The BEAM-project: prediction and assessment of mixture toxicities in the aquatic environment

Freshwater and marine ecosystems are exposed to various multi-component mixtures of pollutants. Nevertheless, most ecotoxicological research and chemicals regulation focus on hazard and exposure assessment of individual substances only, the problem of chemical mixtures in the environment is ignored to a large extent. In contrast, the assessment of combination effects has a long tradition in pharmacology, where mixtures of chemicals are specifically designed to develop new products, e.g. human and veterinary drugs or agricultural and non-agricultural pesticides. In this area, two concepts are frequently used and are thought to describe fundamental relationships between single substance and mixture effects: Independent Action (Response Addition) and Concentration Addition. The question, to what extent these concepts may also be applied in an ecotoxicological and regulatory context may be considered a research topic of major importance, as the concepts would allow to make use of already existing single substance toxicity data for the predictive assessment of mixture toxicities. Two critical knowledge gaps are identified: (a) There is a lack of environmental realism, as a huge part of our current knowledge about the applicability of the concepts is restricted to artificial situations with respect to mixture composition or biological effect assessment. (b) The knowledge on what exactly is needed for using the concepts as tools for the predictive mixture toxicity assessment is insufficient. Both gaps seriously hamper the necessary, scientifically sound consideration of mixture toxicities in a regulatory context.In this paper, the two concepts will be briefly introduced, the necessity of considering the toxicities of chemical mixtures in the environment will be demonstrated and the applicability of Independent Action and Concentration Addition as tools for the prediction and assessment of mixture toxicities will be discussed. An overview of the specific aims and approaches of the BEAM project to fill in the identified knowledge gaps is given and first results are outlined.     

A neural network approach for structural identification and diagnosis of a building from seismic response data

This work presents a novel procedure for identifying the dynamic characteristics of a building and diagnosing whether the building has been damaged by earthquakes, using a back‐propagation neural network approach. The dynamic characteristics are directly evaluated from the weighting matrices of the neural network trained by observed acceleration responses and input base excitations. Whether the building is damaged under a large earthquake is assessed by comparing the modal parameters and responses for this large earthquake with those for a small earthquake that has not caused this building any damage. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated through processing the dynamic responses of a five‐storey steel frame, subjected to different strengths of the Kobe earthquake, in shaking table tests. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Treating the Risks in Cairns

Cairns is exposed to the well-known natural hazards oftropical cyclone, flood, stormsurge and thunderstorm, but is also exposed to thelesser-known hazards of landslip, earthquake and dam break flooding. Recommendations fortreating the risks associated with these hazards have been made that will involve amulti-disciplinary approach to treatment strategies, require the cooperation of allthree levels of government, involve public utility authorities and private enterprise andinvolve the community as a whole.This paper summarises the suggested mitigation treatmentoptions, presented to the Cairns City Council and identified in the LocalGovernment Disaster Mitigation Project conducted in Cairns in 1999/2000 by theQueensland Department of Emergency Services.     

Quantifying Storm Tide Risk in Cairns

The United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR)gave rise to an increasing level of attention to the risks posed by a range of naturalhazards and the development of strategies by which to reduce those risks. It waswidely recognised that in order to evaluate risk treatment strategies it was necessaryto `measure' the level of risk that already existed and the level of risk that would beencountered with the treatment strategy(s) in place.This paper outlines the methodology developed under the AGSO (now GeoscienceAustralia) Cities Project to quantify the risk associated with storm tide inundation. It includes the methodology for `measuring' the level of community exposure to storm tide hazards and the methodology for `measuring' community vulnerability. The Far North Queensland city of Cairns is used as the case study to demonstrate the application of these methods.     

广西2002年度气候特点及其影响评价

2002年度(2001年12月～2002年11月),广西各地平均气温17.1～23.5℃,大部地区偏高0.3～1.2℃。年度降水量1035.0～2897.1mm,桂东大部偏多1～4成,桂西大部正常。日照时数1019～2323h,大部地区偏少10～412h。2002年度主要气候事件以春旱、暴雨洪涝、热带气旋、寒露风较为突出,年度内气候条件对各行业的影响有利有弊。     

寻找相似天气过程的一种数学模型

该文介绍了一种寻找相似天气过程的数学模型，利用Saaty论述的方法[1]构造判别矩阵进行判别，从而计算出相似排序及相似度。该方法在3年多的预报业务中应用，效果良好。     

遥感技术在区域地质调查中的应用研究进展

论述了１∶５万区域地质调查中的图像信息理论及其应用意义；讨论了遥感岩石学、影像地层学、遥感构造分析、环境地质与生态地质遥感地质解译填图的基础理论和方法；论述了影像地质界线的基本信息类型及其信息理解过程；提出了影像地质信息的多级识别方法和空间模糊叠加分析方法；最后探讨了区域地质调查中遥感技术的发展趋势。     

Application of discovery process models in estimating petroleum resources at the play level in China

Discovery process modeling has gained wide acceptance in the Chinese exploration community. In recent years, a variety of discovery process models have been applied to the prediction of undiscovered petroleum resources at the play level in sedimentary basins in China. However, challenging problems have been encountered, particularly when one method alone has been applied to small plays in nonmarine sedimentary basins or in plays with an unusual order of discovery wells. This paper presents results gotten by using the lognormal discovery process model of the Geological Survey of Canada and the geoanchored method for three petroleum plays in basins with different geologic settings. Although the predicted shapes of the parentsize distributions which use these two models, were not always similar, the expected values of the total resources and the number of fields (pools) to be discovered are comparable. The combined use of two discovery process models in the same play compensates for the weaknesses in one method compared with the other and vice versa. Thus, more reliable estimates are the result.     

On azimuthal eigenwavenumbers associated with Laplace's tidal equations

Laplace's tidal equations for the case of an ocean of constant depth bounded by meridians were considered by two authors at a specific frequency as an eigenvalue problem in the azimuthal wavenumber. A finite spectrum of eigenwavenumbers was found. That eigenvalue problem is re-examined by means of asymptotic techniques and numerical integration of the governing equation of the problem. At low frequencies a formula connecting the frequency and the number of eigensolutions is established. It is shown that at a given frequency the spectrum of eigenwavenumbers is wider than that reported, but (for this type of solution) the meridional boundary conditions are satisfied approximately only for the case of very low frequencies.