The socioeconomic impacts of nuclear generating stations: An analysis of the Rancho Seco and peach bottom facilities

This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis of the socioeconomic impacts of the construction and operation of two nuclear generating stations. Although the construction of nuclear power plants is typically a multiyear process utilizing large numbers of workers and requiring large expenditures for equipment and materials, the socioeconomic changes in the areas in which the plants are located were small and temporary. The extent and size of the changes were found to be related to the size of the work force residing in the local area, the magnitude of local utility and contractor purchases, the amount of tax payments resulting from the plant, and the level of involvement of area groups over plant-related issues.     

Geochemical background in soils: a linear process domain? An example from Istria (Croatia)

Definition of geochemical background in exploration and environmental geochemistry has always been regarded as contingent upon scale and investigated locality but mostly under assumption that hosts of processes that produce the data more or less conform individually to Gaussian law of “central tendencies”. Recently, understanding of pedogenesis as synergetic process being characterized by non-linear dynamics renders thermodynamic approach directly applicable in assessment of geochemical thresholds, with concepts of linearity and normality set alongside in solving the problems of soil geochemistry. Seen from this perspective the work is an attempt to relate conceptual fundamentals of non-linear dynamical theory to basic statistical methods in order to elucidate the nature and origins of element subpopulations hidden in the original geochemical data from the soils of Istrian Peninsula (western Croatia). To this purpose the two major groups of soils were selected for analysis depending on the type of bedrock as one of the main soil-forming factors. Geochemical data were subjected to the trimming procedure by which the outliers were removed from the total data collective and attributed to non-linear causes precluding simple cause-and-effect relationships as the sine qua non of Gaussian distribution. Geochemical background is then defined as the normal range of data of the remaining (trimmed) dataset indicating the “thermodynamic branch” of the specific soil processes as opposed to outliers being described as dissipative structures.     

An Improvized Core-Drilling Technique and a New Device for Osteohistology of Fossil Bones: Implementation on a Jurassic Sauropod Dinosaur from India

An improvized version of the conventional core drilling technique, based on a new device is introduced in the current work for extracting cores from fossil bones to understand their microanatomy. A powerful, low-speed electric drill with an autolubrication facility is used as the new device, and the bone specimen is placed on a permanently fixed platform beneath the drill bit. It avoids the vibration-induced wobbling of the conventional handheld drill machine and helps in precision sampling. Long drill bits of the new device result in extraction of long cores, reduce premature breakages of cores, and recovery of the entire bone microstructure for high resolution deduction of palaeobiological information. As this version of drilling technique is less destructive, it has better sampling coverage, where fossil bones can be restored to their original shapes and preserved with almost no loss in gross morphology. This is first time such a device for extraction of fossil drill cores has been installed. After test run on dummy samples, the new device has been successfully implemented for extraction of eleven cores from various long bones of the early Jurassic sauropod dinosaur Barapasaurus tagorei. The fossil bones are restored to their pre-coring shapes, the detail protocols of which are discussed here for the first time.     

Template-based classification of SDSS-<Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">GALEX</Emphasis> point sources

We have classified a sample of 37,492 objects from SDSS into QSOs, galaxies and stars using photometric data over five wave bands (u, g, r, i and z) and UV GALEX data over two wave bands (near-UV and far-UV) based on a template fitting method. The advantage of this method of classification is that it does not require any spectroscopic data and hence the objects for which spectroscopic data is not available can also be studied using this technique. In this study, we have found that our method is consistent by spectroscopic methods given that their UV information is available. Our study shows that the UV colours are especially important for separating quasars and stars, as well as spiral and starburst galaxies. Thus it is evident that the UV bands play a crucial role in the classification and characterization of astronomical objects that emit over a wide range of wavelengths, but especially for those that are bright at UV. We have achieved the efficiency of 89% for the QSOs, 63% for the galaxies and 84% for the stars. This classification is also found to be in agreement with the emission line diagnostic diagrams.     

Determination of 3D Trajectories of Knots in Solar Prominences Using MSDP Data

In this paper we present a new method of restoration of the true three-dimensional (3D) trajectories of prominence knots using ground-based observations taken with a single telescope that is equipped with a Multi-Channel Subtractive Double Pass imaging spectrograph. Our method allows us to evaluate the true 3D trajectories of the prominence knots without any assumptions concerning the shape of the trajectories or the dynamics of the motion. The reconstructed trajectories of several knots observed in three prominences are presented.     

Restrain of a seismically isolated bridge by external stoppers

The current design of seismically isolated bridges usually combines the use of bearings and stoppers, as a second line of defence. The stoppers allow the development of the in-service movements of the bridge deck, without transmitting significant loads to the piers and their foundations, while during earthquake they transmit the entire seismic action. Despite the fact that stoppers, which restrain the transverse seismic movements of the deck, are used frequently in seismically isolated bridges, the use of longitudinal stoppers is relatively rare, mainly due to the large in-service constraint movements of bridges. The present paper proposes a new type of external longitudinal stoppers, which are installed in stiff sub-structures-boundaries, aiming at limiting the bridge seismic movements. The parametric investigation, which was conducted in order to identify the seismic efficiency of the external stoppers, showed that the interaction of the bridge with the stiff boundaries can lead to significant reductions in the seismic movements of the bridge. Serviceability is appropriately arranged in the paper by expansion joints and approach slabs.     

Recent Rapid Regional Climate Warming on the Antarctic Peninsula

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed that mean global warming was 0.6 ± 0.2 °C during the 20th century and cited anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases as the likely cause of temperature rise in the last 50 years. But this mean value conceals the substantial complexity of observed climate change, which is seasonally- and diurnally-biased, decadally-variable and geographically patchy. In particular, over the last 50 years three high-latitude areas have undergone recent rapid regional (RRR) warming, which was substantially more rapid than the global mean. However, each RRR warming occupies a different climatic regime and may have an entirely different underlying cause. We discuss the significance of RRR warming in one area, the Antarctic Peninsula. Here warming was much more rapid than in the rest of Antarctica where it was not significantly different to the global mean. We highlight climate proxies that appear to show that RRR warming on the Antarctic Peninsula is unprecedented over the last two millennia, and so unlikely to be a natural mode of variability. So while the station records do not indicate a ubiquitous polar amplification of global warming, the RRR warming on the Antarctic Peninsula might be a regional amplification of such warming. This, however, remains unproven since we cannot yet be sure what mechanism leads to such an amplification. We discuss several possible candidate mechanisms: changing oceanographic or changing atmospheric circulation, or a regional air-sea-ice feedback amplifying greenhouse warming. We can show that atmospheric warming and reduction in sea-ice duration coincide in a small area on the west of the Antarctic Peninsula, but here we cannot yet distinguish cause and effect. Thus for the present we cannot determine which process is the probable cause of RRR warming on the Antarctic Peninsula and until the mechanism initiating and sustaining the RRR warming is understood, and is convincingly reproduced in climate models, we lack a sound basis for predicting climate change in this region over the coming century.     

Near-field probabilistic seismic hazard analysis with characteristic earthquake effects

In conventional seismic hazard analysis, uniform distribution over area and magnitude range is assumed for the evaluation of source seismicity which is not able to capture peculiar characteristic of near-fault ground motion well. For near-field hazard analysis, two important factors need to be considered: (1) rupture directivity effects and (2) occurrence of scenario characteristic ruptures in the nearby sources. This study proposed a simple framework to consider these two effects by modifying the predictions from the conventional ground motion model based on pulse occurrence probability and adjustment of the magnitude frequency distribution to account for the rupture characteristic of the fault. The results of proposed approach are compared with those of deterministic and probabilistic seismic hazard analyses. The results indicate that characteristic earthquake and directivity consideration both have significant effects on seismic hazard analysis estimates. The implemented approach leads to results close to deterministic seismic hazard analysis in the short period ranges (T < 1.0 s) and follows probabilistic seismic hazard analysis results in the long period ranges (T > 1.0 s). Finally, seismic hazard maps based on the proposed method could be developed and compared with other methods.     

Comment on “Is there a paleolimnological explanation for ‘walking on water’ in the Sea of Galilee?”

In a recent paper, Nof et al. (J Paleolimnol 35:417–439, 2006) suggest a physical mechanism which could account for the formation of ice on Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) in northern Israel. Based on the sea surface temperature record of sediment cores from the Mediterranean Sea the authors argue that centennial-scale cold events had the potential to trigger local ‘springs ice’ formation on the lake in the past. Here, we demonstrate that a closer inspection of the paleoceanographic record in combination with correlation and regression analyses of meteorological data provides no evidence for such cold events in the lake region during the last 10,000 years. Thus, the formation of ‘springs ice’ on Lake Kinneret was unlikely at least since the beginning of the Neolithic.     

Numerical solution to the oblique derivative boundary value problem on non-uniform grids above the Earth topography

The paper presents a numerical solution of the oblique derivative boundary value problem on and above the Earth’s topography using the finite volume method (FVM). It introduces a novel method for constructing non-uniform hexahedron 3D grids above the Earth’s surface. It is based on an evolution of a surface, which approximates the Earth’s topography, by mean curvature. To obtain optimal shapes of non-uniform 3D grid, the proposed evolution is accompanied by a tangential redistribution of grid nodes. Afterwards, the Laplace equation is discretized using FVM developed for such a non-uniform grid. The oblique derivative boundary condition is treated as a stationary advection equation, and we derive a new upwind type discretization suitable for non-uniform 3D grids. The discretization of the Laplace equation together with the discretization of the oblique derivative boundary condition leads to a linear system of equations. The solution of this system gives the disturbing potential in the whole computational domain including the Earth’s surface. Numerical experiments aim to show properties and demonstrate efficiency of the developed FVM approach. The first experiments study an experimental order of convergence of the method. Then, a reconstruction of the harmonic function on the Earth’s topography, which is generated from the EGM2008 or EIGEN-6C4 global geopotential model, is presented. The obtained FVM solutions show that refining of the computational grid leads to more precise results. The last experiment deals with local gravity field modelling in Slovakia using terrestrial gravity data. The GNSS-levelling test shows accuracy of the obtained local quasigeoid model.