Irish on the move

Trends in emigration from Ireland over time are reviewed. "During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries overseas migration to the United States and seasonal harvest migration to Britain were the main types of movement, but over the past 100 years the Irish have developed a special affinity for settling in British towns. Although the outflow was halted for a time during the 1970s, when return migration took over, the 1980s have seen a renewal of the exodus. This time, however, the character of the flow has changed from predominantly low-skill construction and factory workers to embrace better-educated emigrants, including many graduates. This shift reflects Ireland's changing position in the international market for labour."     

Photometry of the bright stars inside and outside associations in the spiral arm S5 of the andromeda galaxy

Photometry of more than 1000 bright stars of 20 associations and some fields in its vicinity is made, usingUBV plates taken with a 2-m Ritchey-Chrétien telescope of the National Observatory at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences with limited magnitudes of about 20.6 inU andV, 21.6 inB. The colour-magnitudes of about 20.6 inU andV, 21.6 inB. The colour-magnitude and colour-colour diagrams of 12 associations and 8 fields are constructed and the brightest blue and red stars colour excesses, ages, and integrated luminosities of the associations are determined. The composite diagrams for all association and nonassociation measured stars are constructed too. Inside associations bright stars as well as non-stellar objects occur more often than outside. The brightest stars in S5 are withM _v7 and do not differ considerably from the brightest ones in the spiral arm S4 of M31. Approximately the same are the absolute magnitudes of the brightest stars in our Galaxy and M33. A small difference between the brightest stars of the latter galaxy with those of M31 is possible because the stars in M33 are younger. This is in agreement with the concept that Sc galaxies (for example M33) are younger than Sb ones (for example M31). The same could be the reason for the smaller ratio of blue to red supergiants in M33 than in M31. The age estimations of the associations in S5 together with those in S4 in M31 show that they are older than the associations in M33 which is in agreement with the above mentioned concept.     

Stellar populations as a function of radius in giant elliptical galaxies

Accurate surface photometry has been obtained inJ andK for 12 giant elliptical galaxies. Ellipses have been fitted, to obtain luminosity, ellipticity, and major axis position angle profiles. The results have been combined with visual profiles from CCD observations. We find that elliptical galaxies become bluer inV - K on the average by 0.3 (mag/sq xr _e) going outward from the nucleus. Radial colour gradients inV - K correlate strongly with those inU - V andB - V. By modelling, using theoretical isochrones, it is found that the observed colour gradients can be explained by a gradient in metallicity, if in addition the proportion of hot stars rises very rapidly with decreasing metallicity.     

Radiometry of near-earth asteroids

We report 10 micrometers infrared photometry for 22 Aten, Apollo, and Amor asteroids. Thermal models are used to derive the corresponding radiometric albedos and diameters. Several of these asteroids appear to have surfaces of relatively high thermal inertia due to the exposure of bare rock or a coarse regolith. The Apollo asteroid 3103, 1982 BB, is recognized as class E. The Jupiter-crossing Amor asteroid 3552, 1983 SA, is confirmed as class D, but low albedos remain rare for near-Earth asteroids.     

Charge-coupled device imaging spectroscopy of Mars. 1. Instrumentation and data reduction/analysis procedures

This paper describes the collection, reduction, and analysis of 0.4–1.0 m Mars imaging spectroscopy data obtained during the 1988 and 1990 oppositions from Mauna Kea Observatory and provides a general outline for the acquisition and analysis of similar imaging spectroscopy data sets. The U.H. 2.24-m Wide Field Grism CCD Spectrograph was used to collect 13 three-dimensional image cubes covering 90% of the planet south of 50°N in the 0.4–0.8 m region (/=245 at 0.6 m) and covering 55% of the planet south of 50°N in the 0.5–1.0 m region (/=293 at 0.75 m). Spectra extracted from these image cubes reveal the detailed character of the martian near-UV to visible spectrum. Images at red wavelengths reveal the classical albedo markings at 100–500 km spatial resolution while images at blue wavelengths show little surface feature contrast and are dominated by condensate clouds/hazes and polar ice. Many of the data acquisition, reduction, and analysis steps discussed here are new or unique to imaging spectroscopy data sets. These techniques exploit the information contained within the spatial domain of data such as these, thus allowing more traditional point-spectral analysis techniques to be expanded into an imaging format.     

GPS单点测速的误差分析及精度评价 (英文)

Error sources which decrease the accuracy of GPS in absolute velocity determination have been changed since SA was turned off. Firstly, quantities of all kinds of error sources that influence velocity determination are analyzed. The potential accuracy of GPS absolute velocity determination is derived from both theory and field GPS data simulation. After that, two tests were carried out to evaluate the performance of GPS absolute velocity determination in the case of a static and an airborne GPS receiver and INS （Inertial Navigation System） instrument in kinematic mode. In static mode, the receiver velocity has been estimated to be several mm/s with the carrier-phase derived Doppler measurements, and several cm/s with the receiver generated Doppler measurements. In kinematic mode, GPS absolute velocity estimates are compared with the synchronized measurements from the high accuracy INS. The root mean square statistics of the velocity discrepancies between GPS and INS come up to dm/s. Moreover, it has a strong correlation with the acceleration or jerk of the aircraft.     

Chronology and cooling history of the Tianmenshan pluton in South Jiangxi Province and their geological significance

Geochronological studies on the crust-derived Tianmenshan pluton were undertaken by SHRIMP zircon U-Pb dating and Ar-Ar dating of biotite, muscovite and K-feldspar, giving a petrogenetic age of 167 Ma. Owing to the closure systems in different minerals, the cooling history of the pluton can be determined with an age-temperature diagram. The late hydrothermal event has been recognized, which is related probably with mineralization. In terms of the comparative geochronological and petrologic records, it is concluded that there are some constrains on tectonic evolution and that the formation of the Tianmenshan pluton proceeded in a transition period from Indosinian post-orogeny extension to strong compressive tectonics. And the timing of the hydrothermal event matches the compressive climax of the Yanshanian orogeny. The temporal gap between granite emplacement and wolframite mineralization could last 10-20 Ma owing to the low cooling rate of the pluton.     

Study on rain-runoff process in the peripheral mountainous area of the Sichuan Basin

Studies on rain-runoff process in the peripheral mountainous area of the Sichuan Basin, which is regarded as a key ecological shelter, will contribute to flood control and environmental protection for the Upper Yangtze River Basin. In two typical catchments--the Fujiang River Catchment and the Wujiang River Catchment, rainfall simulations have been conducted to study the rain-runoff processes of yellow soil and limestone soil in three types of land use--forestland, farmland and grassland. Results showed that （1） within the same rainfall process, overland flow occurs first on farmland, then on grassland, and finally on forestland; （2） soil surface coverage has a great impact on the occurrence and amount of overland flow. The runoff amount can increase 2-4 times after the coverage is removed; （3） the infiltration before the occurrence of overland flow will decrease because of higher gravel contents of soil, but it takes no effect on infiltration once overland flow becomes stable; （4） the runoff coefficient of the limestone soil forestland is greater than that of the yellow soil forest land, but less than that of the farmland; （5） three empirical infiltration models, including Horton＇ model, Kostiakov＇ model, and modified Kostiakov＇ model, were compared by using the observed results under rainfall simulation. The results showed that the Kostiakov＇ model performed better than both the Horton＇ model and modified Kostiakov model. According to the results of this research, the Kostiakov＇s model can be used to simulate rainfall infiltration when water erosion is modeled in the peripheral mountainous area of the Sichuan Basin.     

Use of laser range and height texture cues for building identification

Airborne LiDAR has found application in an increasing number of mapping and Geo-data acquisition tasks. Apart from terrain information generation, applications such as automatic detection and modeling of objects like buildings or vegetation for the generation of 3-D city models have been explored. Besides the height itself, height texture defined by local variations of the height is a significant parameter for object recognition. The paper explores the potential of the analysis of height texture as a cue for the automatic detection of objects in LiDAR datasets. A number of texture measures were computed. Based on their definition and computation these measures were used as bands in a classification algorithm, and objects like buildings, single trees, and roads could be recognized.