Simulation of the Holocene climate evolution in Northern Africa: The termination of the African Humid Period

The Holocene climate evolution in Northern Africa is studied in a 9000-yr-long transient simulation with a coupled atmosphere–ocean–vegetation model forced by changes in insolation and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. The model simulates in the monsoonal domains a significant decrease in precipitation under influence of the orbitally forced reduction in summer insolation. In the Western Sahara region, the simulated mid-Holocene transition from humid to arid conditions (the termination of the African Humid Period) is highly non-linear with the occurrence of centennial-scale climate fluctuations due to the biogeophysical feedback between precipitation and vegetation cover. This result is in agreement with proxy data from the Western Sahara region. The other monsoonal regions experience a more gradual climate evolution that linearly follows the insolation forcing, which appears in disagreement with available lake level records.     

Study on Certain Structural Features Occurring in the Central Region of the Weiyuan Anticline, Szechuan

正 The name Weiyuan' Anticline has been used by geologists to designate the anticlinal mountain range to the north of the city of Weiyuan district. It is situated at longhude 140°20′ E. and latitude 29°40′ N. [Plate I]. Extending in a NEE. -SWW. direction for about 75 km. and rising to some 600 m. ab     

Improving the efficiency of ant algorithms using adaptive refinement: Application to storm water network design

The ant algorithm is a new evolutionary optimization method proposed for the solution of discrete combinatorial optimization problems. Many engineering optimization problems involve decision variables of continuous nature. Application of the ant algorithm to the optimization of these continuous problems requires discretization of the continuous search space, thereby reducing the underlying continuous problem to a discrete optimization problem. The level of discretization of the continuous search space, however, could present some problems. Generally, coarse discretization of the continuous design variables could adversely affect the quality of the final solution while finer discretization would enlarge the scale of the problem leading to higher computation cost and, occasionally, to low quality solutions. An adaptive refinement procedure is introduced in this paper as a remedy for the problem just outlined. The method is based on the idea of limiting the originally wide search space to a smaller one once a locally converged solution is obtained. The smaller search space is designed to contain the locally optimum solution at its center. The resulting search space is discretized and a completely new search is conducted to find a better solution. The procedure is continued until no improvement can be made by further refinement. The method is applied to a benchmark problem in storm water network design discipline and the results are compared with those of existing methods. The method is shown to be very effective and efficient regarding the optimality of the solution, and the convergence characteristics of the resulting ant algorithm. Furthermore, the method proves itself capable of finding an optimal, or near-optimal solution, independent of the discretization level and the size of the colony used.     

Land use change under conditions of high population pressure: the case of Java

A long history of increases in population pressure in Java has caused agricultural land use to expand and intensify. More recent land use changes caused the conversion of prime agricultural land into residential and industrial area. Results of a dynamic, regional-scale, land use change model are presented, defining the spatial distribution of these land use changes. The model is based on multi-scale modelling of the relations between land use and socio-economic and biophysical determinants. Historical validation showed that the model can adequately simulate the pattern of land use change. Future patterns of land use change between 1994 and 2010 are simulated assuming further urbanization. The results suggest that most intensive land use changes will occur in Java's lowland areas.     

Application of Hilbert‐like transforms for enhanced processing of full tensor magnetic gradient data

Commonly, geomagnetic prospection is performed via scalar magnetometers that measure values of the total magnetic intensity. Recent developments of superconducting quantum interference devices have led to their integration in full tensor magnetic gradiometry systems consisting of planar‐type first‐order gradiometers and magnetometers fabricated in thin‐film technology. With these systems measuring directly the magnetic gradient tensor and field vector, a significantly higher magnetic and spatial resolution of the magnetic maps is yield than those produced via conventional magnetometers. In order to preserve the high data quality in this work, we develop a workflow containing all the necessary steps for generating the gradient tensor and field vector quantities from the raw measurement data up to their integration into high­resolution, low­noise, and artefactless two‐dimensional maps of the magnetic field vector. The gradient tensor components are processed by superposition of the balanced gradiometer signals and rotation into an Earth‐centred Earth‐fixed coordinate frame. As the magnetometers have sensitivity lower than that of gradiometers and the total magnetic intensity is not directly recorded, we employ Hilbert‐like transforms, e.g., integration of the gradient tensor components or the conversion of the total magnetic intensity derived by calibrated magnetometer readings to obtain these values. This can lead to a better interpretation of the measured magnetic anomalies of the Earth's magnetic field that is possible from scalar total magnetic intensity measurements. Our conclusions are drawn from the application of these algorithms on a survey acquired in South Africa containing full tensor magnetic gradiometry data.     

大陆岩石圈有效弹性厚度的计算及其地质意义

大陆范围内 T e值有很大的范围,不同构造单元有不同的 T e值.T e值的大小与岩石圈的热结构(热年龄)、壳幔耦合等因素有关.同时 T e值和地壳厚度、地表有关矿产的分布、岩石圈地幔的物质组成等也有一定关系.     

Physico-chemical phenomena in comets—III: The continuum of comet Burnham (1960 II)

The new model of the cometary head proposed in papers I and II is developed and applied to comet Burnham. It takes into account the likely existence of a halo of large icy particles surrounding the nucleus. These particles are steadily stripped from the nucleus by evaporating gases. Their terminal velocity and their rate of evaporation set the size of the halo. The existence of the icy halo influences in two ways the photometric characteristics of the coma. This paper establishes the photometric shape of the continuum as reflected by the icy grains, and compares it to the observed continuum of comet Burnham. Paper IV will compare the predictions of the model with the photometric profile of the molecular emission bands of C₂, in the same comet.     

Neutron stars in the multidimensional einstein theory of gravitation

The radius, mass, total number of baryons, and other parameters of static, spherically symmetric, superdense stars are calculated. A model with one Ricci-flat inner space of arbitrary dimensionality and the approximation p₁=?0.5ε + ap for additional components of the energy — momentum tensor are used (ε and ρ are the total energy density and the pressure of the stellar matter and a is a fitting parameter). In the case of white dwarfs, the results of the multidimensional theory do not depend on the dimensionality D of space-time for ?10 ? a ? 10 and coincide with the analogous data of the general theory of relativity (GTR). For neutron stars there is a dependence on D and a. For D>4, in particular, the greatest mass M_max of a neutron star as a function of a has a maximum at 3<a(D) ? 4, which exceeds the greatest mass M _max ⁰ =2.14 M_⊙ in the GTR. A comparison of theoretical results with observational data determines the allowable values of a. Data for PSR 1913 + 16 lead to 0.2 ≤ a ≤ 9.2 in the case of D=26, while the results of [P. C. Joss and S. A. Rappaport, Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys.,22, 537 (1984)] lead to the stricter limits 1 ≤ a ≤ 7.4.