Transport of water in frozen soil IV. Analysis of experimental results on the effects of ice content

Effects of ice content on the transport of water in frozen soil are studied experimentally and theoretically under isothermal conditions. A physical law, that the flux of water in unsaturated frozen soil is proportional to the gradient of total water content is proposed. Theoretical justification is made by the use of the two-phase flow theory. The experimental results are shown to support the proposed physical law. The results of this study are presented in two parts and this is the second paper describing the theoretical aspects of the study.     

Multi‐variable relations for soil effects on seismic ground motion

Soil effects on peak ground acceleration, velocity and elastic response spectra (5% damping) are expressed by simple approximate relations in terms of five key parameters: (a) the fundamental vibration period of the non‐linear soil, T_S, (b) the period of a bedrock site of equal thickness, T_b, (c) the predominant excitation period, Te, (d) the peak seismic acceleration at outcropping bedrock, a, and (e) the number of significant excitation cycles, n. Furthermore, another relation is proposed for the estimation of T_S in terms of the soil thickness H, the average shear wave velocity of the soil V?_S,o and a. The aforementioned parameters were first identified through a simplified analytical simulation of the site excitation. The multivariable approximate relations were then formulated via a statistical analysis of relevant data from more than 700 one‐dimensional equivalent‐linear seismic ground response analyses, for actual seismic excitations and natural soil conditions. Use of these relations to back‐calculate the numerical results in the database gives an estimate of their error margin, which is found to be relatively small and unbiased. The proposed relations are also independently verified through a detailed comparison with strong motion recordings from seven well‐documented case studies: (a) two sites in the San Fernando valley during the Northridge earthquake, and (b) five different seismic events recorded at the SMART‐1 accelerometer array in Taiwan. It is deduced that the accuracy of the relations is comparable to that of the equivalent‐linear method. Hence, they can be readily used as a quick alternative for routine applications, as well as for spreadsheet computations (e.g. GIS‐aided seismic microzonation studies) where numerical methods are cumbersome to implement. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modelling peak accelerations from earthquakes

This paper deals with the prediction of peak horizontal accelerations with emphasis on seismic risk and insurance concerns. Non‐linear mixed effects models are used to analyse well‐known earthquake data and the consequences of mis‐specifying assumptions on the error term are quantified. A robust fit of the usual model, using recently developed robust weighted maximum likelihood estimators, is presented. Outlying data are automatically identified and subsequently investigated. A more appropriate model accounting for the extreme value nature of the responses, is also developed and implemented. The implication on acceleration predictions is demonstrated. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improvement of Nakamura technique by singular spectrum analysis

In this work we investigate the application of the Singular Spectrum Analysis to improve Nakamura Technique. The SSA has a wide and multidisciplinary range of applications; it allows a time series to be decomposed into different components, e.g. the signal itself, as well as various noise components, which can be subsequently removed from the data. Removal of the minor component of the data can lead to significant improvements in the identification of the system. In this paper the use of SSA Technique allows to optimize the signal to noise ratio before computing the classical Nakamura spectral ratios. A number of typical applications are also presented.     

遥感地面辐射观测中的视场效应问题研究

以典型的垄行作物玉米为研究对象，提出了一种新的视场效应分析方法：网格模型法。该方法将目标空间和测量空间网格化，然后在网格空间计算观测视场内的组分比例，进而确定组合信号值。本文采用网格模型法分析了垄行作物亮叶、暗叶、亮土、暗土四分量在传感器视场中面积权重变化、空隙率的变化、方向亮温的变化、红波段反射率的变化、红外波段反射率的变化以及植被指数NDVI的变化率，研究了不同观测角度情况下视场效应的变化。     

A preliminary investigation of strong-motion data from the French Antilles

Strong-motion networks have been operating in the Caribbean region since the 1970s, however, until the mid-1990s only a few analogue stations were operational and the quantity of data recorded was very low. Since the mid-1990s, digital accelerometric networks have been established on islands within the region. At present there are thought to be about 160 stations operating in this region with a handful on Cuba, 65 on the French Antilles (mainly Guadeloupe and Martinique), eight on Jamaica, 78 on Puerto Rico (plus others on adjacent islands) and four on Trinidad.After briefly summarising the available data from the Caribbean islands, this article is mainly concerned with analysing the data that has been recorded by the networks operating on the French Antilles in terms of their distribution with respect to magnitude, source-to-site distance, focal depth and event type; site effects at certain stations; and also with respect to their predictability by ground motion estimation equations developed using data from different regions of the world. More than 300 good quality triaxial acceleration time-histories have been recorded on Guadeloupe and Martinique at a large number of stations from earthquakes with magnitudes larger than 4.8, however, most of the records are from considerable source-to-site distances. From the data available it is found that many of the commonly-used ground motion estimation equations for shallow crustal earthquakes poorly estimate the observed ground motions on the two islands; ground motions on Guadeloupe and Martinique have smaller amplitudes and are more variable than expected. This difference could be due to regional dependence of ground motions because of, for example, differing tectonics or crustal structures or because the ground motions so far recorded are, in general, from smaller earthquakes and greater distances than the range of applicability of the investigated equations.     

Comments on: ‘The Neutral, Barotropic Planetary Boundary Layer, Capped by a Low-Level Inversion’ by G. D. Hess, Boundary-Layer Meteorology (2004) 110, pp. 319–355

Precision measurements indicate that the stability capping of the neutral planetary boundary layer (PBL) that leads to a reduced PBL height is caused by the very stable upper part of the PBL, rather than by an overlying inversion. Radiative processes related to liquid water in boundary-layer clouds seem to play the key role for the formation of the stable upper PBL. The famous Leipzig Profile – generally considered as an example of a neutral PBL – has been included in Hess’s analysis because its PBL height is considerably lower than the ca. 3000 m to be expected by numerical models in truly neutral conditions. An analysis of the original observations reveals that the Leipzig PBL was stable and that it can be consistently treated as a ‘normal’ stable PBL with a height of ca. 700 m. A further finding is that the super-geostrophic PBL wind speed maxima predicted by almost all models are not observed in near-steady-state conditions. For the ‘ranking’ of analytical models versus numerical models, the comparisons with measurements show that the analytical models perform comparably well and even partially better than the numerical models.     

Saturation of the Large Aperture Scintillometer

The saturation aspects of a large aperture (0.3 m) scintillometer operating over a 10-km path were investigated. Measurements were made over mainly forested, hilly terrain with typical maximum sensible heat fluxes of 300–400 W m ⁻², and over flat terrain with mainly grass, and typical maximum heat fluxes of 100–150 W m⁻². Scintillometer-based fluxes were compared with eddy-correlation observations. Two different schemes for calculating the reduction of scintillation caused by saturation were applied: one based on the work of Hill and Clifford, the other based on Frehlich and Ochs. Without saturation correction, the scintillation fluxes were lower than the eddy-correlation fluxes; the saturation correction according to Frehlich and Ochs increased the scintillometer fluxes to an unrealistic level. Correcting the fluxes after the theory of the Hill and Clifford gave satisfying results     

The topographic bias by analytical continuation in physical geodesy

This study emphasizes that the harmonic downward continuation of an external representation of the Earth’s gravity potential to sea level through the topographic masses implies a topographic bias. It is shown that the bias is only dependent on the topographic density along the geocentric radius at the computation point. The bias corresponds to the combined topographic geoid effect, i.e., the sum of the direct and indirect topographic effects. For a laterally variable topographic density function, the combined geoid effect is proportional to terms of powers two and three of the topographic height, while all higher order terms vanish. The result is useful in geoid determination by analytical continuation, e.g., from an Earth gravity model, Stokes’s formula or a combination thereof.     

The Role of Residential Location in Conditioning the Effect of Metropolitan Economic Structure on Male Youth Employment

Youths have increasingly experienced labor market problems over the last several decades. One fruitful line of explanation focuses on structural changes in the demand for labor stemming from deindustrialization, changing skill requirements for employees, and increasing supply competition from women and recent immigrants. While these explanations merit attention, they have not adequately considered facts that condition their impact. This paper considers the argument that intra-metropolitan residential location conditions the effects of metropolitan labor market structure on black and white male youths' employment probabilities. Using a sample of individual-level data drawn from the 1990 census combined with metropolitan-level indicators of economic structure, it was found that some structural effects varied between central-city and suburban male youths. The conditioning role of residential location, and the subsequent nature of the structural effects, varied considerably between black and white male youths. Interpretations of the conditioning role of residential location include a variety of social and institutional effects on individual residents and the stigmatizing effects of some neighborhoods, especially on black male youths.