Minority women’s microenterprises in rural areas of the United States of America: African American,Hispanic American and Native American case studies

Women in many rural areas of the US often engage in small-scale businesses as one of several avenues for contributing to household incomes. In those geographical areas that contain a significant minority population, many of the women's businesses display the cultural diversity of the regions in which they live. Likewise, women's roles as economic providers as well as wives and mothers are reflected in the manner in which they operate their businesses. Candida Brush suggests that women's strategies for operating their businesses are highly integrative because women's business decisions are intertwined with familial responsibilities, household economic demands and desires to contribute to their communities. Hispanic and Native American women in the Four Corners region of southwestern US and African American women in central Virginia participated in interviews in which they responded to numerous short answer and open-ended questions about their businesses and decision-making strategies. From these interviews an image emerges of rural minority business women who are operating their businesses at the nexus of family obligations, economic necessities, cultural ties and with a commitment for serving their communities. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Pollution history and recovery of a boreal lake exposed to a heavy bleached pulping effluent load

We examined the effects of heavy pulp mill discharges on the Lake Lievestuoreenjärvi ecosystem and the later recovery of diatom and chironomid communities from age-dated short core samples. Beginning in 1927 the lake received a heavy effluent load from a sulphite pulp mill. Except for the recession during the Second World War and the temporary closure of the mill from 1967 to 1971, the industrial load, containing large quantities of nutrients, organic matter and toxic compounds, increased continuously. In the early 1980s, laboratory documents were falsified by the directors of the mill and the systematic illegal effluent overload led to a collapse of the whole lake ecosystem. In 1985, the outdated plant was finally closed down. Based on the assessment of chemical properties and biological remains of the sediment, we distinguished five developmental phases in the ecological state of the lake. In the pre-industrial phase, the pelagic and profundal benthic communities were dominated by species preferring ultraoligotrophic or oligotrophic lakes. Concomitant with the increasing discharge and deposition of chlorine compounds, resin acids, and mercury, as well as strong acidity and hypolimnetic and epilimnetic anoxia, the ecological status changed in a short period from excellent to bad. Finally, in the early 1960s, the majority of the lake was virtually dead and the aquatic life survived only in the uppermost littoral zone. Since 1985, a fast recovery in the water quality has led to a strong, but temporary eutrophy in pelagic communities. The main peak of eutrophication was caused by the invasion of a species new to the lake,Aulacoseira granulata var.angustissima. Later, the pelagic communities shifted towards oligotrophy, but the original, pre-industrial status has not been re-established. The profundal benthic communities have not achieved the pre-industrial structure, but at present indicate mesotrophy.     

Automatic Road Change Detection and GIS Updating from High Spatial Remotely-Sensed Imagery

This paper presents a tramework for road network change detectlon In order to upctate the Canadian National Topographic DataBase (NTDB). The methodology has been developed on the basis of road extraction from IRS-pan images (with a 5.8 m spatial resolution) by using a wavelet approach. The feature matching and conflation techniques are used to road change detection and updating. Elementary experiments have showed that the proposed framework could be used for developing an operational road database updating system.     

Data Fusion in Distributed Multi-sensor System

This paper presents a data fusion method in distributed multi-sensor system including GPS and INS sensors“ data processing. First, a residual X^2-test strategy with the corresponding algorithm is designed.Then a coefficient matrices calculation method of the information sharing principle is derived. Finally, the federated Kalman filter is used to combine these independent, parallel, real-time data. A pseudolite (PL) simulation example is given.     

川滇地区单断裂强震区与多断裂强震区

以《全国小震目录》(1965年1月1日～2002年lO月31日)和《四川地震台网快报目录》(2002年11月1日～2003年9月30日)为基础资料，研究了川滇地区地震活动性发展变化的主要特征，并提出“单断裂强震区”和“多断裂强震区”概念。发现川滇地区主要单断裂强震区在发生一些强震之后，已经陆续进入地震平静时段，近期发生强震的能力明显减弱。与此同时，“滇西南”、“龙陵-腾冲”、“丽江-武定”地区分别在较短时段内发生多次强震，表明这几个多断裂强震区陆续进入活跃时段，成为1984年以来川滇地区的地震主体活动区域。多断裂强震区具有区内中小断裂汇集、地质构造复杂、地震活跃时段多次出现、在同一活跃时段内又具有活跃小段与小段间距的小段组合形式等特征。对已有的和可能新生的多断裂强震区进行早期判定，以及对活跃时段、小段组合进行动态跟踪，对于川滇地区地震预报具有重要意义。     

大功率激电测深法寻找焦家式深部金矿床的试验应用研究

利用大功率的激电测深法可以寻找焦家式深部金 矿。首先,由物理和数学推导建立多层极化体的数 理模型,其数理模型产生的极化场可由多层若干 个极化单元场相叠加而成。由多次去除极化单元 场的原理而导出大功率激电测深资料进行消除浅 部强激电干扰异常的数据处理公式,从而突出了 深部矿床的激电异常。并利用处理后的激电测深 曲线,定量求取了深部金矿蚀变矿化带的顶界面 埋深。     

基于二维小波变换的FMI图象分割

为了从FMI资料中定量提取参数，一个重要的步骤是从实际FMI资料中分离出反映溶孔、溶洞、裂缝的子图像。本文给出的方法，考虑图像像元邻域的特征，应用二维小波变换求出目标与背景边缘的点集，按这个边缘点集的坐标点所对应的原图像像素灰度值的平均值作为分割阈值进行图像分割。实际资料处理表明，应用这种方法可以从实际的FMI资料中准确地分割出孔洞、裂缝的子图像并且可以按深度段连续自动处理，为后续定量计算参数奠定了良好基础。     

青西油田碳酸盐岩裂缝性储层地球物理预测技术的应用

白云岩成岩收缩晶间孔、洞、缝与构造网状缝相互沟通可以组成良好的油气储层，但是这种复杂裂缝—孔隙型储层分布随机性强、发育程度和差异性大，储层预测难度大。本文以中国西部酒泉盆地青西油田下白垩统下沟组湖相白云岩裂缝—孔隙型储层为例，提出地球物理综合预测碳酸盐岩裂缝的方法。本文描述了综合地球物理方法预测碳酸盐岩裂缝储层的实施和应用效果。     

储层岩石电性特征的逾渗网络模型研究(英文)

建立能够反映储层孔隙结构、流体特征的逾 渗网络模型,通过数值模拟研究了储层孔隙尺寸、 孔隙形状、连通性、微孔隙的发育状况等对I-Sw曲 线影响的定性规律,研究了地层水矿化度对岩石电 阻率的影响。分析讨论了不同因素对电阻率影响的 相对强度。最后,通过曲线拟合定量地研究了不同 因素对I-Sw曲线的影响规律。研究表明,在上述影 响因素中连通性和微孔隙对I-Sw曲线的影响很大, 其它因素的影响强度较小。地层水矿化度对岩石电 阻率绝对值的影响很大。“非阿尔奇”现象普遍存在, 在低渗透(低连通性)储层岩石中更为明显。