Optimizing GPS-guidance transit route for cable crane collision avoidance using artificial immune algorithm

GPS Solutions - A cable crane collision accident usually causes serious damage to workers, equipment and materials. Owing to the emergence of global position system (GPS), some new collision...     

Progressive Transformation of a Flux Rope to an ICME

The solar wind conditions at one astronomical unit (AU) can be strongly disturbed by interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs). A subset, called magnetic clouds (MCs), is formed by twisted flux ropes that transport an important amount of magnetic flux and helicity, which is released in CMEs. At 1 AU from the Sun, the magnetic structure of MCs is generally modeled by neglecting their expansion during the spacecraft crossing. However, in some cases, MCs present a significant expansion. We present here an analysis of the huge and significantly expanding MC observed by the Wind spacecraft during 9 – 10 November 2004. This MC was embedded in an ICME. After determining an approximate orientation for the flux rope using the minimum variance method, we obtain a precise orientation of the cloud axis by relating its front and rear magnetic discontinuities using a direct method. This method takes into account the conservation of the azimuthal magnetic flux between the inbound and outbound branches and is valid for a finite impact parameter (i.e., not necessarily a small distance between the spacecraft trajectory and the cloud axis). The MC is also studied using dynamic models with isotropic expansion. We have found (6.2±1.5)×10²⁰ Mx for the axial flux and (78±18)×10²⁰ Mx for the azimuthal flux. Moreover, using the direct method, we find that the ICME is formed by a flux rope (MC) followed by an extended coherent magnetic region. These observations are interpreted by considering the existence of a previously larger flux rope, which partially reconnected with its environment in the front. We estimate that the reconnection process started close to the Sun. These findings imply that the ejected flux rope is progressively peeled by reconnection and transformed to the observed ICME (with a remnant flux rope in the front part).     

The problem of rock assimilation by Somma-Vesuvius magma

Mineralogical and chemical compositions of ejected carbonate inclusions of Vesuvian gaseous phase are compared with those of carbonate sediments of the Somma-Vesuvius area. The basement of Vesuvius mainly consists of Mesozoic limestones. Most of these are characterized by extremely low insoluble residues. In this area thick dolomite beds occur in the Triassic system only. A calcareous layer of approximately 100 to 150 meters thickness characterized by high Sr contents (0.19% Sr in the average) is to be found within the Triassic dolostones. Several carbonate ejecta also show high Sr contents (0.1% Sr) but chemical composition of some of these ejecta differs somewhat from that of the Triassic layer high in Sr. Contact with the volcanic volatile phase and melt has produced some alterations in the composition of many ejecta. Magnesian calcites are abundant and periclase, brucite, tremolite, phlogopite and magnesite were found in the ejecta examined. Silicon, manganese, iron, zinc and, to a smaller extent, potassium and copper have been most probably transported from the volcanic gas phase into ejected carbonate inclusions. Owing to metasomatic actions of the volcanic volatile components, rearrangement and alteration of Ca and Mg contents occurred in the carbonate minerals of several ejecta. Under the influence of volcanic pressure and temperature, magnesium content originally in dolomite might be transformed into the calcite structure. \(\frac{{{\text{MgO}}}}{{{\text{CaO + MgO}}}}\) molar ratios of several carbonate ejecta do not correspond with those found in sedimentary limestones and dolostones. It cannot be proved whether the Mg of the mixed calcite-dolomite ejecta has been partially introduced from the volatiles or lost from the carbonate phases.     

Geochronology of anthropogenic pollutants in riparian wetland sediments of the Lippe River (Germany)

Anthropogenic pollutants were determined in a dated sediment core, collected from a riparian wetland of the Lippe River (Ruhr district, Germany). The historical trend in heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, organochlorines, polychlorinated biphenyls and linear alkylbenzenes as well as more recent contaminants such as industrial additives, organotins, synthetic musks, methyltriclosan and some other compounds were determined for the time period between 1930 and 1986. Emission sources, information on technical production and usage, as well as on the individual pollution pathways, with appropriate environmental stability, were considered in the interpretation of the sediment contamination over the past 50 years.Contaminants were analysed and interpreted according to two different criteria: (a) the origin of the main contaminants as related to mining and industrial activities as well as municipal sewage and agricultural effluents and (b) the pollution history. Due to a significant appearance of formerly missing contaminants in sediments deposited since 1970, we suggest classifying contaminants as either common (predating 1970) or modern (postdating 1970).In summary, the study provided a comprehensive reconstruction of the pollution history of the Lippe River system.     

Education as a determinant of fertility: a case study of Kullu Town

Using a sample of 885 females (1/2 of all married women of reproductive age), this study examines the role of education as a determinant of fertility among couples in Kullu town of Himachol Pradesh, India. Of the 885 respondents, only 149 were illiterate. The average family size was 2.88. Findings reveal that 1) the average family size was largest for illiterate respondents (3.57) and for illiterate males (3.76); 2) average family size declined consistently after the middle level of education to 1.29 for post graduate respondents and 2.33 for post graduate males; 3) a negative correlation exists between fertility and education of both husband and wife, with the wife's education having a stronger negative correlation with fertility; and 4) couples with an educational level of matriculation and above have a distinctly smaller family size than those less educated.     

Spatial and temporal patterns of dry spell lengths in the Iberian Peninsula for the second half of the twentieth century

Summary Daily pluviometric records of 43 meteorological stations across the Iberian Peninsula have permitted a detailed analysis of dry spell patterns for the period 1951–2000 by distinguishing daily amount thresholds of 0.1, 1.0, 5.0 and 10.0 mm/day. The analyses are based on three annual series, namely the number of dry spells, N, the average dry spell length, L, and the extreme dry spell length, L _max. First, the statistical significance of local trends for the annual series of N, L and L _max has been investigated by means of the Mann-Kendall test and significant field trends have been established by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Clear signs of negative field trends are detected for N (1.0 and 10.0 mm/day) and L (0.1 mm/day). Second, the Weibull model fits well the empirical distributions of dry spell lengths for all the rain gauges, whatever the daily amount threshold, with a well ranged spatial distribution of their parameters u and k. On the basis of the Weibull distribution, return period maps for 2, 5, 10, 25 and 50 years have been obtained for dry spell lengths with respect to the four daily threshold levels. While for 0.1 and 1.0 mm/day the longest dry spells are expected at the south of the Iberian Peninsula, for 5.0 and 10.0 mm/day they are mostly detected at the southeast. Finally, the elapsed time between consecutive dry spells has been analysed by considering the same rain amount thresholds and different dry spell lengths at increasing intervals of 10 days. This analysis makes evident a significant negative field trend of the elapsed time between consecutive dry spells of lengths ranging from 10 to 20 days for daily amount thresholds of 1.0, 5.0 and 10.0 mm/day. Authors’ addresses: X. Lana, C. Serra, Departament de Física i Enginyeria Nuclear, ETSEIB, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Av. Diagonal 647 planta 11, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; M. D. Marínez, Departament de Física Aplicada, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; A. Burgue?o, Departament de Meteorologia i Astronomia, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; J. Martín-Vide, L. Gómez, Grup de Climatologia, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.     

A distributed approach for calculating inundation height based on Dijkstra's algorithm

This research proposed a parallelized approach to scaling up the calculation of inundation height, the minimum sea‐level rise required to inundate a cell on a digital elevation model, which is based on Dijkstra's algorithm for shortest‐path calculations on a graph. Our approach is based on the concepts of spatial decomposition, calculate‐and‐correct, and a master/worker parallelization paradigm. The approach was tested using the U.S. Coastal Relief Model (CRM) dataset from the National Geophysical Data Center on a multicore desktop computer and various supercomputing resources through the U.S. Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) program. Our parallel implementation not only enables computations that were larger than previously possible, but also significantly outperforms serial implementations with respect to running time and memory footprint as the number of processing cores increases. The efficiency of the scalability seemed to be tied to tile size and flattened out at a certain number of workers.     

Comparison of Vegetation Indices from Two Ground Based Sensors

The best and commonly used ground-based sensor to monitor crop growth, ASD FieldSpecPro Spectroradiometer (Analytical Spectral Devices, Boulder, CO, USA) is a passive sensor, which can be used under adequate light condition. However, now-a-days active sensors such as GreenSeeker? (GS) handheld crop response (Trimble Agriculture division, USA) are used for monitoring crop growth and are flexible in terms of timeliness and illumination conditions besides being cheaper than the ASD. Before its wide use, the suitability and accuracy of GS should be assessed by comparing the NDVI measured by this instrument with that by ASD, under diverse wheat growing conditions of India. Keeping this in view, the present experiment was undertaken with the following objectives: (1) to find out the temporal variation of NDVI measured both by ASD and GS treatments, (2) to find out relationship between the NDVI measured through ASD and GS and, (3) to evaluate the suitability of GS for NDVI measurements. It was observed that the numerical value of NDVI as measured by GS was always significantly (P < 0.05) lower than that measured by ASD for all the experiments under study. The NDVI-ASD and NDVI-GS were significantly positively correlated (P < 0.01) with the correlation coefficients being +0.94, +0.88 and +0.87 for irrigation and nitrogen experiment, irrigation and cultivars experiment, and tillage, residue and nitrogen experiments, respectively. Further, the regression equation developed between the NDVI-ASD and NDVI-GS: [NDVI-GS = 1.070 × (NDVI-ASD ? 0.292] can be successfully used to compute the NDVI of ASD from that computed by GS.