Correlations between Compression Index and Index Properties of Undisturbed and Disturbed Tehran clay

The compression index (Cc), which is used to calculate the consolidation settlement of fine-grained soils, can be determined through consolidation testing. Given that exploring the soil in a local region is highly important to determine the correlation between the Cc and other soil indices, the present study investigated these correlations in undisturbed and disturbed samples through 130 consolidation tests and determining the Cc of Tehran clay. The results are suggestive of the validity of the linear correlation between the Cc and the unit weight and initial void ratio of the soil, with several relations presented to estimate the Cc of Tehran clay soil. In contrast, the initial water content, liquid limit and the plasticity index do not produce reliable correlations with the Cc of the local clay soil, and a relation based on these index parameters cannot be recommended in this area. Further, the presented empirical correlations were compared with the existing ones. More over time-displacement and e-log σ’ graphs for undisturbed and disturbed samples are compared and stress history of the site are presented. The results are significant in terms of engineering applications, saving time and money and provides an initial estimation of compression index.

     

Exploring the applications of 3D proximity analysis in a 3D digital cadastre

Increasing population in urban areas and limitations of suitable lands for developing houses and urban infrastructure have led to the vertical development in cities. However, these developments are managed by a cadastral system which is mainly two-dimensional and cannot efficiently represent Rights, Restrictions, and Responsibilities (RRRs) in complex scenarios. In fact, a three-dimensional cadastre is required for efficiently registering and representing RRRs. In this paper, a 3D proximity analysis was proposed and implemented to determine RRRs and associated easement rights in non-topology-based data structures. This method can be used to investigate the surrounding spaces of a subject apartment unit or storage in a high-rise. The performance of the developed method was evaluated in a large complex high-rise in Tehran, Iran. The results confirmed that the proposed method can correctly identify the neighbor spaces in complex scenarios.     

Further confirmations of mass transfer in Algol type binary U Sagittae

This paper describes how a new photometric V light curve solution of Algol type binary U Sge was obtained using Wilson–Devinney code. I also discuss how the physical and orbital parameters, along with absolute dimensions of the system, were determined. The Roche lobe configurations of the system indicate that the secondary component has filled its Roche lobe and therefore is losing mass at the rate of 6.15×10⁻⁷ M _sun yr⁻¹. The conservative mass flow is the most likely process in this system.     

Crystallization Conditions and Mineral Chemistry in the East of Tafresh,Central Iran,with Insights into Magmatic Processes

The Tafresh granitoids are located at the central part of the Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc(UDMA) in Iran. These rocks, mainly consisting of diorite and granodiorite, were emplaced during the Early Miocene. They are composed of varying proportions of plagioclase + K-feldspar + hornblende ± quartz ± biotite. Discrimination diagrams and chemical indices of amphibole phases reveal a calc-alkaline affinity and fall clearly in the crust-mantle mixed source field. The estimated pressure, derived from Al in amphibole barometry, is approximately 3 Kb. The granitoids are I-type, metaluminous and belong to the calc-alkaline series. They are all enriched in light rare earth elements and large ion lithophile elements, depleted in high field strength elements and display geochemical features typical of subduction-related calc-alkaline arc magmas. Most crystal size distribution(CSD) line patterns from the granitoids show a non-straight trend which points to the effect of physical processes during petrogenesis.The presence of numerous mafic enclaves, sieve texture and oscillatory zoning along with the CSD results show that magma mixing in the magma chamber had an important role in the petrogenesis of Tafresh granitoids. Moreover, the CSD analysis suggests that the plagioclase crystals were crystallized in a time span of less than 1000 years, which is indicative of shallow depth magma crystallization.     

Sea‐level rise impact on fresh groundwater lenses in two‐layer small islands

The fresh groundwater lenses (FGLs) of small islands can be highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, including sea‐level rise (SLR). Many real cases of atoll or sandy islands involve two‐layer hydrogeological conceptualizations. In this paper, the influential factors that affect FGLs in two‐layer small islands subject to SLR are investigated. An analytical solution describing FGLs in circular islands, composed of two geological layers, is developed for the simplified case of steady‐state and sharp‐interface conditions. An application of the developed model is demonstrated to estimate the FGL thickness of some real‐world islands by comparison with existing FGL thickness data. Furthermore, numerical modelling is applied to extend the analysis to consider dispersion effects and to confirm comparable results for both cases. Sensitivity analyses are used to assess the importance of land‐surface inundation caused by SLR, relative to other parameters (i.e. thickness of aquifer layers, hydraulic conductivity, recharge rate and land‐surface slope) that influence the FGL. Dimensionless parameters are used to generalize the findings. The results demonstrate that land‐surface inundation has a considerable impact on a FGL influenced by SLR, as expected, although the FGL volume is more sensitive to recharge, aquifer thickness and hydraulic conductivity than SLR impacts, considering typical parameter ranges. The methodology presented in this study provides water resource managers with a rapid‐assessment tool for evaluating the likely impacts of SLR and accompanying LSI on FGLs.     

Assessing desertification by using soil indices

Desertification generally refers to land degradation in arid, semiarid, and dry semi-humid climatic zones. It involves five principal processes: vegetation degradation, water erosion, wind erosion, salinization and waterlogging, and soil crusting and compaction. The aim of this study is assessing desertification using soil criteria. For this purpose, nine indices including sodium absorption ratio (SAR), soil gypsum percentage, soil texture, the content of HCO₃ ^?, the percentage of the organic matter, electrical conductivity (EC), pH, the content of the soil sodium, and chloride were used. The soil samples were taken in the north of Zayandeh-Rood River in Isfahan province of Iran, using soil data randomly sampled in a depth of 0–20 cm. After assessing the normality of the samples using Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, indices were imported into GIS environment and interpolated with IDW and normal and discrete kriging methods for delineating soil characteristics maps based on MEDALUS model. In this model, the data were firstly changed from 100 to 200. Thus 100 and 200 are estimated as the best and worst quality, respectively. Then the final map of soil criteria has been created by geometric mean of its indicators. The results showed that the maximum area is related to the medium class of desertification and is equal to 44,746 ha. The areas of severe and very severe classes of desertification are equal to 30,949 and 351 ha, respectively. The results also revealed that the indices of the organic matter and soil gypsum percentage are the most influential indices which affect desertification phenomenon.     

Spectrophotometric Determination of Cationic Surfactants Based on Their Effect on the Complexes of Chrome Azurol S with Be2+ and Al3+ Cations

Simple, rapid, and sensitive spectrophotometric methods have been proposed for the determination of cationic surfactants (CS) as cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), dodecyltrimethylammonium (DTAB), and cetylpyridinium bromide (CPB). The methods are based on the effects of CSs on the complexes of Al³⁺ and Be²⁺ with Chrome Azurol S (CAS). The optimum reaction conditions such as CAS concentration, metal ion concentration, and pH have been studied and found to be 2.0 × 10^?4 mol L^?1 CAS, 0.5 mg L^?1 Al³⁺ or 0.4 mg L^?1 Be²⁺ and pH 5.4. The analytical characteristics of the methods such as limit of detections, limit of quantifications, and linear ranges have been obtained. CTAB, CPB, and DTAB could be determined by the Al–CAS complex in the ranges of 0.50–40.00, 0.20–10.00, and 0.40–10.00 µmol L^?1, and for the Be–CAS complex in the ranges of 0.08–5.00, 0.08–3.00, and 0.20–6.00 µmol L^?1, respectively. The limit of the detections of the method for the determination of CTAB, CPB, and DTAB for the Be–CAS complex has been found as 0.025, 0.024, and 0.061 µmol L^?1, respectively. The interfering effect of some anions and cations was also tested. The method was applied to the determination of CS CTAB in conditioner shampoo and water samples.     

Assessment of reference evapotranspiration across an arid urban environment having poor data monitoring system

Estimation of reference evapotranspiration (ET₀) in urban areas is challenging but essential in arid urban climates. To evaluate ET₀ in an urban environment and non-urban areas, air temperature and relative humidity were measured at five different sites across the arid city of Isfahan, Iran, over 4 years. Wind speed and sunshine hours were obtained from an urban surrounding weather station over the same period and used to estimate ET₀. Calculated ET₀ was compared with satellite-based ET₀ retrieved from the MOD16A2 PET product. Although MODIS PET was strongly correlated with the Valiantzas equation, it overestimated ET₀ and showed average accuracy (r = 0.93–0.94, RMSE = 1.18–1.28 mm/day, MBE = 0.73–0.84 mm/day). The highest ET₀ differences between an urban green space and a non-urban area were 1.1 and 0.87 mm/day, which were estimated by ground measurements and MODIS PET, respectively. The sensitivity of ET₀ to wind speed and sunshine hours indicated a significant effect on cumulative ET₀ at urban sites compared to the non-urban site, which has a considerable impact on the amount of irrigation required in those areas. Although MODIS PET requires improvement to accurately reflect field level microclimate conditions affecting ET₀, it is beneficial to hydrological applications and water resource managers especially in areas where data is limited. In addition, our results indicated that using limited data methods or meteorological data from regional weather stations, leads to incorrect estimation of ET₀ in urban areas. Therefore, decision-makers and urban planners should consider the importance of precisely estimating ET₀ to optimize management of urban green space irrigation, especially in arid and semi-arid climates such as the city of Isfahan.     

Improving Spectral–spatial Classification of Hyperspectral Imagery Using Spectral Dimensionality Reduction Based on Weighted Genetic Algorithm

This paper aims to improve the accuracy and the efficiency of high resolution land cover mapping in urban area. To this end, an improved approach for classification of hyperspectral imagery is proposed and evaluated. This approach benefits from both inherent spectral and spatial information of an image. The weighted genetic (WG) algorithm is first used to obtain the subspace of hyperspectral data. The obtained features are then fed into the enhanced marker-based minimum spanning forest (EMSF) classification algorithm. In this algorithm, the markers are extracted from the classification maps obtained by both support vector machine and watershed segmentation algorithm classifiers. For this purpose, the class’s pixels with the largest population in the classification map are kept for each region of the segmentation map. Then, the most reliable classified pixels are chosen from among the exiting pixels as markers. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed approach, three hyperspectral data sets acquired by ROSIS-03, Hymap and Hyper-Cam LWIR are used. Experimental results showed that the proposed WG–EMSF approach achieves approximately 9, 8 and 6% better overall accuracy than the original MSF-based algorithm for these data sets respectively.     

Groundwater travel time computation for two-layer islands

A closed-form analytical computation of groundwater travel time (GWTT) for two-layer oceanic small island aquifers is developed assuming steady-state and sharp-interface conditions. The two-layer geology impacts on the GWTT are investigated using the developed analytical solution to achieve a greater transparency of such conceptualizations. The results demonstrate that the inclusion of geologic layering leads to large changes in the GWTT. Sensitivity analyses, using specified dimensionless parameters, are employed to assess the influences of hydraulic conductivity, recharge rate, upper layer thickness, and seawater/freshwater density difference parameters, which influence the GWTT. These evaluations reveal that the GWTT is mainly influenced by the recharge rate and the upper layer thickness compared to the other influential parameters when the typical parameter ranges are considered.