Incremental dynamic analysis of concrete gravity dams including base and lift joints

The growth in computer processing power has made it possible to use time-consuming analysis methods such as incremental dynamic analysis(IDA) with higher accuracy in less time.In an IDA study,a series of earthquake records are applied to a structure at successively increasing intensity levels,which causes the structure to shift from the elastic state into the inelastic state and finally into collapse.In this way,the limit-states and capacity of a structure can be determined.In the present research,the IDA of a concrete gravity dam considering a nonlinear concrete behavior,and sliding planes within the dam body and at the dam-foundation interface,is performed.The influence of the friction angle and lift joint slope on the response parameters are investigated and the various limit-states of the dam are recognized.It is observed that by introducing a lift joint,the tensile damage can be avoided for the dam structure.The lift joint sliding is essentially independent of the base joint friction angle and the upper ligament over the inclined lift joint slides into the upstream direction in strong earthquakes.     

The survey of climatic drought trend in Iran

Drought is one of the most important natural hazards in Iran. Therefore, drought monitoring has become a point of concern for most of the researchers. In the present study, the changes and trend of drought was surveyed, under the current global climate changes, by non parametric Mann–Kendall statistical test for 42 synoptic stations at different places of Iran. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was calculated to recognize the drought condition at different time scales (3, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24 months’ time series) for analyzing the drought trend in the recent 30 years. The obtained results have indicated a significant negative trend of drought in many parts of Iran, especially the South-East, West and South-West regions of the country. According to the results, although some parts of Iran such as North (around the Caspian Sea) and Northeast show no significant trend but in other parts of country, the severity of drought has increased during the last 30 years.     

Estimating design probable maximum precipitation using multifractal methods and comparison with statistical and synoptically methods case study: Basin of Bakhtiari Dam

The probable maximum precipitation which is defined as the maximum precipitation at a particular location for a given duration is used as a design criterion for major dams. The assumptions of deterministic consideration and an upper limit to probable maximum precipitation have been repeatedly criticized by hydrologists. Nowadays, multifractal method which strongly contains physical bases can be used to improve the probable maximum precipitation. In this research, the universal multifractal model was used to estimate the design probable maximum precipitation for specified exceedence probability in basin of Bakhtiari Dam, southwest Iran, and its results were compared with statistical and synoptically methods. The results revealed that the return period of statistical and synoptically probable maximum precipitation, estimated for the different durations, are about 10⁹ and 10³–10⁴ years, respectively; also, over periods ranging from 1 to 7 days, the ratios of design probable maximum precipitations, estimated based on multifractal method for return period of 10³–10⁹ years, to statistical and synoptically probable maximum precipitation estimates ranged from 0.61 to 1.1 and 1.33 to 2.37, respectively. These results indicated that the multifractal method can be used to reasonably estimate the probable maximum precipitation.     

Aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons in coastal Caspian Sea sediments

This investigation represents the first extensive study of the spatial distribution and sources of aliphatic (n-alkanes and unresolved complex mixture of fossil hydrocarbons) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in coastal sediments from the Caspian Sea. PAH concentrations, n-alkanes and biomarker profiles all suggested that there was limited petrogenic contamination in the shallow North Caspian Sea sediments, which are coarse with a low total organic carbon content. In contrast, moderate to high petrogenic contamination was found in the South Caspian Sea, in particular in the offshore oil fields near Baku, Azerbaijan. Contaminant patterns indicated that the PAHs were mainly from fossil sources, with higher contributions of pyrolytic only near industrialized and urban areas. A high contribution of perylene, a geochemically derived PAH, to the total PAHs was found in the west and south at sites influenced by the Kura, Safid Rud, Terek, Sulak and Samur Rivers.     

Adsorption of Thallium(I) Ions Using Eucalyptus Leaves Powder

Using batch method, the adsorption of thallium(I) ions from aqueous solutions on eucalyptus leaves powder, as a low cost adsorbent, was studied. The effect of various modification of considered adsorbent on the adsorption percentage of Tl(I) is an important feature of this study. The results showed that the unmodified and acidic modified adsorbent are the poor adsorbents for the Tl(I) ions while basic modified adsorbent is a suitable adsorbent. Also, the effect of some experimental conditions such as solution initial pH, agitation speed, contact time, sorbent dosage, temperature, particle size, and thallium initial concentration was studied. The results showed that the adsorption percentage depends on the conditions and the process is strongly pH‐dependent. The satisfactory adsorption percentage of Tl(I) ions, 81.5%, obtained at 25 ± 1°C. The equilibrium data agreed fairly better with Langmuir isotherm than Freundlich and Temkin models. The value of q_m that was obtained by extrapolation method is 80.65 mg g^?1. Separation factor values, R_L, showed that eucalyptus leaves powder is favorable for the sorption of Tl(I). The negative values of ΔH⁰ and ΔS⁰ showed that the Tl(I) sorption is an exothermic process and along with decrease of randomness at the solid–solution interface during sorption, respectively.     

Trust as a proxy indicator for intrinsic quality of Volunteered Geographic Information in biodiversity monitoring programs

In this article, we present a fuzzy model for intrinsic quality assessment of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) on species occurrences obtained by Citizen Science (CS) biodiversity monitoring programs. The proposed VGI quality assurance approach evaluates the thematic and positional quality of the crowdsourced biodiversity observation in terms of the trustworthiness of the observation by combining three indicators of consistency with habitat, consistency with surroundings, and reputation of contributor, that characterize the geographical and social aspects of trust in VGI. To evaluate the performance and usability of the proposed approach for evaluating the trustworthiness of crowdsourced observations and detecting thematic and positional errors in crowdsourced observations, the developed approach was applied to the crowdsourced observations on Acer macrophyllum collected through the CS biodiversity monitoring projects of E-Flora BC and iNaturalist. The result of a conformity test at the optimal acceptance threshold (sensitivity = 0.99, specificity = 0.8, and Cohen’s kappa = 0.79), the achieved area under the curve (AUC) value (AUC = 0.98), and the results of the complementary investigation on the predictions of the proposed model indicated that the proposed fuzzy trust model exhibited promising predictive performance and was able to flag the majority of attribute and positional errors in the crowdsourced biodiversity observations.     

White spot syndrome virus inactivation study by using gamma irradiation

The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of gamma irradiation on white spot syndrome virus(WSSV). White spot syndrome virus is a pathogen of major economic importance in cultured penaeid shrimp industries. White spot disease can cause mortalities reaching 100% within 3–10 days of gross signs appearing. During the period of culture, immunostimulant agents and vaccines may provide potential methods to protect shrimps from opportunistic and pathogenic microrganisms. In this study, firstly, WSSV was isolated from infected shrimp and then multiplied in crayfish. WSSV was purified from the infected crayfish haemolymph by sucrose gradient and confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. In vivo virus titration was performed in shrimp, Penaeus semisulcatus. The LD50 of live virus stock was calculated 10 5.4 /mL. Shrimp post-larvae(1–2 g) were treated with gamma-irradiated(different doses) WSSV(10 0 to 10-4 dilutions) for a period of 10 days. The dose/survival curve for irradiated and un-irradiated WSSV was drawn; the optimum dose range for inactivation of WSSV and unaltered antigenicity was obtained 14–15 kGy. This preliminary information suggests that shrimp appear to benefit from treatment with gammairradiated WSSV especially at 14–15 KGy.