Risk and uncertainty analysis in the planning stages of a risk decision-making process

Natural disaster risk, a long-time concern in the insurance industry, is increasingly recognized as a present danger in the business strategies of risk control and enterprise management agencies. Floods and earthquakes can cause massive loss of life and infrastructure, resulting in business interruption and heavy casualties. Many of the short-term developmental strategies employed throughout the world have only served to exacerbate the impact of natural disasters. Therefore, this study presents a review of formal methods that are commonly used in risk and uncertainty analysis in planning and concludes with a critical assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of the different priority setting methods. Our focus is a preliminary proposal for developing an efficient probabilistic approach to facilitate design optimization that involves probabilistic constraints.     

PETROCHEMISTRY AND MINERALOGY EVIDENCES FOR THE WEATHERING PROCESS OF THE WEATHERING PITS ON ROCK SURFACES OF MOUNTAIN LAOSHAN,CHINA

2011年5月对崂山山顶风化坑进行考察和采样,通过对风化坑内碎屑和坑外岩石的粉晶X射线衍射矿物分析、X射线荧光光谱化学全量分析,研究了风化坑内外的矿物风化及各元素迁移特征,对风化坑的成因过程进行探讨.研究结果表明:1)崂山山顶风化坑碎屑的英长比总是大于其周边岩石的英长比,说明风化坑的形成是花岗岩造岩矿物差异风化的结果;2)风化坑风化过程中被风化的岩石矿物主要是条纹长石和钾长石;3)风化坑中大量的Mg和Ca主要是外部加入的;4)崂山山顶风化坑内碎屑,坑外岩石面均受到化学风化的作用;5)崂山山顶风化坑内外的风化指数CIA值并不反映崂山当地的气候,山上山下CIA值的差异是风化时间长短不同造成的;6)LOI能很好地反映崂山风化坑内外风化强度的差异,说明长石主要在水解作用下发生分解,也说明了风化坑的积水成因.     

DEM analyses of crack propagation in flawed rock mass under uniaxial compressionEI北大核心CSCD

A contact model for rock is established and imbedded into a DEM software by summarizing the bond granule tests. DEM simulation of uniaxial compression test on the pre-cracked Lac du Bonnet granite is performed, and then stress distributions are further analyzed and compared with the theoretical results. Different fracture criteria are employed to predict the crack initiation angles that are compared with theoretical ones. The results show that the failure modes obtained from DEM simulation are similar to experimental results, and stress distributions in DEM simulation are qualitatively similar to theoretical values. When the angle of pre-crack is small, the lateral stresses are compressive and tensile. The compressive strains concentrate at two edges, resulting in the tensile strains in the up-and downward cracks. When the angle of the pre-crack is large enough, the stress concentration is unobvious, leading to a discrepancy between the DEM and theoretical results. The crack extension angle resulting from uniaxial compression measured from DEM tests are in good agreement with those acquired from experimental tests. These angles are consistent with theoretical predictions by the maximum circumferential stress criterion and the maximum energy release rate criterion.     

Mercury indicating inflow zones and ruptures along the Wenchuan Ms 8.0 earthquake fault

Acta Geochimica - During the Wenchuan Fault Scientific Drilling Project, we determined the values of total mercury (HgT) and gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) from drilled cores and drilling mud,...     

月球岩石圈弹性厚度研究进展

月球热演化研究需要丰富的月表热流数据.当前唯一的月表热流数据不完全可靠,单一数据也不足代表月球全球热流特征,通过月球岩石圈弹性厚度估算月表热流将会是有效的替代方案.针对弹性厚度估算的问题,概要回顾了以往估算的研究方法和成果,并对近年来利用重力地形导纳估算弹性厚度的理论方法进行了详细的介绍.近年来的研究结果表明月球全球岩...     

Effects of key components of <Emphasis Type="Italic">S. triqueter</Emphasis> root exudates on fractions and bioavailability of pyrene–lead co-contaminated soils

The key components of S. triqueter root exudates involved 4-oxo-pentanoic acid, succinic acid, glutaric acid, phthalate acid, citric acid, vanillic acid, myristic acid, pentadecanoic acid, decanoic acid, 14-methyl-pentadecanoic acid, hexadecanoic acid, octadecanoic acid and oleic acid, and the content of the water-soluble organic acids (citric acid, succinic acid and glutaric acid) significantly increased in pyrene and lead co-contaminated rhizosphere soil. These three water-soluble organic acids including citric acid, succinic acid and glutaric acid were detected as the specific root exudates of S. triqueter under stress of pollutants for pyrene and lead, so they were chosen as the research objects, and they were added into the bioremediation systems of pyrene and lead co-contaminated wetland soils. Compared with the control, the treatments added the three organic acids always improved the quantity of the bioavailable fraction of pyrene and lead in wetland soils and greatly influenced other chemical states of pyrene and lead fractions in the test concentration range. Under the 50 g kg^?1 of organic acids concentration, the amount of the bioavailable fraction of pyrene and lead increased 41.0 and 872.7 % by citric acid, respectively. The enhancement of bioavailability of pyrene and lead in the wetland soil by adding organic acids generally decreased in the following order: citric acid > succinic acid > glutaric acid. Enhancing effects of organic acids on the bioavailability improvement of pyrene and lead is remarkable.     

Zircon U-Pb and oxygen isotope evidence for a large-scale O depletion event in igneous rocks during the Neoproterozoic

Oxygen isotope analysis and U-Pb dating were carried out on zircons from granite, granitic gneiss and eclogite in the Dabie-Sulu orogenic belt of east-central China. The results show a wide variation in zircon δ¹⁸O values from −10.9 to 8.5‰. Most of the values are lower than normal mantle zircon and almost half have prominently negative values. The low δ¹⁸O zircons have protolith ages of 700 to 800 Ma and metamorphic ages of 205 to 250 Ma, respectively. Fluid availability within the metaigneous rocks dictates the extent of metamorphic recrystallization and overgrowth. The igneous zircons have preserved their magmatic zoning and middle Neoproterozoic U-Pb age during the Triassic metamorphism, indicating low fluid availability. Widespread low δ¹⁸O values are identified in the magmatic zircons of middle Neoproterozoic age, within an outcrop area of over 20,000 km² along the northern edge of the South China Block. The low δ¹⁸O zircons record the presence of large volumes of low δ¹⁸O igneous rocks that were derived from remelting of meteoric-hydrothermally altered rocks at some time between 700 and 800 Ma.The U-Pb ages for metaigneous protoliths and granites are correlated not only with the timing of rifting accompanying the breakup of Rodinia, but also with contemporary glacial deposits in the South China Block at paleolatitudes of 30 to 40°N. Melting of glacial ice and snow is suggested, instead of the direct involvement of meteoric water, to produce the low δ¹⁸O fluid with oxygen isotopic signatures like the cold-climate meteoric water. The rifting created conditions favorable to anatexis of meteoric-hydrothermally altered rocks. Glaciated regions supplied copious water for the water-rock interaction during magma emplacement along rifting zones. Both rifting and glaciation favored the generation of the low δ¹⁸O magmas in the region. The low δ¹⁸O zircons are thus interpreted to have crystallized from the low δ¹⁸O magmas of middle Neoproterozoic age, and onset of the generation of low δ¹⁸O magmas in the northern margin of the South China Block is estimated to occur at about 758 ± 15 Ma. The large-scale remelting of hydrothermally altered crust not only results from repetitive emplacement of mafic magmas along the rifting zones with protracted episodes of water-rock interaction, but also involves rift systems that rapidly introduce large volumes of fluid through confined pathways and traps in a short space of time in response to tectonic triggers. Occurrence of the large-scale ¹⁸O depletion during the middle Neoproterozoic may be a manifestation of the cold paleoclimate related to the snowball Earth event.     

A Comparison between a Modified Counter Propagation Network and an Extended Self-Organizing Map in Remotely Sensed Data Classification

A modified counter propagation network model and an extended self-organizing map model have the same three-layer network architecture while employing slightly different learning rules. Their network architecture comprises an input layer, a Kohonen layer and an output layer. The neurons between two neighboring layers are fully connected and the neighboring neurons within the Kohonen layer also have neighborhood connections. The modified counter propagation network model employs the Kohonen algorithm to train the Kohonen layer while using the Widrow–Hoff rule to train the output layer. However, the extended self-organizing map model applies a modified Kohonen’s learning rule to train both the Kohonen layer and the output layer. This paper compares the performances of these two models in supervised classification of remotely sensed data. The training results show that compared to the extended self-organizing map model, the modified counter propagation model has faster learning speed but larger output errors. The classification results indicate that the extended self-organizing map model has a faster classification speed and a much higher classification precision than the modified counter propagation model.     

Rapid forecasting of urban flood inundation using multiple machine learning models

Natural Hazards - Urban flood inundation is worsening as the number of short-duration rainstorms increases, and it is difficult to accurately predict urban flood inundation over a long lead time;...