Bearing capacity of offshore umbrella suction anchor foundation in silty soil under varying loading modes

Considering the current disadvantages of present offshore wind turbine foundations, a novel anchor foundation with skirt and branches is proposed, called offshore umbrella suction anchor foundation (USAF). A series of experiments and numerical simulations were performed to explore the bearing capacity of the USAF under various kinds of loading modes. The bearing characteristics and the anchor–soil interactions are described in detail for horizontal static loading, horizontal cyclic loading, and an antidrawing (pullout) test in silty soil. In the static loading test, the load–deflection of the anchor under step loading was analyzed and the normalized curve of the load–deflection was obtained to determine the ultimate horizontal bearing capacity of the anchor under normal working conditions. Under horizontal cyclic loading, the relationship between the plastic cumulative deformation and cyclic number was determined. In addition, the responses of USAF were investigated for a low wave frequency and storm surges. In the drawing test, it was found that a “segmentation phenomenon” occurred during the test. Moreover, a method to identify the maximum antidrawing load of USAF was provided based on dynamic mechanics. The numerical results show that the use of anchor branches and skirt can enhance the bearing performance of USAF to a certain degree. However, the anchor branch has a slight positive influence on the bearing performance improvement. The USAF is not only similar to a stiff short pile, but a rotation occurs. The failure envelope under composite loading (V-M) was obtained and the changes associated with changes in the aspect ratio of the internal compartment were clarified.     

Design of Buoys for Mounting Wind Turbines at Exposed Sites

In this study, two designs for a buoy capable of supporting a 10 kW wind turbine and its tower were developed to operate at the University of New Hampshire’s Center of Ocean Renewable Energy testing site located off the Isles of Shoals, New Hampshire. The buoys are to be moored by a catenary chain system. To evaluate wave response, two Froude-scaled models were constructed, tested, and compared at the Ocean Engineering wave tank at the University of New Hampshire. These buoys have been implemented and compared with wave tank measurements of the spar displacement at a reference elevation 2.44 m above the mean water level.     

A terrain openness index for the extraction of karst Fenglin and Fengcong landform units from DEMs

The Fenglin and Fengcong landform units are considered to be an important representation for defining the degree of development of Karst landforms. However, these terrain features have been proven difficult to delineate and extract automatically because of their complex morphology. In this paper, a new method for identifying the Fenglin and Fengcong landform units is proposed. This method consists of two steps: (1) terrain openness calculation and (2) toe line extraction. The proposed method is applied and validated in the Karst case area of Guilin by using ASTER GDEM with one arc-second resolution. The openness of both the positive and negative terrain and a threshold were used to extract toe lines for segmenting depressions and pinnacles in Fenglin and Fengcong landforms. A comparison between the extracted Fenglin and Fengcong landform units and their real units from high resolution images was carried out to evaluate the capability of the proposed method. Results show the proposed method can effectively extract the Fenglin and Fengcong landform units, and has an overall accuracy of 93.28%. The proposed method is simple and easy to implement and is expected to play an important role in the automatic extraction of similar landform units in the Karst area.     

Exact solution of anisotropic compact stars via mass function

Studying relativistic compact objects is important in modern astrophysics to understand several astrophysical issues. It is therefore natural to ask for an internal structure and physical properties of specific classes of compact stars from astrophysical observations. We obtain a class of new relativistic solutions with anisotropic distribution of matter for compact stars. More specifically, stellar models, described by an anisotropic fluid, establishing a relation between metric potentials and generating a specific form of mass function, are explicitly constructed within the framework of General Relativity. New solutions can be used to model compact objects, which adequately describe compact strange star candidates like SMC X-1, Her X-1 and 4U 1538-52, with observational data taken from Gangopadhyay et al. (Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 431:3216, 2013). As a possible astrophysical application the obtained solutions could explain the physics of selfgravitating objects, and might be useful for strong-field regimes where data are currently inadequate.     

环塔里木盆地绿洲城市发展与水环境质量协调度

解决好新疆环塔里木盆地绿洲城市发展与水环境质量之间的关系，对"一带一路"倡议顺利实施及新疆社会稳定具有十分重要的作用。基于2004-2017年环塔里木盆地绿洲城市发展与水环境变化状况，构建城市发展与水环境质量的综合评价模型及二者的协调度模型，以探讨环塔里木盆地绿洲城市发展、水环境质量变化及二者的协调关系。结果表明：2004-2017年，（1）环塔里木盆地绿洲城市发展综合指数呈现出逐年稳定上升的趋势，经济发展和城镇空间规模扩大是环塔里木盆地绿洲城市发展的主要形式；（2）环塔里木盆地绿洲城市的水环境质量综合指数呈现出逐年降低的趋势，水环境质量形势严峻；（3）环塔里木盆地绿洲城市发展-水环境质量系统的协调度呈现倒U型的稳定发展趋势，但总体上两者的协调度较低，城市发展和水环境质量之间的矛盾日益突出。     

Study of some chaotic inflationary models in $$ gravity

In this paper, we discuss an inflationary scenario via scalar field and fluid cosmology for an anisotropic homogeneous universe model in \(f(R)\) gravity. We consider an equation of state which corresponds to a quasi-de Sitter expansion and investigate the effect of the anisotropy parameter for different values of the deviation parameter. We evaluate potential models like linear, quadratic and quartic models which correspond to chaotic inflation. We construct the observational parameters for a power-law model of \(f(R)\) gravity and construct the graphical analysis of tensor–scalar ratio and spectral index which indicates the consistency of these parameters with Planck 2015 data.     

Projections of the impacts of climate change on the water deficit and on the precipitation erosive indexes in Mantaro River Basin,Peru

Projections of climate change are essential to guide sustainable development plans in the tropical Andean countries such as Peru. This study assessed the projections of precipitation and potential evaporation, rain erosive potential, and precipitation concentration in the Mantaro River Basin, in the Peruvian Andes, which is important for agriculture and energy production in Peru. We assumed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) A1B greenhouse gas emission scenario and simulated the global climate change by the HadCM3 global climate model. Due to the steepness of the mountain slopes and the narrowness of the river valley, this study uses the downscaling of the global model simulations by the regional Eta model down to 20-km resolution. The downscaling projections show decrease in the monthly precipitation with respect to the baseline period, especially during the rainy season, between February and April, until the end of the 21st century. Meanwhile, a progressive increase in the monthly evaporation from the baseline period is projected. The Modified Fournier Index (MFI) shows a statistically significant downward trend in the Mantaro River Basin, which suggests a possible reduction in the rain erosive potential. The Precipitation Concentration Index (PCI) shows a statistically significant increasing trend, which indicates increasingly more irregular temporal distribution of precipitation towards the end of the century. The results of this study allow us to conclude that there should be a gradual increase in water deficit and precipitation concentration. Both changes can be negative for agriculture, power generation, and water supply in the Mantaro River Basin in Peru.     

Review of pre-processing technologies for ice cores

High-resolution ice core records covering long time spans enable reconstruction of the past climatic and environmental conditions allowing the investigation of the earth system’s evolution. Preprocessing of ice cores has direct impacts on the data quality control for further analysis since the conventional ice core processing is time-consuming, produces qualitative data, leads to ice mass loss, and leads to risks of potential secondary pollution. However, over the past several decades, preprocessing of ice cores has received less attention than the improvement of ice drilling, the analytical methodology of various indices, and the researches on the climatic and environmental significance of ice core records. Therefore, this papers reviews the development of the processing for ice cores including framework, design as well as materials, analyzes the technical advantages and disadvantages of the different systems. In the past, continuous flow analysis (CFA) has been successfully applied to process the polar ice cores. However, it is not suitable for ice cores outside polar region because of high level of particles, the memory effect between samples, and the filtration before injection. Ice core processing is a subtle and professional operation due to the fragility of the nonmetallic materials and the random distribution of particles and air bubbles in ice cores, which aggravates uncertainty in the measurements. The future developments of CFA are discussed in preprocessing, memory effect, challenge for brittle ice, coupling with real-time analysis and optimization of CFA in the field. Furthermore, non-polluting cutters with many different configurations could be designed to cut and scrape in multiple directions and to separate inner and outer portions of the core. This system also needs to be coupled with streamlined operation of packaging, coding, and stacking that can be implemented at high resolution and rate, avoiding manual intervention. At the same time, information of the longitudinal sections could be scanned and identified, and then classified to obtain quantitative data. In addition, irregular ice volume and weight can also be obtained accurately. These improvements are recorded automatically via user-friendly interfaces. These innovations may be applied to other paleomedias with similar features and needs.     

秦皇岛近岸海域绿藻微观繁殖体的分布以及在绿潮形成中的作用

2015年以来，秦皇岛近岸海域暴发了绿潮，对北戴河旅游区的环境和生态系统造成了严重影响。绿藻微观繁殖体在绿潮的形成过程中起到重要作用，主要包括孢子、配子、幼苗和营养片段。绿藻微观繁殖体作为绿潮的“种源”，其分布规律可以反映绿潮的“藻源”位置。本研究于2016年4-9月和2017年1月对秦皇岛近岸海域绿藻微观繁殖体的调查，探究了其分布规律以及生物量变化。结果显示，绿藻微观繁殖体主要分布在近岸海域，由近岸向远岸海域逐渐降低。绿藻微观繁殖体的数量在7、8月份最高，在冬季最低。受绿潮影响严重的海域微观繁殖体数量高于其它海域。秦皇岛近岸海域的绿藻微观繁殖体为该海域绿潮的种源，其分布规律表明秦皇岛近岸海域绿潮起源于本地。     

Species Diversity Characteristics of a Natural Pinus taiwanensis Community with Different Diameter Classes and Forest Densities

Pinus taiwanensis is a species endemic to China. This study selected four typical plots of Pinus taiwanensis in the natural secondary forest around Macheng City, in order to reveal the characteristics of and the relationships between different diameter classes (determined based on the diameter at breast height or DBH), forest densities and species diversity, as well as the similarities of species diversity of different plots within the community. The result showed that Pinus taiwanensis was the dominant species in the community. The ratio of Pinus taiwanensis trees of diameter class IV reached a peak of 19.46% of the total followed by diameter class VII at 18.92%. The study recorded 156 species of vascular plants from 130 genera of 71 families; Pinus taiwanensis was the dominant species in the community. When the forest density was 1200 trees ha ^-1 with the largest average diameter of DBH=36.779±4.444 cm, the diversity (Shannon index H'=1.6716) and the evenness (Pielou index E=0.6727) of the tree layer was the highest. When the forest density reached 1525 trees ha ^-1 with the lowest average diameter of DBH=18.957±5.141 cm, the richness (D_ma=5.4308), the diversity (H'=2.9612) and the evenness (E=0.8985) of all shrub layers climbed to the maximum. When the forest density was 1325 trees ha ^-1, the richness (D_ma=5.8132), the diversity (H'=3.0697) and the evenness (E=0.9025) of all herb layers peaked. In terms of vertical structure, the average diversity indexes were herb layer>shrub layer>tree layer. High canopy density weakened light intensity in the community, causing a reduction in the species diversities of herbs and shrubs. The average similarity coefficient between the sample plots was 0.3356, which was at the medium dissimilarity level. External disturbances and improper management were major contributors to the low species diversity of the community. The implementation of scientific management measures is urgently needed to optimize the forest structures of Pinus taiwanensis, create a benign community environment, and promote species diversities and establish a stable forest community structure.