The historically adjusted range and the historically rescaled adjusted range

It was remarked by Hurst in 1951 that the adjusted range gives the size of the smallest reservoir capable of providing a constant discharge equal to the mean inflow. Since that time this range and its rescaled modification, the Hurst range, have been widely discussed, not however primarily with a view to applying them to reservoir design problems, but rather on account of their possible relevance to the simulation of geophysical time series.Acknowledging the well-known conceptual weaknesses of adjusted ranges and the theoretical difficulties that inhibit their direct utilisation in the design and operation of real reservoirs, the authors argue that the interest displayed on ranges during the past few decades justifies the effort of eliminating one in particular of these weakness, namely their non-implementability as operating policies, a consequence of the fact that they can only be retrospectively evaluated. The paper proposes modifications in which the unknowable mean and standard deviation of future samples are replaced by the known mean and sample standard deviation of historical data, leading to the historically adjusted range and the historically rescaled and adjusted range. The latter is produced as an implementable approximation to Hurst's (1951) solution to the optimal reservoir problem.The expected values of the new ranges are evaluated and numerically tabulated.     

Comparing Human and Neural Network Learning of Climate Categories

This study compares how humans and neural networks classify climate types. Human subjects were asked to classify climates from monthly temperature and precipitation patterns. To model their learning process, the same data were used to produce input vectors that trained a pattern associator neural network. Both human subjects and the neural network classified climates accurately after 10 rounds of supervised learning. The neural network successfully modeled the rate of human learning and the ability to learn specific climate categories. Moreover, the neural network weights used to classify climates correspond to distinct visual characteristics in temperature and precipitation. These results suggest that neural networks can model the formation of visual categories.     

Temporal Variations of Chlorinated Solvents in Abstraction Wells

Data obtained during an organic water quality survey of abstraction (pumping) wells in the Triassic Sandstone Aquifer of Birmingham (U.K.) indicate that there are important variations of chlorinated solvent concentrations with time. Short-term observation of solvent concentrations with elapsed pumping time indicates widely differing well responses; such observations are important in establishing good sampling protocols. Long-term monitoring indicates that solvent concentrations, particularly trichloroethene, are often stable with time. When large solvent variations do occur, these are shown to be due to the variation in the abstraction history of the well or significant migration of solvent plumes during the monitoring period. The latter effect is particularly exemplified by rising trends in 1,1,1-trichlroethane concentrations. The changes observed in solvent concentrations during long-term monitoring of the Birmingham Aquifer are slow to occur, but often large.     

Design and installation of a combined automatic tensiometer-piezometer system

Currently available systems for monitoring both negative and positive pore pressures have certain restrictions as to their use. A system design is described that seeks to overcome some of the potentially more restrictive elements insofar as site investigations in tropical slopes are concerned. In particular, the system uses an integrated approach to both pore pressure and ancillary (e.g. raingauge) monitoring. Initial trials of the instrumentation suggest its suitability for pore pressure recording where high temporal resolution is needed in both negative and positive pressures.     

Changes and patterns of origin regions of international tourism

The dramatic political and economic changes in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East during the early 1990s have had a dramatic impact on international tourism. Between 1974 and 1990 there have been significant shifts in international tourist originations. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the changing patterns and to compare the two time periods. A key component of the study is the construction of a Population-Adjusted Travel Index which assesses the capability of a country to generate tourists relative to population characteristics. Findings indicate that Europe is still the leader in trips generated, even though the proportion from this region is declining over time. Asian countries exhibited the most marked improvement due primarily to the tremendous economic expansion taking place on the Pacific Rim. In contrast countries of the Middle East have declined in importance relative to international tourism. This is due to political and economic instability in the region.     

Rapid sampling of organic matter in flooded soils and sediments

Estuaries and Coasts - A coring system using a compressed air supply and a sediment shaking procedure using a soil dispersant are described which greatly simplify and shorten the task of...     

Strontium-calcium ratios in Cenozoic planktonic foraminifera

The $\text{Sr}\text{Ca}$ ratio and other parameters have been measured in fossil planktonic foraminifera from the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean basins in order to evaluate the $\text{Sr}\text{Ca}$ ratio of seawater during the last 75 million years. Results on well-preserved samples indicate that the ratio has increased to its present value by 10–15% during the Cenozoic, and that minima occurred between 55-45 Ma and 10-5 Ma, when the ratio was 15–25% less than at present. The long-term increase may reflect either decreasing deposition of aragonite with a high $\text{Sr}\text{Ca}$ ratio in shallow seas, or decreasing seafloor spreading rates and consequently decreasing hydrothermal supply of Ca during the Cenozoic. Other geologic evidence suggests that the Eocene minimum (near 50 Ma) may have resulted from increased aragonite sedimentation, while the Late Miocene minimum (between 10-5 Ma) may have been caused by an increased rate of seawater-basalt exchange when seafloor spreading rates increased on the East Pacific Rise near 10 Ma.     

Non-stationary Approaches for Mapping Terrain and Assessing Prediction Uncertainty

It is well known that terrain may vary markedly over small areas and that statistics used to characterise spatial variation in terrain may be valid only over small areas. In geostatistical terminology, a non-stationary approach may be considered more appropriate than a stationary approach. In many applications, local variation is not accounted for sufficiently. This paper assesses potential benefits in using non-stationary geostatistical approaches for interpolation and for the assessment of uncertainty in predictions with implications for sampling design. Two main non-stationary approaches are employed in this paper dealing with (1) change in the mean and (2) change in the variogram across the region of interest. The relevant approaches are (1) kriging with a trend model (KT) using the variogram of residuals from local drift and (2) locally-adaptive variogram KT, both applied to a sampled photogrammetrically derived digital terrain model (DTM). The fractal dimension estimated locally from the double-log variogram is also mapped to illustrate how spatial variation changes across the data set. It is demonstrated that estimation of the variogram of residuals from local drift is worthwhile in this case for the characterisation of spatial variation. In addition, KT is shown to be useful for the assessment of uncertainty in predictions. This is shown to be true even when the sample grid is dense as is usually the case for remotely-sensed data. In addition, both ordinary kriging (OK) and KT are shown to provide more accurate predictions than inverse distance weighted (IDW) interpolation, used for comparative purposes.