Optical properties of pseudovitrinite; implications for its origin

A set of Pennsylvanian coals from the North American coal basins, ranging in vitrinite reflectance from 0.65% to 1.75%, was examined, with special emphasis on the optical properties of pseudovitrinite. The results suggest that pseudovitrinite originates from the same material as telocollinite. Slits in the pseudovitrinite seem to have originated in situ due to low-temperature oxidation of woody material; their opening might have been facilitated by devolatilization during coalification. The dominant orientation of the slits is perpendicular to bedding. The intensity and orientation of the slits in pseudovitrinite could be important factors in predicting coalbed gas extraction from coal.     

Privacy, reconsidered: New representations, data practices, and the geoweb

Blogging, social networking, and other Web 2.0 practices have sparked widespread debate about the status and future of privacy. This paper examines an explicitly geographical aspect of Web 2.0 with respect to these debates: the geospatial web, or ‘geoweb’. As part of fundamental shifts in the kinds of geographic information available, its circulation, and representative forms it assumes, the geoweb implies new objects of privacy concern and subsequent privacy-related negotiations over the aggregate of its component information, technologies, and data praxes. Thus we argue that privacy must not only be revisited, but indeed re-conceptualized. Whereas prior research on privacy vis-à-vis geographic information technologies has tended to question what privacy ‘is’, we focus instead on the constitutive outcomes of societal struggles over privacy. We examine how privacy is being negotiated around two geoweb services - Google Street View and the Twitter GeoAPI - to illustrate that these contestations produce privacy as a social object in particular ways. We show that public discourse around actual or anticipated privacy harms stemming from geoweb services and their uses, as well as the preventatives and remedies proposed or implemented to address such harms, reconstitute the objects and practices of privacy concern, and alter the roles and relationships of state, civil and corporate actors in the construction of privacy. Finally we suggest that the geoweb raises new privacy concerns because some of its representational forms - namely geo-tagged images and self-authored texts - facilitate identification and disclosure with more immediacy and less abstraction.     

Multi‐Criteria Analysis for Optimization of Sodium Chromate Production from Chromic Waste

The proposal of application of multi‐criteria analysis and technological quality method for optimization of technological processes on the case study of sodium chromate production variants from waste was presented. The research on the use of chromic waste for the production of sodium chromate made it possible to determine the optimal process parameters. Technological quality method was used to define the value of criterions for multi‐criteria analysis while multi‐criteria analysis allowed determining the impact of criterions weights for ranking variants of technological process. Both methods in a complex way evaluate the degree of modernization of technologies, describing them qualitatively within the area of environmental, technical, and the economic effects of the proposed technological variants. Based on the proposed evaluating criteria both methods yield comparable results. The most advantageous alternatives provided realization of the sodium chromate production process with the use of in‐process recycling of chromic mud, off‐site recycling of chromic tannery waste and on‐site recycling of waste from the old chromic heaps.     

Modeling and presenting incomplete and uncertain data on historical settlement units

When entering information about changes of settlements in time into a database, we are dealing with direct facts from historical sources and with interpretations. The source information generally relates to an event or situation at a specific time. This means that we only fill in the parts of the timeline with data objects called (partial) manifestations; however, lack of data does not mean that settlement did not exist. It would take a lot of time to interpret and enter missing information manually. In this article we present a database schema, database procedures and algorithms to generate aggregated settlement unit manifestations in an automated way from their partial manifestations. As a result, it is possible to obtain a continuous history of a given settlement so as to present it on a map.     

Microscopic search for the carrier phase Q of the trapped planetary noble gases in Allende,Leoville and Vigarano

Abstract— High‐resolution transmission electron microscopy micrographs of acid‐resistant residues of the Allende, Leoville, and Vigarano meteorites show a great variety of carbon structures: curved and frequently twisted and intertwined graphene sheets, abundant carbon black‐like particles, and hollow “sacs”. It is suggested that perhaps all of these are carriers for the planetary Q‐noble gases in these meteorites. Most of these materials are pyrocarbons that probably formed by the pyrolysis of hydrocarbons either in a gas phase, or on hot surfaces of minerals. An attempt was made to analyze for argon with particle‐induced x‐ray emission in 143 spots of grains of floating and suspended matter from freeze‐dry cycles of an Allende bulk sample in water, and floating “black balls” from sonication in water of samples from the Allende meteorite. The chemical compositions of these particles were obtained, but x‐ray signals at the wavelength of argon were obtained on only a few spots.     

Occurrence of Cladosporium spp. and Alternaria spp. spores in Western, Northern and Central-Eastern Poland in 2004–2006 and relation to some meteorological factors

The concentration of airborne spores of Cladosporium spp. and Alternaria spp. has been investigated at three monitoring stations situated along the west-north and central-east transect in Poland (Szczecin, Olsztyn, Warszawa,) i.e. from a height of 100 m to 149 m above sea level. The aerobiological monitoring of fungal spores was performed by means of three Lanzoni volumetric spore traps.Cladosporium spp. spores were dominant at all the stations. The highest Cladosporium spp. and Alternaria spp. numbers of spores were observed at all the cities in July and August.Statistically significant correlations have been found between the Cladosporium spp. and Alternaria spp. concentration in the air and the mean air temperature, amount of precipitation, air pressure and relative air humidity. The spore count of Cladosporium spp. and Alternaria spp. is determined by the diversity of local flora and weather conditions, especially by the air temperature. The identification of factors, which influence and shape spore concentrations, may significantly improve the current methods of allergy prevention.     

A Holocene high-resolution record of aquatic productivity,seasonal anoxia and meromixis from varved sediments of Lake Łazduny,North-Eastern Poland: insight from a novel multi-proxy approach

Anthropogenic eutrophication and spreading anoxia in freshwater systems is a global concern. Little is known about anoxia in earlier historic times under weaker human impact, or under prehistoric natural conditions with different trophic, land cover and climatic regimes. We use a novel approach that combines high-resolution hyperspectral imaging with µ-XRF and HPLC-pigment data, which allows us to assess chloropigments (productivity) and bacteriopigments (anoxia) at seasonal subvarve-scale resolution. Our ~9700 cal a bp varved sediment record from NE Poland suggests that productivity increased stepwise from oligotrophic Early Holocene conditions (until ~9200 cal a bp ) to mesotrophic conditions in the Mid- and Late Holocene. Natural eutrophication was mainly a function of progressing landscape evolution with intense weathering under dense forest and warm-moist climatic conditions. Generally, anoxia increased with increasing productivity. Seasonal anoxia and some multi-decadal periods of meromixis were the common mixing patterns throughout the Holocene except for a period of persisting meromixis between ~5200 and 2000 cal a bp. Anthropogenic deforestation around 400 cal a bp resulted in substantially better lake oxygenation despite high productivity. In this small lake, aquatic productivity and lakeshore forest cover (wind shield) were more important factors controlling oxic/anoxic conditions than Holocene temperature variability.