Characterizing European urban settlements from population data: a cartographic approach

ABSTRACT

The cartographic identification and characterization of urban settlements is problematic, particularly in varied areas or in large geographical extensions. This is due to the divergence between morphological area structures and data attribution, which is generally available at the level of administrative units. Most existing experiences focus on small regions or use indirect data, from which only indirect information can be derived. This paper proposes an identification of urban settlements in the European Union space, which combines urban population and shape through geographic information system (GIS) techniques. For that purpose, 1 km² cells with associated population data are used. A procedure is developed establishing three different types of urban settlements, according to population and population density values: high-density urban clusters, small and medium-sized towns, and very small towns. A validation of this procedure is performed using direct survey from local experts in 10 selected study areas. The final results show that 78,307 urban settlements can be identified: 88.17% of them are classified as “very small towns,” 10.75% as “small and medium-sized towns,” and 1.08% as high-density urban clusters. This exercise generates new information for the European Union and surrounding countries, and yields the basis for further research. All GIS operations are performed using vector layers, which is not usual in large-area regional studies.     

Revised photometric elements of the eclipsing systems BS Draconis and CD Tauri

The recently published two-colour photoelectric light curves of the double-lined spectroscopic binaries CD Tauri and BS Draconis have been analysed using the Wilson and Devinney (1971) method of solution. With respect to previous solutions, CD Tau shows small but appreciable differences, while for BS Dra the old elements are confirmed. The absolute elements, computed using Popper's spectroscopic data, show that both binaries have normal Main Sequence components, and the comparison of their relative radii with the Roche lobes allows us to classify them as geometrically detached.     

Historical seismicity of the southeastern Caribbean and tectonic implications

We have relocated the twenty-eight largest magnitude (4.3M _s 7.3) historical (1922–1963) earthquakes of the southeastern Caribbean. We also present new focal mechanisms for seven of these events. The relocations are based on reported ISSP andS arrival times that we analyzed using generalized linear inversion techniques. The new focal mechanisms were constrained by first motionP polarities as reported by the ISS and as picked by us where records were available, and by the polarities and ratios ofSH andsSH, andSV andsSV arrivals that we determined from seismograms. The results of the relocations are commensurate with the distribution of seismicity observed in the recent era: hypocenters are shallow and intermediate in depth (0–200 km), and the events occur almost exclusively in areas known to be currently seismic. The frequent seismic activity in the vicinity of the Paria Peninsula, Venezuela, is clearly a persistent feature of the regional earthquake pattern; intermediate depth earthquakes indicative of subduction beneath the Caribbean plate occur here and along the Lesser Antilles arc. The Grenadines seismic gap is confirmed as an area of low seismic moment release throughout the historical era. Trinidad and the eastern Gulf of Paria were also largely quiescent.The new focal mechanisms, despite being a sparse data set, give significant insight into both subduction processes along the Lesser Antilles arc and into the shallow deformation of the Caribbean-South America plate boundary zone. The largest earthquake to have occurred in this region, the 19 March 1953 event (M _m =7.01), is a Lesser Antilles slab deformation event, and another earthquake in this region of the Lesser Antilles is probably a rarely-observed interplate thrust event. Shallow deformation in the plate boundary zone is complex and, near the Paria Penninsula, involves mixed southeastward thrusting and dextral strike-slip on east-striking faults, and secondarily, normal faulting. Bending of the subducting Atlantic-South American plate also seems to generate seisms. The rather high ratio of intraplate deformation to interplate deformation observed along the Lesser Antilles subduction zone in the more recent era seems to have been operative in the historical era as well.     

Impact of different regression frameworks on the estimation of the scaling properties of radar rainfall

Rainfall is characterized by high variability both in space and time. Despite continuous technological progress, the available instruments that are used to measure rainfall across several spatio-temporal scales remain inaccurate. To remedy this situation, scaling relationships of spatial rainfall offer the potential to link the observed or predicted precipitation quantities at one scale to those of interest at other scales. This paper focuses on the estimation of the spatial rainfall scaling functions. Standard scaling analysis constructed by means of the ordinary least squares method often violates such basic assumptions implicit in its use and interpretation as homoschedasticity, independence, and normality of the errors. Consequently, the authors consider alternative regression frameworks i.e. bootstrapping regression, semi parametric linear model, and multilevel normal linear model to show how these different approaches exert a significant impact on the multifractal analysis of radar rainfall. In addition, the uncertainties associated with the construction of the scaling function due solely to the regression procedure are quantified. The radar data come from the polarimetric C-band weather radar located in Rome, Italy, and the scaling properties are computed for a square domain centred on the radar site with a side length of 128 km and a finest resolution of 1 km².     

The European HST science data archive

The design of the Data Management Facility (DMF), the system to handle the data from HST, has been based on the concepts of modularity and flexibility, so that changes inevitably due to occur during the long lifetime of the project could be gracefully accomodated. At the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF), new constraints have led the archive group to evolve the system, so to allow a more efficient ingesting of the data imported from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), an easier browsing of the HST catalogue of observations, and a more efficient servicing of archive researchers' retrieval requests. In this paper, the European Science Data Archive of HST data is described, with particular reference to dataflow, hardware and software system structure, operations, differences with DMF, and foreseen developments.Affiliated with the Astrophysics Division, Space Science Dept., ESAThe observations of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope are obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.     

Search for contact systems among EB-type binaries

We present the analysis of the data of four EB-type eclipsing binaries, continuing our search for contact or almost contact systems. The Price algorithm has been used in conjunction to the Wilson-Devinney model to try to obtain, where possible, unambiguous solutions for all the systems.     

AI Cru: A semi-detached system?

The only existing photoelectric light curve of AI Cru has been re-analysed using the Wilson and Devinney (1971) direct method of solution. The system is found to be a semi-detached system of spectral type (B5 v+B8 v), with a mass ratioq=m _c /m _h =0.6. This solution differs somewhat from that obtained by Giuricinet al. (1980), using Wood's (1972) method, but seems more realistic because of the smaller value ofq and the reduced temperature difference between the components, which amounts to about 3300 K.     

Search for contact systems among EB-type binaries

In a search of contact systems among EB-type binaries, the existing photometric observations of ES Lib and AR Boo have been analysed. We find that ES Lib is a semi-detached system, with the primary filling the Roche lobe. AR Boo is instead found to be a contact system, with no lobe overfilling, and with a large temperature difference between the components, but this solution has to be considered as temptative, because of the poor quality of the data and the lack of any spectroscopic information.Associated with the Istituto Nazionale Fisica Nucleare, Italy.