Grain‐size distributions on high‐energy sandy beaches and their relation to wave dissipation

Grain size and sorting represent two key parameters when characterizing sediments or modelling beach morphology and sediment transport. Traditionally, an average value for grain size or sorting is often assumed for the entire area, determined from only a few sediment samples, ignoring any spatial (or temporal) variability in sediment characteristics. This contribution uses a data set of physical surface sediment samples from 53 beach locations around the south‐west peninsula of the United Kingdom, in addition to bi‐monthly, high spatial resolution (mean 240 samples) digital grain‐size surveys from a high‐energy, oceanic, sandy beach (Perranporth, North Cornwall). Systematic spatial variations in grain size and sorting were consistently observed in the seaward direction across the intertidal zone of sandy beaches, with grain‐sizes coarsening and sorting improving by up to 51·7% and 64·3%, respectively. This variability was deterministically related to the time‐averaged, antecedent‐adjusted energy dissipated by breaking waves, with the observed maximum grain‐size and sorting values correlating with the location of peak wave energy dissipation (r² = 0·998, P < 0·01).     

Sea level changes induced by local winds on the west coast of India

The contribution of atmospheric pressure and local wind to sea level variability at Goa (West coast of India) for the period 2007–2008 is investigated. Sea level data from a tide gauge are compared with measured local surface meteorological as well as oceanographic data. Multilinear regression analysis is used to resolve the dependence of sea level on various forcing parameters. The multilinear regression analysis performed over approx. 2-year data shows that the local surface meteorological data and water temperature account for the sea level variability only up to 6%. The accounted sea level variability increases to 25%, when the local wind and the surface currents obtained from satellite altimetry in the near vicinity of the study area are incorporated in the regression analysis. The contribution of local wind increases substantially when the regression is performed over a 2-month duration, and it is variable within the year. During the summer monsoon season (May–September), the sea level variability attributable to wind is up to 47% and 75%, respectively, for 2007 and 2008; however, it reduces to <20% during the winter monsoon (November–February) season. A significant part of the variability observed in sea level remains unaccounted for and is attributed to remote forcing.     

基于IC卡综合换乘信息的公交乘客上车站点推算

现有研究在缺少公交车运营信息的情况下,利用公交线间正交换乘信息的方法来识别公交车持卡乘客的上车站点,但在实际运用中很多班次无正交换乘的乘客,容易导致公交乘客上车站点匹配困难。因此,本文提出了一种基于IC卡综合换乘信息的公交乘客上车站点推算方法,该方法充分利用IC卡数据中的综合换乘信息（公交线间的正交和非正交换乘信息、地铁和公交线间的换乘信息）与公交网数据确定班次行驶方向,对班次内的乘客进行分组,充分利用综合换乘信息确定基准组及其对应的上车站点;然后,通过最小偏差规则匹配待定组的上车站点,实现公交乘客上车站点的推估。利用换乘信息确定班次行驶方向弥补了现有研究无法确定班次行驶方向的不足,使公交乘客上车站点推算方法更科学;最后,基于2011年8月的“深圳通”IC卡数据进行实例分析,对比只利用正交换乘信息确定的基准组数量和利用综合换乘信息确定的基准组数量,结果表明：该方法可使确定上车站点的组数占总组数的比值提高,克服了只利用正交换乘信息推算上车站点方法中存在的单个班次无基准组从而无法进行站点匹配的困难。本文方法比只利用正交换乘信息匹配站点,具有更高的可行性与准确率。     

Submerged early Holocene coastal and terrestrial landforms on the inner shelves of Atlantic Canada

Coastal and terrestrial landforms that formed with lowered relative sea levels during the early postglacial period in Atlantic Canada were submerged during the Holocene transgression. However, these landforms are seldom seen on sea floor imagery. Factors that contribute to their destruction include the brevity of sea level lowstands and high wave energy on shallow modern shelves. We identify one situation within which preservation has been relatively good: large coastal lakes that existed for many thousands of years before being connected to the ocean by rising sea level in the mid-Holocene. We describe Bedford Basin, near Halifax, Nova Scotia, and deal more exhaustively with the Bras d'Or Lakes, an inland sea in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The preservation of shore platforms, barrier beaches and spits, and fluvial systems, was due to the rapid onset of the transgression and the relatively low wave energy in the subsequent marine phases. The well-preserved early Holocene coastlines are highly favourable targets in the search for evidence of human occupation in the early- to mid-Holocene.     

Role of Subsurface Brines in Salt Balance: The Case Study of the Caspian Sea and Kara Bogaz Bay

The water level of the Caspian Sea fluctuated significantly during recent history, without consensus for the cause. The varied chemistry of the Caspian, Kara Bogaz and sediment a interstitial waters provides a further insight. Element concentrations and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios of the interstitial waters were compared to those of Caspian and Kara Bogaz open waters, and of acid-leached extractable components. The ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios of the interstitial waters are explained by addition of subterranean waters similar to nearby spring waters. These subterranean waters yield chemical characteristics such as a Cl/SO₄, ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, Ca/Sr and K/Rb ratios of respectively 80, 0.7086, 250 and 1,800. However, their addition does not explain the large difference in the K/Rb ratio of the Caspian and Kara Bogaz waters, respectively at 7,630 and 17,550, which implies also a leaching of salt deposits by the upward migrating subterranean waters. The sediments of the southern Caspian basin, with low Na, Cl and SO₄ in their interstitial waters, deposited apparently in an anoxic environment. The related chemical changes in the waters are also indicative of a recent change in the hydrologic regime, possibly induced by a changing morphology of the drainage basin.     

Clustering of temporal event processes

A temporal point process is a sequence of points, each representing the occurrence time of an event. Each temporal point process is related to the behavior of an entity. As a result, clustering of temporal point processes can help differentiate between entities, thereby revealing patterns of behaviors. This study proposes a hierarchical cluster method for clustering temporal point processes based on the discrete Fréchet (DF) distance. The DF cluster method is divided into four steps: (1) constructing a DF similarity matrix between temporal point processes; (2) constructing a complete linkage hierarchical tree based on the DF similarity matrix; (3) clustering the point processes with a threshold determined by locating the local maxima on the curve of the pseudo-F statistic (an index which measures the separability between clusters and the compactness in clusters); and (4) identifying inner patterns for each cluster formed by a series of dense intervals, each of which contains at least one event of all processes of the cluster. The contributions of the article are: (1) the proposed DF cluster method can cluster temporal point processes into different groups and (2) more importantly, it can identify the inner pattern of each cluster. Two synthetic data sets were created to illustrate the DF distance between temporal point process clusters (the first data set) and validate the proposed DF cluster method (the second data set), respectively. An experiment and a comparison with a method based on dynamic time warping show that DF cluster successfully identifies the preconfigured patterns in the second synthetic data set. The cluster method was then applied to a population migration history data set for the Northern Plains of the United States, revealing some interesting population migration patterns.     

A Voronoi neighborhood-based search heuristic for distance/capacity constrained very large vehicle routing problems

Local search heuristics for very large-scale vehicle routing problems (VRPs) have made remarkable advances in recent years. However, few local search heuristics have focused on the use of the spatial neighborhood in Voronoi diagrams to improve local searches. Based on the concept of a k-ring shaped Voronoi neighbor, we propose a Voronoi spatial neighborhood-based search heuristic and algorithm to solve very large-scale VRPs. In this algorithm, k-ring Voronoi neighbors of a customer are limited to building and updating local routings, and rearranging local routings with improper links. This algorithm was evaluated using four sets of benchmark tests for 200–8683 customers. Solutions were compared with specific examples in the literature, such as the one-depot VRP. This algorithm produced better solutions than some of the best-known benchmark VRP solutions and requires less computational time. The algorithm outperformed previous methods used to solve very large-scale, real-world distance constrained capacitated VRP.     

TWO ELECTRIC POTENTIAL SIGNATURES OF SERIAL DIURNAL FROST

During a 96-hour period in mid-March 1987, a series of four serial frost-thaw events occurred in a research field at the University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens. Soil temperature and electric potential were recorded at two near surface probe arrays (0, 3, 6 & 9 cm) and (0, 5, 10 & 15 cm) with a horizontal separation of approximately 1 m beneath the organic-mineral soil interface at hourly intervals. These time series revealed strong repetitive serial patterns. When the electric potential measurements were converted to a surrogate measure of electrolyte concentration, the C-index, strong coupled flow effects appeared to be present in the time series owing to the effects of surface freeze-thaw, evaporation-distillation and soil water advection.

The data set shows the low frequency effects of upward soil water advection increasing the soil temperature and modulating the electrolyte concentration. These observations also demonstrate that soil freezing processes have two distinct regimes dominated by (1) early soil water advection toward the frost front from below and (2) downward expulsion of electrolyte-rich water as ice fills the pore space. These two processes of soil water advection and expulsion augmented by local evaporation produce two distinct near surface C-index signatures of serial diurnal frost. The signature depends on the direction of the vertical electrolyte gradient near the surface. [Key words: soil, frost-thaw, soil water, soil temperature.]