Key Design Elements of Building Pressure Cycling for Evaluating Vapor Intrusion—A Literature Review

Building pressure cycling (BPC) is becoming an increasingly important tool for studying vapor intrusion. BPC has been used to distinguish subslab and indoor sources of vapor intrusion as well as to define reasonable worst case volatile organic compound mass discharge into a structure. Analyses have been performed both semi-quantitatively with concentration trends and quantitatively with more rigorous flux calculation and source attribution methods. This paper reviews and compares the protocols and outcomes from multiple published applications of this technology to define the key variables that control performance. Common lessons learned are identified, including those that help define the range of building size and type to which BPC is applicable. Differences in test protocols are discussed, recognizing that the complexity of the test protocol required depends on the particular objectives of each project. Research gaps are identified and tabulated for future validation studies and applications.     

Disentangling the role of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans during the Amazonian droughts in 2015

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - El Niño events lead to worldwide changes in the inter-annual variability of precipitation, and more in particular to South America droughts. In the year...     

Correction of Discretization Errors Simulated at Supply Wells

Many hydrogeology problems require predictions of hydraulic heads in a supply well. In most cases, the regional hydraulic response to groundwater withdrawal is best approximated using a numerical model; however, simulated hydraulic heads at supply wells are subject to errors associated with model discretization and well loss. An approach for correcting the simulated head at a pumping node is described here. The approach corrects for errors associated with model discretization and can incorporate the user's knowledge of well loss. The approach is model independent, can be applied to finite difference or finite element models, and allows the numerical model to remain somewhat coarsely discretized and therefore numerically efficient. Because the correction is implemented external to the numerical model, one important benefit of this approach is that a response matrix, reduced model approach can be supported even when nonlinear well loss is considered.     

Estimating economic impacts in New Zealand: Technical issues

Abstract: This technical paper describes the techniques used to calculate future economic impacts, using two quite different situations: a technology park in a major urban area and the suspension of fees at a tertiary institution in a provincial town. A number of issues arose which required assumptions to be made. Notable among these were the lack of regionalized input–output tables and estimating the ‘leakage’ to economies outside the specified target area.     

Phasing segmented mirrors using defocused images at visible wavelengths

Plans for future optical telescopes of diameter more than 10 m are based on segmented mirrors, made up of hundreds or even thousands of segments. A challenge for these telescopes is the alignment in piston (cophasing) where phase differences between individual segments have to be reduced to a small fraction of the observing wavelength in order to avoid degradation of image quality.
Based on the phase discontinuity sensing method used at the Keck telescopes to measure small piston errors using infrared wavelengths, we develop a new method that allows fast high-precision measurements of large piston errors even at visible wavelengths.     

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Compositions and phase relations of calcic amphiboles in epidote- and clinopyroxene-bearing rocks of the amphibolite and lower granulite facies,central Massachusetts,USA

Calcic amphiboles coexisting with epidotegroup minerals (zoisite, clinozoisite, epidote) and/or clinopyroxene±plagioclase±quartz±garnet occur in amphibolites and calc-silicate rocks that underwent amphibolite to lower granulite-facies metamorphism in the Acadian metamorphic high of central Massachusetts, USA. Across the region, peak metamorphic conditions range from about 580° C and 6.2 kbar to 730° C and 6.3 kbar. The coexistence of most Ca-amphiboles with Fe³⁺-rich epidote-group minerals suggests the presence of Fe³⁺ in most of these amphiboles. An empirical Fe³⁺ estimation for the microprobe analyses is based on two constraints: the Na?Ca content of the M4 sites of Ca-saturated, gravimetrically analyzed hornblendes gives the relation: Ca(M4) ^c =-1.479 Na(M4) ^c +2 (c=corrected). The second constraint is the stoichiometric equation Ca(M4)+Na(M4)+FM=15, where FM is the sum of all cations exclusive of Ca, Na, and K. Solving the two equations simultaneously gives: 20.185=0.479 Ca(M4)+1.479 ΣFM. Starting with the uncorrected values of Ca(M4) ^u and ΣFM(M4) ^u (u = uncorrected) of the all ferrous formula, the normalization factor NF for calculating the corrected cations of the ferric formulas is: 20.185/(0.478 Ca(M4) ^u +1.479 ΣFM ^u ). From the deficient oxygen the Fe³⁺ content which is equal to 2(23-ΣOX) can be calculated. Determinations of Fe³⁺ contents of four hornblende separates by Mössbauer spectroscopy are in agreement with the calculated values. The Ca-amphiboles show systematic changes in composition with increasing grade of metamorphism within the amphibolite and lower granulite-facies zones: increasing edenite and tschermakite substitution, increasing Ti content, and increasing Fe²⁺/(Fe²⁺+Mg) ratio. In addition, the coexisting clinopyroxenes are also characterized by an increase in Fe²⁺/(Fe²⁺+Mg) ratio. In quartz-free rocks with coexisting Ca-amphibole and plagioclase there is an increase in the ratio X _Ab/X _Ed, where X _Ab=Na/(Na+Ca) in plagioclase and X _Ed=Na in the amphibole A-site. These chemical changes in mineral composition together with the disappearance of epidote at the transition to granulite-facies metamorphic conditions are attributed to the continuous reaction: albite+epidote+Fe-Mg hornblende→Fe?Mg clinopyroxene+anorthite+(NaAlSi_-1)^Hbl+H₂O.