Characteristics analysis for the flash flood-induced debris flows

Typhoon Haitang caused landfall on Taiwan during 15–21 July, 2005 and brought 2,279 mm of maximum cumulative rain with a maximum intensity of 176 mm/h. The torrential rain was mainly distributed from the central mountain range to southern Taiwan and triggered 222 slopeland-related hazards. Among the hazard events, there were 17 debris flows, 157 cases of traffic cut-off, three large-magnitude deep-seated landslides, and 10 villages isolated in the off-track mountainous areas. The debris flows initiated in southern Taiwan were associated with torrential rain, short channel length (<2 km), and small basin area (<3 km²), and were speculated to be induced by flash flood. These flash flood-induced debris flows have a higher rainfall intensity-duration threshold for initiation than in other areas. The deep-seated landslides, isolated villages due to traffic cut-off in off-track mountain areas, and recurrent hazards in areas affected by the M_L 7.6 Chi-Chi earthquake in 1999 are characteristics of slopeland hazards in Taiwan in recent years. One of the most urgently needed mitigation strategies in response to slopeland hazards is the plan for enhancing self-rescue disaster resistance in off-track mountainous villages in Taiwan.     

Ensemble forecasting of tropical cyclone motion: comparisonbetween regional bred modes and random perturbations

Summary Random perturbations (RPs) and a modified version for breeding of growing modes are used with a regional baroclinic mesoscale model to perform ensemble forecasting of tropical cyclone motion. Based on a sample of six cases, similar conclusions are found as in previous barotropic modeling studies. Even after introducing a larger spatial correlation into the RPs using a multi-quadric analysis scheme, the skill of this ensemble mean track prediction is almost always lower than that of the control forecast in the cases considered. The track prediction performance of the ensemble using regional bred modes (RBMs) as perturbations has a higher average skill. At nearly all forecast intervals except less than 24 h when the initial position error still dominates, the ensemble mean tracks in all six cases are improved over the control forecast. In the 6 h–24 h range, the success rate (ratio of the cases with a forecast improvement to the total number of cases) has a value of 10/24. In the 30 h–48 h range, the success rate increases to 20/24, but drops to 18/24 in the 54 h–72 h range. A relative skill score (RSS) is used to compare the skills of the two perturbation methodologies. It is found that the average RSSs of using RBMs are significantly higher than the corresponding ones of RPs at the 99% confidence level in all three 24-h periods. Note that the above conclusion is only based on ensemble mean forecasts. All of the possibilities from an ensemble-based probabilistic track distribution are not explored in this paper. The ensemble spreads in these RBM ensembles are large enough to include the verifying tracks in all the cases considered. It is also found that the ensemble spread is well correlated with the average error in an ensemble when using RBMs, but not with the ensemble mean forecast error in both methodologies. Received February 7, 2001/Revised April 18, 2001     

Magnetic activity of the spotted dwarf AP149 in the α Persei open cluster

The simultaneous photometric and spectroscopic observations of the spotted G dwarf AP149 in the young open cluster α Persei are analyzed here.We reconstruct the observed light curves with a two-starspot model by means of a light curve modeling technique,and find that the active regions shift oppositely along longitude on a time scale of one day.Combining with the observational data obtained by other groups,we discuss the evolution of spotted regions in the photosphere,and find that its starspots evolve not ...     

Boundary element method with exterior collocation in two-dimensional elastodynamic problems

In the present paper, the boundary element method with exterior collocation was applied to two-dimensional elastodynamic problems. The stability of the numerical solution was discussed and the collocation rule of source points outside the region being studied was investigated in the frequency domain by means of the computed error in the boundary displacement and the condition number of the coefficient matrix for two typical wave propagation problems. The achieved results are helpful to the practical application of this method to earthquake ground motion analysis.     

Monitoring interannual dynamics of desertification in Minqin County,China, using dense Landsat time series

ABSTRACT

Minqin County in northwestern China is highly affected by desertification. Campaigns have been initiated in recent decades to combat desertification in Minqin. To assess the effectiveness of these campaigns, this study used a dense Landsat time series from 1987 to 2017 to investigate the interannual dynamics of vegetation coverage and greenness over the past 31 years. First, this study applied an advanced technology to reconstruct a high-quality Landsat annual time series. Specifically, one image in the vegetation-peak season was selected as the base image in each year, and then problematic pixels were interpolated by the neighborhood similar pixel interpolator using ancillary images in the same year. Second, the land cover map and the enhanced vegetation index (EVI) were derived from all reconstructed images. Third, the change of vegetation coverage and EVI values over the 31 years were analyzed. The results show that the total vegetation coverage and greenness increased during the 31 years. Linking this change trend to other factors suggests that vegetation in Minqin County is highly affected by agriculture and groundwater supply rather than by climate. To mitigate desertification in a sustainable way, agriculture should be well managed to avoid overconsumption of natural resources such as underground water.     

Incremental time—space finite strip method for non-linear structural vibrations

Based on an incremental Hamilton's principle a versatile and systematic computer method for analysing non-linear structural vibrations is developed in this paper. The essence of the proposed method can be regarded as an incremental harmonic balance method associated with a finite strip procedure in the time-space domain. Only linearized equations in terms of frequency increment, amplitude increments, etc. have to be formulated and solved in each incremental step. This method is applicable to highly non-linear problems and may be generalized to related non-linear periodic structural motions such as dynamic stability, flutter and some motions of a rotating body, etc. To show the effectiveness and versatility of this method, a typical time-space finite strip for beam problems is worked out and examples for a wide variety of vibration problems including free and forced vibrations, super- and sub-harmonic resonances, and complicated phenomena such as internal resonance are computed. Comparisons with previous results are also made.     

Trace metals in Hong Kong waters

Hong Kong has a population of between four and five million and is becoming increasingly industrialized. Already there are some 19,000 factories concentrated in a few densely populated areas and most of the effluent and sewage is discharged untreated into the sea. Elevated heavy metal concentrations have been recorded in the receiving waters. Lead has 160 times and cadmium 180 times the concentration found in the open ocean.     

Using FCMC, FVS, and PCA techniques for feature extraction of multispectral images

In this letter, a new nonlinear approach based on a combination of the fuzzy c-means clustering (FCMC), feature vector selection and principal component analysis (PCA) is proposed to extract features of multispectral images when a very large number of samples need to be processed. The main contribution of this letter is to provide a preprocessing method for classifying these images with higher accuracy compared to the single PCA and kernel PCA. Finally, some experimental results demonstrate that our proposed approach is effective and efficient in analyzing multispectral images.     

A transient model to predict the weekly temperatures of the ventilation air in a partially wetted airway

Summary Most theoretical methods for the prediction of strata heat flow in an underground airway assume that the air temperature remains constant or that only small changes take place over the ventilated age of the airway. This assumption is clearly not correct; air temperature (especially those measured in British coal mines) display variation of up to 5° C during any one week at any one point. These variations are periodic in nature and relate to both the daily and weekly production cycle. In order to predict the transient heat flow from strata the Duhamel Theorem is used. Details of the theorem incorporating the air temperature history to calculate the surface temperature of a partially wetted airway are derived. An algorithm is presented for the calculation of surface temperatures and hence the heat flux from the rock. The algorithm is used in the computation of heat and moisture transfer rates from the rock to the ventilating air in the airway. Finally, the air temperatures at the end of the airway are predicted due to the heat flows from the strata and they are compared to the measured data supplied by British Coal, United Kingdom.