Shallow sublittoral meiofauna communities and sediment polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) content on the Galician coast (NW Spain), six months after the Prestige oil spill

The aim of this work was to detect the impact of Prestige oil spill on meiobenthic community structure at higher levels of taxonomic aggregation. In addition, the relationship between sediment individual polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentration and meiofauna community structure was investigated. Six months after the Prestige oil spill, meiobenthos community and sediment PAHs content from seven shallow subtidal localities along the Galician coast were studied. Two sites presented differences in community structure, characterized by high densities of nematodes, gastrotrichs and turbellarians, and low densities of copepods. Chrysene and triphenylene were only found at these two disturbed sites and could be responsible for differences of meiobenthos community structure. However, differences in community structure of sites could be linked with sedimentary parameters, and discrimination between the effect of PAHs and sedimentary parameters was impossible due to the lack of baseline studies on meiobenthos and PAHs contents in this area.     

PUBLIC POLICY ASSESSMENT: EVALUATING OBJECTIVES OF RESOURCE POLICIES*

Evaluations of a variety of types are increasingly being incorporated into the process of public policy formulation. A conventional role of evaluation has been to assess expected or actual consequences of policy strategies relative to policy objectives. This paper describes an additional type of evaluation in which policy objectives are assessed relative to perceived resource use policy problems. This type of evaluation is applicable to a wide range of policy issues at various scales.     

海运船舶尾气洗涤废水中多环芳烃对海洋污染的研究现状及展望

分析了海运船舶尾气洗涤废水排放对多环芳烃（PAHs）类污染物的海洋富集行为的影响以及对PAHs控制的制约因素和净化技术发展现状。PAHs的海洋富集趋势与船舶的发动机尾气排放行为呈正相关性,且船舶尾气洗涤废水排放加速了PAHs向海洋中富集。国际海事组织（IMO）尚未对在PAHs中占比大且毒性强的烷基化多环芳烃进行立法限制,但单方面采取措施禁止船舶尾气洗涤废水在其所属海域排放的国家和地区日益增多,洗涤废水排放的PAHs类污染物亟须净化处理。将高级氧化光催化技术应用于洗涤废水排放的PAHs净化具有发展前景。我国应抓住机遇,大力开展针对海洋PAHs的排放限制立法以及船舶尾气洗涤废水处理先进技术的研究,这对于提升我国海事管理水平、增大国际话语权,以及保护海洋生态安全具有重要意义。     

Bayesian analyses of seasonal runoff forecasts

Forecasts of seasonal snowmelt runoff volume provide indispensable information for rational decision making by water project operators, irrigation district managers, and farmers in the western United States. Bayesian statistical models and communication frames have been researched in order to enhance the forecast information disseminated to the users, and to characterize forecast skill from the decision maker's point of view. Four products are presented: (i) a Bayesian Processor of Forecasts, which provides a statistical filter for calibrating the forecasts, and a procedure for estimating the posterior probability distribution of the seasonal runoff; (ii) the Bayesian Correlation Score, a new measure of forecast skill, which is related monotonically to theex ante economic value of forecasts for decision making; (iii) a statistical predictor of monthly cumulative runoffs within the snowmelt season, conditional on the total seasonal runoff forecast; and (iv) a framing of the forecast message that conveys the uncertainty associated with the forecast estimates to the users. All analyses are illustrated with numerical examples of forecasts for six gauging stations from the period 1971–1988.     

Filtered incremental velocity: A novel approach in intensity measures for seismic collapse estimation

This study evaluates the performance of a new intensity measure, referred to as filtered incremental velocity FIV3, which is computed using time-domain features extracted from an acceleration time series and is aimed at the evaluation of structural collapse. This novel approach focuses on the area under a small number of acceleration pulses in the ground motion instead of focusing on the peak response of linear elastic oscillators as in many recently proposed measures of ground motion intensity. FIV3 is developed based on previous research that has highlighted the close relation between the incremental velocity of a ground motion and its potential to induce large inelastic incursions on structures. However, unlike the original definition of incremental velocity which provides a single level of intensity for a ground motion, this new intensity measure is period-dependent and computed as the sum of the three largest incremental velocities obtained from a low-pass filtered ground acceleration time series. Efficiency and sufficiency with respect to several ground motion parameters such as magnitude, source-to-site-distance, spectral shape, scale factor, and duration are carefully evaluated and compared against those computed with some traditional and recently proposed intensity measures using collapse results from a four-story reinforced concrete frame. Results indicate that FIV3 leads to lower variability of collapse estimates and therefore higher efficiency as well as high sufficiency compared with those of other ground motion intensity parameters indicating that this new intensity measure is a promising parameter for structural collapse risk assessment.     

A METHOD FOR MEASURING THE SPATIAL ASSOCIATION BETWEEN POINT PATTERNS

Evaluations of a variety of types are increasingly being incorporated into the process of public policy formulation. A conventional role of evaluation has been to assess expected or actual consequences of policy strategies relative to policy objectives. This paper describes an additional type of evaluation in which policy objectives are assessed relative to perceived resource use policy problems. This type of evaluation is applicable to a wide range of policy issues at various scales.     

惯性测量单元基准面与载体平台的标定方法研究

针对惯性测量单元(IMU)基准面与载体平台之间的标定,在通过基准面法向量建立惯性测量单元基准面坐标系与载体平台坐标系的基础上,研究并分别比较利用单台全站仪角度交会及摄影测量技术的标定方法,以实现IMU与载体平台之间快速、方便以及高精度的标定。通过标定实验及误差分析表明,摄影测量标定精度高,时间短,稳定性好,更适合应用于IMU和载体平台安装后的标定工作。     

Genera as proxies for species α‐ and β‐diversity: tested across a deep‐water Atlantic–Arctic boundary

The deep‐sea floor is increasingly subject to anthropogenic impacts. Consequently, there are increasing efforts to develop appropriate management strategies. Species‐level indicators and assessments are hampered in the deep sea by the high proportion of unknown species routinely encountered. If environmental management is to keep pace with exploitation, alternative approaches including higher taxon surrogacy (taxonomic sufficiency) must be considered. Here we compare genus‐ and species‐level studies of the diversity and ecology of deep‐sea macrobenthos on the West Shetland Slope (NE Atlantic). This is an environmentally complex region that encompasses a biogeographic transition from temperate North Atlantic to Arctic conditions, and so may be particularly challenging for any general relationship between species‐ and genus‐level analyses. We ask two questions: (i) does genus diversity reflect species diversity and (ii) does genus‐level ecology reflect species‐level ecology? We conclude that among the West Shetland Slope macrobenthos: (i) genus‐level α‐ and β‐diversity measures are highly correlated with and good predictors of their species‐level equivalents and (ii) that their ecology is very well described by genus‐level data. We further note that, given the complexity of the West Shetland Slope environment, it may be reasonable to expect these conclusions to hold in other deep‐sea environments.     

Topological relations between spherical spatial regions with holes

ABSTRACT

There is growing interest in globally modelling the entire planet. Although topological relations between spherical simple regions and topological relations between regions with holes in the plane have been investigated, few studies have focused on the topological relations between spherical spatial regions with holes. The 16-intersection model (16IM) is proposed to describe the topological relations between spatial regions with holes. A total of 25 negative conditions are proposed to eliminate the impossible topological relations between spherical spatial regions with holes. The results show that (1) 3 disjoint relations, 3 meet relations, 66 overlap relations, 7 cover relations, 3 contain relations, 1 equal relation, 7 coveredBy relations, 3 inside relations, 1 attach relation, 52 entwined relations, and 28 embrace relations can be distinguished by the 16IM and that (2) the formalisms of attach, entwined, and embrace relations between the spherical spatial regions without holes based on the 9IM and that between the spherical spatial regions with holes based on the simplified 16IM are different, whereas the formalisms of other types of relations between spherical spatial regions without holes based on the 9IM and that between the spherical spatial regions with holes based on a simplified 16IM are the same.     

Prediction of spatially distributed seismic demands in specific structures: Ground motion and structural response

The efficacy of various ground motion intensity measures (IMs) in the prediction of spatially distributed seismic demands (engineering demand parameters, (EDPs)) within a structure is investigated. This has direct implications to building‐specific seismic loss estimation, where the seismic demand on different components is dependent on the location of the component in the structure. Several common IMs are investigated in terms of their ability to predict the spatially distributed demands in a 10‐storey office building, which is measured in terms of maximum interstorey drift ratios and maximum floor accelerations. It is found that the ability of an IM to efficiently predict a specific EDP depends on the similarity between the frequency range of the ground motion that controls the IM and that of the EDP. An IMs predictability has a direct effect on the median response demands for ground motions scaled to a specified probability of exceedance from a ground motion hazard curve. All of the IMs investigated were found to be insufficient with respect to at least one of magnitude, source‐to‐site distance, or epsilon when predicting all peak interstorey drifts and peak floor accelerations in a 10‐storey reinforced concrete frame structure. Careful ground motion selection and/or seismic demand modification is therefore required to predict such a spatially distributed demands without significant bias. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.