Seismological model parameters for northeastern and its surrounding region of India

A point source seismological model is used in this study to model the available strong motion accelerograms recorded by 17 events and to calculate three seismological model parameters, the source, path, and quality factor. Due to the paucity of recorded events, this is the first time these model parameters have been obtained for the northeastern and its surrounding region of India. The quality factors of the horizontal and vertical components of recorded events with corresponding standard deviations are Q_H(f) = 188.55f^0.94, σ₁ value (25, 0.025) and Q_V(f) = 169.76f^0.93, σ₁ value (20, 0.03), respectively. The source parameter stress drop values (μσ) vary within 124–180 bars for the subduction region and 80–169 bars for the active region. The Kappa factors for the horizontal and vertical components of recorded events on the soft rock site are 0.06 and 0.05, respectively. These seismological model parameters obtained in this study will be useful for future work deriving a ground motion attenuation relation based on a spectral model. Finally, these results are useful for seismic hazard assessment of a region having sparsely recorded events.     

Designing Iron‐Amended Biosand Filters for Decentralized Safe Drinking Water Provision

There are ongoing efforts to render conventional biosand filters (BSF) more efficient for safe drinking water provision. One promising option is to amend BSF with a reactive layer containing metallic iron (Fe⁰). The present communication presents some conceptual options for efficient Fe⁰‐amended BSF in its fourth generation. It is shown that a second fine‐sand layer should be placed downwards from the Fe⁰‐reactive layer to capture dissolved iron. This second fine‐sand layer could advantageously contain adsorbing materials (e.g. activated carbons, wooden charcoals). An approach for sizing the Fe⁰‐reactive layer is suggested based on 3 kg Fe⁰ per filter. Working with the same Fe⁰ load will ease comparison of results with different materials and the scaling up of household BSF to large scale community slow sand filters (SSF).     

Timeline analysis and wavelet multiscale analysis of the AKARI All-Sky Survey at 90 μm

We present a careful analysis of the point-source detection limit of the AKARI All-Sky Survey in the WIDE-S 90-μm band near the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP). Timeline analysis is used to detect IRAS ( Infrared Astronomy Satellite ) sources and then a conversion factor is derived to transform the peak timeline signal to the interpolated 90-μm flux of a source. Combined with a robust noise measurement, the point-source flux detection limit at signal-to-noise ratio  (S/N) > 5  for a single detector row is  1.1 ± 0.1 Jy  which corresponds to a point-source detection limit of the survey of ∼0.4 Jy.
Wavelet transform offers a multiscale representation of the Time Series Data ( tsd ). We calculate the continuous wavelet transform of the tsd and then search for significant wavelet coefficients considered as potential source detections. To discriminate real sources from spurious or moving objects, only sources with confirmation are selected. In our multiscale analysis, IRAS sources selected above 4σ can be identified as the only real sources at the Point Source Scales. We also investigate the correlation between the non- IRAS sources detected in timeline analysis and cirrus emission using wavelet transform and contour plots of wavelet power spectrum. It is shown that the non- IRAS sources are most likely to be caused by excessive noise over a large range of spatial scales rather than real extended structures such as cirrus clouds.     

Application of artificial neural networks in regional flood frequency analysis: a case study for Australia

Regional flood frequency analysis (RFFA) is widely used in practice to estimate flood quantiles in ungauged catchments. Most commonly adopted RFFA methods such as quantile regression technique (QRT) assume a log-linear relationship between the dependent and a set of predictor variables. As non-linear models and universal approximators, artificial neural networks (ANN) have been widely adopted in rainfall runoff modeling and hydrologic forecasting, but there have been relatively few studies involving the application of ANN to RFFA for estimating flood quantiles in ungauged catchments. This paper thus focuses on the development and testing of an ANN-based RFFA model using an extensive Australian database consisting of 452 gauged catchments. Based on an independent testing, it has been found that ANN-based RFFA model with only two predictor variables can provide flood quantile estimates that are more accurate than the traditional QRT. Seven different regions have been compared with the ANN-based RFFA model and it has been shown that when the data from all the eastern Australian states are combined together to form a single region, the ANN presents the best performing RFFA model. This indicates that a relatively larger dataset is better suited for successful training and testing of the ANN-based RFFA models.     

The first electric field pulse of cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning discharges

In this study, the first electric field pulse of cloud and cloud-to-ground discharges were analyzed and compared with other pulses of cloud discharges. Thirty eight cloud discharges and 101 cloud-to-ground discharges have been studied in this analysis. Pulses in cloud discharges were classified as ‘small’, ‘medium’ and ‘large’, depending upon the value of their relative amplitude with respect to that of the average amplitude of the five largest pulses in the flash. We found that parameters, such as pulse duration, rise time, zero crossing time and full-width at half-maximum (FWHMs) of the first pulse of cloud and cloud-to-ground discharges are similar to small pulses that appear in the later stage of cloud discharges. Hence, we suggest that the mechanism of the first pulse of cloud and cloud-to-ground discharges and the mechanism of pulses at the later stage of cloud discharges could be the same.     

A semi-analytical method for the wave-induced seabed response

A general semi-analytical method is presented for the analysis of seabed response under wave action during a storm. The seabed is idealized as a poro-elastic medium filled with a single compressible fluid with anisotropic flow. The coupled process of fluid flow and deformation of soil skeleton is formulated in the framework of Biot's theory. The analysis for the response of homogeneous seabed of finite thickness under a plane progressive wave is developed first, followed by an extension for the case of a layered seabed. A generalization for three-dimensional response of seabed is also developed for a general wave field which provides the analyses for seabed response under short-crested or standing waves in the vicinity of a structure. Some numerical examples illustrating the proposed analyses are also presented.     

Pollutant migration from deeply buried repositories

Semi-analytic solutions are developed for the migration of pollutants from cylindrical and spherical repositories buried deep in a homogeneous and isotropic soil in the presence of a uniform and unidirectional advection. The techniques adopted involves taking the Laplace transform of the governing equations, finding an analytic solution in transform space and then numerically inverting the transform to obtain the concentrations of the contaminants at selected positions and times. Numerical results are presented, and practical implications discussed.     

A comparison of nearby incremental ground level and in plant concentrations of air pollutants emitted from electronics facilities

Air dispersion modeling by was recently conducted to predict the incremental ground level and inplant concentrations of toxic organic chemicals due to stack and fugitive emissions from Sama Jaya Free Industrial Zone (SJFIZ), Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Simulations of organic air pollutants emitted from industrial facilities in SJFIZ from years 1996 to 2001 were carried out in September 2004 by members of Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). The results indicated that there were negligible amount of maximum incremental ground level concentrations of less than 3×10^?2 μg/m³ for 365-day average, and less than 18×10^?2 μg/m³ for 24 h. average. For in-plant maximum incremental concentrations, it is found that the simulated results were much lower than TWA values, except xylene. The predicted in plant concentration of xylene was 119.21 (parts per million) ppm as compared to ACGIH TLV-TWA of 100 ppm approximately 19% higher than ACGIH recommended values. From this study, it was concluded that both nearby population and in plant workers were not potentially at risk to exposing organic chemicals far lower than the threshold limit levels set by ACGIH.     

Unplanned urbanization: Assessment through calculation of environmental degradation index

Urbanization is an inevitable phenomena for the country like Bangladesh. The push and pull factors help to migrate people from rural area to urban area. As a result haphazard and unplanned urbanization create environmental degradation. Survey data reveals that inadequate solid waste disposal services, lack of adequate public water supply, traffic congestion, water logging, air pollution, noise pollution, hill cutting are the main problems in the city area. Concentration of dust as well as SOx, NOx exceeded the allowable limit at the selected points. Groundwater level of Sylhet city has a considerable lowering over the last few decades. It has lowered from 3380 mm below ground in 1982 to 7880 mm below ground. Sylhet is located in highly seismic risk zone but most of the buildings and other structures in this area are constructed without considering earthquake risk. Environmental degradation index was calculated based on economical condition of the country.     

Holocene stratigraphy-of the Lower Ganges-Brahmaputra River delta in Bangladesh

Major part of the Holocene Ganges-Brahmaputra delta occupies the southern and southwestern part of Bangladesh with a smaller part extending beyond the international boundary in the west. Five facies assemblages are documented in the lower deltaic plain in five different depositional environments: levee or levee complex, bil or depression, abandoned meander belt, interdistributary plain and estuarine plain. The thickness of the Holocene sediments ranges from 30 m to 70 m in the deltaic plain, usually floored by the Pleistocene stiff clays, with the exception of the abandoned meander belt deposit where Holocene channel sand deposited directly on the Pleistocene sand. Radiocarbon dates indicate that low-rate sedimentation has occurred in the northern part, where 4-6 m thick sediments were deposited since the mid-Holocene, whereas 10-30 mthick sediments were deposited in the southern part during the same span of time. In addition, significant coastal subsidence (3 mm/a on average), added by sea-level rise (1.5 mm/a, conservative rate) occurs in the study area, which serves as a negative factor in degrading the coastal plain of Bangladesh in the future, while taking into consideration the weaker sedimentation in the area.