Employment mobility in high-technology agglomerations: the cases of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire

This paper examines labour market behaviour of the highly skilled in high-tech local economies, taking the UK examples of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire as case studies. It reports on data from a survey of members of three scientific institutes to compare rates of employee mobility in the two locations and considers the likely explanations and implications of those patterns.     

Element mobility during pyrite weathering: implications for acid and heavy metal pollution at mining-impacted sites

Based on back scattered electron images and electron micro-probe analysis results, four alteration layers, including a transition layer, a reticulated ferric oxide layer, a nubby ferric oxide layer and a cellular ferric oxide layer, were identified in the naturally weathering products of pyrite. These layers represent a progressive alteration sequence of pyrite under weathering conditions. The cellular ferric oxide layer correlates with the strongest weathering phase and results from the dissolution of nubby ferric oxide by acidic porewater. Leaching coefficient was introduced to better express the response of element mobility to the degree of pyrite weathering. Its variation shows that the mobility of S, Co and Bi is stronger than As, Cu and Zn. Sulfur in pyrite is oxidized to sulfuric acid and sulfate that are basically released into to porewater, and heavy metals Co and Bi are evidently released by acid dissolution. As, Cu and Zn are enriched in ferric oxide by adsorption and by co-precipitation, but they would re-release to the environment via desorption or dissolution when porewater pH becomes low enough. Consequently, Co, Bi, As, Cu and Zn may pose a substantial impact on water quality. Considering that metal mobility and its concentration in mine waste are two important factors influencing heavy metal pollution at mining-impacted sites, Bi and Co are more important pollutants in this case.     

An alternative Boussinesq equation considering the effect of hysteresis on coastal groundwater waves

This paper presents an alternative Boussinesq equation considering hysteresis effect via a third‐order derivative term. By introducing an improved moisture–pressure retention function, this equation describes, with reasonable precision, groundwater propagation in coastal aquifers subject to Dirichlet boundary condition of different oscillation frequencies. Test results confirmed that it is necessary to consider horizontal and vertical flows in unsaturated zone, because of their variable influences on hysteresis. Hysteresis in unsaturated zone can affect the water table wave number of groundwater wave motion, such as wave damping rate and phase lag. Oscillations with different periods exert different hysteresis effect on wave propagation. Truncation/shrinkage of unsaturated zones also affects the strength of hysteresis. These impacts can be reflected in the alternative Boussinesq equation by adjusting the parameter representing the variation rate of moisture associated with pressure change, as opposed to traditional computationally expensive hysteresis algorithms. The present Boussinesq equation is simple to use and can provide feasible basis for future coupling of groundwater and surface water models. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Glacial flood pulse effects on benthic fauna in equatorial high‐Andean streams

Equatorial glacier‐fed streams present unique hydraulic patterns when compared to glacier‐fed observed in temperate regions as the main variability in discharge occurs on a daily basis. To assess how benthic fauna respond to these specific hydraulic conditions, we investigated the relationships between flow regime, hydraulic conditions (boundary Reynolds number, Re*), and macroinvertebrate communities (taxon richness and abundance) in a tropical glacier‐fed stream located in the high Ecuadorian Andes (> 4000 m). Both physical and biotic variables were measured under four discharge conditions (base‐flow and glacial flood pulses of various intensities), at 30 random points, in two sites whose hydraulic conditions were representative to those found in other streams of the study catchment. While daily glacial flood pulses significantly increased hydraulic stress in the benthic habitats (appearance of Re* > 2000), low stress areas still persisted even during extreme flood events (Re* < 500). In contrast to previous research in temperate glacier‐fed streams, taxon richness and abundance were not significantly affected by changes in hydraulic conditions induced by daily glacial flood pulses. However, we found that a few rare taxa, in particular rare ones, preferentially occurred in highly stressed hydraulic habitats. Monte‐Carlo simulations of benthic communities under glacial flood reduction scenarios predicted that taxon richness would be significantly reduced by the loss of high hydraulic stress habitats following glacier shrinking. This pioneer study on the relationship between hydraulic conditions and benthic diversity in an equatorial glacial stream evidenced unknown effects of climate change on singular yet endangered aquatic systems. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

智能卡和出租车轨迹数据中蕴含城市人群活动模式的差异性分析

当前采用交通流数据量化城市人群活动模式研究已经取得了丰硕的研究成果,但是对于同一区域、同一时段不同类型交通流数据反映城市人群活动模式的共性与差异性仍然知之甚少,直接影响了城市人群活动模式挖掘结果的可解释性与实际应用效果。为此,本文旨在对目前广泛采用的智能卡数据（公交和地铁刷卡）和出租车轨迹数据2种重要的交通流数据,从时空分布模式的差异性、行程距离及距离衰减效应的差异性、空间社团结构的差异性3个方面,探索二者反映城市人群活动模式的差异性：① 采用北京市六环以内区域2016年5月9日至15日的智能卡和出租车轨迹数据进行实验分析,研究发现：① 2种交通流反映出行需求的空间分布呈现出高度相关性,但是在同一空间单元上,2种交通流反映出行需求的时间相关性较低;② 2种交通流的使用率在不同空间位置存在明显差异,仅在城市中心区域使用率较为均衡;③ 2种交通流反映人群行程距离的空间分布、距离衰减效应存在明显差异,公共交通对于促进长距离出行更为重要;④ 从2种交通流发现的空间社团结构都显示了城市的多中心结构特征,但是二者发现社团结构存在的差异性表明两种交通方式对城市空间交互起着不同的作用。本研究有助于深入理解多源交通流反映城市人群活动的内在机理,提升城市人群活动模式在城市规划、交通管理等领域的应用效果。     

Insights into the complexity of crustal differentiation: K2O‐poor leucosomes within metasedimentary migmatites from the Southern Marginal Zone of the Limpopo Belt,South Africa

Differentiation of the continental crust is the result of complex interactions between a large number of processes, which govern partial melting of the deep crust, magma formation and segregation, and magma ascent to significantly higher crustal levels. The anatectic metasedimentary rocks exposed in the Southern Marginal Zone of the Limpopo Belt represent an unusually well‐exposed natural laboratory where the portion of these processes that operate in the deep crust can be directly investigated in the field. The formation of these migmatites occurred via absent incongruent melting reactions involving biotite, which produced cm‐ to m‐scale, K₂O‐poor garnet‐bearing stromatic leucosomes, with high Ca/Na ratios relative to their source rocks. Field investigation combined with geochemical analyses, and phase equilibrium modelling designed to investigate some aspects of disequilibrium partial melting show that the outcrop features and compositions of the leucosomes suggest several steps in their evolution: (1) Melting of a portion of the source, with restricted plagioclase availability due to kinetic controls, to produce a magma (melt + entrained peritectic minerals in variable proportions relative to melt); (2) Segregation of the magma at near peak metamorphic conditions into melt accumulation sites (MAS), also known as future leucosome; (3a) Re‐equilibration of the magma with a portion of the bounding mafic residuum via chemical diffusion (H₂O, K₂O), which triggers the co‐precipitation of quartz and plagioclase in the MAS; (3b) Extraction of melt‐dominated magma to higher crustal levels, leaving peritectic minerals entrained from the site of the melting reaction, and the minerals precipitated in the MASs to form the leucosome in the source. The key mechanism controlling this behaviour is the kinetically induced restriction of the amount of plagioclase available to the melting reaction. This results in elevated melt H₂O and K₂O and chemical potential gradient for these components across the leucosome/mafic residuum contact. The combination of all of these processes accurately explains the composition of the K₂O‐poor leucosomes. These findings have important implications for our understanding of melt segregation in the lower crust and minimum melt residency time which, according to the chemical modelling, is <5 years. We demonstrate that in some migmatitic granulites, the leucosomes constitute a type of felsic refractory residuum, rather than evidence of failed magma extraction. This provides a new insight into the ways that source heterogeneity may control anatexis.     

The effect of expansion ratio on the critical Reynolds number in single fracture flow with sudden expansion

Flow in a single fracture (SF) is an important research subject in groundwater hydrology, hydraulic engineering, radioactive nuclear waste repository and geotechnical engineering. An abruptly changing aperture is a unique type of SF. This study discusses the relation between the values of the critical Reynolds number (Re_c) for the onset of symmetry breaking of flow and the expansion ratio (E) of SF, which is defined as the ratio between the outlet (D) and inlet (d) apertures. This study also investigates the effect of inlet aperture d on Re_c for flow in an SF with abruptly changing apertures (SF‐ACA) using the finite volume method. Earlier numerical and experimental results showed that flow is symmetric in respect to the central plane of the SF‐ACA at small Reynolds number (Re) but becomes asymmetric when Re is sufficiently large. Our simulations show that the value of Re_c decreases with the increasing E, and the relationship between the logarithm of Re_c and E can be described accurately using either a quadratic polynomial function or a logarithmic function. However, the relationship of Re_c and d for a given E value is vague, and Re_c becomes even less sensitive to d when E increases. This study also reveals that the hydraulic gradient (J) and flow velocity (v) follow a super‐linear relationship that can be fitted almost perfectly by the Forchheimer equation. The inertial component (J_i) of J increases monotonically with Re, whereas the viscous component (J_v) of J decreases monotonically with Re. The Re value corresponding to equal inertial and viscous components of J (named as the transitional point Re) decreases when E increases, and such a transitional point Re should be closely related to the critical Reynolds number Re_c, although a rigorous theoretical proof is not yet available. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Revised runoff curve number for runoff prediction in the Loess Plateau of China

The soil conservation service (now Natural Resources Conservation Service) Curve Number (SCS-CN), one of the most commonly used methods for surface runoff prediction. The runoff calculated by this method was very sensitive to CN values. In this study, CN values were calculated by both arithmetic mean (CN_C) and least square fit method (CN_F) using observed rainfall-runoff data from 43 sites in the Loess Plateau region, which are considerably different from the CN₂ values obtained from the USDA-SCS handbook table (CN_T). The results showed that using CN_C instead of CN_T for each watershed produce little improvement, while replacing CN_T with CN_F improves the performance of the original SCS-CN method, but still performs poorly in most study sites. This is mainly due to the SCS-CN method using a constant CN value and discounting of the temporal variation in rainfall-runoff process. Therefore, three factors—soil moisture, rainfall depth and intensity—affecting the surface runoff variability are considered to reflect the variation of CN in each watershed, and a new CN value was developed. The reliability of the proposed method was tested with data from 38 watersheds, and then applied to the remaining five typical watersheds using the optimized parameters. The results indicated that the proposed method, which boosted the model efficiencies to 81.83% and 74.23% during calibration and validation cases, respectively, performed better than the original SCS-CN and the Shi and Wang (2020b) method, a modified SCS-CN method based on tabulated CN value. Thus, the proposed method incorporating the influence of the temporal variability of soil moisture, rainfall depth, and intensity factors suggests an accurate runoff prediction for general applications under different hydrological and climatic conditions on the Loess Plateau region.     

Industrial and geographical mobility of workers during industry decline: The Swedish and German shipbuilding industries 1970–2000

This article follows the industry employment histories of all individuals who at some point have been affiliated with the declining German or the dismantling Swedish shipbuilding industry during 1970–2000. We analyse the situation of the individual workers leaving shipbuilding, investigating the extent to which they were employed at all, tended to move to related sectors within or outside the region, and whether such moves were beneficial for the individuals. Combining insights from labour geography and redundancy studies with evolutionary economic geography, we find remarkably similar results for the West German and Swedish cases. Our findings indicate a notable impact of the regional industry structure on the labour market outcomes for workers leaving shipbuilding. This suggests that more attention should be devoted to the specific structures of the absorptive capacity of regional labour markets. The findings are discussed within the context of a mature industry.