The Upper Adriatic borderland: From conflict to harmony

The paper presents an overview of the Upper Adriatic as a contact area between different cultural, social, economic and political entities, producing potential conflicts in the last century. The first part of the 20th century represented a classic example of geopolitical conflict through two World Wars and their related Peace Conferences that deeply impacted the region. Conflicts arising from the mid-century solution of the Trieste question transformed the Upper Adriatic into a laboratory of contemporary political geographic transformation. Changing geopolitical patterns have also modified the political, social and ethnic construction of the Upper Adriatic. The process of creating new international boundaries in the region ended in 1991 with the independence of Slovenia and Croatia. Through these geopolitical transformations in the Upper Adriatic, new political geographic attitudes evolved. Early on, Ratzel's geopolitical principles of defining borders as power barometers between neighbors dominated. More recently, attitudes have reflected modern integrative ideas with a focus on looking for harmony and the elimination of international conflicts. Greater attention has thus been given to the political geography of `everyday life', inter-ethnic relations, and cross-border contacts. Hence, `new' borderlands of the Upper Adriatic are more receptive to integration because they seek to overcome conflicts caused by the division of traditionally homogeneous spaces as local level political and ideological hindrances disappear. The region divided among Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia is becoming a new and special type of European borderland in the new century.     

Daily reservoir inflow forecasting using artificial neural networks with stopped training approach

In this paper, an early stopped training approach (STA) is introduced to train multi-layer feed-forward neural networks (FNN) for real-time reservoir inflow forecasting. The proposed method takes advantage of both Levenberg–Marquardt Backpropagation (LMBP) and cross-validation technique to avoid underfitting or overfitting on FNN training and enhances generalization performance. The methodology is assessed using multivariate hydrological time series from Chute-du-Diable hydrosystem in northern Quebec (Canada). The performance of the model is compared to benchmarks from a statistical model and an operational conceptual model. Since the ultimate goal concerns the real-time forecast accuracy, overall the results show that the proposed method is effective for improving prediction accuracy. Moreover it offers an alternative when dynamic adaptive forecasting is desired.     

Grazing experiments and model simulations of the role of zooplankton in Phaeocystis food webs

A combined empirical and modelling study was conducted to further examine the potential importance of grazing by zooplankton in pelagic food webs in which Phaeocystis is a significant or dominant component. Laboratory experiments were designed to measure ingestion of Phaeocystis and other potential prey items which co-occur with Phaeocystis. Grazers included copepods and ciliates, and prey included Phaeocystis colonies and solitary cells, diatoms, ciliates, bacteria, and detritus. These data were expressed in the model currency of nitrogen units, and fit to hyperbolic tangent equations which included minimum prey thresholds. These equations and literature data were used to constrain a food web model whose purpose was to investigate trophic interactions rather than to mimic actual events. Nevertheless, the model output was similar to the general pattern and magnitude of development of Phaeocystis–diatom communities in some environments where they occur, e.g. north Norwegian waters. The model included three forms of nitrogen, three phytoplankton groups, bacteria, two zooplankton groups, and detritus, with detailed flows between compartments. An important component of the model was inclusion of variable prey preferences for zooplankton. The experiments and model simulations suggest several salient conclusions. Phaeocystis globosa colonies were eaten by a medium-sized copepod species, but ingestion appeared to be strongly dependent upon a proper size match between grazer and prey. If not, colonies were eaten little if at all. Phaeocystis solitary cells were ingested rapidly by ciliate microzooplankton, in agreement with prior literature observations. In contrast, detritus was eaten comparatively slowly by both ciliates and copepods. Both types of zooplankton exhibited apparent minimum prey thresholds below which grazing did not occur or was inconsequential. Model simulations implied that transitions between life cycle stages of Phaeocystis may potentially be important to phytoplankton–zooplankton interactions, and that relative rates of ingestion of Phaeocystis by various zooplankton may have significant impacts upon material fluxes through and out of Phaeocystis–diatom ecosystems. Indirect effects of trophic interactions appear to be equally significant as direct effects.     

Optimal Design of TMD Under Long-Term Nonstationary Wave Loading

—Traditionally,the use of a tuned mass damper(TMD)is to improve the surviability of the pri-mary structure under extraordinary loading environment while the design loading condition is describedby either a harmonic function or a stationary random process that can be fully characterized by a powerspectral density(PSD)function.Aiming at prolonging the fatigue life of an offshore platform,this studyconsiders an optimal design of TMD for the platform under long-term nonstationary loading due tolong-term random sea waves characterized by a probabilistic power spectral density(PPSD)function.Inprinciple,a PPSD could be derived based on numerous ordinary PSD functions;and each of them is treat-ed as realization of the corresponding PPSD.This study provides a theoretical development for theoptimal TMD design by minimizing the cost function to be the mean square value of the expectedlong-term response.A numerical example is presented to illustrate the developed design procedure.     

旅游地生命力理论研究

旅游地生命周期理论是阐述旅游地演化发展规律的理论,其存在价值不容否认。但以游客量、旅游收入或利润作为旅游地生命周期演化的衡量标准并不合理,而以旅游地生命力作为旅游地生命周期演化的衡量标准更为合适。基于前人在该领域的研究成果,重新对旅游地生命力进行定义,分析旅游地生命力的构成因素、特点及其与旅游地吸引力、竞争力的区别。     

人工免疫系统与嵌入规划目标的城市模拟及应用

人工免疫系统(AIS) 具有强有力的计算能力, 可以通过免疫识别、克隆选择、免疫学 习、免疫记忆等功能来进行模式识别和自适应学习。AIS 所具有的自学习、自适应和记忆的能力非常适合于复杂地理过程的研究。而元胞自动机(CA) 是研究复杂系统非常方便和有效的工具。将人工免疫系统和元胞自动机相结合, 建立了城市演变的模拟和规划模型。该模型通过改变抗体的进化变异机制, 把规划目标嵌入到AIS 算法中, 抗体将会逐渐朝着规划目标“进化”, 从而模拟出基于不同规划情景的城市发展空间格局, 为城市和土地利用规划提供决 策支持。设计了6 种不同的城市发展方案, 利用该模型模拟了不同规划方案下珠江三角洲城市的发展情景(1988-2002 年)。并比较了不同模拟情景结果城市的紧凑性: “城市中心” 和 “城市中心-高速公路”发展模式的城市形态更为紧凑, 破碎度较低; 而“镇中心” 和“道路”发展模式形成的城市形态则比较凌乱和分散。模拟结果和分析表明: “城市中心-高速 公路”是珠江三角洲最适合的城市发展模式。     

光学探生仪研制

光学探生仪主要用于在地震等灾害造成的残垣断壁中快速、准确地寻找被困人员。因此,在研制光学探生仪时,必须充分考虑灾害救助现场的恶劣工作条件和对仪器的特殊要求。本文首先简要介绍了光学探生仪研究的有关情况,然后对光学探生仪主要部件的设计、选型和实验进行了详细研究,探讨研制先进、实用的光学探生仪的途径。这对我国探生仪研制工作具有借鉴意义。     

海洋贝类利用模式生命周期评价方法研究

首次将产品生命周期评价方法(LCA)应用于海洋贝类利用模式上。根据海洋贝类利用技术产业发展的特性和趋势,设计构建了由确定目标和范围、清单分析、影响评价3个步骤组成的评价体系,挑选了具有典型代表的2种扇贝利用模式进行评价,对其生产过程中的资源消耗、固体废弃物、富营养化、温室效应、酸化影响和潜在影响进行对比评价。评价结果显示其中资源消耗、温室效应、酸化影响、潜在健康影响的影响潜值模式2(产品模式为扇贝柱、复合氨基酸、鱼虾饵料和贝壳工艺品)比模式1(产品模式为扇贝柱、食用贝边、鱼虾鲜饵料和饲料添加剂)低;而固体废弃物、富营养化的影响潜值,模式2比模式1高。本评价方法可用于选择和优化海洋贝类的绿色化高值利用模式。研究表明,利用文章提出的海洋贝类利用评价方法可以有效掌握贝类利用的整个过程的环境行为,确定其中优化资源、节省能源和减少污染的关键步骤,为优化利用模式提供基础数据支持。     

广西珍珠湾红树种群结构与动态特征

本研究以种群生命表为基础,对位于广西珍珠湾内的桐花树(Aegiceras corniculatum)种群、白骨壤(Avicennia marina)种群、秋茄(Kandelia obovata)种群和木榄(Bruguiera gymnorrhiza)种群采用径级法及匀滑技术,编制种群特定时间生命表,绘制种群存活曲线、死亡率和消失率曲线,进行种群数量动态变化和时间序列分析。结果表明:(1)白骨壤种群、秋茄种群和木榄种群年龄结构呈倒"J"形,种群趋于Deevey-II型,即增长型,主要集中在I龄级,存活曲线、死亡率和消失率曲线均呈现出更新层死亡率较高的特征;(2)桐花树种群年龄结构呈"金字塔"形,属于Deevey-I型,为衰退型,更新层个体数量少,种群总体不具备显著增长性幅度;(3)4种红树种群的数量变化动态指数V_pi和V′_pi均大于0.00%,种群稳定但易受外部环境影响;(4)在未来2、4、6、8个龄级时间后,4种红树种群中老龄级个体能够得到不同程度的补充。     

基于遗传—神经网络方法的广西台风灾害评估模型研究

选取1981—2018年影响广西且灾情记录比较完整的86个台风样本,基于台风灾害伤亡人数、直接经济损失划分灾情等级,选取致灾因子,利用遗传算法与神经网络相结合的方法建立广西台风灾害评估模型.结果表明:选取的台风灾害致灾因子与台风灾情等级之间具有显著的相关性,构建的遗传—神经网络集合预报模型对台风灾情预估效果较好,训练样...