Prediction of ground vibration due to quarry blasting based on gene expression programming: a new model for peak particle velocity prediction

Blasting is a widely used technique for rock fragmentation in opencast mines and tunneling projects. Ground vibration is one of the most environmental effects produced by blasting operation. Therefore, the proper prediction of blast-induced ground vibrations is essential to identify safety area of blasting. This paper presents a predictive model based on gene expression programming (GEP) for estimating ground vibration produced by blasting operations conducted in a granite quarry, Malaysia. To achieve this aim, a total number of 102 blasting operations were investigated and relevant blasting parameters were measured. Furthermore, the most influential parameters on ground vibration, i.e., burden-to-spacing ratio, hole depth, stemming, powder factor, maximum charge per delay, and the distance from the blast face were considered and utilized to construct the GEP model. In order to show the capability of GEP model in estimating ground vibration, nonlinear multiple regression (NLMR) technique was also performed using the same datasets. The results demonstrated that the proposed model is able to predict blast-induced ground vibration more accurately than other developed technique. Coefficient of determination values of 0.914 and 0.874 for training and testing datasets of GEP model, respectively show superiority of this model in predicting ground vibration, while these values were obtained as 0.829 and 0.790 for NLMR model.     

Variability and teleconnections of South and East Asian summer monsoons in present and future projections of CMIP5 climate models

Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) model outputs of the South and East Asian summer monsoon variability and their tele-connections are investigated using historical simulations (1861-2005) and future projections under the RCP4.5 scenario (2006-2100). Detailed analyses are performed using nine models having better representation of the recent monsoon teleconnections for the interactive Asian monsoon sub-systems. However, these models underestimate rainfall mainly over South Asia and Korea-Japan sector, the regions of heavy rainfall, along with a bias in location of rainfall maxima. Indeed, the simulation biases, underestimations of monsoon variability and teleconnections suggest further improvements for better representation of Asian monsoon in the climate models. Interestingly, the performance of Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator version 1.0 (ACCESS1.0) in simulating the annual cycle, spatial pattern of rainfall and multi-decadal variations of summer monsoon rainfall over South and East Asia appears to more realistic. In spite of large spread among the CMIP5 models, historical simulations as well as future projections of summer monsoon rainfall indicate multi-decadal variability. These rainfall variations, displaying certain epochs of more rainfall over South Asia than over East Asia and vice versa, suggest an oscillatory behaviour. Teleconnections between South and East Asian monsoon rainfall also exhibit a multi-decadal variation with alternate epochs of strengthening and weakening relationship. Furthermore, large-scale circulation features such as South Asian monsoon trough and north Pacific subtropical high depict zonal oscillatory behaviour with east-west-east shifts. Periods with eastward or westward extension of the Mascarene High, intensification and expansion of the upper tropospheric South Asian High are also projected by the CMIP5 models.     

The polar form of the spherical harmonic spectrum: implications for filtering <Emphasis Type="BoldSmallCaps">grace</Emphasis> data

Representing the spherical harmonic spectrum of a field on the sphere in terms of its amplitude and phase is termed as its polar form. In this study, we look at how the amplitude and phase are affected by linear low-pass filtering. The impact of filtering on amplitude is well understood, but that on phase has not been studied previously. Here, we demonstrate that a certain class of filters only affect the amplitude of the spherical harmonic spectrum and not the phase, but the others affect both the amplitude and phase. Further, we also demonstrate that the filtered phase helps in ascertaining the efficacy of decorrelation filters used in the grace community.     

What Can be Expected from the GRACE-FO Laser Ranging Interferometer for Earth Science Applications?

The primary objective of the gravity recovery and climate experiment follow-on (GRACE-FO) satellite mission, due for launch in August 2017, is to continue the GRACE time series of global monthly gravity field models. For this, evolved versions of the GRACE microwave instrument, GPS receiver, and accelerometer will be used. A secondary objective is to demonstrate the effectiveness of a laser ranging interferometer (LRI) in improving the satellite-to-satellite tracking measurement performance. In order to investigate the expected enhancement for Earth science applications, we have performed a full-scale simulation over the nominal mission lifetime of 5 years using a realistic orbit scenario and error assumptions both for instrument and background model errors. Unfiltered differences between the synthetic input and the finally recovered time-variable monthly gravity models show notable improvements with the LRI, on a global scale, of the order of 23 %. The gain is realized for wavelengths smaller than 240 km in case of Gaussian filtering but decreases to just a few percent when anisotropic filtering is applied. This is also confirmed for some typical regional Earth science applications which show randomly distributed patterns of small improvements but also degradations when using DDK4-filtered LRI-based models. Analysis of applied error models indicates that accelerometer noise followed by ocean tide and non-tidal mass variation errors are the main contributors to the overall GRACE-FO gravity model error. Improvements in these fields are therefore necessary, besides optimized constellations, to make use of the increased LRI accuracy and to significantly improve gravity field models from next-generation gravity missions.     

Effect of snow cover on pan-Arctic permafrost thermal regimes

This study quantitatively evaluated how insulation by snow depth (SND) affected the soil thermal regime and permafrost degradation in the pan-Arctic area, and more generally defined the characteristics of soil temperature (T_SOIL) and SND from 1901 to 2009. This was achieved through experiments performed with the land surface model CHANGE to assess sensitivity to winter precipitation as well as air temperature. Simulated T_SOIL, active layer thickness (ALT), SND, and snow density were generally comparable with in situ or satellite observations at large scales and over long periods. Northernmost regions had snow that remained relatively stable and in a thicker state during the past four decades, generating greater increases in T_SOIL. Changes in snow cover have led to changes in the thermal state of the underlying soil, which is strongly dependent on both the magnitude and the timing of changes in snowfall. Simulations of the period 2001–2009 revealed significant differences in the extent of near-surface permafrost, reflecting differences in the model’s treatment of meteorology and the soil bottom boundary. Permafrost loss was greater when SND increased in autumn rather than in winter, due to insulation of the soil resulting from early cooling. Simulations revealed that T_SOIL tended to increase over most of the pan-Arctic from 1901 to 2009, and that this increase was significant in northern regions, especially in northeastern Siberia where SND is responsible for 50 % or more of the changes in T_SOIL at a depth of 3.6 m. In the same region, ALT also increased at a rate of approximately 2.3 cm per decade. The most sensitive response of ALT to changes in SND appeared in the southern boundary regions of permafrost, in contrast to permafrost temperatures within the 60°N–80°N region, which were more sensitive to changes in snow cover. Finally, our model suggests that snow cover contributes to the warming of permafrost in northern regions and could play a more important role under conditions of future Arctic warming.     

The Spatial Characteristics of a Line and Their Application to Line Simplification

This paper discusses the spatial knowledge related to a line,and the characteristic points of lines is detected.According to the requirements of line generalization,new algorithms for identifying characteristic line points are presented.These characteristic points are used to improve the algorithms of line generalization.An algorithm for identifying bends is shown.In this paper,improved algorithms based on those by Douglas-Peucker,Visvalingam and Whyatt are shown.In this test,the progressive process of line generalization is emphasized.     

Multi-proxy paleolimnological assessment of biogeochemical versus food web controls on the trophic states of two shallow,mesotrophic lakes

The frequency of nuisance algal blooms has been increasing during the last two decades in the shallow, headwater East Pond (Smithfield, Maine, USA). Meanwhile, the hydrologically linked North Pond has not experienced an increase in algal blooms, despite similar morphometry and higher external nutrient loads. Possible explanations for this difference include stronger trophic cascade effects from planktivorous white perch (Morone americana) in East Pond as well as differences in phosphorus (P) release from the sediments of these two lakes. We conducted a paleolimnological investigation of these two lakes to assess whether sedimentary evidence supported trophic cascade effects based on cladoceran ephippia size, diatom fossils, and fossil pigments or biogeochemical controls based on potential sedimentary P release as the primary driver of these increased algal blooms in East Pond. At the time of white perch introduction (~1930–1950), ephippia size increases in East Pond, although no changes are observed in either diatom abundance or trends in the algal pigments. Instead, algal pigments increase in recent decades (~1980 to present) along with an increase in diatom taxa with higher TP optima These results suggest that predation by white perch is not resulting in top-down effects on algal abundance in East Pond, as predicted by the trophic cascade hypothesis. While the P content of sediments from both lakes is relatively equal, the releasable P in the top 10 cm of sediment in East Pond constitutes a greater percentage of the P extracted. Also, North Pond sediments exhibit a greater capacity to permanently bury P via the mechanisms of sorption to Al(OH)_3(s) and a slower mineralization of organic P compounds. The results of this investigation suggest that the ultimate driver of the recent algal blooms in East Pond is internal P release from the sediments instead of trophic cascade effects.     

Absorption properties of urban/suburban aerosols in China

The broadband diffuse radiation method is improved to retrieve the aerosol refractive index imaginary part （AIP） and broadband （400-1000 nm mean） single scattering albedo （SSA）. In this method, four sets of SSA selection criteria are proposed for quality control. The method is used to retrieve AIP, SSA and absorptive optical thickness （AbOT） from routine hourly-exposed pyrheliometer and paranometer measurements over 11 sites （meteorological observatories） in China during 1998-2003. Apart from one suburban site （Ejin Qi）, the other urban sites are all located around big or medium cities. As shown in the retrieval results, annual mean SSA during 1998-2003 changes from 0.941 （Wuhan） to 0.849 （Lanzhou）, and AIP from 0.0054 to 0.0203. The 11-site average annual mean SSA and AIP are 0.898 and 0.0119, respectively. SSA during winter is smaller for most sites. There is an evidently positive correlation between SSA and aerosol optical thickness （AOT） for all sites. There is also a positive correlation between SSA and relative humidity for most sites, but a negative correlation for a few sites, such as Kashi and ǚrǚmqi in Northwest China.     

Koreatown and Korean Small Firms in Los Angeles: Locating in the Ethnic Neighborhoods*

The locations of Korean firms in Los Angeles reflect spatial segmentation in markets and the provision of labor, in that the ethnic neighborhoods facilitate positive business environments for ethnic small firms. While Korean small businesses serve both community needs and broader local markets, firm locations are closely associated with the residential patterns of some ethnic populations. To address the specificity of firm locations, this paper examines Koreatown using historical sources and recent property development, identifies changes in the locational patterns of Korean firms between 1975 and 1986, and analyzes relationships between business density and density of ethnic populations for zip code areas. The findings of this study indicate that both the development of Koreatown and the presence of ethnic neighborhoods are important influences on the location of Korean businesses.     

Understanding the implications of the EU-LULUCF regulation for the wood supply from EU forests to the EU

Background

In June 2018, the European Parliament and Council of the European Union adopted a legislative regulation for incorporating greenhouse gas emissions and removals from Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (EU-LULUCF) under its 2030 Climate and Energy Framework. The LULUCF regulation aim to incentivise EU Member States to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and increase removals in the LULUCF sector. The regulation, however, does not set a target for increasing the LULUCF carbon sink, but rather includes a ‘no net debit’ target for LULUCF (Forests and Agricultural soils). For Managed Forest Land (MFL) an accounting framework with capped credits for additional mitigation against a set forest reference level (FRL) was agreed for 2021–2030. The FRL gives the projected future carbon sink in the two compliance periods 2021–2025 and 2026–2030 under “continuation of forest management practices as they were in the reference period 2000–2009”. This FRL was disputed by some Member States as it was perceived to put a limit on their future wood harvesting from MFL. Here we simulated with the EFISCEN European forest model the “continuation of forest management practices” and determined the corresponding wood harvest for 26 EU countries under progressing age classes.

Results

The simulations showed that under “continuation of forest management practices” the harvest (wood removals) in the 26 EU countries as a whole can increase from 420 million m³/year in 2000–2009 to 560 million m³/year in 2050 due to progressing age classes. This implies there is a possibility to increase absolute wood harvests without creating debits compared to the forest reference level. However, the manner in which ‘continuation of forest management’ developed with a progressing age class development over time, meant that in some countries the future harvesting exceeded 90% of the increment. Since this generally is considered to be unsustainable we additionally set a harvesting cut-off as max 90% of increment to be harvested for each individual country as a possible interpretation of sustainability criteria that are included in the regulation. Using this additional limit the projected harvest will only increase to 493 million m³/year.

Conclusions

The worry from Member States (MS) that the FRL will prevent any additional harvesting seems unwarranted. Due to differences between Member States concerning the state of their forest resources, the FRL as a baseline for harvesting works out very differently for the different Member States. The FRL may have other unforeseen consequences which we discuss. Under all scenarios the living forest biomass sink shows a decline. This can be counteracted through incentivising measures under Climate Smart Forestry.