic intrusion to evaluate its ore-forming potential. As the ore-bearing fluids cannot effectively inject into the magmatic intrusion when the magma fully crystallized, the cooling time and rates viscosity varied can be used to estimate the minimum critical thickness of the intrusion. One dimensional heat transfer model is used to determine the cooling time for three representative dikes of different composition (granite porphyry, quartz diorite and diabase) in the Shihu gold deposit. It is also estimated the rates viscosity varied in these time interval. We took the thickness of dike at the intersection of the cooling time – thickness curve and the rates viscosity varied versus thickness curve as the minimum critical thickness. For the ore-bearing fluids effectively injecting into the magma, the minimum critical thicknesses for the three representative dikes are 33.45 m for granite porphyry, 8.22 m for quartz diorite and 1.02 m for diabase, indicating that ore-bearing dikes must be thicker than each value. These results are consistent with the occurrence of ore bodies, and thus they could be applied in practice. Based on the statistical relationship between the length and the width of dikes, these critical thicknesses are used to compute critical areas: 0.0003–0.0016 km 2 for diabase, 0.014–0.068 km 2 for quartz diorite and 0.011–0.034 km 2 for granite porphyry. This implies that ore-bearing minor intrusions have varied areas corresponding to their composition. The numerical simulation has provided the theoretical threshold of exposed thickness and area of the ore-bearing intrusion. These values can be used to determine the ore-forming potentials of dikes. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► Heat transfer and viscosity models are used to determine cooling time and viscosity variation for dikes, respectively. ► Minimum critical thicknesses of three representative dikes for ore-bearing fluid injection are computed. ► Minimum critical areas of ore-bearing dikes are estimated in view of their ratios of length/ width.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Wei Ju, Guiting Hou, Le Li, Fangfeng Xiao This paper presents the end Late Paleozoic tectonic stress field in the southern edge of Junggar Basin by interpreting stress-response structures (dykes, folds, faults with slickenside and conjugate joints). The direction of the maximum principal stress axes is interpreted to be NW–SE (about 325°), and the accommodated motion among plates is assigned as the driving force of this tectonic stress field. The average value of the stress index R ′ is about 2.09, which indicates a variation from strike-slip to compressive tectonic stress regime in the study area during the end Late Paleozoic period. The reconstruction of the tectonic field in the southern edge of Junggar Basin provides insights into the tectonic deformation processes around the southern Junggar Basin and contributes to the further understanding of basin evolution and tectonic settings during the culmination of the Paleozoic. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► The direction of the maximum principal stress axes is interpreted to be NW–SE. ► The stress regime is a variation from strike-slip to compressive. ► The accommodated motion among plates may be the cause of this stress field.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Liu He, Chuanlun L. Zhang, Hailiang Dong, Bin Fang, Genhou Wang Isoprenoidal glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (iGDGTs) from the Gulu hot springs (23–83.6 °C, pH 〉 7) and Yangbajing hot springs (80–128 °C, pH 〉 7) were analyzed in order to investigate the distribution of archaeal lipids among different hot springs in Tibet. A soil sample from Gulu was incubated at different temperatures and analyzed for changes in iGDGTs to help evaluate whether surrounding soil may contribute to the iGDGTs in hot springs. The sources of bacterial GDGTs (bGDGTs) in these hot springs were also investigated. The results revealed different profiles of iGDGTs between Gulu and Yangbajing hot springs. Core iGDGTs and polar iGDGTs also presented different patterns in each hot spring. The PCA analysis showed that the structure of polar iGDGTs can be explained by three factors and suggested multiple sources of these compounds. Bivariate correlation analysis showed significant positive correlations between polar and core bGDGTs, suggesting the in situ production of bGDGTs in the hot springs. Furthermore, in the soil incubation experiment, temperature had the most significant influence on concentration of bGDGTs rather than iGDGTs, and polar bGDGTs had greater variability than core bGDGTs with changing temperature. Our results indicated that soil input had little influence on the composition of GDGTs in Tibetan hot springs. On the other hand, ring index and TEX 86 values were both positively correlated with incubation temperature, suggesting that the structure of archaeal lipids changed in response to varying temperature during incubation. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► Glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) are determined from Tibetan hot springs and soil. ► Archaeal and bacterial GDGTs are produced in situ in the hot spring. ► Soil incubation experiments show a positive correlation between ring index or TEX 86 and incubation temperature.

Description: The magnitude 9 megaquake that shook the east coast of Japan in March 2011 reactivated dormant faults close to Fukushima's beleaguered nuclear reactors

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Volume 3, Issue 2, March 2012, Pages I-II [No author name available]

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Makoto Ooba, Tsuyoshi Fujita, Motoyuki Mizuochi, Shogo Murakami, Qinxue Wang, Kunio Kohata Forest ecosystem services (ES), including water resources, carbon sequestration, nitrogen absorption, timber production, and sediment production in the Ise Bay basin, were estimated using a process-based biogeochemical forest model (the BGC-ES model and the RUSLE). This model was proposed and studied in the Yahagi river basin by some of the authors. To evaluate the ES on a 5-km-mesh scale, simulations from 1960 to 2040 were carried out under the following scenarios: an artificial forest under standard management (FM) and under forest management abounded from 1990 (AFM). Forest management practices strongly affected carbon sequestration and timber volume compared to other ES related to forest area.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Wei Dong, Jianmin Shu, Ping He, Guangwen Ma, Ming Dong Wetland ecosystem occupies an important position in the global carbon cycle with a strong ability of carbon storage and fixation. On the basis of field investigation and laboratory measurement, in the paper, the standing biomass and primary production of wetland Phragmites australis in Baiyangdian were study, and its ability of carbon storage and fixation in accordance with the principle of photosynthesis was measured, and then the potential ability of carbon storage from the perspective of efficiency for solar energy utilization was discussed. The results show that carbon storage of wetland Phragmites australis is large in Baiyangdian with 5.81 kg • m -2 , 7.14 kg • m -2 and 8.72 kg • m -2 respectively; carbon fixation is also very large with 2.54 kg • m -2 , 3.12 kg • m -2 and 3.81 kg • m -2 respectively. In addition, the underground biomass is larger than the aboveground biomass, and the ratio of the two is 2.38-3.30 with the average of 2.90. The underground carbon storage is nearly 3 times as much as the aboveground carbon storage. Wetland Phragmites australis in Baiyangdian has a strong ability of carbon fixation with 1.17 kg • m -2 • a -1 , 1.49 kg • m -2 • a-1 and 1.76 kg • m -2 • a-1 respectively, which is 1.7-3.4 times as much as the average ability of carbon fixation of the national terrestrial plants and 2.0- 4.0 times of that of the global plants.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Rasoul Ghorbani, Ahad Ebrahimpour, Somayeh Noshad Most of the recreational places in Iran have constructed based on physical principles with less attention to user's mental and behavioral needs. Whereas these needs effect on increasing the number of users of these places; in this paper we attempt to analysis the motivation of users with Seeking-escaping and Pull and Push theory. At first we survey the people's principle motive of using the nature of Oun-Ebn-Ali recreational place with these models and then, the relationships between perceived emotions as intermediary and improved the quality of life as final reward, have evaluated. The results show that, the users go to Oun-Ebn-Ali natural place for escaping from pressure of everyday life and to achieving peace, watching the nature, doing sport and meeting friends. Although some undesirable factors such as shortage of trees shade and street furniture, congestion and unsuitable accessibility, influence the process of using recreational places and restrict the number of users. According to results, increasing natural attractions, recreational furniture, good accessibility and distribution of furniture in different parts of the site, will increase the desirability of using Oun-Ebn-Ali recreational place.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Madhumita Roy, Santanu Ray, Phani Bhusan Ghosh Decomposition and subsequent remineralization of mangrove detritus is important in nutrient dynamics within the forest as well as in offshore system. In order to study the impact of detritivorous fish on the mangrove estuarine detritus food web, a five compartment model of detritus food web dynamics has been developed for mangrove estuarine creeks of Hooghly- Matla Estuarine complex, Sundarban. The model simulates concentration of nutrient, biomass of phytoplankton, zooplankton, detritus and detritivorous fishes. Almost 70% of the detritus formed in the soil was being washed in the estuarine water to act as source or sink of nutrient for the primary producers of aquatic food chain. A significant amount of detritus in the estuarine water is readily consumed by a group of detritivorous fishes before it is being rematerialized completely in to inorganic nutrient form. The model has been calibrated and validated using field data accordingly. Increased detrital nitrogen values in the late monsoon and post monsoon months, assists the growth and high yield of detritivorous fishes as found in simulated and field observations. Comparison of simulated and observed results demonstrates the dependence of phytoplankton growth is a function of nutrient concentration and zooplankton grazing. Model results also show the dependence of detritivorous fishes on detritus which is a function of detritus biomass. In turn, detritus biomass is dependent upon several factors like mortality of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and detritivorous fishes; and chiefly on litter biomass and litter decomposition.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 S.I. Bartsev Uniqueness which is inherent to an ecological system leads to situation when necessary requirement of science research - the reproducibility of an experiment - can not be fully satisfied when ecological systems are studied. A possible solution to the problem of experiment reproducibility and transfering obtained results to other ecosystems is developing some formal procedures for establishing a relationship of similarity (scaling) between models of ecosystems. Based on the concept of functional symmetry and Lie groups of continuous transformations a procedure for constructing ecosystem models, which are similar with respect to selected indicator is suggested. Applicability of this procedure to detecting similarities and to reducing complexity of ecosystem models is illustrated.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Joyita Mukherjee, Santanu Ray Carbon cycle has a fundamental role in changing climate of the earth. Recent models of the estuary-atmosphere system demonstrate the potentially great importance of estuarine environment to the regulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon, the key element of life is available in organic and inorganic forms as different compounds in air, water and soil. Our study site, Hooghly - Matla estuarine system receives a large load of nutrients throughout the year. This is mainly due to high litterfall from the adjacent luxuriant mangroves and yield of huge suspended sediment carried along with the river Ganges which is flowing through the western part of the Sundarban mangrove ecosystem.Keeping in view the crucial role of carbon, a seven compartment model has been proposed to study the dynamics of carbon in this estuarine system. Different forms of carbon present in soil (as soil organic carbon (SOC), soil inorganic carbon (SIC)) and in water (as dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), dissolved carbon dioxide (DCO2), dissolved bicarbonate (DBC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and particulate organic carbon (POC)) are taken as state variables. Litter biomass, dissolved oxygen, primary productivity, community respiration, temperature of water, pH of water, pH of soil, air-water exchange of carbon dioxide and conversion rates among different forms of carbon are considered as graph time functions. The data used in the present model are collected for over two years from our field works and experiments. Other sensitive rate parameters which are not possible to collect from survey or experiment, calibrated following standard procedure. Sensitivity analysis is performed along with calibration. Model simulation results are validated with observed data. Results show seasonal variations of litterfall and which is the main source of SOC pool and ultimately transported to the estuary. Other than litterfall, death of organisms in soil and water enriches the SOC and POC respectively. pH of water is governing factor and depending on this factor, DIC is converted to DCO2 and DBC, which are taken up by phytoplankton during photosynthesis. Mineralization rate of SOC to SIC and uptake rate of DCO2 and DBC are the sensitive parameters.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 A.S. Komarov, Yu.S. Khoraskina, S.S. Bykhovets, M.G. Bezrukova Soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics is an important pool in biological turnover of carbon and other elements of plants nutrition in forest ecosystems. Problems at its modelling are: quantification of SOM fractions which are decomposing with specific rates; description of humification, obtaining dependencies of SOM rates of transformation in dependence on external factors. Different methods of fractionating of SOM are now in use based on different solubility of fractions/ This approach presents difficulties at model's initialization. We expanded a model of SOM dynamics ROMUL based on successive stages of mineralization and transformation of fresh litter, which correspond to SOM pools in horizons L, F and H of forest floor. A1 et al. are horizons in mineral soil. Rates of transformation of one SOM pool into another in these horizons can be obtained from experimental data. The dynamics of N, Ca and Mg is described using main equations of SOM transformations with inserting of additional constants or functions as independent multipliers for rates of transformation. Pools of elements available for plants nutrition, and some intermediate pools such as secondary soil minerals have been added to the model. New ROMUL has been successfully applied to ICP Forest plots in Russia.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Yang Zhang, Chen Yiyun, Ding Qing, Ping Jiang Urban heat island effect has obtained more and more attention because environmental problems caused by the urban heat island have affected people's normal life. In this paper, qualitative and quantitative analyses have been used to study the relationship between normalized difference vegetated index (NDVI) and surface radiation temperature. The relationship of NDVI and surface radiation temperature has been studied in spatial profile. On that basis, the paper has studied the spatial distribution of heat island in Wuhan city and explained the features of the Wuhan spatial distribution of heat island. Research results has showed that there is obvious negative correlation between NDVI and the surface radiation Heating island strength is higher in industrial and commercial areas than others; Water and green space perform a distinct role to divide and mitigate the heat island effect.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Narouchit Dampin, Wit Tarnchalanukit, Kasem Chunkao, Montri Maleewong The bioenergetics fish growth model of Nile Tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ) cultured in the cages in wastewater oxidation pond is presented. The oxidation pond is located in the very successful project area “The Leam Phak Bia Environmental Study Research and Development Project under Royal Initiatives Petchaburi Province” in Thailand. There are five oxidation ponds connected in series in the research area. The measurement of Nile tilapia growth is taken in the third pond in which the water quality is in the effluent standard. The water quality and fish weight are measured in each month for one year period. The fish growth model in the form of ordinary differential equation is introduced to understand the behavior of fish growth due to various environmental factors which are dissolved oxygen demand (DO), water temperature, concentration of plankton, ammonia and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). In this presented model, we have introduced a new form of food assimilation efficiency as a function of fish weight. It is found that the predicted fish weight obtained from the model is in good agreement with the measurements. Also, this presented model can be applied to predict the fish weight in a wastewater stabilization pond when environmental factors have been changed.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 C.Q. Yan, T.X. Yue, G. Zhao High Accuracy Surface Modelling (HASM) can model surface with high accuracy, while its speed is a major limitation for its application in large scale data. This paper presents HASM-GA, a Graphic Processor Unit (GPU) accelerated High Accuracy Surface Modelling, to construct surface with a significant boost performance. Modern GPU has a highly parallel architecture with hundreds ofprocessors and stream processors, which is a powerful tool for bothgraphics processing and general purpose computation. Weparallel the most computationally-intensive portion of the HASM through NVIDA'sCompute Unified Development Architecture(CUDA)andQuadro 2000 GPU. The results show that one order of magnitude speedupcan be achieved by fully using the parallel processing power of theGPU compared with the traditional CPU method.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 L. Wu, Q. Jiang, X.M. Yang Eco-city planning has been a prevailing concern throughout China and beyond over the past few decades. Least-cost planning is a life-cycle costing approach for alternative analysis and decision-making, determining the preferred option that provides the optimal mix of financial, social and environmental outcomes for stakeholders throughout the project lifespan. A more sustainable approach is to incorporate the low carbon context into this economic analysis. Case studies, Tianjin Eco-city and Ningbo-Cixi Wetland Centre, granted by GEF, are presented and reviewed on how to foster key coastal areas of China into eco-cities by means of carbon footprint and costing. It is demonstrated that consideration should include carbon impact, carbon costs and accounting processes in the planning and management of the relevant plots, with achievement of key performance indicators relating to greenhouse gasses. Tertiary wastewater treatment, the selection of low carbon emission technology, and the utilization of constructed wetland configurations, green buildings and facilities are particularly demonstrated and modelled, employing energy software and economics tools repectively.

Description: Drugs that clamp onto a pathogen's vital enzymes when they are at their most reactive can combat a range of infections

Description: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg all punch above their weight when it comes to scientific innovation - and career opportunities

Description: Creating a haven for science is no simple feat in the Philippines, a country where evolution and fossils are controversial topics

Description: As early humans expanded beyond hunter-gatherer groups, religion was the glue that held societies full of strangers together, says Ara Norenzayan

Description: Those who would dance on religion's grave are underestimating its staying power, says Robert N. McCauley

Description: Further to your Instant Expert on sleep (4 February), I found a way to maximise the efficiency of sleep cycles when in Antarctica during the...

Description: • The story about a fire at a Brazilian Antarctic base (3 March, p 5) should have said most bases use non-flammable building materials...

Description: Can't live with him, can't live without him. In a special series of articles we lay out a new vision that resets the terms of the debate

Description: What is dark matter? Or gravity? Why is the universe so smooth? There's a particle for every conundrum, say Valerie Jamieson and Richard Webb

Description: Your article on dingo conservation and the Azaria Chamberlain inquest (18 February, p 28) reminded me of a pup I bought for my daughter from...

Description: Ben Haller's letter (25 February, p 36) about your editorial on brain-eavesdropping (4 February, p 3) makes a reasonable point regarding the possible...

Description: Your item on Jurassic katydid calls suggests that sounds at 6. 4 kilohertz "can travel long distances" (11 February, p 18). In fact, there is...

Description: Animals thinking inside a virtual world can help us understand what can go wrong in the brain

Description: Clusters of cells instrumental in building complex brains have been found in a simple worm that barely has a brain at all

Description: The prehistoric sea-level rise long thought to have been caused by the ice sheet melting may actually have been down to local subsidence

Description: In The Emotional Life of Your Brain , Richard J. Davidson has devised simple surveys based on solid neuroscience to help you shape your own grey matter

Description: Religions are not literally true but neither are they total nonsense. Atheists need to reclaim the useful bits, Alain de Botton tells Graham Lawton

Description: In his new novel, The Sensorium of God , Stuart Clark catalogues the messy international and interpersonal politics at the time of Newton's breakthroughs

Description: Religions are not literally true but neither are they total nonsense. Alain de Botton explains why atheists need to reclaim the useful bits

Description: Our minds solve fundamental problems in a way that leaves a god-shaped space just waiting to be filled by religion, explains Justin L. Barrett

Description: Human interactions influence how technology turns out, and not always for the better, argues Henry Petroski in To Forgive Design

Description: Your report on electric racing cars mentions charging mats built into the track to allow inductive charging on the go, and suggests the mats be...

Description: In your lost scientific treasures article, you mentioned Damascus steel (4 February, p 40). This material was made from high-carbon "wootz" steel made in...

Description: The unusual four-winged dinosaur was coated with dark iridescent feathers – not all of them used for flight, it seems

Description: Circumcised men reduced their risk of prostate cancer by 15 per cent, but only if they had the operation before having sex for the first time

Description: Free apps spend most of their power sending targeted adverts – and can drain your cellphone battery in 90 minutes

Description: Facebook has the power of a nation state, but is not living up to its moral responsibilities, says former CNN bureau chief Rebecca MacKinnon

Description: This close-up of a pride of feasting lions was taken by armoured photographic robot as it trundled across the Masai Mara

Description: Whether an ultimate creator as envisaged by religion exists or not is a question that science can address, argues Victor J. Stenger

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 M.N. Islam, D. Kitazawa, H.D. Park The paper investigates the predominant algal (Microcystis aeruginosa, Microcystis viridis, Microcystis ichthyoblabe, and Mirocystis wasenbergii ) bloom, their transition behaviors and toxin produced as Microcystin-Leucine+Arginine (MC-LR) , Microcystin-Arginine+Arginine (MC-RR) and Microcystin-Tyosine+Arginine (MC-YR) by cyanobacteria within the ecosystem of Lake Kasumigaura, Japan by using hydrodynamic ecosystem coupled model. Integrating the famous Monod functions ’ concept the second mode of toxin production and Grover et al., 2011 river reservoirs toxin modeling theoretical notion assumes that the rate of toxin production by cyanobacteria depends on proportional to blue green algal composition and their abundance. Conceptualizing these two novel idea we have developed a three dimensional numerical model and to elucidate the structure of algal species and prediction of toxin production within the lake ecosystem. The simulation results compare the toxin (MC-LR, MC-RR and MC-YR ) production of some stations in the Lake Kasumigaura with the observational data in the month of July, August and September for 2005, 2006 and 2007.The simulation result shows that there are some dominant species (Microcystis aeruginosa and Mycrocystis viridis are highly toxic) with regard to toxin produce in July, August and September in 2005. But in 2006 and 2007 there is no toxin produced by cyanobacteria (dominant species by Microcystis ichthyoblabe is toxic/nontoxic) in the ecosystem of Lake Kasumigaura. Because of timing and duration of the cyanobacteria bloom, making scum or colony and dying depends on the selecting parameters i.e. light intensity, temperature, water depth, wind direction, buoyancy and N: P ratio etc. But in some cases, toxin production depends on the Microcystis species toxic and non-toxic characteristics. The numerical modeling was calibrated by tuning toxin decay coefficient and other parameters for achieving a good agreement between the observations and the predictions.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 T. Nakayama In China, hydro-climate is diverse between north and south. Here process-based eco-hydrology model was coupled with complex sub-systems to develop coupled human and natural systems and to analyze impact of anthropogenic activity on eco-hydrologic change in continental scales. The model presented impact of irrigation on eco-hydrological processes. Furthermore, spatial pattern of Time-Integrated Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (TINDVI) gradient in agricultural fields showed heterogeneous characteristics of crop yield, which implied the increase in irrigation water use is one of the reasons for the increase in crop production. These results suggest strongly the needs of trans-boundary and -authority solutions of water management for sustainable development under sound socio-economic conditions contributory to national and global securities.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Tao Li, Jun Hua Zhang, Guang Ming Tan, Huai Bao Ma, Shu Xia Li Based on former research on the turbidity current, and learning lessons from the study on turbidity current,11 flume experiments has been operated with combined factors on different sediment concentration and different width. From the surveyed data turbidity current head going through the changing width section have been analyzed. Taken use of mathematical statistics method, local resistance coefficient of turbidity current head has been acquired on the changing width section.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 T. Tsujimoto, Y. Toda, T. Tashiro, H. Takaoka, K. Anbutsu, M. Obana River basin is a unit of natural runoff process and it can be considered as an assembly of flux network of water and various materials including sediment and nutrients. Inside a river basin, various landscapes are distributed, and landscape is composed of physical background, bio-chemical actions and biological aspects in associated with the local ecosystem. When the fluxes pass through a landscape, they are changed in quantity and quality and bring about various ecosystem services. Due to population increase and economic efficiency with urbanization, artificial facilities and flux networks have been added to connect multiple basins. These artificial systems have consumed fossil fuels, emitted green house gas, and degraded ecosystem. Outflow fluxes from multiple rivers degrade our facing coastal area in particular bay area. Multiple river basins connected with artificial flux networks, including a facing bay area, is here called river basin complex, where eco-compatible management methodology is required. In the present study, we have developed an integrated numerical model for eco-compatible management of river basin complex around Ise bay in Japan, which includes following 2 sub-models: (1) Flux network model and (2) Ecosystem models of various landscapes. The model can describe the change of the material fluxes and ecosystem services under the various social scenarios on the Ise bay river basin complex.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 H. Higashi, H. Koshikawa, S. Murakami, K. Kohata, M. Mizuochi, T. Tsujimoto Integrated Coastal Area and River basin Management (ICARM) is important to maintain/improve the sustainability of the coastal ecosystem services. We describe the effects of the land-based pollution reduction on the water quality in Ise Bay, Japan, based on the numerical simulations. The numerical model for water and material flow-flux in the bay consists of the hydrodynamic and the pelagic-benthic ecosystem models. The hydrodynamic model could predict the 3D current, pressure, salinity, and temperature. The pelagic-benthic ecosystem model simulated the available evaluation for the C-N-P-O biogeochemical cycle. The numerical simulations were carried out in order to investigate the response of coastal hypoxia in Ise Bay to the pollutant loading reductions predicted by the river basin model under the various social scenarios. These simulated results indicated that hypoxia volume could be reduced to 67% of the present loading condition if the most effective control of the point and nonpoint sources was adopted

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 X.C. Zhang, C. Ma, S.F. Zhan, W.P. Chen The objective of this study is to evaluate and simulate the ecological risk level of a coastal city, Tianjin's urbanization through an emergy synthesis model. In this study, an ecological risk index system was developed corresponding to the factors of urban ecosystem risk including in Pressure-State-Response model (PSR). Thus, an emergy-based ecological risk evaluation model (EERM) was proposed to evaluate and simulate the risk levels for urban expansion, which offers an integrated evaluation tool in view of urban ecosystem pressure, state and response. Emergy analysis methods are explained, illustrated and used to diagram the urban ecosystem, to evaluate environmental and economic inputs and harvested yield, and to assess the sustainability of the Tianjin during 1995 to 2009. The results have shown that, from 1995 to 2009, the pressure rating of the urban ecology risk in this area had been rising continually. These results comply with relevant laws of correlativity between urbanization and ecological protection in this research area. It is hoped that the evaluation and simulation for ecological risk will provide scientific basis for appraisal of the security and sustainable development of urbanization.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 A.I. Abakumov, V.A. Silkin, L.A. Pautova The phytoplankton production is a basis for a life activity of all species in every aquatic ecological system. Remote sounding methods make it possible to estimate chlorophyll concentration on the ocean surface. The data from remote sounding methods and the data of a nutrient concentration enable us to calculate and model the phytoplankton abundance. These calculations provide a possibility for the description of the phytoplankton production processes. We present here some models for the dynamics of the phytoplankton biomass. The qualitative properties of the solutions of these models are investigated. Strategically activities of the cell are defined by its internal state and by the environmental conditions. The state of the cell depends on nutrients. Our mathematical models describe the abundance dynamics for phytoplankton's community and dynamics of the cellular nutrients content. The models are based on the systems of differential equations. These models may be open or closed relative to the matter. The open models describe the chemostat processes. We investigate the property of the solutions of these models. The closed models have a infinite set of the positive solutions. The open models have a finite set of the non-negative solutions. The algorithm for finding the stable equilibrium solutions in open models is constructed. The theorems about the stable equilibrium solutions are proved with help the methods of structural analysis. These models describe the phytoplankton dynamics in the Black Sea.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Q.Y. Jia, F.H. Sun Liao river delta within Liao river Plain is an important commodity grain base in China. It is frequently affected by meteorological disasters. A large flood occurs on average of 7∼8 years. However, the basin has not yet achieved for the prediction of flood disaster. In this article, the HBV model-based distributed hydrological model was used to model and predict the runoff of Liao river delta. It is used in more than 45 countries all over the world, but the first time applied for Liao river Basin. The input data was obtained from the 5 automatic weather stations (AWS) installed at various places and altitudes in Liaoning Province which located in Liao river delta. Model input parameters include daily Tmax, Tmin, Tmean for 40 years. The watershed hydrological stations were used to calibrate the model parameters.This was the first application of the HBV model to simulate the in Liao rive basin runoff, the next step should be the actual runoff data by improving data accuracy and the length of time to adjust the model parameters.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 S.D. Wang, L.L. Miao, G.X. Peng Using the characteristics of the environment and disaster monitoring and forecasting small satellite constellation (HJ), the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) forest fire detection contextual algorithm was improved to adapt the HJ-infrared sensor (HJ-IRS). The enhanced method consisted of potential fire pixel identification, absolute and relative fire pixel judgment, background characteristics analysis, and fire pixel confidence. The improved algorithm was programmed in IDL7.1 and tested using HJ forest fire data from Heilongjiang Province in 2009. Results show that improving the forest fire detection contextual algorithm to adapt HJ-IRS is feasible and highly accurate. HJ data are much more sensitive to smaller and cooler fires than MODIS or the advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) data, and the improved capabilities offers a good potential for application in forest fire detection.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Y. Liu, Y.P. Cai, G.H. Huang, C. Dong System planning of energy resources management is an effective way for supporting socio-economic development and enhancing eco-environmental sustainability. In this study, an inexact coupled coal and power management model with ecological restoration and pollutants mitigation was developed to analyze the impacts of growing coal use and electricity production on eco-environmental quality by integrating a complete set of ecological and environmental constraints. The model can not only effectively handle the uncertainties and complexities of the coupled coal and power management systems, but can also facilitate a dynamic analysis of capacity expansion, facility installation, energy resource inventory, coal blending and environmental regulation changes within a multi-period and multi-option context. The developed model was applied to a long-term coupled coal and power management system planning problem to support the regional eco-environmental sustainability in north China. The interval solutions associated with different risk levels of the constraint violations were obtained, which could be used to formulate decision alternative options. The results generated could also aid decision makers in identifying desirable strategies under various social-economic, environmental and system-reliability constraints with the highest system reliability and the lowest system cost and ecological environment impact. In addition, the tradeoffs between system costs and constraint-violation risks could also be tackled.

Description: After receiving injections of human embryonic stem cells, monkeys with tremors and rigidity were able to move smoothly

Description: Some snails survive inside bird guts for hours at a time, and travel hundreds of kilometres that way before popping out at the other end

Description: Rapid switch between neutrino flavours could herald experiments to explore early universe's preference for matter

Description: Why can everyone learn Portuguese? Is Twitter a trivialiser? A whistle-stop tour of our intellectual landscape in the company of Noam Chomsky