EMERGY ANALYSIS OF GRAIN PRODUCTION SYSTEM IN JIANGSU AND SHAANXI PROVINCES

Efficiency and sustainability of grain production are now important in China. In this study, the grain production systems of Jiangsu and Shaanxi Provinces were compared, to analyze their efficiency and sustainability in terms of utilization of natural resources, inputs of purchased energy and materials, and outputs. Flows of energy and materials between environment and human society were identified, and the natural and human work involved in generating inputs as materials or energy were valued in terms of equivalent amount of solar energy required for their production using emergy method. The results showed environmental resources were continually playing a less important role in the systems, when inorganic subsidiary emergy inputs increased drastically while organic ones decreased or increased little. Deterioration of input emergy structure affected the systems‘ efficiency and sustainability, resulting in emergy investment ratios and environmental loading ratios increasing while yield ratios and sustainability indices decreasing. In general, efficiency and sustainability of grain production in Jiangsu are worse than those in Shaanxi. This analysis also suggested that inorganic subsidiary emergy should be introduced properly, and peasants in Jiangsu should utilize natural conditions wisely while those in Shaanxi pay enough attention to soil and surface water conservation.     

Hornton Stone: battlefields, buildings and Jurassic seas

The Hornton Stone is an unusually pure ooidal ironstone of the Lower Jurassic Marlstone Rock Formation, cropping out on the Edge Hill escarpment and adjacent ironstone plateau in central England. The stone has been quarried for building and ornamental purposes since Medieval times, and more recently as a source of iron ore. Local quarries and buildings provide excellent opportunities to appreciate its fossil content, sedimentary structures and origin.     

Survival of organic phases in porous IDPs during atmospheric entry: A pulse‐heating study

Abstract— In this study, we have performed pulse‐heating experiments at different temperatures for three organic molecules (a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon [PAH], a ketone, and an amino acid) absorbed into microporous aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) in order to imitate the heating of the organic molecules in interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) and micrometeorites (MMs) during atmospheric entry and to investigate their survival. We have shown that modest amounts (a few percent) of these organic molecules survive pulse‐heating at temperatures in the 700 to 900 °C range. This suggests that the porosity in IDPs and MMs, combined with a sublimable phase (organic material, water), produces an ablative cooling effect, which permits the survival of organic molecules that would otherwise be lost either by thermal degradation or evaporation during atmospheric entry.     

A sensitivity study of the role of continental location and area on Paleozoic climate

The seasonal variation of the surface temperature is calculated for various idealized paleogeographic conditions with a 1.5-dimensional (1.5-D) coupled climate-sea ice model. The sensitivity of the annual and summer polar temperatures to the meridional oceanic heat transport and to the parameterizations adopted for the snow and sea ice albedos is examined in connection with the location and size of a polar global super-continent. It is shown that the high latitude summer temperatures remain below the freezing point in all numerical simulations with a polar super-continent, thus suggesting the potential role played by a large polar continental mass in the initiation of glaciations. These results are in agreement with a previous 1.5-D energy balance model (EBM) study but in conflict with two-dimensional (2-D) EBMs suggesting above-freezing high latitude summer temperatures in the case of a polar-centered super-continent. It is also found that the amount of seasonality is strongly dependent on the details of the surface albedo feedback parameterizations and could explain the various model diverging results.If a simplified temperature dependence of the silicate weathering rate controlling the long-term carbon cycle is included, the atmospheric CO₂ level is significantly increased in the case of a polar-centered continent but summer temperatures still remain below freezing.     

Binaries in the universe. possible dynamical mechanisms of formation,evolution and disruption of different kinds of constituents of the universe

We study the dynamics of extended shells of relatively low-mass particles around and inside the orbit of two heavy centres of gravity (a binary) by computer simulations. The binary components are surrounded byN = 16 000 small mass particles in uniform random distribution on few spherical envelopes with different radii expanding with respective velocities. Some shells are inside the orbit of binary.We apply this model to binary galaxy systems with baryonic dark matter, e.g., massive black holes. In principle, we can apply this model to different kinds of objects (from binary star systems until superclusters of galaxies).It is shown that the shell expands homologously with a decreasing velocity and then, falls back into the binary system forming zones of compressed matter. At some moment of time there could be a collapse of these particles on to the heavier component of the binary. Further in time, some part of particles which were outside the binary orbit escape from the system. Other particles which were initially inside of the orbit are captured by binary components.We consider a number of different models with different initial parameters. For models with smaller radii of shells, about one-half of the particles escape from systems; whereas for larger values the shell disrupts as a whole. Escaping particles form collimated flows in planes of orbits of binaries. Positions of flows and directions of motion depend on positions of heavier components of binaries at the moment of a closest approach of particles and on ratios of masses of binary components.We show that during evolution of our models different kinds of structures of systems often are very similar to the observed structures of galaxies: spiral and elliptical galaxies, interacting galaxies, different kinds of flows and jets. Totally systems are expanding - after 40 periods of rotation of the binary the system expands by 300 times.     

Light curve and O−C diagram analysis of RZ Cassiopeiae

The aim of the present paper is to analyze the light variation as well as the period changes of the eclipsing binary RZ Cas. New photometric elements are computed using the frequency-domain method. The possibility of the light-time effect and the apsidal motion is discussed.