Evaluation on tourism ecological security in nature heritage sites —Case of Kanas nature reserve of Xinjiang, China

The nature heritages are the precious legacy of nature with outstanding scientific and aesthetic value. They are quite different from other common ecotourism areas, because of its original and unique system, sensitive and vulnerable landscape, and peripheral cultural features. Therefore, the tourism development in the nature heritage sites should be on the premise of ecological security. The evaluation index system of tourism ecological security in nature heritage sites was constructed in this article by AHP and Delphi methods, including nature ecological security, landscape visual security and local culture ecological security, and the security thresholds of indices were also established. In the indices’ weights of the evaluation model, the nature ecological security ranked the highest, followed by tourist landscape visual security and culture ecological security, which reflected the influence degree of the limited factor to tourism ecological security. Then, this paper carried out an empirical study of Kanas of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, which has the potential to be the World Nature Heritage. On the basis of the data attained from survey and observation on the spot, as well as questionnaire answered by tourists and local communities, the ecological security status in Kanas was evaluated. The result showed that the status of Kanas tourism ecological security was better, but there had some limiting factors. Lastly, effective measures were put forward to ensure its ecological security. Foundation item: Under the auspices of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40671057), Knowledge Innovation Programs of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KZCX3-SW-355)     

The Aterno valley strong-motion array: seismic characterization and determination of subsoil model

The paper focuses on the strong motion array deployed in the upper Aterno River Valley, in the immediate outskirts north-west of the town of L’Aquila, which is part of the Italian Strong Motion Network operated by the Department of Civil Protection. The array is composed of six accelerometric stations located along a cross section of the valley. The importance of this array relies on the fact that a large amount of high-quality records were obtained during the 2009 L’Aquila seismic sequence, from both the mainshock and several aftershocks. These data are especially important to investigate site effects in sediment-filled valleys during moderate earthquakes in epicentral area because well-documented observational studies are very limited in the literature. However, the main drawback for the study of site effects in the Aterno valley is the lack of a detailed knowledge of the geometry of the valley, soil layering and dynamic properties of materials. The main motivation for this study stems from the need to provide a reliable subsoil model of the valley coupled with high-quality strong motion data. Based on the above, in the framework of S4 project, a major effort was undertaken to get a trustworthy cross section of the valley by an ad hoc investigation, comprising geological and geotechnical surveys as well as an extensive geophysical campaign, characterized by both active and passive measurements. These results were complemented by additional geological and geotechnical data available in the literature. By merging all the information acquired, a 2D subsoil model of the transversal section of the upper Aterno valley has been produced. The valley is characterised by an asymmetric shape with a shallower rock basement at the western edge of the valley that deepens at the valley centre. Moreover, based on the results of geophysical tests, representative V_s values were assigned to the different lithologic units forming the alluvial deposits filling the valley. Shear wave velocity is a fundamental parameter for ground response studies and it is also effective in classifying the accelerometric station from a seismic point of view. The 2D model may be therefore, considered a benchmark model for future studies of site effects. It will offer the possibility to examine site effects with a complex underlying geology and to validate the results of numerical simulations of site response analyses with the numerous observations from earthquake recordings, both for weak and strong ground motion conditions.     

消除全空域效应:原理、装置与应用实例

如何消除"全空域效应"是电磁勘探中的难题,国内外学者试图从基础理论、数据处理、测线布设等方面入手来解决,但存在求解条件苛刻、计算繁杂、技术实现困难、成本高等问题.文中提出了用屏蔽装置直接消除全空域效应以逼近地面式测量的新思路,研制了相应的装置,给出了使用方法和应用实例,取得了良好的实践效果.     

Fractional Tajimi–Kanai model for simulating earthquake ground motion

The ground acceleration is usually modeled as a filtered Gaussian process. The most common model is a Tajimi–Kanai (TK) filter that is a viscoelastic Kelvin–Voigt unit (a spring in parallel with a dashpot) carrying a mass excited by a white noise (acceleration at the bedrock). Based upon the observation that every real material exhibits a power law trend in the creep test, in this paper it is proposed the substitution of the purely viscous element in the Kelvin Voigt element with the so called springpot that is an element having an intermediate behavior between purely elastic (spring) and purely viscous (dashpot) behavior ruled by fractional operator. With this choice two main goals are reached: (i) The viscoelastic behavior of the ground may be simply characterized by performing the creep (or the relaxation) test on a specimen of the ground at the given site; (ii) The number of zero crossing of the absolute acceleration at the free field that for the classical TK model is \(\infty \) for a true white noise acceleration, remains finite for the proposed model.     

Preliminary assessment of CO2 transport and storage costs of promising source–sink matching scenarios in Guangdong province,China

Guangdong is the most economically developed province in China, which is a large CO₂ emitter and hence is faced with severe carbon reduction pressures. In this paper, a cost assessment methodology based on scenario analysis is presented. A CO₂ source and sink database was built at Guangdong after detailed investigations on the point sources and sedimentary basins. Fifteen transport and five storage scenarios were defined and studied, respectively. Cost estimates based on these scenarios show that during its lifetime, the costs of both transport and storage depend on the amount of CO₂ processed. More CO₂ being processed will bring down the unit costs of both transport and storage. However, it was observed that there is a cost inflection point between the storage amount of 35.2 and 52.8 Mt/year, which means that as the storage amount increases, the storage cost will first decrease and then increase. Source region S1 in Guangdong has been recommended for an early chance of CO₂ storage. Preliminary cost comparisons have shown that the results presented in this study are reasonable, but to improve the cost assessment accuracy of offshore CO₂ storage, a methodology based on a CO₂ storage design that can integrate local prices needs to be further developed.     

弹性特征约束下的矿物成分页岩脆性评价方法研究

脆性评价对页岩储层可压裂性评估、设计压裂层段、提升压裂改造效果具有重要意义.但传统基于矿物成分的脆性评价方法将不同矿物成分对脆性指数贡献程度进行平均化, 忽略了不同矿物对岩石脆性影响的差异性.本文采用数字岩石物理实验来标定不同矿物成分对岩石脆性整体特征的影响程度, 定量分析了岩石弹性参数随矿物组分含量的变化关系, 采用基于弹性参数的脆性指数来建立不同矿物成分对页岩脆性的差异性影响关系, 建立不同矿物组分相较于黏土矿物与脆性指数的相对关系及敏感因子, 在弹性参数脆性指数的约束下确定了不同矿物成分在脆性指数中的权重, 提出了基于矿物成分贡献程度自适应变化的脆性评价方法.矿物脆性评价结果与弹性参数脆性评价结果的相关性分析及下寺湾地区岩样脆性评价测试表明, 考虑不同矿物成分的差异性所构建的脆性评价方法更加合理有效.

     

Tissue distribution of metals in striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) from the Apulian coasts, southern Italy.

Tissue distributions of metals (mercury, lead, cadmium, zinc, copper, iron, manganese) were determined in six specimens of striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba, Meyen) stranded on the Apulian coasts (Southern Italy) between February and June 1987. Methyl mercury and selenium were also determined in the liver samples. The liver accumulated the highest concentrations of metals, except for cadmium and chromium. Metal levels were higher than those found in dolphins living in the Atlantic, but lower than those recorded in the same species from the French Mediterranean coasts. Necroscopic surveys found that all specimens were affected by haemorrhagic gastritis, but the cause was not clear. While it was not possible to related the death of dolphins to a specific cause, or to contaminants, the accumulation of metals is likely to contribute to the health of the organism and represents a risk factor for dolphins.     

Restoration of Ultimate Strength of Dented Hemispheres Under External Hydrostatic Pressure

China Ocean Engineering - This study aimed to restore the ultimate strength of dented stainless-steel hemispheres with a radius of 90 mm and a thickness of 0.86 mm. All of the hemispheres were...     

Formation and stability of mixed Mg/Ca/phytate species in synthetic seawater media: Consequences on ligand speciation

The results of a potentiometric investigation (by ISE-H⁺, glass electrode) on the speciation of phytate ion (Phy¹²⁻) in an ionic medium simulating the major components (Na⁺, K⁺, Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, Cl⁻ and SO₄²⁻) of natural seawater, at different salinities and t = 25 °C, are reported. The work was particularly aimed at determining the possible formation of mixed Ca²⁺–Mg²⁺–phytate ion pairs, and to establish how including the formation of these mixed species would affect the speciation modeling in seawater media. After testing various speciation models, that considering the formation of the MgCaH₃Phy⁵⁻, MgCaH₄Phy⁴⁻, Mg₂CaH₃Phy³⁻ and Mg₂CaH₄Phy²⁻ species was accepted, and corresponding stability constants were determined at two salinities (S = 5, 10). A discussion is reported both on the choice of the experimental conditions and on the possibility to extend these results to those typical of real seawater. A detailed procedure is also described to demonstrate that the stability of these species is higher than that statistically predicted. As reported in literature, a parameter, namely log X, has been determined in order to quantify this extra stability for the formation of each mixed species at various salinities. For example, at S = 10, log X₁₁₃ = 2.67 and log X₁₁₄ = 1.37 for MgCaH₃Phy⁵⁻ and MgCaH₄Phy⁴⁻ (statistical value is log X_stat = 0.60), and log X₂₁₃ = 6.11 and log X₂₁₄ = 2.15 for Mg₂CaH₃Phy³⁻ and Mg₂CaH₄Phy²⁻ (log X_stat = 1.43), respectively. Results obtained also showed that the formation of these species may occur even in conditions of low salinity (i.e. low concentration of alkaline earth cations) and low pH (i.e., more protonated ligand).